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UK Releases Global Warming Report
ben_ writes "The UK Government's Foresight Project, tasked with visualizing the future, has published a hard-hitting report on the flooding consequences of global warming. The story's also on the BBC."
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More likely, you've been hearing the same forecasts, and not paying enough attention to the timeframe. Many simulations show that a period of swimming like "Water World" increases the Earth's albdeo sufficiently that it *induces* a new ice age - several decades later. We're not that good at simulating something as complex as the climate out more than a few years. However, please realize that we *are* very good at measuring CO2 and its impact on the atmosphere, and that marginal scientists aside, no other variable - sunspots, orbital precession, yadda, yadda, has changed nearly enough - or in as obviously correlated a fashion - as atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Just because there's still a very very small number of scientists out there who question it does not really mean there's a "difference of opinion in the science community."
Thats the same site that claims recycling is a waste of time and caffine isn't adictive. Take it all with a grain of salt.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
You're not alone, but the size of your camp is dwindling with the growing evidence of the greenhouse effect.
_ wa rming/page.cfm?pageID=515#Overview
Scientists today:
* know pretty accurately the size of our atmosphere
* know pretty accurately what's in it
* have run controlled experiments showing how much heat is trapped by CO2 and other gasses
* know roughly how much CO2 is being added daily.
Here's what looks like a pretty balanced overview, gleaned through google of course:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global
I can respond to one of your points: it's not necessarily that the earth has never seen the greenhouse effect before, but the rate of its onset may very well be a new phenomenon. There have been massive volcanic eruptions in recent history, such as Krakatoa, but I believe we are producing more CO2 than anything like this.
If the Earth warms up quicker than most species have ever experienced, there is no reason to believe that there wouldn't be massive species upheaval.
Wow, I'm pro-nuclear power, but not like that :)
:-)
.72 MJ per hour to operate. For cars, you tend to need a lot more horsepower. Here's the conversion:
Ford was worse. At one point, they wanted to put a nuclear reactor into a car!
Whats the energy density of rice?
Pathetic. About 15 MJ/kg. And it's pretty hard to come up with kilograms of rice or corn when compared to other fuels.
It always amazing me how little food we animals need to eat to continue functioning and moving around.
Well, your body is generating about 200 watts of constant power. That means that you need about
1 Watt = 0.00134102209 horsepower
For a 150HP engine, you're talking about an energy drain of about 112 KW. That's 403 MJ of energy per hour. Realistically, cars only expend a lot of energy when accelerating. Thus an economy car tends to use more like 20 HP for cruising. That works out to a constant power requirement of about 15 KW. 15KW is 5.4 MJ per hour.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Already factored into the climate models. The Earth should by now be dipping back towards a glacial episode. Warming since the mid 20th Century appears to be man made.
Additionally, the rate of climate change is almost entirely unprecedented. Whilst global temperatures are not high on the geological timescale they are rising at an extraordinary rate which appears to lack a natural cause.
2. If Dinosaurs ruled a tropical paradise 65 million years ago, wouldn't the current trend of Global Warming just be the Earth returning to a Tropical state?
In short - no. During the Mesozoic both poles were covered by ocean, water could move freely through the oceans, heat was effectively distributed round the globe. Overall temperatures were higher. Since then, Antarctica has slipped over the South Pole and the North Pole is now almost entirely enclosed by land. Oceanic circulation is much more dynamic with cold water forming at the poles and descending to the floor of the oceans - which are only just about freezing point. The warming of these cold waters in the tropics is what holds the temperature way below Mesozoic levels.
3. Isn't is just a little bit arrogant on the part of humanity to assume that we really affect the environment that much?
Not really, we seem to have done a wonderful job devastating the ecologies of places such as Iceland (once had forests), the seasonally dry areas around the deserts which were once productive grasslands and are now deserts, the salinisation of the Middle East and Pakistan thanks to faulty irrigation, we've buggered the Aral Sea beyond recognition, we're busy knackering the Mekong River with badly-thought through hydropower projects, the Colorado only occasionally reaches the sea, god only knows what we've done by carrying rats and cats around the World to places where they were previously unknown. And so on. So actually, no, it would be amazing if we WEREN'T screwing up the atmosphere.
What about bovine methane?
Methane was estimated to produce about 20% of global warming in the 1990s. Its sources are many - melting permafrost, natural gas leaks, swamps are some of the natural ones. However we contribute to it by things such as rice paddies and those huge herds of cattle which just aren't natural.
What about a single volcanic eruption spewing more CFC's then we've ever thought about using?
Errr volcanoes don't spew CFCs. They release carbon dioxide which is a global warming agent, but they also pour out ash, sulphuric acid and hydrogen chloride which serve to depress temperatures.
Best wishes,
Mike.
I bet cattle would fart less if we didn't force-feed quite so much them before we killed 'em. And the methane they spew is only a tiny part of the pollution they cause. Ammonia gas, phosphorous, and lotsa microbes and pathogens stream out of every feedlot in enormous quantities.
"For every 10 pounds of nutrients consumed, 8 to 9 pounds are excreted in the feces and urine."
Straight from the USDA.
Does this strike you as wasteful? Did you know the US could feed 800,000,000 people on the grain that's fed to livestock? Let the cows eat grass and save the grain for the starving! Or sell it and take $80 billion off the trade deficit!
Fucking decadent carnivores, messing up the place...