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We're Creating a Perfect Storm of Unprecedented Global Warming (popsci.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by the end of this century the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, according to a new study out today in the journal Nature Communications. This period -- roughly 15 million years after dinosaurs went extinct and 49.8 million years before modern humans appeared on the scene -- was 16F to 25F warmer than the modern norm. [...] During the Eocene, it took more atmospheric CO2 to influence temperatures than it does today. In fact, if we don't change our behavior, 2100 will be as hot as the Eocene with much less atmospheric CO2 than was present at the time. A hotter sun means we get more bang for our CO2 buck. "Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about," said lead study author Gavin Foster, a researcher in isotope geochemistry and paleoceanography at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton. "It's certainly true, that the CO2 was high in the past and that it was warm in the past. But because the sun was dimmer, the climate wasn't being forced as much [as it will be] in the future if we carry on as we are."
The kids and grand kids are on their own. Best of luck to them.
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
At a guess?
The one backed by considerably more than 90% of the academic experts in the field.
But who knows. Maybe unqualified Anonymous Coward #7687123 is correct...
-- Gaxx
Trump is hell bent on making it happen by 2020.
This is the best global warming in the world. It's fantastic global warming.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
We need to STOP letting the low IQ spout their stupidity. Point at them yell "STUPID" and do it in public and in groups.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No, they said the INCREASE in average temperature had nothing to do with increased output from the sun. (Smacks AC with sandal).
Really. Isn't this getting old and tired.
Yes the climate is changing. Yes it's caused by Humans. No it can't be fixed.
It is impossible to change or reverse. Sorry - we can't stop murdering each other as it is. How can we stop global warming? Answer. We can't.
Just plan for the inevitable and stop screaming the sky is falling. O.L.D. F.*.C.K.I.N.G. N.E.W.S.
Ughh
There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
Some people say the sun rises in the East.
Other people say the sun rises in the West.
Which is right?
Or maybe the truth lies somewhere in between?
Teach the controversy!
Forget the real world.
Because real-world results don't matter.
What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
We should deal with crisis in the order that they each threaten our extinction. Climate change is the first on the list in terms of immediacy. Later we can deal with other problems that are further out in time.
After climate change the next extinction level problem is the Y10K problem. When four digit years need to be expanded to five digit years. In about the year 9997, everyone will start talking about this problem. But I'll get a jump on this. In the year 9995 I will seriously start learning COBOL which is a skill that will offer many consulting opportunities for the Y10K problem.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
Short of completely wrecking the global economy or starting a major nuclear war, no government policy is going to have an appreciable effect on climate.
Good climate for primates and mammals, and generally life on the planet. Milder, wetter conditions everywhere. More arable land, fewer deserts. We should be so lucky. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, if not for any other reason, than that it will take a couple of thousand years for the polar ice caps to melt.
Yes, before the earth plunged into the current cycle of glaciation periods, which makes large parts of the northern hemisphere uninhabitable for more than half of every 100000 years. (Not so) great times!
Ah, the joys of science based on "alternative facts".
The US and many western countries have been curbing CO2 emissions. China, India, Russia, and others have been increasing. The US can control it's own policies, but not those of foreign States. Hell, we can't stop the DPRK from developing nuclear weapons and missile technology, which has a far bigger impact on the environment than global warming. We can't stop China from creating man made islands in the South China Sea, which again has far bigger impact on the climate (loss of ocean habitat, destruction of ecosystems, etc..)
So what is _your_ magic plan exactly? Tell China to give some entity money so that they can ignore your request? Tell Russia to stop industrial work so that they can laugh at you? How about having some invisible entity with no plans either selling you "Carbon Credits" so that you simply lose money yourself?
In case you haven't noticed, the latter question is the only one that has been proposed. Al Gore, supra genius, flying around in his private jet with his entourage renting massive bullet proof SUVs is proof that people in power don't give a rats behind about fixing any Climate problems. They want power, which includes your money and livelihood.
Until you come up with a solution, there is no possible way to deal with this issue with any immediacy. You are on par with demanding world peace and harmony, in that it sounds good but won't work because "human nature".
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You mean to say the sun is hotter and, as a result, is having an effect?
The sun is slowly getting hotter, over millions of years, due to hydrogen slowly turning into helium, with greater density, following a standard progression for stars of this type.
This means that for the same CO2 levels, the Earth is getting hotter now than it did before.
Warning; turn scripts off before following the link
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The relativity of wrong
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
the ones that say east are right. the ones that say west are drooling morons and need to be told so loudly and in public for all to hear.
You sound like an elitist. The opinions of those who say west is just as valid. Who are you to tell them they're wrong?
For example, just look at all of the colleges that still teach UML, despite industry having tried it and rejected it almost two decades ago now.
Two points:
The defense industry actually uses UML. Of course, the defense industry has paid $400 billion for a crappy fighter jet that can't dogfight...
"Industry" came up with the Windows 8/10 "Metro" UI, and the current flat-UI fad, with frameworks upon frameworks and web pages that take forever to load because they're loading many megabytes of crap so they can display a little bit of text. The computer industry these days is a complete disaster on the software side.
Then the answer is still correct but is less meaningful to that person.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
But the Middle East is completely screwed.
Over the few hundred years of industrialisation, solar impact is negligible. Over the 50 million years since the Eocene, obviously less so.
Edit: diatribe, how appropriate
The AGW experts(and media, and talking heads) have been telling us for decades, that the sun(aka solar changes) have no impact. None
You seem to have problems understanding the difference of "decades" vs "millions of years".
His point was that the government need not be the primary driver in this change.
Who else is going to pay for this change? Industry will not if they can get away with doing business as usual. For example, the civilian electrical grid is vulnerable to EMP attacks. A well-known problem that no one industry wants to fix much less pay for.
If solar/wind are viable, then private industry, driven by concerned environmentalists, are absolutely free to go out and change the way we generate power.
Has the oil industry given up their tax subsidies?
Our electric companies aren't owned and run by the government.
No, but they're regulated by the government. If the government says, "coal bad, natural gas good," as it has been for decades, the industry will move towards liquid gas generators. One of the reason why coal is dying as an industry, and will continue to do so not matter what the Trump Administration does, is that natural gas is inexpensive and natural gas plants are replacing coal plants.
A few years back they were saying the average temperature has nothing to do with the output of the sun. I found that strange. Now they are saying that things will be hotter than predicted because the sun is hotter?
Suns output increases by about 10% per billion years while it remains close to the main sequence.
50,000,000 years ago is 5% of 1 billion
Industrial revolution started about 300 years ago.
300 is 0.000003% of 1 billion.
Change in solar output since 50 million years ago is a small but substantial 0.5% percent. Change during the period of concerted human meddling is less than a rounding error at 0.0000003%
To put all of this into perspective an increased solar output of only 10% of todays output is sufficient to trigger irreversible moist earth runaway leading to surface temperatures measured in thousands of degrees.
Forget the real world. >Because real-world results don't matter. What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?
If you are snarking about climate models, in fact the climate models have been remarkably accurate over the last fifty years. Here's the Berkeley Earth comparison between models and measurements: http://static.berkeleyearth.or... (See also: https://www.skepticalscience.c... https://www.theguardian.com/en... )
And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?
You ARE aware that satellite measurements are heavily corrected, right? The satellites see a line-of-sight average of microwave emissions, and there is a rather long and controversial process to turn microwave emission intensity into middle troposphere temperatures. One researcher (John Christy) has a correction method that produces an output that says that global warming is real, but it's on the low end of the predicted values. http://www.realclimate.org/ind... Other researchers using the same data, however, come up with other answers.
The ground measurements, on the other hand, have had relatively minor corrections to account for changes of the type of thermometer, the corrections being well-documented, and (an important thing to note) the change due to corrections making no significant difference to the final conclusion.
If you don't remember acid rain it's because of the very successful cap and trade treaty that won international agreement in the 1980's. Oddly the treaty was the brainchild of the conservative heros Thatcher and Reagan. (Thatcher read chemistry at Oxford and was also the first "world leader" to accept AGW was a serious problem). If mankind is convinced it is a common threat, it will be fixed, but not before we lose some nice stuff like; the Arctic ice cap, coral reefs, Bangladesh, Miami, Seychelle Islands, ... (ok, Miami is not really a "nice thing" but some people like it)
I do however agree it's "old news".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.
Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.
I never understood this argument (the one you are replying to, not yours). Even if it is natural, do they think that it is somehow not going to affect us? I mean, we know it's happening. The cause won't make a difference to people in a hundred years or so who are having to deal with the fallout of it if it keeps on the course we are on now. We (well future humans, not most of us) are fucked if it's natural or man made. At least if it's man-made we have some options to prevent it. If it's natural, then maybe we can at least slow it down or reduce the effects somewhat by curbing our own contributions to it. So either way, isn't it kind of a good idea to go that route? I realize it comes at a cost but isn't it worth it either way?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
"The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".
The problem is the left wing nuts' plan is...pay lots of taxes to be redistributed to other countries while the political elite scrape trillions off the top, and we exempt China and India so the planet gets cooked anyway.
Vote for the right wing nuts and we all die. Vote for the left wing nuts and we all die poor. Tough choice.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people.
No, he wasn't. He only won 44% of the vote in his election in 1933, and less in previous elections.
Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people
To which election do you refer? The 1932 Presidential one, where he got 30.1% and 36.8% in the first and second rounds respectively, or the 1933 Federal election, where NSDAP (the NAZI party) got 43.91%?
Strongly disagree. We have the technology, money, and the bit of willpower needed to fix it. I don't like to believe "the future will solve it" but there's a chance that the prices of renewable vs. fossil energy may even fix global warming for us. The only things standing in the way of victory are denialists, their fossil fuel company puppetmasters, and defeatists like you.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It's just an argument that deniers make up to justify their selfishness and so they don't have to change a single thing about their lifestyle or lift a single fucking finger to help the planet, which in their arrogance and ego they think they are entitled to do with as they please because they're "human", like they somehow earned that status themselves.
. . . .and merely between continental glacial advances. Another of which is due Real Soon Now*
(* Real Soon Now in Geologic terms, meaning some time in the next ~10,000 years. . . .)
Thank you for your input. Your concerns have been noted. But at this time we're unlikely to suspend scientific inquiry for a site that proclaims to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"
People usually won't stop shouting that your house is on fire when you're sitting in your easy chair shaking your head "no it's not". That's just human nature, even if it is tedious and annoying.
There are plenty of other doomsday religions that are way more popular than this one. Perhaps we could convert to one of those.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There's very little real competition in academia.
On the contrary, there's a lot of fierce competition in academia. The problem is that it's all about grant money or politics, and has little to do with academic excellence.
Wow, so he was an authoritarian fascist who won the election without winning the popular vote!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The unusually tough drought in Syria contributed to the civil war there.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The number of Hitler supporters was undoubtedly inflated by fear and the social inability to form adequate resistance.
The number of doctors who believed in bloodletting was inflated by the lack of technology which now allows for advanced research and instantaneous communication.
Both of these are improved in our culture today.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
You seem to have problems with reading. A quote from one your articles:
Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity
Which is exactly what I said.
The first problem can be summed up with the old saying, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, research.".
That's not the old saying. You just made it up.
Really? We're going to mark an evidence-less rant against researchers as +5, Interesting?
Look around your life. How many people do you know? How many of them would stab you in the back for a buck? I hope that number would be very small. If it isn't, you're in the wrong place.
I went to a school focused on science. Of the number of folks I hung out with, extremely few (less than 10%) struck me as idiots, cheats, or liars. The rest I'd trust with my life. I find it extremely hard to believe I went to the only university where the majority of students were honest, dependable folks.
I'm sure as heck not going to trust the trillion dollar fossil fuel industry whose entire existence is on the line.
Then unfortunately, you thought wrong.
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_o... does describe solar irradiance and even puts a figure on the estimated amount it provides to the total radiative forcing. So solar (and other natural forcings) do have something to do with climate change, its just that they are swamped by our activity.
Feel free to use hyperbole, but because this is a site for nerds, when you do, it just makes you sound like a bit of a pillock.
"When was the last time you saw a paper headline reporting a negative correlation on something?" - negativity sells papers, doesn't have to be true
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Which is exactly what I said.
Sure, but you're continuing to miss the point. You figure it out yet or no?
Gentlemen please, this can be settled with simple science.
All we need to be absolutely sure of AGW is a duplicate Earth, but without the humans. We implement a second Earth as it was 200 years ago, remove the humans, and run the clock out.
To increase the fidelity of the test, we simply create more Earths.
In all fairness, there's nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is going to be fine. Give it another couple million years and it will once again be full of all kinds of diverse life in every corner, with hardly any indication that we were ever here beyond a thin little geographic layer containing traces of plastic and other things. The planet is going to be fine. We aren't, but the planet is under no threat. The push to solve climate change is a push to help people, not the planet. We're trying to avoid the next great extinction event which causes the conditions to change so much that we can't live any more, but the planet will survive that event and life in general will make a full recovery within a few million or tens of millions of years, we just won't be part of it.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I don't care about your "facts" and "definitions". I have alternative facts that show the sun rises in the west!! You sound just like one of those know-it-all academics.
Next you'll probably try to convince me that homeopathy isn't real and that it's just water, and that all the people who believe otherwise are wrong.
We had a carbon tax in Australia, back in 2012. Started out at A$23/tonne and increased slowly, with initially-large (90%) waivers for major polluters that were also set to phase out over time. Proceeds from the tax were largely returned directly to the population via tax cuts to offset the small projected price bump, with the rest invested in carbon-neutral energy alternatives and climate mitigation.
The (right-wing) opposition, egged on by our big coal sector, swore up & down that it would lead to spiraling inflation and collapse small businesses, and blamed it for large electricity price hikes. In reality of course, the economic impact was hardly noticeable. Most prices barely changed, the average tax cut easily covered the electricity rises (which had started before the tax and were almost entirely due to long-overdue grid upgrades), "green power" plans became more popular, and CO2 emissions dropped slightly. A year went by, the carbon price increased to $24.15, and these trends continued as projected.
But the right-wing scare campaign intensified, terms like "wrecking ball", "python squeeze", and "axe the tax" were thrown about, and the carbon tax became a major political issue - enough to tip the scales at the next election, despite polling consistently showing that ~60% of Australians wanted climate action. The tax was quickly repealed, and CO2 emissions started climbing again.
But the biggest casualties were the politicians themselves, with both parties dissolving into chaos and every single prime minister in the last ten years getting replaced before they could even sit out a full term. Right now we have a centre-right guy who internally replaced an unpopular hard-liner PM just before election - reversing the leadership spill from 2009 where he was ousted by the hard-liner - while a near-identical leadership reverse happened to the centre-left party while they were in power, over this same issue. Result: Australian trust of politicians, poor at the best of times, hits a two-decade low.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?