Climate Change Doubles Drought Stricken Area

Cally writes "The National Atmospheric Research Center has published research showing that the percentage of Earth's land area stricken by serious drought more than doubled from the 1970s to the early 2000s, and attributing this to global climate change. Interestingly, the lead author comments that 'droughts and floods are extreme climate events that are likely to change more rapidly than the average climate'."

Comments

drought?

[wcitechnologies]

It ins't a drought, it is just because everybody is drinking all the water up!

Re:drought?

[KingArthur10]

Actually, a lot of it has to do with re-directing water from rivers and such. A city which resides at the origin of a river continues requiring more and more water for various applications (including drinking, irrigation, and industry), and the throughput of the water lessens down the river. Irrigation is one of the leading causes of river dry-ups (along with glacier size shrinkage).

Re:drought?

[yintercept]

We will always be able to find a way for the data to support the theory that there is no global climate change. First of all, there is just is not enough data on record to say anything with absolute certainty.

Is this really drought, or are we returning to normal after a few good rain years?

You can also make the argument that you can't just look at areas labeled drought stricken, you have to look across the board at all the areas and counter those areas with below average precipitation with those areas that have more water than they can deal with. Why, if you include all of the water that's been washed up on shore since, say, the day after Christmas, why you would say there's been much more flooding than droughting. (I am practicing for my audition on the O'Reilly factor).

If you look at all of this a hundred years from now, would you say that these so called drought areas are experiencing drought, or would you say that the great midwestern desert, the great indo-European desert and the great Amazon plains desert are just normal and the way its always been.

BTW, one odd change. About 100 years ago, the "liberals" would have been the ones arguing that all changes are gradual in response to conservative nut cases talking great floods and cataclysmic events. Today, the conservatives seem to shut their eyes to the possibility of catastrophic changes, and the liberals are more likely to be talking about catastrophic change.

Re:drought?

[back_pages]

We will always be able to find a way for the data to support the theory that there is no global climate change. First of all, there is just is not enough data on record to say anything with absolute certainty.

I used to think exactly that until I saw a show on the Discovery Channel about the deep sea current that flows from the North Atlantic to the SW Pacific.

Yes, my source is a TV show.

It clearly explained (in terms a CS guy could understand) how the threat of global warming is NOT rising temperatures and rising sea levels, but rather a decrease in the salinity of the North Atlantic which will disrupt the deep sea current. The result of this will be a dramatic and nearly immedate end to the moderation of climates enjoyed around the world - basically everywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer and south of the Tropic of Capricorn will experience an ice age while the equatorial region will become a desert that makes the Sahara look quaint.

I'm not prepared to argue the merits or weaknesses of such conjecture, but The Discovery channel sure as hell convinced me - to my (climatology amateur yet) analytical mind, the arguments all stacked up. The salinity situation is all but impossible to refute and the climate data culled from Antarctic glacier ice cores indicates that sudden radical shifts in Earth's climate into an ice age are nothing if not typical.

By the way - if somebody knows what I'm talking about and has a good link to the material, I'd love to see it. Telling people about the TV show I saw that one time gets old.

Re:drought?

[krymsin01]

The situation you are refering too is a self corrective event. If, well rather when, it happens, it will only be temporary. Assuming the human species can survive it, the survivors will have every chance to pursure life, liberty, and screwing up the environment again.

Re:drought?

[back_pages]

True, but the climate data from the ice cores shows the Earth going through long periods of incredibly erratic swings between desert and ice ages. It doesn't really matter to me if it's something that would eventually correct itself; I prefer to know whether the mid-Atlantic states will be icy or sunny next summer. Besides, the sweater industry would be thrown into sheer disarray, let alone the rest of the economy.

Re:drought?

[totipotentsoul]

Homer: Oh Lisa! There's no record of a hurricane ever hitting Springfield.

Lisa: Yes, but the records only go back to 1978 when the Hall of Records was mysteriously blown away.

Re:drought?

[FriedSpam]

I have not seen the show, but I have read about what you are talking about. A current theory is that Lake Agassiz, a 'super great lake', catastrophically drained into the upper Atlantic causing a shift in salinity, thus a shift in the temperature current flow, thus a shift in climate. Ref: http://scienceweek.com/2003/sw030627.htm

All this talk about historic climate change is like an ant talking about the nature of an elephant. We are too small, and the details are too big. To hear environmentalists talk about it, we are on the verge of disaster, but to hear geologists talk about it, we are just barely coming out of the last ice age. From a geological standpoint, everything I have read about says that our planet should be about 10 degrees warmer than what it is today. We're coming out of 'abnormal' climtes, and apparently inching back toward 'normal'. A google on "cenozoic ice age" will be instructive, as is this page: http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/ "During most of the last 1 billion years the globe had no permanent ice." North and south pole ice is an anomaly.

Re:drought?

[back_pages]

+1 informative - thanks for the reply and links.

Re:drought?

[back_pages]

While reading that paper, it occurs to me - so what if permanent polar ice caps are an anomaly? If our survival depends on that anomaly, I'm all for preserving it. I'm not picking an argument, just musing. Again, thanks for the link.

Re:drought?

[Orp]

By the way - if somebody knows what I'm talking about and has a good link to the material, I'd love to see it. Telling people about the TV show I saw that one time gets old.

Google the following:
Thermohaline Circulation
Younger Dryas
Lake Agassiz

If deep convection in the Labrador/Greenland sea ceases, the Gulf Stream will cease and England will get mighty chilly. Roughly speaking, if you don't have cold, salty water sinking downward in this region, no surface currents will move to fill the void (kind of like plugging the drain in the bathtub).

As the northern hemisphere began coming out of the last glacial maximum about 13,000 years ago, it abruptly became colder again - slammed back into the cold regime. A leading hypothesis as to why this occurred is that a lot of ice was melting in modern-day Canada the northern US and forming a large lake (Lake Agassiz). Suddenly, the dam broke (probalby down the St. Lawrence) and a gazillion gallons of fresh water was spilled into the North Atlantic, creating a freshwater "lid" which kept the surface waters from getting dense enough to convect downward like they do sporadically today.

I did some post-doc modeling research on deep convection in the Greenland Sea. Neat stuff. There are only a very few places where this sinking occurs in the ocean, and without it the climate of the world would be much different.

Re:drought?

[geekoid]

"Assuming the human species can survive it, t"

how about we do something about it so survival isn't a question?

Sure, it's naturally occuring. So is a comet, but if one was going to hit the planet, I sure as hell would like to do somethig about it.

Re:drought?

[NockPoint]

We will always be able to find a way for the data to support the theory that there is no global climate change. First of all, there is just is not enough data on record to say anything with absolute certainty.

Yes. For there is no physical fact known to absolute certainty. None. Not one. Absolute truths are limited to geometry, mathamatics and logic. Gravity, speed of light, any idea based on measurements, all such ideas are are all subject to doubt. But I would not suggest jumping of any tall buildings. The odds are very very high that such a jumper would become a messy spot on the ground in just seconds.

Climate is a complex subject. Understanding it would be very unlikely to help you get an audition on the "O'Reilly" factor. It would be more likely to keep you off such shows. But if you did want to understand, here is the best overview I know of:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

About 100 years ago, the "liberals" would have been the ones arguing that all changes are gradual in response to conservative nut cases talking great floods and cataclysmic events. Today, the conservatives seem to shut their eyes to the possibility of catastrophic changes, and the liberals are more likely to be talking about catastrophic change.

The world is a lot stranger than "liberal" vs "conservative". While climate change will probably look sudden on a geological time scale, on a human scale it probably will not look catastrophic until it is catastrophic. Which is exactly too late. Isn't preventing change what "conservatives" try to do?

Re:drought?

[rush22]

That's called "abrupt climate change" and would be due to freshwater being introduced into the ocean which would upset the "thermohaline conveyor." That's a type of ocean circulation which is a result of the density of salt water increasing, and sinking, as it moves north and gets colder. Increased amounts of freshwater could upset the circulation, and some say cause it to "stall". The thermohaline conveyor plays a major part in regulating Earth's current climate by heating and cooling (and moving) the air above it.

This is considered a plausible theory, attributed to the "Younger Dryas" period which occurred after the last ice age. However, it is also considered highly unlikely.

The Pentagon did a study on it, in fact, as abrupt climate change would indeed be disastrous.

Re:drought?

[hashish]

The important word is 'theory'. Global warming is a theory. And this reports states that the 'droughts' have been caused by rising temperatures where there is no evidence that temperatures are rising.

The most likely cuprit is El Nino and at least it gets a mentioned at the end of the article.

Re:drought?

[SEWilco]

the Gulf Stream will cease and England will get mighty chilly. ... I did some post-doc modeling research on deep convection in the Greenland Sea.

Did you do any research on air currents?
Is the Gulf Stream responsible for Europe's mild winters?
Europe is warm because of southwesterly winds from the warm Atlantic. These winds are caused by the Rocky Mountains, which divert warm air flow to the southern U.S. and the air then flows northeast toward Europe. Cold polar air also tends to spill south across central North America.

Re:drought?

[macdaddy]

I saw another Discovery show that proved that global warming was a crock. That show also dispelled the myth of North American deforestation. It all made sense to me. There are lots of arugements from all different angles. Who really knows who is right. My mother gave me a book for X-mas by Michael Crichton called "State Of Fear" . I haven't had time to read it yet but my mother did over the holidays. She told me a little about it. In it she said Crichton dispelled the myths about global warming, deforestation, DDT, and much more. The book really interested her and she's pretty swift. It sounds like a book I'd recommend. Maybe I'll write a Slashdot review for it. Anyhow you might be interested in it. I can't vouch for what's in it yet but she did say he cited lots of sources. It's probably worth reading

Re:drought?

[KontinMonet]

That Crichton book is utter tripe with a biased culling of eveidence. Crichton admits he's no scientist so using this as an argument is a waste of time.

Re:drought?

[Simon Brooke]

From a geological standpoint, everything I have read about says that our planet should be about 10 degrees warmer than what it is today. We're coming out of 'abnormal' climtes, and apparently inching back toward 'normal'. A google on "cenozoic ice age" will be instructive, as is this page: http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/ice_ages/ "During most of the last 1 billion years the globe had no permanent ice."

That may be true, but what is significant is that human beings did not evolve during that period. We're evolved to cope with a world which does have permanent ice and is on the whole temperate. While we're individually very adaptable and I have no doubt that some human population could survive in a world ten degrees warmer, considered as a total population we need a huge amount of food which in turn means a huge amount of arable land.

As the planet warms, so the climate belts not affected by drought get shifted up the latitudes where, because of the curvature of the earth, the amount of solar radiation per unit area is less, and consequently the available energy for photosynthesis is less, and consequently plants are less productive. So as you shift agriculture progressively away from the equator you get progressively less food per unit area.

So the bottom line is a warmer planet means a lot fewer people. It doesn't mean we all die off like dinosaurs, but it does mean most of us die off.

Personally, I feel that the planet is pretty grossly overcrowded anyway and a lot fewer people would be a very good thing, but try telling that to the people who are going to have to get off.

Re:drought?

[Glock27]

That may be true, but what is significant is that human beings did not evolve during that period. We're evolved to cope with a world which does have permanent ice and is on the whole temperate. While we're individually very adaptable and I have no doubt that some human population could survive in a world ten degrees warmer, considered as a total population we need a huge amount of food which in turn means a huge amount of arable land.

First off, the thesis of the idea being discussed here is that essentially there will be a major cooling event, not a warming event. Temperatures in some areas in North America and Europe could drop 10-20 degrees C on average, and that's a LOT.

However, your other point about needing lots of arable land is valid. What you're ignoring is that in addition to possible drastic climate change, we are also faced with exponential human population growth at the same time. We need more food production in short order if we are to avoid a massive global die-off (Hi, Malthus!). These issues were discussed in the 60's in a book called "The Limits of Growth", and while its modeling and timescale were flawed, its essential message was correct.

I read recently that China's population just passed the 1.3 billion mark. That's scarier than climate change. Developing countries, which are some of the worst polluters per capita and habitat destroyers, have the fastest growing populations.

Given the pressures the human race faces, and the timescale we're looking at, the only hope for a reasonably "good" outcome (one that doesn't involve billions of people dying an untimely death) is massive technological progress to dig us out of the hole we're in. Otherwise, it's looking pretty grim - and we're not talking particularly long timescales either.

So, it's time to get busy...quit paying so much attention to trivial stuff people!

Re:drought?

[AaronGTurner]

" Developing countries, which are some of the worst polluters per capita and habitat destroyers, have the fastest growing populations. "

That's not correct. Developing countries in terms of the pollution that affects climate change (CO2 production) are some of the smaller producers. In terms of CO2 production per capita Canada heads the list with the USA not far behind. What IS true, though, is that developing countries have poor efficiency in terms of CO2 production per unit of GDP produced (Italy is just about the most efficient country on this score). Most developed nations in terms of per capita pollution are not that vastly different. Certainly we could be doing more to reduce CO2 production in ways which don't impact greatly on lifestyle: e.g. energy efficiency in homes (can save 30% of energy use in new construction with a 2% additional outlay) micro wind generation (circa 20% of household usage for around $2000 outlay) and more efficient motor transport (30% reduction achievable in time).

With regard to destruction of habitat it is also important for those of us living in developed countries to think about how products are created. If the creation includes a component of destruction of habitat in the developing world then we should not buy it and instead buy alternatives that include sustainable development as part of the process. In other words we cannot blame a developing country totally for destroying habitat if it is trying to offset its debt and people in developed nations want to buy cheap products without caring sufficiently about how they are produced. If we create markets in developing nations that provide a living for those engaged in sustainable creation of export goods from developing countries we will be doing good. This having been said it's not always obvious which products have been created using sustainable development so there is definitely a need for more information. It also takes time on our part to make the effort to read the information.

Re:drought?

[Glock27]

That's not correct. Developing countries in terms of the pollution that affects climate change (CO2 production) are some of the smaller producers.

That is, until you consider the effects of burning large tracts of forest, which directly contributes CO2 and removes CO2 sinks.
Read this article.

Re:drought?

[Cally]

The Crichton book gets a comprehensive and authoritative trashing over at RealClimate.org, and here, too. Good reading (Real Climate, that is, not the Crichton garbage!)

Re:drought?

[Glock27]

If you look at those figures it indicates that Brazil (population around 170 million) produces 3% of the world's CO2. Thus per capita (which is what I was indicating) Brazil's CO2 production lags behind that of most Western nations. It is 6th in total terms partly because it is a fairly populous nation. Western nations (apart from the USA) have a smaller population so in terms of raw amounts per seem to have a smaller contribution even if some are high per capita.

First, the figure given is for 1994, which is likely substantially lower than today's figure. Second, you're ignoring the fact that the amount of destroyed Amazon rainforest significantly reduces the global ecosphere's ability to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere. Thus, as a net polluter, Brazil is doing quite badly.

Re:drought?

[krymsin01]

Actualy, yeah I'd be happy to live through an ice age. Much happier than dying in one.

Re:Global Warming?

[ikkibr]

it could be snowing in the middle of April in New Jersey, but it was damn hot in Brazil :/ Like 45C in my town

it's constantly changing!

[dlt074]

from the dawn of time the climate has been changing! what makes them think it shouldn't now?

Re:it's constantly changing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the scientists know that it's always changing - no one has said that they think that it should not change. That is merely your assumption, stated from a blissfull ignorance of the topic.

The trick here is to separate the anthropogenic from the external influences. That's what this is all about.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[geekanarchy]

You're quite right.

I recommend everyone read Michael Crichton's new book, "State of Fear". Besides being an excellent fiction story, MC also goes about disproving the notion that 'global warming' and 'abrupt climate change' are destroying the world as we know it. What makes this an especially wonderful about this book is that MC cites a plethora of academic references throughout the book to back the facts he states.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[nomadic]

from the dawn of time the climate has been changing! what makes them think it shouldn't now?

Like, I know, and look at all those particle physicists writing papers about atomic reactions that have been changing from the dawn of time.

Hint: find out the difference between climate and weather. Differentiating between the two is what the climatologists are trying to do here.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[felix rayman]

Crichton's book is a bad joke that has been thoroughly debunked.

Re: it's constantly changing!

[Black Parrot]

> from the dawn of time the climate has been changing! what makes them think it shouldn't now?

We're going to suffer the consequences regardless. It seems that we're being forced into the terraforming business whether we want to or not.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[1u3hr]

Michael Crichton's new book, "State of Fear". Besides being an excellent fiction story, MC also goes about disproving the notion that 'global warming' and 'abrupt climate change' are destroying the world as we know it. What makes this an especially wonderful about this book is that MC cites a plethora of academic references throughout the book to back the facts he states.

Right. Then read Jurassic Park to learn the facts about resurrecting dinosaurs... The guy is a novellist. He's manufacturing controversy to promote his book. I saw him on some TV "news" show doing this, got him half an hour of free primetime publicity.

I could find you a plethora of references to prove cigarettes had no cancer risk, that sugar was good for you, etc, sponsored in the same way as those studies cited by oil companies to "prove" that global warming is a myth.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[geekanarchy]

After going over the article at realclimate, I fail to see how this in any way 'debunked' the novel. It merely showed an alternate viewpoint of some of the data presented in the book and pointed out some errors that (and I quote from the article) "probably just slipped through the editing process." Perhaps you are using too strong of words.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[felix rayman]

Perhaps you are using too strong of words

No, I am being quite charitable with my choice of words (as was realclimate.org when they wrote the phrase you cite).

Re:it's constantly changing!

[ColdWetDog]

Mod parent UP - that's a most interesting site. Thanks.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[This Is Ridiculous]

While an excellent novel (and the first "grown-up" novel I read, back in the fourth grade), Jurassic Park didn't have footnotes, lists of references, graphs from real data, or an extensive bibliography listing works on both sides of the debate. State of Fear has all of these things. It is very thoroughly researched, and lists its sources so you can check them out yourself.

A good author produces his or her books from thorough, accurate research. This is especially true of someone writing techno-thrillers like Chrichton--he has to get things pretty much right or his fans will rip the book apart.

Besides, what makes you think the oil company-sponsored studies are any less accurate than the environmentalist-sponsored ones? Environmentalist groups need that research to show that there's global warming, or bad pollution, or extinction, or whatever they're harping on; otherwise they'll lose their contributions. And scientists are perfectly aware of who is paying for their funding, and that if they don't come to the "right" conclusions they may not get their next grant. The fact is, nobody is unbiased. Nobody.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[1u3hr]

A good author produces his or her books from thorough, accurate research. This is especially true of someone writing techno-thrillers like Chrichton--he has to get things pretty much right or his fans will rip the book apart.

Are you serious? 1) His "fans" by definition won't "rip the book apart". Pleanty of critics have though. 2) Techno-thrillers have a veneer of scintific versmilitude -- part of the fun is seeing where the author starts making stuff up. You might as well try to learn medicine from ER (Crichton originated that, btw).

Besides, what makes you think the oil company-sponsored studies are any less accurate than the environmentalist-sponsored ones?

"Environmentalist-sponsored!" How much money do you think environmentalists have? Research is paid for by either governments or large corporations.

And scientists are perfectly aware of who is paying for their funding

As above, funding is not coming from environmentalist groups. The adminstration has desperately tried to find scientists who will support their wish for the problem to disappear, but have found few who will prostitute themselves, and none with any credibility.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[Urkki]

• from the dawn of time the climate has been changing! what makes them think it shouldn't now?

I'm sure you're just trolling for comments, and here's one more to consider:

From the dawn of time people have died of hunger and disease. What makes us think we shouldn't now?

Re:it's constantly changing!

[rodgerd]

Because, you know, Crichton's work on genetics and economics has been impeccable.

Fiction is right.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[AaronGTurner]

He's a novelist. When I want to know about what is likely to happen in terms of the climate I'd rather go to a professional such as a climatologist rather than an amateur. I mean, Crichton was responsible for the creation of ER but it doesn't mean I'd want him to treat me if I had a broken leg...

Re:it's constantly changing!

[AaronGTurner]

Hmmm... The Da Vinci Code has some of these trappings. However it doesn't make its suggestions true.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Crichton was responsible for the creation of ER but it doesn't mean I'd want him to treat me if I had a broken leg

Don't recall where I read it, but Michael Chrichton was an MD before he turned to writing.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[kisak]

The problem is that the changes has gone faster in the last century than in any of the milleniums before.

This sudden acceleration follows quite closely the sudden increase in the amount of CO2 that humans produce (due to the industrial revolution, invention of cars etc). And this sudden acceleration seems to go exponential. Measurments from ice cores on Greenland, fossile threes etc show that the last decade is the warmest that has been in the last 1000 years. So where does this growth stop?

Check out expontential growth, chaotic systems (i.e. our climate) and then draw your own conclusions why some climate scientist are worried. The last decade has also had more "extreem" weather than what has been reported the last two centuries. Again, scientific models indicate that this is not a coincident, but that global warming also gives more extreem storms, floods etc. Scientific/engineering community is now starting to consider what can be done now that sea levels are rising, temperature levels rising (with the impact on wild life and plants) and more storms are coming. The prevention that can be achieved by starting to cut CO2 now will do little for the next decade and some politicians doesn't seem to realize yet that the greatest threat to humanity is not terrorism but this global warming that is happening at the moment.

Re:it's constantly changing!

[This Is Ridiculous]

> 2) Techno-thrillers have a veneer of scintific versmilitude -- part of the fun is seeing where the author starts making stuff up.

Of course. It's also been said that you can get people to suspend their disbelief for one big difference between the real world and the fictional world. There are a couple things you could point to in State of Fear as this; none of them are the footnoted, referenced environmental arguments.

> "Environmentalist-sponsored!" How much money do you think environmentalists have? Research is paid for by either governments or large corporations.

You don't think there are rich environmentalist philanthropists funding research? You don't think the permanent bureaucrats who are part of the "International Council on Climate Change" might be just a little biased towards saying the climate is changing so they'll keep their jobs? You don't think the EPA is biased towards saying there's a problem to expand their power? (Okay, the EPA is caught between its own interests and the administration's, but still.) And you don't think the scientists themselves might be willing (though probably not happy) to say "inconclusive" when a study goes the way the sponsor doesn't want, so that they can get the next grant too?

You don't think the fact that many publications' editorial boards have taken stances on global warming might discourage scientists whose research diagrees with that stance from publishing in them?

In the current system, there is no such thing as an unbiased study, because there's no such thing as an unbiased source of money. To me, the most interesting studies are the ones that are said to be "inconclusive". If you read the data, many "inconclusive" studies are sometimes "didn't go the way I wanted" studies.

(In another field, a panel put together by Clinton to review the effectiveness of gun-control laws recently said they weren't sure, and more research was needed. But if you look at the actual data, it's pretty clear that the answer is that they're ineffective, and the mostly pro-gun-control panel just didn't want to say that.)

Yeah, it's hot

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's a dry heat.

Re:Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

if there was global warming, then i think i wouldnt see snow in the middle of April while living in New Jersey. But i did...

Quick, send that data point to the authors. It is very likely to change the outcome of their study. I smell REWARD MONEY!

How can we monitor this?

[jgclark123]

Because they [floods and droughts] are among the world's costliest natural disasters and affect a very large number of people each year, it is important to monitor them and perhaps predict their variability.

Maybe we should use less satellites for cell phones and radios and use more for fixing our messed-up environment.

Can't Blame Global Warming?

[physicsphairy]

There are two ways that droughts are produced. 1. less precipitation 2. precipitation drops in the wrong places.

Global warming produces increased precipitation.

So what's changing the wind patterns?

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[adeydas]

Changing wind patterns, looks like the premiere of 'die another day'.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[tuxter]

I think salinity has a huge deal to do with it. Salinity kills everything around, making dry, arid country, the heat from the sun during the day builds up in the ground, and gets released at night, obviously if there is a hot updraft, it prevents rain or clouds from forming. If it gets hot enough (As it does where I am) the updraft actually pushes the clouds aside, and the precipitation falls over places of less thermal value, i.e. the sea.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in the article.

There is a third way to produce droughts: 3. faster evaporation (due to higher air temperatures over land).

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[mordors9]

That's the problem. The Earth itself keeps doing little things that should remind us just how insignificant we are. An erupting volcano puts out enough pollution that "green" scientist say it masks all of our human caused global warming. An earthquake causes a tsunami and changes water levels in Virginia.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[Stevyn]

Ugh...global warming does not mean the earth temperature increases everywhere by the same amount. It changes weather patterns. Some places may get hotter, other colder. Some places may flood, others experience a drought.

I mean I know the phrase "global warming" sounds like the temperature everywhere will just increase by a degree or so, but jesus christ, why doesn't anyone ever take a few moments out to learn what it really does before forming an opinion on it.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[iriles]

The global climate is an extremely complex system. So changes in input can potentially have unpredictable results.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[GodsMadClown]

IT's not called global warming. It's called climate change. Precipitation is an element of climate. Additionally, added energy to the system has been modeled to increase extreame weather events.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[OldAndSlow]

An erupting volcano puts out enough pollution that "green" scientist say it masks all of our human caused global warming.

Not according to this page: Present-day carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from subaerial and submarine volcanoes are uncertain at the present time. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. This is a conservative estimate. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.

It is amazing that folks will repeat a claim without taking 5 minutes on Google to see if it is true.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[1u3hr]

n erupting volcano puts out enough pollution that "green" scientist say it masks all of our human caused global warming.

Whihc scientist? Name him.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[Simon Brooke]

There are two ways that droughts are produced. 1. less precipitation 2. precipitation drops in the wrong places.

Global warming produces increased precipitation.

So what's changing the wind patterns?

Global warming, of course.

Not that, as others have pointed out, that changes in wind patterns are the only things causing increased drought; but the atmsophere is a heat engine, and wind is (by and large) air moved by heat differential - in other words, convection. The hotter the atmosphere, the more powerful the wind movements (have you noticed we've been having a lot of hurricanes lately?).

Of course there is a bit of coriolis effect in the overall wind movement, leading to the great westerly wind belts of the forties and fifties of latitude, but that doesn't change the fact that wind is largely heat driven, and global warming directly changes wind patterns.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[SEWilco]

You answered "pollution...masks...warming" with "carbon dioxide". Do you have an "aerosol" answer?

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[SEWilco]

The global climate is an extremely complex system. So changes in input can potentially have unpredictable results.

Maybe we should stop flapping our lips.

Re:Can't Blame Global Warming?

[Cally]

Forgive me, Taco, for what I am about to do...

jesus christ, why doesn't anyone ever take a few moments out to learn what it really does before forming an opinion on it.

Hmm... 691306... you're new here, aren't you. Welcome to slashdot, where the ability to (insert preferred menial technical activity) makes you an instant expert on every topic under the sun, from business practices, the law, IC engineering, and... (the favourite hangout for the ill-informed trolls) climate change and modelling!

To be fair, the ratio of idiot posts saying "Duh, don't these so-called 'scientists' realise the sun is getting hotter?" (or whatever) seems to be decreasing of late.

Maybe the Droughts are causing the climate change?

[slashkitty]

Or at least the development, farming, clear cutting in those areas has caused it. Places where they measure temperature and rainfall the most are areas that are developed the most. The real question here is are these really long term changes or just natural fluctuations. 5, 30, 100 years are not long term in the scheme of things here.

Wet West Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about most places but my part of West Texas went from 9 inches or rain in 2003, to more that 53 inches of rain in 2004. Thats the most rain that my county has seen since it was settled in the early 1900's.

Tim

Re:Wet West Texas

[FredThompson]

Oh, great, now we get to hear complaints that the U.S. is now hogging all the world's water...

Re: Wet West Texas

[Black Parrot]

> I don't know about most places but my part of West Texas went from 9 inches or rain in 2003, to more that 53 inches of rain in 2004. Thats the most rain that my county has seen since it was settled in the early 1900's.

For whatever anecdotes are worth, both my hometown and my current domicile now experience longer dry spells punctuated by brief but intense wet spells compared to what they had a few decades ago. Overall my hometown has gotten drier, but oddly the net precipitation where I live now has hardly changed; it's just that we get way behind the long-standing average, then catch up or even get ahead over a single weekend.

Al Gore's book title is correct

[Dancin_Santa]

"Earth in the Balance"

While he obviously meant it to mean that Earth is somehow delicately balanced and any movement in one direction or another will topple the climate for the worse, the fact of the matter is that the Earth has a natural environmental cycle that balances itself out over time.

So thousands of years ago there was an ice age followed by the long warm age we live in now. Before that there were other ice ages and warm ages. We put sulfur into the atmosphere, it comes down as acid rain, but somewhere else the sky is blue and the birds are singing. Just because we "damage" one area does not mean that we cannot improve another area.

Even in the case of climate warming, an increase in warmth leads to higher oceanic evaporation which leads to more cloud cover which counteracts the heating caused by the Sun (which is far greater a heat source than our piddly output) which then leads to global cooling again which leads to less oceanic evaporation which leads to less cloud cover which leads to ... and so on and so forth.

There is a problem with polluting because it makes our environment unlivable, much live a fish tank can't support aquatic life if there isn't a certain amount of care put towards keeping it clean. But on the large scale, global warming is one of those things that is coming, we can't do anything about it, and will go away whether we are here or not by that time.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[mboverload]

Yes, but people can't accpet we can't keep having kids and living anywhere we want.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[mrtrumbe]

...the fact of the matter is that the Earth has a natural environmental cycle that balances itself out over time...

No kidding! So it is a "fact" that human activity contributes nothing, in the long run, to global climate? And here I thought the jury was still out on how much we impact our climate and how long those effects will last. Silly me!

Seriously though, I really don't like this kind of unsubstantiated "it is a fact" statement about something we know so little about. I'm not sure how much human activity contributes to global warming. I'm not sure how long any effects we cause will last. The reason I try to be environmentally concious is because I don't know and the thought of a world rendered uninhabitable because of human activity concerns me.

So all those out there who would tell me "humans are causing global warming" or "humans have no impact on global climate" can save it. Given the incredibly complex nature of our ecosystem and the tiny amount of data we currently have, I don't think anyone can say with certainty. As for me, I think the evidence currently shows that we at least some impact on our environment and I don't want to find out how serious that impact could be. So I will work towards policies which limit our impact on the world around us and hope others will do the same.

Taft

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[jdbear]

It's entirely possible that we are still on the curve that lead us out of the ice age. Just how warm was it at the height of the warm time before the ice age? Does anyone know?

I'd love to see the trend stablize, but without really knowing how hot we are over the long term, we can't know if this is normal or not.

Maybe man just came into prominance during the declining years of the ice age, and we've not gotten to the end of the pedulum swing yet. It's possible that the climate will reverse on its own, a thousand years from now.

I can't wait that long, of course. I hope we don't do anything drastic, though, like trying to force the climate into our idea of what it's supposed to be. Just like trying to contain a meandering river, these things never work out as well as we hope.

jdbear.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[ibi]

There's a strong scientific consensus that you're wrong. Of course, since you're a member of the rich world maybe you're not *dead* wrong. But articles like these suggest a lot of folks are gonna die due to pigheaded-do nothing attitudes like yours.

Purposely setting the US up as the fall guy on global warming may look pretty amazingly stupid in just a decade or two. All those WWII era Germans and Arab terrorists that are the stock embodiment of evil today? I'm not looking forward to it changing to a fat American in a Humvee. (Some of my best friends are overweight and many of them like to travel.) Fair? Of course not. But the price of stupidity rarely is just...

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[Ryvar]

I just wanted to compliment you on an intelligent response to a subject that seems to induce fits of irrational hysteria around here.

Environmental science in general and global warming in particular are among the topics that Slashdot simply seem incapable of producing *ANY* meaningful signal on whatsoever. The problem seems to be that most Slashdotters are aware of just how much their technological fetishes (which I admittedly share) are dependent on the very processes which drive environmentalists into fits of rage. Thus the local technophiles (which around here is everybody) are driven into vehemently denying what is an at best *potential* great danger - and at worst an impending catastrophe.

Intelligent, reasoned reactions which take into account both the uncertainty of the science involved and yet give appropriate weight to the possibility that our worst fears may be confirmed are all too rare around here.

So, thanks.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[Doppler00]

I'll agree that the earth does not maintain a balance. The weather and the environment just does what it does. Global warming is only as "bad" as we believe it to be. If you looked at it from the perspective of lives lost, it will have little effect on the industrialized world, and maybe farmland in non-industrialized countries will slowly disappear. Then again, frozen areas in the north may become more cultivable. I'm always amused when people worry that frozen waste land is being changed from global warming, as if that's such a bad thing that the land is now more useful for our own use.

The earth and everything that lives on it besides humans doesn't care or comprehend what happens to the environment.

Do you honestly believe that "a fat American in a Humvee" is going to destroy the environment and kill millions people? Use some logic instead of emotions! The total polution generated by all Humvees can't possibly be a significant consequence to the environment. There are many more factors than Humvees that are changing the environment.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[iriles]

But on the large scale, global warming is one of those things that is coming, we can't do anything about it, and will go away whether we are here or not by that time.

The theory is that global warming is caused by CO2 emissions. So there is something we can do: use energy sources that don't produce CO2 such as wind, hydro-electric, solar, nuclear, or geo-thermal.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

If you are an example of the high intellect America is producing these days living in adobe huts and eating mice and hay is probably more than you should be aspiring to. Set your sights on attainable goals, I'm thinking caves and eating bugs is probably about your level :)

If you want to see an example of some smart, resourceful people dealing with the problem, instead of denying it, you need look no further than today's post on Iceland. They aren't as dumb and arrogant as you appear to be.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

"your outrageous claims that the planet will be turning into another Venus,"

Lets chalk that up to a failed attempt to catch your attention about what a runaway greenhouse effect looks like. You quickly forget I didn't say Earth "is turning in to another Venus". All I said is its one of the many possibilities and it is both the worst case and quite possible.

You see the problem with you and all those like you is there is NOTHING that will convince you that its possible human activity is having adverse effects on the Earth's climate. The only thing that will apparently convince you is when Earth becomes uninhabitable and at that points it a little too late. Most of us just want to explore all the possibilities and if possible refrain from choosing the paths that will wipe out, our seriously degrade life on this one and only planet of ours.

The catch in all your talk about natural climate change is the Earth has never had 6 billion mammals with tool skills covering nearly every inhabitable nook and cranny. The dynamics of today's earth is COMPLETELY different from anything in its history.

"Unfortunately, that is not the case for virtually any other country in the world."

Actually you are wrong, AGAIN. There are geothermal resource available all over the planet, there are places all around the Pacific Rim's ring of fire that have them. Yellowstone is rich in it. Pretty much anyplace where there is an active or even dorman volcano is sure to have it. If you drill deep enough you can find them anywhere, our planet has a molten core in case you didn't know.

You are once again just being dense. My point isn't that the entire world should do exactly what Iceland is doing. The point is every country should be working hard to move to alternative and renewable energy sources that they have the resource for and that aren't going to dump vast quantities of carbon dioxide in to the air. Hydroelectric, solar, wind, tidal and carefully done nuclear all work especially if you do a mix of them all. Fossil fuels and nuclear aren't the only two options, they are just the two American's big corporations want to do because they have the best profit potential(assuming the U.S. government eliminates all the regulations that currently hamstring them).

The point about Iceland is they've set a goal to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels and they are working to achieve it. Most of the rest of the world isn't even trying. American and China are two of the worst offenders for clinging to burning coal until it wrecks the climate and at present it appear no one is going to talk them out of it.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[This Is Ridiculous]

> Human activity could easily completely upset the natural cycles and create a runaway greenhouse effect. If it does the planet could end up uninhabitable like Venus.

Do you really believe a couple billion bags of cells with delusions of intelligence can change the weather of an entire planet? Personally, I find such claims to be the height of arrogance.

Earth constantly changes. It changed before we existed, and will keep changing once we are gone. Imagining that humanity can affect that is as preposterous as imagining that an ant can build a rocket.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

"Venus has an atmosphere of about 95% CO2. It is physically impossible for humans to create anywhere near that level of CO2 here on Earth."

You also don't need anything close to that to devestate life on earth. If we push up the Earth's average temperature 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit that will be enough to cause a massive disruption in our climate and lives. 10 degrees is within the range currently estimated by the National Science Foundation for the next 100 years especially if we make no attempt to check green house gas production.

"Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased nearly 30%, methane concentrations have more than doubled, and nitrous oxide concentrations have risen by about 15%."

"Since 1979, scientists have generally agreed that a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide increases the earth?s average surface temperature by 1.5-4.5C (3-8F). More recent studies have suggested that the warming is likely to occur more rapidly over land than the open seas."

"Global mean surface temperatures have increased 0.5-1.0F since the late 19th century. The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century. Of these, 1998 was the warmest year on record. The snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere and floating ice in the Arctic Ocean have decreased. Globally, sea level has risen 4-8 inches over the past century. Worldwide precipitation over land has increased by about one percent. The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased throughout much of the United States." **Reference California this week.

"At first, the cooler oceans will tend to absorb much of the additional heat and thereby decrease the warming of the atmosphere. Only when the ocean comes into equilibrium with the higher level of CO2 will the full warming occur."

"The conservationist looks for the best way to solve an environmental issue taking into account as much science as is possible. The environmentalist already knows what the right way to solve an issue is and finds the science to back him up. I think this is why you got upset that I mocked your assertion that cow farts are causing global warming."

I'm sorry but your rhetoric throughout this thread shows you are anything but a conservationist and you don't give a rats ass about any of the science involved. Your approach to the science is the ostrich approach, stick your head in the sand and hope for the best. I'm giving you reference after reference, and you give me denial, tangents and empty rhetoric. A conservationist isn't going to pick fossil fuels and nukes as the only two viable energy sources for the planet.

Nuclear is an option but it comes laced with problems in particular safety, especially in an age where they are inviting terrorism targets, waste disposal and the obvious fact the U.S. wont stand for most places around the world having it due to the weapons proliferation problems. One little accident with a big nuclear plant and you poison a vast area and they simply aren't fool proof no matter how good the design.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

I think your login pretty much says it all about your posts.

"Do you really believe a couple billion bags of cells with delusions of intelligence can change the weather of an entire planet?"

I think you don't have to look much further than the undisputed fact that those meat sacks nearly destroyed the ozone layer with aerosol cans and Freon. Not exactly weather but its pretty much the same concept, technology induced global calamity. If we hadn't taken measures to stop it, it would have also eventually wiped us just from the ultraviolet end of the spectrum instead of the infrared.

"It changed before we existed, and will keep changing once we are gone."

Thanks for conceeding my point. I guess we can hope that once we wipe human kind off the face of the planet with a global population/climatic disaster that the earth will right itself in a hundred million years or so. I just don't think its fair that we will probably take out a whole bunch of innocent species with us.

Here is the same link I posted from the EPA/National Science Foundation posted to rebut the other ostrich in this thread. It takes balls for anyone in the EPA or NSF to still be saying this stuff publicly because their boss has made it abundantly clear his faith based approach to climatology doesn't have any room for the possibility of human induced global warming. Of course then Little George and most of the people in his administration are Born Again's and are sitting around waiting for the second coming, the rapture and to be called to sit on the right hand of Jesus. If you have that kind of an outlook on the world I guess it doesn't really matter if we may crater the Earth's climate in the next hundred years. Heck maybe a run away climate is just part of the fireworks to punctuate acting out the Book of Revelations.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

Well I hate to point it out but you've back pedaled on nearly everything you said when you started this thread. If you recall you started out saying "But on the large scale, global warming is one of those things that is coming, we can't do anything about it, and will go away whether we are here or not by that time."

"How are we going to generate enough electricity to power our vehicles, our homes, our entire way of life?"

Hello, Mr. Conservationist, one way is to just conserve some. Just boosting Miles Per Gallon on new cars would save millions of barrels of oil. Do we. No. Why:

- Oil companies don't want us to use less of their product or for oil prices to go down because its would cut in to their profits
- Car companies want to sell big high margin gas guzzlers, especially SUV's
- People, especially Americans, want to buy big gas guzzlers and commute 3 hours a day, solo in an SUV.

I hate to break it to you but developing alternative energy sources is pro technology and pro progress. It means pushing the technology envelope to develop something new instead of just keep on doing what we've done for a century, burning oil, coal and gas. Will we, probably not because big oil and big coal companies have enough power to kill off any serious effort to make their products obsolete.

"So we've already gone over why fossil fuels are bad. This is the number one cause of manmade CO2 emissions. It's not caused by cars, cigarettes, or farting cows."

Hello, Mr. Scientist, if you followed anything I posted farting cows and CO2 don't have any connection. The farting cows is METHANE and its a green house gas too, and its on the rise to and it contributes to the green house effect just like CO2. You can keep talking about how you are all over the science of this but you sure never show the most basic understanding of the simplest things and still refuse to believe that it is in fact a well known problem and not a joke.

"Getting rid of this reliance on oil is the first step to cleaning up the air."

Well actually not really. Breaking the reliance on oil would help but again you are missing most of the big problem here. COAL is the worst of the problem, and its not likely to run out anytime soon and thats how the U.S. and China produces a big percentage of their power and its use is increasing not decreasing. The Bush administration's big con is we have "Clean Coal" now so its OK to burn more of it. Well they are cleaning up some of the sulfides and nitrates but there is no good mechanism for cutting the carbon dioxide emissions so we are still churn out these big plumes of green house gases out of these giant smoke stacks that are burning coal on a huge scale. We are building more of them, not fewer.

"There is a solution here, but Iceland's example is not viable anywhere but there, and reverting to the stone age isn't an option. Sorry."

And here were back to you saying I said the whole world should just do the Iceland thing. Well at this point I quit because your reading comprehension appears to be so low its a waste of time churning out words for you to not comprehend. One thing Iceland's doing is Hydrogen powered cars. Well low and behold George Bush wants to do that too, though its mostly empty rhetoric on his part and they are actually doing it, so I guess maybe they are doing something the rest of the world can use as an example. Hydrogen is great as long as you aren't getting it from fossil fuels which is one of the two Bush administration strategies (it just happens to put more money in the pockets of his friends in the oil and gas business). Why is it a problem because the byproduct is carbon dioxide again, though at least in this case you can pump it in to the ground instead of the air. The other Bush source is of course big nuke plants churning out electricity to take it out of water.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

Your quick or you must have sigs shut off. My sig pretty much spells out what I think of the moron sitting in the White House these days. I honestly can't think of one intelligent thing I've ever heard him say and that covers global warming to WMD's to Jesus, can you? I like a lot of what Jesus said. George doesn't seems to have understood a bit of it.

What's worse its pretty obvious he is outright lieing half the time, like how he was sure there were WMD's in Iraq, and how big a threat Iraq was to the U.S., or how Social Security is on the verge of collapse so he can redirect more trillions in deficits in to the pockets of his friends on Wall Street via "private accounts". Well maybe Social Security will collapse in 30-40 years but its only because he is using the current huge payroll tax surplus to defray the huge deficits he's running thanks to his tax cuts for the rich. I think its so cool to use payroll taxes from working people who are just making ends meet to offset tax cuts for the rich. Welcome to regressive taxation.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[demachina]

I think you are the one that started ranting about political leanings and really went off topic:

"And now we see what side of the political spectrum you sit on. Not that there was really any doubt. How much do you give to the Sea Shepherds every year?"

Not sure moderators need you to coach them especially since you dove for the cover of AC after your first post.

I had to break it to my post on the Bush administrations well known antipathy to scientists in the government highlighting the evidence supporting global warming is 100% on topic if not the heart of problem. Americans and American corporations are a leading contributor to green house gases glovally, and the Bush administration is making it worse, not better, especially through their "Clean Coal" propaganda. Meanwhile the Bush crowd are actively trying to suppress all the scientific findings that global warming is happening and fossil fuel pollution is a key contributor. No I'd say that is thoroughly on topic.

It is speculation on my part but if you are dealing with devout born again Christians, though I'm not sure George isn't a faker on that score, why would they care about the long term well being of the planet because they are in fact waiting for the second coming and the rapture. If a politician is a devout born again chances are it distorts and colors every policy decision he makes which is one reason born against are pretty dangerous politicians especially when the run the biggest military on the planet and have their finger on one button initiator for apocalypse.

I mean if we are to take the fundementalist slant on Earth's history the whole things only been around a few thousand years, the Grand Canyon was carved in Noah's great flood, and all that ice age crap never happened in the first place. No wonder George doesn't buy in to global warming.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[SEWilco]

Yes, but people can't accpet we can't keep having kids and living anywhere we want.

Population in many countries, such as the U.S., is decreasing (they're not having enough kids) except growth is happening from immigration (others are moving to live where they want).

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[Simon Brooke]

If you looked at it from the perspective of lives lost, it will have little effect on the industrialized world, and maybe farmland in non-industrialized countries will slowly disappear.

...from which the 'industrialised world' is already a net importer of food...

Then again, frozen areas in the north may become more cultivable. I'm always amused when people worry that frozen waste land is being changed from global warming, as if that's such a bad thing that the land is now more useful for our own use.

This is based on a bit of profound misunderstanding about the shape of the planet.

Sunlight falling in the tropics meets the surface of the planet at near enough 90 degrees (indeed, the definition of the tropics is that at some point in the year sunlight falls there at exactly 90 degrees). So one square metre of sunlight is available for photosynthesis to the plants on one square metre of surface.

At 60 degrees north (or south) latitude the amount of sunlight (average throught the year) available to plants on one square metre of surface is cosine( 60), or one half, as much. So the maximum total productiveness per unit area is half as much.

Now, assume for a moment there are no oceans, and the planet is a smooth round billiard ball of potentially usable agricultural land. What happens when you increase the temperature of the atmosphere and thus shift the arable zone away from the equator? The total area of the arable zone gets smaller, is what. Because the planet isn't a cylinder, as the mercator projection maps we all look at suggests. The diameter of the earth at 60 north is half what it is at the equator, so there's half as much land at 60 north as at the equator.

And finally, the distribution of land masses on the planet isn't even. Between 40 degrees and 60 degrees south there's virtually no land at all. So if you shift the arable band away from the equator, you decrease the proportion of the arable band which is land as opposed to ocean. Which means you have even less food production.

And that's before you notice the fact (which should be obvious) that the effects of global warming aren't distributed evenly. If, as is suggested, the warm water circulation of the North Atlantic is changing, then the eastern seaboard of the United States and the whole of Western Europe - historically important agricultural and industrial areas - are going to get a lot less productive. If, as is suggested, the Mid West of the United States becomes desert, an enormous proportion of the food producing capacity of the temperate world is going to be lost.

So you need to get away from this idea that 'global warming isn't going to hurt us here'.

Do you honestly believe that "a fat American in a Humvee" is going to destroy the environment and kill millions people?

One fat American in one Humvee, no. But one fat American in one Humvee is burning far more fossil fuel than the same fat American would burn if he rode a bicycle (he'd also be less fat, which wouldn't benefit the planet but it might benefit him). And one fat American in a Humvee driving to work fifty miles from his home is burning far more fossil fuel than the same fat American sitting at his desk in his home telecommuting (although he'd still be just as fat).

The problem is that there isn't just one fat American in a Humvee. There are 293 million Americans, most of whom are fat, in 24 million SUVs. And the difference in energy usage between 24 million SUVs and 24 million bicycles is enough - more than enough - to make a difference.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[Simon Brooke]

Actually you are wrong, AGAIN. There are geothermal resource available all over the planet, there are places all around the Pacific Rim's ring of fire that have them. Yellowstone is rich in it. Pretty much anyplace where there is an active or even dorman volcano is sure to have it. If you drill deep enough you can find them anywhere, our planet has a molten core in case you didn't know.

No.

Yes, there is geothermal energy everywhere on the planet. Yes, we could tap it. But that's just falling back into the trap the last few generations have got us into, of living way beyond our energy means, and it is just storing up more trouble for future generations.

The planet receives locally 'new' energy only from the sun. Solar energy, which we can trap either directly with photovoltaic arrays and photosynthesis or indirectly with wind-turbines. That's our income. And actually, provided we use it efficiently, it's plenty.

But geothermal energy, like fossil fuel, is capital. Spending it has consequences. The consequence of spending geothermal energy is that we cool the planet's core. Frankly, I don't know what effects that will have, and on the precautionary principal I think that's a very good reason for not doing it. Isn't it time we learned the lessons of quick technical fixes?

I've been to Iceland. I like it there. The stuff those folk have done with geothermal energy is really impressive. But in Iceland sunny days are so rare that they get an automatic school holiday! I don't think it's a solution that scales for the rest of us.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct

[MtViewGuy]

I think there are a number of issues that need to be addressed in regards to climate change:

1. The biggest determinant of Earth's climate is this fireball 93 million miles away called the Sun. Anyone who's done studies on the sunspot cycles (we have records dating back to the beginning of the use of telescopes for astonomical observations) note that during much of the 17th and 18th Centuries, there was NO noted sunspot activity, the so-called Maunder minimum. It also perfectly conincided with a period of very cold winters in Europe, as noted by the frequent freezing of the Thames River through London in winter.

2. Volcanic activity can have very dramatic effects on worldwide climate even with a fraction of a degree Celsius cooling from the shielding effects of airborne volcanic ash. When Mt. Tambora on Sumbawa Island in what is now Indonesia erupted in 1815 with perhaps the greatest volcanic ash output since the time of Christ (some 15 cubic miles), the result was massive crop failures in the USA and Europe due to unusually cool summers with the severe cooling effects of all that ash in the atmosphere.

3. Humans need to stop the activity of slash and burn agriculture, which can seriously denude the land of CO2-absorbing plantlife and make the topsoil suspectible to being either blown away by "dust bowl" conditions and/or washed away by severe rains. This is particular problem in parts of South America, Africa and Asia (I think much of the problem of the rapid growth of the Sahara Desert is caused by too much of this type of agriculture in Africa).

4. We should agressively address the danger of low-altitude air pollution, primarily the nitrous oxides, sulfur dixoide, and unburned hydrocarbons which can cause serious respiratory problems and also can damage older buildings from the chemical effects. Fortunately, today's very strict air pollution laws are starting to cure this problem, as noted by the dramatic reduction of smog alert days in the Los Angeles, CA area since the middle 1980's.

5. Because of plate tectonics and various ice ages, we know that most of the world can undergo pretty substantial climate changes in geological time. For example, many thousands of years ago the Bering Strait did not exist, and as such we had considerable migration of many animal types between Asia and North America (it's possible that the first Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) arrived in North America before the Bering Strait was created).

In short, I feel many of the people pushing the idea of global warming are doing it for political reasons rather than valid scientific reasons.

Re:A drought really.....

[entropy1980]

I know it was meant in a serious manner don't knwo what's funny about it ? Really quite a sad story...

Re:Global Warming?

[jdbear]

The term global warming was coined to describe the phenomenon of the entire weather system heating up, not the lack of snow in New Jersey. When the atmosphere heats up, it has more energy. That means increased activity, such as droughts, hurricanes and yes, snowstorms.

Also, there has been a good bit of discussion that it's possible that the melting of the ice on the polar ice caps is diluting the salt of the oceans, causing the Gulf Stream to change course. That would have the effect of reducing the temperature in the Northeastern United States and Great Brittan. It might just get colder!

jdbear

Re:Global Warming?

[physicsphairy]

Duh, since they got mod points. You really stink at sucking up to the mods. ;)

drought dodger

[Doc Ruby]

Nah, everybody knows there's no climate change: pResident Bush says so, and he got reelected! That's just God's Will (®). Everyone on the ark! Last one in gets no koolaid!

Re:drought dodger

[Doc Ruby]

There will be two of everything on the ark! Just send your check or money order to the Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus, located somewhere in Los Angeles, California, and we'll read your prayer on the radio!

Re:drought dodger

[Doc Ruby]

Your post, Anonymous Coward, is a perfect reflection of itself. You're a self-parody!

The climate went apeshit

[KiloByte]

It looks like the world's climate has changed a lot. When I was a kid, the winter started around Dec 20th and lasted until late March where I live. Nowadays, in the last few years, if we had any snow it was in November, with nothing during the time when the winter was supposed to be, with perhaps another strike of snow around April. Such "two springs" years became nearly a rule lately -- with a screwed up effect on the vegetation.

Ah, I'm just 26, so that "when I was a kid" is not that far ago. Such a rapid, severe change of climate is something not to be trifled with.

But hey... we have several processes that cause rapid global warming running simultaneously with processes that cause global cooling. Things just have to act weird :p

Re:The climate went apeshit

[servognome]

So based on 8-10 years of data you extrapolate that winter MUST be between Dec20th and March, and that because another data set a decade is different it must be severe caused by climate change due to global warming.
The world climate hasn't changed a lot, your local climate has. Natural fluctuations means someplaces get hotter, some places get cooler, but overall there is very little difference in the climate. If the overall temperature or weather patterns change even by a little, you'll see catastrophic localized results.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[shawb]

I was about to ask if you live in the Midwestern United States, because that sounds _EXACTLY_ like the climate changes I've experienced in the 27 years I've been alive. Then I look at your email address, and it looks to me like you live in Poland? Then again, we have very similar climates, from what I understand. Might make sense that they would change in the same way.

I also remember that when I was a little kid, snowbanks would reach well above my head, nowadays it hardly ever reaches above my knee.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[Barnoid]

I also remember that when I was a little kid, snowbanks would reach well above my head, nowadays it hardly ever reaches above my knee.

Well, I'm afraid that's not due to a climate change.

It's because you grew taller.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[Skepparn]

it's exactly the same here in Sweden, but to make things worse, the last 4 or 5 years, it hasn't even been warm in summers.. so it's warmer in winters, and cooler in summers.. man this sucks..

Re:The climate went apeshit

[jagapen]

Happily, some of us out here in /.-land are, rather than isolated individuals, members of a larger society, which includes members much older than us. We can get an oral history of how things used to be, aquiring data that reaches back well before our births.
And some of our societies even have a tradition of literature. Through the written word, we can know conditions long before the birth of any member of our society.
It is thus that we know that SOME SHIT AIN'T RIGHT. Locally, I know that Wisconsin has had warm and/or snowless winters in the past, but not year after year, and that thunderstorms (which require warm air masses) in January used to be rare as hens' teeth, and that maybe we're not too happy about those catastrophic localized results, hey?

Re:The climate went apeshit

[shawb]

Yeah... that part is actually a joke my dad used to make back then. Took me a while to get it. THere is a difference, though: the snowbanks were probably mid-thigh high on him or so. Oh, and once snow fell, it was actually likely to stay around. I can't think of one winter since I started college where there was not a major that in January. Case in point it is currently 47F (8C) and there is a thunderstorm outside. I guess I would actually have to talk to a climatologist to see if this is really wierd weather or not, but there was a definate cut-off in local climate here in about 1996 where we just stopped getting normal winters. Err, except winter of 1998/1999. I think we had a big snowfall that stuck around till late february.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[The-Bus]

Climate hasn't done anything. It is extremely irresponsible and irrational to say something like "The climate is changing!" when you're looking at it on a scale of twenty years.

I'd like to see what has happened with these drought stricken areas over the past 50 years, past 100 years, and past 200 years. Let's see what the overall effect is. Otherwise it is no different than saying, today it was 55F, last week it was 35F. The world's climate is changing by 20F/week!

Remember, the weather is allowed to change.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[Just Some Guy]

BS. The climate has not changed that quickly, but your interpretation and memory of it has. Maybe you're remembering a freak snowstorm you experienced as a kid - when you didn't realize that it was out of the norm - and subconsciously expecting every winter to be like that. The weather segment of our local newscast compares the day's weather to the historic record for that particular day, and the record high or low might have been 120 years ago or last year. There's no set pattern that I've ever noticed.

It's natural to remember how awful the winters were when you were a kid, because 4 inches of snow when you're 3 feet tall is pretty impressive. It's not such a big deal when you're older.

Re:The climate went apeshit

[servognome]

Locally, I know that Wisconsin has had warm and/or snowless winters in the past, but not year after year, and that thunderstorms (which require warm air masses) in January used to be rare as hens' teeth, and that maybe we're not too happy about those catastrophic localized results, hey?
Locally there were also glaciers covering wisconsin for thousands of years, if that happened again would something be wrong, right, or just different? If you look at the data there were periods within the last 100 years where Wisconsin had above average temp winters 7 out of 8 years. That doesn't mean globally things are way off, if the temperature changes by just 2C globally things would change much more drasticlly than what is being described.

Re:Maybe the Droughts are causing the climate chan

[minimunchkin]

It is almost certain that we change our environmet - but we have no idea how. We do one thing here, one thing there. Overall not much changes, but locally we strip the trees off a mountain and fuck up the climate. Armed with this singlar evidence we try and reduce 3% of 0.037% by 10% and then blame an earthquake tsunami on the fact that we didn't sign off on the 10%. We cannot model this shit, which wouldn't be a problem, except we don't have the humility to admit it. That's OK though. We can by a Prius. How much energy does it cost to make one of those. Your Dodge Charger probably does less damage.

Re:Who cares?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of Australia cares - apart from some good rainfall in December we've been in a state of drought for the last few years.

With dams at 30% capacity and falling, there's a very real possibility of having no drinking water in the next year or two.
Here in Canberra we used to weather droughts pretty well, having a catchment area in the nearby ranges that tended to get a lot more rainfall than the areas they service, but lately that hasn't been true, and along with bushfires rendering the majority of the remaining water undrinkable for a year or so it's a serious issue.

It can only get worse

[travisco_nabisco]

Well, I wouldn't go complaining about the climate changes too much. On the positive side, Canada could handle being a bit warmer. And on a more positive side, at least it isn't "The Day After Tomorrow"

Re:It can only get worse

[DeepHurtn!]

Being a Canadian in Montreal, I can sympathize with your sentiment -- but it's wrong. Canada most definitely *not* want to get any warmer. Global warming is already having disasterous effects on northern wildlife (such as polar bears) as well as the lifestyles of Inuit and other northerners.

Re:It can only get worse

[travisco_nabisco]

I do agree with that fully, my previous post was meant to be a bit more tongue in cheek than it came out as.

Re:It can only get worse

[SunPin]

Well, I wouldn't go complaining about the climate changes too much. On the positive side, Canada could handle being a bit warmer. And on a more positive side, at least it isn't "The Day After Tomorrow"

Just wait until the day after tomorrow. :)

Re:It can only get worse

[DeepHurtn!]

Heh, I figured as much, and as I said, living in Montreal, I can definitely sympathize! But there are people out there who don't really think these things through. I've heard sentiments not dissimilar from yours spoken in all seriousness before.

Re:A drought really.....

[LiquidCoooled]

After all we have seen and heard in recent weeks, please get this modded down.
It most certainly isn't a joke and the funny mod is just wrong. :(

Re:Global Warming?

[ergo98]

...there has been a good bit of discussion...

Would that be the scientific study "The Day After Tomorrow" by the esteemed author Mr. Roland Emmerich. I believe he also penned the research tomes as "Independence Day" (about the threat mankind faces from satellite hacking aliens), as well as the well worn and oft debated theory vehicle "Stargate" (which presented evidence that Egyptian artifacts are actually courtesy of very unpleasant aliens. Aliens!).

The Earth has gone through quite a few ice ages and then reversals -- right now I believe we're in the reversion from a mini ice age. While humans do have a lot of impact on our planet, it is remarkable how we think that the Earth is a static const, when in reality it's a volatile dynamic variable.

Um, read the article?

[rewt66]

Increased temperature causes increased evaporation from the soil. So the soil is, on average, drier.

Not funny!

[antdude]

That was pretty sad. :( I don't see how you find this funny at all.

Good news for republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

This is indeed great news to the republican party. It shows that their eco-destructive policy making is working which is an important step in the process of bringing on the second coming of Christ.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay -- a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, an End-Time faction numbering 20 million Americans -- was present at John Hagee's San Antonio-based Cornerstone Church in 2002 when Hagee preached a fire and brimstone sermon, telling his congregation, "The war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse." After Hagee's sermon, Delay was quoted as saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, what has been spoken here tonight is the truth from God."

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:GZ3Q1TljylcJ: www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php%3Fop%3Dmod load%26name%3DNews%26file%3Darticle%26sid%3D958+To m+Delay+Bill+Hagee&hl=en&start=4 Religion is now the force behind policy making. This is dangerous and will likely lead to much destruction in the name of a fairy tale. Please, do not vote republican (or for Zell Miller).

Re:Good news for republicans

[R2.0]

For the love of Pete - who modded this interesting?

"Bad thing happens. Bitch about Republicans"

Interesting? It's not even boring anymore.

Re:Good news for republicans

[Just Some Guy]

House Majority Leader Tom Delay -- a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists, an End-Time faction numbering 20 million Americans

Full-stop. Considering that:

• I'm an American and have never heard of this organization that 1 out of 15 of my countrymen are a member of (yes: "member" implies "formal organization" - you don't hear someone described as a "member of the Cat Lovers" unless that's an actual group), and
• Google doesn't find the web site for such a 20-million member group (but every 5-person scrapbooking club has a home page),

I am forced to conclude that your source, "Intervention Magazine", is making stuff up off the top of their head. Having a source's credibility shredding in the second clause of the first sentence is pretty bad even by Slashdot standards.

Drought and land use??

[coffeecan]

I was supprised that this article doesn't mention the effect of land use over climate change. One of the fastest ways the increase the local tempeture of an area is to cut down all the trees (raise by 2-3 degrees C). Remember over=grazing of the mid west led to the dust bowl during the great depression. Sadly a lot of developing nations use bad farming practaces, and that is why deserts are the only ecosystems still expanding today.

Re:Drought and land use??

[Anonymous Coward]

Cattle didn't create the dust bowl. Anyone who told you that is simply wrong. Clouds of dust were the result of farming in areas that shouldn't have been plowed. Lots and lots of cows might produce a cloud of dust, but nothing like a couple of dozen sections of plowed land mixed with high wind and no rain.

"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Chuck Chunder]

When it rarely gets too hot in my apartment I change the climate by turning on the air conditioning because it makes the climate more suitable for me.

I don't see why humans shouldn't seek to make the global climate better for us. If moving to resist global warming (whether 'natural' or not) helps us make the world a better place for sustaining our life then it sounds like a reasonable idea on the face of it.

Saying "it's been happening from the dawn of time" is stupid. So have tsunamis. So has disease. It remains sensible for us human beings to avoid contact with them where we can. Global warming may not be rushing upon us with such speed as the recent Asian disaster but if it, natural or not, is going to cause us damage it is only sensible to try and minimise that damage.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Mr. Arbusto]

Change has been happening since the dawn of time and there is little we can do to effect it. Weather the earth is warming or cooling, We can heat or cool where to live. People live all over the planet, from deserts to tropical islands to on active fault lines. We can only change the planet so much and given all the power we think we have, we don't have squat. How much energy does it take to heat 1 square meter of water at sea level? How much water is on the surface of the earth? Yeah, that is a lot of energy.

I agree, I don't see why humans shouldn't seek to make the global climate a better place for us, but the extent of our power only goes so far, and we really have to keep doing what we do. Make life better and change what we can.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Atrax]

When it rarely gets too hot in my apartment I change the climate by turning on the air conditioning because it makes the climate more suitable for me

What you're actually doing is taking the 'heat' and moving it outside into the external environment, heating up the outside world by a miniscule amount. The amount of heat you generate by cooling your room is actually greater than the decrease inside, due to inevitable inefficiencies in the system. It's literally a heat exchanger.

So are you proposing some sort of planet-sized air conditioner or something? Where are we going to 'send' the excess energy?

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Chuck Chunder]

So are you proposing some sort of planet-sized air conditioner or something

Don't be a fucktard.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Mr. Arbusto]

You were right, I ment cube. Though I should have stuck with my gut and used acre/feet.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[SnapShot]

I wish I had mod points. This is the most insightful comment I've read in a long, long time.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Atrax]

OK, you got me fair and square. I was being flippant.

Re:"Shouldn't" in what context?

[Retric]

" planet-sized air conditioner or something?"

Why not? Earth as a whole sit's at ~300 deg kelven block say 1percent of incomeing energy and you drop around 5 deg C.

So: (3963.19 * 3963.19 * pi ) *.01 =493,446.03 sq miles. Or 18585 * 493,000 = 9 billion Roll's of Reynolds Wrap Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil - 18'' x 1000'.

Now all this needs to be in orbit with some way of keeping things aligned and overhead so the total weight may be 10 times that but it's still posible... or Not.

Anyway, as bad as that sounds some form of reflective dust in orbit might work well and be doable.

Neither chicken nor egg

[Chuck Chunder]

I'd have thought an increase in droughts is climate change rather than a cause or effect of same.

Re:Neither chicken nor egg

[CaptainAvatar]

There's no reason why it can't be all three.

Re:Who cares?!

[WindBourne]

Depends on where you live. I will assume that you are living in breadbasket USA (heartlands). According to the model, as the temperature increase, there will be less rain coming. Basically, mid USA will see drought. If you live in the western USA, well, then you already know about the drought that we have been going through for a solid 5 years until this year. Hopefully, all the snow that we have had from El Nino and pineapple express will help the main resoviors (Colorado Drainage, where the west legally takes Colorado Water). As to the East Coast, well, it has had its share of issues (recent cold), but supposedly, the drought will hit there big. The interesting thing is that the east is no where close to prepared to deal with lack of water.

This seems very wrong = central U.S. wetter

[puzzled]

It says the central U.S. is wetter but the man made lakes in western Nebraska are toast - McConaughy is at something like 32% of full and they're going to dry up three smaller downstream lakes to keep it at least partially full next summer.

Maybe its a fifty year average and the last five have been bad ...

Proxy data

[R2.0]

From TFA:
"To see how soil moisture has evolved over the last few decades, Dai and colleagues produced a unique global-scale analysis using the Palmer index, which for decades has been the most widely used yardstick of U.S. drought. The index is a measure of near-surface moisture conditions and is correlated with soil moisture content.

Since the Palmer index is not routinely calculated in most of the world, Dai and colleagues used long-term records of temperature and precipitation from a variety of sources to derive the index for the period 1870-2002. "

So, not having a uniform scale, the researchers calculated the Palmer Scale values for the rest of the world using proxy data. But...

"Though most of the Northern Hemisphere has shown a drying in recent decades, the United States has bucked that trend, becoming wetter overall during the last 50 years..."

So the area whose data was not subject to extra data processing showed the opposite of what the rest of the data showed. At first glance, I'd say that they need to look at their proxy data. I know there is more to it (some other areas showed a wetter trend) and the article doesn't mention whether the US data was run through the proxy model, but it still seems suspect on its face.

As for "consistent with those from a historical simulation of global land surface conditions, produced by a comprehensive computer model", one wonders if the same assumptions that went into the reaserchers proxy data were also used in the computer model.

Re:Proxy data

[Scott7477]

Essentially, they didn't have enough data to produce an analysis so they inserted a fudge factor. This fudge factor is likely to have no connection to reality. The longterm records of temperature and precip from 1870 until about the middle of the 2oth century don't cover a statistically significant proportion of the Earth's surface(especially since the majority of the earth's surface is water and there were very few consistent measurements prior to satellite data). Also, there is the problem of measurement bias where the instruments used to make these temp/precip measurements may not have been maintained properly and changes in the immediate vicinity of the measuring stations cause microclimatic changes which would not be reflective of the full surrounding area.
For example, studies of the Phoenix AZ metro have shown a significant increase in average tempurature over the last 50 years which is attributable to the formation of an urban "heat island" associated with all of the asphalt and concrete. This of course has nothing to do with global warming caused by increased CO2 levels.
Then there is the fact that the meteorological community's computer models are not very accurate.
There are very few large scale atmospheric variations that meteorologists can forecast at all. El Nino, for example, cannot be predicted more than a couple of months in advance. If you go to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center website, their discussion indicates that there is currently a weak El Nino but they have essentially no idea whether it will strengthen or weaken going forward.
I would also refer you to discussions of the "butterfly effect" and chaos theory which has shown that very small changes in initial parameters of a complex model such as the atmosphere will lead to wildly varying results using the same model depending on the changes in the initial parameters.
IMO, the climatological community has essentially discovered the proverbial golden goose in the concept of global warming and are using it to milk
the government for all of the funding they can get. Don't get me wrong, I personally am very interested in climate and meteorological research but I believe that we need to get the facts straight before we as a society undertake radical restructuring to face a hypothetical threat.

Global climate change? or changes?

[doormat]

I'm more inclined to believe that the shit we pump into the atmosphere, combined with the earth changing naturally, is going to cause more extremes. Not warming or cooling, but more extremes more often. More droughts, more floods, more snowstorms, more of anything but normal weather conditions.

Re: Global climate change? or changes?

[Black Parrot]

> I'm more inclined to believe that the shit we pump into the atmosphere, combined with the earth changing naturally, is going to cause more extremes. Not warming or cooling, but more extremes more often. More droughts, more floods, more snowstorms, more of anything but normal weather conditions.

Global warming = more thermal energy in the atmosphere. IANAPlanetologist, but I wouldn't be the least surprised to find that more thermal energy --> more meterological extremes.

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[Sciflyer]

It really isnt hard to find information like this(deg. C increase over 100 years) from computer modelling done around the world.
The fact that these maps all look fairly similar would indicate there is some accuracy to the prediction of substantial global warming, in particular around the polar regions.

I still find it sad that many people here take the attitude that until there is some 100% concrete evidence that man is a factor in this, that we should just ignore it and not do anything about it (until it's too late?)

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[This Is Ridiculous]

Are these the same kind of computer models that predicted a devestating increase in temperature by the beginning of the century?

A computer model is a guess--a somewhat educated guess, yes, but still a guess. There's a reason meterologists don't try to forecast more than a few days in advance--it's too unpredictable. Computer models can't prove Earth is getting warmer any more than Doom 3 can prove Mars is infested with cacodemons. If I see proof that temperature is rising--not a computer model, not a guess, but hard data showing a consistent global trend towards warmer temperatures--we can start talking about whether the miniscule amount of carbon dioxide humans release really causes changes in global climate. But I have yet to even see any proof that temperatures are changing much, or changing in any particular direction.

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[dan42]

Or perhaps it's just because there's more people in more cities with news crews looking for a story to sell...
Kinda like the "DEEP FREEZE" headlines in the pacific northwest last week where it was just below freezing for almost two days straight!

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[Sciflyer]

umm there already is "hard data showing a consistent global trend towards warmer temperatures"

How much proof do you need? Seriously, i was going to trawl google again but really there are plenty of links in this thread...

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[This Is Ridiculous]

You do realize that temperatures were trending down between 1940 and 1970, while carbon dioxide was rising, don't you? (A few scientists at that time were worried that they might be seeing the beginning of an ice age!) And that average US temperatures have barely risen since 1880? (This is significant because the U.S. has had a consistently high-quality system of weather records spread over a large geographic area, something fairly unique in the world.) And that many weather stations in small towns, or in the middle of nowhere, are showing little to no rise--or even a decrease--while urban stations in energy-consuming cities are showing very significant warming? (Scientists try to adjust for the effects of urbanization, but there have been papers published suggesting that they aren't adjusting it enough.)

There's data pointing both ways, and questions about both sets of data, in a scientific environment that's arguably biased towards global warming. I don't consider that a very convincing situation.

Re:Global climate change? or changes?

[Sciflyer]

Correct, but again, to dismiss clear evidence that we are experiencing the most rapid rise in global temperatures *and* CO2 levels ever seen is stupid. Furthermore, while i havn't verified your statement that US temperatures have remained stable, that certainly isnt the case for Australia where it is quite frankly hot enough already, on top of our worrying decrease in annual rainfall...

Re:Read "State of Fear"

[meringuoid]

Michael Crichton... let me see, he gave us dinosaurs via vague handwaving about DNA, and time travel via vague handwaving about quantum.

Is the anti-Kyoto mob on Slashdot so desperate as to cite his latest as their scientific evidence?

Re:Off Topic, go away.

[Mr. Arbusto]

WTF Dude.

All these dates are entirely arbitrary. The only thing rooted in christianity in terms of time is the sun is bright the sun is gone, when the sun comes back, that is a new day. All things were created in 6 days and there was some resting on the 7th. After that, all dates, christmas, easter columbus day are as arbitratry to time as your birthday. A lot of christian traditions come pagan traditions. Societies and cultures have and are always been feeding off of each other.

Just because it is based off of a pagan holiday for some people doesn't mean it isn't a good time to celebrate your belief in something. If you want to get that picky, you need to open up a few other debates such as the gregarian calander and all the major religions are based off the god of abraham so what is the big fucking deal. then again, what does all this have to do with increased drought effected lands.

what's your point?

[iriles]

Are you implying that 5 Billion humans don't have any effect on the climate?

Look around we've had major effects on every other aspect of our enviornment why would the climate be any different.

Re:what's your point?

[SomeGuyTyping]

Yeah, 5 billion people don't have as much effect on climate as other natural events. One volcanic eruption spews more particulate matter into the atmosphere than years of human activities.

Re:what's your point?

[iriles]

I'm not sure that's true, Can you provide a reference.

I know there have been some truely massive eruption's in the past, but does your average volcano pollute the air more than a large city in a developinig country. And volcano's happen rarely and only in one spot at a time. Cities are everywhere and they keep growing and spewing out pollution all year every year.

Plus we do other things that might effect the climate... like destroy a majority of the forests, the oceanic ecosystems, and the big one we produce a lot of CO2.

Ishmael

Re:what's your point?

[OldAndSlow]

One volcanic eruption spews more particulate matter into the atmosphere than years of human activities.

Better check your facts. According to the Seattle Times Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide, he estimates. Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount.

"The volcanos did it" is a nice myth, but utterly false.

Re:what's your point?

[SnapShot]

Make that 6.4 Billion. But I guess it's like the deficit; what's a billion and a half in the scheme of things.

Re:what's your point?

[SEWilco]

Better check the question. "particulate matter"

Re:Who cares?!

[meringuoid]

Mods, that wasn't a troll. It was a parody of a viewpoint that is dangerously widespread...

"Resources exist to be consumed, and consumed they will be - if not by this generation, then by some future. By what right does this forgotten future seek to deny us our birthright? Let us reach out and take what is ours, eat and drink our fill."
-- CEO Nwabudike Morgan

Re:Nuclear Power Now!

[iriles]

sure, but then we would have a significantly more accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Personally I prefer the deserts caused by global warming.

Not entirely true.

[jd]

Global warming causes more evaporation, so there is more moisture in the air. So far, so good. Now it gets complex. :)

Reflective areas reflect the heat, so creating warmer air. This means it is less likely to rain in such places. The air holds onto the moisture it has that much better. Reflective areas are typically desert regions, so those regions will become even dryer. (The Arctic and Antarctic are considered cold deserts, as the total amount of precipitation is extremely low.)

Absorptive areas hold onto the heat. This doesn't strictly cool the air, but it does mean the air isn't getting warmed up by reflected heat. Since the air has (in net) more moisture, it should require less cooling for that moisture to precipitate. This means that areas with lots of plant growth (eg: rainforests) or are dark for some other reason will experience much heavier rainfall, over a larger area.

The total rainfall for the planet will increase, but the regions in which it will fall will shift.

Re:Off Topic, go away.

[Peyna]

You do realize that Christianity exists without needing to celebrate Easter, Christmas, or any other religious holiday? Most people consider these to be times of reflection, not some ritual that must be performed to earn salvation.

That it borrows from paganism is not surprising at all. In many respects, this was done as a way to ease conversion. A great way to teach someone about something new is to relate it to something they already know.

The article you give is just one big assumption, and doesn't give any good reason for why there are similarities; the author just throws out his opinion and mixes it with some authority, "this was done to deceive," but provides no basis for that claim.

Honestly, if you want to attack Christianity, pick something better than its method of celebration of important events.

To a degree.

[jd]

Clear-cutting reduces the amount of heat the ground can absorb. (Plantlife absorbs a LOT of radiation from the sun.) That heat is going to go somewhere. If it can't be turned into sugars via photosynthesis, or be absorbed into the ground, then it is going to be reflected back up.

Any time any radiation travels through the air, a certain fraction will get absorbed. This means that all that newly-reflected energy will result in the air becoming much warmer than it would otherwise have done.

This does not mitigate the effects of pollution, but rather augments it. You see, in and of themselves, oxygen and nitrogen air molecules don't absorb a whole lot. Some, but not that much. Nitrous oxide, Sulpher dioxide, Ozone... These aren't so transparent to heat, so the more you have of them, the more the air is going to get warmed up.

Areas that suffer smog often suffer, as a direct result, temperature inversions. These, too, will likely be on the increase.

NARC?

[Orp]

Er, It's "National Center for Atmospheric Research" (pronnounced "en-car") ... not NARC.

Re:Who cares?!

[bigberk]

Mods, that wasn't a troll. It was a parody of a viewpoint that is dangerously widespread...

Thanks. Yup, apparently more widespread than I thought at first. I have long harboured a resentment towards older business people who have become very rich off the world's resources while being utterly disrespectful of the environment they take from. It is a true rape of the planet, and worse still, it leaves descendents to deal with the mess.

You can only consume so much, and expell so much trash (without replenishing natural capital) before the ecosystem becomes unable to cope with the upset balances. And then it's bad news for everyone. All of this is well established, and there is no gap in scientific knowledge. The great majority of the scientific community (over 90%) believe that climate change is happening. Even if climate change isn't due to human actions, there are other substantial, measurable, indisputable negative effects of human resource consumption such as increased toxicity of fresh water resources, decrease in global forestation, seafood stocks, biodiversity, etc..

We know the consequences of unchecked development with 100% certainty: death of the ecosystems we depend on for our very own lives. Doesn't that sound bad? All thanks to centuries of rapid development, from people happy to get rich at the time without consideration of future generations. Thanks, guys.

oh thank

[geekoid]

goodness for you, I am sure the scientists didn't consider that.
well done.

Re:Who cares?!

[swordfishBob]

I live 6 hours north of Sydney. Water restrictions vary around the state. The dam that supplies Sydney is lower than it's been in a jolly long time.

However, I have heard (credibly) that droughts and floods around here run in 11-year cycles, and every 3rd cycle is more severe. That means projections based on a 30 year history are not so significant. I've read about droughts in the 1800's that were more severe than anything we've seen in the past few decades...

Re:Nuclear Power Now!

[geekoid]

It is impossible for a CHernobyl like disaster to happen to the designs used in the US.

Also, there has been some very interesting developments in nuclear power in spite of ignotant hostile reaction to it. I can't imagine what we would have by now if we could research it in any reasonable way.

Thirty Years Ago - Newsweek Article

[HermanAB]

In the seventies, it was all about Global Cooling: http://www.globalclimate.org/Newsweek.htm

Pretty soon, it will be back in vogue again...

Re:Thirty Years Ago - Newsweek Article

[rush22]

First of all, data shows that the average temperature of the Earth is unequivocably increasing, anyone who calls it global cooling is going to have a hard time proving that trend.

If you're curious about the "global cooling" supposition in the 70's, then you should know that this was a theoretical proposal, not really proven. For instance, in the 70's they considered only water and CO2 as greenhouse gases (knowing they warm the planet). Their concern about cooling was mainly particulate pollution (aerosols) blocking out sunlight. Now methane (which effects climate far more than CO2, though there is obviously less of it) and other gases are included, and it has been shown that, basically, the effects of current particulate matter do not outweigh the effects of current greenhouse gas emmissions. In fact, the destruction of ozone contributes to cooling, and since the banning of CFC's and the slow adjustment of the ozone layer back to previous levels, this additional cooling effect is wearing off, and the underlying trend revealed is still warming.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that climate modeling has vastly improved because of computing capability.

More about 60's and 70's cooling (in section C): FAQ

Why stop now,

[HermanAB]

just when I'm hating it?

Climate arguments are like war in the Middle East. The people can't live happily without it.

Balance?

[one_n_only_wildcat]

I would say that the Earth's ecology is more like a pendulum. It is a self-adjusting mechanism, when shoved too far in one direction- it swings back the other way. The harder it is pushed, the further and harder it swings. When left alone, it begins to settle. One day... when the pendulum is no longer pushed by the extinct human species, it may obtain real balance.

Re:Balance?

[jlanthripp]

Just some FYI background info for ya...the last Ice Age came along when our ancestors were hunting woolly mammoths with stone-tipped spears*. Hardly a shove on the ol' pendulum.

The one before that was when the ancestors of the mammoth-hunters were still living in trees and flinging shit at one another as a way of saying "you're pissing me off"

* Okay, so maybe mammoth-hunting wasn't exactly common. Probably a group of hunters killed one once and spent the rest of their lives talking about it. They were probably hunting smaller game, like whatever rough equivalent to deer was around at the time.

"Climate change" is.

[rush22]

That'd be "climate change" changing the wind patterns.

"Global warming" doesn't "produce increased precipitation".

Regional climate is effected by the amount of energy in the atmospheric (and oceanic) systems. Currently scientists affirm that there is an increased amount of energy, retained via the greenhouse effect, in the global climate system. This increase in the amount of energy in the climate system can effect different climates in different ways, including more or less average precipitation, higher or lower temperatures, etc.

Climate change FAQ

Re:Nuclear Power Now!

[The Master Control P]

"Nuclear power has a series of terrible consequences that have been shown to occur."

Care to name some? France generates 3/4 of it's power with nuclear reactors and they don't seem to have any problems. Hell, in any power plant in the western world, you could have a Chernobyl-type meltdown and so what - it's called a containment dome.

"safety in the running of a plant"

You're exposed to more intense radiation in a fossil fuel plant or an airliner flight or during a sunbath than in a nuclear power plant. Fossil fuel plants spew tons of Uranium and Thorium into the atmosphere every year. If anything, a nuclear power plant is safer than a fossil fuel power plant.

As for the waste, about 95 to 98 percent of it is still good nuclear fuel that's been poisoned by fission byproducts. If greens would stop howling about "mobile Chernobyls" (How are we going to stuff a hundred million curies of radioactivity into a 100 gallon drum anyway?) and let the government reprocess the 'spent' fuel, 95 percent of the problem would disappear! Then the few cubic meters of radioactive sludge remaining could be locked into ceramics and buried forever.

"30% efficient solar cells."

Not going to bite... Go read the actual article and the comments. Hint: the device could theoretically be 30% efficient.

Global warming

[mikec]

I don't know if global warming exists, and, if it does I don't know what the effects will be. However, I'm a bit cynical, for the following reasons.

1. A lot of scientific theories have been very popular and well accepted for quite a while before they are disproven. Epicycles. The aether. Phlogiston. Eugenics. Cold fusion. The coming ice age in the 70's. So wide acceptance by itself doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

2. Having been a university professor for a while, I understand the intense conflict of interest that researchers experience. On the one hand, climatologists would like to tell the truth. On the other hand, they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that if they held a conference tomorrow and all agreed that global warming wasn't happening, their lives and the lives of their families would all change for the worse. They would lose funding and graduate students, their salaries would drop, they'd have more trouble publishing papers, they'd have to teach more undergraduate classes, some would not get tenure, etc. So there is a huge incentive to interpret ambiguous data in such a way as to keep the global warming in the news.

3. The data is very noisy and ambiguous. Climatologists are trying to pull a trend out of data that has a lot of natural variation, that has a lot of measurment error, and that is very incomplete. Also, since global warming is now the "standard" view, journal reviewers will examine papers that do not tend to support global warming a lot more carefully than papers that do support global warming. If your paper weakly supports global warming, it is much more likely to be published than a paper that weakly undermines global warming. ("Extraordinary results require extranordinary evidence.")

4. The theory keeps changing. It is not longer just warming. It's almost any change in climate at all. More hurricanes than average? Fewer hurricanes than average? The Sahara is growing? The Sahara is shrinking? The US midwest is getting drier? Getting wetter? The theory of global warming has gotten so flexible that all these scenarios are apparently consistent with it. If a theory predicts anything then it has no predictive power at all.

Re:Global warming

[robbo]

IANAClimatologist, but this chart doesn't look like some kind of noisy trend: Atmospheric CO2... (from Antarctic Ice Cores and Environmental Change).

Do we know that increased CO2 is correlated with global temperature? I won't say either way because I haven't read a paper on the topic.

Should we be concerned that *maybe*, just *maybe* our activities might be rendering the planet unlivable? I think so. If there were a 1 in 1000 chance buying car make X would result in a fatal (for you) car accident, would you buy it? Are we at the point where there's a 1 in 1000 chance that human activity is having an impact on the weather? It seems reasonable to me that we've established all kinds of local correlations (acid rain, anyone?), and if the global system is a little too complex to predict with any certainty we can at least posit that all of this local activity is sooner or later going to add up to a global trend.

Better safe than sorry?

Re:Global warming

[matrem]

Please check out this faq if you make claims about noisy and ambiguous data.

I also disagree with your other points:

1. A lot of theories were popular and well accepted before they are disproven. True, but a lot more theories are accepted and turn out to be true. Also, a LOT of theories are not well accepted and turn out to be wrong. If you are not a climate scientist, this cannot be an argument AGIANST global warming.

2. As a university professor, you know that a theory is only as strong as the arguments that support it. If a paper is flawed or can be disproven, a scientist would jump at the chance to tear it to pieces. While it's true that climate scientist are focussed on global warming, I don't think they feel their jobs are dependent on it. It's more probably that Bush would rather fund any scientist that disproves global warming.

3. Sorry, but the measurements are quite conclusive. See link above. You just pull this out of your hat.

4. Global warming has a number of effects. Mainly higher temperatures and more precipitation, but it varies over countries and continents. If you think everything is contradicting itself, you just haven't studied it well.

Re:Global warming

[fluffy666]

A lot of scientific theories have been very popular and well accepted for quite a while before they are disproven. Epicycles. The aether. Phlogiston. Eugenics. Cold fusion. The coming ice age in the 70's.

Epicycles can hardly be called scientific. The Aether and Phlogiston theories agreed pretty well with the measurements made at the time - but were discarded in the light of new evidence, despite the presumed damage to tenure etc. Cold fusion was never generally accepted, and neither was a 'coming ice age'. I'd choose your examples - should you have any - a bit more carefully.

On the one hand, climatologists would like to tell the truth.

So they are all liars? Are you seriously suggesting that a fairly large section of the scientific community is engaging in self-censorship? And if so, some proof would be nice. And, of course, proof that any researcher who 'cried wolf' would not get a load of funding from Exxon et. al.

So there is a huge incentive to interpret ambiguous data in such a way as to keep the global warming in the news

Ok.. some examples of climate researchers (not journalists) doing this would be nice. Otherwise it would look like you are just making things up to support the conclusion you've already decided on.

The data is very noisy and ambiguous.

That's simply not true. There is a very clear signature in all of the data starting circa 1980; the natural forcings cannot acount for this.

("Extraordinary results require extranordinary evidence.")

Well, this is true. The position that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has no effect on climate is an extradorinary claim, and demonstrating it would require extradordinary evidence. The claim that there is a great conspiricy to suppress such evidence - which is implicit in your post - also requires extradordinary evidence, of which you have given none.

Re:Read "State of Fear"

[DigiShaman]

Michael Crichton is what you would call an insightful person, not one that is very informative.

how about "global crapification"?

[DM9290]

IT's not called global warming. It's called climate change. Precipitation is an element of climate.

"IT" is called global warming. "Climate change" is the vague spin term republicans and neoliberals use to deny that global warming exists and try to make it sound normal.

The average temperature of the earth is increasing.

That is what WARMING means.

Additionally, added energy to the system has been modeled to increase extreame weather events.

And what is this "added energy"?

The earth isn't spinning any faster. It is TEMPERATURE.

ergo: WARMING

You will call it whatever you want. The extra crap industry is dumping into the atmosphere, the forests, jungles and wetlands that mankind is destroying is harming the global climate making it dangerous to breath the air or go outside during the day without getting skin cancer.

If you don't like "global warming", how about "global crapification"?

Re:how about "global crapification"?

[Phronesis]

"IT" is called global warming. "Climate change" is the vague spin term republicans and neoliberals use to deny that global warming exists and try to make it sound normal.

Obviously you haven't been paying attention to the concern among environmentalists that anthropogenic climate change could trigger a mini-ice-age by altering north atlantic deep-water formation.

Even apart from this possibility, calling the phenomenon global warming is misleading because the biggest problem is not the increased average temperature, but the change in temperature distribution: warming is expected to be more pronounced in the polar regions. Meridional temperature contrasts, which produce our global weather patterns, are expected to become smaller. It's these changes to the climate pattern rather than the increase in average temperature that cause most concern. Thus, climate change is a more accurate description than global warming, even for a die-hard environmentalist.

Re:how about "global crapification"?

[DM9290]

Why are the ICECAPS MELTING?

It is getting WARMER.

What contributes to WARMING?

greenhouse effect.

Does human activity contributes to greenhouse effect?

yes.

Is there any serious scientific question as to what kinds of activities contribute to greenhouse effect?

no.

When environmentalists show concern about "Global warming" and claim that specifically "global warming" is a preventable problem which is significantly caused by the greenhouse effect, and the greenhouse effect is dependant on CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, and we are pumping out ever greater and greater quantities of these gasses with no end in sight and thus most likely increasing the greenhouse effect and most likely causing a GENERAL WARMING, and most likely contributing the the ICECAPS MELTING environmentalists are being accurate.

When you reply and say.. no the problem is not WARMING, because not all parts of the earth are actually experiencing WARMING, but in fact some parts of the earth experience increased percipitation, and some parts experience cooling, and some parts experience drought, and ocean currents may change and trigger another ice age, and the ice age is cold, and it is not correct to call an ice age 'warming', and therefore the question we should be asking is "what is "climate change" and how may we better understand climate change?"; you are NOT questioning problem at hand. The immediate and problem, which mankind is contributing directly and measurable towards is NOT "climate change". The problem is:

THE POLES ARE GETTING WARMER AND THE FUCKING ICECAPS ARE MELTING!

This is not "fuzzy math" as the American President likes to call any math he disagrees with.

It doesn't matter that we can not predict with 100% certainty that melting polar ice caps will or will not trigger another ice age, or how fast or how slow that would take or how long it would last.

THE ICECAPS ARE MELTING

And industrialists are protesting about the fact that we can't predict exactly how much polar melting we are capable of tolerating safely.

Re:how about "global crapification"?

[Phronesis]

What do you propose doing about this? Please give details.

Re:Read "State of Fear"

[rleibman]

Except for the fact that this is his best researched book yet, and unlike the others, which have a lot more fantasy than science fiction this one has tons of footnotes supporting its assumptions.
The book is also a good read (if a bit preachy), but it's conclusion is the most important thing about the book: the message that one must be skeptical, and that well meaning people can be knowing or unknowingly biased to support a scientific theory without much regard to its validity.

Re:Global Warming?

[Urkki]

• The Earth has gone through quite a few ice ages and then reversals -- right now I believe we're in the reversion from a mini ice age. While humans do have a lot of impact on our planet, it is remarkable how we think that the Earth is a static const, when in reality it's a volatile dynamic variable.

Sure it's volatile, but we humans are one quite a big variable. But we're a special variable, because we can conciously control what kind of variable we are. Or try to... Which entire global warming debate is all about. Should we try to control our impact, or just not care, just deal with whatever happens when it happens and accept to economical and humanitarian cost as act of nature.

IMHO it just sounds a tad stupid to not at least try to keep things nice, ignoring the fact that we *do* have a significant impact on many things (eg CO2 levels, which in turn have significant impact on global climate). A bit like not buying a coat for winter (since you have "better" use for the money), and stoically accepting that if you get a flu, then you get a flu and deal with it, but no point worrying about it beforehand, let alone trying to not get the flu in the first place...

Re:Maybe the Droughts are causing the climate chan

[term8or]

caused it. Places where they measure temperature and rainfall the most are areas that are developed the most

Actually, the places with the most long term record of rainfall and pollution are the least developed in the world. They are the north and south poles, where core samples can show relative snow fall (i.e. rainfall) and greenhouse gasses/other forms of pollution. One of the people I worked with did a PhD in the 1980's that showed that there have been substantial increases to the average temperature over the last 5,000 years.

Re:Al Gore's book title is correct, NOT

[SEWilco]

But science doesn't know whether increased humidity causes the types of clouds which cause cooling or warming. This also means scientists don't know how to simulate the effects in climate models.

Do the clouds form as tall localized thunderstorms? Wide, reflective, cooling, clouds? Blanketing, warming, clouds?

Re:drought

[danro]

From a geological standpoint, everything I have read about says that our planet should be about 10 degrees warmer than what it is today. We're coming out of 'abnormal' climtes, and apparently inching back toward 'normal'.

Sure, that the climate is changing isn't automatically all that bad.
It is the rapid change that can be damaging. When the climat changes faster than the eco-system (or human society) can adapt, bad shit happens.

Re:Global Warming?

[ergo98]

I'm neither here nor there on the topic, and of course we should scientifically know as much as we can, and respond accordingly (not in some pathetic quest to turn the Earth into a static const, but rather to ensure that we're having a controlled impact). All I will say is that there are a lot of believers who will latch onto a cause like global warming with the slightest of pretense -- any reason to clutch a ban and decry the man is perfect.

Re:Maybe the Droughts are causing the climate chan

[Cally]

If you read the article (and I'd love to find the actual paper, but I don't think it's up oni any prepreint servers yet - the Meeting where they're presenting isn't for some time) they used some proxy measurements and well-understood modelling techniques to extend their dataset, both spatially and time-wise.

Origin of the Gulf Stream

[amightywind]

A current theory is that Lake Agassiz, a 'super great lake', catastrophically drained into the upper Atlantic causing a shift in salinity, thus a shift in the temperature current flow, thus a shift in climate.

Consider that for Lake Agassiz to drain or exist at all implies that the continental ice sheet was reteating and that the climate was already warming. The draining of Lake Agassiz was an effect of climate change, not a cause. Also, I find it hard to believe that the Gulf Stream gyre, which operates over the whole of the North Atlantic was suddenly turned on by this event. The northeast circulation of warm surface water is explained by Hadley circulation and coriolis force. Other components of the motion are second order effects.

Re:Origin of the Gulf Stream

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Just because you find it 'hard to believe' doesn't mean it isn't true. Salt water is denser than fresh water, so the point is that the influx of a lot of cold, fresh water suddenly means that what used to be 'warm surface water' is no longer on the surface.

Re:Origin of the Gulf Stream

[amightywind]

Just because you find it 'hard to believe' doesn't mean it isn't true.

Yet, you do not refute anything I say. I don't deny that Lake Agassiz emptied catastrophically into the North Atlantic. It is absurd to maintain that this event 'turned on' the gulfstream.

Faith in climate models

[JoeStreet]

Why do we put so much faith in climate models that predict catastrophic climate changes xx years from now when we don't have a climate model that can accurately predict the weather 3 days from now?

Just curious.

Frustrated

[pete-classic]

This is starting to really upset me.

How are we supposed to come up with a coherent policy when we are warned of the horror of global cooling, then the disaster of global warming, and now the menace of global climate change?

Can we pick a doomsday scenario and stick with it?

Or could we, perhaps, come to some reasonably certain conclusion before we start making major policy decisions?

-Peter

Re:Frustrated

[This Is Ridiculous]

Next thing you know, they're going to be warning of the threat of global climate constancy...

Re:Frustrated

[pete-classic]

Brilliant.

-Peter

Re:Nuclear Power Now!

[digital.prion]

Then the few cubic meters of radioactive sludge remaining could be locked into ceramics and buried forever.

That is until surrounding moisture eats through the canister and the whole slab of dis-ease leaks into the ground water.

Re:Off Topic, go away.

[Peyna]

Your original post was somewhat misleading then. There are many people who seem to prefer to fault Christianity as opposed to radical Christians for such things, and from your comment you seemed to fall into that category.

Attacking Christianity itself for the actions of a few loud mouthed people is akin to faulting Islam for terrorism done in its name.

By the way, was watching PBS late at night the other day, and Woodrow Wilson claimed (similarly to George W. Bush) that he felt it was God's will that he be president and that God had made it so. As a Christian, of course, the argument could be made that nothing happens on Earth that isn't somehow tied to God; however, to claim that He gave you the presidency is nothing short of claiming a divine right to rule, something which is very dangerous in this country.

STILL IN THE ICE AGE!

[peter303]

Historical normal for the past 1.5 million years have been extensive glaciation 80% of the time, warm interludes 20% of the time.

Re:No such thing? google harder.

[Just Some Guy]

First link: the site of "Zionist Organization of America", not the "Christian Zionists".

Second link: defines "Christian Zionism" as a movement, not an organization.

I'll stand by my claim. The original source says that DeLay is "a self-declared member of the Christian Zionists", as though such an organization exists for one to be a member of.

Re:Read "State of Fear"

[John Miles]

the message that one must be skeptical

This, from the author of "Travels"? Crichton is perhaps the least skeptical person, in or out of the scientific fields, that I've ever encountered.

Or at least, he was. I'll have to check the new book out, it sounds like.

Re:Prior to 1988...

[Phronesis]

For those of you that were still in diapers or elementary school, prior to 1988, the scientific community was touting the fact that the world was recovering from a mini-ice age from 1450 to about the 1850s. The sweltering summer of 1988 led a small minority of "scientists" to postulate a "global warming" idea.

Wrong by about 100 years. Global warming was first proposed by Svante Arrhenius in 1895. More recently, serious councern over warming began with Wallace Broecker's 1975 paper, "Climate Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?," (Science 189, 460).

How many people know that Krakatoa, in the eruption of 1883 released more "greenhouse" gases than all of mankind has released since?

Wrong again. Human activity has released something like 200 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere. This is much more than Krakatoa released. One way to find this out is to look at the amounts of greenhouse gas in the air over history: levels have risen much more since 1950 than they did over the previous 10,000 years. Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere over the past thousand years almost exactly parallel the consumption of fossil fuels.

If you're talking about water vapor emissions from Krakatoa, you're either being disingenuous or you're just ignoreant. See my comments below about the difference between water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Water vapor accounts for 95% of the "greenhouse" effect.

Water does account for most of the greenhouse effect, but there is an important difference: water is a vapor, so water vapor mixing ratios are always close to equilibrium in the atmosphere. If we add more, it precipitates out very rapidly. Carbon dioxide is a gas, and is not at equilibrium, so if we add more CO2, it will remain in the atmosphere for around a hundred years. It's well known that water vapor acts as a positive feedback that amplifies warming due to other factors. This has been verified with observations taken after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.

I hate to say it, but 100 years ago, 60 years ago, even 40 years ago, there weren't SUVs driving around.

Have you heard of the industrial revolution? People were not driving SUVs, but they were certainly burning lots of coal. Beyond this, it's a silly syllogism to say that because Al Gore said something dumb about global warming that this disproves global warming. It's like what Michael Moore does on the left: Paul Wolfowitz says something dumb about the war in Iraq. Therefore the war in Iraq is dumb.

change of subject

[DM9290]

What do you propose doing about this? Please give details.

you are changing the subject.

Are we to take it that you are conceding the argument?

Re:change of subject

[Phronesis]

All we disagreed about was a minor point: we always agreed that the planet is warming up today because of human actions. We both agree that the world may enter an ice age in the future because of human action.

I want to call it climate change and you want to call it global warming. I think the changes to temperature contrasts are more important than the change in average temperature. You disagree with me on those minor points, but is anyone else interested enough in our argument to make it worth all the carbon dioxide that's being produced to power our computers while we type this?

The problem with global warming or climate change is less with people who believe that it doesn't exist than with people who understand that it does exist but don't want to give up computers, cars, airplanes, central heating, and modern medicine in order to avoid it. I have not found a good way to convince anyone, including myself, to stop using fossil fuels.

So the best we can hope for, even if we are tremendously optimistic about technology, is to slow down global warming by a few decades. We just can't stop it without shutting down everything separates us from the middle ages.

This is why many of the nations that will be hit hardest by global warming (I'll use your preferred term here), such as China and India, also are most eager to start burning as much fossil fuel as the US and Europe do. They would rather live a comfortable industrial life in a warm climate than to remain poor in a pristine one.

Re:change of subject

[DM9290]

So the best we can hope for, even if we are tremendously optimistic about technology, is to slow down global warming by a few decades. We just can't stop it without shutting down everything separates us from the middle ages.

If you agree that we are capable of slowing down global warming by a few decades then LETS DO IT.

At that time we may have a better notion of exactly what threshold will or will trigger the next ice age, or figure out a way to actually artificially manipulate the environment to induce the icecaps to reform. or for all we know... discover cold fusion ...

But the real problem is that while you and I agree that the next ice age may be triggered by human activity there are many conservative and neoliberal politicians and "business leaders" who flat out refute this theory and insist that "climate change" is poorly understood and that it is just as likely to be beneficial as harmful and that there is no evidence that it may cause an ice age. They only agree that more needs to be learned about "climate change" (implicitly refuting that average tempuratures are increasing and that ice caps are melting).

They only insist that the benefit of environmental protection is unknown, but the costs are known. Reduced waste, and therefore reduced demand and reduced profit margins (and reduced growth).

The reverse argument they reject: the dangers of protecting the environment are known (nothing bad happens expect perhaps decreased consumption and decreased profits, and a narrowing gap between the rich and the poor), but the dangers of ignoring the issue are not fully known (we don't know if merely millions of people will be displaced from their coastal homes, or if an ice age will result and kill billions of people.).

I propose an additional moral argument. The environment is not ours to destroy. We didn't create it. It was passed down to us from our ancestors. It owe it to our descendants to pass it along to them even if that means living on the cheap.