[QUOTE=kladner;333307]Besides, I wasn't even sure if Barbados is properly called "Caribbean".[/QUOTE]

Yup. We're in the Caribbean sea.

And not a problem -- I don't know how many times I've had to explain to suppliers that Barbados is not a US State nor protectorate (I'm not joking). We're a sovereign nation -- since November 30th, 1966.

[QUOTE=kladner;333307]Also, the "Great Caribbean Arc" is pretty much east of you, and definitely north.[/QUOTE]

Yes. And we (read: the Bajan populous) should be more aware about earthquakes and tsunamis -- and potential disasters in general. We actually have an active submarine volcano only ~250 km from us -- [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick-'em-Jenny"]Kick-'em-Jenny[/URL]. While Grenada et al have more to worry about, if this really blew Barbados' west coast could be wiped out.

And further to Brian-E's comments above, in October, 2010, a "tropical wave" quickly formed into a "tropical storm" (Tomas), and was headed straight for Barbados. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister of Barbados had just passed away because of cancer, and the nation was in mourning (read: not at the wheel).

I actually alerted people by way of a blog I sometimes participate in several hours before the "met" office did. Additionally, I went around my neighborhood to warn people that they should be prepared. Bottle up some water, buy some extra non-perishable food. Bring their pets and outside furniture in, etc.

What was the response from most people? "Ah, don't worry. God is a Bajan. It won't hit us..."

Most of Barbados was without electricity, land-line telephony and Internet for over a week....

[url=www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-usa-fracking-california-idUSBRE93803720130409?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews]Judge rules administration overlooked fracking risks in California mineral leases[/url]
[quote](Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled the Obama administration broke the law when it issued oil leases in central California without fully weighing the environmental impact of "fracking," a setback for companies seeking to exploit the region's enormous energy resources.

The decision, made public on Monday, effectively bars for the time being any drilling on two tracts of land comprising 2,500 acres leased for oil and gas development in 2011 by the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management in Monterey County.

The tracts lie atop a massive bed of sedimentary rock known as the Monterey Shale Formation, estimated by the Energy Department to contain more than 15 billion barrels of oil, equal to 64 percent of the total U.S. shale oil reserves.

Most of that oil is not economically retrievable except by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a production-boosting technique in which large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected into shale formations to force hydrocarbon fuels to the surface.

Fracking itself is not a new technology but its widespread use in combination with advances in horizontal drilling to extract oil and gas from underground shale beds has fueled a new onshore U.S. energy boom.

It also has sparked concerns about impacts on the environment, including questions raised about the potential effects of fracking on groundwater.

Environmental groups also criticize oil shale production as at odds with efforts to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion that scientists blame for global climate change.

California is implementing a host of policies to cut its greenhouse emissions, including a carbon cap-and-trade program that it bills as a potential model for other states.

The issue came into sharp focus in California last month when Governor Jerry Brown, who has long touted his record as an environmentalist, said the state should consider fracking technology to develop its shale reserves as a way of reducing reliance on imported oil.[/quote]

[url=www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-climate-slowdown-idUSBRE93F0AJ20130416]Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown[/url]
[quote](Reuters) - Scientists are struggling to explain a slowdown in climate change that has exposed gaps in their understanding and defies a rise in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Often focused on century-long trends, most climate models failed to predict that the temperature rise would slow, starting around 2000. Scientists are now intent on figuring out the causes and determining whether the respite will be brief or a more lasting phenomenon.

Getting this right is essential for the short and long-term planning of governments and businesses ranging from energy to construction, from agriculture to insurance. Many scientists say they expect a revival of warming in coming years.

Theories for the pause include that deep oceans have taken up more heat with the result that the surface is cooler than expected, that industrial pollution in Asia or clouds are blocking the sun, or that greenhouse gases trap less heat than previously believed.

The change may be a result of an observed decline in heat-trapping water vapor in the high atmosphere, for unknown reasons. It could be a combination of factors or some as yet unknown natural variations, scientists say.[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;337315][URL="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/16/us-climate-slowdown-idUSBRE93F0AJ20130416"]Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown[/URL][/QUOTE](* sigh *)

It is all too common for discussions of global warming to degenerate into discussions of only surface-atmospheric-warming because of a tendency, among those who haven't followed the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) science closely, to forget that "global" includes both ocean and land in addition to atmosphere. (OTOH it's also true that the temperature of the near-surface atmosphere has more influence on our daily activities than the temperatures of ocean or land beneath us. So omissions of oceanic and land temperatures would be acceptable in this article ONLY IF it concerned only the atmosphere, or it did not make the blanket, unqualified claim that "global warming" had paused or the claim that climate scientists were confused or struggling to explain the atmospheric pause.)

That is what this article forgets -- that "global warming" includes ocean and land in addition to atmosphere, and that any discussion of the supposed recent pause in global warming, based only on surface atmospheric temperatures, needs to be balanced by the evidence that neither ocean warming nor ocean-plus-land-plus-atmosphere overall warming has paused.

It's sad that Reuters has an Environment Correspondent, Alister Doyle, who apparently doesn't have enough scientific background and/or enough familiarity with the scientific issues around anthropogenic global warming to avoid setting forth this climate-scientifically-deficient-article that is such a gift to anti-AGW arguers.

After a quick review of Alister Doyle's journalist profile at Reuters ([URL]http://blogs.reuters.com/alister-doyle/[/URL]), I don't see evidence that Doyle's articles are biased toward the anti-AGW side. Similar quick reviews of the Reuters journalist profiles of co-reporter Gerard Wynn ([URL]http://blogs.reuters.com/gerard-wynn/[/URL]) and editor Janet McBride ([URL]http://blogs.reuters.com/janet-mcbride/?st=article[/URL]) also don't show me that either of them is noticeably biased toward anti-AGW reporting. So I tentatively credit their climate-scientific inadequacies, rather than deliberate or knowing omission, for the glaring scientific gap and false claims in this particular article.

Global warming has _not_ paused, and climatologists _do_ understand that heat flows between atmosphere and ocean can cause a misunderstanding of the overall global warming trend among those who look only at the surface-atmospheric temperatures.

See [URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm[/URL] and/or [URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/Global-Warming-is-Accelerating-but-its-Still-Groundhog-Day-at-the-Daily-Mail.html[/URL] and [URL]http://www.skepticalscience.com/guemas-attribute-slowed-surface-warming-to-oceans.html[/URL] for a more competent and comprehensive scientific take on this issue.

[QUOTE=cheesehead;337530]Global warming has _not_ paused, and climatologists _do_ understand that heat flows between atmosphere and ocean can cause a misunderstanding of the overall global warming trend among those who look only at the surface-atmospheric temperatures.[/QUOTE]

IMNSHO, I think part of the problem is most scientists are willing to admit they can't know anything with absolute certainty. (As they should -- it's the honest position.)

Even when they have a great deal of evidence which supports their argument, they can't know for sure.

Meanwhile, many who are making money emitting CO[SUB]2[/SUB] et al are happy to keep doing so, ignoring the empirical evidence of what it's doing. In some cases, it's actually helping (read: Canada and Russia).

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Life will continue here on Earth until our Sun goes red.

[QUOTE=chalsall;337536]At the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Life will continue here on Earth until our Sun goes red.[/QUOTE]In the long run everyone is dead.

[QUOTE=xilman;337538]In the long run everyone is dead.[/QUOTE]
* Murphy's Law of [URL="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thermodynamics"]Thermodynamics[/URL]: Under pressure, things get worse. [SUP][I][COLOR="Blue"][citation needed][/COLOR][/I][/SUP]

* It’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Sooner or later everything turns to silt.
[TEX]\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ [/TEX]--Woody Allen, in [I]Husbands and wives[/I] (1992).

* If you think things are in a mess now, JUST WAIT! (unknown) [SUP][I][COLOR="blue"][citation needed][/COLOR][/I][/SUP]

[QUOTE=chalsall;337536]IMNSHO, I think part of the problem is most scientists are willing to admit they can't know anything with absolute certainty. (As they should -- it's the honest position.)[/QUOTE]But the most strident anti-AGWers are _so_ _sure_ that the mainstream climatologists are conspiracists, and that AGW is a hoax ... despite that they've failed both

(a) to prove that there is any such pro-AGW unscientific conspiracy, and, even more tellingly,

(b) to produce any refutation of AGW theory by providing any alternative scientific theory that explains all the observations better than AGW does.

(I don't know the original author of the following question, and I've corrected some minor mistakes in the quotation as I received it)

"Where -- after 20 years of fossil-funded debate -- is the alternative explanation for warming that just happens to coincide so neatly with what CO2 & minor GHGs should be doing, and what is its mechanism for preventing them from acting as they should, or is there yet another unknown-to-science phenomenon fulfilling that preventive role so neatly ?"

The anti-AGW side has failed to come up with any better explanation. (I ask anyone who disagrees with that to show us the supposed "better explanation".)

[quote]Even when they have a great deal of evidence which supports their argument, they can't know for sure.[/quote]All that's required by science is a preponderance of evidence, not absolute certainty. For global warming, that preponderance currently supports the AGW theory.

[QUOTE=chalsall;337536]In some cases, it's actually helping (read: Canada and Russia).[/QUOTE]

Except this Winter. We set records and NOT warm ones:
- Most snowfall over a winter (6 feet and counting)
- Coldest March on record
- Soon to be coldest April

[QUOTE=cheesehead;337665]All that's required by science is a preponderance of evidence, not absolute certainty. For global warming, that preponderance currently supports the AGW theory.[/QUOTE]

But, it's not convenient... (read: profitable)....

[QUOTE=chalsall;337668]But, it's not convenient... (read: profitable)....[/QUOTE]Only because they refuse to try to think of how it could be profitable!