Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming 454
gollum123 wrote in with news of a new study of warming in the Arctic, showing that warming from greenhouse gases is causing vast changes in the region. If your lifestyle depends on cold and frozen rather than mild and damp, you're in deep trouble.
Terrific! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Terrific! (Score:5, Interesting)
Hate to disappoint you, but Antarctica has been cooling for years: it's only the Arctic which has been warming (and much of that is because many parts of the Arctic were unusually cold a couple of decades ago and is returning to more normal temperatures).
Re:Terrific! (Score:4, Interesting)
Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trolling I just have an honest question...
When that big lump of ice out there in the North Pole melts, will we *notice* it at all?
My reasoning is that most of the ice is underwater, and ice takes up more cm than water, so there would be a smaller volume of water than there is ice. Sure some of the ice is above sealevel but surely the difference in volume compensates for this?
Where am I wrong?
Re:Honest question (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
The ice is not salt water. It's fresh water. When that fresh water melts it will decrease the salt concentration significantly. It could, in theory, slow down the Gulf stream. And this is where trouble starts.
Re:Honest question (Score:3, Informative)
Saw it on Discovery Channel several weeks ago.
Re:Honest question (Score:4, Informative)
The gulf stream is integral to the climate of: "the British Isles, Scandinavia north western russia including the area surrounding Moscow. Without the Gulf stream countries like Finland would not have the warm summers they do have and the winters would be much colder considering what latitude they are at.
It matters not that there was a big hollywood flick on this thing. They were using some solid science in that film moron.
Regardless of the dramatization by Hollywood, the gulf stream is and extremely important system/engine regulating our planet's climate and desalinization could trigger a disruption of the flow of the gulf stream because fresh water has a different density.
Imagine a liquid trying to move through a liquid with a different density versus a stream flowing within a liquid of approximately the same density.
Now I ask you, would the flow patterns remain the same?
Re:Honest question (Score:3, Interesting)
There is strong evidence that this has happened in the past, most recent
Re:Honest question (Score:3)
The author didn't predict *how* the flow would change, just that it would, with very high probability, change. This is *obvious*. Try switching the brain thingy on in future.
Re:Honest question (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Informative)
All well and good - we can have all the floating ice in the world melt and the sea levels won't be effected in the slightest. However, not all ice is floating freely on an ocean - a good deal of it lies over land; if the ice on the northern areas of Eurasia, North America, and the Antarctic land mass melts, or moves as a glacial flow to warmer climes and melts, then the water that is produced will eventually flow into the seas. That ice melt *will* contribute to a rise in the oceans, and it's kind of difficult to imagine a scenario where just the free floating ice melts, while that over land remains unaffected.
Temperate (coastal) climates (Score:2)
"Suffering effects of global warming; send blankets."
To summar
Re:Honest question (Score:5, Funny)
That's why.
You also don't need to watch 'The Day After Tomorrow' now.
And this is a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this is a bad thing? (Score:3, Informative)
See the spike on the right?
That said, it's ok to be skeptical, but one really can't ignore it completely.
Re:And this is a bad thing? (Score:5, Informative)
Check your facts. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes [usgs.gov]. That was the first hit on Google for "volcanoes co2 human".
Re:And this is a bad thing? (Score:3, Funny)
We're facing another climate change. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:We're facing another climate change. (Score:2)
And we know how many humans survived those climate changes!
We're changing the climate. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:We're facing another climate change. (Score:2)
We have the fact: Global temperature is rising. Now if finding the original cause of this will help stopping it or dealing with it in responsible manner, go, do it. But if the only reason is so that some scientist in his lab, immersed to his neck in
Re:We're facing another climate change. (Score:2)
"Now just be wise and prepare to face it instead of looking who is to blame."
I don't buy this false dichotomy. We need to do both. At a minimum we need to humiliate and discredit all those people who claimed that this was not happening or that it would be good for us.
Re:We're facing another climate change. (Score:2)
If we only look toward our future, we'll never learn from our past, and learning from our past is where our true wisdom is derived.
Re:We're facing another climate change. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, you are saying we should calmly accept the death of possibly billions of people because we can't get our act together on consumption and birth control? That's bullshit.
It just happens.
No, it doesn't "just happen". Self-inflicted ecological disaster is one of the most frequent ways in which big civilizations end. We are on our way to repeat that on a global scale; if it isn't through global w
Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:4, Insightful)
It can, if our changes are expensive (which they are, and "expensive" automatically translates into human lives), and we can't have a significant effect anyhow, which is an open question.
Reflexive knee-jerking is not the right solution, no matter what emotional terms people like you wrap it in.
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:2)
Believe whatever you want to, but if you have build your house on permafrost (or some crucial resources, like oil-pipelines in your society) you will surely have to pay for it.
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:2)
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:2)
If that statistic were on the other side of the argument it would be taken to mean just that. A 10 percent drop in magnetic field strength over just 100 years is a free fall compared to geologic history. Assuming an arithmetic progression (and it probably is an exponentional one) there will be no magnetic field strength at all in 1000 years -- a very very small amount of geologic time. There will be nothing to protect
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:2)
If the money spent on implementing the Kyoto Protocols were instead spent on providing clean drinking water and sanitary sewage disposal for third world countri
Re:Evidence other than human for global warming (Score:4, Informative)
On the contrary. The evidence [nature.com] is quite good [spacedaily.com].
I have no freaking clue what you are talking about the Earth's magnetic field. For one, it has *NOTHING* to do with global warming.
Read this [tufts.edu] and this [nature.com] and then get back to me. The magnetosphere blocks solar radiation from penetrating the lower levels of the atmosphere.
About the sun, well, let's see. Sunspots are actually cooler areas of the Sun. So the more sunspots, the cooler the sun!
Read this [8k.com] and then get back to me. Sunspots are indicators of higher solar activity.
It has gotten warmer, at least in the short term. (Score:4, Informative)
Hopefully... (Score:4, Insightful)
The US government still manages to deny cooperation on the Kyoto Protocol with most stupid arguments, a treaty already ratified by 125 countries all over the world.
"The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere." -- George W. Bush
???
The greenhouse gas problem will grow at a steady level for decades after we have started countermeasures, I hope then there's enough time left afterwards.
Re:Hopefully... (Score:2)
Oh, the famous Kyoto treaty. Yes, 125 countries have ratified it but I don't think that any of those countries face anywhere near the restrictions that the US would face if we had to abide by it. If how you feed your family has anything to do with the American economy, Kyoto is bad for you. That includes all the countries that import to or expo
Re:Hopefully... (Score:2)
Ok for the sake of humanity (Score:5, Funny)
All I ask for saving humanity is a tropical island paradise where I can be surrounded by nubile maidens.
Ah, that explains it (Score:3, Funny)
Well, now we know why you have so many ex's.
dear lord. (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, it was only me. Dear lord, im going back to bed.
Re:dear lord. (Score:2)
heh... all the costal cities will be under water.. (Score:2, Funny)
Newsweek article about climate change. Please read (Score:2)
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient
shhhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Trolls (Score:5, Funny)
I clicked on this article specifically to see the Libertarian environment trolls come out and scream about how it's all a left-wing conspiracy and climate change is just fine, and boy, I was not disappointed.
Well, I was disappointed in the human race I guess
CO2 warming a myth (Score:4, Interesting)
1. CO2 is not a pollutant. It is, in fact, the lifeblood of the planet, required for growth of vegetation. It is the cornerstone of the food chain. The increased CO2 aerial fertilization effect has contributed to the greening of the planet, as confirmed by satellite photography.
2. Water vapor is by far the primary contributor of the greenhouse effect, accounting for 96 to 99%. CO2 accounts for 1 to 3%. Methane and others trace gasses account for 3. During the current interglacial period, the Earth has been about 2C cooler (The "Little Ice Age" around 1600-1700, when the Thames regularly frozen over), and it has also been about 2C warmer (The medieval warm period around 1200, when Greenland was colonized by the Vikings.) We are currently about in the middle of this natural variation, which occurred without manmade CO2.
4. The 500k year Vostok ice core data: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/vostok.htm/ [ornl.gov] shows CO2 either in phase or lagging temperature by up to 1000 years, over four temperature oscillations. This means the CO2 does not drive temperature, but that temperature drives CO2. The most likely explanation is that the ocean outgases and releases more CO2 when temperature increases, and holds more dissolved gasses as the oceans cools.
5. I'm not disputing the Earth may be getting relatively warmer (as we are coming out of the little ice age). One reason is likely the unusually active Sun. This report: http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/aah4688.pdf/ [cc.oulu.fi] shows that over the last several centuries, solar activity is at its highest levels. The IPCC determined that the Sun's variation in energy output were too small to explain global warming. They dismissed the sun as a likely source of Earth changing climate!. Here is a link to a recent study showing how the sun's variation could have a feedback that would drive earth's climate change: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2333133. stm/ [bbc.co.uk] The theory goes like this: When the sun is highly magnetically active, the increased solar wind shields us from cosmic radiation. Low levels of incoming comic reduce cloud formation. Reduced low level cloud formation reduces reflectivity (i.e., the Earth's albedo). More energy is absorbed instead of reflected, and the temperature increases. The difference from an active Sun to an inactive Sun was about 3% global cloud coverage. The correlation in the study is remarkable. The jury is still out, but it could explain the correlation between the Maunder minimum of the 1600's and the little ice age, and account for the warming in the last 3 decades that corresponds with unusually high solar activity at the same time.
6. In November 1991, Danish scientists Eijil Friis-Christensen and Knud Lassen, startled the climatological world with a paper in "Science" describing a 0.95 correlation between solar cycle length and global temperature (IPCC version). "Science" writer, Richard Kerr described it as "one dazzling correlation". The blue line is temperature, the red line is solar cycle length.) As can be seen, global temperature has tended to increase in lockstep with shortening of the solar cycle length (ie. solar maxima becoming more frequent) I hope you follow the link, because one look at it, and you are forced to say, "Its the Sun, stupid." The graph is at the bottom of this link: http://http//web.dmi.dk/sol-jord/projekter/rum_vej r/oversigt.html/ [http]
7. The best protection against climate change is a rich, technologically advanced society that can adapt to natural variation. Don't damn the 3rd
Re:CO2 warming a myth (Score:3, Informative)
2. Water vapor is by far the primary contributor of the greenhouse effect, accounting for 96 to 99%. CO2 accounts for 1 to 3%.
Re:CO2 warming a myth (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikip
"On May 6, 2000, however, New Scientist magazine reported that Lassen and astrophysicist Peter Thejll had updated Lassen's 1991 research and found that while the solar cycle still accounts for about half the temperature rise since 1900, it fails to explain a rise of 0.4 C since 1980. "The curves diverge after 1980," Thejll said, "and it's a startlingly large deviation. Something else is acting on the climate.
Later that same year, Peter Stott and other researchers at the Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom published a paper in which they reported on the most comprehensive model simulations to date of the climate of the 20th century. Their study looked at both natural forcing agents (solar variations and volcanic emissions) as well as anthropogenic forcing (greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols). Like Lassen and Thejll, they found that the natural factors accounted for gradual warming to about 1960 followed by a return to late 19th-century temperatures, consistent with the gradual change in solar forcing throughout the 20th century and volcanic activity during the past few decades. These factors alone, however, could not account for the warming in recent decades. Similarly, anthropogenic forcing alone was insufficient to explain the 1910-1945 warming, but was necessary to simulate the warming since 1976."
Re:Yikes! (Score:2, Informative)
Actually melting the permafrost is likely to produce less usable landmass. According to the article:
"Oil and gas deposits on land are likely to be harder to extract as tundra thaws, limiting the frozen season when drilling convoys can traverse the otherwise spongy ground, the report says. Alaska has already seen the "tundra travel" season on the North Slope shr
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you assume that global warming means that temperatures will rise uniformly across the globe?
Do you assume that global warming would cause no shift in weather patterns?
Do you assume that any shifts in weather patterns would not be disruptive to agriculture?
Do you assume that disruptions in agriculture can be easily accomodated, say by rapidly shifting agricultural production to different parts of the globe (assuming, of course, that there would be vast new tracks of arable farmland as a result of changed weather patterns)?
If the answer to any of these questions is "no", then global warming should make you nervous.
If your answer to any of these is "yes", then it's you, not the environmental scientists, who have some explaining to do. They seem like pretty shaky assumptions.
Re:Yikes! (Score:2, Insightful)
---Do you assume that global warming means that temperatures will rise uniformly across the globe?
Course not. Look at the midwest here during 1850's. MUCH more desertlike and much less water. And the earth took that area FROM less livable to more livable.
---Do you assume that global warming would cause no shift in weather patterns?
The natural forces are more destructive than most things we can make. Tornadoes, earthquakes, VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'polluta
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to say "I don't care" about some environmental issue, because natural processes also cause cataclysmic effects. The fact is that humans CAN alter the environment and humans DO breathe the air the environment produces, drink the water, and eat the fruit of the land.
The planet will survive no matter what we do, I'll grant you that. On the other hand, it need not support mamillian life. Though the course of history many classes of living organisms have become extinct though natural proccesses. It's quite possible that given a critical mass of people, all producing some minor atmospheric effect, we could alter the environment on the order of those natural processes, such that mamilian life were no longer sustainable. Natural selection would weed out the mammals and a new form of life would emerge.
If you're OK with that, go ahead and ignore the research about global warming. I for one would like to preserve the human race. I'm not saying all the science about global warmning is good. It isn't. However, to say that 6 billion people on the planet cold never affect the environment in a negative way is quite silly. We do need to take environmental research seriously, debunk the bad research, and heed the good research.
Get real. Humans aren't going anywhere. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok; enough with the humans and mammals dealie.
Barring extreme global catasrophe of the world-ending variety, e.g. comet, asteroid impact of a huge magnitude, possibly a huge thermonuclear exhange (maybe), Sun going Nova - nothing, repeat nada, is going to eliminate every human from the face of the planet. It's not going to happen.
What will happen is civilization -as we know it- would end. Billions of people might die, maybe. Countries as we know them may
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the midwest here during 1850's. MUCH more desertlike and much less water. And the earth took that area FROM less livable to more livable.
Sure it was. (I guess the Great Lakes don't qualify as "water.") Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion? Besides, didn't you say in another post [slashdot.org] that we only have 80 yea
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Funny)
Holy shit man, don't you know it gets warmer in the summer than the winter? We're all doomed! Doomed!
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
Who are also the same guys who can tell you what your weather will be like in exactly one month from now correctly less than 5% of the time.
So, if their weather forecasting skills have anything to do with the correctness of their global warming theories, which are a lot more long-term than even just "next month," you've just said that we shouldn't pay any attention to them.
Or, in other
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
There is evidence the whole earth once was very much warmer, approaching the temperature of your blood. There are TROPICAL fossils in the arctic regions of Earth.
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
You can, can't you?
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Informative)
This may seem like a slippery slope fallacy, but it is indeed based on solid evidence. Analysis of historical climates indicates that climate changes are indeed very sudden.
source [ornl.gov]
source [atmosphere.mpg.de]
source [dieoff.org]
source [daviesand.com]
But hey... we can wait untill our society has been crushed by global climate change before we take off our blinders.
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Interesting)
Global warming does not mean it gets warmer everywhere. Europe will likely get colder winters, and antarctica might also get colder (because wind systems stabilize, leading to less air exchange).
From a long term perspective, moderate global warming is not necessarily bad. Earth will likely find a new balance, and the ecosystem will adapt. Total biodiversity an
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
2: Irrelevant. Example: There have been ice ages before, but that doesn't mean that a new one wouldn't be a disaster to Mankind.
3: I don't know. But I do know the even US Govt. funded scientists have reached conclusions about global warming that your type don't like.
4: Oh yes. No problem. We will just relocate billions of people and buildings along with infrastructure from the low-lying parts
Typo correction (Score:2)
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Interesting)
2) I won't. It did. The results were catastrophic. Human/industry fault or just natural order of things, we face it and should prepare to
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
The dire predictions about coastal flooding would not happen because the moisture holding capacity of the warm, carbon dioxide laden atmosphere would increase to more than offset the molten ice. The amount of water a hurricane can dump demonstrates the huge quantities of water that can be suspended in warm air.
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, here you come.
1: Show me ACCURATE 1 million year tempature records. Wait!! We only have 80 years of records
It's called paleoclimatology. It was developed by people who actually studied when they went to school, as opposed to following your apparent curriculum of eating glue and getting your head stuck in bannisters.
2: Show me this hasnt happened before.
What does that have to do with anything? If it happened before it can't happen again? I mean, remember the last time you got your head stuck in a bannister? Did the fact that it had happened before prevent it from happening again?
3: Tell me the "scientists" studying arent also getting grants from... greenpeace or ELF..
Well, if you read the article then you would see who commissioned the study. But I guess it's more fun to accuse the scientists of being bribed liars. Because who wouldn't be corrupted by those climatology grants; you can really live the high life on those.
4: WHY exactly is global warming bad? Wont it give more landmass (eg, melts permafrost siberia) and lessen the "nice tropical -120F on antartica?
See, those pesky laws of thermodynamics mess things up. Maybe you should have taken junior high school physics instead of eating all that glue. Water, like many, many substances, tends to increase in volume when you add heat. So sea level rises. So you may gain part of Siberia, but you also lose a sizeable chunk of the world's coastal areas.
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
Really? Is that why my beer cans shrink when they freeze? I think you are missing something.
Re:Yikes! (Score:4, Informative)
Which is why I used the word "tends". Water is somewhat unique; when it changes from liquid to solid it expands, due to the formation of a crystal lattice.
But that behavior only happens in a narrow band of temperatures. It doesn't kick in until water hits about 4 degrees celsius; above that temperature, water behaves like other liquids, and expands when it's heated. Ocean temperature varies by latitude, but over much of the earth water doesn't hit the 4 degree mark until you go down more than a kilometer. So the water above that will, in fact, expand if you add heat.
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any credible reason to think that the amount of increased atmospheric H2O will counteract rising sea level temperatures?
There are TROPICAL fossils and fossil fuels in the arctic. How did they get there?
Why do you keep asking this question? Nobody's disputing that the greenhouse effect was more pronounced a few million years ago. But just because champsosaurs didn't have a problem with the climate, don't assume that we won't. If you haven't noticed, we're not semi-aquatic alligators. But you know, you're just proving my point: climate change can mean extinction. And I really don't want to be extinct.
These changes take a long time and living things are very adaptable. We will also adapt over the many generations that such changes happen.
a) it could happen faster than that, and b) "adapting" requires a lot of organisms in a species dying.
Re:Yikes! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Yikes! (Score:2, Interesting)
The reason oil, coal and gas are called fossil fuels is that they once came from living organisms. All energy used by man on this planet other than nuclear comes from the sun. Oil, coal and gas represent stored sunshine from a very long time ago.
These stored fuels are mostly composed of hydrogen, oxygen and carbon atoms that were bound together by the internal chemistry of living organisms. In order for the living creatures to be able to convert solar energy into t
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
Global "warming" is bad for humans who eat food that evolved our mild climate.
"And about non-liberal.. I voted Bush 2000, but dont think he's conservative ENOUGH
You are making the right move - vote your conscience!
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
If all of the icecaps melt, the result is to raise the global ocean level about 200 feet. IIRC, over 80% of the world's population lives in places that are less than 200 feet above sea level. At current rates it will take a few hundred years for this to occur, but the implication is that a large part of the human race and much of its wealth (in the form of c
Re:Yikes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, that's not necessarily the case. During the last ice age the effect of all the additional water being locked up in the arctic ice cap caused the sea levels to fall. As a result land that is currently underwater was exposed by the declining sea level, forming amongst other things the land bridge from the European mainland to the British Isles. As the ice age came to an end and the ice sheets melted, those areas of land were again submerged, opening up the Irish Sea and, sometime later, the English channel. This is why there are fewer species of mammals in Ireland than there are in the UK mainland; they never got the chance to cross the land bridges before they were submerged by the melting ice.
Of course, saying there is going to be more or less land kind of misses the point. What's the use of having an extra few million square km of land, if it's under an icesheet a few km thick? Or if we go the other way, having a nice warm, but somewhat smaller, Eurasia/North America if all the lands around the equator get to become an infertile desert like the Sahara? Those are two extreme examples of course, the reality is likely to fall somewhere in between; but gains in one area of the globe will still be off set by losses in another.
Re:Yikes! (Score:2, Funny)
*gasp*
Re: Ice - water (Score:5, Informative)
Correction: the ice replaces exactly the amount of water it occupies when floating (=law of Archimedes). Proof: take a glass of water, put in ice cube, fill up glass to the edge (but not overflowing!). Ice melts, and water is still exactly up to the edge.
Secondly: the bigger part of ice masses aren't floating, but piled hundreds or thousands or metres thick on top of land masses. And a glacier isn't usually found in an ocean or lake either. So if these ice masses melt, you get more water -> sea level up -> less land for people to live on.
My next comment will be ready soon, but subscribers [slashdot.org] can't beat the rush or see it early [slashdot.org]!
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this assertion repeated every time this topic comes up? It's patently false. We annually burn up couple of km^3 pure carbon and turn it all into CO2. A very major volcano spews only a few km^3 of material, most of which is just rocks that fall to the ground next to the volcano. Do you have any valid links to back up your claim?
Re:Yikes! (Score:5, Informative)
You are merely making an unfounded statement, but still got moderated up. Care to back this up?
According to "Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (EOS), v. 72, p. 249, and 254-255." CO2 emissions of all volcanoes are surpassed by us humble beings by a factor of 150.
Sulphourous-emissions of volcanoes and all other natural sources are surpassed by 330%.
I guess, you'll now have to retort to doubting the integrity and/or qualification of the scientist in question.
Re:Yikes! (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure, now.
But volcanic activity is nothing if not variable; the Earth goes through periods of intense vulcanism; vast areas covered in lava. Check out what caused the Deccan Traps in India for one example.
Massive volcanos which we today think of as just large islands with a few volcanos scattered around like North Island New Zealand where lake Taupo is a *crater* lake; the whole island is (probably) one gigantic monoclastic volcano.
Sure, *today* and for the duration of human history we have outdone all of the volcanos of the world, but take in the big picture.
All it would take is just *one* of those massive events and nature will have accelerated past us in greenhouse (and other noxious) gas production.
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
So what's your point? Everyone disagreeing with you on the amount hunams contribute to the greenhouse effect right now is a fool that isn't more concerned abo
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely this disinterest only applies if you don't intend to reproduce?
Actually, one of the things that amazes me about modern humans, is that they do seem remarkably disinterested in their own survival into the future.
Its as if they think that the species ends with them or something. Very wierd. Very... counter-Nietzscheian, counter-survivalist. Self destructive.
My point was that someone else played down natural sou
Re:Yikes! (Score:2)
Re:Yikes! (Score:4, Informative)
BTW, I'm on the side of the skeptics. I just like for everyone to be on the same page.
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stupid (Score:2)
</sarcasm>
That way it looks just like those good old tags mom used to make!
Re:Bad "science" (Score:2)
That's like asking what can we learn about dinosaurs if we study them less for less than 200 years and they were extinct millions years ago?
Re:Bad "science" (Score:2)
Re:Bad "science" (Score:2)
Re:Bad "science" (Score:2)
Re:Bad "science" (Score:5, Informative)
One of the many ways of studying past climate patterns is by looking at ice cores.
We have pretty good data on long term climate patterns in cold places. Some links here:
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarm
http://www.secretsoftheice.org/icecore/warming.ht
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/pa
Re:Bad "science" (Score:2)
This exercise investigates the variation in global temperatures over the past 150 years.
150 years is still too short to tell us anything.
http://www.secretsoftheice.org/icecore/warming.htm l:
The scientists on this expedition will be looking only at the last 200 years of ice core history. They are interested in learning what the ice records about human influences on the earth's climate and Antarctica's environment.
200 years is way too short t
Re:Bad "science" (Score:3, Informative)
How about 420,000 years [google.com]? And all I had to do was an obvious google search.
Or I could have looked at wikipedia [wikipedia.org] for discussion and pretty graphs.
The fact that some scientists may be focusing their attention in particular studies on post-industrial-revolution effects doesn't mean that other scientists haven't established a longer baseline in other studies. There are a lot of data out there if you go look for them, so I'm not sure why the grandparent only ref
Re:Want the truth..... (Score:2)
Re:But if we believe the American scientists (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But if we believe the American scientists (Score:3, Informative)
I can speak for what I see in the scientific community over here at University of California, Riverside. The consensus seems to be, in the Atmospheric Science, Soil Science, Environmental Science, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering circles, this:
1) The mean global tempe
Re:So what do we really know? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, I reccomend that we go along with your way of thinking and go on raping and pillaging the earth, destroying everything we touch!
Since we know nothing, there is no danger whatsoever that we could actually be hurting our own chances at survival.
Our Ignorance will protect us!
ohh, sorry, that last line was stolen from Bush's election campaign.