Baked Alaska

mithras the prophet writes "Global warming stories usually focus on the hotbutton politics, scientific debate, or latest disturbing anecdote of receding ice. A very interesting New York Times story takes a different tack, highlighting the reality of climate change for small-town Alaskans. Whatever the cause, temperatures in Alaska have risen by seven degrees in the last 30 years. This has very real consequences for ordinary citizens; the rest of us would do well to consider their stories. Lucy Eningowuk and her 600 fellow citizens of Shishmaref will vote next week whether to move their town to the mainland. Despite community efforts, thawing of permafrost and wave action from melting ice has eroded away most of the land the village is built on. Residents of Barrow (warning: MIDI-enabled page), on the North Shore, are swatting mosquitos for the first time in their lives. In an ironic twist, managers of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline are putting in supports to keep the pipeline from breaking as permafrost thaws."

Local Warming != Global Warming

[Henry V .009]

Good god. Global Warming, if observed, will be an average change of a few degrees across the globe. It will be impossible to pinpoint local effects until it really gets out of hand. (It will have local effects, we just won't be able to say which are and are not natural.) Not every instance of local climate change is a symptom of global climate change. Local climate fluctuates wildly. Ever wonder why Greenland is called Greenland? Hint: it used to be a greener when they named it a few centuries back.

This is just like El Nino. Because it was causing some unusual weather patterns, every little rainstorm was blamed on it.

Re:you have got to be kidding me

[Wyatt Earp]

Wrong.

At this time, in the United State there is NOT a government mandated fuel consumption, and vehicles are increasing thier fuel efficentcy, not because of government mandates, but because the marketplace demands it.

Re:you have got to be kidding me

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong:

http://www.vehiclechoice.org/cafe/brief/cafe.htm l

Re:you have got to be kidding me

[Licinius]

At this time, in the United State there is NOT a government mandated fuel consumption, and vehicles are increasing thier fuel efficentcy, not because of government mandates, but because the marketplace demands it.

Yes, it does. It's called CAFE (corporate average fuel economy). It states that each manufacturer has to meet the standards CAFE sets, which is currently 27.5 miles per gallon (MPG) average for passenger cars, and 20.7 MPG for light-trucks (SUVs included). This means that for a certain model year, that manufacturer's fleet must average out to meet the CAFE standards. If they don't meet these standards they are liable for a civil penalty of 5.00 USD for each 0.1 MPG its fleet is below the standard, multiplied by the number of vehicles it produces.

Pork-priming?

[torgosan]

"While President Bush was dismissive of a report the government recently released on how global warming will affect the nation, the leading Republican in this state, Senator Ted Stevens, says that no place is experiencing more startling change from rising temperatures than Alaska."

Good ol' Sen. Stevens...priming the pork-pump, count on it.

Re:you have got to be kidding me

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a follow up. Even though CAFE standards are horribly low already, US automakers still violate them. Instead of then paying the civil penalties they should pay, they send their army of lobbyists to Congress so the law won't apply to them.

Example: In 1997, three US automakers violated the standards for light trucks. So, their lobbyists hit up Congress, and guess what? Congress passed a one year freeze on the CAFE standards, thus freeing the automakers from paying any fines. And 1997 was the third year a freeze on CAFE was passed.

So it's pretty stupid to say that we don't need government mandated standards (and tougher ones at that, illustrated by the above example) and we can just trust the corporations to improve things themselves.

Re:Not so fast...

[mithras the prophet]

The article is not citing these anecdotes in order to convince you of the reality of Alaskan warming. Alaskan warming is a broadly accepted fact - no one disputes the increase in average temperatures. The article cites the examples from daily life in order to bring personal meaning to the numbers. Nonetheless I will address your particular points:

1. Barrow. Examine this graph [noaa.gov]. Do you agree or disagree that averages temperatures in Barrow have risen over time?
2. Shishmaref (and the numerous other towns cited in the article). I agree that some rate of erosion and forced relocation should be expected over time. But permafrost warming is an accepted fact [nrcan.gc.ca]. (I cite a Geological Survey of Canada report)
3. Trans-Alaska Pipeling. I quote from the article:

"We're not going to let global warming sneak up on us," said Curtis Thomas, a spokesman for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, which runs the pipeline. "If we see leaning and sagging, we move on it."

Do you agree or disagree that he is in a position to explain the nature of the thawing, and the likely causes of it?

Re:Ozone Depletion not Global Warming

[shawnseat]

Huh? Ozone isn't some kind of "magic radiation shield" (?). It simply absorbs some short wavelengths of light (decomposing into an oxygen molecule and an oxygen atom -- O3 + hv --> O2 + O). It is regenerated by oxygen molecules absorbing a shorter wavelength of light and forming oxygen atoms (O2 + hv --> 2O) and the atomic oxygen recombining with other oxygen molecules (O + O2 --> O3). It exists in the stratosphere because that's the highest region where there is a high enough (molecular) oxygen density that the reactions form a balance.

Re:Interesting quote

[Edmund Blackadder]

Thats how far the data goes. Doesnt mean that 1653 was warmer.

Re:Days of denial are over.

[thales]

"If you don't think global warming is real, great, PROVE IT!"

The debate isn't IF global warming is occuring, It's the cause of the warming. The burden of proof lays on those who claim that humans are responsible.

There are facts that contradict the "humans cause global warming" assertion of the neo-ludites.

The average Global tempature is lower than it was 700 years ago. At that time wine was produced in areas of England where grape cultivation is impossible today. The Vikings had a thriving colony in Greenland. Some crops were grown in higher elevations in Europe than are possible today.

This warm period was ended by the little Ice Age which saw a period of global cooling. There is also evidance for a similar period of cooling near the end of the Roman Empire though it isn't as well documented that preceded the Medeval warming period.

The historic periods of warming and cooling preceded the industrial era and are certainly natural. The present warming may be no more than a natural end to the natural cooling period that started about 650 years ago, and the fact that tempatures are still lower than they were between 1000 and around 1350 points seems to show that we still haven't recovered from the global cooling.

The biggest falicy of the neo-ludite views on global warming is that the tempature at the start of the Industrial period was "normal" rather than just another period in the long cycle of natural warming and cooling eras.

Evidence

[goodmanj]

There's no way to summarize decades of detailed research in a short Slashdot post. Read the The summary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment report [www.ipcc.ch]. It should provide you with plenty of non-anecdotal evidence.

Re:"Baked Alaska"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's posible for marijuana use to go up here. We have hit the maximum posible usage.

-Anonymous Coward, Fairbanks Alaska

Re:I live in Alberta

[aeryn_sunn]

Air and water quality in most first-world nations is far cleaner today than it was 30 years ago,

Obviously you are ignorant to the southeastern US. In Atl, the air and water quality is far worse that it has ever been. This week alone the air quality is so bad that asthmatics are warned to not spend much time outside...and i could imagine what other effects this has....most people I know don't drink the water out of the facet either...

furthermore, how do you account for the increase in asthma in children?

Cars burn less fuel, and the fuel they do burn is burned much more efficiently, than older cars

ever wonder why there are emission standards differences b/w the US and Europe? cause of legislation. Ever wonder why US car manufacturers install catalytic converters? not because they want too...ever wonder why there is no more lead gasoline? cause the government said so...and even if cars do burn better than 30 years ago, there are 10 times as many cars on the road to day...do you think that the fuel efficiency in cars is proportional to the the number of cars b/w 30 years ago and today?

Big Business is policing itself and the quality of our environment is improving constantly.

again, do you think if Big Business is given the choice between profits and policing itself it is going to police itself? hell no...only the threat of lawsuits or government legislature spurs Corps into action....hell, most of the time it is after the fact anyway, i.e. Love Canal.

Ideas like the Kyoto treaty are not easy nor painless. Making a concerted effort towards addressing pollution will have economic consequences in the short term, that much is true. But better deal with it now, than later...hell, what does Bush care anyway, he is going to be dead and gone by the time everything goes to hell in a hand basked on account of his half-baked policies.

Re:Days of denial are over.

[cybercuzco]

For example, sea temperature data has been inferred from characteristics of coral growth

Sea temperature is measured by satellite [wisc.edu], not by inferring from coral growth. A correllation may be seen between coral growth and sea surface temperature, but the temperature is not measured by looking at the growth. See this NOAA site [noaa.gov]

2) Which "theory" are you referring to when you talk about global warming? As far as I know, the only theories are:
1) CO2 increases cause warming (trivial physics, but not a real hypothesis to test man-made global warming in this complex system).
2) Computer simulations show warming, and with enough tuning can sort-of match the past since temperature records were kept.

Number 2 (computer simulations) Isnt a hypothesis, or a theory, it is an attempt to verify the global warming hypothisis that you state in 1. A computer simulation is not a hypothesis in any case.

So really were only arguing about 1. Does an increase in Co2 decrease the rate of heat radiated by the planet. Thats the question. Does CO2 trap heat? Your alternative hypothesies, solar irradiation etc, may or may not be true. If solar variability is true, then that will contribute to an overall warming effect. Regardless we know one simple fact that cannot be disputed: CO2 traps heat. If it werent for some CO2 wed be living in an icebox. CO2 allows for liquid water, which then takes over as the dominant greenhouse gas. An increase in CO2 can therefore be assumed to increase the amount of heat trapped by the earths atmosphere, since CO2 has been doing that since the beginning of time. Regardless of any other causes to global warming, increasing CO2=Increasing trapped heat. So you may be right and solar variability may be a factor, granted, but this does not negate the effect of CO2 on the atmosphere. In fact it makes controlling CO2 even more vital, since we have to compensate for solar variations as well as human caused effects.

Re:I have searched this entire thread...

[imnoteddy]

For evidence try a report from the EPA [epa.gov], this [nas.edu]from a committee of the National Research Council which included "11 of the nation's top climate scientists, including seven members of the National Academy of Sciences", and a page written by a NASA scdientist. [nasa.gov]