momoese

Ok. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but it does concern anyone who is growing tropicals or just wants to be warm come summer. I have read quite a bit about global warming and how the oceans are rising etc, etc. We do know the ozone layer has a large hole in it thats getting bigger. That is a proven fact. So today I find this while looking zone maps. Compare the two maps on this page.

http://www.iceagenow.com/PlantHardinessMaps.htm

As you can see the map is changing, but it's getting colder. Some say this is also due to global warming. The auther of the website says that's media hype. Here is the whole site.

http://www.iceagenow.com/

What do you guys think about this? Is it getting colder where you live?

Any opinions about global warming verses ice age?

JoeReal

It has been relatively on the average here in Northern California, for the last few million years. We still have the arrythmic cycles of El Niño and La Niña. The last few years were relatively wetter, according to the El Niño and La Niña cycles.

Temperature wise, it's the same, although it has been milder in the last few years, but we receive our allotment of chilling hours just the same.

JoeReal

http://earth.rice.edu/mtpe/cryo/cryo...greenthin.html
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsst...3808/story.htm

I may not necessarily believe in global warming, but latest internationally critiqued scientific data shows that today's global CO2 concentration is the highest ever for the last 650,000 years.

http://www.miami.com/mld/mercurynews...urynews_nation
http://www.freelancenews.com/lifesty...4120&siteID=33
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/...51203opi7.html

I can't shake off the fact that this will do nothing to our climate as most skeptics would say. Global warming or ice age, this one giant unprecented single unreplicated human global atmospheric experiment have got to stop. We mess it up, we really mess it up. There is no trial and success.


At the moment, I have no complaints about the weather here when it comes to growing cold hardy bananas.

pitangadiego

Joe,

Can you tell me what the CO2 readings were in 1877, or 1749, or 1633? Who took those readings, and with what equipment? I wasn't aware that we had records going back for 600 millenia. I'd be interested in seeing those records.

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momoese

They took readings from air bubbles very deep in the ice. Here is a sample from one of the links above in Joe's post.

"CURRENT levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years, say researchers who have finished cataloguing air bubbles trapped for millennia inside Antarctic ice. The record, which extends back over the past eight ice ages, shows that today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane for outstrip those in the past.

Atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels have risen 200 times faster over the past 50 years than at any other time during this period, says Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland, who led the analysis.

The researchers studied air bubbles preserved in ice drilled from the Antarctic ice sheet as part of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). The ice core represents a logbook of the state of the world’s climate (see “Frozen time”) and goes back 210,000 years further than previous records.

After searching ice spanning the period of 390,000-650,000 years before present, Stocker’s team has discovered that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere did not exceed 290 parts per million during that time. Today, that figure is around 375 parts per million.

The situation is similar for methane: during this period, levels hovered around 600 parts per billion. Today’s atmospheric methane concentration is well over 1,700. Stocker and his colleagues report the results in Science."

JoeReal

I can't tell you for sure, I don't have access to those data. But before these are published, they should withstand the scrutiny of international scientists. When I was still a researcher in an international scientific organization, I managed to publish more than 20 scientific articles in the internationally refereed journals, so I know the drill. The links would show that these are published in very credible scientific journals. I would rate them very reliable, about 1,000,000 times more credible than President Bush and his team of crackpot scientific censors with hocus focus data doctoring of actual facts.

JoeReal

I don't see any Ice Age with GreenLand Glaciers and Arctic/Antartic icebergs melting away.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science....ap/index.html

bigdog

That 1990 map won't go away, no matter how hard we try. It's fairly inaccurate for TN. For instance, Nashville has averaged a warm zone 7a for the past 35 years, at 4.77 degrees F for an average absolute minimum low. Since 1990, the average is 8.53F. Knoxville is also a zone 7a, Chattanooga 7b, and Memphis averages to be a zone 8a. Please don't take that map too seriously. It is a decent, general guide for what you can or cannot grow, but by no means is accurate.

As for global warming, etc., there still is no proof that man is causing any of it. There have been warming and cooling periods for as long as the Earth has been around. Here are a few articles posted on another forum related to this topic.

Global warming on Mars: http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=17977

Other articles:
http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba230.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ixnewstop.html
http://sitewave.net/pproject/review.htm

You won't find an argument from me as to whether or not global warming exists or not. It does. Seems as if these articles come from reliable sources and scientists as well, no "team of crackpot scientific censors with hocus focus data doctoring of actual facts.". Come on, let's not get political here on the banana forum(!?). Your bananas will enjoy the warmer night time temps, as will mine.

momoese

Ya it's odd how he says the ice sheet in Greenland is growing when all the searches I do give me info saying it's melting at an alarming rate. I think he may be a shill for the anti-environment pro big business/big polluting people. I have an email out to him, just waiting on a reply so I can start a dialog with him and maybe learn what his real motives are. If what he claims is true and the people in power know it to be true then maybe they have been trying to warm the climate to avoid another ice age. Oops, just gave them a new talking point! lol

Sure we have a great chance of another ice age but I am a bit skeptical of of what he's claiming.

Edit ^^^ I agree, lets not get political. I just wanted a few thoughts from you guys on this guys claims.

JoeReal

Forgive for the term, but I am not trying to be political. The real fact remains, Greenland glaciers are melting away at alarming rates, as well as those in the South American continent, and that our current man-made emissions are the highest in 650,000 years. These are from truly credentialed scientists, and not appointed scientists.

I would gain from the milder and wetter California climate with my bananas, and not sacrificing my temperate crop production. I would lose an island (2 acre arable land with 15,000 sq ft white beach at neap tides) in the Philippines that my wife and I purchased a few years ago. If the water will rise by 25 ft, the highest point will be just 1 ft above the new mean sea level. Any takers from this group? Will be selling it, make an offer. It has a few bananas and coconuts, currently planted to corn, and it has a big fishpen in one side for fish farming on the sea, and the island is well sheltered by the bigger island next to it. It has a Nipa Hut where you can relax, sleep, cook survivor food stuff, nice place to spend vacation once in a while to get away from it all. Too bad now, it is a good place to receive cell phone signals from all the towers of the bigger island, it used to be out of reach.

The island will be my new habitat in case Ice Age comes instead of global metldown.

PhilMusa

I agree with Bigdog, the earth is very old and over its lifespan there have been numerous warming and cooling cycles. It looks like we are heading for a warmer cycle which may in turn lead to a cooling cycle. However, these things do not happen overnight and it will take centuries if not longer to figure out what was happening in the early 21st century. In the meantime we need to make sure that we are not accelerating the process. Let’s leave it to good old Mother Nature.

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JoeReal

While I will not disagree that the earth have undergone cooling and warming cycles, even the extreme cataclysmic events such as big meteor hits which could conceivably blanket the globe with several times more emissions and dusts (volcanic gasses and ashes), I am worried that we are causing it now. In terms of geologic time scale, what mankind is doing is one extremely rapid change similar to cataclysmic events. Of course we know that each cataclysmic events are followed by episodes of speciation. Can we afford to do such rapid changes that could extend to just a few generations? Shall we let our future generations solve the future problems we are causing now? I just hope that mankind will not be eliminated in the next cataclysmic speciation event.

Casa Del Gatos

Joe, that would be the best thing that ever happened to the planet .

Has anyone seen the movie "The Day After Tomorrow?" - very cool (no pun intended) movie with a real accelerated Ice Age.

bigdog

While I do think that man needs to find better energy sources that don't cause harmful emissions and pollution to the atmosphere, once again there is NO PROOF that man is causing global warming. There is global warming on Mars now too. What's causing that?? Recent evidence, as posted in that article below, suggests that the Sun may be the number 1 culprit. Also, while ice seems to be shrinking in some places, it is growing in others.

The very idea that man somehow can stop the world from warming is kind of silly to me.

How much for the island, Joe ?

Bananavilla

Bigdog, sounds like you and I are on the same page. Heck, I hope we see a 30 degree warming in winter temps to save Franks back

Man is definitely not great enough to dictate the weather cycles of this planet. It is definitely a much greater force. We are just along for the ride.

As to "The day after tomorrow" - talk about a piece of trash with a political agenda! The people that put that together should be ashamed of themselves
Mike

Sodak

No sign of global warming here in South Dakota. Cold! With highs hovering around zero for a week now. Low temp. so far this fall is -14.

momoese

Just out of curiosity, why does one live where it's so cold? Do you like the cold weather and the full range of seasons that we don't really get here? Are you native to that area and just don't want to leave home? Maybe have family and such making it difficult to relocate? I understand how a person has a hard time moving away from home but man that is really, really cold, especially when you like growing tropicals! I guess having a greenhouse would make things somewhat easier.

Bananavilla

I too have often wondered this. Guess it is just a different way of life. I lived in Reno NV for several years. They just get's a touch of snow there but are closely located to all the skiing and snowboarding one could want.

I would probably be into hot rodding snow mobiles or something if I lived where there was lot's of snow. Would definitely try a greenhouse as well.
I think the fact that you "aren't supposed to be able to grow them" is half the attraction with tropical plants as well as bananas in North America.

Mike

JoeReal

We bought it for the equivalent of $75,000 to give you an idea. There are other islands for sale and way cheaper than this, but we chose it because it is well protected from tropical storms and also near our relatives who can take care of it when we are not around.

JoeReal

There are several reasons, but on the gardening side for our specific zone, I have the most diversified kinds of fruit trees growing here and not possible there in LA. There are some truly outstanding peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, pluots and cherries that often will not bear fruit in warmer climates, or have limited choices in warmer climates.

Our zone, which is the same where Mike is, is quite unique. Although we get a nice compliment of chilling hours during the winter, it is tempered by Maritime influence (aka delta breezes). So it is not as severe like in other places in Northern California. Similarly, while our summers would be very hot, it is tempered during the night, making it very cool, driving our oranges and other citruses to develop the deep orange color on their skins, but of course not as sweet as those in the South. It is wonderful climate to be in. It is like we can have both worlds by taking advantage of this weather pattern and simply looking for microclimates around your yard. Not too many people understand this pattern for their advantage.

Todate, I have more than 275 varieties in my tiny yard, and might be going for fresh fruit every week from the yard the entire year. If I had a bigger yard, I could easily have a germplasm. The only thing we can't grow here are the ultra-tropicals.