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Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming
gollum123 wrote in with news of a new study of warming in the Arctic, showing that warming from greenhouse gases is causing vast changes in the region. If your lifestyle depends on cold and frozen rather than mild and damp, you're in deep trouble.
"I guess I'll be buying property in Antartica."
Hate to disappoint you, but Antarctica has been cooling for years: it's only the Arctic which has been warming (and much of that is because many parts of the Arctic were unusually cold a couple of decades ago and is returning to more normal temperatures).
1: Show me ACCURATE 1 million year tempature records. Wait!! We only have 80 years of records
2: Show me this hasnt happened before.
3: Tell me the "scientists" studying arent also getting grants from... greenpeace or ELF..
4: WHY exactly is global warming bad? Wont it give more landmass (eg, melts permafrost siberia) and lessen the "nice tropical -120F on antartica?
5: WHY is the water level in my kitchen up to my neck.... blub... blub...?
[Hint: Less ice == more water.]
-_-_-
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
I'll start with the last comment first:
Do you assume that global warming means that temperatures will rise uniformly across the globe?
Do you assume that global warming would cause no shift in weather patterns?
Do you assume that any shifts in weather patterns would not be disruptive to agriculture?
Do you assume that disruptions in agriculture can be easily accomodated, say by rapidly shifting agricultural production to different parts of the globe (assuming, of course, that there would be vast new tracks of arable farmland as a result of changed weather patterns)?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", then global warming should make you nervous.
If your answer to any of these is "yes", then it's you, not the environmental scientists, who have some explaining to do. They seem like pretty shaky assumptions.
Let's see: the Sun is at an 8000-year high for solar activity, Mars is emerging from its own Ice Age and its polar caps are disappearing, and the Earth's magnetic field strength is approaching nil before it reconstitutes with an opposite polarity. And we are to believe that human activity is somehow solely resposible for global warming?
"4: WHY exactly is global warming bad?"
We are at a unique point in Earth history where the temperature has been low (in the oceans) for a long enough time (geological time) that significant volumes of methane hydrates have accumulated. Once the temperature of the bottom of the oceans reaches a certain point, the methane hydrates melt releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Since this will be a positive feedback cycle (in addition to the less solubility of CO2 in seawater as temperature rises), a step rise in temperature of the Earth could occur in a relatively short period of time. A step rise would most likely be devastating to most land life (if it were on the order of 5 or more degrees F).
From a long term perspective, moderate global warming is not necessarily bad. Earth will likely find a new balance, and the ecosystem will adapt. Total biodiversity and bioproductivity may drop, or, quite possibly, increase. Some humans (or their evolutionary successors) will certainly survive.
Of course the long term is a couple of million years. In between, the change, and the probably unprecended speed of the change, puts an enormous additional stress on an eco (both -logic and -nomic) system that has adapted to colder, stable temperatures. Some may profit, some may lose, but on average we will all lose significantly. Nice beachfrotn property on the Kola penisula will not be of much use to a Florida retiree whose condo is washed away by a hurricane.
Of course, there is also a non-zero chance at a runaway greenhouse effect...
Stephan
1) By analyzing fossil layer contents we can quite accurately estimate temperatures of given year. Some plants grow better if it's warmer, so you'll find more seeds, more remains etc. Of course there are accidents - fires, epidemies etc that change the results a lot. But examine the data from several places around the globe and you'll come up with quite decent estimates.
2) I won't. It did. The results were catastrophic. Human/industry fault or just natural order of things, we face it and should prepare to it.
3) Tell me scientists who claim the opposite aren't getting grants from government?
4) It may create some inhabitable land in some areas. It will make some currently inhabitable areas uninhabitable (deserts, dry steppes, flooded areas). It will also send most of the most inhabitated land under water. Think both US coasts, mediterran sea, Holland and quite a bit of European shores, most heavily inhabited areas of India, pacific islands, quite a bit of Japan...) - I hope profit of gaining new places to live will outweight the necessity for some 60% of Earth population to migrate and find new homes?
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A recent study conducted by USGS and reported on NPR indicated that the last 30 years has been the wettest in the UnitedStates. Using tree's and buildings with verifiable construction dates, they have built a rainfall / overall weather record going back over 1000 years.
It pointed to a 400 year drought that affected America starting in like 900AD. It is pretty interesting to see reports like that. The globe is on a large pattern. I think that the "Global Warming" theory is vague at best. We don't know what they Earth would be like w/o us. The research on all this is amazing. The conclusions that we are being drawn are lame.
We have no clue what this Earth is doing, nor why. We can research, study, compile, review, etc. However, we are blind leading blind.
That being said, there are good reasons to reduce pollution. Good reasons to find more efficient ways of using our natural resources. But inventing hysteria to create a better world if insane.
Ice floats because its less dense than water. If you had ice which was frozen onto the bottom of the seabed, then melting that ice would cause a drop in sea level (because the water takes up less space as a liquid than a solid). If you have ice which is floating in the ocean, then melting that ice has no effect on ocean level (an ice block displaces an amount of water with mass equal to the total mass of the ice block). If you have ice which is anchored to land which is above sea level, and it melts, then it can cause an increase in sea level.
So the question is, what fraction of ice is in the form of icebergs, what fraction in submerged structures, and what fraction fixed to land above sea level.
...Show me this hasnt happened before...
The reason oil, coal and gas are called fossil fuels is that they once came from living organisms. All energy used by man on this planet other than nuclear comes from the sun. Oil, coal and gas represent stored sunshine from a very long time ago.
These stored fuels are mostly composed of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms that were bound together by the internal chemistry of living organisms. In order for the living creatures to be able to convert solar energy into these fuels, the elements must have been on the surface of the Earth in a form that made them available to photosynthesis. All of the carbon was therefore in the earth's atmosphere before the fossil fuels were stored underground.
This means our planet must have been much warmer before all that carbon was trapped in the underground deposits from which we extract them today. We find fossils, oil and coal in the polar regions made by tropical organisms. It is no accident that most warm blooded creatures have an internal temperature in the range of 95 to 105 deg F (35-40.5 deg C) because this is the range where life molecular processes operate at optimum.
If every known drop of oil, every ounce of coal and every last cubic foot of gas were burned by mankind, would the earth again be at a temperature approaching the internal temperature of warm blooded animals? If this temperature became the average temperature of the whole planet, uniformly from the deepest ocean depth to the highest mountain peaks and from pole to pole, what would be so bad about that?
The dire predictions about coastal flooding would not happen because the moisture holding capacity of the warm, carbon dioxide laden atmosphere would increase to more than offset the molten ice. The amount of water a hurricane can dump demonstrates the huge quantities of water that can be suspended in warm air.
What would be so bad about growing bananas in Siberia and fruit trees in the Sahara? Houses and clothes, as we know them today would be largely superfluous. Wild weather, such as hurricanes, tornadoes and nasty winter storms would be gone. These things are due to temperature gradients in the atmosphere and oceans. The warm, humid, uniform atmosphere would eliminate hot and cold deserts.
One of the mysteries of the past is how the fossils and fuels got preserved and stored underground for our convenient use today. Normal observations today show that when a living organism dies, its remains are rendered back to carbon dioxide and water in a short time or are used again by another living entity.
In order to preserve the hydrocarbons, oxidation and decay have to be prevented in a short time after death. This could have happened by a quick burial such as to exclude oxygen and apply enough heat to prevent micro-organisms from acting to break the organic molecules back into their basic components.
Global warming is definitely happening because of the increase of carbon dioxide in the air. However, the amount of carbon mankind has released into the air so far, compared to how much carbon is known to exist in the world's fossil fuel stores, does not amount to much. This includes only the known reserves of such fuels and does not take into account the undiscovered quantities stored at depths and in places where we could not get them even if we knew they are there. So far, the average global temperature has changed only a very short distance toward the ideal life temperature.
The scare-mongers are right, the warming effect is real, but would ultimately result in a very livable planet. So let's burn up the fossil fuels and then we'd return to a warm global paradise where we would not need any fuel to stay warm. Since it would take a while to burn it all, living things could adapt to the new climate, just as they adapted from what it once was to what it is now.
All theory is gray
We're facing another climate change. ...and we should accept it. Is it fault of humans? Maybe, maybe not.
So, you are saying we should calmly accept the death of possibly billions of people because we can't get our act together on consumption and birth control? That's bullshit.
It just happens.
No, it doesn't "just happen". Self-inflicted ecological disaster is one of the most frequent ways in which big civilizations end. We are on our way to repeat that on a global scale; if it isn't through global warming, it is through many other changes we have made to the global environment.
" Workweek Causes Climate Fluctuations"
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make install -not war
"Sulphourous-emissions of volcanoes and all other natural sources are surpassed by 330%."
Sure, now.
But volcanic activity is nothing if not variable; the Earth goes through periods of intense vulcanism; vast areas covered in lava. Check out what caused the Deccan Traps in India for one example.
Massive volcanos which we today think of as just large islands with a few volcanos scattered around like North Island New Zealand where lake Taupo is a *crater* lake; the whole island is (probably) one gigantic monoclastic volcano.
Sure, *today* and for the duration of human history we have outdone all of the volcanos of the world, but take in the big picture.
All it would take is just *one* of those massive events and nature will have accelerated past us in greenhouse (and other noxious) gas production.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
The Kyoto Protocol was clearly badly flawed, and although I support environmental policies, I believe that ratifying the protocol in its current form would have been a mistake. However, I think the current administration should have continued negotiations over the Protocol to include China and other developing economies in some way instead of abandoning it entirely.
Not American scientists - Not even all American politicians. Just the Bush administration and a few other representatives in the house and senate. Hell, even McCain thinks it's happening. And the Bush administration actually recently admitted that it poses a threat. So, yeah. Way off.
1. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is, in fact, the lifeblood of the planet, required for growth of vegetation. It is the cornerstone of the food chain. The increased CO2 aerial fertilization effect has contributed to the greening of the planet, as confirmed by satellite photography.
2. Water vapor is by far the primary contributor of the greenhouse effect, accounting for 96 to 99%. CO2 accounts for 1 to 3%. Methane and others trace gasses account for 3. During the current interglacial period, the Earth has been about 2C cooler (The "Little Ice Age" around 1600-1700, when the Thames regularly frozen over), and it has also been about 2C warmer (The medieval warm period around 1200, when Greenland was colonized by the Vikings.) We are currently about in the middle of this natural variation, which occurred without manmade CO2.
4. The 500k year Vostok ice core data: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm/ shows CO2 either in phase or lagging temperature by up to 1000 years, over four temperature oscillations. This means the CO2 does not drive temperature, but that temperature drives CO2. The most likely explanation is that the ocean outgases and releases more CO2 when temperature increases, and holds more dissolved gasses as the oceans cools.
5. I'm not disputing the Earth may be getting relatively warmer (as we are coming out of the little ice age). One reason is likely the unusually active Sun. This report: http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aah4688.pdf/ shows that over the last several centuries, solar activity is at its highest levels. The IPCC determined that the Sun's variation in energy output were too small to explain global warming. They dismissed the sun as a likely source of Earth changing climate!. Here is a link to a recent study showing how the sun's variation could have a feedback that would drive earth's climate change: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2333133. stm/ The theory goes like this: When the sun is highly magnetically active, the increased solar wind shields us from cosmic radiation. Low levels of incoming comic reduce cloud formation. Reduced low level cloud formation reduces reflectivity (i.e., the Earth's albedo). More energy is absorbed instead of reflected, and the temperature increases. The difference from an active Sun to an inactive Sun was about 3% global cloud coverage. The correlation in the study is remarkable. The jury is still out, but it could explain the correlation between the Maunder minimum of the 1600's and the little ice age, and account for the warming in the last 3 decades that corresponds with unusually high solar activity at the same time.
6. In November 1991, Danish scientists Eijil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen, startled the climatological world with a paper in "Science" describing a 0.95 correlation between solar cycle length and global temperature (IPCC version). "Science" writer, Richard Kerr described it as "one dazzling correlation". The blue line is temperature, the red line is solar cycle length.) As can be seen, global temperature has tended to increase in lockstep with shortening of the solar cycle length (ie. solar maxima becoming more frequent) I hope you follow the link, because one look at it, and you are forced to say, "Its the Sun, stupid." The graph is at the bottom of this link: http://http//web.dmi.dk/sol-jord/projekter/rum_vej r/oversigt.html/
7. The best protection against climate change is a rich, technologically advanced society that can adapt to natural variation. Don't damn the 3rd
Yes, but volcanos also spit out other shit besides CO2, so at least give all the details, thank you.
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But OTH, have you read other news about how OUR STAR, the SUN star, has been more active in the last 70 years than average for the last 8000 ???
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id
Quite possibly this could be causing warming too.
Also recent measurements of the amount of light reflecfed from the DAY SIDE of earth onto the dark side of the moon shows that is has increased, so thats another wierd effect. Again, caused by more crap in the air? or more light from the sun? or both? hmmm
Theres a lot of factors, but if the sun will go NOVA or mini NOVA or just 25% brighter, we cannot control it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
There is strong evidence that this has happened in the past, most recently at the end of the last ice age. And when the GS shuts off, it takes a many human lifetimes to restart.
Here is the explanation. The population in the USA is still growing, primarily due to the children of illegal aliens. Without unfettered immigration, the American population would decline gradually.
Population decline is not the biggest problem facing developed countries. The biggest problem facing developed countries is the fact that the 3rd world is brimming with angry people who want to flood into the 1st world.
Advocates of unfettered immigration play this strange spin game in which they insist that the only way for the 1st world to continue to enjoy a good standard of living is to constantly grow the population. Note that such a scenario is not sustainable. Nonetheless, these advocates continue to "invent facts" because they need such invented "facts" in order to support their agenda.
Anyone who refuses to admit that a larger population is more environmentally damaging than a smaller population is a bigot and should be ignored. There is plenty of such bigots in LaRaza.