finally some sense about global warming

[spyder]

"Global warming" doesn't just mean the temp. gets warmer. This is why they have actually stopped calling it global warming and started calling it climate change instead, because it is confusing. The effect of the polar ice caps melting due to increased temp. sets off a chain effect that will have different affects on climate in different places. Here is a link to a fairly simple article explaining climate change done by National Geographic: http://environment.nationalgeographi...-overview.html

A quote from the article:
"Scientists often use the term "climate change" instead of global warming. This is because as the Earth's average temperature climbs, winds and ocean currents move heat around the globe in ways that can cool some areas, warm others, and change the amount of rain and snow falling. As a result, the climate changes differently in different areas."

and

"Now, with concentrations of greenhouse gases rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets (such as Greenland and Antarctica) are starting to melt too. The extra water could potentially raise sea levels significantly.
As the mercury rises, the climate can change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme. This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts (a challenge for growing crops), changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers."

No one is really arguing against the fact the the polar ice is melting because we have satelitte images and on the ground studies where it can easily be seen, yet this one of the things that has a major impact on weather patterns (climate). Also, the more ice melts, the faster the rest will melt because open water reflects less of the sun's energy than ice does, which warms the water and the air above the water, making it harder for new ice to form. New ice does form every winter, but it is less than what melts every summer. They have also found that even satelitte does not show the full extent of the melt because on the ground studies have shown that a lot of what they thought was thick 'multi-year' ice is actually pretty thin ice that will mostly melt during summer.

I just think that if we are (as a nation in general) going to argue about climate change that we need to understand what it actually is. It is a complex system that has a long line of causes and effects. It does not mean that it is getting hotter everywhere as the name 'global warming' implies. It means that our climate is changing in unexpected ways due to events triggered by increased heat trapped by all the crap we have been spewing into our air, not helped by the fact that we have and are cutting down our forests, which trap carbon and release oxygen.(A factor that is not usually discussed.)