Global Warming Past The Point of No Return

mad_goldfish writes "The UK's Independent is running a front page story today on a scientific report claiming that global warming is now unstoppable, after measuring changes in the level of ice in the arctic." From the article: "The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a 'tipping point' beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically. Satellites monitoring the Arctic have found that the extent of the sea ice this August has reached its lowest monthly point on record, dipping an unprecedented 18.2 per cent below the long-term average." Either way, someone wins a bet.

Comments

Greenland Ice Sheet

[molo]

According to wikipedia, the greenland ice sheet, if fully melted, will raise global sea level by 7.2 meters (23.6 feet). This would put large portions of many coastal cities underwater.

Fortunately, there are other factors that should mitigate this, such as increased mass of the antarctic ice sheet due to increased moisture levels. See sea level rise.

-molo

Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified

[e1618978]

No matter how much oil you personally burn, the total global human population will use a fixed amount of oil (we use as much oil as you can pump out of the ground, and we have reached the point where it is very hard to use more oil). So conservation does not help global warming, it just lowers the price so that the Chineese can burn more, and it discourages alternative fuel research. For the good of humanity, it is important that you burn as much oil as you can afford to, in order to bump up prices and encourage alternatives to oil. If consumption is really high, we will switch to other sources while there is still a lot of oil in the ground. Worst case is conservation that keeps the price of oil low enough so that we pump and burn all the oil available to us over the next 50 years.

baffled

[micromuncher]

Its odd that so many people think this isn't a big deal, siting issues like "we don't know enough" or "its happened before in our geological history"...

If you actually put some common sense into, that is the carbon cycle over millions of years has store sh1tloads of carbon away underground, and that in the next hundred years its very likely we will have put it all up in the atmosphere... and that carbon contributes to global warming, that has the side effects of unpredictable violent weather, and a general slowing of the earth on its axis (like Venus)... you would think that even the SUGGESTION that we should be conscious over what is in our control would be an action item.

An analogy is forest fires... forests have burned forever, contributing to the nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle. But now we're hell bent on putting them out. Sure, it means not-so-much carbon, but the result is a f4cked up nitrogen cycle and a build up of biomass just waiting to be a serious blaze. Why do we fight the fires then? Protect peoples homes? OR to protect the forestry industry?

So the ocean rises a few inches, and a bunch of well established species get extinct; just think of how many times we get to rebuild New Orleans, Miami, and such...

Re:Doom and Gloom NO, Just one of 5 CO2 Peaks

[BoRegardless]

People think "the ice age" is a defining moment. There was a mini-ice age in the 17th century. There was one that ended maybe 14,000 years ago. Those are NOT the LONG TERM cycles that repeat on earth.

Those 5 CO2 peaks over the last 400,000 years came from the
Vostok Antarctica ice cores (about every 100,000 years). Our actual CO2 might be expected to go a bit higher based on the prior peaks, but then something repeatedly changes in the world's ecosphere in the past cycles and there is an ABRUPT drop in CO2 in the past history.

Why did it go up?
Why did it turn?
What long term sun cycles or sun spots only exist, which we have not detected yet?
Does a direct hit by a large coronal mass ejection/s offer a drastic change to the earth's enviroment?
Why did it go down precipitously?
Once you know what caused it, does it have so much power behind it that man can or can NOT change it?

If you look at facts instead of blathering, it becomes apparent that scientists and interested laymen yet today have no proof of what moves the momentum of the truely long term ecosystem's atmosphere.

I personally believe we will find that man is incapable of altering the long term climatic cycles, and at some point Canada & Northern Europe and Asia will again go under kilometers of ice, and man (just like the Vikings in Greenland), will only be able to look on in horror as the ice relentlessly takes over the land they used to work and live on.

You can easily see the CO2 charts on the web, but I won't post any URLs.

Bo

Re:No Problem

[Damek]

Not really. Just because the temperature rises doesn't automatically mean you have good soil.

Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified

[rxmd]

we use as much oil as you can pump out of the ground

Not true, Saudi Arabia could pump rather more (a big percentage, but I can't recall) more than it usually does, but it limits its output to stabilise prices.

Yes, but at present Saudi Arabia the only oil-producing country that can actually do this. The others are at their limit, and any disruption to Saudi oil production (for example, through terrorist attacks) could have a significant impact on the oil price. The article I quoted expects oil prices around $100 - it's always bad to have a single point of failure. In addition, the Saudis can only produce more crude oil, not refined gasoline and heating oil, so even their production increases won't help all that much in the short run.

Also, it's doubted whether the Saudis can actually keep their promises.