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Arctic Warming Drying Up Lakes
kingofalaska writes "An accelerating Arctic warming trend over the past quarter of a century has dramatically dried up more than a thousand large lakes in Siberia probably because the permafrost beneath them has begun to thaw, according to a paper to be published the journal Science." From the article at the LA Times: "About 125 of the 1,170 shrunken lakes disappeared altogether, and most are now considerably smaller than the study's baseline of 40 hectares, or about 99 acres, the researchers found. If Arctic temperatures continue to rise, the scientists said, many of the lakes in high northern latitudes, where they are ubiquitous, could eventually disappear."
Except, you know, to the extent that Archimedes Principle says that they won't. Oh, and the fact that in the last ten years we've watched some of the largest ones in existence disintegrate.
[Off to Norway tomorrow for a conference on Ice Shelf Processes]
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
You got it all wrong. What he was saying, is that the absence of the sea level rise is NOT an indicative that the polar ice isn't melting away.
Gosh, he even said we were observing some of the largest floating ice formations disintegrate. What do you think made them do so? Ice drilling polar bears?
By contrast, the scientists found that in Siberian areas where the ground below is still permanently frozen, the number of lakes actually increased by about 4% and total lake area grew by about 12% over the last three decades.
Interestingly they neglected to indicate how many hectares this 12% represented.
I guess that wasn't as dramatic a headline.
Arctic Warming Is Drying Up Lakes, Study Finds, but some lakes actually growing
"*Temperatures rise
*Wilderness starts to die
*Crops become harder to grow
*"No worries! Just chuck a bit of this on it! We think it's safe, and you'll improve your productivity and hence income by 500%. You'll need to renew your patent license again next year.""
Sorry bub, but that's just retarded. You can't substitute "horrible poisons and chemicals" for water in a drought. The other nutrients (not that they would be affected by climate change) can and are supplied without horrible poisons and chemicals."
Please see The Arctic: Earth's Early Warning System "The Inuit are already suffering dramatic changes to their Arctic environment, warns a native leader... unpredictable weather, melting of permafrost and glaciers, decreasing sea ice, as well as the presence of new species such as barn owls, robins and mosquitoes never seen before by the Inuit people."
nobody knows "absolutely and definitely" whether there is global warming or, if it exists, whether it is due to human activity.
Actually I think it's not at all in dispute as to whether we're experiencing any global warming. I believe that's been conclusively established. What some still heavily debate are the causes of said warming.
There's a strong correlation between atmospheric CO2 and warming and well understood atmospheric interactions of CO2, but some try to point the finger elsewhere or back to natural patterns.
What's truly astounding is the massively increasing level of outright propaganda on the subject. The scientists appear to be being left behind and the propagandists (sponsored by private industry) are taking over the show. Do a google for "CO2" -- it's a real eye opener.
The protein thing is a few years out of date. Consider a vitamin b12 supplement, though. You can get your vitamin b12 by growing bacteria in a cow and killing and eating it, or by growing bacteria in a lab then extracting the vitamin. I take a little floravital, which also has liquid iron (useful for a woman my age) and a few other goodies.
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
That works when the land usage is equal, but the vegan is using 1/10th of the land remember, so he can spare 9/10ths of his land to be anything he else and therefore win this debate by a long shot. Or we can go comparing apples to oranges.
don't forget that most of the meat industry is not interested in this proper grazing, they want maximum throughput and use cheap grain as food - otherwise there is no possible way at all to maintain cheap meat to massive countries.
people want it, I want it and no one is giving it up until it kills most of their friends.
i) Climate is not weather
ii) The climate is exceedingly complex, and global warming does not mean a uniform temperature increase across the globe.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I wouldn't say the climatologists are particularly foolish. I am a meteorologist. Many aspects of meteorology are largely misunderstood by the media and general public. The concept of "global warming" is one of the most common misunderstandings.
Without a doubt, the climate of the Earth is rapidly changing. Records show this very clearly. This is not a point for debate.
Also there is no doubt that the composition of the atmosphere is changing. Once again, records of this show the change very clearly. This is not up for debate.
The problem comes up when showing a link between the two and establishing causation. It is impossible to deny that human activities change the atmosphere and have some effect on the weather and climate. The actual amount of effect, however, is unknown. There are many cycles which naturally occur in the weather and in the climate. While some of these cycles last only a few months or a few years, such as ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation), some cycles may last decades or longer. We are aware of cycles such as ENSO because it only takes a few years for an El Nino to transition to a La Nina (which actually lasts longer than the El Nino phase) and back into an El Nino. There are probably many other cycles in the climate that we are not even aware of. Keeping this in mind, it is entirely possible that we are merely in one phase of a naturally occurring cycle which will reverse itself at some point.
Many factors play a role in the climate around the Earth. These include the atmospheric composition, albedo, ocean circulation, solar output, and many other things. While changes in the atmosphere can cause climate change, changes in these other factors may enhance or oppose the changes. One of the most famous climate changes of the recent past was the little ice age. This period of cooling wasn't caused by human activity. Instead, it is believed that solar output decreased and had a very significant effect on the Earth's climate.
During much of the Earth's past, the Earth has been dominated by either tropical or polar climates. The period of balance we are in right now is actually somewhat unusual. Given the history of the Earth, it is hardly unreasonable to expect the climate would once again trend toward one of the two extremes. This has occurred for many millions of years without any influence of humans. There is no reason to expect that this behavior would cease because humans now inhabit the Earth.
Global warming is a very misleading term. There are many questions about how global climate change, if caused by humans, would actually occur. People have even speculated about possible global cooling. One theory, which some evidence seems to dispute, suggests that "global warming" will cause an increase in clouds. The increased albedo from the clouds will counteract the warming and might even cause cooling. This theory is disputed, but is one of many theories about how climate change, if caused by humans, might play out.
None of these arguments are meant to say we shouldn't scale back emissions. While we don't know if human activities are a major player in global climate change, we also don't know that they aren't playing a huge role in it. Furthermore, it is in our interests to minimize our changes to the environment and to the atmosphere because the theory of humans causing global climate change is plausible. It is in everyone's interest to reduse emissions, anyways, because many of the chemicals entering our atmosphere and hydosphere are toxic. I'm all for finding cleaner sources of energy and for cutting back on human activities such as clearing forested areas.
There are plenty of good reasons to reduce emissions and protect our environment without resorting to scare tactics. While you may have found an example of a "climatologist" making fallacious arguments, many of the climatologists disputing "global warming" caused by human activities aren't all that crazy.
With no due respect. On the issues of volcanos and CFC's - you are completely full of it and talking out of your ass.
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For an informed history of this piece of misinformation, see:
http://www.sustainer.org/dhm_archive/search.php?d
You seem to intelligent to be repeating such an obvious canard. In the future please double check EVERYTHING you hear a certain oxycontin addict tell you.
Yes it would. The average global temperature today is only 9 degrees hotter than the height of the last ice age, so 4-5 degrees would make a huge difference. The temp now it about 1 degree hotter than at the turn of the 20th century. yes, I took meteorology last semester
I am Spartacus
Antarctica goes through cycles every 100,000 years
This is the worst argument I've ever heard, and opponents of global warming just keep citing it, over and over, often associated with the Vostok ice core data
The resolution on that graph is a little over a thousand years. The most dramatic change on the graph is 20 degrees over 10,000 years. The arctic and antarctic have changed 5-7 degrees in the past *200 years*, and the rate seems to be accelerating. Of this 5-7 degrees, about half of it has occurred in the past 50 years alone. At the current rate (ignoring things like the rapidly expanding industrialization of China), it would implement that fast 10,000 year change in 250 years.
Furthermore, the Vostok cores drive home an additional point: The temperature is almost always correlated with CO2 concentraions. CO2 concetrations are rising rapidly, and completely predictably. We consume >80bbl per day; that's 12.72 trillion liters, which is about 10 trillion kilograms. Assuming heptane as the average length, that's 7 carbons and 16 hydrogens, about 63% carbon, so 6.3 trillion kilograms of carbon per day (i.e., 6.3e12 kg CO2). In 50 years, that's 1.15e17 kg CO2. The mass of the entire atmosphere is 5.3e18kg, and a current (already high) 0.0353 percent CO2, that's 1.87e15 kg CO2. I.e., at our current rate alone, we would put *61 times* more CO2 from oil alone into our atmosphere in the next 50 years then are in our atmosphere currently.
Now, if you want to look at the balance of how quickly that CO2 will get eaten up and compares to natural generation, we can do that calculation, too - I just wanted to point out the fact that the amount of CO2 we're adding is really quite huge in comparison to what's in our atmosphere.
Ok, well, what if there's some rapid changes in historic temperature that are too high resolution to show up on the Vostok cores? We have much more detailed methods for the past two thousand years - here's the graph for that period
Any questions?
We should start dealing in those black-market beagles.
junkscience.com is run by steven milloy. Steven milloy was a lobbyist who was paid by Phillip Morris to create a similar "group" to put forth the idea that second hand smoke is harmless.
Now he has this site up, and though he refuses to disclose his funding, he has in the past received money from oil company interests to lobby for them and do PR for them.
This space available.
The Africa problem BTW has bugger all to do with global warming. US/EU agricultural subsidies and trade tariffs are the cause and at least the EU is changing it's agricultural policies so that farmers are paid for doing nothing instead of being paid for producing. It has also pretty much zero rated African imports.
Some of Africa's problems of growing enough food is due to climate changes though not all. Ethiopia for instance used to be a breadbasket producing more than enough food to feed the population and thus were net exporters. But draughts the last few years have decimated farms and they are now net food importers. One place climate change wasn't responsible for a decrease in food production though is Zimbabwe. Like Ethiopia, Zimbabwe used to be a net food exporter and was also considered a breadbasket. When President Robert Mugabe forced mostly white farmers off their farms and gave farms to his supporters, the farms went to waste and now the land won't produce nearly as much food as it used to if the farms are even farmed. But many have been left to fallow.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Crops become harder to grow"
Evidence? Where I live, warmer weather increases the length of the growing season. Crops are easier to grow.
Warmer weather can also mean reduced rainfall and draught in some areas thus causing desertification:
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Desertification and Drought
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Web resources on desertification
FalconShould there be a Law?