About global warming?
I am not a scientist. So I have to go by what the experts say. But I hear two different experts.
One side says that the northern artic is getting wormer (doom and gloom), but the the other side says that antartic is getting colder (don’t worry about it). How is this possible? Or are they just arguing whether the glass is half full or half empty. I don’t want to debate just get a explanation
While there is little doubt among scientists at this point that the Earth as a whole is becoming warmer, the effects at any one locality are very difficult to predict. Local weather and climate are determined by a very complex combination of factors. It is entirely possible for certain localities - e.g. parts of the Antarctic - to be getting colder, even while the Earth on average is becoming warmer.
A lot of the debate depends on what time frame you use to compare the temperature. I don’t know the sources you are referring to, but in the Northern hemisphere, the last ten years have been very warm (mean temperature for the year) compared to anything of which we have records. Some would use other indirect measures of temperature and go back further. In January I sat through a presentation by a visiting professor from Iowa State University (Dr. Elwynn Taylor _ Iowa State University Agricultural Meteorologist, Ames IA) who is one of the few scientists out there who claim that most of our heating is due to normal cyclical temperature fluctuations. (Even he agrees that a portion of our heating, but in his opinion an insignificant portion, is due to the burning of fossil fuels.) I’d write more, but have an appointment and have to bug out of here.
One of the reasons this is so frought with dissent is that we are measuring a portion of earth’s existence which amounts to a minscule amount of time. What’s that chestnut about? Something like: “If earth’s existence was boiled down to 24 hours, man has been in existence for one second”. Or something like that.
The point is: You can’t look at a year or a decade or a century of temperature fluctuatuions and conclude anything. The sample’s too small.
Earth has experienced a number of ice ages and tropical swings and will do so again with or without our help.