Global Warming Past The Point of No Return 1024
mad_goldfish writes "The UK's Independent is running a front page story today on a scientific report claiming that global warming is now unstoppable, after measuring changes in the level of ice in the arctic." From the article: "The greatest fear is that the Arctic has reached a 'tipping point' beyond which nothing can reverse the continual loss of sea ice and with it the massive land glaciers of Greenland, which will raise sea levels dramatically. Satellites monitoring the Arctic have found that the extent of the sea ice this August has reached its lowest monthly point on record, dipping an unprecedented 18.2 per cent below the long-term average." Either way, someone wins a bet.
Waterworld (Score:5, Funny)
I don't believe I'm familiar with that term (Score:4, Funny)
Training implies that there are competent people at FEMA. An assertation I'm not sure a certain region of the US would agree with.
Re:I don't believe I'm familiar with that term (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, if you were in a position to relocate, and were offered a better job in NO, would you really turn it down because it's below sea level? What about California, Florida, or Tornado ally?
Most people aren't fortunate enough to be able to choose what city they live in, and those with a choice will rarely consider natural disasters as a factor in that decision.
That said if you build a mansion on a cliff that is eroding at the rate of feet/year, and your house is destroyed I have no sympathy for you.
283,750 Roubles (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, thank you very much (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, thank you very much (Score:5, Funny)
10:Global warming is not happening
20:yes it is you ignoramus
30:I agree but it's not caused by man
40: Yes it is you ignoramus
50:no it isn't
60: GOTO 40
RUN
Re:Oh, thank you very much (Score:3)
Do you understand how chaos theory works now? Stop trying to kill butterflies until you know the full consequences!
Re:Oh, thank you very much (Score:4, Funny)
Global warming is not happening!
Yes, it is, you ignoramus!
I agree, but it's not caused by man!
count = 0
while (count < 10)
Yes, it is, you ignoramus!
No, it isn't!
count = count + 1
wend
do
Hitler!
Mao!
loop
Re:Oh, thank you very much (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't you be catching a Godwin exception somewhere in the last few lines?
Re:Oh, thank you very much (Score:3, Informative)
Partly, yes.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/01/katrin
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,10
Yes! (Score:3, Funny)
Awesome news! (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks, polluters! The power is yours!
This is EXCELLENT News! (Score:5, Funny)
On a tangential note, does anybody else get annoyed by the overuse of the phrase "tipping point"? It's like "perfect storm" was a few years ago, everybody's favorite trite phrase-of-the-moment. It's like we've reached a tipping point of "tipping point" usage, and this perfect storm of "tipping point"s has driven out the "perfect storm" meme.
Re:This is EXCELLENT News! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is EXCELLENT News! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it annoys me. How do they know where the "tipping point" is? Seems pretty arrogant to make such a claim when we understand so VERY little about the planet's various systems work.
Re:This is EXCELLENT News! (Score:3, Funny)
Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of these have been disproven, but they keep coming up. New ones occasionally replace them. But they all amount to the same basic concepts:
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:3, Informative)
Not true, Saudi Arabia could pump rather more (a big percentage, but I can't recall) more than it usually does, but it limits its output to stabilise prices.
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, it's doubted [msn.com] whether the Saudis can actually keep their promises.
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:3, Informative)
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/cl
Can you really look at this information, then confidently declare that human actions are the main determinant of climate change?
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:3, Interesting)
What really sucks is when people who are sensible skeptical about controversial research also have data. Because then you have to actually put up some of your own instead of firing off snide comments about people whose views are inconvenient.
It doesn't take much effort [daviesand.com] to look at historical
Re:Climate Change Objections, Simplified (Score:3, Interesting)
No it hasn't.
Not to mention have been in a hugely active solar flare cycle.
Which has absolutely no effect whatsoever, other than to cause intense aurorae - thanks to the Earth's magnetic fields.
But hell why would we take our main source of life and energy on the earth into account?
we have.
Because maybe you would have to deal with the facts...
Like all that human-produced CO2 in the atmosphere?
Maybe science can be twis
The Earth does not care (Score:3, Funny)
Greenland Ice Sheet (Score:5, Interesting)
Fortunately, there are other factors that should mitigate this, such as increased mass of the antarctic ice sheet due to increased moisture levels. See sea level rise [wikipedia.org].
-molo
Karl Rove + Lex Luthor (Score:5, Funny)
According to the sinless triumverate of truth (moveon.org, indymedia, and dailykos), Karl Rove has almost completed his master plan of melting all global ice to raise the world sealevel by 23ft.. which in a single stroke would wipe out almost all democratic voters in the US, as well as place all socialist-european countries in state of total turmoil whilst they tried to rebuild their cities and save their tax base (their population).
The republicans would then RULE THE WORLD!
Here is the "logic" I object to (Score:4, Insightful)
If It's too cold = Global Warming
If It's a Monsoon = Global Warming
If It's a drought = Global Warming
If a part of a glacier breaks away from Antartica = Global Warming
If the rest of Antartica is getting colder = Global Warming
If you replace "Global Warming" up there with "It's Bush's fault" then you have the left's political platform as well.
Come up with some REAL science that is not funded by politically oriented "science" organizations, then MAYBE there would be more support for change.
Point of No Return (Score:3, Funny)
Past the point of no return, no backwards glances
Our days of global warming have now begun
Past all thoughts of right or wrong, no going back now
Abandon thoughts, and let the warmth begin
When will the fires shall burn the forest, when will the flood hit my costal mansion
When will the warming at last consume us?
Past the point of no return, the final threshold
The iceberg is crossed, so stand and watch it melt
We're past the point of no return.
(with apologies to the Phantom of the Opera musical).
Hey this is a good thing... (Score:3, Funny)
Huge ice cubes (Score:3, Funny)
Little Girl: But...
I SAID ONCE AND FOR ALL!
So is this based on one of those flawed models (Score:3, Interesting)
Or is it based on one of those other flawed model that failed to take something else into account, only we aren't sophisticated to detect it yet?
Seriously, wake me when you have some useful information.
baffled (Score:5, Interesting)
If you actually put some common sense into, that is the carbon cycle over millions of years has store sh1tloads of carbon away underground, and that in the next hundred years its very likely we will have put it all up in the atmosphere... and that carbon contributes to global warming, that has the side effects of unpredictable violent weather, and a general slowing of the earth on its axis (like Venus)... you would think that even the SUGGESTION that we should be conscious over what is in our control would be an action item.
An analogy is forest fires... forests have burned forever, contributing to the nitrogen cycle and carbon cycle. But now we're hell bent on putting them out. Sure, it means not-so-much carbon, but the result is a f4cked up nitrogen cycle and a build up of biomass just waiting to be a serious blaze. Why do we fight the fires then? Protect peoples homes? OR to protect the forestry industry?
So the ocean rises a few inches, and a bunch of well established species get extinct; just think of how many times we get to rebuild New Orleans, Miami, and such...
Who is falling for the media hype? (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be nice if those who jump to say 'I told you so' would recongnize that this is the one of the first articles that claim to have evidence decided we are past a tipping point. The people involved are reutable but we need more research.
It would also be nice for those denying that there is a problem to get some of their facts straight. While the media only reports on catastrophic events like massive flooding and hurricanes those are the worst case predictions. Many of the scientist more realistic predictions made in the past are on tract. West Nile virus, Avian flu, malaria are showing up where it never has before. 20 years ago climate scientist had claimed that this would be an indirect result. There is also other indirect evidence like bird/fish/herd migration changes, species sensitivity and so on. As well as direct evidence as found in telecontection analysis, outgoing longwave radiation, etc (just google climate studies).
The biggest problem is everyone wants or expects a definetive answer right now. It is probably the most complex system that is currently intesivly studied. That is why they need massive supercomputers and incredible amounts of data. You are not going to get an easy answer for about 100 years.
In my opinion it should be more like a health problem. I personally would like to live a long health life. There are now the obvious things to avoid like smoking and drugs, but I also might at least listen when someone talks about chloesterol, heart disease, and bbq pork ribs (mmm, ribs).
In a ideal world... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
But we are actually still coming out of the last ice age, so we may just be egotistical to think that we have an effect on the planet's climate.
Did you know that it's an oddity in the Earth's history that we have ice at *both* poles?
Of course up until recently the Earth's climate was wildly variable, pretty damn close to chaotic. We have no idea what could have been changing Earth's temperature as rapidly as the ice samples indicate.
So we may, as a species, be in for a bumpy ride in the next few thousand years or so.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to assert that the people who make computer models are too stupid to avoid linear extrapolations from cyclic data.
You can't have a consensus among reputable, peer-reviewed scientists when discussing new results.
Yes, the article reports a prediction of an ice-free arctic (at the end of summer) in 65 years. That's the result of a model. But the article also reports that the September ice coverage of the arctic was at a record low in September 2004, which followed a record low in September 2003, which followed a record low in September 2002. Ice coverage at the end of August, 2005 is 1/6th lower (2.0 million square miles vs. 2.4 million square miles) than it has averaged since we've had satellites watching. And that the more of the arctic ocean that is ice free, the more of the ice melts.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
In your example, you'll know the computer model is wrong if in a week you are still alive. On the other hand, if the model can make accurate predictions about historical data, without being based on that data, then you have evidence to the model's accuracy. For example, use a machine learning technique to train a system to predict a 1-year climate trend using data from 1900-1990. Then, see if the system can accurately predict trends from 1990-2005. If so, there's no evidence that it would be wrong when predicting a trend from 2005-2015, when trained from 1990-2005. Other similar tests might include training on even-numbered years, and then predicting climate for odd-numbered years, or training on non-leap years, and predicting for leap years.
When you have sufficient data, you can use rigorous statistical methods to say with a known confidence how accurate your methods are likely to be in making predictions (and I'm not just talking about accuracy and recall; you can validate a hypothesis much more rigorously). You can then make rational, scientific statements.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
The biggest driver for the ice age cycle is geological. Rocks erode, removing CO2 from the atmosphere as part of the chemical reaction involved in weathering, and eventually depositing it on the ocean floors. The ocean floors are subducted, and the CO2 eventually spit out by volcanoes again. Nothing humanity can possibly do regarding CO2 levels will even be noticed by this vast slow cycle. The cycle is self-governing, as glaciation reduces the amount of exposed rock, increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and therefore temperature. This correction would presumably take millions of years, however, no so helpful to humanity.
The cycle that's interesting on our time scale is the 100,000 year cycle. Every 100,000 years or so temperatures spike (usually to higher than they are now, by a bit) and CO2 levels spike, then within 1,000 years or so something forces temperatures and CO2 levels back down. We don't know what that mechanism is, but it must be quite powerful. For some reason when temperatures peaked 10,000 years ago, they stayed warm (it's a little too early in mankind's history to give us the credit for that, but the unnatural warm spell almost certainly allowed us to develop civilization outside of the tropics).
What mechanism usually cranks CO2 levels and temperatures down when they spike every 100,000 years? Why didn't it happen 10,000 years ago? When will it eventually kick in? Without knowing the answers to these questions, it's just absurd to announce that global warming is "unstoppable". We have only the most shallow hypotheses about how the cycle works in the first place.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:4, Insightful)
But the phrase comes to mind, "Unusually sensitive to initial conditions." Assuming, and this may be a big assumption, that there are chaotic elements at work here, our activities may be sufficient to drive climate cycles in a slightly different direction. For better or worse, or are we insignificant, who knows?
Would this really be ANY sort of issue at all if it weren't so darned profitable for some people that we emit a bunch of greenhouse gases?
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
When you say "some people," you mean, of course "pretty much everyone that's currently alive." Right?
Because everything from refrigeration of antibiotics to high-yield/acre farming and the treatment of potable water involves energy consumption. More nukes, etc., would certainly be a good (and less hazy) thing, so I'm all for that and whatever other little nudges we
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:4, Insightful)
We may be in a warmer cycle, but it is a firm fact that we've pumped up the methane, CO2 and CO in the atmosphere. We are pumping a tanker of gasoline onto a raging inferno.
No matter the overall climatic changes, OUR activites have made it much worse and much faster. Ice is melting everywhere. Glaciers are going, Siberia is melting, releasing methane in a vicious cycle, villages in Alaska are disappearing in the meltoff of the land, we're getting four times the normal number of hurricanes in a year -- and they are stronger, for the waters are warmer than they have been in centuries. The Northwest Passage over the arctic ocean is opening up as the ice floes melt.
It's real. The only choice we have, in the short run, is whether we wish to mitigate the changes by cutting down greenhouse gases -- immediately. We wait, there'll be new oceanfront property really soon.
Of course, the same industrial and financial firms who wished to maintain their status quo by resisting change and financing PR fake science will shift gears in the new warm world and find massive profit in the meltdown. It's all the same to them.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently I missed 10,000 years between the start of the industrial revolution and now, when we've experienced the degree of CO2 increase and temperature rise.
Are you trying to claim that the rates are comparable? If not, then what kind of argument are you trying to make? "The earth has changed before, so 30x-ing the rate won't make a difference"?
within a thousand years
I think you need to look at those graphs again. Historically, temperature changes relatively little over a thousand years, except in modern times.
eventually spit out by volcanoes again
Human CO2 emissions far outpace volcanic emissions. We mine Earth's carbon resevoirs at a tremendous rate - burning about 6 gigatonnes (6e12 kg) (plus an additional GT from displaced carbon sinks) annually. To put that number in perspective, if the carbon sources that we burn annually averaged the density of water, they would fill a cube 1.8 kilometers on each side.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
You can see the 100,000 year cycles clearly. Temperatures spike from -8 or -9 degrees (C) below present to 2 or 3 degrees above present in about 5000 years, then almost immediately reverse, dropping about 5 degrees over the next 10,000 years, then cool off slowly over the remainder of the 100,000 year (give or take) cycle.
About 15,000 years ago temps spiked as normal, reaching today's temps about 10,000 years ago but *didn't* dive as would be expected. Humans started messing with the climate significantly only in the past 200 years, but something unprecedented in the 400,000 years of good data we have happened 10,000 years ago - we should have been back to the norm for the Current Ice Age by now. What happened? During the previous cycle CO2 levels stayed at the ~275ppm level for 10,00 years but temperatures dropped nearly 10 degrees during that time anyway - why?
Yes, indeed, as I said repeatedly, the volcanic cycle is far slower than the timescale we care about. But CO2 level changes driven by the big geological cycle dominate the geological data. There have been geological periods when CO2 levels were 6-7 times as high as they are now (we think), but temperatures were about the same. Why? We really know very little about the factors that govern the climate.
What we *do* know is that it's a historical anomaly during the past 50,000,000 years for temperatures to be this warm for even 1,000 years at a stretch - the climate simply isn't naturally stable.
Re:co2 emissions from volcanos (Score:5, Informative)
speaking of ice core samples (Score:5, Informative)
Although global climate might be within plausible variation, here's one undisputed fact of human effects. We have royally mucked up the atmosphere.
For at least the past 400000+ years [google.com], global CO2 concentrations fluctuated solidly in the 180-300ppm range. Methane flucutated 300-700ppb on a matching path, and both correlate strongly with temperature (r about .8) over that time.
Today, CO2 has shot up to 380ppm and methane above 1700ppb. Any rational observer should conclude this is A Bad Thing(tm).
BTW, we're currently towards the high end of average temperature, not low. What is the phrase "still coming out of an ice age" is being measured against?
Re:Doom and Gloom NO, Just one of 5 CO2 Peaks (Score:4, Interesting)
Those 5 CO2 peaks over the last 400,000 years came from the
Vostok Antarctica ice cores (about every 100,000 years). Our actual CO2 might be expected to go a bit higher based on the prior peaks, but then something repeatedly changes in the world's ecosphere in the past cycles and there is an ABRUPT drop in CO2 in the past history.
Why did it go up?
Why did it turn?
What long term sun cycles or sun spots only exist, which we have not detected yet?
Does a direct hit by a large coronal mass ejection/s offer a drastic change to the earth's enviroment?
Why did it go down precipitously?
Once you know what caused it, does it have so much power behind it that man can or can NOT change it?
If you look at facts instead of blathering, it becomes apparent that scientists and interested laymen yet today have no proof of what moves the momentum of the truely long term ecosystem's atmosphere.
I personally believe we will find that man is incapable of altering the long term climatic cycles, and at some point Canada & Northern Europe and Asia will again go under kilometers of ice, and man (just like the Vikings in Greenland), will only be able to look on in horror as the ice relentlessly takes over the land they used to work and live on.
You can easily see the CO2 charts on the web, but I won't post any URLs.
Bo
Re:Doom and Gloom NO, Just one of 5 CO2 Peaks (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
You're thinking of the Orontius Finaeus Map [google.com] of Antarctica from the 1500's.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
No. Completely wrong. The missing ozone allows UV radiation through, not more heat. Ozone itself is a greenhouse gas [ghgonline.org] and a pollutant.
Note that while ozone is considered a greenhouse gas only in the troposphere, the primary source of tropospheric ozone is stratospheric ozone... which is what the hole is in [demon.co.uk].
Bottom line is that stratospheric ozone relies on continual production to sustain itself. Certain chemicals (CFCs, for instance) both interfere with production and destroy some existing ozone in the stratosphere. This creates the hole.
Eventually, (surviving) ozone in the stratosphere sinks down into the troposphere, where it becomes a greenhouse gas, and contributes to globabl warming. This process is the biggest contributor to tropospheric ozone.
So, in reality, the ozone destruction is limiting global warming to an extent, though since some CFCs themselves are powerful greenhouse gases, it is not a net reduction.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
[snide]Yes, but we have discovered amazing technology that allows us to see into the past![/snide]. We have examined records of climate change that span hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years.
"Life will continue on, and we'll adapt. Okay?
Sure, we'll adapt, since we don't require genetic change to make different climates livable. What about all the species that do? What about our food supply? How much suffering will be endured by less rich nations while we race to adapt our agritech?
Maybe we differ in points of view, but as I see it, it's not just about us. Don't we have the responsibility to minimize our impact on other people and other species?
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to be snide. That was something of my point. We've had the technology to track global climate with precision for about 50-100 years. We've then based our ideas of what the climate should be, based on that. However, the imprecise records we have of historical global climate shifts have showed that the Earth has historically experienced WILD fluctuations in climate. The only hubris is that we think our 100 years of precise weather experience will somehow prevent the climate from wildly shifting again.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Interesting)
Gosh, nobody can ever be funny around here. Do Slashdotters ever get out of their houses and lighted up? (Never mind. Forget I asked that.)
Our actions do have an impact, which I believe should be minimized.
Are we absolutely certain that we want to minimize our changes on the environment? I certainly agree that we want to make the environment as suitable for life as possible, but I'm not so keen on the idea of lettin
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree with your disagreement. I hope we don't disagree on tha?
The problem with mediating the impact is that it's an "us or them" situation. Your choices for mediation are:
1. Stop using technology. Since h
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly, no we haven't, simply because records of climate change do not exist for millions, even thousands of years, into the past.
What we HAVE examined are indirect indicators of climate, such as tree rings and ice core CO2 levels. These are not records of climate change, but only of tree growth and perhaps CO2 levels.
What people forget, because scientists don't bother telling them, is that using such indirect measurements involve a lot of assumptions about conditions at the time and since. For example, one must assume that the CO2 in a core hasn't either accumulated or dispersed due to some unknown process to accept the 'measured CO2' from a current core being the actual value from the time the core was created.
Even the current "direct" measurements from satellites involve assumptions. Fortunately, the validity of these assumptions is testable (we have both the satellite measurements and ground truth data), whereas the validity of an assumption about conditions ten thousands years ago isn't (no ground truth).
So, the summary of the entire article is that many people have already been saying there is "nothing we can do" to stop what is a naturally occuring process that has happened before without us and will happen again after we are gone.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Informative)
The name "Greenland" was pretty much an early form of advertising by Eirik Raude, to attract settlers. During the summer, you can still find green spots here and there on the West coast.
Mind you, the place Eirik was coming from was called Iceland, and it lies in the middle of the Gulf stream.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Interesting)
Sick and tired of the volcano comparison (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is my opinion on the global warming thing. I think it is Hubris for humans to think that we can destroy the Earth. We certainly can make it uninhabitable for certain flora and fauna, including Humans, but we can't destroy it. Humans weren't the first species, and we likely won't be here when the Sun finally goes out. If we screw the Earth up bad enough, she will just spin us off, and other species will take over.
Maybe we will be able to keep ourselves going until we can develop ways to populate other planets- but it will require a concerted effort.
Like anything however, we (humans) usually need something really big to get our asses in gear. We are reactive, not proactive. So unless there is some giant event like the atmosphere suddenly disappearing, things aren't likely to change. Although I am holding out some glimmer of hope that we (humans) will decide to be better stewards of our land.
If you are a hard core scientist, then on an intellectual level you must want to help our Earth.
Whether you belive in creationism or God- you would think that serving God requires us to take care of what God blessed us with.
Whether Humans cause Global Climate Change or not, we need to take better care of our Earth. There is an old saying- you don't shit where you sleep....
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is Hubris for humans to think what we can't.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3)
Humanity is also very unlikely to eradicate life on earth. There's too much, and life is too clever.
We do stand a good chance of affecting global climate in such a way that the trillions of dollars in investments we've made in food production suddenly becomes inappropriate because the climate changes over years-to-decades. And then hundreds of millions to billions of people starve or dehydrate or die in migration to places where th
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
The same argument could be made about the economy and interest rates. By your reasoning, a 0.5% rise in interest rates should have no serious effect on the economy, because that is smaller than the normal range of interest rate variation.
Similarly, by your reasoning,
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
There may be debate over the source of this warming (and from what I've read, I'm bending over backwards to be fair), but the evidence seems pretty clear that it is happening. What worries me is how fragile our current societies will prove to be in the face of big, (relatively) sudden changes like the ones described here. You hit the nail on the head:
The fact of the matter is that we've been living cushy
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Interesting)
Our society isn't as fragile as during the Medieval Warm Period when the Vikings settled Greenland and birch and willow trees grew there natively and treeline was several hundred feet highe
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Informative)
Our thermal energy output is not the problem (for now). It is our output of C02 and other gases. These change earth's atmosphere, adding to earth's overall thermal energy retention.
But of course, I could just ignore global scientific consensus and listen to some random slashdotter who obviously has no clue about what the problem actually is instead.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Funny)
Repeal the Kyoto Treaty and fire up the coal power plants. If we're all going to die, it mine as well be full speed ahead!
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:5, Informative)
Vostok data [sierraclub.ca] and others [google.com]. We also have more recent data from ice, sediment cores which all give the same sort of data: the earth's climate changes wildly naturally, but over many thousands of years.
Two things seriously stand out in all of the data:
1) The earth's temperature *has varied* widely - but over tens of thousands of years. The most pronounced spike was when temperature went from 8 degrees below present 140,000 years ago to 2 degrees above present 125,000 years ago; that's 10 degrees in 15,000 years. We're currently experiencing a change of 0.2 degrees every decade, I.e., thirty times as fast. While there have been shorter spikes that have been steeper, nothing in history even approaches what we're experiencing right now.
2) There is an extreme correlation between CO2 and temperature. There is no doubt about the severity of our CO2 spike, nor its cause. We're injecting at a rapid rate earth's sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, and have 2.5xed atmospheric carbon since the early 1800s. We output about 7.1 billion (of which 3B enters the atmosphere) additional tonnes of carbon per year. The atmosphere currently holds about 750B tonnes (which, as stated previously, is a 2.5x over the early 1800s). While there is hope that marine biota will increase carbon consumption, history has shown that such changes take thousands of years when left unassisted.
regardless of whether we eject terawatts of thermal energy
What on earth does this have to do with global climate change?
A forest fire or volcano is a hell of a lot more energy than humans normally put out
If you want to get back to climate change, their CO2 and methane emissions aren't comparable, except for historic supervolcanoes. At the same time, volcanoes produce overall global cooling because of the aerosols and sulfuric acid particulate (which increases cloud formation).
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
CO2 is going up at the same time the Climate changes. That DOES NOT mean that CO2 is causing the Climate change.
In 998 when the Vikings go a Vik'ing over to Greenland, the planet is warmer by many accounts...
"In the 960s Erik the Red, a fiery Norwegian, was exiled from his home in Norway. He went to Iceland, where he married Thjodhildur. He was later banished from there for thr
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe everything will be hunky-dory in 100 years and there was no need to worry. But the cost of making that assumption and being wrong is so ridiculously high compsared to the cost of assuming the worst and taking massive preventative steps, that as far as I can tell, the only sane reaction to this issue is to err on the side of extreme caution.
The whole @$#@%^ planet is something we should not be playign cavalier with.
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Informative)
From the third TAR (the most recent that they have published on their site)'s summary:
"Human activities have increased the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gasses and areosols since the pre-industrial era" (goes on to discuss how)
"There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." (goes on to discuss why)
etc. Did you even read the TAR?
A quick Google
Re:Doom and Gloom (Score:3, Informative)
That is not what is expected. The temperature is expected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees by 2100, not 2050. I note that you round up the top end of the range and then reduce the timeline by 50 years. Further, the Kyoto protocol is expected to REDUCE this increase by 0.02C to 0.28C by 2050. Not reduce _TO_, but reduce _BY_. So we're going to shave a quarter of a degree off, and at what expense? That's assuming that
Global warming isn't necessarily our fault (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Global warming isn't necessarily our fault (Score:5, Informative)
Why he is an idiot: http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/08/pielke-senior -has-blog.html#comments [blogspot.com]
He certain has been peer-reviewed, though. The feedback he got from his papers include:
The exchange is not worthy of publication. In fact, I do not understand why P&C even wrote their piece in the first place. They continually destroy whatever point they had in mind by noting Hansen 'did it right'... None of the participants in this pathetic exchange seem to have the slightest clue about the large decadal noise that exists in the oceans and some ocean models.
Which bring up the question about why he resigned, which in his own words:
The current discussion in the media based on the three Science Express articles misses the more significant issue of spatial trends in tropospheric temperature trends.
He quit because the committee was focusing on trends in the global average, and he was more interested in geographical locations.
Realclimate is a group blog focusing only on scientific analysis and which gives no recommendations for policy change. The views they give strike me as typically very cautious - so what do you consider to be alarmism?
Re:Global warming isn't necessarily our fault (Score:4, Informative)
Local to regional land surface processes related to land cover/land use change represent an important first-order forcing of climate variability. Changes in land cover due to urbanization, agriculture, and engineering projects have important consequences for vegetation, soil moisture, sensible and latent heat fluxes, air temperature, precipitation, atmospheric circulation, the distribution of frozen ground (in high latitude/altitude regions), etc. In areas where rapid and extensive alterations to the land surface have occurred, such as China, parts of North America and Europe, high-latitude areas, as well as many other regions, the analogous land surface processes can have
widespread climatic and environmental consequences.
Hell, he's posting articles that are attributing the problems much more directly to humans than on http://www.realclimate.org/ [realclimate.org] , which, contrary to your comment, I find to be pretty good as it tries to stay away from politics and economics, focusing on the science itself. Hardly alarmist IMHO. All in all, I find both sources complementary.
However, YMMV.
The fact remains: Global Warming is happening. There are very strong indications that we are responsible, but in what capacity and what are the political/economical consequences of such a thing? That's something else. The core problem still remains: there is global warming. That has direct consequences on the fauna and flora of Earth. Whether we are responsible or not, there is still a problem and it's not by still dumping tons of CO2 that it's going to go away.
Re:Human greed knows no bounds (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Problem (Score:3, Informative)
Orange and banana groves in Ontario, well, maybe. But then that doesn't really increase the amount of food since there are already orchards all over Ontario (I have four fruit trees and six grape vines in my backyard in Toronto).
But there isn't going to be any wheat in Nunavut any time soon. Soil profiles in the tudra are very poor. You need somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 years (depending on your source) of grasses growing, dying, rotting into the ground, fixing nitrogen and building up
Re:No Problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that it really matters whether humans are causing it. What matters is whether humans are impacting it. If there is something that we can do to slow it down or reverse it, then we should. Period.
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:3, Insightful)
Fact: we are living on this planet
Fact: this planet is warming
Fact: weather patterns will change
Fact: we better damn well do something about it.
Fact: whether we are the ones who are causing the change is irrelevant.
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever eard about the holocene extinction event? From wikipedia: A 1998 survey by the American Museum of Natural History found that 70% of biologists view the present era as part of a mass extinction event. Some, such E. O. Wilson of Harvard University, predict that man's destruction of the biosphere could cause the extinction of one-half of all species in the next 100 years. Research and conservation efforts, such as the IUCN's annual "Red List" of threatened species, all point to an ongoing period of enhanced extinction, though some offer much lower rates and hence longer time scales before the onset of catastrophic damage. The extinction of many megafauna near the end of the most recent ice age is also sometimes considered a part of the Holocene extinction event.
Well, 70% of biologists think that we are going thtought a massive extinction event and you say that humans can't put a dent in the ecosystem. With that, you get modded +5 Insightful..
We could at least say that your thinking is not shared by the science community, even if it seems to find echo on slashdot.
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be odd if pumping millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere had no effect, wouldn't it?
The eart has gone to drastic changes over the course of several million years. Within the past 10,000 years, glaicers have formed and receeded in northern Europe and North America. Not too long ago, Chicago was covered in ice. It's why there is so much good farm land up near Indiana.
How is this relevant? During most of that period there were not that many people around (a few millions at most) and they lived tough lives. Now we have hundreds of millions living within a few metres of sea level, and we rely on subtle aspects of rainfall and climate to grow our food. Even a minor climate change could have a dramatic and very unpleasant effect.
The fact is that humans, even with all our pollution, can't put a dent in our planets ecosystem compared to the power of one rhylothetic (sp?) volcanic eruption
I can't check what you mean because of the spelling
However, we are having an impact. In a few decades we will have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - that is a major change.
On top of this, many geologists believe that we are currently in an Ice Age and we're on the cooling side of it!
We were on the cooling side of it!
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:3, Informative)
That's a complete lie. If you disagree, find me your nearest buffalo.
On top of this, many geologists believe that we are currently in an Ice Age and we're on the cooling side of it!
Not so long ago there was a wooly mammoth saying the same thing. Newsflash: we've been living in an ice age for our entire evolutionary history. We're not adapted to l
Not the reason for good farm land.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now you can have corn chips.
We've put a SERIOUS dent into our plant's ecosystem. Look at all of the species gone, do to man. Look at all the ones on the endangered list(s).
There's overwhelming evidence. Just look at it. It's not disjointed, it's not anecdotal, it's scientific evidence.
Please go back to your job in the Bush administration and stop playing with your computer on the government's time.
Re:Myths and Ice Age (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, there is no such type of volcanic eruption termed "rhylothetic" (bad spelling nor otherwise). What in God's name are you doing, making up words?
Your choices are: Strombolian, Vulcanian, Vesuvian, Peléan, Hawaiian, Phreatic, and the most powerful, Plinian.
So, maybe your are right. There is no way human pollution can put a dent into the ecosystem the way a rhylothetic eruption can, because there is no such thing as a rhylothetic eruption!
We'll let the rest wonder about the validity of your other fantasy conclusions...
Re:Motive for making this stuff up? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to cash-out with the oil companies, you have to be saying that there ISN'T any global warming, and you have to spend a lot of time/money criticizing the environmentalists. If there wasn't anybody making noises about global warming, than you, as an anti-global warming researching wouldn't get millions in grants.
If you are an environmentalist, you have to be saying that there IS global warming, and you have to spend a lot of time/money criticizing the people I just described above. If there wasn't anybody disputing your facts, than you, as a global warming research, wouldn't get millions in grants.
Both sides have an incentive to say that both sides should get more funding. As both sides get more funding, they make *yet more noise*.
There hasn't been a single article from either side saying 'cut off funding for the other'. All the scientists agree that 'more research, more funding, more computer models, etc. .
Never forget, big science research ITSELF is fairly big research. The largest computing clusters in the world have been built for the purpose of analyzing global warming. Literally fleets of ships, along with mounds and mounds of atmospheric measuring equipment, and dozens of satellites have been constructed for the purpose of studying warming. Not to say that they don't find a bunch of intresting conclusions/data. But don't expect ANYONE tied up in the debate to ever say, "We're done researching, time to act, no more money for science, lets just spend it on lobbying, etc. .
Want to fund your ancient petrifyied tree research project? Link it to global warming, say that you are looking to see past temperature data. Shop it out to both sides, the IPCC people, the sierra club, and the oil companies, and make sure you release *very* high quality, but moderately ambiguous data.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
Re:Equilibrium mechanisms (Score:4, Insightful)
Another thing: How do you derive equilibrium in such a complex system? The term is meaningless.
Fact: anthropogenic global climate change is occuring and is characterized by higher temperatures during a period when the Earth should be cooling into another Ice Age as indicated by long-term climate data collected from ice coring.
Re:Equilibrium mechanisms (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, but what makes you think that life will continue to include homo sapiens as a species?
Re:Equilibrium mechanisms (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Equilibrium mechanisms (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, but not necessarily us. The Earth itself will be fine and life will survive. However, the Earth might be in a condition that we won't survive. You're assuming that the Earth's environment will stabilize back to where it is now (or was pre-Industrial Revolution). There is no reason for this to happen.
Re:Equilibrium mechanisms (Score:3, Insightful)
Humans are fragile though. Nobody really cares about what the earth will become outside of how it impacts us.
Whether human created or not, we're going to have to make a serious investment in relocation soon. The price tag tied to Katrina was high, but just wait until we get to move New York, Miami and other coastal cities.
Re:Oh please..... (Score:3, Informative)
Looks like someone needs to brush up on their basic calculus. Even if you were right, why are you so sure we're spiraling in rather than spiraling away from the sun like the Moon is from us?
The biggest problem by far is, who cares!!! It'll be thousands of years before it happens, and
Re:U.N. Says It's Healing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:overplaying one's hand (Score:5, Informative)
>> was busy with work and didn't notice the end of
>> everything. How was it?
They actually *did* something about it and mandated pollution controls on coal-fired plants. You were probably too busy with work to notice that too.