Slashdot Mirror
Global Warming - From Inside the Globe
Bill Kendrick writes "The National Post reports that a team of American and Canadian researchers has found evidence of real global warming: the temperature of the Earth's crust is increasing at a remarkable rate. What's really interesting is that heat absorbed by rocks slowly permeates into the earth. By boring holes in the ground, they can tell how hot the earth was years ago, in a 'reading tree rings' fashion."
Dr. Beltrami and his colleagues from the University of Michigan found that more than half of the land's heat gain over the past 500 years came during the 20th century, and 30% since 1950.
So, they believe the rate of warming for 1951-2000 was less than half what is was for 1901-1950. I don't have much basis for an opinion on the meaningfulness of these researchers' results, but I would sure like to know how they explain this apparently levelling off.
"We are not going to destroy the planet by global warming. The earth has endured a great deal of meteorological change and life goes on. "
A little George Carlin quote seemed appropriate here:
"...there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the
planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference.
The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been
here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the
arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've
been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've
only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years.
Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT
to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in
jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin'
around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of
things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics,
continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic
reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by
comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide
fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic
bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The
planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't
leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little
styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be
long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological
mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad
case of fleas. A surface nuisance."
Ok, but a model has to work in all cases to be valid. As you can see they were pretty excited because in this one particular case they got it right. I.e., they were surprised because most of the time their models don't work.
The question is whether that model worked for climate change before and after that 2-year period that it supposedly got it right.
If I flip a coin enough times I'll eventually predict global climate change, too.
In any case, whether or not, they can model the Earth as a whole, I don't see how anyone can deny that they have the ability to model the effects of each factor individually, and those models should lead you to the same conclusions.
That's not true, either. They might be able to approximate affects of some factors, but until they can approximate everything that plays a factor then it is truly impossible to say how much a given factor will affect the whole.
I'm not saying they should stop trying to model. Just that right now the models don't tell us anything and they need to keep working on it.
Get over yourself. There isn't any shortage of ideological blindness on "your side" of this issue either.
Ah, but I don't personally benefit from global warming being true. Actually, I suffer from it. I would LOVE global warming to be a myth; I live in a coastal city, and don't really WANT it to be under water in a few decades.
And I didn't have an opinion one way or the other until I went to college and started taking courses in climatology/metereology. Despite the right-wing FUD, climate is monitored very closely, and there is ample evidence that many climatic factors have anthropogenic sources.