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Ward Hunt Ice Shelf Breaks In Two
heidi writes "CNN has this story on the breakup of the largest ice cap. A permanent feature for the previous 3,000 years, it has broken into two pieces. "The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.""
Giant Arctic ice shelf breaks up
;)
In a statement, the Giant Arctic ice shelf hoped they would be able to remain friends despite the breakup.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
That'd make ALOT of slushies!
Thank you, come again... and again... and again, for the love of god, we're swimming in slushie, COME AGAIN!
Banaaaana!
And HL2 was due out in a week.
SHIT!
But I was thirsty, and I needed ice for Coke.
It's all a ploy by Microsoft in their new "kill the penguin" buisness strategy.
----
Squirrel
so why should we believe that this ice shelf actually broke, or even existed to begin with? because some environmentalists say so? call me a skeptic but i'll believe this when i hear it in church
Anyway, oil will run out. Then you'll WISH we had global warming.
It is probably a good time to post this:
Bush covers up climate research (again)
I wonder what, if any, effect the draining of the fresh water lake into the sea will have on "the global conveyer. There was some speculation that the melting ice caps will release so much fresh water into the system the salinity and temperature difference that dries this engine will break down, and the CO2 that it deposits in the deep water will also stop. Is anyone an oceanologist?
But as we can see.. the world is getting warmer.
Global warming is a natural occurance, however it IS being accelerated by high levels of industry.
Something to think about as we sit in our 18degC constantly cooled server rooms.
Yea, we melted the ice in a short period of time at the end of the last ice age, and killed off all the dinosaurs.. and now we're breaking the ice again!
But you can just post the link without any description at all, if any elaboration is going to be lifted verbatim from the article.
How much more serious of an issue would this have been if a shelf of the same size broke off in Antarctica (where the ice is anchored to land) than in the Arctic (where it was floating before and thus won't raise sea levels)?
I've been on large, frozen lakes before ice-fishing when they split. I forget the technical term, but basically a huge, long crack appears out of nowhere with a horrifying sound. (Devils Lake, ND is the second largest closed basin lake in North America, after the Great Salt Lake. When Devils Lake splits you don't want to be near it. I was on it when it happened a few years ago, and I damn near literally shit my pants.)
I can't even imagine the terror of an entire ice shelf splitting. The reuters article doesn't mention if this was a slow or fast occurance.
Even scarier, we're several thousand years past due on the next ice age. This "global warming" thing could actually be the precursor to the beginning of the next, depending on which cadre of scientists you believe.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Well, one would tend to conclude that melting ice would be caused by rising temperatures... The issue, of course, is how responsible we are for it and how much is just due to natural climate change.
The October 2003 Scientific American has a feature article on all the warming problems the Arctic has been undergoing. This is just one more in the pile...
According to the article, scientists are witholding judgement over whether this is a symptom of global warming: the arctic is such a complex place with so many feedback and self-regulating systems that the case simply isn't clear yet.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The ice is already in the water (ocean), so melting it is not going to increase the sea levels. Remember, water expands when it freezes and it goes back down when you melt it. If you don't believe me, fill a glass full of water and put it in the freezer.
:)
As the earth is still coming out of its last ice age, we shouldn't be too concerned about global warming. What we should be concerned about is desertification due to the lack of vegitation and depletion of the Ozone. Given the natural course of things, the earth will make big dinosaurs, not silly monkeys who play on computers and bitch at eachother.
Anyone else up for a nice honda civic hybrid yet?
--------
Free your mind.
I'd buy a beachfront property on Ellesmere Island while it's cheap, and start building a tropical resort there.
On the geological timescale, 3000 years of solid Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is really just a little blip. For all the worries about human greenhouse gases, we should probably also take a serious look at natural cycles. Only 12,000 years ago, you could walk out to the Farallon Islands outside SF.
Well the news report I saw said it was thought to be due to continually rising tempuratures in the region over the years. So, it was at least local warming that may have been a factor. Wether or not it's been getting warming due to our (the industrialized world) actions... who knows?
Had we been living 50,000 years ago, I wonder if we would have blamed the melting of the Bering Strait ice bridge on global warming.
Is there a paved road to there? I will drive my SUV to take a look. Hope they
have diet refreshements.
Humanity's going to have to wake up to the reality of global warming sometime (assuming we don't nuke ourselves first.) Now would be a good time.
There are other kinds of nerds besides computer nerds. :-)
The fabled Northwest Passage is at hand, reducing voyages from Europe to Asia by 5000 miles.
It's been sought by adventurers and explorers for hundreds of years, and only now is the northern boundary of the American continent becoming free of ice to allow passage. No longer will the Panama Canal or Cape Horn be the only routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Not all changes are bad. Sometimes the world actually changes for the better, contrary as this is to the worldview with which we have been indoctrinated.
Nerds are good people. We really do care about nature, even though we only see it via opengl.
No, I'm sorry, but you're an idiot. That question most certainly does not have to be asked. Had you just kept your hole shut, it wouldn't have been asked and you wouldn't have been shown to be such a jackass.
maybe it's causal ambiguity hell that is melting the ice?
According to the article, Derek Mueller of Laval University said "It is difficult to tease out what is due to global warming and what is due to regional warming." He didn't call global warming a "myth." He accepted global warming as fact and only said that there was impossible to say whether it, or regional warming, was the cause of this particular event.
Here's an excerpt from the EPA's web site:If the EPA web site under Bush/Cheney (who are pawns of the oil industry) acknowledges global warming as fact, that should give you head-in-the-sand types a clue. Wouldn't it be terrible if we reduced pollution and it didn't fix global warming? Oh the horror!
Might not be something a lot of people think about, but what forms of life were living in that freshwater lake, and after 3k years how many of them survived the sudden shift to saltwater from the lake pouring into the ocean?
-- vranash
May 10, 2002
s atellite/ )
(Copied from http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/05/09/iceberg.
(CNN) -- Satellite images from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have detected another in an increasing series of massive icebergs which has broken off the frozen continent of Antarctica.
The new iceberg measures roughly 47 miles by 4.6 miles (76 km by 7 km), or almost ten times the area of Manhattan.
In recent years, the escalating number of massive icebergs breaking free from the continent has raised concerns that temperatures are steadily warming in the Antarctic region.
Such a trend, which many scientists suspect is an early sign of global warming, could have implications for climate changes over much of the planet's surface. Also, many in the shipping industry consider the development a navigation hazard as icebergs drift northward and break up.
NOAA monitoring of satellite images from the U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program detected the new berg this week on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, a expansive ice area extending out from the continent in the portion of Antarctica closest to New Zealand.
The National Ice Center, a Navy, NOAA and Coast Guard inter-agency, tracks the locations of the icebergs, and in recent years has spotted some within 1,000 miles of Capetown, South Africa and Christchurch, New Zealand.
Icebergs can take years or longer to drift into open water, a National Ice Center spokesman said. Some bergs remain grounded near the Antarctic coast for decades. Right now C-18 remains close to the shelf and does not pose a risk to navigation.
Thank Google for Goo..er..
On the geological timescale, 3000 years of solid Ward Hunt Ice Shelf is really just a little blip.
Yeah, and the rocks really don't care if they're above or below water.
I, on the other hand...
Right. The only thing SUVs contribute to is fossil fuel depletion and ego-inflation.
Good, clean, physical science. Like before there were computers, ya know? What REAL nerds used to study.
As the environment warms (be it from us or from nature), ocean water warms up on the surface.
... global warming may in fact lead to a few hundred years of arctic weather.
As the warm water of the atlantic follows the Gulf Stream northward along north america, and then towards europe, it cools and sinks, then following other currents southward. This heat transfer cycle is why Europe is not a lot colder than it is.
If the surface water heats up enough, it won't be able to cool off enough to sink when it gets to europe, the water underneath being cooler, the warm water will stay at the top.... shutting down the Gulf stream and cutting off the the flow of heat giving water to Europe. (The warm water moderates the weather helping to warm Europe).
With the Gulf Stream shut down, Europe will freeze until such time that the cycle is able to spontaneously start up again. The effects would be felt around the world.
Has this happened before? - in the mid 1600's. lasting for around 100 years (or 300 years depending on where you choose to pick the start and finish), the 'little ice age' gripped europe, eradicated viking settlements in Greenland and North America (before columbus). Inuit people kayaked as far south as Scotland. And people couldnt grow the food they needed to live. As late as the late 1700's, New York harbour froze solid in winter.
Fluctuations in solar output compounded with volcanic ash in the atmosphere may have been the cause of the little ice age, but the effect of a gulf stream shutting down may be the same
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
A)Comparing audio codecs
B)Mini Motherboard comes out
C)"Fulfilling the Promise of XML-based Office Suites?"
D)Arctic Shelf breaks in half
Well, there goes my slow news day...all that other stuff and bam! Headline in the Times tomorrow?
EXTRA! EXTRA! Part of World Snaps Off!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
This is not a good development for the ecosystem of our planet.
First, I must mention that those who rush to blame anything and everything on climate change are just as irrational and stupid and those who rush to the assumption that climate change has nothing to do with anything. Both assumptions are erronous, unlearned, and emotionally modivated.
What we need to do hear folks is educate ourselves. As one who has done a fair amount of reading on the subject, I can assure you that although the world isn't going to end tomorrow, the effects of climate change (and man's contibution to climate change) are well worth taking seriously. Instead of blowing it all off as has been done with this subject on this forum in the past, I think we all need to grow up and at least seriously consider the very real possibility that this is in fact a very real problem and that perhaps we should rethink our dependence on fossil fuel and the rest. Because let me tell you folks, if it's half as bad as many scientists predict it is, we'd better get moving on this right now!
So please put aside your impulsive reactions for a bit and go out and learn more about this subject. It's important enough to offer it the benefit of the doubt.
their plan has hit a snag; this ice shelf was in the arctic -- penguins live in the antarctic.
Poetic justice dispensed, once again, due to the evil empire running their own software.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
would no doubt be the perfect tool to solve this conundrum.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
...As you fish.
Who keeps modding this funny? It was a noble effort, and I'm sure ShadowBlasko is a good person, but it's still a terrible pun.
duh!
If you RTFA, you'll see them discussing that they don't know whether this is global warming or just regional warming.
Not mentioned in the article, but relevant, is that in some parts of the Canadian Arctic, I think including this area, the local Inuit had stopped making kayaks for some centuries, and had to relearn in the mid-1800s when the weather got enough warmer that kayaks were useful again. Don't know if that's global warming or just regional either.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The last few years have had a number of events of major Antarctic ice shelves also breaking up. And things have been happening like open water at the North Pole rather than the usual icecap up there.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If the EPA web site under Bush/Cheney (who are pawns of the oil industry) acknowledges global warming as fact, that should give you head-in-the-sand types a clue.
Awww... fuck... I though Bush/Cheney were pawns of the local Quickie-Mart. Just when I thought I could explain all the H1B visa holders 'round here.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
As the earth is still coming out of its last ice age, we shouldn't be too concerned about global warming.
Actually, according to theory, we should have already come out of the last ice age. Ice ages occur every 20,000 years and the last one occured more than 10,000 years ago. In fact this is one of the biggest arguments climate scientists give as proof of global warming. According to them, we should have reached the peak of the temperature curve and now should be on the downward slope, but temperature keeps rising each year, which means that something is changing the natural balance.
What's under yellowstone?
It has not been proven that global warming has been mostly caused by CO2/other greenhouse gasses.
take this, for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1045327.stm
You see? Science isn't about who has the most politically correct theory.
(disclaimer: I'm not saying that article proves global warming to be beyond our control, but it does provide strong evidence.)
With a headline like "Giant Arctic ice shelf breaks up," I sure wish they had some more compelling photographs to show us. That one little picture sure looks like a stock photo of ice to me. Just what does this broken ice shelf look like?
.... I have decided that I will be shifting myself from AMD processor to Pentium immediately and then later on to Transmeta processor in my effort to avoid Global Warming... pwhew!!.... Grrrrrrrr..... how am I going to heat my room without the AMD 2.0GHZ processor... so much for the global goodwill...
Food for thought related to this. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ climatechange_wef.html
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Whilst some alarmist types are apt to jump up and down and say, "See! Look what global warming is doing," I think events like this need to be considered carefully before making drastic predictions. Is the melting of the ice shelfs in the north due to long term climate change, or due to short term factors? If it's long term climate change, there's no reason to fear or try to prevent it--if it hadn't started in the first place, most of North America would still have Mastadons roaming the plains.
"ozone layer is much healthier than in previous years"
In fact the WMO has realeased findings that say the ozone layer hole above the antartic has this year already reached the record size of 2000.
"The 2003 ozone hole remains similar to that observed in 2000, although more circular and
apparently more stable. The size of the ozone hole has increased from the 25 M km2 reported two weeks ago to
28 M km2, matching the record size observed during mid-September 2000. This is larger than the combined
areas of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and contrasts the exceptionally small ozone hole last year that
split in two during late September. In recent years, the ozone hole has usually attained its maximum size
during mid-September. However, it is too early to predict with certainty whether the area has peaked this year." - From WMO report 18 Sep 2003.
Yeah, who knows, the medical industry could lose money from less asthma and lung cancer cases if we reduce pollution, and everyone knows that's a bad thing, right?
#define DRM chmod 000
I am not saying there won't be ramifications. What used to be useless frigid land may well become good farm land. What used to be good farm land could well become desert. So, Russian Siberia, Norway, Sweden, etc. may well come online as their land becomes warmer, hence better suited for farming. Maybe the midwest US may become as the Sahara. Who knows? What may cook one's goose may keep another warm.
But the ramifications for humanity as a whole? My jury is still out.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Obviously this is hyped by chauvenistic white male scientists who fear change and want us all to fear their demise with them. Let us not fall for this neophobic paranoia born of closeted homosexuals in denial about their desire to be bare-back raped by HIV-infected ethnic gangs while undergoing a much needed rehabilitation for their racist and sexist sins.
Seastead this.
Has anyone found a before/after map of what happened to the shelf? That "90% of the shelf is gone" doesn't mean much without a sense of how big it was to begin with...
see subject -
help out.
To do list:
Buy Milk.
Call Dentist.
Sell all Florida real estate.
Pick kids up after soccer.
Mow lawn.
My
I'm giving up on debating global warming on Slashdot, it seems just about everyone is convinced its bunk. With the weather getting more and more extreme, could you at least understand why we are worried?
Well, I just wanted to make everyone aware of the new distributed project - www.climateprediction.net.
Whether you agree with the theory of human caused global warming or not, with this you can help getting the world scientific community more accurate climate models.
Unfortunately only a Windows client available at the moment, but a Linux one is in development. Personally I think this project and the
Folding at Home distributed project are much more deserving of peoples' clock cycles than Seti or distributed.net.
Cheers,
Lars
MEDIA KIT: Debunking Pseudo-Scholarship: Things a journalist should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
If it's long term climate change, there's no reason to fear or try to prevent it
Why not?
If the planet is naturally globally warming to the detrement of humans, why shouldn't we try to stop it? (Or at least stop any accelerating affect we might be having?) I say forget the "it's a natural process" argument; I'm greedy, and a want a world hospitable to me.
IANAO but from my understanding this is exactly the kind of thing that will break down the global conveyer.
Prepare for life on this planet to change forever
It may not be too late to Give Florida Back to Spain.
I think we may still have the Receipt around here somehwhere...
On the other hand, at an average height of just 4 feet above sea level, this may be Governor Jeb's covert attempt at "wetlands" reclamation.
My
".., we did not cause the ice age, we did not cause the previous warm age..."
I do not necessarily disagree with this but try some thermodynamics on this on:
Over 10's/100's of million of years carbon products (oil, coal, naturalk gas) formed from captured dead plant (sunlight) is impounded. Then released over 100-200 years. Why wouldn't the planet get warmer? By how much - this should be calculable.
Yes it radiates back to space, but there are limits on how fast a system (Earth-Space interface) can do this.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Soooo...do you suggest we all sit around saying that is hasn't been proven until it is too late to do anything about it? As in "I'm not 100% sure that car is going to hit me, so why move?"
The Tuvalu .tv TLD registrar appears on f**kedcompany.com shortly thereafter.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
Would that be scarier or less scary than the giant asteroid due to hit us in space year whatever, or the many other apocalypses predicted and given space on Slashdot?
the increased prevalance of a meat-based western diet is leading to increased levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1972621.stm
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ climatechange_wef.html
It has not been proven that global warming has been mostly caused by CO2/other greenhouse gasses.
So what? I don't care how we got where we are. The question is whether we are going to push ourselves over the cliff with continued pollution. Heat stroke might be caused primarily by the sun, but I'm not going to be found dead at the equator with a winter parka on.
Let's look at the two options:
1. We can do nothing about pollution.
2. We can regulate pollution.
If we take the first approach and discover 30 years hence that pollution does cause global warming, we could find ourselves headed for an unavoidable climactic disaster.
If we take the second approach and find out that it has had no significant effect on global warming, the result will be cleaner air, fewer people with asthma, less acid rain, less soot on homes, cars, and offices, and, maybe, a tiny increase in the cost of living to pay for pollution controls. My guess is that the increased costs will be more than compensated for by lower medical costs.
You see?
Don't talk down to me. You haven't earned that right.
Science isn't about who has the most politically correct theory.
Nor is science about coming up with a theory that best helps your political allies in the oil industry.
(disclaimer: I'm not saying that article proves global warming to be beyond our control, but it does provide strong evidence.)
No, it does not. It provides strong evidence that we don't have total control. As the author of the study said, "I suspect that the greenhouse lobby have under-estimated the role of solar variability in climate change. However I am not in favour of polluting the atmosphere, for whatever reason."
It was the xenobaths wot did it.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Soooo...do you suggest we all sit around saying that is hasn't been proven until it is too late to do anything about it? As in "I'm not 100% sure that car is going to hit me, so why move?"
Thank you! I just don't believe that it would be a disaster if we reduced pollution -- even if it was not the cause of global warming. I don't know about you, but I'm not a big pollution fan in general.
This frog is boiling.
For problems, seek only the simplest solution, complexity brings with it more problems.
Listing off the possibilities doesn't change the fact that the only one we humans have any real control over are your first two points: greenhouse gasses and energy waste.
Even if we were to immediately cut the greenhouse emissions to 25% of their current level, it would take years, possibly decades to repair the damage done. If we wait for "proof" that it's the greenhouse gasses and energy waste causing the problem, we're quite likely to find the changes happening too late to make a difference.
Crops in the north american midwest (US and Canada) have been damaged by more years of near drought than there have ever been before. Sloughs and low spots that were always wet for the first 25 years of my life are now dry and dusty by mid-June.
For crying out loud, even Florida has drought conditions the past couple of years, and it used to rain 4-5 days a week when I lived there a few years ago!
If it isn't too late to make changes, it's getting damned close. I find it absolutely incredible that we allow the oil companies to continue to push fossil fuels, and that the US government is seriously considering selling out the Alaskan wilds to be damaged by those same oil companies.
It is equally mind-boggling that there are still so many coal fired power plants scattered around the continent. Even worse is that the pollution "points" which were to encourage the energy companies to reduce emissions are simply traded between corps, and that little to nothing has been done by some of the worst offenders.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Good god. This was modded up. Okay here is another experiment for you. Place an object in water and see how much it displaces... this is called the VOLUME. 1/8th of an Iceberg or Pack-Ice shelf is ABOVE water and therefore NOT displacing anything but air. If water expands by less than 1/8th of its volume on freezing then freezing will result in an increase in the water level. Added to this the fact that an increase in temp will also expand a liquid, and that a fraction of a % on an ocean is a bloody big number.
Oh hang on, that first bit was irony as then you talk about two of the causes, as agreed by pretty much every scientist outside of the US Goverment, of global warming. Ozone depletion and the destruction of the earth's lungs.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Water is most unique among most liquids as when it freezes into ice, it gets physical larger and less dence per volume unlike most liquids that this effect is reverse. You can observe this process your self by putting water in any sorta vessle and place it in the freezer. I would reccomend something plastic, you'll note the fact that if you fill something to the brim it spews out out, expands, and sometimes breaks the bottle.
Righto, because when what becomes less dence when frozen, it floats. I can see this in my ice tea, my ice is floating just like you can actually see the arctic ice sheet. You wouldn't very well notice it if it wasn't less dence then water and floating would you. Now I'll agree for the most part that Arctic ice is mostly under water, but there is a good segment that peeks above water as well. Actual volumes I don't happen to have access to, but needless to say there would likely be an effect on global sea level as a direct result of this ice sheet who you can see above sea level.
More or less then the Antarctic ice sheet... it's difficult for me to say. Off hand i'd be agree with you just because I don't have any evidence such as how much ice there is in Antartica, nor am I aware how much of Antartica is actually presently above current sea level. For all I know, the Antartic could very well be mostly below current sea levels.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
It is beyond out control anyway, because of political inertia.
I stole this
Hrm.. I wonder if my house on top of a hill will become a beachfront property?
Fact: We know what increasing CO2 does in an atmosphere.
Fact: We see the result of smaller experiments corresponding with the early stages of what has been happening over the last 50 years or so.
Heat input varies over time (mostly due to the sun) however we have been measuring the Sun quite well over the last hundred years.
Runaway greenhouse effect is the name. If we persist, we may discover what it is like to live on Venus, but without leaving earth.
See my journal, I write things there
No need to panic, there is no global warming greenhouse effect, as these new satellite pictures of earth show..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
We still don't know all of the sources of CO2 on this planet. Everything these scientists believe they have all climate affecting variables nailed down another pops up.
Just recently they found that the AMAZON RIVER dumps more CO2 into the air than all the surrounding region. Go figure.
In our egotistical view we give ourselves too much credit over the influence of the weather. Sorry, but we ain't that "good" yet.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
to the Good Earth that has sustained us.
To use a bad pun this is just the tip of the
iceberg for the environmental crises to come.
Or we could just cop an attitude of denial and
blase rationalization.
Oh wait....
Everything comes at a cost. If the northwest passage is opened, it means that other cities located at sea-level are facing increasing problems with the higher sea level.
The artic, however inhospitable it might seem, is the home for countless creatures.
If you don't live there does not mean you have a right to destroy it.
And the only fucking people who will benefit from this is the shipping industry who ship oil tankers or so.
We have become so shallow, haven't we?
You fucking think like that short term investor who pumps and dumps in the stock market.
What happens later is none of your fucking business because 50-70 years later you obviously won't be alive to see the consequences. Right?
Maybe you should get yourself sterlized so that it evens things out.
Fair solution.
Scientists don't indoctrinate. They present facts. If you prefer to listen and agree to the illiterate and the greedy, that's "your" problem.
We are releasing millions of years of stored CO2 in timeframe of less than 250 years.
Wake up to the facts, not fiction.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
Actually, I somewhat regret the whole thing.
.. 5 stories.
I have not really ever desired the first post.
However, because I had already *read* the article on CNN, I decided that the blank canvas was just too tempting. I *had* to post something.
The reason I felt I *had* to post something was clear. I read at -1. I suppose I sometimes enjoy the flame wars and trolls and the gritty life that is reading at -1. Hell, maybe I am just a masochist. Who knows?
The one thing, however, that truly annoys me about reading at -1 are the first post (or attempt) at first post trolls.
Oh, to be sure, I was actually impressed with the amazing string of first posts that the GNAA had managed to attain. But the "watching a train wreck" curiosity of those postings wore off in about, oh
So, (and maybe it was the wine) I felt this sudden rush of anticipation, a feeling that I might not only obtain my first ever first post, but that in getting first post, I would be preventing some idiot troll from getting it, and for at least one story, life would be a little brighter. (for me at least)
It is a shame that this is not only a *not funny* topic, but one I feel pretty deeply about as well. Thus being part of the reason I regret doing it, as my posting certainly does not convey a sense of groking the issue, or anything meaningful or insightful.
I knew I would not have time to come up with something insightful, topical, or even vaguely interesting, so... I just posted the first funny thing I thought when I read the headline. I previewed, and then hit submit. (obviously)
And there it was, in all its lame-assed not even funny enough for Leno or SNL glory. My first first post.
(not that it really means anything, nor have I any desire to do it again, but it is neat I suppose to have done it once.)
So, here I am. Dealing with a mixture of geekdom pride that I pulled off a first post that was not immediately modded into the depths of hell, and a sensation of utter shame in the fact that I will always have to remember that the time I actually achieved a first post, and kept some troll from doing it, I could not think of anything *better* to say than what you see above.
I wonder what my shrink would say about all this.
(Anyway, if you actually read all this, I'm sorry for all the rambling and the poor punctuation. I blame the whole incident on the fact that I was drinking, something I do not do often, but I had a really bad day at work, and what the hell, it's a holiday for me!)
Happy Equinox!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
It was just past its shelf life
Desi Noise, Live!
www.oneworld.net/penguin/pollution/arctic.gif :o)
It's actually kind of sad, being that as the Earth warms up, (if indeed it continues) our children, grandchildren, and so on might only be able to see icecaps, icebergs, etc. in their imaginations or in pictures. It kind of makes me want to go visit some of those places before they are gone.. Of course, we probably have another 400 years before there is nothing else to see, but hey... That viewpoint of "you don't know what you've got until it's gone" has creeped up for me.
Indiana Jones
Arctic ice shelf splits
There may be a bit of truth in the greenhouse gas theory, but it's tenuous at best, and at worst its more foaming by the ideologically driven UNEP.
You should be ashamed for publishing a link to that group.
All those cows around the world and all being flatulent - everyone knows that methane is a much better greenhouse gas than CO2!
Cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
They'll able to get their eyefull when tourism opens up on Europa, or even on those wonderful honeymoon cruises to Pluto / Charon. Lots of ice there ! Not to mention exotic icebergs on the "gas" giants.
And, no, it's not true that the vital human economic activity in those regions will bring about hothouse effects. They are just temporary trends, and will pass. What's more, they're local effects, not solsystemical. So stop worrying !
"my hasn't it been hot lately"
No, its been a very cool summer. There were many theories about global cooling 2 decades ago, and I think they may be right.
In an infinite universe, anything that can happen, not only will happen but will happen an infinite amount of times. Or so Paul Davis would have us believe ;-)
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
"but I do have a PhD in modelling glacial systems during the last Ice Age"
Translation: I live in a 1 room apartment, have no car, and while I have dated, I rarely get laid because chicks don't dig poor skinny phd's.
I feel your pain.
I, for one, welcome our new Arctic ice shelf Overlords!
"I'm more worried about the vast amounts of fresh water dumped into the arctic"
I worry about my kids not getting hit by a drunk driver waiting for the bus, I worry about my company going out of business and putting me out of a job. I worry that advancing age will kill me and leave my children without support. I worry tht they'll raise taxes and it will cause another problem in our budget.
You worry about pretty odd stuff.
Now my understanding of this planet is limited to watching a goodly bit of Nova/TLC/some collage geology but what has always struck me is the fact that this planet is not a static thing.
It's changing and has been changing for millions of years now. Hell, the core is not even cooled! And yet whenever we find something that has changed or, more likely, figure out that something is changing everyone freaks out.
And part of that is understandable, we are at a point in time in our personal history (Which everyone should keep in mind is oh so very short.) that we have everything the way we kind of want it. (In a geological sence and mostly because we just happened to adapt during this current timeframe.) So change is a bad thing(tm). But really, while we have contributed to some of the obvious change and will continue to do so we must understand that even without any of our "help" that this plant will change.
At best right now I think that all that really should be happening is a constant re-evaulation of what we call the "earth" based on what our current knowladge is. To say anything more than that is imo pure speculation because this ball of water and rock has been doing a lot more than we know about right now and will continue to do so even if we cease to exist upon it.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
you do not disrespect the Danza
The operative word in that story was "salinity".
Warm salt water floats. Cold salt water sinks. BUT... cold fresh water floats on warm salt water. And when it does, it displaces the warm salt water towards the south. And that, of course, pushes the "great conveyor" to the south.
What's that mean? Well, for an ice-age to happen in the past, it means there had to be one heck of a lot of fresh water disrupting the conveyor up north.
So, to the experts who scream, "See? Warming!" I might suggest that you consider that the fresh water doesn't just *go away* when it has melted. It has a definite impact, and it doesn't make things warmer, either.
Next time, learn a little before you open your mouth.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Anybody who deals in logic and facts will tell you that CORRELATION != CAUSATION! I'm surprise you've never heard that before.
Just remember, 30 years ago, some of these same crackpot hippy 'scientists' were predicting an impending ICE AGE! So which is it? Depends on what gets them more government funding, I suppose.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Remember kids, "Global Warming" is just a myth designed to confuse good decent people about our friend, Mr. Petroleum.
No seriously, watch this event receive none of the attention it deserves outside of forums based on science (dare I say, this forum) or environmentalism. I think it is safe to say, most people here aren't "environmentalist", but rather rational, sane people who don't ignore obvious data about the state of the only habitable planet known to exist.
Then's there's assholes like Dennis Miller who would point his cynicism at whatever target his boss tells him too. Remember his comment about "1000 little Hindenbergs" when talking about fuel cell technology? This is the kind of debunking that the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy likes. Their idea of an alternative fuel (of course, they don't recognize that liquid petroleum is about to run out) is natural gas - which, BINGO, is still a greenhouse contributing gas.
Why is it up to the environmentalists to show that global warming is happening so that we might try to become more responsible about our energy utilization?
The burden of proof should fall on the businesses and enterprises to quantify how much environmental impact their new factory will produce. Then they can pay for all of the research.
Granted, this makes way for more biased research, but (1) there are ways around this (oversight committees, etc.) (2) the research gets done (3) we're not sticking our heads in the sand, building stuff that reaps resources from the environment, while waiting for some non-profit environmental research firm to finally proove that global warming is happening and you need to eliminate your excess C02 emissions 5 years ago or we'll sink under the sea in 2.
About fifteen or so years ago these same people denied that there was any global warming occuring. They also cloaked themselves in the mantle of science (but without any real science to back themselves up) and mocked those who disagreed as being unscientific.
Now that global warming is undeniable they've retreated to claiming, "But it isn't human activity that caused it!" with the same lack of scientific evidence.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
In all the talk about Global Warming and blaming CO2, I haven't seen any one do a study on the effects of concrete and asphalt. Come on, all the concrete and asphalt in our cities is just one Huge passive solar collector. The amount of solar radation absorbed by that much concrete has the effect of changing the local climate for the city in question (or did you think it was magic that it's 5-15 degrees warmer in the city as opposed to the contry).
Meddle thou not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and with most anything.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Yep, humans (along with cows) cause greenhouse gas production, and probably global warming. What we need are fewer humans. Darl McBride might be the place to start.....Actually, we could probably get along without any CEO's.
Earth Day Guy: That's not true. (Waving hand.) Global warming is going to kill us all. The Republicans are responsible.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Our planet Earth is wonderously like our own human body. Consider when you get some sort of virus (the biological kind. Please, stay with me). Your muscles begin to ache, telling your brain to take it easy and let the body fix itself. One of the most important mechanisms the body has to destroy foreign bodies is to increase the body temperature. That increase stresses the cells in your body, but also stresses the icky viruses currently causing you grief, helping destroy them.
If you're smart and listen to the doctor, you'll also start drinking lots of fluids. The helps your body remove the carnage of this biological war from your system, along with replacing necessary fluids that are being lost much more rapidly than normal. All that extra fluid is very important to a faster recovery.
Now think of the Earth. It's been infested with an organism out of control. This organism thinks it knows best and has been attempting to change the environment for the last couple of days (relative to the planets grand timetable, of course). Well, it's gotten bad enough that the Earth has developed a fever. This fever may be bad enough that it kills off a little of the good organisms, but at least the job of clean out the virii is working. If the Earth is wise, it will start taking in lots of fluids, but where is the Earth going to get it's drink of water? Fortunate for the Earth, it has prepared well in advance and stored up lots of water in the form of icecaps. Fever start, icecaps melt, fluids wash away the icky virus. Voila! The Earth feels better and can continue on it's way doing what it does best, making life.
We shouldn't feel sad for the Earth, we should be happy that this wonderful, crazy cycle of nature is working just like it should. Perhaps the next set of organisms will be more compatible, eh?
Oh, I know, we need to save our own hide. Personally I don't have lots of hope for human nature. We're growing too fast for the planet to sustain us. But (again, relative to the grand planetary timetable) I'll only be here another couple of seconds before I replicate and disappear, what do I need to worry about?
H0ek
Think you're smart? Prove you've got brains!
Maybe the sun's about to go nova. We don't know everything about stellar physics after all...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
TRAITOR!~!!!
the simple truth: don't sh*t in your own backyard
You know what? I really don't mean for this to be a troll or anything, but I've always wondered about the origin of this phrase.
I know in its essence it conveys something like: don't dump your trash on your own property, cuz the smell will be horrible and is unsightly... and if it's toxic, can harm you and any plant/animal life in the vacinity...
But why "don't sh*t in your own backyard"? Septic tanks have been around for a long time and composting even longer. From what I understand, it's actually GOOD to sh*t in your own backyard (if you know how to process it correctly, of course).
Anyone know of the origin of this phrase? (or have any ideas of how to go about finding it?)
Karma: NaN
My sensitivity to sunburn hasn't changed much is that last 15 years. You watch too much television.
i've seen enough ice and snow to last me a lifetime, come up here and we'll be happy to give you a huge chunk!
At least the Midwest will have ocean views.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
Can we say... Northwest passage ! Now you can ship those laptops direct to the east coast from Malysia sweeeet
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Man, you Linux zealots never miss a chance for a plug, do you?
puny humans think they can have an effect on the Earth, such Hubris.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
At least they can now name each half individually. I wonder who will get which, Ward or Hunt?
A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported. I think CNN is misinterpreting the following comment, also from the article: all of the fresh water poured out of the 20 mile (30 km) long Disraeli Fjord.
Disraeli Fjord is (was) freshwater on top and saltwater on bottom. The freshwater was due to the ice shelf, with the boundary at the bottom of the shelf. It would make sense that only the fresh part was drained. It's sad that this unique body of water is no longer that way.
The story says nothing about an ice cap. It says ice shelf. There's a huge difference. It also says it's the largest ice self in the arctic, not in the world. Why does every story have to be so exagerated?
The effects of global warming are not uniformly spread around the world. The arctic, both land and sea, are clearly warming. The equatorial areas may not be warming as much. The antarctic shows both warming and cooling: cooling in the the interior and warming.melting at the edges. Being a large, mountainous land mass complicates the climate there.
I love comments like this.. You really do not understand do you..
Currently a majority of the US is below, at or within 1000 feet of sea level... If the ocean where to rise far enough it would not just affect the coastlines, It would affect the whole world.. The rivers like the Mississippi would be direct inlets into the inside of the USE flooding everything in site...
Places that once never had floods would get them anytime it rains, because the water would have no where to go.
This is not some joke, Or time to buy "beach front" property in Nevada.. If the ocean raises that much its pretty much over, there will not be enough land on earth for all of us.
Personal Website
"There's a regional trend in warming that cycles back 150 years,"
1) Your fp is funny.
2) You should not be ashamed.
The green house effect is causing global warming therefore the green house effect is causing global warming.
Great Logic. By the way, it hasn't been scientifically proven that human contributions to the green house effect is significant. For example we have hardly any data about how the sun affects global temperatures.
Bow down and worship my polysyllabilic non-sequitur!!!
pleeeeeeeease?!!!!
Don't be so sentimental. Maybe there are better things to look at, like the virgin ground beneath the ice. Just because we value that scene, it doesn't mean they will or will not find something of more value in their time. You also don't know what you've got until it arrives.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
welcome our new aquatic overlords.
MORTAR COMBAT!
That's your belief. Scientific evidence to support that belief is not in evidence, however.
Despite politically motivated statements to the contrary by some politically funded researchers with obvious interest in spinning things that way, the evidence suggests instead that human action has little, if any, net affect on the global temperature average. Humans produce greenhouse gasses, yes. Humans also do things with the opposite effect. One good volcanic eruption has a lot more effect than years of human activity.
We're in an interglacial period. Icepacks are receding. Natural, normal, and on the whole a good thing for humans and most other species as well. Why people want to spin this as some kind of disaster is beyond me, excepting those with an obvious political motivation of course.
Earths climate is never static. If the icepacks weren't receding, they'd be expanding, and that would be much more like a disaster.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
That damned chihuahua was so popular, burrito (i.e. bean consumption) increased tenfold, releasing huge amounts of methane (a Greenhouse gas) into the atmoshphere. Now humans produce more than cows and termites.
fixture thats been there for 3K and has grown and shriveled many many times before...this is not a big deal or startling nor does it add or lend any evidence to global warming....
you're cracking me up!
mojo
Ah, you're begging the question, sir. "With the weather getting more and more extreme"? Hurricane Isabel was a joke compared with Andrew, Bob, or Gloria... pointing at that, I'd say the weather is getting less extreme. Add to that the blizzard of 78 (and the one in the late 50s) and the fact that New England hasn't gotten a good hurricane since Bob, more than ten years ago (damn you! I want my storms!), plus the really mild winters we've had (with the exception of just last year), and the wussy summer we're having now makes me think that the weather is not getting extreme at all.
If the weather was indeed getting more extreme, I'd be more worried. But most environmentalists beg that question, and accept it as a given that "the weather is getting more extreme". I disagree with that premise and defy someone to show me figures showing drastic increases in precipitation, temperature, storm destruction, etc. over a 30+ year span (to leave out the 20-year sunspot/storm cycle).
-T
Well, given that I live around 60m (~200 feet) above sea level, I'm already well aware that a drastic rise in sea level will have me looking in the attic for my water wings.
In my birthplace, Liverpool, there's a saying: "You've gorra laugh, or else you'd cry." (Yes, we do say "gorra" for "got to".) Do lighten up, or you'll be dying of a perforated ulcer long before the water is lapping at your shoes. The fact that I make a (not very good) joke about a serious matter does not mean that I am unaware of the issues.
Have a nice swim :-)
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
Do you know what percentage of our atmosphere is CO2? Less than one half of one percent. 0.4%.
I've read credible studies that conclude that we are not generating ENOUGH CO2.
The actions you propose are EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, and based on logic that is sketchy, at best.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Slashdot is in need of a Pendantic and/or Humourless category. Or even a Humorless one. :-)
Until that happens, please mod the grandparent up as Funny.
An inside source reported that the break-up was partly due to the fact that one part of the ice shelf was seeing Yoko Ono. ;)
Education is the silver bullet.
In case it's not obvious, I only intended to italicize that first paragraph I was quoting.
welcome our new giant icecube overlords.
Sorry. Had to do it.
Here you can read up on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's research on the subject, if you are interested in the details.
Don't Panic!
BRING IT ON!!!
AN IDIOT. He is. and now there is undisputed proof. He doesn't even know there is ice in Canada.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Or at least it will be in Service Pack 1 :-)
Hmmm... I guess we should follow the link in your sig, and vote for Dean?
You might as well have said, "Raise my taxes, spend more than any Republican, money is the only solution!" Howard Dean complaining about the deficit is funny. I've never EVER seen a democrat cut spending. Howard yells about jobs... yet he wants to raise taxes, spend more money on social programs. When has unemployment or welfare ever given someone a job? Nope... Howie wants everyone on the gov't dole so that he controls your income. Very arrogant.
Raising taxes puts people out of work. Businesses hire people after tax cuts. It takes a little time, but it happens. Everyone knows that people are laid off last, and hired back last during a recession/recovery. Why does Howard insist otherwise? If you dig deep, Howard doesn't have a single answer. Not one. He's good at crying though. Ultimately, he'll lose. He doesn't have the power. The liberal press will push him out of the way soon.
... notorious hoarder of frozen water. I, for one, am unsurprised his ice shelf broke.
(Funny, though, how the uninformed "La La La, I Can't Hear You, Global Warming Is A Myth," crew were mysteriously silent today.)
But seriously. Global Warming is just one small piece. The human experiential cycle is mirrored by world and extra-planetary events. Things are heating up big-time. Hasn't anybody noticed? California is in the process of falling into the ocean. --And it may even happen in a physical sense some day.
-FL
When the end comes I'm going to be on a trimiran with Kevin Costner laughing my ass off at all you people who sat here bitching at each other instead of preparing for the future calamity that will befall us very soon. BTW... I'd put my money on a potential cause being the big burning ball that's 1AU away from us, but hey that's just me.
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
You are a hair's breadth away from a false dichotomy. Most people say that the current global warming trend is either being caused by humans, or it's not. But in fact it is a virtual certainty that it is caused by humans *to some unknown degree*. It might be large, it might be small. But it is almost certainly nonzero. IOW, even if we are not the primary cause of global warming, we are making it worse.
Global warming is not an either/or scenario. You can't simply say that it either happens, or it doesn't. It makes a great deal of difference *how much* warming occurs -- a relatively small difference in the *amount* of global warming could put us past a certain threshold wherein billions of people would be displaced, or worse. I, for one, would prefer that humans contribute as little as possible to this scenario.
Political bias either way doesn't matter. What you've stated is true, but the "facts" are that geologic changes take more time than you account for. What we've seen in the last 100-200 years is simply astounding by geo-time. The amount of time considered here is simply so small that on a larger time scale (5,000-25,000 years) would not ordinarily be noticed.
I suggest you stand back and get a bigger picture of just how long this planet has been in flux. From that perspective you can see that the match head has just been scratched!
+1
and some scotch, wait another 3,000 years for the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf to break up some more and it will make for some dandy scotch on the rocks. Or get an ice pick. Just my 2 cents.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
Interesting article with an enlightening series of graphs can be found here
If I remember my third-grade science lessons plants process CO2 and turn it into breathable oxygen.
So the more plant food we spew into the atmosphere the more the rain forests et. al. will benefit. The more oxygen in the atmosphere the better off oxygen dependant life will be (all else being equal).
Eventually the atmosphere will be saturated with O2 and reach a flash point where all life will be extiguished when one unwitting person lights a *gasp* cigarette...then you tree huggers (parent poster not necessarily included...unless you are one) will be happy that there won't be any more humans around to destroy the precious planet.
The issue is "What, if any, effect has human industry had on the warming effect?" That is the question that people are attempting to answer and truefully we don't know. People point to a study that shows the average tempature rising at an increasing rate over the last 80 years or so when they began the study.
To me, 80 years in the scheme of things isn't enough to say one way or the other. Now we know that we caused the hole in the Ozone layer, and it looks as though the problem maybe starting to correct itself after banning the wide-spread use of CFC's, but its an important lesson: The earth is enduring until the sun gobbles it up in another 4 Billion years or so.
If the north pole ice cap melted, it would not raise the ocean 1 inch since it already displaces its own weight in water. I think the water in a cup and add ice example has been given, now the question is, how much ice is down there in the south pole? People predict horrid flooding of coastal cities, but I have read some documents that say that if all that water is realeased and dispursed throughout the world, it would raise the oceans by only a few inches. Sucks to be you if you own a beach house.
The biggest threat seems to be the breaking of the Atlantic Conveyer with a large influx of fresh water. I think there is some evidence of this happening about 60k years ago, but again I am not a geologist, just an avid reader of things. If that breaks, then a rapid global cooling may take place and the return to a new expansion of the polar caps.
Oh yeah, this would be a good point to note that WE ARE STILL IN AN ICE AGE. There is still ice, isn't there?
As far as weather goes, look at Europe circa 500 AD, a great cooling happened, if I remember my history correctly, that lead to many problems with farming and crop cycles. The other factor is Media. I mean, people really didn't here much about the weather around the world until the last 50 years. How do know that weather hasn't had these odd years with extremes before? Oh wait, I think it has, but there wasn't a media to record and have slow news days with nothing else to bitch about.
Endgame: we need more solid info besides some corralations. There is a famous Missourian named Mark Twain that once wrote, "There are lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" and that is the truth. Stats can be manipulated like markets. My first thought is usually ignore them as evidence and look at the raw data before drawing conclusions. After the Earth will survive: its mankind that is fucked. George Carlin stated that once, and you know, he's right....
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Archimedes' principle states that the percentage of ice floating above the surface is directly tied to the difference of the two densities, so the if the northern ice cap (which is floating) melts, the net change to ocean levels is 0. Furthermore, parts of it freeze and unfreeze all the time, so it should be more or less just as salty.
The problem with global warming as it relates to ocean levels is in non-floating ice, e.g. the south pole, this ice shelf and permafrost in Canada, Russia, Greenland, etc.
That being said, I agree with your point on pollution in general. CO2 levels and global warming are the boogey-men used to try and rally non-environmentalists to the cause. There are so many more issues that should get attention (e.g. smog, polluted water) that we could think about while we determine whether C02 is causing global warming, whether it's something else, or whether it's just a natural fluctuation.
It's nothing but crumpled porno and Ayn Rand.
One simple question for any Republican hawks in the audience: Would you have supported a stabilization mission to Afghanistan -- and/or an invasion of Iraq -- in the 1990s by President Clinton?
If you say no, you're a hypocrite. If you say yes, you're a fucking liar.Working to prevent global warming is the smart thing to do. If they're wrong, the worst case is that the world stays the same. If we do nothing, the worst case is a 500+ foot rise in global sea levels.
Invading Iraq as part of the War on Terror(tm) was probably a bad move. If Bush is wrong, the worst case is that US reputation is trashed for years, and millions of new recruits sign up for AlQaeda. If we do nothing, the worst case was Saddam continues to dick over his own people for 20 years and dies of old age. IOW, the world stays the same.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/CarbonCyc le/
http://www.dar.csiro.au/publications/greenhouse_2
From Reuters 24/09/03 - Noting to see here - move along.
...and then they state obvious truths which have no relevance to the subject under discussion.
And, of course, these changes have causes, which may or may not be related to the actions of various species on the planet at the time. Those species are more likely to survive the changes if they understand them and try to do something about them.
Rain happens. Snow happens. Earthquakes happen. Floods happen. The fact that they happen has no bearing on what we do about them. In fact, the fact that they happen is why we do something about them. We usually try to mitigate their impact on our lives at first ("Put on a hat, it's raining outside"). Then we try to figure out what's causing it. Then we try to find out if we can (or should) do something about it. Sometimes we find out there's little we can do about it (earthquakes are an example). Sometimes we figure out that doing something about them is a mistake (if we could stop the rain, it would probably be a bad idea). Sometimes we decide that, on balance, it's better to do something (we build storm sewers in our cities and flood-control projects on our rivers). Sometimes it is not easy to see whether or not we should do something (preventing the earthquakes we now experience might just make us more vulnerable to a really bad one). Some people think causing something makes one responsible for it ("Grog put rocks in river, make easy to cross; river get angry, wash away Grog's camp; Grog tell river he sorry, take away rocks"). But the imperative to do something comes not from the moral responsibility, but from the potential to do damage to our interests.
One thing is certain: Saying "shit happens" as an excuse for not doing anything is a good way to get killed in the next flood.
The only good thing about that is it decreases the number of morons in the gene pool.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
If you correlate the human population to the temperature increase, you'll see a somewhat linear relationship.
Conclusion: people cause global warming.
Solution: kill all the people, and global warming will stop.
Simple!
I think everyone agrees that there is organized propaganda being disseminated on this subject, but few people are willing to consider the possibility that both sides are issuing it. This may be wise, but it is also morally suspect.
The result is widespread confusion about forcings, time scales, natural variability, and risk, to the point where anyone who knows anything tries really hard to stay out of the debate, leaving it to the ignorant and self-deceived.
Let's try a simple point. Ice does not melt due to global warming just as you do not go bankrupt due to a failing economy. You go bankrupt because your income is less than your expenses, which is more likely in a failing economy, and ice melts because (duh) the temperature goes up where the ice happens to be, which is more likely when there is global warming, but is not "because of" it. You'd think this concept wouldn't be so hard for a fairly educated readership to grasp.
Let's try another one. Climate varies naturally, but the rate of warming now occuring is observed to be extremely high compared to natural variability and also to variability before 1900. Also, the interglacial peaked about 5000 years ago and the world had been gradually cooling in accordance with astronomical cycles until about 1900. This leaves those claiming that that the sudden warming overc the last century is natural variation with a peculiar explanatory gap.
OK, here's another one. Climate change since 1900 is certainly due at least in significant part to human activity. Humans are known to be emitting radiatively significant quantities of greenhouse gases which, all else equal, are known to have a warming effect. While all else may not be equal, this emission corresponds with a sudden, large, accelerating increase in global mean temperature.
Therefore a claim that the observed warming since is natural is equivalent to the two claims that for some reason the large radiative forcing due to increased greenhouse gas concentrations has had no effect AND that some other unidentified natural forcing or dynamics has suddenly kicked in.
Now draw some conclusions if you dare. I'm not allowed to, because that would be taking sides.
mt
Yeah - that's the fair and balanced view. Nothing to see here folks, no reason to stop using massively wasteful and inefficient infernal combustion engines, or to change your behavior in any other way. There's no reason to do anything inconvenient in fact. Just go back inside and take your lithium, turn on the tube, sit back and let the pigopolists drive the planet straight to hell. They assure us it won't interrupt the programming untile the very end, and that it won't hurt a bit...
Couldn't have put it better myself - in fact, when I get stuck in a argument with a hardcore environmentalist, I just point out that the ultimate eco-friendly act would be a mass suicide of the human race, and challenge them to explain why not. "ummm...because we wouldn't be around to enjoy the new, clean, happy earth?"
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
"That may be wise but is also morally suspect" should appear at the end of the third paragraph, not the second. Sorry.
mt
Woo Hoo! Maybe I can move to Sunny Canada soon and get all that free health care!
Oh for god's sakes, get off your arrogant, human-centric high horse! The earth does this shit, with or without us. Can we speed the process up? Possibly. Is that's what is happening right now? There is an argument there. A correlation. But it's far from proven. So how can you say "this is not a good development"? It's a development. That's it. A development. How can you possibly know what the earth has in store for itself? Or whether large-scale corrections are appropriate?
Let me ask you this: If an ice-age or a big warming were happening naturally (as they regularly do), and you witnessed a big impressive side effect of it, would you still say "this is not a good development"?
They're responsible for all our troubles- gay marriage, socialized medicine, terrorist crossing the border. Now the ice shelf collapsing. Kenny was right!
So according to you, we should stop breathing, burning fossil fuels, etc. on a gamble that CO2 is in fact the culprit. rather than cutting back gradually and looking for other culprits? Moderation, Everything in moderation. that includes burning of fossil fuels. campers don't need to have SUVs with V10 engines getting 2 miles to the gallon to pull a 50 foot camper to the mountains, when a couple of tents in the back of a sedan works just as well, and makes the whole camping experience more unique and "roughing it". See I agree with both of you, however, I don't see how he was saying leave everything as it is, maybe I missed something, but then if i am you probabally should have quoted him saying to leave everything as it is. So, Why can't you do both? cut back on emissions, AND research other possibilities. instead of focusing on CO2 emissions as the cause. it MIGHT be that way, but then it MIGHT be Chicken farts. I agree that the evidence isn't conclusive to guarntee that cutting back on CO2 emissions will stop it. heck scientists can't even agree on whether its actually warming up. So, again I ask why don't we do both, research other possibilities and cut back on emissions? instead of focusing on CO2 as being the boogieman and that is the only cause and nothing else is the cause, like a lot of "environmentalists" are trying to lobby for these days. how they call themselves "scientists" is beyond me as they are too closed minded, and focusing on a single issue for a potentially life threatening situation. When they should be looking at ALL possibilities, and determining the best way to go about stopping the doomsday scenario. Because frankly I'm not willing to put my faith in a single solution that hasn't been fully researched. thats the same as not doing anything. say in 50 years they find out that no its not CO2 that was causing it, but it was satellites, and now the world has warmed up too much and new york is under 10 feet of water. "Whoops guess we were wrong," Neither outcome is very promising.
Shhh!!! THEY don't know that!
It appears to my layman's observations that the primary cause of global warning is that the sun is getting hotter, and we'd have global warming no matter what people did, short of blotting out the sun.
A hotter sun or other non-Earthling-controlled phenomenon seems to be the primary cause.
IANAScientist,
- Brian
...are so funny. They hate postmodernism (as I do, as well) yet they embrace its tactics. Look at these quotes:
Ah, yes. The O'Reilly tactic: Spew unsupported statements like mad; when your opponent cites facts, respond by saying, "That's your opinion!"
What makes this particularly amusing is the fact that the post this poster was responding to actually agreed with his premise. Which makes the following unintentionally funny.
Since Arker is actually responding to a post which agrees with his position, this statement is actually one of the few truths in his diatribe. If one assumes he intended to attack some other view (as he does in the rest of his post), nothing could be further from the truth. There is plenty of evidence. That evidence has been well published (to such a degree that other post-modernist conservatives have argued the scientific journals are biased). One can legitimately argue as to whether the evidence is strong, overwhelming or definitive. If one wants to advocate a really weak case, one can argue it is balanced by evidence to the contrary. But to say it is "not in evidence" is a lie of absurdist proportions.
Other humans have measured both and found it appears the greenhouse gas production is likely to overwhelm those "things with opposite effect." Those other humans then made predictions that the climate would be affected. Then they went out in the real world and tried to determine whether their predictions were being born out. They were, to the limited degree they were able to ascertain. They were challenged for not measuring as well as they could. Better measurements were funded. They continued to support the predictions. A president was elected who was strongly biased towards the challengers. He appointed a group of distinguished scientists to look into the question. He loaded the group with people biased towards the challengers. They reviewed the evidence and found it supported the predictions. The people who were misinterpreting the work of those scientists doing the challenging continued to misrepresent the conclusions.
Not really true, and completely irrelevant.
We are only in an interglacial period if it followed by an ice age. We don't know if the present period will be followed by an ice age or not. This is the kind of statement for which not only is there no "evidence in evidence" but no evidence is really possible. But, if we assume that this is an interglacial period, the rest of the paragraph is still riddled with fallacies:
Icepacks recede at the beginning of interglacial periods. Followed by a long period of relative homeostasis, during which glaciers stay about the same. Such periods are very good times to live. Times of rapid climatic change are not. Homeostasis is good, not rapid climatic change. This is not "spin." It is clear, well understood science. As well as common sense. The fact that this poster tries to equate interglacial periods (which are known to be "good" for life) with the rapid clim
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
Well, the problem with your logic is it's over simplified. Sure, it sounds good to say "Just stop pumping out all the CO2, in case it's the problem. Beats risking all those lives if it turns out it *is* causing global warming."
Problem is, modern society relies heavily on transportation technologies that create most of that CO2 people are worried about.
Are you suggesting the best choice is to get rid of the entire trucking industry, get rid of automobiles, and eliminate diesel powered locomotives - thereby destroying hundreds of years of technological progress - just *in case* that CO2 was causing a problem we couldn't compensate for or work around?
(Honestly, I think some of the more extreme environmentalists really do want this. They'd like to see us all living in caves, washing our clothes by hand in the local stream (no soap, mind you), and writing with sticks. If they don't, they're sure preaching a lot of things that would drive us back towards that type of living if we listened to them.)
All these silly little "emissions controls" we place on vehicles aren't really accomplishing much either, besides lining the pockets of favored businesses providing them. We're to the point now where devices adding hundreds of dollars to the price of each car are reducing emissions by fractions of a percent. It's all a bunch of "feel good" stuff that lets the car makers brag that they're "doing their part for the environment". Electric hybrid cars? Sure, it's eco-friendly until you start asking how they plan to dispose of the worn out batteries.
that the smaller the percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere the more easily we could disrupt that level in significant ways. If CO2 were say 50% of atmospheric gas, human endeavors would be hard pressed to change that level significantly. Small values can have their constitution altered that much more easily.
So, assuming that we are raising the temperature of the planet, and this WILL someday cause a problem. So What? We are doing this accidently. Imagine what we could do if we set our minds to it and actually TRIED to modify the environment (like say, cool it down). I bet we could undo in 20 years what we did accidently in 100.
hard core geek-ware
At the rate that the existing rain forests are being depleted, there soon enough be none left to process all that CO2. Then it will be left to the plankton/phytoplankton in the oceans, which will have a hard time due to all the pollution killing them off. The cycle on earth will continue, probably with out most mammals, including us. So I'm sure the rain forests would be grateful for our CO2, if only we would stop burning them down (releasing more CO2) for a few plots of farmland that might be fertile for a few seasons.
TallGreen CMS hosting
Man, that must have sucked for any freshwater fish that might have inhabitated it.
Yeah, I know it was on an iceburg but why not?Conserve Oil, Recycle, Boycott Walmart
If you subscribe to New Scientist magazine, last week's print issue had an unqualified blurb (not available on the web site, sorry) stating that scientists were puzzling over a 50% rise in water vapour in the upper atmosphere. If I remember correctly, water vapour is a green house gas too. And a 50% increase is substantial.
Another bit that I found interesting is the article on the oldest ice core. I quote:
So, the Earth's orbit has an impact on climate too, does it? So why this exclusive focus on CO2?And the earth is NOT ROUND. And the SUN revolves around the EARTH, NOT the other way around. And DINOSAURS NEVER LIVED. And to disagree is to be AGAINST GOD. All of you who disagree are devil worshippers and heathens who will BURN in HELL FOREVER.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Well almost not at all...
"Global Warming" -Two Words You Never Hear in Wall-to-Wall Coverage of Hurricane Isabel
Did I do that?
However, we can do a ballpark estimate. Various sources state that it ejected 5 cubic miles of material...
As for human emissions, the estimates I find are 6,500 megatons of carbon per year (about 1 ton per person on the planet), which when combined with oxygen make about 24,000 megatons of CO2.
What are you playing at, wiseass? Where are you pulling these numbers from, Uranus? Come back when you have sources you can list, champ.
What is this? You're arguing it takes guts to make things up, trying to scare people because you don't like how others carry out their lives? When you have anything of substance, come back, champ.
Long-haired intellectuals indeed. Sheesh... the long hair hides the lack of grey matter!
All you greehouse gas spewing cows out there, you made this happen!
Will Canada allow shipping through the North-West Passage? I do not believe that the area now covered in sea ice could be considered International Waters. Maybe someone could clarify.
Would Canada want shipping traffic traversing what is becoming one of the last great wilderness areas of the world? The area is already under pressure with mining, oil and gas and loss of habitat.
Is it really economically viable to send goods by ship that can otherwise be sent by rail to Eastern sea ports? Obviously oil from northern sources could potentially be shipped to Europe; do they even ship crude oil from North America to be processed elsewhere? I suppose the greatest benefit would be to ships transporting goods from Europe to Asia and vice versa.
Just some ideas.
What is preventing the ice on the mainland from melting? The sheet ice!
Once the sheet ice goes, its like a domino effect. The ice on the mainland will start to melt faster.
Thats essentially what I meant about the animals and so.
Vegans or not vegans.. it doesn't matter.
Animals in the arctic are specially suited only to the arctic! You take them away from their habitat, they will adapt, but only if they are left alone for the next 50 generations. And that is not going to happen because of man's intervention.
Do you find polar bears in texas? No.
Your using the " shallow analysis" method.
Its like stating, if spammers didn't spam, how would they survive? What will happen to the telemarketers once the do no call list goes into operation?
The people who benefit from this is miniscule.
10 times as more people will be the victim of stronger hurricanes, fishermen will have to contend with less yield etc..
Then even the bankers,insurers and sundry won't benefit.
I don't care if you take it as flamebait. Because it WAS flamebait.
Your statement about tankers or so benefitting from the opening of the passage was so illogical and uninformed that anybody with a saner mind can deal with it as flamebait.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
The first time I heard that the rainforests would be gone soon was in fourth grade. That was seventeen years ago. You environmentalists sure do have an interesting definition of "soon".
Those two graphs are very informative, especially when examined together. Note the strong correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature, and then also note that we have much, much more CO2 now than any time in the past 400,000 years.
Soon is a relative term. Do a fly-over of parts of South America. All the little patchwork abandon plots used to be rainforest, the plots that are being used are freshly burned rain forest. Burning the vegetation provides very rich soil for a few years, but 'modern' farming methods make the soil useless after a while. So, more is burned, cash crops are produced, your local supermarket is stocked with food, biodiversity decreases, everyone is happy. You are an idiot.
l
http://www.ran.org/info_center/factsheets/04b.htm
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I don't have to earn the right to talk down to you. Just like you didn't have to earn the right to label me negatively. If we ruin our economy doing something that does nothing to help us, we're as dumb the average lefty. I have no allies in the oil industry, but I do have leftist enemies. And lastly, that quote is irrelevant. The data speaks for itself, and your quote there is merely an opinion, even if the opinion of the author of the study. I'm not in favour of polluting the atmosphere... but some pollution is inevitable. You're typing on a computer. You know what kind of damage merely producing that computer did to the environment? Hypocrite.
What a stupid comment. Do you suggest nobody drive because we don't know if we'll die in a car crash?
Rise by how much? That's the question. I didn't say that we have no relation to global warming - it's just vastly overrated. I don't dispute the greenhouse gasses cause *some* difference. I think it's just a slight difference - what with humans producing a mere 2% of the worlds CO2.
"The first time I heard that the rainforests would be gone soon was in fourth grade. That was seventeen years ago."
Well... then you will be glad to know that Amazonas rainforest has indeed lost about 40% its surface since you where in fourth grade.
To state that the increase in CO2 is undeniably causing the increase in temperature is just bad science.
We don't know whether all the temperature increase we are seeing right now is due to greenhouse gases, but we know beyond any reasonable doubt that emission of greenhouse gases increases global temperatures. The only thing we don't know is whether we have yet reached the point where our emissions are already harmful, or whether that will just take a few more decades.
I have no agenda but to get at truth.
But the "truth" you are concerned with is not relevant to the question of climate change. The truth that we can't be completely certain whether we already are experiencing harmful climage change to greenhouse gas emissions simply doesn't matter. The truth we need to worry about is whether greenhouse gas emissions can cause harmful climate change in principle, and that truth is beyond doubt. Do you need to shoot yourself in the head before you are convinced that a gun is dangerous?
In fact, whether you know it or not, you do have an agenda: the same agenda of people who, for selfish economic reasons, prefer the status quo. For society as a whole, reducing greenhouse gas emissions substantially is economically beneficial and the only environmentally sound choice.
I submit this, and one of the replies to a reply as proof that some humans are a perfect waste of oxygen.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
On the balance of probabilities, it seems to me that right about 10-20 years ago we should have stopped buring the planet's carbon sinks and moved over to nuclear.
Limestone.
Hmm, ok maybe a few more words. One word is gonna whiz right over the heads of our computer science crowd ;-) Limestone = largest carbon deposits on earth, basically CaCO3. Created by plankton, the most abundant form of life in the ~2/3 of the planet we don't live on, known as the oceans. You've obviously been led to believe that most of the Earth's CO2 was caught in few small bogs several million years ago and that handful of rain forest was taking care of all the world's CO2 for us.
Take a nice long look at Table 9r-1 here. Notice how units (in billions of tons) of fossil fuels = 4,000, where 'Marine Sediments' = 66-100,000,000. If the diagram were 'to scale' that black representing the fossil fuels would be smaller than a pixel. The earth gets warmer, the earth gets cooler. Stuff like this happens. The idea that we are going to destroy our environment with CO2 is laughable.
You must unlearn what you have learned young jedi :-) The big scary "Global Warming" is a 90's save the earth fad. Thirty years previous, everyone was worried about the impending Ice Age! Have a nice day, and don't let the sky fall on ya ;-)
3,000 years is not permanent.
3,000 years is old in a historical time frame.
3,000 years is young in geologic time frames.
OK -- so why is it only 3,000 years old?
What happened 3,000 years ago?
Hmm.. There was a burst of warmth about 3,000 years ago, then the temp dropped to our present cold period.
i'm curriouse to know if there are any undiscovered creatures inside, even if it's jsut bacteria. hopefuly not any virus's (they tend to survive being frozen)!
I agree that pollution should be reduced where it can, I just think that we should be able to accept that some amounts of pollution are necessary to support a reasonable standard of living. "Don't buy the latest and greatest as you can get a lot of great stuff secondhand. Use power saving, don't leave it running unnecessarily and, admittedly much more difficult, dispose of old or broken computers responsibly." That's the sort of stuff I can agree with. Less garbage, conserve energy where you can, use a fuel efficient car, walk when you can, et cetera.
The vast majority of scientists qualified to hold an opinion have settled this matter as fact. They have no "political advantage" to uphold; as a matter of fact, the present administration of the US has made it abundantly clear than scientists who hold this unpopular-with-industry opinion are no longer welcome to share their opinions, or even to work for the administration.
You are exactly right, Catbeller. The current adminstration, and for that matter most of the Rebublican party, is of the opinion that scientific inquiry and research are no different than any other public relations issue and can simply be spun to any conclusion needed at the time. So what if 99.9% of the evidence points in an inconvenient direction such as global warming - just find a second-rate researcher, pay them to conduct a study that doesn't agree and then claim that the evidence is "inconclusive" and "not proved" and "just a theory" or "normal".
So what if the air samples at ground-zero indicated there could be high levels of toxic materials that presented a clear health risk to rescuers, clean-up workers and residents - just take that information out of the public report by the EPA. The administration screwed up on that one - one can only spin an issue to a political advantage if it can't quickly be proved otherwise, and the health effects are now showing up. I never thought much of Christie Whitman as EPA Admnistrator, but at least she had the character to resign when the political pressure to spin science got to much even for her.
There was a great scientific fiasco in the middle of the century in Soviet Russia propogated by the State Bureau of Science that also tried to bend science to the political agenda of the time. Unfortunately for the Russian people crops would not grow in unsuitable areas simply because it was the will of the state and many people starved. We don't have our own Lysenko or Bureau of Science, but our admnistration has the same belief that facts are fluid and can be changed because they don't fit the current political or economic agenda. Unfortunately we are dealing with a topic - global warming - that is orders of magnitude more serious for the planet than even several million starving russian peasants.
I don't have to earn the right to talk down to you.
Yes, you do, and you have not.
Just like you didn't have to earn the right to label me negatively.
Now you are simply lying. I reread my post and I did not call you names or "label [you] negatively." I defy you to show me a quote from the previous message where I supposedly "labelled" you negatively. Typical right-wing arguing tactic: Lie about what your opponent said. But, since you've already accused me of having labelled you negatively when I did not, I won't hesitate to do it now.
If we ruin our economy doing something that does nothing to help us, we're as dumb the average lefty.
Liberals are far brighter, on average, than conservatives, so that argument is simply hollow. If conservatives were so bright, then Ivy League colleges would be teeming with conservatives -- and that's clearly not the case.
If you want to see how to ruin an economy, just look to President Bush and his administration. He's doled out huge tax cuts to industries that outsourced U.S. jobs to overseas workers. He's increased government spending, so that we will all pay interest on the debt he is accruing for decades to come. He is Mr. Big Government, increasing the size of the federal work force by 1 million people. He's given huge tax cuts to the rich by borrowing money that the government doesn't have. If there's a surplus, he wants a tax cut because "it's not the government's money" and if there is a horrible deficit, he wants a tax cut to "stimulate the economy." Gee, if everything is a reason to cut taxes, then that doesn't work out very well mathematically, does it? He's taken $500+ from every man, woman, and child in the U.S. to pay for his war in Iraq.
Every time that someone proposes sensible environmental legislation, we hear the same stupid argument about "ruining the economy" from the right-wing assholes: "Requiring catalytic converters on cars will ruin the economy." "Taking lead out of gasoline will ruin the economy." "Limiting water pollution will ruin the economy." "Stopping the use of high-sulphur coal in powerplants will ruin the economy." "Requiring better fuel economy (CAFE) will ruin the economy." Bullshit. Limiting air pollution will take some small quantity of money away from big business while improving the living condition of every man, woman, and child on the earth. Did you grow up with asthma? I did. I know what it's like to not know if you will have enough air to stay alive.
You're typing on a computer. You know what kind of damage merely producing that computer did to the environment? Hypocrite.
Did I say anywhere that there should be legislation requiring zero pollution from all industries? No. Use (or get) some common sense. When right-wing Republicans are sponsoring Senate legislation preventing states from imposing limits on pollution from lawn mowers and other off-road machinery, that's a completely different situation. Ever notice how Republicans scream about "state's rights" until a state wants to do something that they don't like?
And lastly, that quote is irrelevant. The data speaks for itself, and your quote there is merely an opinion, even if the opinion of the author of the study.
The quote is very relevent. It's from someone much smarter than you who has a much better understanding of the problem.
George W. has assured me, with the most "fair ...
and balanced" report from his EPA, that cow
farts in Montana have more of an effect on
greenhouse gases and global warming that any
human endeavour.
And with that solid scientific evidence, I am
going out to Safeway to buy more aluminum foil
for my "slow death ray" hat
The impending ice age that you reference
(from 30 years ago) was "nuclear winter".
The same "chicken little" "sky is falling"
BS that these same scientists were spouting
30 years ago has been repackaged for the
Kyoto Accords.
Everyone knows the real culprit is the
"slow death ray" problem. Just put on
your aluminum foil hat, and fgetabaudit!
...this is getting hysterical!
I respond to a possible troll who has been modded way up even though everything he posted is demonstrably wrong. I demolish each and every one of his arguments thoroughly and completely. I show how dependent his techniques are on French postmodernism. And I get modded down with three Overrated (-1)s and two Troll (-1)s.
These guys are too funny for words.
I'm going to compare Rush and Derrida more often.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
...on life on earth has been devastating.
Point, set, match.
The impact has been getting better over time. The last time it happened only 90% of all life on the planet was wiped out. It used to be much worse. "Throw another log on the fire, Maude. Global warming's natural."
The term "natural" is as meaningless when used by global-warming deniers as it is when it's used by wacko left-wing vegans.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
...of Canada and a zoom of the islands.
0 923/161/5d0cb.html
5 70&u=/nm/20030922/sc_nm/environment_arctic_dc&ncid =753
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/03
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=
Took an elective course on environmental change once. It had an awesome book called "Planet Under Stress" edited by Constance Mungall & Digby McLaren for the Royal Society of Canada, oxford university press. I'd seriously recommend picking it up for anyone interested. It basically had a far greater scientific based analysis than anything you'll see in any public forum on this topic (as in, it covered a lot of actual research and accepted knowledge about what is actually happening rather than what everyone guesses based on temp readings taken on airport tarmacs). It covered other environmental issues as well. Anyway, it had a big section on global warming cycles. Apparently there is a massive shift that has occurred at infrequent intervals in the past. Basically the whole dynamic of ocean currents shifts in a radical way, and if I recall correctly, they were stating this coincided with a shift in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field (side note: I wonder what that'll screw up). Something about historically preserved magnetized rock along the ocean floor which shows the shift in the magnetic field of the planet as well as indicating massive ocean current change. Anyway, I believe a major if not THE major heat sink in the ocean is near northern canada off the east coast. (Hence not surprising you would notice climate change there first, natural or not). That's apparently where the cold forces the incoming water to dive substantially and it triggers this whole huge mechanism which greatly affects not only the climate levels, but also the climate regions (aka where the tropical regions are etc). Essentially the direction that warm water travels over a large potion of the globe as it goes to cold water basically ends there. This is a naturally (as in this used to happen before humans) weakening process which degrades over time and eventually flips in apparently a radically fast shift. Eventually the cold can't force the hot water down anymore and the entire ocean current system changes when it breaks. Now the hot water goes elsewhere, changing the hot/cold regions of the world around a bit (consider the heat waves generated by an al nino current or whatever, imagine that on a global scale current shift), we don't know what the revised current system looks like, just that the old current motion breaks, presumably it finds a new cold point to focus on, or else a hot point becomes dominant and pushes water rather than pulls. In any case, this could result in a flip of our climate quite substantially. And it may be a long term mostly unfixable thingy (unless you have a way to chill the ocean, pull off a couple thousand years worth of built up heat and can reset the ocean current directions back how it was). Anyway, seems to me that greenhouse gases are pretty piddly stuff compared to what has naturally been happening to our oceans. From arguments I hear greenhouse gas theories are mostly full of crap anyway. The change in the greenhouse gases is a massive equilibrium system, and the reverse effects are significant enough that they eventually (thousand years) break the heat effects and begin a global chilling (our planet has survived this before). Releasing greenhouse gases triggers counter effects on an increasing scale. I believe I've heard at least a half dozen substantially contending reverse effects that will trigger one after the other as this goes up and the latter ones could quite likely reverse the whole effect. Starts with greenhouse gases actually reflect some of the heat we would have received back out to space, goes through a few more phases (too lazy to look them up again), ends up with ocean algae dying off which triggers a massive reduction in natural greenhouse gas emissions etc. Hell, I added one of my own after that, maybe rise the temp enough and it'll trigger volcano eruptions like st helens which'll coat the earth's atmosphere with powdered rock for a while shutting out the sun to cool it off. (Take a high temp system under pressure which occasionally breaks through anyway, in
It had an awesome book called "Planet Under Stress" edited by Constance Mungall & Digby McLaren for the Royal Society of Canada, oxford university press. I'd seriously recommend picking it up for anyone interested.
It basically had a far greater scientific based analysis than anything you'll see in any public forum on this topic (as in, it covered a lot of actual research and accepted knowledge about what is actually happening rather than what everyone guesses based on temp readings taken on airport tarmacs). It covered other environmental issues as well.
Anyway, it had a big section on global warming cycles. Apparently there is a massive shift that has occurred at infrequent intervals in the past. Basically the whole dynamic of ocean currents shifts in a radical way, and if I recall correctly, they were stating this coincided with a shift in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field (side note: I wonder what that'll screw up). Something about historically preserved magnetized rock along the ocean floor which shows the shift in the magnetic field of the planet as well as indicating massive ocean current change.
Anyway, I believe a major if not THE major heat sink in the ocean is near northern canada off the east coast. (Hence not surprising you would notice climate change there first, natural or not). That's apparently where the cold forces the incoming water to dive substantially and it triggers this whole huge mechanism which greatly affects not only the climate levels, but also the climate regions (aka where the tropical regions are etc). Essentially the direction that warm water travels over a large potion of the globe as it goes to cold water basically ends there.
This is a naturally (as in this used to happen before humans) weakening process which degrades over time and eventually flips in apparently a radically fast shift. Eventually the cold can't force the hot water down anymore and the entire ocean current system changes when it breaks. Now the hot water goes elsewhere, changing the hot/cold regions of the world around a bit (consider the heat waves generated by an al nino current or whatever, imagine that on a global scale current shift), we don't know what the revised current system looks like, just that the old current motion breaks, presumably it finds a new cold point to focus on, or else a hot point becomes dominant and pushes water rather than pulls. In any case, this could result in a flip of our climate quite substantially. And it may be a long term mostly unfixable thingy (unless you have a way to chill the ocean, pull off a couple thousand years worth of built up heat and can reset the ocean current directions back how it was).
Anyway, seems to me that greenhouse gases are pretty piddly stuff compared to what has naturally been happening to our oceans. From arguments I hear greenhouse gas theories are mostly full of crap anyway. The change in the greenhouse gases is a massive equilibrium system, and the reverse effects are significant enough that they eventually (thousand years) break the heat effects and begin a global chilling (our planet has survived this before). Releasing greenhouse gases triggers counter effects on an increasing scale. I believe I've heard at least a half dozen substantially contending reverse effects that will trigger one after the other as this goes up and the latter ones could quite likely reverse the whole effect. Starts with greenhouse gases actually reflect some of the heat we would have received back out to space, goes through a few more phases (too lazy to look them up again), ends up with ocean algae dying off which triggers a massive reduction in natural greenhouse gas emissions etc. Hell, I added one of my own after that, maybe rise the temp enough and it'll trigger volcano eruptions like st helens which'll coat the earth's atmosphere with powdered rock for a while shutting out the sun to cool it off. (Take a high temp system under pr
Sheesh.
Which republicans are those? The ones like Phyllis Schlafly who said that he attacked just to distract America from Monica Lewinsky? Or the ones like George W Bush who thoroughly disparaged nation building?
Yes, there were some in Congress who supported the authority of "the Presidency" to use military force, but few who explicitly said Clinton was doing the right thing.Kosovo? Oh yes, I seem to remember something about international support from both the UN and NATO. Unlike a certain other President we have now.