Slashdot Mirror
Satellites Show That Earth Has a Fever
Roland Piquepaille writes "A recent study from NASA says that satellites are acting as thermometers in space. Contrary to meteorological ground stations which measure the air temperature around two meters above the ground, satellites can accurately measure the temperature of the Earth's skin. And this new study, which covers the 18-year period going from 1981 to 1998, shows that the Earth's temperature is rising 0.43C per decade instead of the O.34C found by previous methods. Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever. This overview contains more details and a spectacular image showing the European heat wave of the summer of 2003."
Probably due to all of the sick people walking around...
ha!
Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever.
Then, according to the logic presented here, if you stop using the satellites as thermometers, then they would be able to cure it?
"Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever."
...although satellites can more precisely measure this rise...?
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
....and the only PRESCRIPTION...is more COWBELL.
What? I'm the only one that thought that?
El riesgo vive siempre!
Nyquil. The Earth will be in too much of a coma to care about its fever.
Perhaps satellites are just dyslexic.
Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever. ...unless you outfit a large number of satellites with solar shades in order to reduce the amount of light reaching the earth.
Never use the word 'cannot' in the body of a story submission. Or was it 'never' that we're not supposed to use? Oh well. SOMEONE will prove me wrong!
"A recent study from NASA says that satellites are acting as thermometers in space.
Q) Do you know how to tell the difference between an oral and a rectal thermometer?
A) By the taste.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
And the only prescription is more cow bell.
sooo ummm maybe Circumcising earth will help reduce heat in those moist damn regions?
Time to upgrade the Heatsink of Earth, maybe go with a Heatpipe and a couple of huge fans?
If firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do Freedom fighters fight?
Over the past there have been many different climates. It is said that flying dinosaurs couldn't have flown in todays enviornment. The air isn't dense enough or humid enough. It needed to be more tropical.
Even look at the earths poles. THere is evidence to show that the poles are reversed from a previous point in history.
THe point is the earth goes throgh changes in climate without any human intervention at all. The continents weren't the same way way back when. Why are we harping so much on this?
Evolution or ID?
If the ground measurements are 0.34 degrees/decade, and the external measurements are 0.43 degrees/decade, then presumably the extra energy is contained within the circulating atmosphere. Certainly this ought to make the global dissipation happen faster (air tends to move more than water and earth (!) and has a fairly good heat-sink at the space boundary, not to mention the poles). I wonder if they've taken that into account.
On a slightly different note, I've always felt a sense of wonder when thousands of billions of air molecules synchronise their motion and hit you full in the face. I've always thought it ought to have a more poetic name than 'wind', considering the breathtaking nature of the phenomenon. Just a thought
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever
Is this really why they can't cure the fever?
...wants more cowbell.
Perhaps we need a sample size of more than 20 years?
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
needs is an enima, and the enima is "CARE"
Gaia, here's some chicken soup for the planet's soul...
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Be fatter and driver a bigger car. /sarcasm
We don't even know the earth enough to really be sure we are the ones causing these events. What if the planet is just due to warm up. Yes we mess a lot with the planet, humans are very good with messing with unlown stuff. There is so much we don't understand yet.
This is totally insecure, but very convenient.
As a resident of Seattle, I welcome moderate and immediate global warming. Thanks go out to all you CO2 spewing consumers out there.
XML causes global warming.
And the prescription is MORE COWBELL!
Wait, this isn't Fark... Never mind.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
use the butterfly theory to explain it.
define what is causing it.
is it nature or is it humans.
we do not know, all we have is correlational data which is far from proof of anything at all.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
...the Earth's temperature is rising 0.43C per decade instead of the O.34C found by previous methods.
Maybe the guy who did the old study was just dyslexic?
The one thing I've noticed about Slashdot is that a huge number of users seem dead set against the idea of global warming. Am I the only one who thinks that regardless of the exact status of global warming its reasonable to take steps to reduce emissions and so on?
Assume global warming is real, and then enviromentally friendly policies are needed.
Then assume it isn't. Its not like enviromentally friendly policies require you to sacrifice your first born son. We enact them, maybe have fewer SUV's, and live in a slightly cleaner world.
You don't stand to lose anything by assuming global warming is real and going from there. You stand to lose a lot by ignoring it and having it turn out to be real.
At least the thermometer isnt up the butt. Speaking of which, where is the Earth's ass?
I am assuming that since the red showed warmer areas, the blue areas would show cooler areas.
And it looks like most of the rest of Eastern Europe was cooler.
It seems to me that most people think that it's getting hotter, well, it probably is.
But I don't think that people realize that they have to take into count mroe than the most recent 200 years of history, that's a pretty small time table for something as old as the earth.
So, the Earth is getting warmer. Who says change is a bad thing??? Is it bad for the earth to be warmer than it is today??? I would guess not since it has been there before.
I would assume it's because we humans are resistant to change and like what we know. But we are highly adaptive so, I'm sure we will be fine.
Evolution or ID?
political leaders ánd general public are going to do something to protect our precious environment?
Well this explains the smelly sulphur dioxide emitted from volcanoes....
The earth just has an upset tummy...
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
The problem isn't global warming, per se -- some like it hot. The problem could be better described as climate change. Sure the Earth's been through many cycles, but none where we were trying to have a technology-based civilization at the time, with food production concentrated in small areas, and the rest as cities/suburbs. All it would take to create major problems would be a major change in the pattern of rainfall. No one's going to want to tear down, say, New York, just because the climate there is suddenly good for growing crops, while California's went too dry and hot for that. And oak trees take a long time to migrate. Sure, the race will survive, but it might not be with as much fun as it could have been.
And this new study, which covers the 18-year period going from 1981 to 1998, shows that the Earth's temperature is rising 0.43C per decade instead of the O.34C found by previous methods.
For those who just skimmed the linked article; the article links to another, which says the satellites can only detect temperature on land, but not over snow covered land. Hmm... seems like a skewed data set to me.
How do they know that the colder, snow-covered regions aren't getting colder, to balance out the average temperature? Or maybe the oceans are getting cooler which might also brings down the average temperature to what the ground stations recorded.
Maybe the scientists do know, and this is just a case of bad reporting...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Proactiv for planets! Guaranteed to clear up Earth's skin problems in 90 days or your money back. Please allow 6-8 million years for delivery.
If Roland could pick a peck of Piquepailles,
How many Piquepailles could Roland pick?
The fact that the parent wasn't modded as "sarcastic" is an affront to /.'s moderation options.
In seriousness, there are the 4 million brits who stand to lose their homes,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,120 0272,00.html
(Sorry I don't know how to highlight links), and that's just the impact in one place.
But I think the importance is that, although we are coming out of an iceage, there is a definite climate change being caused by human impact on the Earth. No, it won't wipe out all life on Earth or even cause us to go extinct, but (in the spirit that Earth day was yesterday) at least consider that we may be messing with things that we cannot control, and may be damaging things that we certainly cannot undo.
In fact, isn't it generally agreed that one of the previous epochs (periods, etc) had a much more tropical climate than the one we have now?
As such, given the short period of time human beings have produced 'greenhouse' gases, how can we truly measure this within the big picture.
Has there ever been a study that calculates the probabilities and consequences of warming due to cyclic changes as opposed to human induced warming. It could very well be the case that humans are causing accelerated warming, but if the probability that warming would have occured anyway is greater than the probability that humans are causing greenhouse effect, it may indicate a different "Real" affect caused by humans. Or that humans are just accelerating the inevetable.
The temperature increases for a number of reasons:
* Chemicals, called cytokines and mediators, are produced in the body in response to an invasion from a microorganism, malignancy, or other intruder.
* The body is making more macrophages, which are cells that go to combat when intruders are present in the body. These cells actually "eat-up" the invading organism.
* The body is busily trying to produce natural antibodies, which fight infection. These antibodies will recognize the infection next time it tries to invade.
Taken together with Agent Smith's insightful words:
"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague. And we are... the cure."
I think the message is clear - Mother Earth is trying to get rid of us.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The problem with this is that it really means nothing. It's useful data to have, but with our current state of knowledge, we can't infer anything from it.
The Earth's weather is a chaotic system. About the only thing you can be sure of is that things will be different tomorrow, compared to today. With a lot more research, we may be able to find strange attractors for some places at certain times, and use them to predict what is going to happen.
The human concept of "climate" is entirely that: a human concept. Eighteen years of observations is a miniscule speck in the age of this planet, and we can't say with any certainty that any trends in those eighteen years will carry to the next eighteen years. A thousand years of observations falls into the same category - a tiny sample of a big and complex system.
The Earth's weather changes on many scales: years, decades, centuries, millenia, and more. At each of those scales, there is change. Until we can understand or predict its behaviour across all those scales, we are practising voodoo when we make predictions.
I have seen arguments and models that predict that the world will heat up dramatically in the next century. I have also seen others that predict that we will be entering a new ice age. The thing is, the models for both predictions are quite reasonable.
So. We have a little data, and that's all we have. Conclusions may follow in the indeterminate future. Until then we have speculation.
This is all fine and well, but the part that annoys me is that the media (in general) are treating the speculation as fact, and only covering the speculation that fits their agenda. Please beware!
---
Take 2 asprins and call me in the morning.
This overview contains more details and a spectacular image showing the European heat wave of the summer of 2003
Spectacular image? Honestly. It looks like a pencil sketch of Europe with Paprika sprinkled on it. A four-color map does not a "spectacular image" make.
The technology may or may not be spectacular. The image, decidedly NOT.
If this is true, does it mean that we are in for some rough weather? Is there anything other than anecdotal evidence that the weather has been worse (i.e., more windy, "energy... contained within the circulating atmosphere") over the past 18 years than it was before?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
The Sun.
No, really. It has little if nothing to do with us capitalistic humans inflicting our evil habits on poor Mother Earth.
Or has everone forgotten that apparently robotic Mars probes cause global warming as well?
I am MuchTall
I hope you didn't have the fish.
Reflect the sun's energy back into space.
There is a belief that all "global warming" is the result of the evil, short-sighted addictions of man to fossil fuels. Yet there is a natural cycle that has existed through the ages that is ignored. Indeed, those that bring this up are branded luddites and more, simply for suggesting other possibilities. But more than that, so the earth is warming. So what? Just as many animal species die out, so will we one day, we can not hold nature at what we perceive to be some abstract "perfect" state, it changes, the world changes.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
A first year question for climatologists:
Define the average temperature on Earth.
[ No, I'm serious. Given the controversy, we
should at least be able to define what we mean
by the disputed physical quantity ]
Note that this quantity both has to be measured (in a consistent way over at least the past century) and predicted with climate models (over the next century) to be useful to derive policy from it.
Go ahead - and: success !
Toon Moene (A GNU Fortran maintainer and meteorologist at large)
n/t
...no further news is available at this pint.
You think you might get some more news after the next pint?
Just stick a humongous Star Wars(tm) suppository up the World's ass and she'll be alright :)
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
OMG, t3h w0r1d iz g3771ng h07, OMG.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Wow, what an if-then!
So here's a question...if the satellites could NOT measure it more precisely, would they then be able to "cure" the problem? Because if X is true then fail, then that assumes that if X is false then don't fail.
Perhaps we should start sending sattelites up with really bad instruments, so that they aren't very good at measuring temp on earth, and then they'll be able to stop global warming!
one big reason why so many people are alarmed by global change is real estate.
a ls/2004-04-2 1-our-view_x.htm
a lot of people have a lot of money in it. and consider how high the price of beach-front properties are...
as a side note, speaking of hot weather...
www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editori
I'm going to be keeping a lot of emergency ice in my freezer this summer.
Quite apart from the fact that sometimes life didn't go on (which ought to be enough to concern anyone), if you look at how these phenomena manifest, you'll see that it's typically not a linear process. There's normally a critical point over which X happens and below which Y happens. If X is lethal to human life (snowball earth, greenhouse earth) then we'd damn well better hope we stick with Y.
A case in point is the atlantic conveyer (the 'Gulf Stream' to us Brits). If the conveyer stops, an absolutely massive amount of energy will cease to be delivered to where it currently is. The knock-on effects aren't really model-able, we just don't have the knowledge, but since staggeringly enormous amounts of warmth would cease to be delivered to the UK coastline, you could assume it will get colder, even if you don't know quite how much. To give some perspective, it generates a difference of approximately 20 degrees celcius between points at the same latitude. 20 degrees of delta-T over several hundred billion tons of water is a lot of energy to be dependent on far-easier-to-change salinity level.
The atlantic conveyer depends on salinity in different parts of the world. If it rains more (in places that it currently rains little) and rains less (in places where it currently rains significantly) the saline levels will change, and the conveyer will be affected - at the critical point, it will simply stop. There's no obvious way we could restart it either. Shifting several hundred billion tons of water is way beyond our capabilities, and restoring the initial conditions may not be sufficient.
I guess I'm sufficiently worried about the consequences (which we will not be able to counter) to pay some heed to people who try to assess risk under next-to-impossible scientific conditions. I guess, given the potential consequences, that I'm willing to listen more to those who get off their backsides and put some effort into the analysis than people who sit around saying, 'hell we've had ice ages before and we will again'.
Actually humankind hasn't had ice-ages before, and to suggest we'd just cope is hubris of the highest order. We live in a highly technological society, and yes, given an immense struggle I think we would probably cope, as in 'Western civilisation' would cope. Countless millions would die in poorer, less developed, and simply unluckily-positioned countries as weather systems went out of control. One other thought is that a highly-structured, lean-and-mean (due to commercial pressures, mainly) society is a vulnerable society. If central America were reduced to a desert (unlikely, but possible) then the food chain would break within the US, and other countries would have a hard-enough time to feed their own. 280 million people is a lot of mouths...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Because, you know, one day Los Angeles will be ok, and five, ten years later it'll be submerged.
What kind of timescale do you think we're talking?
~Berj
I am in no way trolling here. The parent is addressing an issue that I have never found a straight answer to. In High School I was told that the earth was in fact warming up due to the burning of fossil fuels, polution, ect. I asked the question "Why did climate changes occur before human industrialization?" I never got an answer.
Now I am in college and still my question still has not been answered completely.
There are theories that deep ocean currents and them changing is the cause of global warming. I honestly don't know. What scientists do agree on is that major temperature changes have occured in earth's history without the effects of modern industrialization.
I personally believe that global warming exists however I still don't know how much humans are involved in the process.
0.43, not 0.34?
Surely someone just entered the numbers wrong the first time?
Maybe all this warming of the earth will make it look like it does in Samari Jack. People look different in different areas. Technology is so far advanced. Animals can talk.
Evolution or ID?
So if we just stop measuring the earth's temperature will it be cured?
Just mount some laser cannons on them and have them destroy all SUVs. What? Jumping to conclusions?? Moi?!
The heat helped create some of the best French wine I have ever tasted. Last year's vintage of Beaujolais Nouveau was absolutely incredible!
EVERYONE, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! I can't believe how stupid tree huggers, and bunny lovers can be. The same with those id 10 t scientists who tell us we are all gonna die. DUH! I'll try to remember to leave a note for my great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grand kids. They might be closer to seeing the human race die than I would. Next, we'll see truth commercials on a global scale. Later (I mean in millions of years.) me
And so has Mars. What do the environmentalists want next? Should we extiguish the sun to prevent it from getting any warmer?
Food for thought? There are environmentalists screaming bloody murder becasue old settlements in greenland are poking thru the glaciers. Well, how were there settlements there to begin with in Greenland(it was called that for a reason)? Since there are glaciers all over the place? Oh that's right, the Earth was warmer in the past long before anything the humans did to change this cyclical nature of the Earth.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
We run out of turkey parts? But since the technology looks like it will work with many types of waste, even sewage, we might never run out at all.
Look, artificial global climate change is a real problem, and look, we don't know everything about it and look, we do know a great deal more than nothing about it. Look.
Here's my best recent posting on the subject, typos and all. I gotta go.
mt
.43? .34? .dyslexia of case bad a has someone Maybe
The whole thing is just a mechanism for socialists/communinsts to attack capitalism. They just use the envio-whackos to forward their agenda.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Perhaps your slightly misguided antagonistic take on the Christian religion might benefit from some time spent reading.
Be careful, or Jesus might run you over with his Prius. Assuming he's not just a fictional thing some really old authors made up. In which case, this is all there is and screwing it up by polluting will end your afterlifeless life that much quicker. Either way, you're screwed. So be nice.
than curretn temperatures. According to deep ice cores, we are now as hot as we have been at any time in the last 300,000 years. This warming is happening ON TOP OF temperatures at or very near historical peak, and it is pushing us into temperature regimes not observed over that period. We are moving OUTSIDE the observed temperature cycles, ane arguing from the effects of those past cycles is problematic; they simply arent relevant, because they are entirely at temperatures lower than where we are going (or likely are now, for that matter).
I will no longer have to wait for Chinook Pass to open to get home!
Has there been any studies taking the temp of other planets over a period of time?
I would be interesting to see what kind of cycles other planets in the solar system follow and if earth follows them in any way.
Part of what's going on here is we have data which we didn't used to have access too, and there's some question over what it means.
However, there is very little question that an average 1 and a half degee F warmer in two decades is a pretty dramatic change, especially when compared to evidence of climate change trends in geologic records. The problem isn't so much that we're getting warmer as much as that we might be doing so at a rate which will cause climate changes so quickly that we might not be able to reorganize our farming practices quickly enough to adapt without excessive cost. So yea, we'll probably survive, but we'll be a lot poorer for it, and a *lot* of people will suffer, and a *lot* of ecosystems will go extinct, just so you can drive your SUV and have 'cheap' coal power...
and just in case you *are* going to say you're some sort of expert on global climate trends, where's your evidence that .7 degrees F increase in a decade is historically 'normal' ?
The point is surely not that the Earth gets hotter and colder. I accept that (where I live I can look out the window and see some leftovers from the last glaciation or so.) /.ers announcing that everything is just fine does nothing for my peace of mind. You are the intelligent people, for the most part. If you aren't taking it seriously, what are the morons doing?
Rather, it is that the heating up is very, very rapid in geological terms. During the 19th Century when the age of the Earth was realised, it was understood that natural processes were very slow. Now they are happening really rather fast, and the satellite data suggests it is faster than previously believed. There has been, in geological terms, a step change in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and a lagging step change in temperature. (as an aside why can't a geek site manage subscript and superscript? Step changes are usually bad news. I have just become a grandfather and I can't help contrasting when I was born into a post-WW2 world rather full of optimism despite McCarthy et al, and my granddaughter being born into a world where accelerating climate change, population migration, hydraulic, food and energy wars may be the norm. A load of
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever.
We will construct a "la-zer"...i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
Tehg carboniferous age was much warmer and had likely much higher atmospheric CO2 levels. Thing is, much of the CO2 got sequetered, over literally tens on tens of millions of years, into geological stores. Now we are releasing large percentages of the sequestered carbon, in 100 years or so. We are reversing a process taht happened in geological time, but we are doign so in historical time, or even current time. That means the problems associated with the change are going to be different.
John Carlack
You could try spelling his name right too...geeze!
Wouldn't be surprised if this was the case here. Some anti-environmentalist Web site posts a link to this Slashdot article and says "here it is. make sure they know what you think"
I know you're joking, but parking lots and roads are responsible for altering weather patterns and causing local climate changes. Birds have even adapted to following highways because of the thermals they generate...
Please help metamoderate.
MSU - 1970s era air temperature
- http://ghrc.msfc.nasa.gov:5721/sensor_documents/m
s u_instrument.html
AMSU - next generation of MSU, several are flying on US and European satellites- http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/
- http://aqua.nasa.gov/AMSU3.html
ATMS - next generation AMSU, scheduled for first flight in a few years- http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Technology/atms_summary.h
t ml
SSM/T-1 - old 1970s/80s era air temperature sensor, the last one launched in 1999- http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/uso/readme/ssmt1.html (about the only decent information that's left about it)
SSMIS - next generation SSM/T-1 that also combines functions of 2 other older sensors (atmospheric water vapor and a ton of surface data like ice concentration, sea surface wind speed, soil moisture, etc), the first of 5 launched in October of last year- http://xenon.aerojet.com/Weapon_Systems/Earth_Sen
s ing/SSMIS/
- http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/IMAGES/ssmisdoc.htm
- http://www.metoffice.com/research/interproj/nwpsa
f /ssmi/ssmis_ug_moud001_v2.pdf (PDF gets pretty technical but lots of good info)
CMIS - next generation SSMIS scheduled to fly by the end of the decadeAll of the above are what are known as microwave sounders or radiometers. They look at radiation in specific bands in the microwave region of the spectrum (based on oxygen absorption lines) to infer air temperatures.
It looks like the study in the article was using MODIS and TOVS data. TOVS consists of some of the above instruments - MSU and AMSU in particular for this application. MODIS is another sensor that doesn't look at the microwave region of the spectrum, so it's out of my area of expertise. Look at the website for more info on that if you're interested. :)
Say hello to zMac.
Our Sun will never supernova.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
This isnt evidence for anthropogenic warming. It isnt evidence for long-term trends. We HAVE reasonable long-ter. measurements of global temp, going back well over 300,000 years. This is a solid, precise measurement of the rate of warming for this 18 year period. Nothign more. It says that the rate may behigher than previously measured. Given that the current climate models predict warming, and that the rate of warmng is part of that prediction, this number is important as one (of several) tests of those models, OVER THAT 18 YEARS.
Indeed, while certain "global warming" factors can be traced to pollution, more concerning is the effect on wildlife of both pollution and over-harvesting
With respect to changes in the Earth itself, this may be part of a natural pattern, or some core activity which is causing a general increase in the outer skin. I wonder if anyone has done a "deep probe" to see how far these changes are penetrating.
This all sounds like a great plot for a movie! Guess we'll have to see what happens the day after tomorrow.
Would you all stop listening to Bjørn Lomborg and the right wing BS.
The truth is that he is saying that we can make a happier life fore more people by using the money go make clean water in Africa than to stop polluting. The Bush administration just forgets the last part of the argument.
Funny that this Bjørn Lomborg is so popular amongst the right wing, he properly would not be allowed to come in to most of there Christian fundamentalist homes.
Wow! We've been looking at the temperature of a planet that is between 6 and 8 billion years old for almost 20 years (that's 0.00000000003% of the planets life) and we think we see a trend. Oh yeah, that's statistically valid.... Do you play the lottery
by the way (Hey, it could happen)?
So where does heat (from auto engines, hair dryers, power plants etc...) go? Does it just vanish into thin air? I mean arent we creating a heat buildup never seen before?
we are already as warm as we've ever seen for the last 420,000 years. See the Vostok Ice Core data, which is is good agreement with otehr ice core data for as far back as the otehr cores go. We know: 1. CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) trap heat. 2. CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) have increased rapidly and dramatically in concentration, from anthropogenic inputs. 3. That would be expected to trap heat. 4. WE are already at a local AND GLOBAL temp max for the last 400,000 years or so. 5. We are warming very, very rapidly from that local and global maximum. Given JUST that, even without the good agreement of the models with obeerved data, it seems almost perverse to argue that humans arent creating a pretty solid upward pressure on temps.
A->B != B->A.
AB = BA
And this new study, which covers the 18-year period going from 1981 to 1998, shows that the Earth's temperature is rising 0.43C per decade instead of the O.34C
--- I hate my sig
The Symbol of Lebanon is the Cedar tree...
Humans have been changeing the climate since long before the industrial age.
Hi, I live in Montreal, Quebec and it's not that warm ;-)
Now more seriously, we know it's been getting warmer lately (no, can't be more precise).
We know some of the things that we do can have an effect on temperature.
We know the earth have lived through cold and warm periods.
We don't know for sure that the increase in temperature today is due to us, although some of it might.
We don't know whether the increase in temperature today might not end up in a big drop in temperature tomorrow.
So the future might be :
1) colder
2) warmer
3) pretty much the same
We just don't know.
What we know for sure is that the pollution we create is bad for us now, because we breathe that polluted air, drink that polluted water, etc.
Isn't that good enough a reason to start taking actions to reduce pollution now or do we really need to ask ourselves whether we're changing the climate ?
IANWYTIA (I Am Not Who You Think I Am)
First, the whole discussion seems rather redundant, yesterday there where a discussion following a british report... The posts are very one-sided - we don't know anything so it's probably not real, I got modpoints, but I'd rather present the other side, and try be a bit neutral where posible.
You feel ill and call the docter, the docter sais, "oh, you have a fever, I can't tell you what it is nor can I give a cure, but I recommend you stay in bed". What do you do? Go out surfing the waves, or snowboarding naked?
Next day docter comes back, "I got the results of the tests" he sais, "we can cure this in the initial state". "Great" you think. "But", he continues, "the infection has accellerated into an advanced state due to overcooling of you body after yesterdays snowboarding. There is a close to nill chance that you will survive, and if you do there is a close to nill chance that you will not have any means."
What's the point of all this? Well, really, people prefer not to take reasonable precautions because of the emmidate negative effect. It is just easier.
Whenever people react on environmental issues, they seem to do it by instinct and not with thought. The anti-environmentalists say "we don't know anything so there is no reason to do anything" - (and please don't tell us anything, if we know we might have to deal with it). The environmentalist react opposite: "Change your lifestyle and spend all your money on what we say or you die."
None of the two really looks into what the data and the theories says. And none looks at reasonable, cheap and easy counter meassures. You can actually get a more economic car without it costs you anything. The anti-enviromentalists says yes but why bother? The environmentalists says, "but we don't want cars at all".
The two extremes keeps eachother in check and nothing happens, in stead we slowly slip ignorant into what ever fate our ignorance offers us.
It is really not very usefull that either side pulls up the barracades. I am actually worried that we will be the first specie on Earth to cause our own extinction - And knowing it!
would the Earth still be getting warmer even if we weren't creating manmade polution? It may just be that even if were we able to eliminate all of the anti-ozone polution in the world, the global average temerature might still go up anyway
Sigh, the ozone issue and greenhouse gasses that cause global warming are 2 different environmenal issues. They are both atmospheric pollutant issues, but they are not the same.
Ozone stops ultraviolet rays from reaching the surface, greenhouse gasses stop infrared heat from escaping to space.
You can't take the sky from me...
chekc out the ice core stuff. Vostok is a good starting place.
In that way we hopefully can make some really good predictions for the decades to come.
Note: no, I'm not related to this project in any way. It is just a very good cause!
We simply can't wait to collect a geologically significant body of data.
If pollution is causing unnatural global warming, then we can't wait until said warming is undeniable fact before we act.
I suggest an experiment: let's attempt to drastically reduce our emissions, as if we were addressing a real global warming problem. Then we can study temperature changes. If the rise in temprature decelerates or reverses, we could reasonably conclude that our pollution was the cause. If not, then we've made our air and water cleaner for no good reason, but at least we'd know!
The enemies of Democracy are
Historically speaking, one's skill in one's native language is a reflection of one's level of education, and hence an indicator of one's social class.
Its not really true in America anymore, where many wealthy people are not very well educated, don't speak english correctly, and don't care.
It further seems that overtly resisting this trend accomplishes nothing useful.
vostok co2, methane, temp data
...that was sixteen words.
Life will go on ... and if it doesn't, well, there's nothing we can do about it.
Everyone seems aware of the Earth's cyclical nature but not aware that a large percentage of humanity would not survive living through these cycles. As a species we are adaptable, very true, but adaptability in a species usually arises because the majority were wiped out and the remainder were hardy enough, had enough resources or were lucky enough to stay alive.
Here shows some stallite atmospheric data that shows a cooling trend.
So, which one to believe is the "true" measure of our global climate?
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Many people here claim that 20 years is too small a time scale for any maesure that should be compared against a geological time scale.
It is interesting then that the last ice age enged with a temperature increase of 7 degrees world average over just 20-30 years!
Certainly the changes observed are small and the time scale is short. But these data are giving us detailed information of this very short period. And that data is added with the less detailed data collected over the last centuries and milleniums.
This collected set of data is what form the basis of predictions and models about the climate.
There is evidence that the average temperature has been rising since the industrialization, and that the increase in temperature has been faster in the later years.
The measurements only serve to reduce the band of errors and inacuracies. Never the less, slashdotters seem to try twist the evidence around in order to arive at a no evidence at all conclusion.
If humans are a product of nature, and humans do something, shouldn't that still be considered "natural"? If the evolution of a species such as humans is then natural, and that evolution "naturally" results in technology which stresses an ecosystem in strange ways, is that bad? Is it good?
What that philosophy fails to recognize, understandably, is that humans have suddenly and dramatically changed not only the playing field, but the players and the nature of the game. Evolution had been a struggle of a species versus its predators or a struggle of a species to exploit an environmental niche.
What happens, though, when a species suddenly becomes its own greatest threat? How does a species evolve a defense against its own base instincts? We don't know. This is a new development that has never occurred in the history of life on Earth. We're venturing into uncharted territory and doing it with abandon. It would be much wiser to step a little more carefully. We might just be a failed experiment.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
I don't know if I'm way off track or not, but I had a look at the map of the Europe heatwave and compared it to a night-time sattelite pic of the world. The lights and their concentration roughly equate to the population densities, and I can't find many similarities between the distribution of mankind and Earth heat. I don't know if that means anything, but it doesn't appear to me that we have much to do with this 'fever'.
There's PLENTY to lose by "assuming [human-caused] global warming is real" because the actions taken to rectify the greenhouse gas "problem" diverts time, energy, and money away from less sexy problems that may have much greater impact on our lives.
For example, mercury emissions from power plants and other industrial processes are poisoning real people, NOW - mercury accumulates in fish and makes them toxic - but that gets a tiny fraction of the time and attention that it deserves.
And stop picking on SUVs. They may be the vehicle of choice of Yuppie Scum, but modern examples get decent gas milage and thanks to the latest generation cat converters and emissions hardware/software, produce tiny fractions of the noxious crap that used to come out of cars. In some places, the tailpipe emissions from an SUV is cleaner than the ambiant air.
The whole Global Warming thing is akin to standing on a train track, screaming that if a train comes you'll be killed (even though there's no train in sight) all the while ignoring the tiger that is busy munching on your leg. There's bigger problems to deal with right now.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
I still don't think we have anything to worry about, personally...
I'm not an expert on the North Atlantic Current, but I think it works like this:
There's a world wide system of ocean currents, the most famous of which is called the North Atlantic Current. They're all inter-related, and the said current brings millions of power stations worth of heat to Europe (each day I think).
Now the current is driven by a delicate balance of ocean temperature differentials (I think), and flows straight past Newfoundland - accounting for the warm winters, excessive amounts of wind and general crapy weather.
Now, most of the worlds Icebergs also flow past Newfoundland, since they originate in Greenland. As the iceberg flow increases, there has been measurable decreases in the ocean temperature in a part of the said North Atlantic Current.
Iceberg flow is increasing... perhaps because of global warming. If the iceberg flow increases to a certain amount, at a particular time of year, then the North Atlantic Current will be reset somehow, and Northern Europe will become as cold as parts of Northern Canada.
That means permanent snow down to North Germany. Mmmm... just a theory I saw on the discovery channel.
I think the potential for climate change is only a small reason for reducing car emissions. Environmentalists have done their campaign a disservice by relying on such an easily disputable theory.
We are affecting the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. If the world was the size of a basketball, then the atmosphere would be about as thin as a layer of plastic shrink wrap... and it is elementary to life on earth.
So here's an anecdote about how we're affecting the weather (remember that the plural of anecdote isn't data). When my parent were growing up they hadn't heard of asthma. Today, in some places of the world almost every child suffers from asthma. I think about 20% of children suffer to various degrees in Toronto.
There was a bad smog day in Toronto, and the emergency rooms at hospitals were filled with children needing treatment. A lot of those children were driven to hospital in SUVs. Screw the environment... do you think that smog might have an impact on human health?
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
an uninformed, yet strongeley opinionated member of the slashdot peanut gallery doesnt bother to RTFA article and instead uses it as a chance to spout off his unfounded, unsubstatiated anti global warming rantings. never seen that before...
0.024 deg C a year represents a huge amount of energy.
In the oceans alone, that is about 24 thousand peta-joules of
energy.
What does that mean? It's just a number. I don't know the significance of it, but I couldn't dismiss it offhand.
cause thats all you are really saying
"Kyoto so we can actually lower the rate of global warming by 1% which is likely a natural occurance that we are speeding up in an insignifigant way. Most resonobly attainable emmisons reduction goals would have NO MEANINGFUL impact on the enviornment, over just keeping current standards." how about some citations there, jeb. or are we to take it to be gospel becasue you preech it in strong terms? how about this: you come up with some EVIDENCE to support your bizarre claims that go against the clear consensus in the scientific community. then we can talk. "They will be a huge economic burdon. To really "stop polluting" you would drive the economy to a screeching halt." time to go back and study some economics. developing whole new industries based around new methods of generating, distibuting and using power will be a gigantic boon to the economy.
Not entirely true, that last quote. We could, in theory, orbit large satellites which convert solar energy (sunlight isn't attenuated by the atmosphere in space) into microwave energy, and beam the microwaves down to an isolated site on Earth, where they are converted into electricity. Such a system is unlikely to be practical or cost-effective in the near future, however, and I'm not sure if facilities for receiving a concentrated high-energy microwave beam can be built with current tech anyway.
-b0s0z0ku
A good start would be to require that every engineer, in order to keep their license, should be required to shoot and kill (with as much pain as possible) one MBA per fiscal year. This would have the added side-benefit of making MBA think twice before proposing such schemes.
* Pig Hogger on Slashdot (2004.04.19) discussing disposable cars
One thing that cannot be rationalized away by the "our models aren't perfect" argument is Carbon dumping. At no point in the history of the Earth have so many tons of Carbon been dumped into the atmosphere in such a rapid amount of time. Not since people have walked the Earth anyway.
Global warming is worth scientific study. Questions of the validity of the theory shouldn't stand in the way of studying the effects of Carbon dumping. Or how to remediate those effects.
"Hey Albert, Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."
More seriously though, have any of you heard about Blaise Pascal ? He didn't invented French Fries, but come from the same country. This guy just had a revelation once, during a late night studying. The revelation of God.
To persuade other people to actually give faith into his idea of christianity, he gave us a cunning scientific principle : bet (based on both probabilities and cost of opportunity). If you bet on the existence of God, and if indeed it exists, you are ready for a happy millenar fucking angel chicks. If he doesn't exist, it's all the same. If you refuse to believe, and he does exist, just bring a cooler with you. If he doesn't exist, you're dead the same way.
The analogy is relevant in the sense that global warming does exist, but the causality with human activities is not proven. Hence the bet. Of course there are a lot of people saying that it would cost us our life standards. Answer : bip ! bullshit. Go on civil nuclear (just catch up your late, Sam !), spend less oil, learn to walk, get out of your fucking basement and take the streetcar.
Gosh ! Think, before you brain freezes...
Regards,
jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
Now someone with a Nobel prize in physics is going to be a very smart person, but he or she will be no more able to assess claims in climatology than myself.
There are runaway models that support a self feeding or positive feed back model for temperature rise. Astronomers have been trying to explain Venus' atmosphere and temperature for decades. The most common theory is the Green House effect.
Venus Facts.
While I believe that there are greater climatological forces (greater than Yuppies with SUV's) at work which cause up and down cycles in global temperature; life in general has had a very marked hand in contributing to these changes. The most radical planetary change attributed to life forces has to do with early bacteria and algae giving the earth its oxygen rich atmosphere.
Early life formsand O2
I do support using more efficient energy technologies as these not only help slow down CO2 emissions (which may or may not contribute to global warming) but more importantly reduce sulfur, ozone, and nitrate emissions which are known to cause acid rain and contribute to air pollution. I have been doing my part by replacing old light bulbs with energy efficient ones and by better insulating my house and running an attic fan in stead of the AC when weather permits, etc. If everyone makes lots of little changes then this will have a big impact on our overall quality of life. I'm not talking about shivering in the corner during the winter because you shouldn't run your heater but the stakes are too high not to pay attention and try to take the best actions even if the data is incomplete. Baby steps.
Climate change
Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances.
Obviously, we can look back in time to establish the glacial history (I used to cross the east-west ridge pushed up a few miles south of Lake Ontario, NY, by the last North American glacial advance every day, going to school). We can look at past interglacial periods and say they were long or short. But, with the increase in infrared-absorbtive gases in the atmosphere, and as-yet not fully understood feedbacks, claiming that this interglacial will be short is shaky, at best.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
There are natural cycles that affect weather, no doubt of it.
But I look around and I see droughts in ever-rainy Florida, droughts in the midwest farmlands, severe water shortages in Pennsylvania including a consistently measured water table drop, and ever-milder winters as the decades have gone by.
Twenty years ago I'd have been shovelling snow at the beginning of April -- that hasn't happened in almost 10 years now.
I find it amazing that anyone can look back on the summers and winters of childhood, and not realize the weather is consistently warmer. What I can't believe is that so many people are wilfully blind to how that is affecting the agriculture that feeds us all!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
whatis striking is that the pattern of temperature variations is consistent across thsoe cores, for the years that they overlap. They give us quite a nice picture of overall temp variation at those locatins, and the temp variatins at those locations are in agreement.
I'm curious - do you have a citation on this? The environmental scientists I know and whose work I have read consider prehistorical climate data from the sources I mentioned quite sufficient for extrapolation.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
It's been burnin' since the worlds been turnin'.. we didn't start the fire!
it seems almost perverse to argue that humans arent creating a pretty solid upward pressure on temps.
Actually, I argued no such thing, but asking for reading comprehension on the part of the typical Slashdotter is, I admit, a silly thing to do.
What I said was that there's no evidence that humans are responsible for global changes in temperature. Right now it's speculation, nothing more, as any decent scientist will tell you. Empirically no one has proven anything.
This is a far cry from asserting that humans *aren't* responsible, which I never did. If you think otherwise, I suggest you try actually reading the post this time.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
How thick is the crust where these measurements are made? Crustal thicknesses, thus the depth to which solar energy or other radiant source can penetrate, vary considerably throughout a continent - and between different continents.
.
How much geologic activity is occurring in the region sampled? Is it active, like the Pacific Rim areas, or is it relatively inactive, like the cratonic regions of the continenets?
I consider this pretty important information if one is evaluating this kind of data.
The first-blush inference drawn from the article summary is that mechanisms contributing to global warming (i.e., anthropogenic sources) are driving surface temperatures on the Earth in the same way as air temperatures. No mechanism is described in either the long article from Goddard or from the summary on exactly how surface temperatures could be affected by human activities.
The Earth's crust varies from one or two kilometers to several kilometers in depth and there is a great deal of geologic activity that is going on all over the planet irrespective of man's presence. While the evidence of global warming continues to point to a strong antropogenic contribution, both article and summary fail to explain how this paticular information is realted to anything
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
and the only perscription... is more cowbell!
"Can anyone tell me the worst case scenereo if global warming got as bad as its gonna get in the next century or so? "
Destruction of costal cities where most of humanity lives. Famine. Global war. Mass extinctions. A shutdown of the northern gulf stream that could actually cause an ice age. I'm sceptical of that last one, but it's possible.
Best case scenario? Venice Italy is certainly toast. It's a really pretty place (I won't speak to the smell) and it will be a sad thing when it disappears under the sea. And I don't think there is any scenario where that doesn't happen.
In the end a much better question that "did humans cause it?" is "what the Hell can we do about it?" when 100 million people starve to death I won't be very comforted if it is ultimitely proven to be a natural phenomenon.
http://www.viridiandesign.org/
There was a report last week or two on experiments seeding the ocean with iron to cause algae blooms that suck up megatons of CO2 and drop it to the bottom of the ocean. It's time to stop playing the blame game and look for some answers - answer that we won't get pretending it isn't happening (the bushies) or sitting around demonstrating, eating granola an whining about big business (the greens).
-- your Web browser is Ronald Reagan
>Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more >precisely measure this rise of the Earth's >temperature, they cannot cure this fever. An unnecessary sentence, since I wouldn't expect them to, except perhaps in a Roland Emmerich science fiction film. That's like my doctor getting a blood workup back from Quest and saying, "the panels seem to indicate you have lymphoma. Unfortunately, Quest Diagnostics cannot cure your condition."
And yoe said more than that. You said: "there's absolutely zero evidence that this is due to human activity." That isnt true. Not even close. Right now, there isnt bulletproof, conclusive evidence. But there is a mountain of circumstantioal, mechanistic, theoretical, field-observation, and model-derived evidence in support of anthropogenic causes for at least a good part of observed warming. When you make a dogmatic statement like "there's absolutely zero evidence," please dont come back with nitpicking about how you are being misread.
Um it was +20C two days ago and +3C today.
;-)
What's your point?
If anything I think the seasons are just shifting. It gets colder [winter] and warmer [summer] later in Ottawa. I used to recall 6' snowbanks in mid November. In the last few years we would get the huge snowfalls around x-mas time.
Similarly it used to be t-shirt and shorts weather Around the first of April. Now it's still long pants and jacket weather.
Big woop. All this proves is there is a lot about the weather people don't understand. Like I doubt seasons actually follow a strict 4 month cycle
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
You can look at this from an Earthcentric view...
Humans are really just a small pinprick on the geological evolution of the planet. If the climate were to change making it impossible for us to live here, don't worry... the planet will evolve and continue.
Good for the Earth.
Bad for Humans.
All depends on your perspective.
"This is what really gets to me in these debates. Most people are unwilling to view humans as merely a part of the complex biological system that exists on the surface of the planet. I see no logical reason why the human species should be set apart specially from everything else, and no reason to arbitrarily define human actions as "unnatural.""
"Everything else" isn't proliforating nuclear weapons. "Everything else" isn't playing God with biological materials. "Everything else" isn't as callous and arrogant as us. When "everything else" can do the things we do then we can talk about an equality.
"The point is, the Earth must be viewed holistically, as a system of many interacting and not always distinct parts. To think that we, as one small part, can somehow direct our actions in such a way as to favorably control its evolution, is arrogant and mistaken."
Arrogance has little to do with weither we can accomplish it's goals. Maybe you've heard of the "multiplier effect"? Just as we were discussing Microsoft in the other story, and how it's "effect" on the computing landscape is out of proportion to the actual size of the company.
The same holds true for humanity. What we can do and the "effects" of our actions are out of proportion to any quality that humans possess.
"Life and climate are dynamic, chaotic systems. We've all heard of the Butterfly Effect. Even the smallest, insignificant action has profound effects on everything, given enough time. Are these effects good or bad? What causes them to be good or bad? Suppose that we are causing global warming, and in 100 years the world will be a tropical rainforest. All sorts of new species will evolve in the hot jungles of northern Canada. What "right" do we have to alter the Earth's climate, cooling it down, and preventing those species from emerging?"
The "butterfly effect" is a nice theory, but in the real world, there's no proof that a butterfly farting in the rainforest will change anything in an significent way.
"The fact is, global warming is a problem because it is a problem for humans. I don't think the Earth cares if species die off, and new ones emerge. It is a continual process of trying to come into equilibrium -- except the equilibrium is always shifting because of the billions of outside influences. Except this term "outside influences" is also a misnomer, because there are no truly "outside" influences -- the universe is one big system of cause and effect, and the closer you look at it, the harder it is to make distinctions between any of the parts."
A collective DUH arises from the audiance. Anyway it does matter to humans because we have the capacity to recognize it's importance. Animals and plants may not, but that doesn't mean that it isn't important to them in a big picture sense.
"Does any of this mean that we shouldn't do our best to curb our production of CO2? It depends, first of all, on what the immediate consequences to human civilization would be. Are we going to flood all our coastal cities? If so, it hardly makes sense to argue about whether the decision is "right" or "wrong" -- it's a matter of practicality. But if not... Suppose species are wiped out, migration patterns shift, ecosystems turn to deserts, deserts to to jungles, evolution gets a kick in the pants in general... Can somebody give me a fundamental, justifiable reason why that is "wrong?" Are natural changes only "right" if they are not guided by conscious awareness? Can you provide a justification for such an arbitrary viewpoint?"
They're right because we are the dominant species on the planet (read monopoly) and there are certain responsabilities that go along with that. But anyway your position is as arbitrary as the one you acuse others of. Were's your justification?
Ruining the planet and then blaming it on "natural causes" is not any better than the excuses copyright violaters come up with. "Why yes I did download that MP3 contrary to copyright. It was the "natural" thing to do." "Why yes I did assassinate the North Korean president. It was the "natural" thing to do" Silly examples to go with your silly argument.
I am in the crowd who does not support most global warming theories. Why? Because they are just that, theories. We try to explain how something works, have the audacity to think we can model it, then go along the lines of where the most money is.
The trouble with most Global Warming solutions is that they only want to selectively enforce them on Western countries. Go to the East and see their pollution. They are where most Western countries were in the 50s. Yet no treat seeks to restrict them.
One volcano had more of an effect on sunlight penetration in just a few days than man managed burning all the wells in Iraq. The Amazon river puts out more CO2 than most countries. The ice caps are melting, the ice caps are getting thicker...
In other words, every 2 to 3 years we get presented with a new theory about what is causing it and why yet we get the same old rehashed solution, restrict the most industrialized countries.
Blame Bush is in fashion, he is an easy target. Yet the EPA is actually testing for stuff now that never was. We do have cleaner water than just a few years ago, we have a real and enforceable means of testing for mercury. We are even going after MBTEs? (sp? - the gas additive pushed by Gore that is a cancer causing seeps into our water chemical). The EU even acknowledges they can't meet targets. The US Sentate regardless of when Clinton was President voted it down.
Yeah, man can affect the environment. However we aren't the only game in town. The Earth and the Sun can do things in days we can only fear we will cause in years or decades.
One side effect of clean energy is more energy consumption and production. This leads to a new pollution which may account for some of what we see, heat. Heat is a standard byproduct of all energy use. As we get more efficient in producing it we consume more... so how long before we stop worrying about what chemicals go into the air and start worrying about the excess heat we push there.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Just curious if you truly believe that humans cannot cause environmental change...
I suggest you look at history. For instance, the pictures coming out of Iraq today. Do you realize that Iraq is one of the cradles of civilization? At one time that was an incredibly fertile part of the world. Now it's mostly desert.
Similarly, talk to the Chinese about the sandstorms they have been experiencing in Beijing as the desert there encroaches further east.
Well heck, the Dustbowl in the US was an example of bad agricultural practices impacting our environment.
Yes, the Earth has fluctuated in the past, as asteroids have hit it, as major volcanoes have erupted. All sorts of events outside the control of humans.
And you're right. The Earth itself will survive.
I guess the question which concerns me is if our civilization will.
Frankly I think mankind is smart, and we have scientific knowledge to address these situations if and when they arise. That's why I want research done on these issues, and I want ideas thrown out as to why things might be happening.
I don't understand why some people are so opposed to this, and would rather shove their hand in the sand and yell "Nyah nyah nyah, i can't hear you" than believe that mankind can cause environmental change.
If an asteroid was coming towards the Earth and we knew about it ahead of time and could do something, would you say "No, let nature take it's course."?
Just curious.
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html
Nothing here folks - just Government emploies trying to ensure funding for their jobs.Oh, sorry, did I get here late?...
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Microsoft is a monopoly. This doesn't mean that they are the only software company; it means that they are the dominant software company. They have so much power with respect to everybody else that, legally, different rules apply to them.
The same thing is true of humans in relation to the ecosystem. We've got so much power in relation to other species that, morally, different rules apply to us, and we have a responsibility to not trample on every other living thing. Yeah, we could. Yeah, nobody can stop us. So what? It's still not right.
Why isn't it right? It isn't right because we are conscious, moral beings.
If you don't agree that we are moral beings, that some things are right and some are wrong, then the only argument left for you is that of self-interest. For such people, nothing morally compels us to say that murder is wrong, but they don't want to live in a society where it's accepted, because it usually turns out to be a pretty unpleasant environment. In the same way, indiscriminately mucking with the environment could make things pretty unpleasant for us, so it's still a bad idea.
And if you think, "It may affect future generations, but it won't affect me", well, how long do you expect to live? Another 50 years, maybe? At 0.4 degrees per decade, that's 2 degrees C hotter in 50 years, which could change enough things to be pretty unpleasant...
Free tip, though: If you are convinced that global warming is happening, and is going to continue, buy land in Canada that's north of the wheat line as a long-term investment.
And thus in willful blind ignorance the human race committed mass suicide rather than accept the limits imposed by a finite environment...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
"Who says we are causing the Earth to heat up???"
The high priesthood of Global warming. You know, those people with letters after their names, people who get lots of GRANT MONEY if they can write fear mongering proposal papers.
These are in many cases people who have spent their entire lives in the ivory towers of academia, without ever having to venture outside to the real world where accountability and having to show results lurk behind every tree and rock.
I know that you probably know more than all those High Priests combined ( smug snicker ), after all, their politics are superior to your obvious knuckle dragging right wing Klan redneck national socialist leanings. (And by the way, did you know that your mom and dad will STILL be brothers and sisters after the divorce?? Yuk Yuk Yuk)
You peasant. How dare you question the gospel word of the self-appointed experts!!! You are here only to follow and obey your cultural and intellectual superiors in academia!!!
This is a good thing. They finally replaced that giant rectal thermometer that sticks out of Washington DC.
1) Since all these lazy animals don't know how to do anything, Aliens have to visit again and use alien probes on some to get their brains going. The aliens leave monoliths on the moon and golden plates with the text of this history buried in likely farmland areas, then split.
2) The Sun cools down. Ice covers everything and presses all the dead plants and animals into oil reserves. Critters evolve smarter to survive. They figure out how to burn stuff, including all the fossil oil created by the living stuff in step 1.
3) All the burning of stuff causes the planet to get really hot, ice caps melt. It gets all steamy like in Soylent Green and even the desserts become jungles. Lots of stuff grows like mad. Civilizations collapse because everyone has really bad BO in the heat.
Return to step 1. Repeat until the Sun doesn't work right anymore. Humans have been thru this cycle many times. Some religions think of it as reincarnation. Karma comes into play, somewhere. Sometimes there is racial memory of past cycles, like Atlantis.
I have a book that explains it all. As soon as I can get it published I will get on the Art Bell show, then you'll see!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
aboriginal cultures knew best how to live on this earth; live with the earth. Really, it is inane to ask "do the things we do to the environment really affect us?" The answer is, the environment IS us. We cannot simply disregard the things we do to this planet (pump billions of tons of pollutants into the air, water, and land, encroach on former wilderness, dig up tons of ore and oil) and somehow think that we have no responsibility to control that. Life is a balance and we SHOULD only take from the earth what we are willing to compensate for the earth. It ought to be fairly obvious that currently most of us (at least in North America) consume much more than we really need to (unless you consider your lifestyle to be the be-all and end-all of your existance, in which case there is nothing you are willing to do to help)...
So if the next bad warming experience was as bad as the one 50 some million years ago So what! Whether or not there has been a similar warming in the past is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
Analogy: Someone goes out and shoots a twenty-year-old dead. When they go on trial, they tell the judge that its really not a problem, because the guys great-grandpa had died too. In fact, he died of causes totally unrelated to firearms. Sure it might be a bit inconvenient to the family, but if they roll up their sleeves and deal with it, its not that bad really.
Carbon Dioxide traps heat, and causes the temperature of the atmosphere to rise.
Without humans deforesting the earth and spewing tons and tons of hydrocarbons into the air it is highly probable that the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere would be much lower and levels of oxygen would be much higher. The suitability of the atmosphere for mammals depends on the presence of oxygen-making plants.
We do contribute to global warming.
It is better to lessen this contribution than to increase it.
Logically speaking it is always better to err on the side of caution. Anything we can do in this regard will be appreciated by future generations.
-- thinkyhead software and media
The main reason why this is important to some people is the near "obsessive" attention on property and life. Rivers have flooded their banks countless times and old civilizations worked around that. Earthquakes, tornadoes, typhoons, hurricanes, lightning storms, grass fires -- there are so many potentially deadly and damaging natural events. Our modern civilization goes out of its way to try to maintain a status quo and many people have this idea that we will eventually have no deaths or damage (or very minimal) from natural events. Thus, any possible action humanity takes that might cause or prevent such a natural "disaster" is considered important.
Here's a question for all those doomsayers: What is the LONG-TERM (100-300 year) effect of global warming going to be on the planet and on humanity?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Wasn't it back in the late 70's and early 80's that everyone was freaked out about what looked like an upcoming ice age? We just do not have enough historical data to know what a "normal" temperature pattern is. No question that pollution is not good, but we just don't know what effect it's having on global temperatures.
Uh, do we care? We just want fusion power because it's cool--whatever environemntal effects it has is secondary. Oh, and if quantum computers or something like that causes global warming, then we'll just use more technology to make an equal and opposite global cooling. Technology forward!
-I am an elective eunuch.
Connections, an interersting series on PBS I used to watch, seems to follow this discussion pattern.
Your quote "What if reducing CO2 production causes such global social and economic strain that a new World War breaks out, resulting in a nuclear holocaust wiping out everything?"
I think it is highly probable given the nature of even the most optimistic opinion of the status of proven oil reserves, the projected global population growth, and the surging demand for western style consumerism lifestyles by the majority of the globe that has never had that... that you are correct, we WILL be fighting major wars over oil (and fresh water), oil is related to the CO2 levels but quite frankly, we aren't going to give up oil until it's all gone, so we stand a good chance of major war or wars over it. It's safe to say that the current and past middle east various conflicts have to have "something" to do with the oil there, yes?
And there's never been a major/effective weapons system devised by man that wasn't eventually used *extensively* in warfare. Never happened yet, it always gets used finally, in big ways. It's a matter of when, not if there.
We know about nukes, and now they are all over, jenni is out of the bottle there. Conventional warfare, check, advancing by leaps and bounds, a true global growth inmdustry, positive profit margins to be had by all.... Chemical warfare, check. Biological warfare- we have some attempts at it that have been documented, we can speculate on some others, but there'sn o denying that they have more than ample resources now to cook up some interesting bugs. Who doubts this is happening as we speak?
I think the nukes will wipe out a lot of humans, then the bugs will do the mopping up. In between, a lot of your normal old starvation and misery and whatnot.
Michio Kaku, the theoretical physicist guy, thinks that sentient species like humans have roughly only a 1% chance of exisiting much past their finding out about uranium, and fooling around with it. I tend to agree with him, on a modicum historical scale, say a maximum time limit of several generations from first use.
Human society and the "civil" part of civilization usually doesn't keep up with just raw technological advances, we can see that in the past, so it's a safe assumption to conclude it will continue into the future. I sincerely doubt wars will get less technologically efficient, or that world leaders will all of a sudden be cured of megalomania, or that scrambling for the remnants of the planets natural resources that are in the "take me, I'm almost free" state will be suspended: therefore, it don't look so good...
To all those repeating the old mantra "you can't prove that we are causing the warming -- it might be natural".
Yes, the fact that global warming seems to be correlated with our spewing of CO2 into the atmosphere may be a coincidence. It might all just be part of some natural planetary cycle.
But add to this the fact that we are currently seeing a mass extinction unlike anything in the last 65 million years, and you've got quite a conspicious coincidence.
I'm surprised how few anti-warmists (or would it be anti-anti-warmists?) see this.
The Medieval Warm Period occurred as Europe was recovering from the collapse of the Roman Empire, resulting in deforestation across Europe as farming communities expanded. The Little Ice Age began around the time the Black Death caused a 40% fall in the population of Europe, and continued as the genocide of the native North American peoples caused massive reforestation over New England.
Correlation is not causation, of course, but holding up the MWP and LIA as examples of non-anthropogenic climate change events is making an unwarranted assumption.
Our species has been altering ecosystems on a massive scale for tens of millenia; It'd be pretty amazing if the destruction of Europe's broadleaved forests over the last 10 millenia turned out to have left no trace on the climate record. The same goes for the fire management of the Australian forests, or the turning of China into one vast paddy field. I just don't understand how it is possible to believe that taking things one step further - pumping vast quantities of carbon from under the ground, massively changing the composition of the atmosphere - will magically have no effect at all on the climate.
The theory is that nothing we can do will ever have perminant sustain impact.
The reality is that while this is true to the extent of this study like it or not humans come and go. If we don't like the ~1/2 C increase per decade let me toss something sobering in:
That's about a full degree every twent years. Wich at current increase meens that in 60 years with current increases we will be at about three degrees warmer per season. I don't think I need to remind anyone what that meens in terms of the ability to sustain human life.
Okay, if everyone flushes all their asprin and antibiotics down the toilet, maybe we can take care of this...
I thought that this current was naturally variable, it runs for a long period of time, shuts down for a long period of time, and restarts when the conditions are right. I wish I could remember where I read that so I could cite it. If true, the current will eventually shut down, regardless of Man's influence on the climate of Earth.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Your name is fitting.
You can blather on about proof and a shadow of a doubt all you want, but the fucking temperature has been rising for the last 20 years. The overwhelming consensus among academics in the field is that a) Global Warming is real and b) human activity is at least a contributing factor.
You're technically correct that they could be wrong, and we don't have definitive proof. But all indications are that we should do something about this problem. The consequences for being wrong in inaction are billions of lives and untold destruction of civilization as we know it. The consequences for being wrong in action are that we waste some time and money.
"Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness." -Robert A. Heinlen
I don't see it as a huge problem. I'm sure we will run out of fossil fuels [or at least the cost will become insane] long before we make earth inhabitable from the exhaust.
Note that I don't agree with the "mybotsu monstrosity" drivers out there nor with the "oh it's disposable that makes it good" mentality of the swifter/etc. I think the world could be best served by public transportation, better use of materials [less packaging, plastics, etc], less selfish attitudes....
My point though is that you can't focus so closely on a locality. It's like studying a random number generator. You can't just take 8 numbers from a stream of billions and tell if it's seemingly random or not. You have to look at the big picture.
The fact that the last 20 years have gone hotter doesn't mean we're doomed. We're doomed for other reasons alltogether. Like the war-mongering americans who are trying to turn a country I used to favour into a "war industry". All the news talks about is war this and war that. It's as if the US doesn't have any other industry or goals. That's a bad thing.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Your imagination is far to vivid...
When in trouble danger or doubt, run and jump, scream and shout.
deploy Solar Power Towers II move toward the Hydrogen Economy, eliminate the energy crisis and dependency on Mid-East oil.
e ne rgy/sol_thermal/powertower.html
http://rhlx01.rz.fht-esslingen.de/projects/alt_
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
could just be natural or it could be because our technology as a whole outputs astronomical amounts of heat. Not to mention the metal ore we rip out of the Earth and drill it's black blood. This causes more of the Earth's mass to be closer to the outside of the sphere (slows down rotation). Removing heat conducting elements from the ground causes more heat on the surface. The bottom line is that there are going to be less trees to hug in the next few decades.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
You say "let's just drop it", then go on for paragraphs about it. You're in denial. And you're dragging the rest of us to hell with you and your hot air.
--
make install -not war
You seem to accept the studies that show the world is 4.55B years old, although they were established over a similarly tiny span of time. While you're at it, admit your ~75 year lifespan is inadequate to form any opinion, and butt out of important discussions about saving our lives from the obvious Greenhouse now threatening us.
--
make install -not war
I concede to your worst case scenerio. It is far worse than mine. Actually, this reminds me of an example from work...
Person 1: "So, worst case scenerio, how long will it take for our disaster recovery process to bring this one critical system back online?"
Person 2: "Worst case?"
Person 1: "Yes, worst case."
Person 2: "Never. It will never come back up."
Person 1: "No, seriously. I need a time."
Person 2: "The backups are gone, the off-site backup facility is destroyed, everyone who knew anything about the system is dead. We have no electricity. Our telecommunications system is down. That system isn't coming back up."
Person 1: "So, I should put two months?"
Person 2: "Yes, that should work nicely."
I am no expert ... but I do remember from high school that less than 1% of the airborne matter is man made, most of other 99% is due to Volcanoes and forest fires and dust storms.
(dust particles reflect sunlight before it reaches earth)
We are presentaly going through a small lull in volcaniic activity (1950-1985), maybe the lack of Volcanic dust has allowed more energy form the sun to reach us and create the warming..
The amount of energy needed to heat up the Planet can only come from the sun.
Irony is our man-made pollution maybe saving us ?
Just Thought...
{ Pillar candles great for when the power fails and you cant see the keyboard..
Volcanoes could also be causing the Ozone problem... according to this NASA study : http://denali.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/so2/article.h tml
"Volcanic aerosols have also been implicated in ozone depletion. A year after an eruption, stratospheric aerosols even from equatorial volcanoes can be distributed to polar latitudes and studies show volcanic aerosols can catalyze ozone-destroying chemical reactions. The largest ever ozone hole was measured by TOMS at the end of 1993, and the hole was larger than predicted. If this unexpectedly large increase in the size of ozone hole is due to Mt. Pinatubo aerosols, we may possibly see a return to predicted ozone hole size changes in the next few years, as the Mt. Pinatubo aerosols fall out of the stratosphere.
Recognition and measurement of the volcanic climate signal is vital to understanding global climate change. Before we can quantify any climate change due to human activity we must quantify natural sources of short-term climate variability. The primary source of such variability is from explosive volcanism. TOMS data can both quantify recent volcanic activity and illuminate historic volcanic activity in terms of SO2 output. "
{ Pillar candles great for when the power fails and you cant see the keyboard..
If, as a result of global warming, the state of California (or selected portions) is sunk and gone forever beneath 500 feet of water... well, it might not be as bad as it's cracked up to be!
.. you don't count the portions currently inhabited by Canucks and wannabe Frenchmen. If you do, the number drops down to 0%. Bummer.
... soccer moms talking on cell phones while putting on makeup and driving cause as many wrecks as drunk drivers- thus traffic accidents seem to have very little, if anything, to do with drunk driving. More details at 11.
I keep on reading all of these articles, thinking I've seen them on here before and that they are dupes, but I keep on reading this on CNN a day or two (or sometimes more) before posted on here!
I seem to remember global warming described as a self correcting phenomenon. The argument wnet as follows:
1. Earth warms. Could be due to pollution, increased solar activity or increased volcanic activity.
2. Ocean evaporation increases. Warmer air and water means easier evaporation.
3. Increased levels of water vapor in the air leads to increased global cloud cover.
4. Increased cloud cover raises the Earth's albedo (measure of reflectivity) causing less solar gain.
5. Less solar gain leads to global cooling trend.
So the atmosphere seems to be a feedback system, like a thermostat or buffer solution. Note that the reverse happens when the Earth is too cool. Also, the increased ocean evaporation mitigates somewhat the rising sea level due to melting ice caps.
Unfortunately for us, if satellites can more precisely measure this rise of the Earth's temperature, they cannot cure this fever.
Umm, make sure that the satellites cannot precisely measure the rise so that they can cure the fever? (With apologies to Heisenberg.)
This looks like it might be an example of the last time the Gulf Stream shut down...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1458327.stm
Aired as part of the "Ancient Apocalypse" series, picked up by the History Channel.
Basically, 2200 BC, the Egyptian Old Kingdon was starved into complete collapse. The climatological event was apparently global, or nearly so, in scale.
sun shades are one option; so are solar power satellites, or power from the moon (Google for "lunar solar power").
In fact, anybody who (1) takes global warming seriously, and (2) cares about world poverty and wants to bring everybody up to western standards, soon realizes that there is nothing on Earth that can resolve both problems. The only solutions lie off this planet. Time to start thinking outside of the box, guys!
Energy: time to change the picture.
Why of course you should suspect anybody who takes money.
For example when you go to a doctor they charge you for making you well. Obviously they can't be trusted because they have incentive to say that you are sick.
When you don't feel well don't go to a doctor go to a nice republican radio show host. They know more about medicine then those silly doctors with letters after their names.
Oh those radio show hosts should also be trusted to secure your network, program your applications, tune your database and architect your applications. Experience and education does not count for shit. Those people with degrees are all ivory tower educated dunces.
Education and experience doesn't count for shit in this world. You should only trust rabid republican ideolog blowhards. Having a radio show is the only qualification you need to do anything.
evil is as evil does
> there is a global warming phenomena. Most scientists finally agree with that.
0 420_040420_earthday.html)
Apparently so (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/
Some interesting quotes:
"most scientists agree that global warming presents the greatest threat to the environment"
"Most scientists believe that humans...are largely to blame"
"The current rate of warning is unprecedented, however. It is apparently the fastest warming rate in millions of years, suggesting it probably is not a natural occurrence."
"'No one will be free from this,' said Overpeck, whose maps show that every U.S. East Coast city from Boston to Miami would be swamped."
And this is even _avoiding_ catastrophic scenarios like the Gulf Stream shutting down or Greenland's ice cap melting, either of which are viewed by the oceanographers I know as quite possible within the next 100-200 years.
Putting it bluntly, failing to take the possibility of global warming seriously is willful ignorance. Cries of "maybe it's natural" and "life is adaptive!" won't mean jack shit when 100 million people are forced out of their homes by a small rise in sea level.
Maybe it is natural, but if we don't understand it and prepare for it, we're fucked.
... would be just fever. Fever sounds like something which goes away in just two or three days, well, maybe one aspirin or two...
Exactly. I'm healthy as a horse, and already don't have any qualms against cannibalism. The rest of the world can go to hell, or get eaten.
Everyone dies, who cares?
The real question is: how much of the warming was caused by the huge, thundering flamethrowers that brought those satellites up into space in the first place?
You're forgetting coal, shale oil, tar sands (bitumen), and peat. All four are very plentiful and emit copius amounts of CO2. Each one alone contains more carbon than we have released into the atmosphere from burning all fossil fuels combined. We could easily get this planet hotter than when the dinosaurs were around with the amount of CO2 in those four resources combined, and back then there were no ice caps and the only temperate region was at the south pole.
Also, given the world's exponential increase in energy demand, it won't take very long for these massive carbon stockpiles to be burnt. Another century like the 20th century and they'll be running low.
Well put. Thanks.
Maybe if one looked at the data carefully enough, there might be a correlation between population density and rise in temperature. But I doubt you would be able to tell just by looking at a picture! (BTW, cities are in fact apparently hotter than surrounding areas - the "urban heat island" effect. But this is sometimes used to argue against greenhouse, because it is suggested that higher urban temperatures are due to lots of concrete in cities retaining heat or lots of cars and people etc producing heat and so on ... and not due to any climatic change.)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.