Is Global Warming a real trend? Leaving aside all the pro and anti scientific debate this well researched paper about the mineral rights of the arctic circle and how many countries are working to lay claim to them is a strong suggestion to me that the arctic cap is melting and opening up access to the area in the process.
http://docs.law.gwu.edu/stdg/gwilr/PDFs/41-3/41-3-
That would indicate Global Warming is definitely real even if you want to argue the semantics of what is causing it.
Not to mention the pictures circulating of polars bears with no sheet ice to head out on.
You can argue that humans aren't causing the warming or have any way of slowing it but I believe it is going to get hotter over time and local climates are going to change as a result. Contingency planning is a smart idea regardless of whether you believe or not. Just don't go nuts and spend a fortune or do anything extreme like put your future on hold or inconvenience yourself as part of your contingency plan. Moving to the North or South Pole just because you think it will be temperate beach front and in high demand when people can no longer live anywhere else on the planet is not a good idea. Unless you are right in which case you'll be worth billions. But if you are wrong you might need to pray for Global Warming and wrestle polar bears for seal blubber for your dinner.
I think the 'normal' climate has changed in odd ways several of the places I've lived in. The climate seems to be warming to me. I'm only 40 years old and I've lived in quite a few places around the world so my opinion might be from flawed experiences and analysis. But it definitely feels like there are more extreme weather events in northern and southern hemispheres.
The attached article on Snowtober discusses some of them.
Snowtober hits the USA
There are some interesting arguments in the comments mostly against the idea that Global Warming has anything to do with the extreme climate events we've experienced this year.
The good news is that over time the climate events may be getting more extreme but it appears less people are dying from them.
http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_23.pdf
The interesting thing is that whether we believe in something as a species is mostly irrelevant as to whether it happens or not.
I have a question for any geological scientists reading this. We have a planet with a layer of liquid around a solid core and then a crust floating on top if it. As the glaciers melt and the polar ice turns liquid is there any danger of the increase in the volume of liquid in the seas moving around on the surface and causing different stress points on the plates and generating more earthquakes than in the past? Global Warming may well rock the house around the globe if that is the case.
As a disaster recovery planner and someone who grew up on the ring of fire in New Zealand I am quite enjoying the lack of earthquakes here in Denver. I also like the place because other than extreme snow storms and tornado's there are relatively few natural threats here (unless you decide to go hiking with a large quantity of raw meat perhaps?). Also if Global Warming does cause massive shifts in land masses then I'm well prepared by being a mile above sea level.
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