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Global CO2 Concentration Passes Threshold of 400 ppm -- and That's Bad for the Climate (time.com)
The average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere hit the symbolic level of 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 2015 and has continued to surge in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization. From a report on Time:Scientists say humans may need to take some carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to stop global warming. The carbon dioxide concentration is unlikely to dip below the 400 ppm mark for at least several decades, even with aggressive efforts to reduce global carbon emissions, according to the WMO report, which confirms similar findings reported last month. Carbon dioxide can last in the atmosphere for thousands of years without efforts to remove it. "The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, referring to the landmark Paris Agreement to address climate change. "The real elephant in the room is carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years and in the oceans for even longer."
Cue the people who can't tell "cue" from "queue". As usual.
People need to realize that the effects of global warming are at this point unstoppable. No conservation effort and certainly no carbon dioxide removal program could possibly show an effect for decades. At which point the damage will already be done. Money would be much better spent preparing for sea level rise etc than trying to prevent it.
Not to be a downer but the number of people killed by famine, drought, sea level rise, etc will probably be more effective at curbing CO2 output than any policy measures.
Just going to note that here's what this means in terms of how the global average temperatures have been changing, and how rapidly so compared to the past:
http://xkcd.com/1732/
What about not putting it there in the first place? THEN we can start thinking about removing it from the atmosphere. It takes far more energy to take CO2 out of the atmosphere than to not put it there.
Rising sea levels will be gradual and we have plenty of time to cope with them. Aside from the climate change aspect the more immediate problem is acidifcation and warming of the sea which has already killed off a quarter of the barrier reef and is having serious effects elsewhere with plankton. If the ocean food chain starts collapsing from the bottom up we're in deep deep shit and thats before you consider the reduction of fish stocks by overfishing and the destruction of the ocean floor by drag net trawling.
Since anthropomorphic climate change is settled science, and everyone is in agreement that climate change is largely caused by Co2, then this is clearly impossible. That would mean that either that the human race is suicidal, or they really don't believe in anthropomorphic climate change at all. For example the EU has been increasing their CO2 output every year. Why is that?
Here's the reality: no one cares anymore except, of course, the people whose grant funding is at risk. Most people are sick of being preached to on this subject.
We just see it as a round number because we use base 10.
So it is actually nothing special.about 400. It is all numerology crap/superstition.
If we instead of 10 fingers, only had 7 fingers, the number would be ... Oh crap ... 400 in base 7 is actually 1111.
The world will end.
"The real elephant in the room is carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years and in the oceans for even longer." The REAL elephant(s) in the room is: 1. Are there any solutions that are REALISTIC. And what I mean by realistic is not hoping that everybody comes together holds hands and voluntarily gives up 5-10% of GDP. 2. Are there any solutions where people don't suspect that the solutions are merely a submarine attempt to consolidate power under aegis of power consolidation among elites. You have to solve these problems. There are MANY People who simply don't trust "authority" to do anything other than screw them over. Climate change is a real problem. Let's see some real solutions other than crossing your fingers that some international body of politicians is going to do the right thing (which means fixing it without a power grab), because if THAT is the solution we are all SCREWED.
Just going to note that here's what this means in terms of how the global average temperatures have been changing, and how rapidly so compared to the past:
http://xkcd.com/1732/
Here's a link to the actual paper the xkcd graph is derived from.
Before drawing conclusions from the graph trend starting at the year 1900, read the journal article more closely. Specifically the part where it notes that the trend from 1900 onwards is graphing the instrumental record, while the period before 1900 is from their proxy reconstruction. As in, before leaping up and declaring human industrial era began at 1900, also note that the SOURCE OF DATA changed at 1900 too.
I don't see the point in posting anything climate-related on slashdot. It's all one big denialist echo chamber.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The math of climate change is fairly straightforward. CO2 and methane in the atmosphere cause more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere and oceans. There's a certain amount of carbon that was stored underground over millions of years in the form of oil and coal. That carbon was slowly extracted from the atmosphere by plants over the course of 500 million years and stored underground. During that time, the planet's temperature went up and down for various reasons 1) Earth's orbit and distance from the sun 2) volcanic activity releasing CO2 3) aerosols reflecting light back into space 4) the reflectivity of the surface of the earth from accumulation of snow or melting of snow during those other changes 5) sudden die off or surge of plant life 6) other reasons.
The rate of change for temperature and CO2 levels during all of those changes was gradual, with the changes taking place over thousands or millions of years. When CO2 was released in previous times, it was gradual. What's different about the current climate is that humans have raised the CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 140% in 200 years (280ppm to 400pm). That rate is way faster than any natural change in the history of the planet. That rate is what is so significant about human caused release of CO2 into the atmosphere. There are simply no natural factors to compare the methodical migration of carbon from the ground into the atmosphere.
So, yes this is significant.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
There is no concentration of any particular gas in the atmosphere that is 'good' or 'bad' for the climate. The climate doesn't care one way or the other, it simply is. Good or bad for US, that's a different matter.
From the IPCC's first assessment report from 25 years ago we were supposed to hit this point by 2010. Look for the graph in chapter 1 where CO2 concentrations are graphed for various scenarios. The scenario with human emissions increasing every year by 2% hits 400ppm in 2010.
On the whole, that's not a terrible estimation though given the limits folks were working under back then. Doesn't sound as scary though in the papers to declare that we are about 6 years behind early estimates of when we'd hit this point...
This was from a month ago.
http://www.climatecentral.org/...
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Great argument against globalization and trade treaties, isn't it! You think China won't get on-board if their major market might disappear due to their manufacturing practices?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
There is no "threshold" at 400ppm; it's just an arbitrary number. In terms of earth's climate history, global CO2 concentrations can go above 1000ppm and we're still fine; arguably, we'd actually be better off. None of that matters, though, because...
It's not "unlikely to dip below the 400 ppm mark", it is impossible for it to dip below the 400 ppm mark for decades even if every human on the planet killed themselves tomorrow. No amount of mitigation or climate change policy or taxes or international treaties is going to change that. And the policies that are being negotiated and proposed are utterly useless; they won't even significantly slow the increase. That's why people who advocate governmental action on climate change are liars and crooks.
Get used to it: the only option we have for dealing with climate change is that humans adapt to it. You can be an optimist about it (like myself) or a pessimist.
But you are a climate change denier if you deny that climate change is inevitable at this point.
It's getting way too cold here - I like the (sub) tropical climate that is natural for this planet most of its life and I really hate this aftermath of the destructive ice age we are slowly leaving.
If by that you mean that your dogma hasn't managed to silence all dissent, I consider that a good thing. If you want a place where no one ever doubts the "experts", go somewhere else and the cynics of Slashdot will not chase you down to interfere with your rituals. However, when you bring your dogma here and pretend that people who work in fields of programming, science and physics should abandon all their education and knowledge of the subject matter to join your cult, you should expect resistance.
The insurance industry isn't panicking, but it's building the effects into policies; whether it much more expensive flood insurance (if you can get it), or just general increases in premiums.
Just because it's not yet a panic-worthy problem, doesn't mean it isn't a serious problem, or that for some people it already is panic-worthy, or will be soon.
When the North American rain belt starts shifting several degrees latitude northward, I think you may find reason to be concerned.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit World Ending, Glaciers Melting, Seas Rising,
You're correct, glaciers are melting, seas are rising, and the world certainly is ending for some species and even countries.
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
You have that correct.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Its been interesting to watch the climate debate over the years. The talk has always been about reducing emissions and economic measures. If remediation (and clean energy) had been tackled with the kinds of efforts that won WW2 and put a man on the moon, this problem would be orders of magnitude less now (plus my cellphone charge would last weeks and I'd like that.) Instead "climate change" became all about economic rebalancing and geopolitical issues. We already have technologies that would deal with a lot of the CO2 in the atmosphere but they typically need energy and without clean energy (solar, wind, tidal, nuclear, etc) to power them, they don't do much. Now no one is willing to divert the massive amounts of money needed because that might interfere with the bread & circuses everyone wants.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
If CO2 is 'the elephant in the room' , then methane is the Tyrannosaurus' !! ...
At over 20x's the hot-house effect of CO2 and with uncountable tons potentially releasable from the sea-bottom and the warming tundra, methane , not CO2, will end earth as we know it.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
As others have pointed out, people here are not keen on following cult like behavior.
Shouting about global warming is just noise, if you want support, tell us want you want to be done instead.
Most likely your suggestions will be shot down immediately because they are either inefficient or they make matters worse.
Some of your suggestions will likely have very little to do with global warming and rather serve some other political agenda.
If you actually manage to suggest something that would help with solving the issue they you might be surprised that several people will chime in with support or improvements.
You want to reduce carbon in the atmosphere? Preserving rain-forests doesn't help as much as hippies would like you to think since they are mostly carbon neutral.
If you want to get that carbon away you need to dig it down. Stop recycling paper and start dumping it in landfills. Plant new trees to create more paper and keep digging the used paper down.
The green political side will scream bloody murder since it goes against everything they have worked for and the recycling industry will lobby to have you stopped but it will do a lot more to reduce carbon in the atmosphere than protesting against nuclear power ever will.
Bringing a new nuclear plant online safely takes decades, and decomissioning one takes even longer if you include its nuclear waste. Nuclear is not an agile solution. This won't change in the near future, or perhaps not at all until "nuclear" becomes synonymous with fusion, not fission like today.
Nuclear is also an extraordinarily expensive technology which limits its uptake to only the more afluent of nations. Furthermore it is highly regulated for very good reason, and the politics of nuclear power again limit its global uptake. If we have to rely on nuclear to get us out of the CO2 mess then we are doomed, because it's a global problem.
But we don't have to rely on nuclear, we can just stop burning fossil fuels, and stop using so much energy overall. It would require an immense social adjustment to achieve this, but it has no roadblocks other than making people care enough to do it.
The main showstopper to controlling our current destruction of the planet is profit-seeking capitalism, because it would die in the absence of perpetual growth. Nobody has yet come up with a solution for dealing with that.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Anybody with a three-figure IQ knows Trump has no intention of walking away from those treaties. If America was stupid enough to elect him, they'd find out fast enough that he would do nothing more than sputter and squeal in fake outrage at the way the other branches of government were tying his hands. Then he'd get down to the business of turning the US government over to his buddy Putin.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Carbon dioxide can last in the atmosphere for thousands of years without efforts to remove it.
What does that even mean? Besides being a handy quote to invoke panic in math and science illiterates.
Carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere until some process removes it. The amount is based upon the difference in production vs consumption. Atmospheric CO2 varies seasonally due to differences in the amount of plant respiration between the northern and southern hemispheres. This is evident in the sawtooth superimposed on the long term trend. This means that CO2 concentrations will respond quickly to changes in production/consumption rates. There is no 'thousand year' lag.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's bad for the living things that rely on the current climate.
I learned this in grade school. CO2 is plant food required for photosynthesis. There are books at the library that describe elevating CO2 levels to encourage accelerated plant growth. If you believe in evolution, then discovering things are evolving should be an acceptable conclusion. With the growing population and our shared aversion to wars (which are very successful at culling the herd) we need to be able to grow more food. Sounds like a win win to me!
Actually the statement "Queue the world ending in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... " isn't an incorrect statement, it just doesn't mean what the OP thinks it does or meant to say.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
well, thats because intelligent people come here
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
What's most sad about the AGW propaganda is how CO2 is made out to be some kind of monster.
A reminder that CO2 in excess causes plant life to flourish, which is beneficial to all life on earth.
The whole point of claiming CO2 was bad was that it was supposed to cause runaway warming. But we know from decades now of high CO2 without correspondingly large temperature rise, that is simply not the case. The Earth's climate is a lot more complex than CO2 in a bell jar...
Instead of being alarmed at the possibly of 2C rise in temperatures, we should be rejoicing. If we are REALLY REALLY lucky, we may be able to maintain the level of CO2 such that we would not enter another ice age... but I'm pretty sure emissions will go down enough over 100 years we will not be that lucky. It's just sad that people would push against something that is such a boon to humanity just because a handful of people want to get rich and powerful from your fear.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just keep on pushing the hoax. By the way - are you a dupe, or do you get paid for this?
The irony in your constant projection never ceases to amaze.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I am not surprised that the concentration passed the threshold. I see people who sit in their idling cars who don't appear to be doing anything at all. Parked normally, in a busy (i.e. safe) parking lot, with nice weather, thus no need for AC or heat. I see people who start their big trucks up so they can charge their phones, because, otherwise, they'd have to go 5 minutes without a social media update. I see people who are at the gas station and are pumping gas to their car, which means their car is not going ANYWHERE for the duration of the fill-up, with the vehicle idling.
Please tell me where you see people filling their tanks with the engine running.
I see all these dumb people who think they must let the car idle because they are in the car and it would be a sin for the car to not be running if there is someone inside the car. It doesn't make any sense.
Of course, someone will reply to say that cars aren't contributing that much. Look up what part of the CO2 output now comes from cars. They've become the main source, according to at least one source. The person that replies so will probably also claim humans aren't doing anything that causes warming to begin with. Which means their reply is pointless.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Preserving rain-forests doesn't help as much as hippies would like you to think since they are mostly carbon neutral.
See? That's one of those misconceptions floating around. Yes, rain-forests are mostly carbon neutral. But your conclusion is wrong nevertheless. Because while rain-forests are mostly carbon neutral, cutting them down isn't. Each piece of organic matter that is destroyed adds to the carbon foot print, as long as it is not replaced by a piece of organic matter of the same size.
In the last ten years or so, many of the leading environmentalists have started to come to support nuclear power. They've realized that if it weren't for their opposition, nuclear would have replaced coal years ago.
Some elder statesmen of the environmental movement from the 1970s have even acknowledged that they messed up when with they exaggerated risks of nuclear. They've admitted they purposely bred confusion long half-cycle waste, which releases a very small bit of energy each year and therefore lasts long period of time, versus short half-life, which releases energy quickly. It's like the difference between gun powder, which releases energy quickly and is therefore dangerous versus a candle, which releases energy slowly and therefore lasts a long time.
The math of climate change is fairly straightforward. CO2 and methane in the atmosphere cause more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere and oceans. There's a certain amount of carbon that was stored underground over millions of years in the form of oil and coal. That carbon was slowly extracted from the atmosphere by plants over the course of 500 million years and stored underground. During that time, the planet's temperature went up and down for various reasons 1) Earth's orbit and distance from the sun 2) volcanic activity releasing CO2 3) aerosols reflecting light back into space 4) the reflectivity of the surface of the earth from accumulation of snow or melting of snow during those other changes 5) sudden die off or surge of plant life 6) other reasons.
The rate of change for temperature and CO2 levels during all of those changes was gradual, with the changes taking place over thousands or millions of years. When CO2 was released in previous times, it was gradual. What's different about the current climate is that humans have raised the CO2 levels in the atmosphere by 140% in 200 years (280ppm to 400pm). That rate is way faster than any natural change in the history of the planet. That rate is what is so significant about human caused release of CO2 into the atmosphere. There are simply no natural factors to compare the methodical migration of carbon from the ground into the atmosphere.
So, yes this is significant.
Quick, tell the climate modelling teams how easy the problem is, they've been mistakenly making it much more complicated than required...
Let's try an analogy. We're stuck in a bathtub over top a fire. The water's kind of warm, we aren't freezing and we aren't so hot we need to get out. Simple math does tell us that putting more fuel into the fire beneath us will make things warmer. Same goes for more CO2 in our atmosphere, we equally know that will make things warmer. The more important question is how much warmer will it make things, and that is NOT a simple question. Now we need to know how much fuel are we adding, how far is that fuel from the tub, is the fire space beneath enclosed, how much fuel is left, what kind of fuel, how fast does it burn, how much water in the tub, what material is the tub made of, how dense is it, what's it shape and how is it attached to anything around it.
The bathtub analogy is trivial compared to the interactions of all the molecules that compose our planet's surface, oceans and atmosphere. Assessing the degree and speed of warming MATTERS and it's not anywhere as trivially easy as you imply.
and this is true, but saying anti nuke is the same as global warming denier is simply incorrect. maybe the people at the top, but many of the morons on the street never got the memo
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Lysenkoism respawned. Don't ask questions, Comrade!
Please tell me where you see people filling their tanks with the engine running.
I have here in Minnesota but then that is usually only in January when it is -25F outside but other than that I don't.
Time to offend someone
But the real problem here is that this simply isn't news. Even the quotation in the article is from 2015.
And the curve of carbon dioxide has been known for decades-- it is zero surprise.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It's gotten a lot worse under the new owners. There seem to be a lot of trolls lately, posting the same old, long-debunked denier garbage.
Fortunately, the real world is catching up with these creeps, and their influence is diminishing even as their squawking gets louder.
I don't even bother being polite anymore. I just identify them for what they are and move on.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
World cereal production reached a new all-time record of nearly 2,534 million tonnes (MT) in 2014, beating the previous record of the 2013 by over 13 MT, according to latest estimates put out by the UN affiliated Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In one decade, global cereal production has gone up by almost 25%, setting all-time high records in five years out of 10.
Seems to beneficial or at least not harming anything.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Thank you for stepping in and attempting to educate the opinionated idiot.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
People need to realize that the effects of global warming are at this point unstoppable. No conservation effort and certainly no carbon dioxide removal program could possibly show an effect for decades. At which point the damage will already be done.
You have just written a false dichotomy; dividing "damage" into a binary: either there's damage or there's no damage, with no significance to degree of damage. That's not the real world. There can be more and less effect; less damage or worse damage.
Some effects of global warming are unstoppable.
At which point the damage will already be done. .
Some damage will already be done.
Money would be much better spent preparing for sea level rise etc than trying to prevent it.
False dichotomy: you can do both. Or, more particularly, different people and different organizations can do either, or both.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Some people think it is going to be gradual but there are people who think it could be sudden for a few reasons.
I am reminded of the quote from Ernest Hemingway: "How did we go bankrupt? Two ways. Slowly, and then all of a sudden."
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Uh no, AGW is a scientific and technical topic. That some people invent conspiracies or invoke magical thinking to wave away the evidence because they don't like what science has to say is irrelevant to climate change as a scientific and technical problem.
I'm going to be very clear here. There is no actual controversy about anthropomorphic climate change, and there hasn't been for a couple of decades now. The number of actual researchers who disagree about human-caused CO2 emissions altering climate are probably at the same ratio of biologists who deny evolution, geologists that deny a 4+ billion year old Earth and cosmologists who deny a 13.5 billion year old Universe. In other words, the scientific controversy does not exist in any meaningful way.
What politicians, corporate executives, religious leaders, or some guy who drives an SUV thinks about CO2's effects on climate are utterly irrelevant to the scientific question. They are relevant to how society responds to AGW, and that's where pseudo-skeptics strength is. They tell a message that's pleasing to peoples' ears, without ever having to justify themselves to the people whose fields of research they attack almost constantly.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And the free market is wonderful, until someone suggests using the free market as a means of reducing CO2 emissions.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Cue the people who can't tell "cue" from "queue". As usual.
I was going to say that. Guess I'll just get in line...
The contents of this message have been doubly encrypted by ROT13
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...
-Styopa
Some areas that receive lots of rainfall will continue to see lots of rainfall, and in fact will receive more.
Yes, exactly...
But other areas will become more drought prone and parts of North America that are currently arable will be, or already are, in that zone.
Why do you think that is the case? Remember that higher average temperatures increase evaporation from oceans, lakes, rivers, and those areas that have higher humidity already would just be warmer, but still have plenty of water. Dryer climates night have an issue, but even there the larger abundance of moisture in the atmosphere would probably compensate.
The mountains would get more snow than before, which means more water flowing down the rivers, so far from drying up the midwest would bloom...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, he's putting "the world ending" on the job queue, which is scheduled to run every year, but never does.
I'm estimating we'll see a real tipping point in ten years.
Dark Reflection
Perhaps using more hemp for paper and less wood pulp may be useful too. Pulp factories are fairly disgusting.
I'm not sure about the economics of recycling cardboard : could be good. But recycling paper is funnily fairly polluting (the chemicals printed on the paper were the main reason to make that paper to begin with). You might burn the paper, if that powers a municipal heat network it's not too bad.
I agree that we need some sort of guiding principles. As a matter of course, industry has the best access to media and advertising. So "green" solutions tend to be about buying a hybrid car or a 50" LED backlit TV, and we're asked to marvel at the efficiency. Well why the f.. would you need a 50" TV in the first place.
Where did he advocate cutting down rainforests? Are strawmen carbon neutral?
Irony. One of the major arguments of the deniers isn't so much the science (since they "know" the truth anyway and no biased studies by NASA et. al. can prove any differently). No, the big argument is purely corporate: that it would "cost too much".
Well, doing nothing can cost too. And like many parties, the bill may not arrive until after the fun is over.
Someone, I'm sure, will profit from climate change. The question is who?
Are you being intentionally dim? The poster was pointing out that planting rainforests is a compensatory act, because other people are chopping rainforests down.
So what is the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity again?
It doesn't take a fascist to make you get on your knees, does it! ;-)
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Actually the statement "Queue the world ending in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... " isn't an incorrect statement, it just doesn't mean what the OP thinks it does or meant to say.
Or maybe he meant that the world is ending in so many ways now that they have to take turns.
Not much of a reader, are you!
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Stick a fork in us already. We are done.
All we can do now is mitigation/slowing. And disaster response. Lots more disaster response.
I'm not worried until it hits 512ppm.
I don't see the point in posting anything climate-related on slashdot. It's all one big denialist echo chamber.
Global warming is a fact.
Go measure the temperature every day for 13,000 years. Plot your data.
Report back after you have completed your assignment.
Building NPPs in the west nowadays might be considered economically insane. If you consider nukes a viable alternative, calculate the (actual) cost and see what else might be done for that amount of money.
Don't get me wrong, I get the "let's go all nuke" argument. I just don't buy it. Right now, renewables are taken off the grid / switched off, because we can't store the power produced efficiently -- where I live, we chose to not produce / switch off renewable energy (and subsidy not producing it), instead of converting and storing it inefficiently. If we used the "all nuke" money for things like renewables and storage, it might still be "economically insane" FWIW (though I doubt that), but a lot less risky and, you might say, geeky.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
The physical properties of CO2 have been known for over a century, confirmed countless times in various observations and experiments.
Or to put it another way, you're a fucking moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The American Midwest will have wetter winters and springs, but summertime temperatures will rise considerably, leading to drought like conditions which will harm many crops.
Just because the temperature is hotter does NOT mean there would be drought conditions, again it all comes down to ambient moisture... the Dust Bowl happened in part because of farming, but mostly because the temperature of one ocean LOWERED in comparison to another which shifted the airflow over the midwest...
It doesn't matter if it gets hotter in the midwest as long as the current sources of moisture remain constant, which they mostly would. Hotter would be a little tougher on humans but the plant life would love it being hotter and even more humid...
Remember a lot of the predictions of what would happen (like bigger hurricanes) have been total flops because lots of people who didn't really understand atmospheric science well just made a lot of assumptions about hotter average temperatures meaning something it really doesn't in real life.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Completely Agree. Further, at a site where nerds discuss problems and solution, what can we do about this issue? What is the best place for us every day people to put money or time?
Can't we just use that new technology to turn it into ethanol?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
And yet seem quite certain their *current* risk assessments aren't exaggerations at all.
Queue the cues.
At least it keeps them off the streets. Which saves energy.
Political mainly. I remember in the 70s that my father when teaching a Sunday school class (mainline non-southern protestant) said that we may not know exactly how long a "day" is for the creation in Genesis, and that perhaps evolution was the method used for creation. Not the view of my mother though. But basically, evolution was not a major religious issue at the time. There almost certainly was no mainstream notion of 6000 years since creation (a number that surprisingly hasn't change as time advances). You weren't an evil person if you studied evolution. A few parents here or there might be upset at science classes teaching evolution, but for a small rural conservative town it wasn't that many. Religion just didn't conflict with science or vice versa.
Fast forward though and there's a huge so-called culture war going on. People believe there's a plot against religion, and Christians in particular. They will point out (falsely) that every belief system is encouraged at schools except for Christianity which is soon to be outlawed by Hillary. And it's all basically a political movement and not a religious one. I could see this growing over time, from the slow rise of moral majority leaders, mostly from oddball offshoots in the south where theological competence was not a requirement for leading a church, but being attractive to members of mainstream churches who were interested in more conservative politics. Add a few more years and politics and religion is intermixed greatly. And by politics I mean "us versus them", except now with religion being added it was becoming "good versus evil". And the politics spreads out - if the same people who believe in global warming are also those who support gay marriage then those two ideas get lumped together.
There's little debate though, few exchanges of ideas, no real argument. It's mostly abuse. The few times someone does try to defend their ideas there is not much substance and they find it impossible to leave the politicals out. They especially find it difficult to leave the abusive politics out (everyone has to be labelled as "libtard" or something like that).
Maybe that's how kids are taught to hold debates these days. They watch modern political campaigns and think the proper way to debate is to call each other names and ridicule their ideas, then quickly change topic if asked a tough quesiton.
I'm all for seeing a good reasoned defense about why anthropomorphic climate change is false. But you won't find it here on Slashdot.
Which kind? Classic Mussolini style, or Spanish Francoist, the Greek August regime, the racist variant of Nazi Germany, or some other variety? Or are you just using word whose meaning you are not sure of as an epithet to score some anonymous points?
That too is incorrect; the expansion of agriculture (in terms of available land and output of existing crops) will yield huge benefits for all mankind.
We are literally turning the Earth into a garden planet by increasing CO2, and you all are trying to stop it - SMH.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When he said, preserving rain-forests would not matter. But it does matter, because the alternative (cutting them down) adds to the carbon footprint.
Estimated at 1.5K to 4.5K. Why, would a more precise number change your opinion about AGW as a scientific and technical problem?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Do you have sources? (Non sarcastic) I'd be very interested in seeing data on your burying paper vs recycling it to trap carbon underground.
The paid trolls and flat-rather autistic spectrum folk do the denying. The rest of us stopped paying attention to them years ago.
Only boring people are ever bored.
A carbon tax is one of the few ideas I support. Tax fossil carbon, all of it, once wherever that is easiest in the supply chain.
The current cap and trade scheme is a recipe for rent seeking which is why it is being used.
The only point I see in your post is an attempt to delay doing anything until it's too late.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Because that is an absolutely huge range, scientifically speaking. At the high end that is certainly a problem. At the low end it is meh.
If you are going to tout how great and clear the science is, we kind of expect better.
Have you looked at the likely impacts with a mere 1K of warming? Because those are real problems and potentially very expensive - a long way from "meh", and particularly for the global poor who can least afford to adapt.
But there's absolutely no reason to assume the lowest outcome in that range - in fact, competent disaster planning would more likely work on the assumption of the worse case of 4.5K, even if we can hope for a lower result.
Nobody is claiming all the science is done and complete - the only thing that's completely "settled" is whether it's happening at all, though we've got a pretty good idea about how & why, and of the range of things that could happen. But if you think it should be better, then shouldn't you join the call for more focus and investment in climate research, rather than trying to undermine what's been done so far?
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Have you looked at the likely impacts [www.ipcc.ch] with a mere 1K of warming?
I can look at first hand experience because we have had 1C of warming over the last 150 years. By pretty much all objective measure life is better for the vast majority of the world's population.
in fact, competent disaster planning would more likely work on the assumption of the worse case
Mitigation is not free. It actually has a very high cost all of it's own. An actuarial cost-benefit analysis is not part of science and should be done by economists, not scientists.
the only thing that's completely "settled" is whether it's happening at all
It is warming. It has been warming since the mid 1800s, and indeed for the last 12,000 years given it is an interglacial. Even if there was no science at all my money would be bet on more warming.
though we've got a pretty good idea about how & why
The lack of predictive ability belies that.
I can look at first hand experience because we have had 1C of warming over the last 150 years.
Leaving aside what you think "first hand" means, you're dismissing scientific studies in favour of the entirely unsupported belief that "what's always happened will continue to happen". Does that sound wise to you?
An actuarial cost-benefit analysis is not part of science and should be done by economists, not scientists
Like this one, or this one?
indeed for the last 12,000 years given it is an interglacial
Except that it's been slowly cooling for the last 8,000 years. The warming phase only lasted 4,000 years, and it's been all downhill since then - right up until the moment we got involved, when the trend suddenly changed dramatically.
The lack of predictive ability belies that.
Indeed.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?