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Failing Ocean Current Raises Fears of Mini Ice Age
Designadrug writes "This article from Newscientist paints a picture of a major climate control mechanism teetering on the brink:
"The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age. The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.""
But the earth isn't supposed to regulate itself! We're making it hotter! OH NOES!!!1 Seriously, who wouldn't expect something like this to happen. The temperature differential that drives that current has shrunk slightly and therefore as lost some momentum. Then Europe gets cold for a while, things even out, and everyone is happy. Except 50 cent. because his game is stupid.
cor blimey it's cold!
Wasn't this the plot to a bad movie?
... but as always, scientists require PROOF before saying anything loud enough to be heard. How would you recommend getting more warm water? Maybe if you dump a bunch of X-Box 360's into the current, it'll heat right up again.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Thank you ocean currents!
Ocean is land, covered with water.
They could always create some device to push warmer water in to suppliment the lack of warm currents I assume....
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Wait,
First Microsoft, now scientists? Noooooooooooo!
Dashboard Widgets
If the current is pulling all that energy from the warm waters up north and dissipating it in the process, what will happen to all the excess warmth if the current stops? Will it find another way to go? Maybe create a new current or even restart the same current again? That heat has to go somewhere, it is water after all.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
...is the "price" of air pollution, well, you'll pardon me if I keep my old Pontiac. ;)
That melting of Arctic is now OK, since Europe is going to Freeze?
I have a lot of trouble believing that global warming (however caused) will _decrease_ ocean currents. I would expect it to do precisely the opposite, increase them, as driving forces (temperature differences) increase. Or does someone have data that global warming is more at the poles than at the equator?
I knew I'd seen this movie already. Don't anyone go giving away the ending!
Drive a Hummer.
(Plus it comes with a 12,000 LB wench, think of all the beer that could serve, Germany)
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Oh, what was it... oh yeah! Day After Tomorrow.
Is this supposed to be news? Because I thought climatologist have been talking about this potential for awhile. At least before "Day After Tomorrow".
What's next? "Scientist think that Birds evolved from Dinosaur like ancestors?"
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Here we come! Better grow some fur!
I like the idea of a utilitarian vehicle, but I'm not so hot on 12,000 pound wenches.
What use would a 12,000 lbs wench be, anyway?
Is there anything it CAN'T do? Ice ages here, mega-deserts there... Besides, let's say the ice caps DO melt, and we lose a litle coastline. Big deal, over the ~150 years that takes, we'll clear the lower-lying cities out, plenty of time for that. Just think of the possibilities, though. Far more of the earth's surface might become habitable! The increased heat might spur mega growth of flora, turning the southeastern United States (and other areas) into tropical rainforests! Is all climate change bad? Varka
Depending on whom you ask, this could be a global warming issue. This is something I researched back in high school and got weird looks, but the logic goes like this:
1. Temperature warms up. Surface ice in the northern/southern reaches melt. This is something we've been seeing with the shrinking glaciers/nothern ice cap/Antartic icebergs melting.
2. Ocean rises, which causes a lowering of the ocean temperature from the influx of cold water.
3. With ocean levels higher, the ocean is able to absorb more energy, which shuts down the warm ocean currents.
4. Without the warm ocean currents, weather patterns are altered. Cold air that would have been warmed by the ocean currents remain cold. In time, the water that melted is converted into ice.
5. With the altered weather patterns and no warm air, the ice age comes into being. The more ice that forms, that more sunlight redirected back into space.
6. This continues until enough build up of ocean warmth.
Or - something like that. It's been a decade or two since I studied it, and I'm sure a meteorologist would do a better job. But what I do recall is that a good chunk of research shows this process can take place in as little as three years - which means it might be a good time to start buying some land down in Mexico....
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Yes, I'm confused too. However, it stands to reason that we humans are doing some really bad things to the earth, and predicting outcomes resulting from our behavior may be beyond our intellectual reach.
Free iPod?
So if the climate is getting colder, now is a good time to invest in ski resorts and related realestate and businesses in that region?
Let's give global warming a chance! Or we could stop using science from the 70's and realize that the climate changes and we're not the cause.
This guy is way out there
if the warm currents are going away from Europe, what will happen to the atlantic?
Warmer water, more hurricanes, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
On the other hand, I'd rather see the US going into an ice age. They're the ones that refused to follow the Kyoto protocol.
original article in Nature
news article in Nature
If I recall correctly, The Day After Tomorrow was essentially an extremely sexed up version of scenarios written by the DOD based on climate change research that predicted this kind of oceanic current shift was possible.
This doesn't mean cities are going to flash-freeze and Jake Glyenhall is going to be attacked by wolves while trapped in New York. But if true, it does lend some support to certain predictions regarding climate change,
Tweet, tweet.
The article only mentions 5 data points over ~50 years, 1957, 1981, 1992, 1998 and now 2005.. which is not a lot to go on, likewise it mentions that the last time the current stopped was 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, and that it may have slowed down between 1300-1850 which was a "mini" ice-age.
I assume that the last 2 things were speculation, since the only way I could think of these things being measured is if it's somehow preserved in glacial layers etc.. could anyone who knows more explain what types of evidence back up these long term speculations? And if not, why we should draw any major conclusions from 5 data points over 50 years, when we don't know the variance of the system over hundreds or thousands of years, which 'seems' to be a 'normal' timescale for change?
I'm not saying this isn't a big deal, but the information in the article is woefully incomplete.
Whether or not this new finding is sound science, Europe has had a little ice age before. When is the last time you went ice skating on the Thames? Keep this in mind the next time you hear about climate change. It happens. A lot.
...I live in Canada; and well, all I see is Winter around me for six months or more. Mini Ice-Age? We just call that "Hockey Season" and grab a beer :|
Wouldn't it be more appropriate for this to be frosty piss?
7. ???
8. PROFIT!!!!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
People seem to have gotten their cause and effect mixed up regarding the ocean's currents.
The rotation of the earth, along with wind is the primary mechanism for driving the gulf stream. Hot and cold water rising and falling has nothin to do with it - although it does have something to do with nutrient distribution.
The gulf stream current will not stop running unless the entire oceam freezes or the earth stops spinning. It's a matter of fluid mechanics. See this for basic details.
Whether some flow is diverted (making Europe a little cooler) is another story, but the fluctuations are just as likely a part of chaos that is a part of most fluid systems.
m
This isn't "the earth regulating itself". This is one of many local disruptions that make global warming so dangerous: some parts will get hotter, some colder, some wetter, and some drier.
Right now, it is still an open question whether there are global feedback mechanisms. If there are, they seem to be positive feedback, rather than negative feedback.
http://www.beyondcommunion.com/superstorm.html I've read this and many of the initial indicators are coming to pass like clockwork. Sensationalist, maybe. Eerie, definitely.
I shall call it, Mini Me.
e !me
--
FrostAge!IceAge!FrostAge!ThawedAge!FrostAge!IceAg
Gracious! Infernal nectaries fiasco if menagerie.
...I'm confused. We're supposed to be going through global warning. Also, is anyone else thinking that we don't have enough data to determine how the climate acts, being the earth is millions of years old?
Doctor Ice Age says, "I shall call it--Mini Me."
if we spent 1/10th of the amount of mental energy we now spend playing the political blame game of climate change rather than just dealing with climate change, imagine what we could do
fact: the climate is changing
why?
who cares why! forget the blame game!
just deal with it!
whether 100% man made or 100% natural or any combination in between, it's about time we put our considerable skills of human innovation to task and simply endeavour to preserve the climate as it is now. or as it was in 1800. or as it could be if the sahara were a new amazon. whatever: the important part is to stop thinking we are helpess or to deny our effect on our environment, and just get on with fixing it, or, preserving it unnaturally in a state we like, take your pick, whatever sounds better to your particular political inclination. we need less of the politics
seed the dead zones of the ocean with iron, let the phytoplankton bloom, suck out the CO2, wait a few decades
we need to start thinking less about how we are hurting the environment beyond our control, we need to start thinking less about how we are helpless victims of climate change, and we need to start thinking more about what us human beings are: the stewards of this planet, for better or for worse
for better, i vote, so vote with me: positive action. not negative innaction or negative action
we need to tinker MORE with the climate, not less, with a full recognizance of the fact that we are the deciding factor on which way this planet's environment goes
the game is up, the planet is ours. we have our hands on the global thermostat. the solution to our problems is not to take our hands off the thermostat, or deny our hand is there. but to simply start fiddling with the thermostat in the direciton we desire
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
freaking whales want to get revenge for all the sonar activity.
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You are correct, frosty sir. I stand corrected.
Whats going on this week? The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
5 4803,00.html?gusrc=rss
http://unfccc.int/2860.php
This is news coming out this week to go along with UNFCCC, the Guardian story even helpfully has a link to UNFCCC. Its FUD.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,16
Global warming isn't coming the day after tomorrow. It is coming two days before the day after tomorrow. OH MY GOD THATS TODAY!
-Xen
You cannot find undeniable empirical proof for or against a phenomenon that isn't observable within your own lifetime (think evolution, jesus, pangea, etc.) Maybe it isn't happening, but I'd rather play it safe with a potential climactic cataclysm.
Has anyone done a study strictly on the impact of human heat generation, and how it might impact global warming? Leaving co2 and greenhouse gas questions to the side for the moment, human beings generate an awful lot of heat via our automobiles, power plants, homes, etc. Certainly the effect it might have would probably be very minimal, but if anyone could point to a paper or documentation on this topic I'd be interested in reading it... Varka
Part of the conveyor is from the gulf, across the surface of the Atlantic, where is picks up heat. It hits the west coast of Europe and flows along the coast line. Upon hitting greenland, it then go down an "elevator" or "Chimney". Back in the late 60's, they found that there were some odd 30-60 distinct chimneys that operated in the same areas. Since then, it has shut down to some odd 3-5 chimneys.
The reason for shutting down is an indirect cause of the warming. Specifically, the Arctic ocean is decreasing in salinity due to melting ice. The saltier regular ocean hits the fresh water and is blocked. Interestingly, if the ice melts slow enough, then there should be enough salt transfer, that you are left with a gradient so that the chimneys continue. But since it is happening fast, there is not enough time for a gradient, so the chimney stops. Apparently once stopped, then it does not start easily.
Bear in mind, this is all theory with some evidence to back it(modeling and of course, the vast numbers of chimneys that have stopped are just some of the evidence). SO it could be way off. Or it could be dead on.
Will this ice age kill those nasty migrating flu birds? Because I am just getting over the flu right now, and anything that will prevent me from getting sick again is OK with me.
True, ocean currents will still move. They're definitely chaotic system and often behave "counterintuitively".
b s/341318a0.html
But all that warm water goes so far north largely because of (cold) water with high salinity. This water is dense and sinks. This is called North Atlantic Deep Water formation, and possibly drives deep ocean currents around the world.
This salinity gradient is the key energy source that "pulls" warm water so far north, more than the thermal or momentum gradients.
This gradient broke down during "the Younger Dryas cold episode, which chilled the North Atlantic region from 11,000 to 10,000 yr BP." "[This] is postulated to be a turnoff [...] of the North Atlantic's conveyor-belt circulation system which currently supplies an enormous amount of heat to the atmosphere over the North Atlantic region. This turnoff is attributed to a reduction in surface-water salinity, and hence also in density, of the waters in the region where North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) now forms." Paleoclimate claims are supported by oxygen and carbon isotope studies on plankton.
see http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v341/n6240/a
On the one hand, the Hummer itself is probably only 6000 pounds. So that means you could tie the hummer to a 12,000 wench, say, one that is sitting in bloomers on the riverbank above you, and use your 12,000 pound winch to pull your stuck vehicle out of the muddy banks. Then you could have a picnic with your wench. You might look her in the eyes from your position on the roof of the hummer while she sat on the ground beside you and then, suddenly, you and 1000 of your friends would tie her down with cables that criss-crossed her ample entirety. You would jump down onto her belly and, scanning the horizons of her girth, plant a flag and shout out "I claim this territory in the name of ..."
The closing statement reads as follows:
... oops, too late. There are a lot of models. When the latest ones are introduced, we learn how poor the previous ones were. And models are a really funny beast. That last link reveals that the new model "uses weather data from 1961 to 1985 and models of future weather from 2071 to 2095, which assume a doubling of the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide". Models using models must somehow compound errors, no? Less well known is that since potential variables are so numerous in climate studies, subsets are grouped and modelled linearly (via principal component analysis). This has the effect of reducing the dimension of the problem at the cost of accuracy. The latter is sometimes significant e.g. how many climate processes are linear? Frankly, climate models seem merely to be a way of currying favour with potential sources of funding using pseudo science and fear.
The last shutdown, which prompted a temperature drop of 5C to 10C in western Europe, was probably at the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago. There may also have been a slowing of Atlantic circulation during the Little Ice Age, which lasted sporadically from 1300 to about 1850 and created temperatures low enough to freeze the River Thames in London.
But consider:
a) The authors' believe their data is robust. Their sampling rate however is extraordinarily low i.e. 1957, 1981, 1992, and 2004. So there is no idea of whether this fluctuation is unique or cyclical and, if the latter, the frequency of its occurence;
b) FTA " Some climate models predict that global warming could lead to such a shutdown later this century."
So, the effect is categorically not understood, but with laughably meagre data a link is pronounced to events 12,000 years ago, bolstered with a guess to a period of recorded history experiencing a "sporadic" Ice Age. This is what passes for science in climatology?! Bunk! Pure bunk!
And don't get me started about climate modelling
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Many of the highly populated areas (read: Europe, US) that are most responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases will become essentially unihabitable. People will migrate to other places, e.g. Africa, Middle America, etc., stressing the ability of these places to produce sufficient food. This, combined with the expected disruption of agriculture due to climate changes, will decrease food supplies further.
In the end: fewer people left to make greenhouse gases, trees come back and start extracting excess CO2 because no one is left to cut them done, climate gets back to "normal", and finally some biologist trying to get tenure at Waterbuffalo University will do a study on the genetic bottleneck of Homo sapiens that occured during the mini ice-age.
The dramatic finding comes from a study of ocean circulation in the North Atlantic, which found a 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.""
:)
Hurricanes == Earth oceans heat dissapation system (Determine the heat transfer method and you will be famous).
2005 == 16+ storms in the Atlantic which sucked up some heat (alot).
The Atlantic, as a result may be cooler (Yes I view the heat imaging satallite pictures), which is natures whole goal of having hurricanes. Suck some heat.
Is it natural? Yes/No/Maybe. I don't know, but during the 70's it snowed here in Florida. Am I speculating? Yes, but don't worry about it, I've only had eight beers tonight. Am I an expert? No, but I do know that France might surrender because of this, I just don't know to whom
Chill (pun intended), its a great planet. It was here before Humans, it will be here long after were gone.
Enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
That's my left nut you're twisting - would you mind easing off, please?
when you fall down a cliff and break your legs, you go back up and try again to see if it works better the second time?
no, when you break your leg, you reset your bones and you put them in a cast
what would you do? lie there helplessly with broken legs? that seems to be exactly what you are proposing
you seem to think that because it was stupid to break our legs, that realizing that is all that is needed to unbreak our legs. no, they are broken: we have polluted our environment, the climate is changing. now what? curse our situation and pout? or DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
why is it impossible for you to concieve that we humans can fix our environment, or that, accepting or not accepting that we can fix it, that we shouldn't try?
why is your helplessness a superior attitude about the environment than my desire for positive action?
too much of the environmental debate are these two camps:
1. negative action: we pollute, oh well, the planet will take care of itself: "the solution to pollution is dilution". the current hurricane seasons in the usa should make such people realize this situation is untenable
2. (you) negative inaction: we pollute, so stop polluting! go back to the stone age, stop driving cars, making plastics, etc. go back to living in caves.
what we need is positive action: we pollute, we can mitigate that to some extent, but we can also get MORE involved and start manmade processes that balance out our effects: we belch co2? ok, well then start some large scale manmade carbon sinks to counteract it... because no matter how much you minimize our co2 emissions, they are still there and unnatural... so BALANCE IT OUT
why is this so anathema to you?
so when you break your legs, don't you want to fix them?
or do you just want to lie there helpessly?
blame games and learned helplessness do not help our situation
your attitude is poisonous to the debate on the environment
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
but action, no matter how imperfect, is still more useful
while the guy bleeding might appreciate the guy sitting there thinking laboriously about why he is bleeding, the bandages may be imperfect, but they are still appreciated more
so until the smart guy figures out that the bleeding guy has porphyria, which could take years, beyond which the bleeding guy is already dead, the bandages are keeping him alive
it's important to think, you realize that
you don't seem to realize that it's also JUST AS IMPORTANT, if not more important, to act
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You'll have to excuse my 20yr old memory, but I seem to recall Brewster suggested towing an iceberg to Africa to help eat up some of his $30M in 1985 dollars. According to the calculator at bls.gov, that's only about $55.54 in 2005 dollars. Pssssh. That's chump change compared to what we're spending on the war. Let's just tow in a few icebergs to sink some heat. Instant current, and some fresh drinking water, too! :-)
Let's see... solar warming of the surface of earth, plus volcanic activity + other natural heat (including nuclear decay) + true wild fires, etc. >= sumof (humanity's stupid SUVs, and other stuff that seems hot...)
Again, stipulating "greeenhouse" gasses as a negative toward humanity, but that is probably arguable too. I just read where the Salton Sea burps up more Hyrdrogen Sulfide than all California industry combined. So much for that "wetland".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The USA has by far the largest emission of greenhouse gases in the world (yes, that is per person). One might think they might start reconsidering, but to the contrary.
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
Sounds like someone wanted to validate the [bogus] science behind the moview "The Day After".
It's not just a moview. It's a documentary of the future.
If the Gulf Stream isn't pushing as much water toward Europe, then the water is lingering longer in the Gulf of Mexico, which goes a long way to explain why so many storms churned up to Category 5 hurricanes as soon as they reached the Gulf all through this autumn. Doesn't sound like fun for North America either.
we both agree there is a problem
but you won't allow me to act until my actions are 100% perfect
you need to stop being brittle: we live in a world where every single action involving complex problems are open ended and imperfect and cloudy
you seek a level of certainty that simply doesn't exist in this world
you need to lower your threshold of certainty about the need to act on a problem if you hope to be valuable in any debate on any complex problem in this world: drugs, the middle east, health care, etc.
what are we to do? wait until you know for certain we are already frozen to death or baking alive before allowing us to act against the effect?
imperfect action trumps perfect thought, always, in every way, on any problem in the world
because the key ingredient is ACTION
welcome to reality
your time is limited
you don't have the luxury of waiting or experimenting or ruminating that you require
the certainty you seek is impossible
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ok its our time to pay. just think of all the shyt we put in the air because some asshole named warren buffet needs to drive his beamer around. actually i dont think this guy drives anymore, but anyway. the world is spitting back at us for pissing on its face. its amazing how much destruction humans can cause to a planet in 3k yrs. so mother earth kills a couple 100 million of us, big deal, im tired of looking at all of you anyway.
Well, we're fucked now. I am going to stock up on guns and antibiotics.
acting in such a way that might make things worse, but probably will make things better, is superior to not acting
because not acting is CERTAIN to make things worse
there is risk involved in acting, yes
and risking things when everything is fine is not acceptable
but when we are certain that everything is NOT fine, then 60% certainty that things will get BETTER by acting is an absolutely superior choice to the 100% certainty that things will get WORSE by not acting
get it?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Along with most of the bioshpere.
Hrrmmmm.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The article went on to describe the states plans to back exploration of a "Northwest Passage" across the Arctic, in cooperation with a Finnish company. Apparently other countries are also working on plans to exploit the route.
I broke the dam.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Kim Stanley Robinson's new novel "Fifty Degrees Below" looks at the consequences of the North Atlantic Convery shutting down. It's not a great novel, surely not one of his best, but it's worth a read. Far too people die from exposure when D.C. gets a sustained period of -50F.
But wouldn't global warming just lead to Arctic storms being carried further south by the polar jet stream? I don't know it it's related, but I remember in '95, a chunk of cold air broke off from the North Pole and it was -25 F here in Ohio. We had nine inches of snow, the surface of which crusted over with a hard frozen layer. It was cold area of high pressure and the skies remained clear so all the sunlight just bounced off the snow and went back into space. The air itself was so cold, the sun was struggling just to make a difference in temperature.
As usual there is a better discussion on realclimate.org.
As I understand it the situation is that the mechanism proposed for sudden climate change by Broecker some 15 years ago (and exaggerated beyond recognition in a silly movie lately) shows some signs of actually occuring. New measurement expeditions have reinforced the evidence in this direction. Though the evidence isn't absolutely conclusive, it's starting to weigh in that direction and the new evidence makes the case stronger. There is well-understood physics at work, but it involves delicate small-scale structures that are hard to capture in global scale models.
Though most scientific opinion expects it won't be enough to trigger a European ice age (unlike the YD event some 11KA ago) it could lead to a great deal more climate variability in our lifetimes especially in Europe and the northern reaches of the Atlantic than has been captured in most climate models, and in the extreme it may even cool Europe a bit as the rest of us get hotter.
mt
Well wouldn't there be lots of glaciers build up all ofer skandinavia?
Wouldn't than need a LOT of Water?
Is the Oceans level going to sink from that?
Is Holland kinda save again?
The mechanism of the tropical storm system was worked out by the Japanese meteorologist K.V.Ooyama in 1964. His great fame apparently hasn't reached you, alas.
The fact that hurricane trajectories are routinely and increasingly effectively predicted by physical models pretty much proves that whatever else they are, tropical storms are not mysterious phenomena.
mt
Hey all this ice age brap is from the rising of the Panama Isthmus. So why not just sink the isthmus a few million tons of dynamite and even nice temperature around the globe.
Hey, Ive seen this movie!....or that southpark :)
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What we really need is to keep our albedo levels higher.
Quickly reduced salinity is also threatening the viability of a number of aquatic species in the area, including those commercial fishing depends upon.
...nuff said.
If you steal this sig, the only people who will profit are professional criminals.
Some people say that the real "global warming" problem has to do with increased energy output from the sun. Good luck stoping that one.
Magnetic Poles May Be About To Flip
Earth's Magnetic Field Weakens 10 Percent
The New York Times On Earth's Magnetic Flip-Flop
Since there's nothing I can do to prevent the change that's coming, I'm getting ready for it. The ride gets bumpier from here on out, until about 2011 or 2012, which is the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar. As I understand it, their calendar cycles back to zero on December 21, 2012. (The universe has an "overflow bug" too!
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
It's pretty clear that a reduced level of global coolness caused by a lack of pirates would result in increasing global temperatures, and we have in fact observed such a predicted upswing in temperatures. It's less clear how factors such as increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, reductions in solar output, or any of the other things driving Earth's natural warming/glaciation cycle might contribute.
do i still have time to get good scuba gear, so i can scuba through mannhaton(sp?)
It's easier to solve a problem if you know what caused the problem.
Let's say I get shot in the liver. I see the gun before me, I know I got shot.
Does that help me know how to properly repair my liver and undo damage caused? Not at all.
If the problem is really the climate is changing is ways we do not like, let's figure out how to alter the cliamte in ways we do. But a basic problem we all have is the climate is not well understood, so it's almost as impossible to come up with a climate "fix" as it is to point to any one thing and proclaim for sure fixing that will also fix climactic change.
I think the earth is spitting on us for hosting such a bunch of whiny know-it-alls, it's trying to get just enough of an ice-age on to wax you and your ilk and then will recede so the rest of us can enjoy our well-reasoned non-alamist utopia.
If you're interested in seeing just how much coastline we would lose, here's a neat little applet...
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
It's easier to solve a problem if you know what caused the problem.
True enough. Problem is that humanity is a long way off from being mature and intelligent enough to determine exactly what sort of climate change to expect, much less the root cause of that change. Does human activity cause climate change? Absolutely. How much and in what way? We have no friggin clue and we wont in any of out lifetimes. This is for a couple of reasons:
1. Humanity's lack of maturity prevents us from putting aside politics and self-interest. We try but in the end out efforts are nearly futile. Our best effort to date many might say is the Kyoto accord and it is doomed to fail. And no, it isn't the fault of the Americans--even if the US signed on it would never work. Why? Because Kyoto is just another political/economic shell game. Developing nations are pretty much exempt from making an effort at reducing CO2 emissions (including 800-pound-gorilla China). I don't care what reasons are behind such exemptions--if we want to affect global change the whole globe must participate. Second of all, there is "selfishness" involved. It is easy enough for the likes of Germany and France to look down their noses at the US and trumpet their wonderful CO2 reductions: France just throws up more nuclear generation and Germany gets to count all those communist-era east-German soot-belching factories in their starting numbers. Then there are nations like Canada, where the infrastructure is already quite modern and efficient for the most part and the cold climate and sparse population make it more difficult to meet targets legitimately--most of those reductions will be met by playing the shell game and trading pollution credits. In the end it means no meaningful impact on climate change.
2. To paraphrase a favourite sci-fi author: "The universe is mind-bogglingly complex". Scientists know almost nothing about the direction of climate change. They have pretty little computer models that make predictions and they can make vague (and often conflicting) pronouncements about the earth heating up or more hurricanes or ice ages and whatnot. In the meantime the good people at Environment Canada cannot even predict the weather two days in advance with any reliability at all. How can we get the "immature public" to buy into a more climate-friendly lifestyle with that kind of track record? The weatherman tells them it'll snow in two days with the accuracy of a coin toss. Big, smart scientists with expensive supercomputers tell us the world is heating up...no wait we are going into an ice age (which was the prevailing theory in the 1970s)...no wait we are heating up (1980s to now)...no wait...the world will heat up a bit, but some places will be really dry and others really wet...no wait...we ARE going to have a sudden ice age...because of global warming melting ice and cooling the oceans....what the hell? Our smartest people cant quite wrap their brains around it much less the general public (I like most others are pretty much mentally retarded on the subject though most like to think theyknow something about it).
I'm sure someone will argue the merits of Kyoto (maybe there are some--I just don't see how it'll change the world meaningfully). Others will argue that science is proving itself now (gee, look at all the hurricanes we had this year--never mind the fact it was only one or two more than the previous record set many decades previously, before we had the technology to spot those that didn't make landfall near civilisation). Thing is, the pronouncements we make and the justifications for Kyotot-like manoeuvring are so vague it is like proving Nostradamus was right.
In the meantime, bandages and maybe a makeshift torniquet is all we have to keep us from bleeding to death in terms of climate change. I figure we should put more emphasis on more concrete, proven environmental factors--like living sustainably (use less energy--get rid of the big old SUVs. Get your lazy ass out of the captain's
Is it just me,or am I the only one who realizes that this is EXACTLY why we need to step up the space program. I want to be off this filthy planet and on some sort of space station or Mars colony, or something. That way, I can laugh at how pathetic the rest of the human race is as they overcrowd AND freeze, whilst I am on a spacious Mars colony, suffering only minor discomfort at the slight chill (which is nowhere near as bad as Earth's mini-Ice Age)
I don't get why posts are limited to 120 characters. Seems unreasonable to me. I mean, just because I like having a real
It's Europe so no Americans will be affected.
> The ocean current that gives western Europe its relatively balmy climate is stuttering, raising fears that it might fail entirely and plunge the continent into a mini ice age.
Yes... if you haven't noticed, from the maximum of 15 cm (6 ") of snow we had over the past... say... 25 years, we've gone to 30 cm (1 foot) of snow now. It's frozen solid now. It's like this all over europe, with power outages and so on for the past 5 days or so.
Ice age still to come?
I say old chap it's a wee bit chilly on the willy.
Even if the gulf stream does change, Europe and the UK will not become as cold as equivalent latitudes in the US, because the gulf stream changing will, curiously enough, not change the position of the Rockies. It is the Rockies that divert warm air to Europe, and make 90% of the temperature difference. So before we all get too excited about this...think about what does what.
By Steve Connor, Science Editor The Independent, 10 February 2003 Generations of schoolchildren have been raised on the belief that the mild British winters and cool summers are due to the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current flowing from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of western Europe. Without the Gulf Stream, our teachers told us, Britain's winters would be as cold and ice-bound as a frozen port in Newfoundland and its summers as hot and stuffy as a Moscow August. But the textbooks have got it wrong, according to scientists who have just finished a study of what makes Western Europe cool in summer and mild in winter. The scientists found that Britain's moderate climate is due not to the Gulf Stream, but to the Rocky Mountains in the western US 4,000 miles away. Using weather data gathered over the past 50 years and powerful computer models to describe how heat is shunted around the globe, they discovered that the contribution of the Gulf Stream was negligible compared with the influence of warm southerly winds originating in the Rockies. These winds, they said, played a big role in explaining why winters in Britain could be anything up to 15C or 20C warmer than the same latitude in eastern North America. "Belief in the benign role of the Gulf Stream is so widespread that is has become folklore," said Richard Seager, the scientist who led the study from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York. The belief that the Gulf Stream is responsible for Britain's mild, maritime climate appears to have originated with the publication in 1856 of a book by Maurice Fontaine Maury, a lieutenant in the American Navy. "One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat from the Gulf of Mexico, where otherwise it would become excessive, and to disperse it in regions beyond the Atlantic for the amelioration of the climates of the British Isles and of all Western Europe," Maury wrote. "This idea is one reason why so much climate research has been focused on the impact of changes in the circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean," Dr Seager said. Several recent studies, for instance, have suggested that global warming might slow down or even stop the Gulf Stream which carries energy equivalent to 27,000 times the total output of all of Britain's power stations so bringing a far more variable continental climate to Western Europe. Dr Seager's study, published in the current issue of the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, suggests that the Gulf Stream accounts for no more than 10 per cent of the winter temperature differences between Britain and Newfoundland, Canada. The scientists found that the real reason for Britain's mild weather was twofold. First, there is a genuine maritime effect of being surrounded by a relatively warm body of water, but this has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream. Second, this maritime influence is bolstered by southwesterly winds bringing a warm air mass from the south. These winds would not blow if the Rockies did not exist, the researchers found. Even without the Gulf Stream, Britain would be bathed in prevailing westerly winds that bring in the warmth stored in the Atlantic Ocean. Water retains summer heat far longer than land, which is why the winter-summer difference in temperature is about 5ÂC over the North Atlantic and yet nearer 50ÂC at the same latitude in Siberia. Dr Seager said his study showed that this phenomenon which was independent of the Gulf Stream accounted for about half of the winter temperature difference between Britain and Newfoundland. The other half, he said, was due to the prevailing winds over the maritime regions of Western Europe--not westerlies, but from the southwest. Those south-westerlies brought additional heat to Western Europe. Their origins could be traced to a massive "meander" in the north-south wind patterns over North America, which was generated by the presence of the Rockies. "One such meander occurs east of the Rocky Mountains and brings cold air into eastern N
mod this post up for responding to Bush hate FUD with at least a fact or two. I can't believe something as whimsical as "thank you Bush for screwing us gets a 4 Infromative and an explaination of the tax laws gets a 1. Even if this is is wrong, at least he talks about the issues and doesn't just spout angst.
Slashdot, your showing your biases big time here.
All the pieces of the ice age puzzle are being put together.. global warming, conveyor belt stopping... next is an ice age. This is troubling to say the least.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
...and so totally vindicates scientists who warned of the consequences of global warming. It is vital people realise that the Earth is no different than an animal with ticks on it's back. We, mankind, are becoming a nuisance by interrupting the slow but effective evolution of this planet into a life sustaining entity. If we mess with things, not through any unseen intelligence, but simply the laws of physics / nature, we will trip the switch. And we have. Oops. But we cannot say we were not warned.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
FTA: There may also have been a slowing of Atlantic circulation during the Little Ice Age, which lasted sporadically from 1300 to about 1850 and created temperatures low enough to freeze the River Thames in London.
If this happened again, could the ice block the Thames Barrier and leave London vulnerable to a tidal surge?
The lead time to protect against this would be many years and the potential cost of the damage immense. If you're a Londoner, how about warning your MP?
... even if Europe does cool, the Health and Safety mafia surely won't allow us to hold any frost fairs nowadays. We'll get cold, but won't be permitted to enjoy it...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
"At first, nobody knew what caused the dam to break, but now, shocking new evidence has indicated that the flood in Beaverton was caused by... global warming! It now appears that... all rumors of global warming were true. We were warned this would happen and ...we didn't listen! We didn't listen!"
move to australia
the only thing on ice here is the beer in the esky
For the tin-hats amongst us, all this climate change is for the benefit of our corporate overlords. Think about it... extremes in weather always cause pensioners to pop their clogs. Here in the UK, we awake in spring to find lots of old biddy popiscles in their front rooms because they haven't been able to afford the heating bills. And when it's hot... well, just look at the cull that happened in France's 2003 heatwave.
...
With neither governments nor corporations able to meet future pension commitments, climate change is a god-send.
Yes, for the humour impaired, its a joke.... well, a half joke.... probably... possibly.
The laws intent was to help rural people, as in farmers. However as with a horrid system of taxes that the US suffers from a loophole was found. The law did not originally specify what "types" of vehicles qualified for the discount. It merely stated over 6,000 pounds. This normally would have been the domain of vehicles used mostly on farms and some small businesses.
It is the tax system which is at fault for most disparities. It allows the rich to dodge payment as they can buy loopholes from Congress. It is their lawyers and lobbyist who work to keep the system in place. By making sure to keep a near majority of people from paying income taxes, and worse actually paying the least capable of those, they have created a system which actually allows them keep more of their wealth. They prey on the middle class and the poor by misdirection and deceit.
All these tax dodges have to get paid for. The usual means is to pass it off to business. why? Because it is easier to portray businesses as evil and uncaring. Trouble is no business actually pays any tax, they are merely collectors for taxes. That is why people don't notice it. When the price of their favorite items goes up they blame the business, ignoring the effects of tax laws and abuse of them and how the resposibility for paying those taxes got mysteriously moved.
Blame Bush is the cheap way out and exactly what these boys want you to do. Blame anyone but the right people and they continue their game unharrassed. Convince people who already distrust whomever is in power to blame those in power is the easiest part of the game.
Fortunately once the abuses were figured out they did get shut down, the new side effect of the internet and such was that people who would not know of the ability to abuse the law suddenly had an abundance of information provided on how to do just that.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Thirteen years means nothing in a world where "climate" is defined as the weather over a thirty year period, which is already completely arbitrary in itself. Various patterns exist that take place over longer periods, including sunspot activity.
Also, is the thirty percent a decrease from some sort of primal mean value? Or perhaps from a peak period with softer weather?
It's impossible to make any meaningful statement on climate and climate variabilities, let alone climate change, without taking all those questionmarks and other factors into account. I'm sure this report will cause another hype amongst environmentalists. So be it. If people want to call a decade of colder winters a "mini ice age", that's fine by me, but I for one will not panic.
renaming the "NorthWest Passage" the "Back Passage" so that China can really shaft America with supertanker sized butt plugs.
This is what international diplomacy should really be about. It will re-energise politics, and for once we will have a question on which all voting morons are actually qualified to have an opinion!
So then which the hell is it then? Global Warming or Ice Age? Make up your frickin minds.
Back in the mid to late 70s, possibly early 1980s, I saw a REALLY REALLY interesting paper on climate that I wish I could find again. It pointed out that we were about to enter (or had entered) a period of NATURAL rapid global warming, which would rapidly lead to the northern icecap shrinking, leading to some artic ocean water mixing with Atlantic and Pacfic waters - which would distrupt this exact current, which would VERY rapidly lead to the next (overdue) Ice Age! The paper was on what causes an Ice Age (NOT on Global warming etc), and it was the ONLY model this guy could come up with that fit
To sum it it - Ice Ages are actually triggered by the global climate getting above a certain temp, and it SUDDENLY changes to cold - almost a sawtooth pattern - and that we are overdue for an Ice Age....
Hummmmmmm
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
i broke the dam
Living in the UK, we had a notable cold spell in the 80s. When I was growing up snow was common during the winters, yet during the late 80s and through most of the 90s it was almost entirely absent. Indeed, the five inches of snow we had earlier this year was the first time I'd seen more than an inch on the ground since early 1997 - there were kids who'd never seen enough snow to build a snowman, or have a decent snowball fight! The November just gone was a below average month temperature wise in the UK, the first one since July 2004. I believe global warming is happening, but damn it - I'd still expect to see a few below average months a year even if temperatures rose a degree or two, but it's a rare event to see a below average month at all these days. The problem has been the jet stream ploughing away to our north, dragging mild air across much of Europe over the past few winters - it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Coincidentally I believe the USA hasn't seen anywhere near as much warming in the last 20 years as Europe has...
Goddam lameness filter.
OK. When I read the New Scientist and Nature (news) articles earlier today it was clear that there is more data, I just didn't understand why it was not available. BTW, these data "points" are from my understanding a transect so lots of data associated with each "point". the parent is talking about why we haven't seen more about this before.
Bitter and proud of it.
Less water the world over. Probably the 2 best countries with fairly good water will be America and Russia. In contrast, China and India (the 2 most populus nations) will have quite a bit less water.
Do you really want to live in a world where two other highly-populated nuclear powers face political instability because of a shortage of water while you apparently still have enough to spare?... How moronic the typical slashdot comments are for climate change. The arrogance is spectacular. I suppose technologists are the last people to understand that there will be no techno-fix for this problem that actually works. As the ice-caps melt, methane (in the form of methyl hydrates) is being released in quantites that dwarf man's production of greenhouse gases. Methane is 500% more effective as a greenhouse gas too. (Cue stupid comments about cows farting etc). This process already appears to be in 'runaway mode' so even curtailing our carbon emissions will not prevent the icecaps from melting (which is causing the 30% slowdown in the gulf stream already). Ultimately this will ruin much of the world's agricultural land and has already caused drought and famine in Africa to devastating effect. It will spread to other continents and we will begin to run short of food - particularly as food production is so dependent on natural gas (methane: the irony!) to produce fertilisers - a declining natural resource. It will affect everyone and is worth thinking about instead of the reflexive denial I see here. So flame away, whatever, I care little about that. But please start thinking with your good brains - it's what they're there for.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
The Hippie Power Squad will save the day
Vegan Hippie will stop cows from belching out methane and filling the atmosphere
Luddite Hippie will end humanity's dependence on electricity
Guitar Jammin Hippie will keep us entertained with informative sing-along jams
It's Hippie Power Squad. YAY!!!
The timing of these doomsday predictions is rather suspicious, with the post-Kyoto greenfest going on in Canada. Treaties like Kyoto cannot manipulate climate in any controlled or favorable way. And they ignore the economic development needs of much of the world that lives in poverty. I hope the US continues to reject these efforts.
an ill wind that blows no good
The sky is falling!
The sky is falling!
Run!
Actually, for every molecule of CO2 added to the system,
you are subtracting one molecule of O2 to the system.
So, humans are running out of oxygen far faster than they need to worry about freezing to death.
The Global drop in available oxygen is under reported, most likely to prevent widespread panic.
The Oceans Primary Oxygen Producting Plankton levels have been dropping radically since the 1980s (they make more than 50% of the oxygen you need) and the green space of trees and plants continually gets reduced by urbanization, suburban sprawl, slash and burn, and ongoing desertification in Africa and elsewhere (They make the rest of your O2).
Reseachers have linked the real cause of mass extinction events not to just some rock falling from the sky, but for the worldwide drop of oxygen from 35 percent down to 15 percent of the atmosphere. The Giant Dinos ran out of air.
With the ongoing death of land plants and primary oxygen producing plankton, VERY few humans will survive the upcoming drop from the current 21 percent oxygen levels down to only 9 percent oxygen levels.
Here are some sources of the biggest coverup in human history: 'The Oxygen is vanishing.':
LONG-TERM ATMOSPHERIC OXYGEN DECREASE
- AN UNDERESTIMATED FACTOR FORCING THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC MASS EXTINCTION.
O. Weidlich (1), W. Kiessling (2) and E. Flügel (3)
(1) Inst. f. Geowissenschaften, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel,
(2) Inst. f. Paläontologie, Museum für Naturkunde Berlin,
(3) Inst. f. Paläontologie, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg (ow@gpi.uni-kiel.de/Fax: +49-431880-5557)
direct link: http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/05406/EAE03-J -05406.pdf
Referenced and Link Located on:
List of Accepted Contributions -
CL32 Phanerozoic history of atmospheric gases (co-sponsored by BG)
EGS-AGU-EUG Joint Assembly. Nice, France, 06 - 11 April 2003
Copernicus Online Service + Information System
http://www.cosis.net/members/meetings/sessions/acc epted_contributions.php?p_id=38&s_id=779
Vulnerability Assessment of the North East Atlantic Shelf Marine Ecoregion to Climate Change
West Coast Energy Limited. Trevor Baker, Project Manager August 2005
World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
Monitoring the Earth from Space with SeaWiFS
http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/TEACHERS/s anctuary_7.html
Decline in Oceans' Phytoplankton Alarms Scientists
David Perlman - SF Chronicle 6oct03
http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Phytoplankton- Decline-Ocean6oct03.htm
Ocean primary production and climate: Global decadal changes
Watson W. Gregg, Laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, USA
I heard on the radio just this morning about this story that scientists do NOT believe this is the effect of Global Warming. But hey, it sure get's those believers stirred up, so who cares about intellectual honesty! This is global science, not objectivity.
For those who read the article, notice that we had just come out of a mini-ice age. Most say it lasted from the mid-1300s to about 1850.
Here's the question: what caused it(it being the forementioned oceanic conveyor), and what caused it to stop(in less than a decade)? The problem is, everyone has a theory and very few agree. Some say it was increased volcanic activity caused it, some say increased salinity of the water, some just don't know.
Those in the volcanic camp say the reason it stopped is the greatly reduced amount of volcanic activity. Here's an example of how volcanoes affect GLOBAL climate. In 1815, the Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted. It was 100 times the magnitude of Mt. St. Helen's in 1980. The amount of ash and sulfur ejected into the atmosphere lowered global temperatures up to 3 degrees C, and caused the "Year without a Summer" in New England(where crops froze during all of the summer months, and there was 6+ inches of snow in June).
This mini-ice age led to numerous important historical events. The French, which in the 1700s, subsisted on cereal grains(wheat, barley, etc). However, in the years prior to 1789, the harvests were meager, due to the colder temperatures. Having no food, and not wanting to learn how to grow potatoes like Germany and Spain did, they decided to riot and steal whatever stores of grains they could find. This lead to the French Revolution. Still in French history, 1812 Napolean has marched his troops into Moscow. However, supply lines being incredibly weak, the cold, harsh Russian winter beats Napolean. Of the 600,000 troops he takes into Russia, less than 4,000 make it out, and less than 1,500 make it back to France. To Irish history, the Irish, unlike the French, learned to grow potatoes. To the Irish, the potato became their staple food, however, they only grew one low maintenance variety called "Lumpers". When the blight came, it was easy for it to propagate, as there only one variety to kill off. Had their been multiple species, the famine wouldn't have been so widespread. So, millions of Irish died due to starvation, and disease.
So, while some of you sit there saying, bring on the snow...remember, all of our civilizations have existed based on expectations. We expect farmers to be able to raise grains, vegetables, meat, cheese-producing animals, etc to feed the rest of us. However, how would we survive if global climates change and once fertile fields dry up(think U.S. Dust Bowls of the 1930s)? We could have world wide food shortages. Imagine if the rice producing areas of China dried up? Then the Chinese would go looking for land/food. The lion would be out of the cage.
Virtually every paper about the atmosphere or environment in the premiere British science journal Nature says their results supports global warming and it will have dire consequences, when in fact that is a long stretch for these papers data. I genrally agree these studies are important, but the politically-correct editorializng has no place in most of these papers.
Although its an interesting result, it is hard to tell from the very short data history in this paper whether this is a natural fluctuation or serious trend. There are several couple decade long cycles in the Atlantic that come and go and this could be one of them. One of themost important cycles is the salinity level about 40 years long as correlated with hurricane activity. Unfortunately for the USA its in its at its peak for the next ten years.
Not long ago I saw a show theorizing that the collapse of Mayan civilization around 820 CE was the result of a severe drought (the scientists in question were examining fossil remains of tiny lakebed creatures that get laid down annually like tree rings) correlated with the loss of this Atlantic conveyor of the Gulf Stream. IIRC, there were periods of severe winters in Scandinavia, but the recorded severe winters in Europe with sometime in the 1400's. Not sure if the historical records of severe European winters went back to the 800s.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Until someone blames George W. Bush for this? Come on, you know it's going to happen sooner or later. I mean, there were certain leaders of certain countries that will remain nameless that blamed him for Hurricane Katrina existing... So I can't see how this won't be blamed on him somehow too...
Before you spew vitriol at Bush and America perhaps you would like to know that American greenhouse gas emissions had gone down by 0.8 percent under Bush"
Although some European countries have managed to reduce their emmissions, most have *not* met their targets and only the UK has exceeded its targeted cuts. In fact, "Eleven have reported increases since 1990, with huge rises seen in Spain (41.7 pct), Portugal (36.7 pct), Greece (25.8 pct), Ireland (25.6 pct), Finland (21.5 pct) and Austria (16.5 pct)" as reported at Forbes
So perhaps you should try talking to your European brothers living in glass houses in Spain and Ireland before you start casting rocks at the US. Making promises in a treaty is nice, but not keeping them yourself and then critizing those who never made the promise in the first place is hypocrisy of the worst sort.
This story shows that someone did watch the movie "The day after tomorrow".
What's the big deal? It happens before and it will happen again, every 700 years we have mini ice age.
Oddly, I happened to have read the Wikipedia article on Extinction Events recently, and was intrigued. I see myself as fairly well educated, engineering degree and all that, and always curious about science. However, I'd always assumed that extinction events were the result of drastic sudden changes, or catastrophic events, such as meteors and the like.
But not only is that not necessarily the case, extinction events are apparently much more common than I'd ever imagined. It put a different perspective on things, and I think most people are completely unawares that extinctions aren't the end of the world, or Earthly Life... only the end of certain types of it. There's a long history of it happening without human existence, so why is it that we think it shouldn't happen when we're alive?
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Canada? Huh? I live smack in the middle of the continent. Almost nothing the currents in the Atlantic do will change my climate. There is a reason why it is called Continential Climate. It is cold in winter and hot in summer. Global warming will make it warmer.
East coast of Canada? Like Newfoundland? Well, right now they get the cold currents from Arctic right by there. Their climate will not change too much unless the temp will go up. As for Nova Scotia (little south), well, their climate might cool very slightly.
For the west coast, well, not sure. They have a rain forest there - a microclimate. Not sure how balanced that is, but it depends on ocean currents and the mountains (the latter will not change).
So Canada should be ok.
As for Europe, well, England gets as much heat from the Sun as they do from the North Atlantic current. Their winter temps are around 0C whereas Newfoundland (same laditude in Canada) is around -20C. When the North Atlantic current shuts down, England's temps will most likely drop to that of Newfoundland. Same for other northern parts of Europe.
So Europe will become more like Canada. Cold in the winter. Hot in the summer.
Thats my 2
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
If the Gulf Stream is slowing, bringing less warm water to the North Atlantic, wouldn't it also be bringing less cold water back down to the equator? And not carrying warm water away as fast? In which case we get warmer equatorial seas, and stronger hurricanes. Hmmm...
"Debugging" by Dave Agans - the perfect gift for your favorite imperfect engineer.
Yes, environment is important so don't shoot me. But seriously. First it was El-Nino, then La Nina (or however that stuffs spelled). Bad snow, bad heat, hurricanes, no hurricanes, hurricanes again. We already have a word for this. I like to call it weather.
1. Kyoto doesn't apply to non-industrialized nations, therfore their "economic development needs" are not affected.
2. It's already been pointed out that simple volcanic erruptions, localized to a single area can have a lasting effect on the world's climate. To suggest that effects of the world's sustained economic production do not (as is the Bush Administration's posistion) is simply ludicrous.
You beat me to the punch. Thanks for posting.
Won't that contribute to more global warming? Of course, it might help to keep the glaciers at bay for a couple of minutes.
. . . why would global warming lead to ice ages? And wouldn't the ice ages solve the global warming problem i.e. stop the warming? and if we can warm the planet, then wouldn't we be able to warm ourselves out of the ice age?
Moderation -2
100% Redundant
Redundant to what? Some other post not available when I replied? Certainly not anything in the summary to which I replied. And where is another post making my point, that the existence of a movie about catastrophic climate change doesn't contradict the reality of that catastrophe?
--
make install -not war
> the Younger Dryas cold episode, which chilled the North Atlantic region from 11,000 to 10,000 yr BP.
... glacial ... speed , but still:
:-)
Yeah, I know this answer got written at
during "the episode" there was about 1,5 to 2 MILES of ice over Scandinavia. If that happens again, clearing up the snow and ice from my driveway would be "a chore".
Now I'm going to chil- no, wait- to cool dow... darn.
Either:
We don't really have a crisis yet, now do we, let's be sensible here, you're doing too much modelling on not enough data, let's gather more evidence implementing those measures have real economic costs.
OR
It's too late now, such small baby steps that take decades to take affects cannot save us, we're all doomed.
Most posters on Slashdot threads have moved from "too early" to "too late" on global warming in the last year. Sigh.
Minor point on energy consumption-- I think a lot of Europeans don't realize the high and low temperatures experienced in the US. For the most populated areas, EU climate is mild and therefore heating/cooling requires less energy. Side comment-- I was reading a totally unrelated article in Outside magazine about sailing near Alaska. They described shipping lanes that existed through the arctic 150 years and made a point to mention that no ice crushing shipping were around then. The climate was warm enough that ships could pass. That's not true today, yet when we hear that arctic ice may be disappearing it's seen as a global calamity. Really? I have to wonder if that's really the case. Was there man-made global warming back then?
I am not going to eat gruel for your idea of what might improve the planet. The fact that I think you and your ilk are full of crap about humanity's impact on the environment is immaterial. Bottom line, people fought and died many times over in this country for the freedom to live as they would, based on capitalist principles and liberty. I would rather shoot you and those that think like you, to be honest, than live in your eco-friendly misery, and when the time comes we may well have to.
I personally think, however, that most of you idiots will grow out of your stupidity and realize it for what it was later. It's only the really dumbass ones that preserve their Marxism into middle age. Only the young and/or very naive worry very much about the national debt or global warming. Listening to you idiots gets tiresome, though.
http://www.newpath4.com/WorldwideClimateEngineMsg. htm has a few answers for you.
Good post, Thwacks. I'm glad you're prepared. I have a few answers for you, & scientists all across Europe & America are looking at my pages right now: http://www.newpath4.com/WorldwideClimateEngineMsg. htm .
There's a name for what you are saying-- the "Precautionary Principle." It's complete and utter bullshit. Our ancestors would laugh themselves sick at such a pitiful, pantywaist outlook on life. If they had lived their lives this way, we would have never tamed fire, much less discovered vaccination or flown into space.
People, if you buy into the Precautionary Principle, you are unworthy to be a member of the human species. Go jump off a bridge, before the chaotic turbulence of one of your farts causes a hurricane and kills ten thousand people. You never know! It just might! Better to stop farting forever than take the chance!
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Right on... and don't forget to think about the energy it takes to produce the products and situations you make decisions about. Yes, you can buy an "energy efficient" refrigerator, but don't forget about the manufacturing and distribution costs (in energy, which is not adequately reflected in price).
Best place I ever lived had a refrigerator made out of a cooler. Filtered gravity-feed water line (from nearby stream) comes in through a hole, does a few circuits in copper pipe, goes back out. Wipe it down once a week (five minutes) for the condensation and no problems... and no need for supplemental energy input.
What we need is more people thinking every day.
[|]
Note to Clint Slashbotwood - we're not cavemen! Yes, a classic Slashbot tough guy - doesn't like that we have to take the precaution of testing medicines before he takes them, or cars before he drives. Our ancestors would have been pretty goddamn psyched if they could be sure that what they ate wasn't gonna give them tuberculosis, even if that did make them "pantywaists".
Let's just deploy this untested application as it is, cause neither we nor our users would want to be accused of being pantywaists. You're brilliant, dude. Remind me to hire you to manage FEMA.
Look. I've been waiting for one simple response from you. Name the country that is not putting oil into the supply line, the country that the west can invade to "secure exclusive access" and bring down oil prices. You haven't. I don't know why since that's the crux of your stated argument.
You also seem to ignore the fact that the resulting political instability would inflate oil prices regardless of supply.
I also didn't say I had proven something. I wrote, "I already demonstrated that there is no oil being kept out of the supply line." Since you apparently think that's untrue, please provide your counterexamples. The logical burden is on you since you're asserting a positive.
>There
>are large amounts of oil that haven't
>been tapped yet.
I don't see how that supports your claim about invasions.
That quote is also not at odds with anything I've said. IN FACT, *I* am the one who wrote, "The best argument you can make is that increas[ing] prices will motivate oil companies to find new sources of oil which will increase daily world supply thus keeping prices down."
Thanks for clearing that up! Just go ahead and keep adding layers to your scenario to the point that it's so hypothetical, I can't imagine why you brought it up. Now there has to be some kind of hypothetical climate change event, either a much hotter planet, or a mini ice age, or increasing sea levels, or no increase in sea level, or just people freaking out about what might happen, plus there will be an oil shortage, and countries withholding oil from the US whereupon those countries will be invaded, oil seized, and somehow brought back to the US. Whew!!!
On second thought, I should never have you taken your claims seriously in the first place. Your cynical first posting enumerates conflicting theories about the future, and all of these predictions are simultaneously supported by your one premise? WOW THAT'S AMAZING! If bet on every horse, you're bound to win, eh?
It's hilarious you think *my* comments are the ones that are "unsupported, silly theories" and a "naive" "scenario [which] isn't going to work out." You're really at odds with yourself. I try to challenge very specific points, and you totally avoid them, taking an ad hominem approach instead. Then the funniest thing is that you scold me for being pedantic in a debate, when you're completely obtuse. Good luck with that.
It's the precautionary principle crowd who are the extremists, not me. The advance of civilization depends on trading off one set of risks and benefits against another.
The PP nuts reject all trade-offs and demand that all societal progress come to a complete halt until perfect safety and stability can be assured. This is madness, the ideology of the graveyard. But it is music to the ears of government bureaucrats and environmental hysterics.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
1. Yep, you were still trolled. The fact that I've been right all along has just made the troll much more delicious for me.
2. Your pet scenario is still stupid and trite, and totally unrealistic for all the reasons I've been going over again (and again, and again -- boy, you're thick).
3. I can keep going forever, like the energizer bunny of passive aggression, trolling you endlessly. I'm amused. Are you amused?
Tag, you're it, my little trout sniffer!
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Are you in love with me?
You only think they love you.
Looks like you're the pudgy bowl cut with triple thick glasses and stubby fingers. Look, Eugene, it's not MY fault your parents don't love you and nobody wants to cook you delicious foods. Hell, I feel for ya, buddy! If I thought you knew how to eat with silverware, I'd even invite you over for something tasty. Sadly, I think you're culturally limited to finger foods, and my delightful family doesn't keep cheetos in stock.
Don't worry. Perhaps you'll be spending the holidays alone, trapped in your basement hovel, banging on keyboards desperately trying to "score", but there are worse fates. Why, you could be a bitter slashdotter, pathetically trying to insult the family life of someone who turned out to be much smarter than you... Oh, wait...
Well, still, there's no need to kill yourself. I'm sure a vasectomy would benefit society equally, and you ARE providing a service in a way. You ARE extremely amusing, after all.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Are you so upset because I've right about everything from the start?
But, my dear cheeto-fingered competitor! I am NOT angry with you!
In fact, much to the contrary, I'm finding you terrifically amusing! But I do wish you would quit with the one-liners. It feels as though you're not even TRYING. They're so dull. And you're even screwing up your grammar. It seems like you're missing a "been" there somewhere.
Tsk, tsk. You're just not up to snuff, my fellow slashdotter!
But perhaps I can motivate you with a poem!
There once was a slashdotter named rrgg,
whose bladder was tied to his speech,
he'd whip up a rant,
and once it was sent,
in his pants the poor devil would pee!
Isn't that cute??? Now you try. It'll be more interesting than those stale one-liners.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Congrats! You've provided an incredibly efficient yield for several days now. With just a few words from me, you'd repeatedly respond with an upsetting page or more. What a beautiful harvest it's been. You have been trolled. Touché.
Ah, but it was a mututal troll! So I guess we're going to have a baby troll soon? When are you expecting?
By the way, what exactly did you find upsetting about my posts? I thought they were rather charming...
You DO know that these public forums are pure BS, don't you? And "not to be taken seriously"?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
My dear rrgg, you just aren't putting anything into this relationship. I do believe I shall have to leave you, and seek satisfaction elsewhere. Although I will miss you, and will think of you fondly, I must bid you "adieu".
Farewell!
(Weeping quietly, folds a parasol and boards a steamship).
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!