Ice-Free Summers Coming To Arctic

rocketjam writes "CNET reports that researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities have concluded that the Arctic will likely see ice-free summers within a century due to the increasing rate of global warming. The melting will raise ocean levels worldwide, flooding coastal areas where a substantial proportion of the world's population live. The increasing rate of ice melt is already having an impact on people and animals in the Arctic. Currently, researchers cannot foresee any natural forces that will counteract the trend."

Comments

Global Warming

[BWJones]

I can see it now, given the remarkable anti-intellectualism sweeping the nation (and Slashdot recently) we are going to be seeing comments here like "Awww, them dang scientists. What do they know? There is no evidence for global warming just like there is no evidence for evolution. (or is that evulushun?)

Seriously though, the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans right now should give folks something to think about with respect to global warming. Specifically, the higher the water levels, the more potential damage that could occur from smaller storms. The big ones, like Katrina will deliver even more damage further inland than ever before. So, the evidence is mounting to the point where even the Bush administration is having to acknowledge that global warming is a reality.

Re:Global Warming

[loqi]

Right, humans can't touch nature. That's why we have a surplus of acid rain and a deficit of ozone and passenger pigeons.

Re:Global Warming

[Anonymous Coward]

NO.

You don't want to create more work. The LESS work we have to go around, the better and more efficiently we can perform our existing tasks. You may think "but unemployment is bad!" but economies have gone through massive adjustments in the labor force many times now; as long as finance and infrastructure is sound, markets open up to employ people. Labor is as scarce a resource as anything else.

So when you enforce labor-producing regulations, you may cause people to work harder, but those gains come with other costs. More hours at work means less leisure time, for example. And if average salaries decline against inflation(which would happen over time if companies were bearing the costs of environmental policy), you may end up working more hours for a lower standard of living.

Re:Global Warming

[The Man]

Many of them have seen drastic changes in sea ice cover over the past few years....For someone to deny the existance of global warming seems ludicrous.

I deny the existence of global warming. Not because it's impossible for the entire world to become uniformly warmer, but because there's no reasonable evidence that it's actually happening. It would, of course, be ludicrous to deny the existence of arctic maritime warming, which is what your post was really about. At least, as far as I could tell - you mentioned an arctic research institute, sea ice, and the Inupiat. You offered no evidence that would support a conclusion of inland warming in the arctic, nor any concerning the antarctic, equatorial, subtropical, or temperate regions, neither maritime nor continental. Even significant overall warming would not be uniform or even universal, and therefore some regions may warm while others cool, some become wetter while others become deserts, and perhaps most intriguingly of all, some which currently receive most precipitation in winter will receive it in summer and vice versa. Because predicting accurately which changes will occur in which regions is beyond the current state of the art in climatology, most reasonable people have deprecated the vastly oversimplified "global warming" in favour of the more general - and more accurate - "climate change." This is a rare instance in which the Bushies actually have the terminology right; the mere fact that an idiot calls an apple an apple does not sanction your erroneous and spiteful choice to call it an orange.

So, then, would it be "ludicrous" to deny the existence of climate change? Indeed it would; the historical record is rife with evidence for far more dramatic shifts in climate than have occurred during recorded history, and even minor regional climate changes are important and worthy of careful study. Such a regional change, even an isolated one, could have devastating effects elsewhere - such as the oft-mentioned antarctic thaw. No sensible person denies that climate change has occurred in the past, is occurring today, and will continue to occur in the future, nor that its effects on humanity have been and will continue to be substantial and universal.

Unfortunately the really interesting questions about climate change - how, why, and where it happens - have become entangled in policy questions before they're usefully answered. It's equally dangerous and unfortunate that entities like the Union of Concerned Scientists are using woefully incomplete data in an attempt to influence public opinion in favour of their proposed policy changes as at is that other entities like the Bush administration ignore completely what little information there is in favour of policies that benefit themselves and their fellow plutocrats. Instead of gathering the kind of solid evidence and understanding on which sound policy decisions could eventually be made, the UCE and others of their ilk have only damaged their own credibility and given fodder to those determined to make a buck at the expense of the lives of others. You, sir or madam, appear to be falling into exactly that same trap. Your assertion that "global warming" is a real phenomenon, based on regional evidence - and anecdotal evidence at that, compelling though it is - and that those who deny it are "ludicrous" only harms any case you or others might make for narrower and more well-reasoned conclusions. Those are the conclusions science can reasonably hope to draw, and those on which the very policy changes suggested by advocates of the "global warming" theory might be based.

Re:Global Warming

[Arker]

By that logic every broken window is an economic boost, since someone has to be hired to go fix it.

Simplistic, and fallacious.

Wait for it....

[MrDyrden]

Queue up the crazy Republicans claiming global warming doesnt exist in 3.... 2.... 1....

Re:Wait for it....

[toddbu]

I haven't met too many people who doubt that there is some warming happening. The debate is the cause and the severity. It's not unreasonable to ask those hard questions before dedicating resources to fix it. After all, wouldn't you prefer that we apply our limited resources in the best possible fashion?

Greenland is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have pointed out the ocean levels won't rise from the Artic ice cap melting but the greenland glaciers melting will raise it by several feet. Glacierial ice is the big risk. Just the fact any of it is melting should a massive wake up call. Obviously the scary one woulf be the Anartic glaciers melting but that seems unlikely anytime soon. I beileve that would raise levels a 150 to 200 feet. More than enough to make Florida disappear entirely.

How about?

[DaedalusLogic]

Solar activity cycles? I heard a scientist from NASA say that we are on the high end of a cycle of solar output. In 100 years it is just as likely that we'll be on the low end of solar output.

I heard, (hearsay evidence, so check it out for yourself.) that their are paintings made in Holland from a few hundred years ago that show people ice skating on a river that doesn't freeze over now. That river was also never depicted as having frozen over before those paintings were made.

There are many variables that effect our environment. While we make an impact, and we should strive to lessen our impact... One scientists study... or a group of scientists work... should be taken with a grain of salt.

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[buffy]

For something to float, it must displace an equal mass of whatever its floating in. By definition, the north polar ice cap is displacing exactly its own mass in water. If it were to melt, the displaced water would take exactly the same amount of volume as the submerged ice. This would cause the world's ocean levels to rise by the exact amount of zero plus the volume of several dozen annoyed polar bears.

Got a kick outta your post. However, there is an error in your logic--you're assuming that all of the ice is currently in the ocean. There's a VAST amount suspended above sea level. Melt this, and yes, oceans will rise.

For me, I welcome our oceanic overlords' reign over the earth. I'm waiting for my "Kevin Costner gills" to pop outta my neck. Already have the sail boat ready to go.

-buf

Investiment Opportunities

[truckaxle]

Global warming is here. There are those who will attempt to disagree but the evidence is growing.

So the question is how to strategically pick investments that will pay off with the trend. Sounds greedy and selfish but the tragedy of the commons will not be denied. So ideas

• Short ski resort stocks in fringe areas.
• Short insurance companies since hurricanes will tend to be more prevasive
• Short northern europe in general since the gulf stream will cool the area
  
  
• Buy energy stocks as more energy will be required to cool and heat with more temperature extremes
• Buy Wind, Wave, Solar, Nuclear energy stocks as the public will eventually demand more emphasis on non-green house gas sources.

Any other ideas?





Firefox users get Hot Sauce at a discount.

Que the global warming rants

[aussie_a]

People are going to say that it's possible that global warming isn't a result of us humans and that it's a natural cycle of the planet. You're right, it might be a natural cycle of the planet, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Nature has killed off 90% of the ecosystem in the past (Permian to Triassic period). That aint exactly a good thing people.

And even though there's the possiblity (I won't go into how likely it is) that it's natural, shouldn't we do our best to counteract it's effects as much as possible? Even if it is natural? Because if it isn't, we might have a really big problem on our hands.

Or we can play the blame game, and argue whether it's man's fault or nature's fault, and possibly not pass on a liveable planet to our future children.

Re:Que the global warming rants

[RexRhino]

The catch is what you mean by "shouldn't we do our best to counteract it's effects as much as possible?".

When people say "shouldn't we do something to stop it?", they really mean "shouldn't we give the government vast new expanded powers to regulate society, because only the government authority is efficient and trustworthy enough to solve the problem of pollution". The concept of massive government regulation and central-planning are implicit in what you are saying, because absolutly no-one of any political persuation wants to stop people from voluntarily acting to stop global warming.

If someone doesn't support the Patriot Act, or G. W. Bush's "War on Terror", that doesn't mean they are a terrorist or support terrorism. It means that: A) They don't think the Patriot Act or the G. W. Bush's "War on Terror" is an effective policy in combating terrorism and/or B) They feel the solution to the problem is worse than the problem itself (i.e. bombing cities, government servialence without a warrent, etc., are actually worse than the terrorist acts they are meant to stop).

When G. W. Bush and right-wing totalitarians stir up sensationalism and fear of an "impending terrorist nuclear attack", they are provoking an emotional response in order to get people to agree to expanded government powers they would normaly be skeptical about. And to squeltch any sort of debate about what we should do about a very real terrorist threat... When people say "shouldn't we do out best to stop terrorism as best as possible" , there is a hidden assumption that there is only one succesful way to combat terrorism, and that anyone who doesn't support it supports terrorism.

And the same thing is true about the left-wing totalitarians. It is clear that global warming is going to be a problem, and by sensationalistic fear-mongering about "impending ecological disaster", they can try to get people out of fear and desperation to agree to expanded government regulation and control of the economy. Instead of having a serious debate about what we should do to reverse global warming... central-planning and top-down government control is presented as the "only solution", and anyone who disagrees with those policies is an "eco-terrorist".

If the so-called enviornmentalists really want to do something about global-warming, they are going to have to stop using global-warming and the enviornment as a pretense for promoting their political, economic, and social agenda. No sane person on the planet wants to wait around for the enviornment to be destroyed. But when the only solution presented to us is totalitarianism (or at least what we percieve to be totalitarianism), you are naturally going to have the resistance and skepticism you see from many people on slashdot. We can read the assumptions in your statements, and those make us very worried.

Re:Que the global warming rants

[shani]

When people say "shouldn't we do something to stop it?", they really mean "shouldn't we give the government vast new expanded powers to regulate society, because only the government authority is efficient and trustworthy enough to solve the problem of pollution". The concept of massive government regulation and central-planning are implicit in what you are saying, because absolutly no-one of any political persuation wants to stop people from voluntarily acting to stop global warming.

Government does, and should, have a role in regulating markets. For instance, the government is responsible for labeling laws, and establishing standards measurements, and (more recently) in mandating industry use best common practices for accounting.

Even the most pro-HMV, anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-public education Republican would not argue against this. The question is rather what the best role of the government is in the market.

One obvious way to influence the market is to apply the CAFE standards to all cars bought and sold, rather than exclude pickup trucks and SUV's. And in fact, the Bush administration has just last week proposed something like this, although of course in a very slight way designed not to upset major campaign donors at major car-building corporations.

The government can also shift spending away from projects that will encourage greenhouse emission, such as building new highways, to things like providing real alternatives to the car. This does not necessarily mean spending more money, but rather to spend it differently.

A third (and probably most important) way that the government can help is to fund basic (and applied) research to help minimise the demand for CO2-emitting fuel sources. Most likely this will mean research into nuclear power - cleaner, cheaper fission plants in the medium-term, and fusion plants in the long term. Government-funded research is necessary for technologies that have no hope to be profitable in a decade or two. Companies need to make money!

Re:Que the global warming rants

[Gulthek]

Are you suggesting that we, on a human scale, could do something to affect ecosystem change on a planetary level? Ha!

The planet will always be liveable, but it may not be liveable for us.

In fact, all macroscopic life is something of an evolutionary quirk. This planet (and probably any life supporting planet) truly belongs, and will always belong, to the microscopic. Nothing's meeker than bacteria.

Did you know that the fact that Earth has ice at _both_ polar ice caps is an anomoly in its history?

Did you know that Antarctica apparently supported green forests as recently as three million years ago (after the continent was over the south pole)?

Did you know that we live in a remarkably stable period in Earth's climactic history. From ice core samplings we have readings that show _incredibly_ fast fluctation in temperature and we have no idea _what_ could possibly affect the planetary temperature so quickly?

There's a lot we know, but tons more that we don't and it's arrogant to believe that we affect the planet on anything more than a small scale.

Sure the small scale is huge to us and has great implications for our (and that of other macroscopic life) continued health and survival. But the planet is fine.

Sell your arctic shares now!

[toddhunter]

Scientists can say that global warming is happening. Fair enough, they probably know their stuff.
What they can't say is *why* it is happening, and what if anything we can or should do about it. Who is to say in trying to reduce the effect we won't speed it up or make it worse?
Which isn't to say that we shouldn't study or try to understand it, but headings like this one don't help. What we need is properly funded research and a good sit down and think about it without trying to raise money and further careers through fud .

Re:What if....

[CosmeticLobotamy]

How do we know?

Please stop talking about the subject until you know the answer to that question. (I assume that you don't from your "Has anyone looked at the larger trends" comment, and yes, they have.)

Re:Rising sea-levels?

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple answer is yes warm water expands and causes sea levels to raise.

The slightly longer answer is a lot of scientist believe the sea level increase we've seen so far is mostly from the raise in temperature and not from melting ice. This is actually bad for two reasons. One the sea temperatures have only risen slightly meaning they have a massive potential for increased levels just from warming water, remember a couple of feet would sink a lot of coastal cities. Also we've yet to see the effects of melting ice. Within our lifetimes it's unlikely we'll see more than a few feet of increase but that is still enough to kill of a lot of beach front property. The bigger effect will be increased storm strength. Huricanes get their energy from warming water. Increase water temperatures a couple of degrees and you get a lot of category 5 huricanes.

Re:Indeed...

[Fjandr]

Truly, the knowledge that climate fluctuations exist is quite different from arguing that mankind causes them.

However, man certainly has an effect on them. The only argument that really matters is determining what that effect is, and whether or not it is likely to be catastrophic in nature.

While it is ignorant to claim that all or even a majority of climate change is as a result of mankind's positive production of greenhouse gases, it is also ignorant to claim that there is no effect.

Certainly, the possibility exists that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a result of burned carbon stores could be speeding up the return of the next ice age (what happens after a warming peak). Unfortunately, the science really doesn't exist to definitively answer the question one way or the other, and by the time people start thinking about contingency plans it'll be too late.

So, I say let nature take its course. If mankind helps the trend, the abrupt climate changes will likely kill a large portion of the human population quicker than would otherwise happen, killing off a lot of those pesky under- or mal-developed genetic lines. Maybe humans will figure it out next time before it's too late. I don't see that happening this time though. Just another setback for those lines of evolution that didn't quite turn out to work in tune with the rest of the world.

In the macro view of Earth history, it will likely be a minor, and ultimately positive, bump in the road.

Five-Day Forcast

[dawfun]

"Currently, researchers cannot foresee any natural forces that will counteract the trend." Since when have weathermen been able to accurately predict a weather pattern more than 24-hours in advance? Expecting any scientist to be able to forsee a weather trend decades or centuries in the future is a tad hopeful.

more excuses and misinformation

[cahiha]

Finally, the economic change - read as depression - that would come from doing "drastic" things stands a good chance of killing as many people as climate change might.

There is not an iota of evidence that reducing carbon emissions would lead to a depression. Quite to the contrary: it is quite clear that an aggressive move to energy efficient technologies would create new jobs and growth, and would lower operating costs. Scrapping the energy inefficient technologies of today and building new power plants and factories is probably the best thing that could happen to the US economy.

The only people who stand to lose are the people who have large investments in current, inefficient technologies.

First off, we just don't understand what is happening or why.

I'm sorry you haven't been paying attention, but we do understand what is happening and why it's happening.

Unfortunately, if we are in a position where human-added CO2 is the root cause of all of this, we cannot afford the luxury of these kinds of measures. Sure, they might have some effect and that might help. But if we're the cause of climate change, far, far more drastic measures need to be taken right now.

As comparison with other Western nations alone shows, the US could easily cut its CO2 emissions in half without any decrease in its standard of living; quite to the contrary: a serious program to do that would increase the standard of living and create jobs.

Furthermore, if you think you can't "afford" that level of change, what do you think loss of what is probably going to be 50% of the currently inhabited area of the US is going to do to quality of life? Because that's what's going to happen if the trend continues.

Secondly, the third-world countries would bitterly oppose anything that cuts them off from the developed world or limits their exploitation of fossil fuel energy.

They sure do, because the message we are sending right now is that we want to limit them while continuing our wasteful energy use, since our negotiating position is to use our current, wasteful usage as the basis for future budgets. I suspect developing nations would easily agree to a uniform global per-capita energy and fossil fuel budget.

Re:more excuses and misinformation

[HiThere]

You are being silly. If you had suggested banning cars and substituing electric trolley cars, then I could see your argument, but horses are not a feasible option, and electric trolley cars are.

A conversion to an economy with a minimal impact on CO2 would not be easy, but it actually would be feasible, and cheaper than the wars in the Middle East. Economic solar power isn't as profitable as oil or coal, but it is profitable. And the Mojave desert, e.g., has enough potential solar power for most of the country, and North Dakota has enough potential wind power. (And yes, there are feasible ways to store it...run the hydro electric plants backwards to pump the water up hill when you have an excess of power, then let it drop when you need to generate.)

All that said, it would be a challenge. But don't claim that it's impossible...that just shows you have blinders on. Were I inclined, I could point to a lot of problems with the scenario I suggest. This doen't mean it's impossible, it means it's difficult.

THAT said, it's probably already too late to attempt to halt the global melting of the ice. The oceans have been warming for decades, and even if you were to instantaneously reduce their rate of being heated to "normal", they'd be overheated, and they'll be redistributing that heat for decades. This doesn't mean that a CO2 neutral economy is a poor idea (it's actually a really good one for several reasons having nothing to do with halting the melting of the ice). It does mean that it's no magic bullet that will make everything better. It'll make lots of things better, and more over time. But it won't instantaneously erase the accumulated excess heat we've already stored in the oceans. (But it might well shorten and make milder the ice age that will follow the big melt.)

Re:more excuses and misinformation

[Otto]

If you had suggested banning cars and substituing electric trolley cars, then I could see your argument, but horses are not a feasible option, and electric trolley cars are.

And where do you get the electricity to run all these trolley cars? Unless you've got some magical source of clean power, you're just blowing smoke. Literally, you're blowing smoke from coal power plants into the atmosphere. Oh, you do know that most of the country's power places are run on coal, don't you?

This doesn't even consider the energy involved in taking a medium sized city and reworking it to be entirely trolley-car (or other electric transportation) based. Or the energy needed to replace all those coal plants with something not spewing pollutants into the air...

A conversion to an economy with a minimal impact on CO2 would not be easy, but it actually would be feasible

At a rough guesstimate, I figure it would take somewhere between 75 to 100 years to complete, with everybody working on it full time. That's to eliminate fossil fuels and coal and such entirely.

And the Mojave desert, e.g., has enough potential solar power for most of the country, and North Dakota has enough potential wind power. (And yes, there are feasible ways to store it....

Unfortunately, there's no feasible ways to transport it. Power lines don't run across the country. It doesn't work that way. Maximum distance you can transmit electricity efficently is only in the few hundreds of miles, and that's not as the bird flies but as the length of the wire from end to end. Do you want everybody to move out west or something?

All that said, it would be a challenge. But don't claim that it's impossible...that just shows you have blinders on. Were I inclined, I could point to a lot of problems with the scenario I suggest. This doen't mean it's impossible, it means it's difficult.

I agree, but I think you haven't actually sat down and worked out exactly how difficult you're talking about here. I mean, you're suggesting that we completely rebuild something like 65% of the country, roughly.

Re:more excuses and misinformation

[Dachannien]

The only people who stand to lose are the people who have large investments in current, inefficient technologies.

That'd be most transportation, utility, and manufacturing companies. And the effect of "losing" is that the cost of production of their goods goes up during the changeover to cleaner production methods. That means that everyone is paying more - a lot more - for the same goods they bought last year, without a corresponding increase in wages. Sales decrease, so profits decrease, so people lose jobs.

All that "extra money" goes into producing equipment that doesn't add anything to the growth of the economy, unless the new methods of production also happen to be more efficient cost-wise (which they aren't, and I think that's the failing in your logic - "cleaner" and "more efficient" don't overlap given technology today, while you were assuming they do).

If, as you say, "an aggressive move to energy efficient technologies would create new jobs and growth, and would lower operating costs," then why aren't developing nations jumping at the opportunity to create this new growth? The reason the US didn't sign Kyoto is because developing nations were made exempt from the conditions of the treaty. They were made exempt because they were viewed as being less able to afford such changes. That flies in the face of your statement that changing technologies is a boon to a nation's economy.

They sure do, because the message we are sending right now is that we want to limit them while continuing our wasteful energy use, since our negotiating position is to use our current, wasteful usage as the basis for future budgets. I suspect developing nations would easily agree to a uniform global per-capita energy and fossil fuel budget.

Of course they would, because it uses a faulty metric that's in their benefit. A better measure of what's being done with one's energy consumption isn't per-capita, it's per-dollar-GDP. With that measure, the US is far more efficient than (for example) China and India, whose ability to claim decent per-capita energy consumption is entirely due to the tremendous difference between their urban middle and upper classes and their gigantic rural farming lower class.

Furthermore, if you think you can't "afford" that level of change, what do you think loss of what is probably going to be 50% of the currently inhabited area of the US is going to do to quality of life? Because that's what's going to happen if the trend continues.

The US eastern seaboard isn't just going to roll off into the ocean all in one day, any more than the US is going to switch to nuclear power all in one day. What's more, it's unlikely that, if coastal flooding is going to occur, the US can do anything to stop it. A possible solution is to slowly begin encouraging people to move their homes and businesses inland (we have a lot of space), while building a newer energy infrastructure (nuclear power) as we make that move. The key here is slowly. As long as things are done gradually, the new jobs created by such a program won't be completely swamped by the jobs lost from suddenly shutting off the old infrastructure.

rising temps increases water capacity of the air..

[YesIAmAScript]

Humidity is measured as "relative humidity". That is because warmer air can hold more water in it. If the global temperature were to rise, the amount of water in the air (think clouds) will go up. Is this more or less than the expansion of the water in the oceans?

So there is a chance that the oceans could stay level or even go down as the global temperature rises.

Re:And actually, slightly less

[grcumb]

"Ice is less dense than water, so we might even see sea levels *decline*"

Un-fucking believable. An entire thread of people who can hold forth about global climate change, when they can't even read a map!

For the geography-impaired in the audience: Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere islands are really fucking big. And guess what? They're mostly covered with ice. Which might just melt, too.

Re:Yeah, but

[orthogonal]

Isn't the icecap frozen fresh water? Maybe someone who really knows can tell us if it makes a difference that it is frozen fresh water floating on salt water.

Well, those stupid scientists (what have they ever given us?) think that

if global warming continues to melt major ice sheets, [Britain's] supply of warm air could come to an abrupt end, according to a number of experts.

The Gulf Stream relies on a sensitive "conveyer belt" action, which could be "switched off" - quite suddenly - if it becomes diluted by fresh water from the melting ice-sheets, they claim.

Dr Terry Joyce, an oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, US, believes there is a 50% chance of a sudden climate change happening in the next 100 years.

"It will be quick," he says. "Suddenly one decade we're warm, and the next decade we're in the coldest winter we've experienced in the last 100 years, but we're in it for a 100 years."

But of course that's all hogwash! We should listen to Big Oil lobbyist Phil Cooney:

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

After a stint doing "editing" for the Bush Administration, Phil's making the real cash now:

A senior White House official accused of doctoring government reports on climate change to play down the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming has taken a job with ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company.

Philip Cooney, who resigned as chief of staff of the White House council on environment quality at the weekend, will begin work at the oil giant in the autumn.

Nothing to see here folks! What do scientists know? They can't even make real money like a good lobbyist. If they're so smart, why aren't they rich?

Trust your President: he knows that global warming is just liberal whining and that we should teach real science, like Intelligent Design, in our public schools.

Re:Yeah, but

[toddbu]

They can't even make real money like a good lobbyist.

So in all seriousness, do you believe that scientists have nothing to gain personally by supporting the theory of global warming?

Sunspots. Suppose solar output changes

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Crank up the sun a notch or two. Take temperature readings.

Will you see higher daytime temperature, higher nighttime temperatures, or both but with daytime predominating?

Common sense tells you the same thing that math would tell you. The sun warms us up in the daytime.

Now try a different thought experiment. Imagine that someone's changed your atmosphere so that it insulates better against heat radiating into space. Will you see daytime temperatures go up more, or nighttime temperatures go up more?

That's right -- you'd see more change in nighttime temperatures.

Guess what we're seeing in contemporary measurements?

Re:Won't someone please think of the snowmen!

[shmlco]

"...beyond which the dynamics of the climate system change so much, that it is no longer self-correcting."

Wow. An "self-correcting" climate. Now what, precisely, is a "correct" climate, and how does it know when it needs to self correct back to that spot?

Or are you saying that our current century or so of measurements is the only "correct" climate that's existed out of the last 4.5 billion years? Or in that time period we've never cycled to a point were the earth's temperate is 1.5 degrees C warmer than it is now?

Re:And here we go again...

[Capsaicin]

But then again there doesnt appear to be any really consensus on what is happening with the world... is it global warming, is it cooling, is it pollution-induced or hell, even pollution stabilised!

Depends on where you are looking for consensus. Oreskes (Science 2004 (vol 306, p1686), studied 928 peer-reviewed papers on climate change published between 1993 and 2003, and found "near universal" consensus. In the specialist community, there really is no dispute, global mean temperatures are rising, and anthropogenic sources of C02 are a likely major contributor to this.

Of course once you enter the world of politics and ideology such consensus is a little more difficult to find. On the other hand if you want to find folks with their heads in the sand, you'll be in luck.

Prehistoric change in sea level

[Conanymous Award]

Something I don't understand about the people arguing that sea levels won't rise when the temperatures of the earth's atmosphere rises, is that they are completely ignoring historical evidence. We have a bullet-proof geological record that shows the sea level going back and forth all through the history of our planet, and that the water has been up high when the atmosphere has been warm, down when it has been cold. Is it the continental ice? Volume changes of the water because of changes in temperature? Salinity? We can't be 100% sure, but there sure aren't many other possibilities to explain the changes.

Melting icebergs may not be the major factor, but continental ice sure as hell must be.

Re:Yeah, but

[Decker-Mage]

No, it is a theory supported by computer models that may or may not have any relation to reality. I've spent my life working in the statistical modeling field and have an extensive background in numerous scientific and damn near every engineering field (see profile) and I can tell you that your model is only a good as whether what it predicts matches reality and exactly how closely.

Current models are all over the place as to what they predict and in almost every case what they predict isn't even close by an order of magnitude to what has happened in that past. Now how are we supposed to rely on models that can't even predict things by a factor of ten? Sheesh, give me a break! Heck, what is even stranger are the journal articles (light reading here) will start with the assumption that global warming is real, find contrary data, and conclude that global warming is real despite the contrary data. This isn't science, it's persuit of funding.

The plain fact of the matter is that to get funding today in various related disciplines to climatology you have to climb on the global warming bandwagon. Sad, but true. It is also interesting that many of the critics of global warming are retired and no longer need funding to persue their interests in the field. In statistics we'd call that strongly correlated.

Now this isn't to say global warming isn't real although I would challenge the notion that it is necessarily related to any man-related activity (that's for another post if anyone is interested). The only constant about the climate on this planet is change and that has been true since it accreted to a planet.

Let Me Educate You (Why Kyoto Sucks and The US OK)

[Doug Dante]

"There is not an iota of evidence that reducing carbon emissions would lead to a depression."

See late 1970s stag-flation in the United States.

Wikipedia will help you understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation

Oil, like food and land, is a critical component of today's economy.

It's less critical than it was (as measured by carbon intensity), but it's still important.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/trends.html

That's not to say that we can't do more to reduce carbon emissions, but with temperatures falling in some places, there is still some wiggle room vis-a-vis global warming and human causation:

http://michiganimc.org/usermedia/image/2/large/Cli mateGraphAnnArborSourceStateOfFearByMichealChricht on.jpg

But, given that many in the international community want more action from the United States on this issue, and in general there is distaste everywhere for dumping tons of waste into the atmosphere, there is some room for hope, including the North Eastern United States pact on emissions:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/nyregion/25air.h tml

As well as a similar plan for the Pacific costal states of California, Oregon, and Washington also in the works.

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=116 &subsecID=900039&contentID=252175

In general, there is a self righteous feeling amongst non-Americans (especially from pro Kyoto treaty Europeans), but keep in mind please that very few European nations are even meeting their Kyoto targets:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12 374,1098635,00.html

Those nations that are meeting the targets are in deep recessions (including Russia):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3702640.stm

Kyoto is a 'first step', but many nations supporting that first step aren't actually taking it, making it "a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." [Macbeth Act 5, Scene 5]

The real key is reducing our economic carbon intensity (generating more money with fewer carbon emissions). We in the United States are already doing that quite well.

Can we move faster? Yes. And we will, if by hook and crook, including regional emissions limitations, higher international oil prices, and a general shift in our economy away from manufacturing and oil consumption.

But arrogant attitudes about 'excuses and misinformation' miss the real point.

Re:Soooo true (NOT).

[toddbu]

And that's why I, like other scientists, believe that what's really important is determining the truth.

I do too, which is why I asked the initial question. To me, getting to the truth in the global warming debate means two things: (1) demonstrating that it's real, and (2) determining the cause. Sadly, I feel that these two things have been linked together by most scientists, in part because they can use their theories to get grants. Personally, I'd like to see a lot more published on actual temperature fluctuations without the requisite "and here's why we think this is happening" noise that comes along with it. Then we can take each theory and apply it to the data to see if it fits.

What's really a shame in all this is that many scientists believe that in order to get any funding for their project that they have to make as loud a noise as possible. It's much like the news media that uses disaster to sell newspapers. How about doing global warming research in the same way that we've handled the ozone hole? Get some real data that the problem exists independent of any speculation, make the link between freon and ozone destruction, then give people suitable (but solid) deadlines for replacement.

Why must we reduce greenhouse gasses?

[jimfrost]

When people say "shouldn't we do something to stop it?", they really mean "shouldn't we give the government vast new expanded powers to regulate society, because only the government authority is efficient and trustworthy enough to solve the problem of pollution". The concept of massive government regulation and central-planning are implicit in what you are saying, because absolutly no-one of any political persuation wants to stop people from voluntarily acting to stop global warming.

Why must it be solved by regulation, when it can be solved through brute-force engineering?

The problem is that the earth is retaining too much energy from the sun. So far, everyone has been talking about working to reduce the tendency of the earth to trap that energy. But that is not the only possible solution to the problem; you could also reduce the energy influx.

My cut is that cutting greenhouse gasses by any significant measure is politically infeasible. Kyoto wouldn't be enough even if it were universally adopted and actually adhered to (fat chance if you ask me). There are too many vested interests for significant reduction in the near term, although in the long term the growing scarcity of fossil fuels will drive the change to alternatives. The changeover will be rapid -- within two decades -- when it happens, but barring catastrophe (say, WWIII fought over oil supplies) that kind of economics will not kick in for another 20-30 years. So we're looking at 40-50 years before we might possibly see that kind of solution really get started, and the effects will take decades more to be noticable.

I think it's a fair guess that the warming trend will go nonlinear before then and we'll need to find a way to rapidly cool the planet (more on why in a minute). The obvious thing to do is to reduce the amount of solar radiation hitting the planet.

Most people don't realize it, but we have the technical capability to do that today. We could, for instance, fire reflective particulates into orbit; this would be the least expensive solution to the problem. A more expensive, but much more flexible, solution would use orbital shades. These would allow us to vary the amount of radiation reaching the planet by changing the aspect of the shade relative to the sun.

Engineering solutions like this are much more politically feasible and, perhaps more to the point, can damp the warming process almost immediately rather than requiring decades as would a reduction in greenhouse gas emission. Such a solution would be expensive, but expensive on the order of low trillions of dollars even using today's lifting systems, and we can do much better than rockets if we are going to have to spend that kind of money anyway.

In any case we're going to have to find some kind of solution that works very rapidly because the problem with global warming is not limited to rising ocean levels over the next century. The real issue with global warming that nobody really talks about is that hurricanes are going to start becoming really destructive. The warmer it gets in here the larger the hurricane formation zones grow and the more frequent and more violent the hurricanes will become. That, too, is a nonlinear effect. The only way we're going to stop it is by cooling down those formation zones, and the only near-term feasible solution to that is to damp solar energy coming down right on top of those zones.

Regardless of the reason we eventually decide to do something real about global warming we can be pretty sure based on history that we will sit around doing nothing until the cost of sitting around doing nothing exceeds the cost of doing some really big, complicated project to fix the problem. Then we'll pull out all the stops and spend whatever it takes to pull off the project. We humans do that kind of thing all the time; for an example, look up the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Besides, wouldn't the glitter of city lights back from orbiting reflectors look really cool?

Re:bad science?

[Afrosheen]

The topic in question here is whether or not the Arctic ice cap melting will bring the level up, not the Antarctic. As has been said before, Antarctic ice is on a land mass, therefore it takes up no mass in the ocean. The north pole, however, has glaciers floating in seawater, so the displacement is already present. The north pole is the one experiencing controversial warming, not the south pole.

  Contrary to your belief, warm water does not expand. Frozen water, however, does. Ever wonder how gigantic rocks get huge cracks in them? Water will run down into tiny crevices when it's warm, then freeze and when the ice forms and expands, the rock will crack open.

  Try this for a funtime science experiment. Get a bottle of water, empty milk jug, whatever, and fill it to the absolute top. Screw on the lid. Now, shove it in the freezer. In a few hours, the ice will remove the lid. Why? Because water expands as it freezes. Voila.

  I'm sure some of you have accidentally left beer bottles in the freezer and opened it up hours later to find a nice, frozen beery mess. It's happened to me at least twice.