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Firm Evidence for Greenhouse Effect
(outer-limits) pointed us to this AP story which describes a study published in Nature: a comparison of infrared data from 1970 and 1997 shows that the Earth is definitely re-radiating less energy in the bands absorbed by greenhouse gases. What does this mean for global warming? <shrug> Nobody knows.
Whether or not global warming is happening because of our polluting or is just part of the cycle of the earth is besides the point! The vast majority of cities around the world have horrific pollution problems, causing thousands to die from lung cancer, polluted water, polluted food, and any number of associated diseases. Perhaps the rationale should not be to lower pollution levels to save the atmosphere and prevent abstract things such as 'climate change' from occurring, (our paltry efforts will most likely have no effect anyway) but rather to stop poisoning ourselves and our surroundings where we live. Another thing, its EVERYONE's duty as a resident of this planet to do what they can to keep this place working. Apathy never solved anything, and its never too late to make a difference.
At this point I think you will find that most scientists (at least the ones who don't work for various industry-sponsored groups) will agree that: a) global climate change is happening (yes, it is on average getting warmer) b) atmospheric levels of CO2 are increasing due to our burning fossil fuels c) we can't predict exactly how the climate will change in the future, but we can make educated guesses that are reliable enough to base policy on . Those guesses/predictions include rises in sea level and the disruption of long-established weather patterns, with potentially very serious consequences. (Of course, mostly for the Third World, so I guess it isn't a problem for people well-off enough to be reading /.)
In any case, sooner or later we'll run out of oil, gas and coal. We'd better have an alternative energy source, or your great-great-grandchildren will be running Linux on hand-cranked computers.
After all, Dubya "campaign" promised that he'd control Carbon Dioxide, but then decided that ..., um, ..., that his friends didn't want that at all. His true friends, his money friends.
Read A Few Things Wrong With The Above Sites.
Similarly, if we don't understand why the Earth is warming up and the only thing that really has changed is the pollution we spew up into the upper atmosphere in large quantities, shouldn't we stop doing that as well?
"Nature" is a magazine that has one agenda, and one agenda only .. and that is to uphold the liberal/atheist scientific dogma that their far-left political views require. This includes things like evolution, global warming, heliocentrism, etc. If you wanted the truth on this issue (and on other issues as well), you would not limit yourself to a single source of information. Somebody who is unwilling to look at all of the evidence has clearly demonstrated that they have already made up their mind and are unwilling to consider that they are wrong.
Oh, come on, OPEC cutting Oil production quotas will ruin, RUIN Western economies, and nobody's doing anything to stop them. There's a problem that really does exist.
I do remember the 70's, and I remember OPEC cutting production, leading to an "energy crisis", panic, and recession that got Reagan elected. Yes, I agree, cutting CO2 emissions will cripple the economy. Maybe it's the economy's fragility that's the problem, and maybe we need to learn to stop being slaves to it, and try to accomplish something as a species other than our own extinction. Which understates things, because we won't be the only species to become extinct.
500 years from now, the last republican and the last democrat will be sitting on a glacier fighting over the last scrap of the last dog, and the republican will blame the democrat for the ice age because he paralyzed the economy so that the republican couldn't afford to buy a space heater to prepare for the coming naturally occuring ice age, and the democrat will blame the republican for the ice age because they wouldn't cut C02 emmissions. Neither will be in a position to prove the other one false. But the republican will get that last scrap of meat because he doesn't believe in gun control. Then the republican will eat the democrat too. And the Libertarian will lament that the republican and democrat conspired to keep him from piling up all the bodies so he could climb up to the moon and live where it's warm.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
tylerh wrote:
"If you don't like the "pollution market" approach, how else do you propose to getting the cooperatiom of of hundreds of millions of people needed with using authoritarian methods?"
I don't. There's no way that will work. By the time people get the clue, it will be too late, and the changes will be irreversible. In 20 million years, when aliens visit the funny ice-world with the buildings sticking out of the tops of glaciers, they'll go in, and dig around and find my remains clutching a scrap of paper that reads:
"I told you so!"
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Or perhaps humanity has already had measurably catastrophic events on parts of the environment.
Acid rain.
Deforestation.
Mass species extinction.
Salinization of irrigated lands.
That big inland sea in Russia that's almost dried up.
An example would be the Hawaiian Puuoo bird, who's feathers were used to make cloaks for the cheifs. 80,000 birds for each cloak. Had NO impact on the extinction of this species. They were able to reproduce quickly enough. It was the introduction of feral pigs to the islands. The pigs dug holes in the roots of rain forest trees to get at the soft stuff inside - to eat it. The holes collected rainwater, which bred mosquitos, which spread diseases, which killed the birds. At the time, nobody thought that the pigs were going to kill the birds, and nobody could have forseen the very strange chain of events that would take place, but the world is now one species less because of humanity's stupidity.
Like I said before, in the end, when it happens, nobody will be in a position to point fingers anyway, and we're pointing fingers now, but nobody has sufficient data to prove it one way or another, and we're so skeerd of that nasty big ol economy, we don't dare do a thing to harm IT.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I agree. I grew up in Chicago, and this last winter was definately a return to the winters I remember as a child. The previous 15 or so have been a gradual departure from that norm. I wonder why this last winter was such a fluke?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If we could get a tropical weather that would be wonderfull!
And with all the flooding we have had and the rising of the water, I am sure in 10 years, my house will be close to the beach (I am about 200km from it right now).
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
I'm sorry I don't follow the logic. Satellite photos then and now showing global warming does NOT equal humans are the cause. Mmmkay.
I am so jaded by the media that I can barely trust them on anything vaguely scientific. I don't believe these immanent global catastrophe pronouncements any more. I do believe that humans have a large impact on the planet but has anyone stopped to check to see how big it is compared to other natural forces? One good volcanic eruption can change the weather more quickly than fifty years of burning fossil fuels. El niño causes more damage than humans do.
Yes, we should be better stewards of the Earth but we shouldn't use every doom and gloom piece to push someone's political agenda. There are many things we don't understand about global climate changes and the impact humanity has on on the climate. Good science takes time.
They can have my fossil fuel burning car when they pry my cold dead fingers from the steering column.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Then perhaps you should go back and take a closer look at the content. Check out the message boards. You'll find, if you're willing to set aside preconceived notions, that the site is an excellent skeptic resource.
So how exactly would it be possible for the significantly warmer climates of the past to have occurred? It seems to me that the thermohaline hypothesis is interesting, but unproven.
The JunkScience web site has a repository of links, articles, and message boards questioning a lot of bad science that gets popularized in the media. Sometimes, they get a little too political for my tastes, but most of the time, they are the best source of information that the alarmists of the world don't want to repeat. I encourage you to try the link again. It's a good site.
Actually, I think we are in what is called an "interglacial" period between ice ages. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, temperatures dropped enough that those years are referred to as a "Little Ice Age" and we've been on an unsteady warming trend ever since.
Still, your point is well taken that there are very powerful natural forces that drive climate in a chaotic manner. I'm sure that mankind is more of an influence now than a few hundred years ago, too. But I doubt that alone should force our civilization into the arms of the alarmists and social engineers.
Well, currently we are going through a solar sunspot maximum, which occurs about every 11 years (?). This sunspot cycle has had some of the highest sunspot numbers that have been seen, and recently the sun changed it's polarity (which occurs every sunspot maxima). If sunspots had a great deal to do with weather, this would explain why there is currently alot of panic about the greenhouse effect, and that the last time there was good greenhouse effect proof was around the last sunspot maxima, and being that this sunspot is higher than the last, are we starting to see a pattern?
My interest in sunspots? I am an amateur radio operator, and HF (and sometimes higher frequencies) is best during a sunspot maximums, which means that I am able to more easily talk from Australia to the US and Europe (without internet and/or wires), some people have recently done it on foot with a radio in a backpack, and extreemly low power outputs (5w).
Anyway, I hope that this information is useful to some people, mabs (vk3tst).
VK3TST
-- "People aren't stupid. Usually." -- jd
Really, I suppose it's a question of semantics. The so called 'Greenhouse effect' is what allow us to have rich tropical rainforest, sprawling temperate forests, rich lush grasslands, et al. If the earth did not act as a greenhouse, we'd all be some other kind of life form, if a life form at all. For anyone to say that 'there is no greenhouse effect' is really not seeing the picture. Of course, when most people think 'greenhouse effect' they immediately associate that with 'global warming'. They are not necessarily the same thing. Global Warming indicates the idea that the earth, as a whole, is getting warmer, i.e. the temperature in this little greenhouse of ours is going up. No big deal, it might be, it might not. The bottom line is that the temperature of the earth is not constant, on a geologic scale. To deny that fact is plain stupidity.
The real question that we should focus on is "are our actions in the last 2, 3, or 4 centuries or so (more so after industrialism) contributing to Global Warming in a negative way and is this bad?"
That's just too much of a question to bother with trying to figure out right now in this little response. The point of my response is as follows:
- the greenhouse effect is what makes life possible, shielded atmospheric conditions which allow for our water cycle as we know it and temperatures allowing the kind of abundant plant growth that we already have
- Global warming is often wrongly associated with the Greenhouse effect - while they can be intermingled, one should not think of both as the same thing. They work together, but are different things.
- The question to focus on is not 'is there a greenhouse effect' it's more a question of 'are we breaking the earth?'
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
It's interesting that when people talk about this issue they aren't interested in a true debate. They have a hypothesis and only seek find the data that supports the hypothesis.
If we really wanted a debate, we'd at least hav some points of view seen on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, et al. But they talk about it as though it were a forgone conclusion. It's not, it's very worthy of study, and genuine study.
The scientific method is based the princlple that one collects data and draws a conclusion from all the data collected.
In addition, people always seem to gravitate to the Kyoto treaty when this issue is put on the table. I find it curious that we never hear about the Leipzig Declaration, the Heidelburg Appeal, the and the Oregon Appeal.
They have signatures from over 4000 scientists who say:
"The Appeal expresses a conviction that modern society is the best equipped in human history to solve the world's ills, provided that they do not sacrifice science, intellectual honesty, and common sense to political opportunism and irrational fears. "
So, as the original posting of the aricle says.. What does this mean for global warming? Nobody knows.
Currently, circulation is created by cold, salt-rich and thus heavy water in the waters around Greenland falling to the bottom of the sea to be replaced by hot surface water that originally started out in the Caribean gulf. If the incoming water gets too hot, too much ice will melt at once, and reduce the salinity to the point where it no longer sinks to the bottom of the sea.
//Wegge
Last week I attended a lecture of the director of the Dutch weather forecast institute. He is a member of the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, an United Nations institute like Unesco. He showed hard data and science, and there is no doubt about it: the climate is indeed changing.
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It is definitely getting warmer, temperature is already up 1 degree Kelvin, which is fucking much averaged globally. Also there are multiple feedback mechanisms at work, like melting ice-caps, melting gletchers, oceans being able to hold less CO2, therefore aggrevating the situation. (Ever wondered why warm Coca Cola has almost no bubbles anymore? Go figure)
Where it will lead to is an open question, but consider this:
People go through a lot of trouble to shield their children from relatively low risk situations, like:
- falling of their bikes (they all wear helmets),
- sex on TV,
- dirt on the street,
- diaper rash
But when it comes to our childrens future on Earth, AND grandchildren etc. a possibly disastrous climate change is waved away as 'speculative science'.
That is completely insane.
Even a 5% probability that the climate is changing is like playing Russian Roulette with our childrens lives.
And I can tell you that that probability is more like 75%.
We are taking an unacceptable risk with the future of our children.
Do people, and especially Americans (but Europeans have no reason to be proud too) understand this?
Unacceptable Risk
To have even a slight chance of reversing the proces, total emmission of CO2 and other gases have to be cut down by about 80 to 90 %!
At the latest climate conference an agreement was reached to cut down by 8%. Totally inadequate.
What has been achieved of this 8%? It has not even be ratified yet, by most countries. America hasn't, and they, with 4% of the Worlds population, cause more than 25% of the rise of CO2-level.
Their emmisions have only accelerated. Even the Netherlands, who did ratify, have a rise of 17%, instead of cutting down 8%.
And did I tell you between 80% and 90% cut-down is needed?
Nothing could be more important than this, for humans anyway.
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UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
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UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
The pollution quota system proposed by the US will help with the climate problem! Wrong selling liscences to pollute and produce greenhouse gasses won't help. Only an over all reduction of greenhouse gasses will help.
Yes, but without licenses, you will have a sub-optimal reduction in greenhouse gasses. Establishing a market for pollution licenses means that the people who can most afford to reduce their greenhouse gas production will do it.
Without licenses, the people who can most afford to reduce their greenhouse gas production will have no incentive to reduce it, and the people who can't afford to reduce their emissions will be a drain on economies, encouraging increased political backlash against emission reductions.
If rich people want to pay poor people for the right to pollute, and that leads to an overall emission reduction, why is that bad? It makes the poor people richer, and reduces emissions!
How does this scheme reduce overall pollution? I reduce pollution and sell you the right to increase your pollution the earth sees no difference in it's pollution level.
It reduces overall pollution because some people will have a much harder time reducing pollution than others. For instance, a company with a very old coal burning powerplant might need to spend $100 million to retrofit to achieve CO2 reduction, while another company building a new coal burning powerplant may only need to spend $25 million to achieve the reduction by planning for it before the plant is built.
So we have two scenarios with the same CO2 output reduction. #1 has the old coal plant spend $100 million and the new plant spend $25 million to achieve 60% CO2 reduction.
Secnario #2 has the new plant spend $30 million to achieve 90% CO2 reduction, and sell a 30% reduction license to the old plant. The old plant spends about $50 million to add the additional 10% reduction it needs to achieve a 30% real and 30% licensed emmission.
In both cases, overall CO2 emmission reduction was 60%. The difference is that the new powerplant can afford to build in an extra 30% reduction beyond that, and sell the license to someone who needs it.
Actually, scenario #1 really goes like this - the company that needs to spend $100 million can't afford to, and instead spends millions on politicians to make sure that the law is never passed. Or, they go out of business, and you have a bunch of angry AFL/CIO members. Either way, it makes the political job of selling CO2 emmission more difficult.
By instituting a market for pollution, you make it far easier for companies with a higher marginal CO2 reduction price to be able to help achieve overall CO2 reduction.
Creating a market in pollution is the sickest most unethical thing I can think of. Creating commerce out of an activity which leads to suffering, horrible afflictions, and death is akin to legalizing child torture and pornography because some people want to do it.
I'm assuming that you don't emit any CO2, or else you are saying that you are the same as a child pornographer. I suggest you STOP BREATHING IMMEDIATELY!
IF YOU ARE IGNORANT OF ECONOMICS, we will all die, like the millions of Chinese killed due to communist farming techniques under Mao. Global warming is too dangerous for us to ignore economic and political realities.
...meanwhile, South Carolina looks like present-day Somalia.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
but we can make educated guesses that are reliable enough to base policy on .</i>
i wholeheartedly disagree. The science of climate modelling is far from accurate, and is not mature enough to base policy on, especially policy that is guaranteed/designed to destroy the industrial nation's economys, which would also make the 3rd World nations much much poorer.
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Okay, I'll bite...
Sure, we produce more than our share of CO2 -- we're an industrialized nation. Hoovallooo in Papau New Guinea doesn't produce CO2 (except through respiration) because he's squatting in a tree waiting for a pig to pass by.
"But that's an extreme example!" Okay -- try Lin Chang in China. His complete personal property list is (1) water buffalo, (1) wok, (1) pointy hat. Not much CO2 producing going on there.
Now Biff Manley over in the States has a lawnmower, SUV, charcoal grill and a Pentium III 1Ghz. He's a CO2 producing fool, all by himself.
The fact of the matter is, most of the world's population lives in what may be considered -- to us overfed, whiny Americans anyway -- Third World status. Of COURSE they aren't going to produce much CO2.
An equally fair (and stupid) comparison would be "Mexicans are only 3% of the world's population, but produce 65% of the world's supply of laquered frogs."
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Well, almost. I'm saying that to pick an arbitrary metric (CO2 production) and measure ONLY that, then all kinds of assumptions can be made -- most of them wrongly.
I can pick another metric (say methane from burrito farts) and say "Mexico produces 75% of burrito farts, and they're only 5% of the worlds population. And their government is doing NOTHING about it!" It's equally valid (which is to say, equally stupid).
Try to balance your CO2 metric with a QOL metric (Quality of Life). Now -- we have 25% of the world's CO2 output, but the highest QOL. The argument can be made, then, that higher CO2 output means higher QOL. Thus, countries, to increase QOL must increase CO2 output.
(I make these points to highlight another point -- that point being that "Global Environmental Treaties" such as the Environmental summit in Rio some years ago, have all boiled down to Third World Countries lining up, holding out their hands to the US and saying "Give us a dollar")
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
The reason why many scientists believe global warming will increase
cloud cover goes something like this: Increase CO2 and CH4 levels,
the atmosphere absorbs more IR and heats up, this heating up leads to
more water vapor in the air due to enhanced evaporation and because
warm air can "hold" more water vapor than cold air, more water vapor
leads to more clouds. A really simple way of looking at it which may be
wrong, when all feedback mechanisms come into play, but it's at least
plausible. Incidentally, water vapor is the strongest greenhouse gas
and increasing its concentration in the atmosphere will lead to more
warming, all else being equal.
However, whether increased cloud cover will result in cooling depends
upon what type of cloud is increasing in coverage. The article mentions
that increasing cloud cover may put the brakes on global warming, the
idea being that more clouds means more incoming solar radiation being
reflected into space (increasing the planet's albedo). This is one
possible scenario and might occur if the total amount of *low* clouds
increased. However, if the total amount of *high* clouds increased
(cirrus, cirrostratus, the thin wispy ice clouds), this lead to a
positive feedback mechanism that might lead to further warming. The
reason being is high clouds are relatively transparent to incoming solar
radiation (visible light etc) while absorbing very well in the infrared
part of the spectrum (where the earth radiates its energy). So high
clouds act kind of like a greenhouse gas.
All the article really states is that we've found that the earth is not
in radiative equilibrium, which means the total amount of radiation
entering the earth's atmosphere isn't the same as the total amount
leaving. A body which is not in radiative equilibrium will experience
a change in temperature. That's the simple way to look at it. But the
Earth is one complex beastie and all the feedback mechanisms aren't
known, and won't be for a long time.
And yeah, if the "conveyor belt" (thermohaline) circulation were to
cease due to freshening of the northern seas due to melting ice and more
precip, Northern Europe would be in for quite a shock. It's happened
before and it will certainly happen again, someday.
Leigh Orf
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
Because it's more interesting this way... you don't think the cosmic mind would set up a whole planet for its avatars to just sit around and eat grapes do you?
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
The skin cancer story is often used by well-meaning environmentalists to scare people. In fact, the increase in ultraviolet radiation from moving a hundred miles closer to the equator is much greater than the maximum increase anticipated by the worst-case ozone depletion scenarios. Differences in lifestyle also have orders of magitude greater effect on the total UV dose you receive.
I don't like it when people spread inaccurate information. Not even for a good cause. For example, the fighting drug abuse would be served better by reliable information about drugs than by irresponsible lines and inaccurate scare stories.
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Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
This page is published by the Wellington City Council. The local authority of the capital city of the country - Not the Government of New Zealand.
Good thing he didn't ask us to read his lips on that one.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The TOPEX laser altimeter satellite has measured
a steadily increasing sea level over the past ten
years of a few millimeters per year. Most of it
is attributed to thermal expansion of the ocean
with a minor contribution from glacial melting.
The best heating measurement is to measure the
average temperature of the oceans. Local measurements
are distorted by human effects and local currents.
The speed of sound in water directly depends on
temperature.
Scientists proposed measuring the sound speed (and
temperature) in the highly transparent sofar zone
accross entire oceans.
The source would be a relatively loud, chirp sent
for hundreds of seconds.
Experiments have showed it works. However, a
systematic implementation of this measurement has
been delayed because of complaints this may hurt
marine life ears.
Less winter.
The immense tundras of Canada and Russia become
huge agricultural areas to feed the world.
True. And where is most of that pressure coming from? Corporation and astroturf lobbying efforts doing their best to stick their fingers in everybody's ears and sing "La la la, we can't hear you!". It's understandable that people are trying to be heard over that.
(Astroturf lobbying: fake grass roots. "Citizen groups" that are fronts for corporate interests.)
Or, even worse, one of those "libertarian" nutcases. I put that term in quotes because the only real libertarians are anarchists, whereas the Libertarian Party promotes corporate hegemony instead of actual liberty.
What supports your notion of "human nature"? Promotion of self-interest can easily take the form of cooperation. It's the occasional sociopath (which on a planet of 6 billion because unfortunately more common) who has a desire not only to succeed but crush his opponents. Alas, Capitalism fosters this kind of destructive attitude.
The source of the paper about the 'problems with sea-level predictions' is written and endorsed by a groups called Greening Earth Society who purports, on their front page to promote the scientific view that carbon dioxide is beneficial for human kind and all of nature. While CO2 is certainly part of our ecosystem, the GES seems to think that if a little is a good thing, a lot is going to be better. I think it's also relavant that their front page has a link (the only off-site link on their front page) to http://www.fossilfuels.org/ a site that claims that fossil fuels are one of "The Creator's greatest gifts to humankind". Pardon me if I'm mildly skeptical. These sites don't seem to be very unbiased.
But it is very difficult to get my fellow americans to think in any terms except their immediate personal gain. A friend of mine at work the other day was complaining that new car emissions testing was going to be done with a wide-open throttle rather than at idle, preventing the "emissions workaround" that many high-powered vehicles use. (Tuned for low emissions at idle, throw it out the window and go for power once the throttle is open) I just couldn't seem to convince him that there was any benefit that made the tradeoff of a few horsepower worthwhile. Absolutely amazing that people can be so uncaring about the population as a whole.
It doesn't take much to make a difference in your personal energy usage-- but nobody over here seems to care.
This exact thing has happened before, the last time it happened was about 10.500 years ago when climatic conditions in S-England changed...
I'm wondering how the cro-magnon managed to cause global warming/cooling without the benefit of factories, SUV's and capitalism...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Okay, so the US is only 5% of the population but produces 25% of the CO2. Is that good or bad? You don't know! Maybe that 25% emissions is *low* for the level of US industrialization. Don't dismiss the previous post as sarcasm, there's a lot of truth there.
Maybe Hoovaloo and Lin Chang aren't (significant) CO2 producers. And maybe Thog the slash-and-burn farmer in the Amazon rainforest isn't either, but he *does* have a significant effect on CO2 levels.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
When scientists are desperate to prove a pet theory they tend to somewhere somehow come up with "incontravertable" evidence to prove it. Too many times it's later shown to be bad science.
I'm certainly not saying that global warming isn't true. All that pollution must be doing something bad. I just get skeptical when the pressure is so great to come up with proof.
We won't know if they are reliable until time passes. Those predictions don't include the recent discoveries of the power of soot and heat-caused cirrus depletion cooling, much less other unknown factors.
There is no global sea level change -- that's only another prediction. Read about the problems with sea-level predictions and see how confident you then are about them. For that matter, the recent IPCC sea level prediction includes mention that southern oceans will rise somewhat less than elsewhere -- the IPCC doesn't explain how water rises differently there. For that matter, El Nino was discovered by climatologists only a few decades ago...it's amazing how the same science which is still discovering smaller oscillations can be used to make longer-term predictions.
I know what site the link was on. Quit attacking the messenger and deal with the message. What is wrong with their analysis of the IPCC sea level studies (chapter 11 of "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis")?
Is PGR being used to change lowering levels to rising levels? Were the simulated ice levels tinkered with to produce the desired result, and if not then how were the ice levels determined? Does the glacial melting simulation match the geological 120 to 130 meter rise? Is the IPCC indeed predicting that southern oceans will rise less than other oceans, and why?
One theory even says, that we have ice ages every 20000 years or so, funnily the last one was 20000 years ago ;-)
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...
However it should take 50-75 years to cool down.
Each ice age starts with a "small" one. Because of the ice that builds on more areas on earths surface more sunlight gets reflected and it gets even colder, but this takes a lot longer, it's out of our lifespan
I believe we just added or part to make it happen faster, on the other hand the climate is *very* fragile. The gulf stream which balances the climate for europe, can be slowed down a lot by warming the earth by average 4 degrees. During an ice age it stops completely, it takes a few 1000 years to bring it on again, this is when an ice age ends
[This a theory I read about, nothing more nothing less.]
I think you guys must have an axe to grind here, as you are constantly throwing so-called "proofs" of global warming at us, but you never present anything -- nothing, absolutely nothing -- of the other side of the issue. Here are some facts worth pondering:
1. In 1998, 17,000 scientists signed a petition saying, in part, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
2. Claims of global warming are based on ground-based sensors largely located near urban areas. No such temperature rise is seen in data obtained from weather stations isolated from local urban heating effects, nor in data from weather balloons nor in satellite measurements of atmosphere temperature.
3. For more than 7,500 of the last 10,000 years, temperatures have been higher than they are today.
4. Present-day temperatures are about 1 degree cooler than they were when the Vikings settled Greenland in medieval times.
5. The Times story Slashdot recently promoted about the ice pack at the North Pole melting for the first time in 50 million years was utterly wrong. The person making this claim (oceanographer James J. McCarthy) did see open water, but was speaking outside of his area of expertise. Times later ran a retraction after scientists more familiar with the Arctic's climate history pointed out that, during the summer, more than 10 percent of the Arctic Ocean is free of ice and it is not rare that the North Pole is part of that 10 percent.
Finally, let's not forget that he who pays the piper calls the tunes. Global warming is the fad nowadays, and research that doesn't show the results desired by governmental or UN agencies doesn't get funded.
Thats basic economics. The way to get greener energy supplies is to raise the cost of unfriendly energy sources. This can be done with popularity (ewwww he drives a gasoline powered car), incentives (I'll give you 5000 if you drive an electric car), tarrifs (40$ a barrel extra), or as OPEC is doing for us, an overall increase in price (by slightly reducing supply) to increase their own profit margins in the short term and give them a slightly longer economic outlook for oil riches as long as they don't make it so expensive that major portions of hte world don't switch to non-oil transport.
I read some articles describing massive amounts of methane at the ocean bottom in a gel-form. Apparently there's quite a lot of it and it doesn't take much warming of the ocean water for the gel to break-down and release the methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a much more serious greenhouse gas than CO2, so it is possible for positive reinforcement here. This could make a little global warming due to other factors suddenly increase significantly. Other positive reinforcement methods are the reduction of ice at the poles, since ice reflects IR back into space quite nicely.
All in all, there's a lot we don't know about global warming, but that doesn't mean that we should be reckless in how we treat the environment.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
No one really knows what the result of increased Greenhouse gasses is. Detailed models are unable to successfully predict what an increase in CO2 will do for the global temperature. Therefore, it is irresponsible to either dismiss the greenhouse effect as irrelivant (which about half the population seems to do) or say that there's nothing we can do because it's already progressed too far (which the other half seems to do). The simple fact of the matter is, the Earth is an incredibly complex system and is unbelievably difficult to model.
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
In that case you were not saying anything at all.
Monkeys may have flown out of Ronald Reagans butt.
Can you prove beyond any doubt that this statement is false? Other then the fact that ronald probably believes it?
War is necrophilia.
How does this scheme reduce overall pollution? I reduce pollution and sell you the right to increase your pollution the earth sees no difference in it's pollution level.
Not only that but there really is no market for pollution unless some govenment steps in and passes clean air laws which would create scarcity. Without government intervention any industry could pollute as much as they want and would have no incentive to buy somebody elses pollution tickets.
So if the only source of scarcity is governmental regulation why do you need commerce in pollution anyway? Why shouldn't the government simply pass clean air regulations and be done with it?
Finally. Creating a market in pollution is the sickest most unethical thing I can think of. Creating commerce out of an activity which leads to suffering, horrible afflictions, and death is akin to legalizing child torture and pornography because some people want to do it.
War is necrophilia.
Business people will never stip whining as long as they live.
Pollution controls cost too much money, minimum wage costs too much money, competition costs too much money. Whine, whine whine. Nothing would make a business person happier then to repeal every single environmental law and bringing back slavery.
What's the difference between a lear jet and the businessman who owns it?
The jet stops whining when it gets to hawaii.
War is necrophilia.
How did this actually reduce the overall pollution level again? Yes that's right the government stepped in and TOLD the business to do it. Without that they would pollute like all hell becuase profits are infinately more important then killing people or making them sick.
The way you make people do the right thing is to punish them when they do something wrong. You don't let drug dealers sell drug credits so they can sell less drugs, you don't make serial killers sell killing certificates, why should you keep encouraging other criminals to keep commiting crimes?
If an industry breaks laws jail the CEOS and the board of directory, seize the assets and let the shareholders take it in the shorts and shut them down. This will influence the shareholders to keep a close eye on their corporation to behave corrrectly and will provide incentive for the board to act ethically.
War is necrophilia.
I have a theory that the next world war will be
about pollution, as there will be an increasing divide between nations that are either suffering from catastrophic environmental disasters or doing something about pollution and the United States which, at least in the forseeable future, be the most significant source of this polution. No wonder Dubya wants the missile defence system!
The greenhouse effect has NOTHING to do with skin cancer. You're thinking of the depletion of the ozone layer which is caused by chlorofluorocarbons released from aerosol cans and refrigerators. If half the population is going to die from the greenhouse effect (which is a plausible scenario), it's going to be from political turmoil induced by the climate-shift-induced change in location of the world's farmable lands.
I don't claim to know much about the topic, but I do remember reading an article back in the 70's. In it were graphs illustrating the spans of Ice Ages vs. Temperate Ages. It was rather enlightening in that the temperate periods were relatively short lived.
If on a linear time scale you compared an Ice Age to a meter, a Temperate Age lasted only about a centimeter.
Its got to make you wonder about the whole argument today.
The question imbodied in the article was "were we headed for an Ice Age or not?" The conclusion was "We don't know. But what we do know is that Mother Nature is going to kick us around a lot more that she has in the last few hundred years."
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
Yeah, communism and democracy are the same thing aren't they, Mr Republic.
hrm.
I was under the impression that we were coming out of a small ice age. This is claimed as evidence for winters being whiter in your grandparent's days.
This is often claimed as the real reason why the earth is warming up, as opposed to greenhouse effects, which are presumed to take longer to gestate. (I must admit that I had thought it strange that we had already had an effect on the climate -- which is not to say that our current emissions won't wreack havoc in the next centuries).
Like the article said, the greenhouse effect could cause "Global Cooling" instead because of an increase in cloud cover.
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Why do we humans have it so tough? Global warming, pollution, not enough electricity, AIDS, cancer, crooked politicians, taxes, homelessness, joblessness, and probably a billion other problems I can't/don't want to think of.
It can't all be our fault, can it? Will we ever fix it all? damn it.
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
So, I'm either going to burn up in Hell, or burn up on a global-warming affected planet. Which god should I believe in to escape this fate?
... but he might pretty well be right.
There is quite some debate going on between the two main theories on global warming, namely the well-known Greenhouse Effect theory vs. the Solar Activity theory, i.e. the idea that Earth's temperature is much more correlated to solar activity than to anything else, making human activity a negligible factor.
The latter is quickly gaining momentum. The correlation exhibited in the Friis-Christensen & Lassen graph (first published in 1991 in Science) is really disturbing. Their more recent publications are even more so (better data thanks to satellites).
Thomas Miconi
Wow, this sounds like the anti-green rant I read in a recent pamphlet put out by the Christian Democratic Party. Are you a party member?
:wq
There is less energy coming into the system, so it is getting warmer?
There used to be vineyards in England.
It takes something of an enviromental Luddite to assume that any change from [pick the year of your birth] *must* be fought be any means possible.
I said ".....may have been....".
Can you prove beyond any doubt that this statement is false?
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Moderator's essentials
There is another school of thought that believes earth's temperature, and even weather (clouds, to be exact), is affected by Sunspots.
Sunspots increase the Sun's magnetic field which acts as a kind of barrier helping to protect the Earth from cosmic rays. This acts as insulation and increases the Earth's overall temperature. When there are fewer Sunspots on the Sun's surface, it's magnetic field reduces allowing more cosmic rays to reach the Earth which cools the Earth. For example, in the late 17th century, there was hardly any Sunspot activity on the Sun's surface. This period coincided with the "Little Ice Age" when rivers on the Earth remained frozen all year round.
This research is on-going. At CERN, for example, tests are being undertaken with the particle accelerator to see if cosmic rays can affect cloud formation.
What this all means is that our predictions about global warming due to the Greenhouse Effect may have been greatly exaggerated.
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Moderator's essentials
The problem is that you exhale carbon dioxide when you breath. There are 4 billion people. Guess how many tons of carbon dioxide are caused by humans?
:)
The solution ? Breathing taxes. The IRS will love this one
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Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Maybe you should consider getting information from a scientific source, instead of a corporate propaganda site.
Bush and USA Inc. went to war to protect the credit of Kuwaiti petrodollars, as well as to bitch-slap our lackey (Saddam) for getting too uppity with US-made arms.
It's always interesting to read a self-righteous, insulting comment that is nonetheless complete BS.
A bit more on this-
I remember way back in school(been out a while) learning that the Ice Age was NOT a single time when the planet was covered with ice. In fact there were a series of glacial movements every 10,000 years or so. With that in mind, we are up for an ice age in a few centuries at the most.
As for global warming triggering an ice age, that is NOT theory. Current research shows that before each previous ice age there was a period of global warming not unlike what we are experiencing today. It will happen, it is only a question of when.
This has been a bit of a build up, climate changes don't happen overnight. More like a snowball you roll down from up on top of a large hill. It's growth starts small but it starts picking up momentum and all of the sudden it can crush a house. Thats how the climate changes, little stuff at first, over a century or so, then BOOM! I'm not a meteorologist, but from the reading I have done, I'd say we will start suffering colder winters soon. then colder summers. Maybe not severely so in our lifetimes, but by our great grandchildren it will probably start happening and by their great grandchildren well I don't think I'd want to live at most spots on earth it would be so cold.
Interesting. I remember as a kid back in Connecticut there being snow. Then for several years winters were pathetic and almost no snow. Even now with the upswing in snowy weather winters aren't nearly as brutal when I go back there as they used to be in my childhood. I haven't been back during summer much... But winters are warmer than they once were, and what I remember from high school 5 years ago summers were a little cooler than they were in elementary school... Less CO2 in summer, cooler summers(happened) more in winter warmer winters(happened). Climate evening out already. I realize anecdotal evidence like this is far from proof, but it is interesting nonetheless. Anyone else notice something like this happening??
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I like to watch.
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I like to watch.
The elder Bush was rumoured to have GONE TO WAR over the potential increase in oil costs. (Which pretty much translates into higher energy costs.) Remember Desert Storm? If you bought that explanation of the Gulf War, (and I'm sure you did) you have to admit he, if not his son, cared about energy costs. The connection between electricity and the death penalty (which like you, I oppose- in fact, I signed an ACLU petition on the subject Monday.) could be some sort of clever reference to the electric chair- but it's not. Your blind hatred leaves your mind weak and unfocused. You jump from topic to topic as the week's propaganda bubbles to the surface. Unless you moderate your tone, you will never convince anyone of anything, and do irrepairable harm to the causes you believe in.
Just after the day I heard on the news, Bush jr states he's not going to do anything for solving this problem, thereby breaking his election promise (as if we didn't see that coming!).
If "nobody knows", then how is it "firm evidence"? hm...
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Yeah Letterman rules :). I'm not an american though.
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Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Dubya missed it and decided that the greenhouse effect isn't caused by polution... :(
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Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
While your statements are true, the fact that there has been life on Earth for so long would imply that there are feedback mechanisms in place. Certainly we know that volcanos have erupted, large meteors have hit, etc and the climate has always returned to a state that supports life.
EXCELLENT POST
I have no quarrel with your science. However, you seem to have a weaker grasp of the economics. you wrote:
While it is true that global climate won't respond to bits of paper, the human economy does. Forty years of air pollution regulation here in California has shown that authoritarian dictates "Thou shalt do this..." only get one so far...and expensively so. The idea of the quota system is that we can get to the lower emissions scenarios *cheaper*. If the government says "all emitters must reduce by 20%", then I won't bother changing my bakery much, even though I could easily cut 80%. However, the furniture maker can't get his 20% cut without risking bankruptcy. Under the pollution trading credit regime, my bakery invests in more efficient gas furnaces and makes a big cut of 80%. The furniture maker buys the excess cut from me, (helping pay for my new equipment) cheaper than he can change his own factory. Emissions target are reached and now bankruptcy.-- but the "clearner" business are more profitable.If you don't like the "pollution market" approach, how else do you propose to getting the cooperatiom of of hundreds of millions of people needed with using authoritarian methods?
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
No one says we are the only cause. But human activity is causing these things to happen much faster than they would normally. The temperature rises in the last 200 years are faster than anything that has been seen since the end of the last ice age.
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If you can't blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.
How people can determine that it's people causing this? Were people around during the Ice Ages? Did pollution cause the ice to melt? I'd bet that was considered 'global warming' when the ice became water.
Yet, now that people have a political axe to grind, they start hollering that the only reason it could POSSIBLY be is pollution etc.
Cows put off more methane than the entirety of the human race. This is one of the primary ingredients of 'greenhouse gases' yet no one wants to admit that at least part of this is perfectly natural.
Oh, that's right, they cannot use the warming to their political gain if it's been around for millions of years. I forgot. Got to have something to hold against those who think differently than they. After all, it's inclusion, but only for those who conform to the left wing beliefs.
Give me a break, yes people and pollution may very well assist in the warming, but I'm tired of hearing that it's The President's duty to singlehandedly reverse a process that has been going on for millions of years.
DanH
Cavalry Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
You seem to be saying, "Ha! But there's a *REASON* why what you're saying is true! Therefore your point is stupid!" This... logic... confusing...
My point: Given that the US is a disproportionate cause of the CO2 problem, it is unfortunate that Bush has decided that we will not take any part in the solution.
Who will, then? Your Hoovaloo and Lin Chang will take the full impact of global warming, but there's not much they can do, since (as you point out) they're not CO2 producers.
Yet our Senate voted *unanimously* that we ought not to enter a CO2 reduction treaty unless-- you guessed it!-- the third world is bound also.
...which is again too bad, since OPEC states will never sign on, for obvious reasons.
Blech.
You are quoting from Greening Earth, a site produced by the Western Fuels Association. WFA supplies coal to power plants, making it a world leader in production of greenhouse gases. "We promote the benign effects of carbon dioxide on the earth's biosphere and humankind." Oooh-la-la...
You might as well quote Steve Balmer on the merits of Linux.
By contrast, here's what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says about sea levels change:
"...it is an observed fact that relative sea level is rising in most coastal regions and causing major problems..."
What you said was, "There is no global sea level change -- that's only another prediction." This is patently false: sea levels have been rising steadily. It is not a prediction; it is an observation.
You suggest that I not attack the messenger, but then immediately question whether simulated ice levels were "tinkered with" by IPCC scientists? You take a coal-producer's propaganda as serious commentary and impugn IPCC scientists as data manipulators? What... on earth... are you thinking?
Let's be clear: you haven't read one single word of the IPCC report that you're attacking and that you're asking me to defend in detail, have you? Everything you know about sea level change in that report comes from a few sentences in the summary for policymakers and what you read on that coal-producer site, right? (You did at least read the IPCC summary, didn't you?)
On the prediction side, the global warming trend projected by all of the dozen or so major global climate models-- not just by the IPCC-- implies corresponding warming in the oceans and consequent thermal expansion and sea-level rise. The IPCC conclusion is not some rogue hypothesis, as your favorite propaganda site would have you believe, but rather is consistent with the findings of many independent research groups.
If you're interested in this issue, you really need an unbiased source, don't you? The full IPCC report is surely too much. But the book "Earth's Climate: Past and Future" by William Ruddiman comes highly-recommended, though I've not yet read it myself.
When the media reports on global warming, they like to talk about coastal flooding and severe weather... direct human impacts.
What particularly bums me, though, is the fact that probably every ecosystem on earth is going to be affected. There will be no pristine places left on the entire planet that are safe from the effects SUV exhaust and other excesses. Not northern Canada, not Sibera. Everywhere there will be tundra melting or species adjustment or rainfall changes in response to human activity. That makes me sorta sad.
We Americans are 5% of the world population, and we produce 25% of the world's CO2. So it is too bad that Bush has decided not to do anything.
==========foo fighter==========
Do not mistake understanding for realization,
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
The theory is a bit more complex, but you have it about right.
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When the ice caps melt, the cold fresh water will form a layer over the warmer but more salty water of the gulf stream. This effectively prevents the warm water from rising (water doesn't mix as fast as you would think). The result of this is that something called the globl conveyor, a series of warm ocean current that flow round the earth and distribute heat from the tropics to the poles will stop. These current basically keep areas like northern europe warmer than they would otherwise be. if my memory serves me right, London is at the same latitude as Moscow, the only reason we are so much warmer is because of the gulf stream bringing warmer (and wetter
In theory, if the global conveyor does stop, then the isea will get colder. The effect of this is that the tropics will get warmer (due to the general increase in temperature) while the more northerly areas get colder. The most worrying aspect of this is that the effective growing reagions of the world will be squeezed from both sides. The deserts will grow from the equator (that includes the US grain belt), making many areas too hot to farm effectively, while the nothern and sothern temperate zones will get much colder and dryer becuase of reduced transpiration (now there is a word I havn't used in a long time, means the cumulative effect of evaporation from the seas and plants). Basically the worlds prime growing land is going to be squeezed between an ice burg and a desert.
What no one knows is how the global climate will react to this. It is increadibly complex and feedback mechanisms that we don't know about may kick in and either accelerate the effect, or limit it. No one really knows. We could end up with a complete reversal over the next few hundred/thousand years. The ice caps grow, reflecting more light, which means a drop in temerature, which leads to more ice growth and so on. The snowball earth theory.
Over geograpical time the earth is capable of taking care of itself. We could nuke the entire place and things would regrow over the next few (hundred) million years. Unfortunatly humans do not live on the geographical time scale, so we have to care about what happens in the short (or relatively short for the earth) time.
Basically, environmentalism is a very selfish thing. it is all about protecting the environment so that we can carry on living. Over its life the earth has been a place where humans could never have survived, and in the long term (millions of years) it probably will be again. But right here, right now, we have to protect the geo-eco-system purly for our own sakes. Without it we simply cannot survive. It isn't about saving cute little furry things, its about making sure that you and I have somewhere hospitable to live in 60 years time that isn't entirely artificial. And no, we can't move all 6billion people to the moon or mars.
Paul Leader
The crazy thing about many greenhouse skeptics is not their skepticism...but their assumption that the error bars only extend in one direction
While I agree with you about this problem (and it is quite prevalent among most opponents in most areas, not just in the climate debate), in fairness it should be noted that most popular reporting that activists/citizens/politicians/businesses respond to make the opposite error and only quote the worst case scenario, which is ALSO a one sided error bar. So, responding that "things are not going to be that bad" are not too far out of line...even if it is an indefensible stance.
A while ago I saw a documentory about global heating, and about the effect it could have on ice ages. They argued that the heating up of the earth caused the flow of warmer water from the gulf of mexico to the north pole. This warmer water 'holds the ice back'; if the warm water flow diminishes, the ice forming will not be held back, and we would have a new ice age, despite the fact that the earth was heating up. Does anybody know more about this?
And as geologist, I can say that there's a poor global temperatures record : something like 70-100 years. (first to record : germans, ~1880).
Before ? Never mind.
Is it too few to reflect billion years of climat activity ?
I mean.
There is quite some debate going on between the two main theories on global warming, namely the well-known Greenhouse Effect theory vs. the Solar Activity theory, i.e. the idea that Earth's temperature is much more correlated to solar activity than to anything else, making human activity a negligible factor.
:-)
I think you've missed the debate entirely and so come to a conclusion that is easily dismissed as incorrect. The Solar Activity theory predicts changes to the Earth's climate due to solar activity, the Greenhouse theory predicts changes due to human activity.
You give the impression of having fallen into the trap of thinking that since climate chanegs can be caused by non greenhouse means, they can clearly only be caused by non greenhouse means - a conclusion that dangeriously defies logic. Bear in mind that most greenhouse theory suggests that it is a little early for pronounced greenhouse climate changes, therefore finding only changes that could conceivably be attributed to solar activity in no way refutes greenhouse warming
The reality is that if solar-warming coincides with greenhouse-warming, we are in a far nastier situation than the already considerable nastiness of greenhouse warming or solar warming on their own.
Perhaps you think greenhouse theories are based on observation of climate change, and thus alternative explanations for those observations refutes the theory? If so, this is not the case - the theories _predicted_ climate change, and the Solar Activity theories do not refute a single thing on which that prediction is based[1]. Climate change is the conclusion, not the premises, of greenhouse theory. Possible alternative explanations for current climate observations are simply not relevant to a prediction of future warming effects.
In other words, if you think the Solar Activity theories hold water, you have twice the reason to reduce greenhouse gases as the people who see greenhouse warming as the only threat.
I just don't understand the idea that since warming can be caused by different things, we shouldn't worry, and even worse - that since it can be caused by different things, it clearly can't be caused by us!?!
I simply can't grasp the logic. It really does seem to be a case of believing something simply because you want to. Is there something I'm missing?
[1] Take enough varients of each theory and I'm sure I could find something, but you know what I mean
There's still no firm evidence that climatic change has been caused by us and polution although we may have altered the rate of change slightly.
:)
:-)
I'm worried by the misconceptions inferred here.
Climate change theory is not a case of "Oh look - the earth is getting warmer. What could be causing this?" and then enviromentalists painting pollution as the bad guy. Rather it's a case of "Um guys - my studies suggest that the pollutants in the atmosphere are nearly at levels where they could start changing the climate. If we don't change, we can expect climate changes in the future".
In other words, recent climate change need not have significant (or any) greenhouse causes and this is simply not relevant to whether we face a greenhouse warming problem or not.
By all means, keep a close eye on the climate, but it is insane to assume that if another contributor is currently affecting the climate, then greenhouse gases obviously can't. Quite the contrary - possible future greenhouse warming plus possible future say, solar warming, equals an even greater problem. (Not, as many would like us to unquestionably believe, a negation of the problem, or a disproving of greenhouse effects.
Of course, this asks the question: "If absence of solid evidence is not yet evidence of absence, and acting to contain a virtually-proven (but not quite) threat is expensive, how long should we continue to act in absence of further evidence?". Well, I guess that question became a whole lot less important today
The skin cancer story is often used by well-meaning environmentalists to scare people. In fact, the increase in ultraviolet radiation from moving a hundred miles closer to the equator is much greater than the maximum increase anticipated by the worst-case ozone depletion scenarios.
Look a bit closer at your "facts" and you'll find that they come from sources probably a lot like the UK study on the effects of the ozone problem on the UK population - which is fine and accurate if you live in the UK (which has no ozone problem and is on the other side of the world from the ozone problem), but quite false if, as you have done, you make blanket statements about what the effects of the ozone thinning are.
The real facts include the obvious, such as if you live in, say, the USA, the effects are quite different from when you live under the hole. I do not live in the USA, and I have lived under the hole, and I think your misinformation is as bad as that which you were trying to correct.
I agree with the rest of what you said though.
My chemistry teacher would have some kind of apoplectic fit looking at the way this article has been described.
The "Greenhouse Effect" is actually a good thing. If the greenhouse effect wasn't working, Earth would be exactly like Mars (the main reason Mars is so cold is the lack of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere).
What is a *bad* thing, is "Global Warming" - i.e. the unintentional heating of the earth by the release into the atmosphere of an *excess* of greenhouse gases.
If there wasn't any water vapour or CO2 (the biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect) in the atmosphere, the earth would probbaly be a sterile rock.
-- "If the truth can be told so as to be understood, it will be believed."
Acording to this homepage:
l wa rming.html
/. readers ofcourse, way to informed and well educated... oh, yes.
http://greenbureau.wcc.govt.nz/infosheets/globa
"In the past 40 years increased demand for the meat and dairy products has doubled the number of cows."
(I've no idea how valid that page is, it was just the first one I fund on google, but it seems to be from the govement of new zealand)
Other then that I've found it nearly impossible to discuss energy policy with Americans. They simply do not understand that it is possible to use less energy and think/worry about the future of the planet without being a commie bastard. Probably rooted in the sick relationship a lot of Americans has with the idea of Freedom.
This doesn't apply to the majority of
(I know this could be considered flamebait. Could be as much fun as that time when I said "guncontrol" in a newsgroup full of Heinlein fans).
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TC - My Photos..
... and this in itself seems to be pretty firm evidence for the greenhouse effect. :)
... and this in itself seems to be pretty firm evidence for the greenhouse effect. :)
The story of the Little Dryas (the 1000-year mini Ice Age just after the last major ice age, which is believed to have resulted from the massive influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic as Lake Agasiz drained down the St. Lawrence) is not completely resolved, but isotope ratios in sediment cores from South American bogs suggest strongly that the Little Dryas caused global cooling, not just cooling in Northern Europe.
What causes interhemispheric links is unknown, but powerful. After all, the Milankovich explanation for the ice ages would suggest that the ice age cycle for the Northern and Southern hemispheres should be exactly out of phase. Some poorly understood interhemispheric linkages are believed to be responsible for the fact that the Southern Hemisphere experiences warmings and coolings driven by radiative forcing of the Northern Hemisphere.
Thus, a Heinrich event in the North Atlantic, driven by greenhouse warming, could hypothetically cause a global mini-ice-age, but we don't know enough to say for sure.
What the writer of the top post on this thread misses completely is that none of this is certain and Wallace Broecker introduced the idea of an ice age hiding in the greenhouse (as he titled his 1995 address to the AAAS) to get climate scientists to be less smug about their ability to tell what would happen in a CO2-doubled world (i.e., things could either be much less severe or much more severe than current predictions imagine).
The crazy thing about many greenhouse skeptics is not their skepticism---too many mainstream climate scientists are far too smug about their models---but their assumption that the error bars only extend in one direction: that uncertainties in model predictions mean that outcomes will likely be less severe than predicted. Few skeptics follow Broecker in addressing the question of whether the current generation of models may be seriously underpredicting global climate change.
Cummon, we all know that the pacific ocean as a whole has been cooling over the last 15 years, especially cooler in the past 2 years. They were measuring as if the ocean temperature was constant, we all know that it was not. Not all of the changes in their readings would be due to changes in the atmosphere. This is fud.
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
While the greenhouse effect supposedly causes warming, that in turn increases water vapor in the atmosphere, which affects the formation of clouds, which can reflect the sun's energy back into space. The net effect could be cooling, but more research was needed, Harries said. "The effect of clouds on the planet is very complex, and frankly we don't understand it," Harries said.
So basically they're clueless. I feel much safer now.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
We're currently in the middle of an ice-age and the planet went for 15 million years without them at all. It seems as though the changes in temperature are largely effected by the angle of the earth to the sun and solar activity. There's still no firm evidence that climatic change has been caused by us and polution although we may have altered the rate of change slightly.
Still it's no excuse for us to be complacent - pollutants in the atmosphere and on the ground a re generally bad news for us all. One interesting point of note - research into greener forms of transport has been increaced recently not due to environmental concerns but because OPEC has the rest of the world (quite literally) over a barrel!
Iain
Better the pride that resides in a Citizen of the world, than the pride that divides when a colourful rag is unfurled
I wonder how future cloud build-up would affect the potential for solar power on Earth. We may be shooting ourselves in the foot twice: Our planet gets warmer (or cooler) than it should, and we lose some of the energy that could be used to power all our gadgets. Can anybody shed some light on this?
Just a thought.
We don't know exactly how that will affect our climate here on the earth, but is more and more atmospheric CO2 something we want? We are changing the atmospheric makeup. Is that a good thing? Do we want to take the chance that the increased CO2 does not significantly affect us or will we regret it?
While the Earth may be retaining more heat than before, it is also well established that the neutrino activity of the sun is considerably less than we would expect.
This suggests that the sun is getting colder. The increase in global temperatures may well be the Earth's way of combatting the coming Ice age.
The neutrinos are produced by the Sun's fusion process. Less neutrinos mean less fusion.
or should I say observation: Increased C02 increases plant growth. Because most of the world's land mass is in the Northern Hemisphere, there is an annual cycle in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. When plants die off in winter, C02 goes up; in summer, CO2 goes down. Some researchers claim to have observed a widening of this swing. The overall increase in CO2 from fossil fuel burning causes an overall increase in deciduous plant growth in the Northern Hemisphere in summer, followed by a larger die off and a more radical CO2 drop in winter. What does this mean for global warming? Umm..
Great news! Plus London would flood, forcing Government to move to Birmingham! All of my dreams come true!
When asked if the greenhouse theory was still a theory, Harries said, "It's a fact now. Get over it. You lost. We won."
New definition of 'zero emissions'
Referring the clouds... ahh aren't unpredictable chaos systems fun? I did one chapter of chaos in a differential class and suddenly realized that if tested, my brain could really really hurt.
There are ways to help lessen our effect on the world. But to the extremists, realize, everything has an effect on the planet! We can't remove it without killing ourselves, and then some other thing will change the environment somehow. Endless cycle. But yes, we are doing a lot of change very suddenly (suddenly by Earth standards). Solution? No solution, but lessening? Strict radical worldwide government regulation. Likely hood of acceptance, nil. It would cost too much up front (ie that transit system posted a few days ago).
It's kind of interesting how we bind outselves up with this thing called money. It controls what everyone does, and yet, it is simply a man made concept. At a risk of sounding red, real true communism (not Stalinism) would help to solve this sort of thing, BUT, human nature would not allow it to work, we all want to get a head of the next person. Unfortunately a corporate run world (if not totally, we're almost there) will not solve these problems unless they stand to make a quick buck.
Either we solve everything, or hope our population decreases to, oh 1 billion? Come one, remove the weak!! What, you mean I'm one of the weak? I changed my mind!
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
Maybe the emmissions can be descibed as world's smoking?
It took a looong time to prove that smoking is a hazard. It was hard because of the resistance from the tobaco companies. Smoking - Cancer
The same difficulty can be seen with oil companies and global warming...it's hard to prove because of the counter measures. Emmissions - Global warming.
Do you smoke?
AC is AC
Burn baby, BURN! Remember to use sunblock
AC is AC
At least according to some. Funny, this data is about an order of magnitude more complete than anything I've ever seen supporting the theory of global warming.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
If you want you can can relate them: both subjects are linked by the possibility of human behaviour being the major cause.
Yeah let's try to understand this before fighting
For now, let's just reduce pollutionI mixed things a bit. Skin cancer is not triggered by green house effects; just correlated with the ozone holes. Anyway, the rest of the post about awareness still applies...
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
What is it with Slashdotters that most of us know so much about computers, yet still do not read the docs at our disposal ? If you had read the second next post of the thread, you would have seen that I wrote a correction about 2.5 hours before you wrote this and you would have spared the 5 minutes of your time you spent writing about something that is already there...
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
I have no hope that there is going to be any action taken before half of the population is dying of skin cancer. The problem is that because the personal interest goes far before the general interest, things like environment are always coming last in the chain of decisions. And people who want to be elected have to show that they care about the issues that personally interest voters (otherwise they just don't get elected, see Nader). I think Bush did mention that he did not believe the green house effect was an issue and taking measures would increase the price of electricity. It is true that we would all be happy if the price of electricity is lower, but if this is at the cost of our future and our children's future, then this is really too expensive. But, I don't believe there is enough awareness for longer term decisions to be made. Anyway, we'll find a cure to skin cancer someday so who cares...?
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
Although most of your facts are right on, you make the mistake of equating Europe and North America with the entire world. In other places, the temperature would rise. This, in turn, alters weather patterns and rainfall, and we have a huge climactic upheaval. The real problem with global warming is not the warming itself, but the changes the warming causes to the global climate system.
All information in this post is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.
About cloud coverage
Cloud coverage cause 2 things:
1 less sun getting to the ground
2 more heat trapped under them
See the planet Venus for an example of heavy cloud coverage, the surface temp is hot enough to melt lead. It would be ½ that temperature if it was un covered. Then add the effect of the CO2 causing green house, add it up, you get hotter temperatures. Less sun does not = no sun. It will also be a pest for star gazing...
...We'd have even more things crashing into planets...
.kb
Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right-- But They Make Me Feel A Whole Lot Better
Jesus! Another anonymous troll. 'one issue' - surely we start by getting each and every 'one issue' correct, rather than pretending that it's OK to be wrong sometimes?
-------------- Russ
Conscience? Is that *still* in the dictionary?
Yesterday, President George W. Bush backed away from a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, saying mandatory controls would lead to higher electricity prices.
This man was elected as *president* of the USA? Exactly what criteria were applied to his worthiness?
This man is supposed to act for the good of the nation - either he is deliberately flouting this notion, is too stupid to realise that pollution is one of the greatest crises to face mankind, or he believes that price = cost (it does not).
God help us all, if the 'most advanced' nation on earth managed to elect this imbecile to wield more power than any man in history.
-------------- Russ
Conscience? Is that *still* in the dictionary?
Take that Bush!
Reproducing experiments is not possible with weather data spanning overe 30 years in the past, but still even using the same data you can have different models that match equaly good.
My Astronomy testbook ( Astronomy Chaisson McMillan 1998) states that this may be due to Neutrino osillation. Basically neutrino's change form on their 8 minute trip to earth. We are only cable of detecting 1 form at present, hence we only gdetect 30-50%. If there were only this small amount of neutrinos the Sun would be 1,500,000 Kelvins cooler than we thought. Not a terribly likely explanation.
While I would agree that we are polluting our environment, we have no real idea what effect this is having. The weather patterns may be part of a natural cycle, or we may be amplifying the effect, perhaps our contibutions are the straw that broke the cammel's back; who knows. The only effect we could reasonably attribute to the human species is ozone depletion, yet even the ozone layer is recovering at a surprising rate. Weather is a chaotic system - ie it is not random - which means it is "inherently" predictable, but the vast number of variables effecting the system cannot yet (propably never) be modelled. Yet we can see patterns in weather. The patterns we see are short term, who knows what patterns exist which play out and repeat over centuries, or millenia. Some, like ice-ages, we know of, but others we are no doubt unaware of. What is important, I think, is to minimise our impact because it is more efficient for us to do so. Using less of our resources is a better, more responsible way to behave, after all how can we expect emerging countries not to cut down rain forest if we burn fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow? Anyway, it si lunch time, so I'm gonna drive down to McDonalds and buy me a burger ;->
What'cho talkin' about, fool? We have special visors that let us see neutrino streams - from the side, even. I saw them on TV, so it must be true.
Oh... wait... that might have been Star Trek...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
By the same logic why not sell liscenses to sell drugs, steal, rape murder or molest children?
....
That will enable us to afford better equipped policeforces to fight these crimes while reducing the overall frequency of such crimes being committed
Or will it?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Post #352 raises a good question. How does this reduce emissions. The fact is that it is not the Banana republics fo S-America or the Coco-bean states of Africa that account for 80% of the harmful emmissions. It is N-Amerca, Russia, China, and Europe. Of these parties only the Chinese are really beginning to wake up to the reality of pollution management and the Europeans (the EU to be precise not all Europeans by a long shot) are sticking to the pollution reduction accords made and signed but not ratified by most countries at envirometal conferences in Rio and Kyoto.
This whole Quota system is a strange scheme designed to convince people that they reduce a problem can profiting from doing it without actually doing anything other than trading papers for money. It cleverly disguises the fact that it will not reduce over all pollution levels. Which is really what it all boils down to.
How about this? The US.Govt sells drug smuggling liscenses that can be traded freely on the stockmarket. This will have the dual effect of reducing the over all drugconsumption in the US and it will enable us to fight drugsmuggling more effectively.
See the logic? It makes sense don't it? Kind of like a "Thigh Master" exercise device. You can loose all your ugly fat by exercising 20 minutes every day, never breaking a sweat while you do it and without cutting down on your consumtion of: Greasy burgers, pizzas, cream cakes, Coca Cola, Icecream......
I think the US Marines sum it up best;
No pain, no gain!
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
What the writer of the top post on this thread misses completely is that none of this is certain..
:)
;)
Hehe.. That is precisely why we are all having this argument
Nothing on this subject can ever be certain, the timescale is too large. We can only put our stock in the explanation that agrees best with the most reliable data we have. And at the moment that is Milankovich or a variant there of. Which is why this debate will go on and on and on and on and on....
Until we are all sitting in a circle around a fire in an iglu on top of a 2km icecap, still arguing... or will it be a straw hut in the crocodile infested N-Norvegian Everglades?
cheers
Da Rabbit!
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
How? Well the increased heating causes melting of the polar caps and increased rain fall, partickularly in the critical area of the Atlantic south of Iceland where the Gulf current heavy with warm salty water sinks to form a current that flows along the ocean floor into the Indian ocean where the current rises to the surface again. This system is called the "Great Conveyor" due to its similarity to a conveyor belt in a factory.
So why should we care about increased rainfall in the ocean around Iceland and holes melting into the N-polar ice cap.?
The reason we should care is that if the salty water in this area is dilluted the "Great Conveyor" will be cut. This means that the critical area where the Gulf current sinks moves south or the conveyor is cut alltogether.
What is the result of this development?
The Gulf current and its warm water is what makes large tracts of Europe and N-America habitable. So if the gulf current moves south we get a nasty cold period, a mini Ice age. If the Conveyor is cut we get a full blown ice age.
Contrary to popular opinion climatic changes do not happen sloooooowly they happen fast. We could see a the climate in say S-England change from what it is now to a type of climate that is common in N-Norway today within a human life time. This exact thing has happened before, the last time it happened was about 10.500 years ago when climatic conditions in S-England changed within 50-60 years to sub arctic conditions and remained htat way for over a thousand years.
Popular myths:
Climate changes happen slowly over hundreds of years! Wrong it changes fast and the changes are ill-predicteble.
The Global warming will cancel out the ice age! Wrong it causes the ice age.
I live far from the ocean and way south I should not worry! Wrong you should. All human kind should worry. A drop in temerature will cuse massive political an social upheval, crop faliures, famine and war.
The pollution quota system proposed by the US will help with the climate problem! Wrong selling liscences to pollute and produce greenhouse gasses won't help. Only an over all reduction of greenhouse gasses will help. Nature does not care about Pollurtion liscenses any more than God respects absoulution certificates signed by the pope, you'll go to hell anyway! ;)
So either we stuff a sock in the business lobbys mouth and make some relatively elementary changes to make energy consumption more efficient and industury and society more enviromentally friendly. Or we might be in for a long period of living in iglu's. And since I have been in an iglu I can tell you that you'll prefer to spend your lives in your cozy apartments.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The stock market is going down (and fast!). Eric Lindros hasn't played since it started going down. We should FORCE Lindros to play hockey, as he is obviously the cause of our market woes.
Oil prices are going up. Dot-com investment is going down. In order to return oil prices to a more affordable level, we should all immediately invest lots of money into Dot-coms.
Crime is going up. So is internet usage. In order to combat crime, we should immediately discontinue the internet.
All of my conclusions are just as rational as yours. Cause and effect does not just happen because we would like it to. Two events can have exactly ZERO correlation, and still happen simultaneously.
Yes, pollution sucks, but unless someone is ready to ban automobiles and a good chunk of our manufacturing industry, or we are all ready to accept a much lower standard of living, or we kill off 95% of the population... not much is going to change just because 'the Earth is a bit warmer'.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
As I understand it, they can't even measure the neutrino output accurately yet. The current theory is that their measurements are not accurate.
Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?
I agree. I have read of some geologists who have studied polar ice caps to depths which were around at the begigning of the last ice age. They believe that the current climate changes are just the beginging of the next ice age, which by the way is well overdue. Believe the global warming phenomenon or not, there is not enough hard scientific evidence either way.
*clap* *clap* *clap*
Thank you.
I don't care what someones "political affiliation is" anymore. It's more of a fashion statement for people now than a thought out decision.
***I heard some news thing on channel X (owned by corporation X) and I'm all pissed off cause they say Corporation Y and govt. official Y are causing children to die, think of the children! lets go protest! (runs out and protests and posts on slashdot). Hrmmmm... sounds typical to me. How about bothering to check first.
Thank you for your sensible and well thought out post, I wish mine was as good.
-- there is no point in pulling the pud... if you do it right.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the amount of re-radiation shown in the study is the result of variations in solar radiation? In 1992, we went through a "Solar Max" (remember when Space Shuttle Challenger's crew replaced batteries on the Solar Max satellite?). We are now entering into a period of decreased solar input with the next peak expected in about 720 years. ---
Tomorrow is Open.
True, however I give it a little more credibility than the Junk Science page that the anonymous coward linked to. That page reminded me of the ill-informed primary-school science that the creationists spout claiming to be scientists on the basis of a BSc in engineering.
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
Thanks, I will have another look. I'm kinda post-skeptic these days though. Must be getting old;-(
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
Nature is the most respected peer-reviewed scientific journal in the world. And you are???
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
I'm sure that this global warming is bad and all, but what effect does it have on those of us who spend all of our time in front of our computers with the A/C cranked? They can take my guns, but they'll never take my freon!!!
If any of this appears incoherent, assume that the writer was drunk.