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Could Global Warming Make Life on Earth Better?
mikee805 writes "A lengthy article in Spiegel explores the possibility that global warming might make life on Earth better, not just for humans, but all species. The article argues that 'worst-case scenarios' are often the result of inaccurate simulations made in the 1980s. While climate change is a reality, as far as the article is concerned, some planning and forethought may mean that more benefits than drawbacks will result from higher temperatures. From the article:'The medical benefits of higher average temperatures have also been ignored. According to Richard Tol, an environmental economist, "warming temperatures will mean that in 2050 there will be about 40,000 fewer deaths in Germany attributable to cold-related illnesses like the flu." Another widespread fear about global warming -- that it will cause super-storms that could devastate towns and villages with unprecedented fury -- also appears to be unfounded. Current long-term simulations, at any rate, do not suggest that such a trend will in fact materialize.'"
Hate to tell you, but you can get the flu in summer. But all that aside, people die every year here in Texas because of the heat.
The documentary wasn't broadcast by the BBC. It was broadcast by Channel4 (known for more controversial and speculative content). Many of the scientists interviewed in that programme have since complained that they were grossly mis-represented in it.
It's still an interesting programme though.
Vostok ice core data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/ vostok/vostok.html
/ molspec/irspec1.htm
/ warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm
CO2 concentrations over the last 600000 years: http://www.realclimate.org/epica.jpg
Sadly, I can't find the graph that superposes the temperature record over the CO2 record. I'm sure another 30 minutes of googling for it will yield it.
The spike is over the last 150 years or so, and basic modeling techniques show you that it is abnormal. All your questions can be answered by looking through the two graphs I provided you.
Alright, I exaggerated when I said that our CO2 output dwarfs all natural emissions. You're right, that's probably wrong. However, our emissions are currently not being absorbed as fast as they are generated, and total concentrations are rising quite nicely. That's the key part - we are putting stuff into the regular cycle that doesn't get absorbed.
I know you don't think that it's affecting the earth. You still haven't given a reason why, despite the well known physics of infrared absorption, which are described quite nicely here: http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/hwb/chemistry/tutorials
The data about CO2 affecting infrared radiation from earth can be found here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142, and at the Wikipedia article about greenhouse gases. If you object to the sources, you can always check the referenced literature.
I've got plenty of data. I can pull data for days. Where's yours? Where's your peer reviewed article? All you have is a few people who had to get a BBC documentary made, because people kept laughing at their theories and wouldn't bother publishing their papers. BTW, I've seen the BBC documentary - the data referenced in there, as well as the analysis thereof, has been widely discredited. For something real, read the IPCC reports: start here (http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/pub.htm), and don't stop until the end. Then come back.
Oh, and just for the heck of it, because I like Woods Hole and a friend of mine worked there, here's a little summary they threw together about the CO2 data collected: http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications
Again - where's your data?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Disclaimer: I have a PhD in meteorology. While paleoclimatology and climate change are not my research areas, I am fascinated by climate change and try to keep up on the research.
I naively thought once the IPCC report came out these types of "debates" about climate change would end. I was wrong. If anything, the naysayers are louder than ever.
I have read the Summary for Policymakers (and actually used it as a teaching tool in my numerical weather prediction undergraduate class). Have you? It's written at a relatively non-scientific level (hey, it's for politicians after all) but is very, very clear.
The results of this international (intergovernmental) exhaustive literature review? Humans are very likely (90%) responsible for the bulk of observed global warming.
That's it. Plain and simple.
Yet, no other topic in the world brings out the armchair scientists more than global warming. It's a frustrating phenomenon for me as a scientist. It's sort of like being an oncologist dealing with a chronic smoker who blames his lung cancer on some genetic anomaly, or living 50 miles away from a nuclear power plant, rather than the bloody obvious fact that smoking two packs of cigarettes for 40 years just might have something to do with the cancer.
This is science, not faith. Just about every climate change doubter starts his sentence with "I don't believe humans cause global warming because..." or "I don't believe in global warming." This clearly demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of the scientific process. Belief has nothing to do with it. It's about physics, meteorology, climatology, astronomy, biology, oceanography, chemistry etc., all of which rely on the peer-reviewed scientific process to further our understanding of the physical world.
I challenge any of the naysayers to do a little research of their own, not simply rely on cherry picking viewpoints which align with their own. It's sort of like a game, holding up their "most credible scientist" as a shield, challenging me to do the same. Never mind the fact that my "army" of scientists is about three orders of magnitude greater than their own... but I digress...
The very least anyone should do before arguing against... or for... anthropogenic climate change is to pick up an undergraduate meteorology textbook and opening up to (usually) chapter 3, the chapter on heat transfer. The section on radiation is the most crucial one. Read about blackbody radiation. The solar spectrum and the terrestrial spectrum are a function of their temperatures. Because the Earth is much colder than than the sun, it emits in the infrared (longer wavelength than visible light etc. from the sun).
Then read about greenhouse gases, those by-and-large trace gases which exist in our atmosphere. Understand how they respond to longwave and shortwave radiation. A little light bulb should eventually go on over your head when you realize "oh, so *that's* why the Earth is habitable." You see, without these trace gases (CO2, H20, CH4) the earth would be in a deep freeze - estimated at about 50 degrees F colder global average temperature.
Once you make it that far, you're almost there. Realize that humans are responsible for increasing atmospheric CO2 levels from preindustrial levels of 280 ppm to a modern day value of 380 ppm, an increase of over 30%. It takes very little stretch to realize that this would lead to a shift in the radiative equilibrium temperature of the earth (related to the global average temperature).
You see, this is really easy science. There is NO REASON TO ASSUME that CO2 values increasing the way they have would NOT lead to an increase in global average temperature!! This is exactly what we'd expect! And this doesn't even involve the scary discussion of feedbacks (water vapor feedback, snow/ice albedo feedback) which may accelerate the warming.
And that's just the back of the envelope part. Yes, there are still unknowns. Not, it's not the sun (we've checked into that if you can believe it). No, it's n
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
"I'd rather get the flu than dengue fever, yellow fever, viral encephalitis, malaria, and a whole host of other tropical diseases."
Smile when you say that. Most flus over the past few decades have been fairly mild. But there is always the possibility that a new flu (such as the much bruited avian influenza A (H5N1)) could create a new pandemic as deadly as the 1918 out-break, which killed more than 600,000 here in the US.
Of course, flus are not caused by cold weather, they are caused by viruses, many of which originate in south-east Asia which is tropical or semi-tropical. That in turn is not a result of climate, but of the poverty and which in turn leads to close contact between humans and farm animals that serve as the reservoirs of infectious viruses.
The reason that flus spread in the winter in the northern hemisphere is that winter leads to close human contact in schools, offices, and shopping malls that allow the viruses to be transmitted between infected and uninfected human hosts. Flu pandemics are not caused by weather.
Similarly, the tropical diseases you mention are not truly tropical. They are transmitted by insects (mostly mosquitoes) that thrive in water. The reason that they are largely found in the tropics now is that the tropics are largely poor and dominated by bad governments. In Europe and North America public works of sanitation, drainage and insect extermination have largely eliminated these diseases, and they could in the tropics, if they were used.
These are not really climate issues.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Get your numbers right (don't take them from obscure global warming sceptics' sites, for starters). You're confusing the oceans' (and land masses') total CO2 emissions (which are indeed much higher than ours) with the ocean's *net* CO2 emissions (which are *negative* -- the oceans currently absorb more than they emit, slowing the CO2 level increase in the atmosphere -- CO2 concentrations in the oceans are rising, all measurements show that). The CO2 concentration in the air is higher today than it was in the last 600,000 years or more, we also have direct evidence (carbon isotopes) that much of the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from fossil fuel burning, and if you want, you can take the total amount of CO2 released into the air since 1800, divide it by the total number of molecules in the atmosphere and see for yourself that the current CO2 concentration is not a "thing much bigger than we are". About one in three CO2 molecules in the atmosphere originates from human activities, there is no scientific dispute about that.
There is a definite link between being cold and having a cold.
...A study at the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff UK in 2005 took 90 students and chilled their feet in cold water for 20 minutes and showed that the chilled group had twice as many colds over the next 5 days as a control group of 90 students whose feet were not chilled....
From the University of Cardiff's website:
Here's the media release.
Basically being cold allows any virus that you already have to take a stronger hold on your body and so symptoms that you wouldn't have had become expressed. You are close in thinking that the immune system is weakened but you certainly don't need to be hypothermic, you just have to have the virus present in your nose already.
See; your Mother was right!
I wonder what else she got right?...you do have clean underwear on don't you?