A tiny bit more snow it would have been curtains for the beemer. You can put yourself down as one of those who benefited from global warming.

Discussion of feedback. OK. The most obvious feedback that counters temperature rising is the creation of clouds. Like snow the clouds reflect radiation without changing the frequency. A second big inhibitory input would be the cessation of the Ocean Conveyor System that moves heat from the Pacific to the Indian Oceans to the north Atlantic. This is driven by salinity density and could be stopped if the fresh water glaciers flood the n. Atlantic. This would leave Europe vulnereable (including western Russia) to much colder weather in line with the latitude you find these countries.

The direct results of the higher temperatures now is melting of the fresh ice. And this has in the past and would most likely now mean much colder weather for Europe much warmer weather forming typhoons in the Pacific and Indian. This also means that the sea levels will rise. If just the northern supply of ice than a couple of meters. (27 meters if the Anartic ice melts but that is a more intense distant discussion) This will mean coast lines (Florida) will be impacted.

So we are going to have a draconian result if the ice continues to melt. And as we measure the ice low and behold it is melting. Glaciers everywhere in the world are retreating at record paces. And the southern extension of winter ice in the north has also been retreating alarmly.

In any complex (I mean mathematically as in Chaos systems) the final outcome is dependent upon initial conditions. But general understandings can indicate the more likely outcomes.

There are present studies about cloud involvement in the tropical regions. The production weather in the tropics is different then more well studied temperant regions we live in. So heat and cloud movement is getting intense study now. I have not heard yet how the refinement will be added to models and what will be the overall general effect.

My eight ball says maybe. :)

Having discussed the inhibitor feedback it would be important to mention positive feedback. You mentioned that ice lost would mean positive feedback. The big concern amoung climatologists is frozen methane. As a enviromental chemist you should have some introduction to this. The methane tied up under the ocean is quite large. But the exposure is more close to the shore (and includes shore in Siberia and Northern Canada) in higher latitudes. Methane with increase in temperature of a few degrees will become gaseous and not trapped. Methane ultimately adds to the COtwo but even as Methane it will as heat trapping gas. And this conversion could be cataclysmic. It is a real concern as ice retreats in the northern latitudes.

In the scale of millions of years this burb may have little effect (though a similar event is tied to the Permian Extinctions). But within the lifescales of human civiliztion of 10,000 years the 100 years of displacement as the climate shifts wildly even more so than now before settling down into some quasi equilibrium would be dire.

It would seem prudent to cut back rather than accelerate the gamble. And as the most advanced country it would seem we could choose to do the hard and right thing rather than the easy and profitable notion.

One of the hardest human understandings is to recognize when the status quo is an extreme position. To understand and anticipate when to change as opposed to reacting and being behind in changing.

Most studies in behavior whether it is economic, biological or otherwise tend to indicate we wait to long in accomodating change to our harm. We don't have confidence in the prediction of the future vs the evidence within our life. Well this thread is all about how we use to have snow and winters in Kansas or Iowa or Missouri. And now we have a blistery December and winter plays out for the rest of the season. So we have indications of change already, not just predictions.

So go back and look at the timing for prediction of change of even the most conservative predictions. And understand how large a ship that we will need to steer clear of the danger. And it is your responsibility to calmly ask for a more conservative direction in the economy rather than the rather peculiar outlier now (compared to so much of human history production) of such huge production of hothouse gases. I do think opportunities for industry will still exist. But energy plants don't want to lose their cash cow.
Reform in the energy economy requires distributed energy production. But that would mean the trend would be everyone producing their own energy. This parallels the distributed process in computing. We do have the technology to make a difference. The solutions are easily democratic and not autocratic. But it does require we all move in the general direction. And so this plea.

I just put a call in to the grand inquisitor and he put the question to the turboencabulator and the answer was: No winter this year, break out your swim suits and refill your pools.

Winter will return in the year 2012 in the form of Hell freezing over.

WOOOHOOO! That must mean the Arrowhead will indeed be covered with a dome! :D

When it's hot outside during the time when it's really supposed to be cold, it's because of global warming. Silly.

Of course there are other phenomenons one should be aware of...

When it's cold during the months when it's really supposed to be warm/hot, that's called global warming.
If it rains too much....global warming.
If it doesnt rain....global warming.

There is a very large and growing contengincy of scientists who think global warming is bulls**t. Of course the media doesn't cover them much like they don't cover this story:

"Bob, I'm standing down here at 8th and Quindero, where nothing happened today. Nobody was shot, nobody was robbed. Nothing. Back to you Bob."

Take Y2k for instance. During that whole media fantasy I probably couldn't count the number of reporters that called to interview me. Guess how many times I was quoted. Zero. Not once. Why? I told the truth: Y2k was a big scam being perpetrated by the media and some people who desperately wanted their 15m of fame. I think global warming runs a lot of parallels.

My grandma used to fart a lot.

Finally, the 'It's warmer AND cooler because of global warming" argument comes out.

ROFL

Y2k wasnt a 'scam', it just wasnt as big as the hype it got from the media and people who didnt know what they were talking about. There were systems that had to be updated to handle a 4 digit year.

I stubbed my toe this morning....global warming.

There was work that needed to be done, but by the time the media caught on and coined the term "Y2k" by and far the majority of the work had already been done. What little was left was blow out of proportion to be planes falling from the sky, total collapse of the world's monatary systems, cats and dogs, sleeping together...

Yes, there was a digit significance problem that had to be dealt with. Y2k as a named issue was a pure fabrication, however.

Ding ding ding!
The media has to justify their purpose somehow. But we all know the media would NEVER manufacture a story, riiiiight? :rolleyes:
Sometimes I think the mainstream media get its jollies from scaring the peeps.

I agree, the media overplayed it. Heck, even in my company/industry it was blown out of proportion by people who knew better--that's what happens when you have people with not enough to do with a desire to justify their overpaid positions as nothing more than a coporate wonk.