Climate Change May Be Past the Point of No Return

according to NASA, in 2005 the world continued to be a warm and fuzzy place to live... oh gee...umm uhh... wait a sec... its definitely warm...but that fuzzy is the ticklish feeling in the back of my throat every time i take in a deep breath. the fuzzy look is what everything looks like from a distance through the smog.

in 2005, the world set a record as the warmest year on record

 

Global Warming = horse crap.

It is a natural cycle that occurs over thousands of years.

Did you know that many of the kings buildings in France had the main living quarters on the second floor? It was because of the snow. It does not snow that much in Paris anymore. Must have been those cars and factories they used in the 1700s that started global warming.

 

let me guess, Mighty whispered that knowledged to your ear, right?

 

although its a well known fact that warmer sea temperatures spawn stronger hurricanes, i suppose the spate of category 4's and 5's are just a natural course of nature also?

the Thames used to freeze over in winter sufficiently enough to ice skate and transport goods in the winter. today it doesnt even ice over at all. but many attribute that change to the deforestation of Europe. remember, all of Europe was heavily forested at one time. the deforestation was virturally complete by the 1600's

 

Considering how much CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere each year I think that Global warming is happening. It way also coinside (sp?) with natural fluxuations in the global temp but just the simple physics is compelling.

What that said... During the Cretaceous period (~146 - 65 mya) CO2 were WAY higher than they are now, there were NO ice caps... period. In fact Antarctica was quite warm (I believe that there are coal deposits there now that date back to this time). Here's a map of where it was and what the globe looked like.

The CO2 levels were the result of millions of years of very active volcanism and seafloor speading.

Now, what's alarming about the present situation is the RATE of CHANGE not the absolute values. During the Cretaceous the biosphere had a very long period of time to adapt. Now we're talking about 100's or even 10's of years and that's pretty much instantaneous on a geologic scale. That's a BAD thing.

And this idea of too late and what's the point is just bollocks.

 

That is not the case, if you are suggesting anywhere near an even split of expert opinion.

500:1 would be about right. This ratio is based on positions of authors published in peer reviewed journals from 2003-2004. Rest assured the ratio is higher now.

While bush and his family of ostriches still proclaim GW uncertain wrt to human cause, the scientific community debates the point of no return given the status quo. It is not whether humans are driving GW, it is what humanity is going to do about it.

I have to admit, thought, that a political jump from 'no such thing' to 'too late, don't have to do anything' is classic.

 

I've held the somewhat unpopular view for several years that we have indeed passed the tipping point. The human race may have pushed things along a bit causing us to get there sooner, possibly much sooner than the planet would have without us, but now that the switch has been flipped (metaphorically speaking), much of what happens next is indeed beyond our control.

Actually, it's not quite been fully thrown into automatic. We're at the point now where if we instantaneously cut every human source of emissions down to 0%, it might, or might not reset.

The oversimplified version is that the planet has warmed a bit for reasons that are irrelevant (human or not). We've reached the point where the warming has caused massive melting across areas containing large volumes of frozen CO2, which are being released in the summer, and not being recaptured in the winter. This yearly natural CO2 release is approaching (but not yet surpassing) the releases of us pesky humans. Meaning in short, without us at this point, there might still be enough increase in global greenhouse to cause greater releases in subsequent years, pushing the cycle forward.

What I cannot foresee however is the timescale involved. The next X years will contain some significant climate changes in places. Be it 50 years, or 500 years I cannot say. And none of this doomsday BS of course. NY will not flood up like Venice, and West Virginia will not become beach-front property. Super-Hurricanes will not wipe out Kansas.

But I suspect we will all see the slow beginnings of the cycle within our lifetimes. (And no fair dying tomorrow just to prove me wrong!)

-Ken

 

So what, precisely, do you propose is going to happen? Tipping point of what?

 

I think one of the hardest things to grasp wrt GW is its significance. Five degrees hotter ? Whatever, just turn up the AC, right ?

I am still learning, but the GW related calamities seen to be related to a couple of different reasons:

1. A large swath of biology has narrow temperature regions to stay in steady state. Changes will bring extinctions and disease epidemics in both plant and animal species. There are also global climate processes such as the ocean currents, that over millennia have evolved into biological nurseries. Pertubations there will have astounding secondary effects.

2. Five degrees is a massive amount of energy, and it is not going to be evenly spread out for everyone's enjoyment.

3. Heat/Energy is one facet; the other is the acidification of the world, in particular the oceans from CO2. I read the other day that the Great Barrier reef of Australia is doomed. Reefs are nurseries.

GW will teach us loads about Earth's processes and biological inter-dependencies.

Americans have been insulated from the ecosystem for so long, that they forget just how tenous a hold humanity's toehold is.

 

The weather will likely get extreme. Europe may see a mini ice age. Hell, this could start a new global ice age. There is data that suggests that ice ages have been preceeded by up turns in the temp. It's really hard to know what's going to happen, how fast it's going to happen, and what the implications are. Simply spouting doomsday drivel isn't the answer.

We know what the solution is, it's just a matter of prodding people to pull their heads out of the sand, roll up their sleeves, and do something about it before we go the way of the stromatalites.

 

Eric has touched upon a proven fact that changes in the makeup of our world due to global warming change other things that we currently dont know the impact of.

i saw a special on Discovery that talks about experiments done on several plants in an environment with double the current levels of CO2. it was first thought that plants would thrive under those conditions. instead, heretofore harmless microbes thrived and dominated the plants more than outweighing the increased growth rate of the plants. the microbes success was tied directly to the increased CO2 concentrations. when the CO2 was lowered, the microbes could not reproduce fast enough to be a problem

so the largest impact of global warming is not temperature or melting ice. if the siberian plains thaw out, they will release CO and CO2 at a level that would approach ½ of the total amount of gasses released by man in the past 200 years. some scientists say that this process has already started.

 

So what, precisely, do you propose is going to happen? Tipping point of what?

Global Warming - in the sense that it's going to get hotter everywhere all at once, melt the polar ice caps, and flood us all, has generally been discredited as a ludicrous theory. It was conceived without any regard for the effect the planet's oceans have on the global climate engine, and predicted a scenario where everything simply went up, spiraling out of control, and we all drowned or roasted to death.

It's been replaced by a pattern of events given the name "Global Climate Change", is far more complicated. Under this model, not all areas of the world will be effected equally or evenly. This model is built with ocean currents taken into account, and more accurately matches up with the cycles our planet has been going through for the past 500,000 years.

From this point forward, in simplistic terms, first it gets warmer globally. This is most noticeable around the equator, and the poles. How far we are into this warming cycle is unknown, how far we have to go is unknown. I suspect we have about 2C more to go on global average. I'm going to guess over 100 years, but could easily be off by a factor of 10 in either direction.

Once a critical point is reached, there is a sharp drop in temperatures in northern regions. The farther north, the larger the drop, as much as 10C at the poles, over the next 1000 years or so (again, give or take a factor of 10).

Followed by smaller warming and cooling cycles of +/-5C as the system regains equilibrium over 100,000 years, possibly made more severe by human CO2 Emissions.

The short term effects beyond temperature will likely include increased hurricane and cyclone activity. Increased melting of previously permanent ice areas. Increased erratic weather (more severe storms) on the western coast of the US. A slow, slight shift in the best growing areas for temperamental crops. Generally warmer winters over most of the US, with more severe snowstorms when they do happen. But we're not all going to die.

Or so sayeth the theory I currently find to be most likely based on currently available data. I could go on for about 27 more pages....

-Ken

 

oh ya... THAT puts my mind at ease...let the weatherman predict whats gonna happen...

 

The probem is that we just don't have sufficient information to predict much of anything. It could be argued that we are entering a mini ice age or are in for global warming. We need to stop arguing and start seriously funding good scientific research.

One thing is for sure, the weather is likely to change, and probably for the worst. I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that we are in a rather 'mild' climatic' era. That is, weather has been much more extreme in the past than it is now.

The one constant is change; the weather goes in cycles. The weather might not change for centuries or it might start changing tonight. Something in between is more likely; and that's all we can really say.

But, and this is a big but . There are wildcards. One is very, very large volcanic eruptions. That would trump everything! Mass extinction (us included) is not out of the question.
Then again, don't worry...sleep tight. The probability is low (but not zero! )

 

I believe in global warming but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think it is normal. Yes, during the past 100 years we've experienced warming, but if you believe this planet has been here for millions of years, this kind of thing has happened in the past. The earth naturally goes through warming and coolling trends.

Most meteoroligists that I've heard from tend to agree there's no concrete proof that global warming is caused by man.

The reason that it is even an issue is that it is controversial, sells books, and it's political.

Andy

 

The problem is that too much warming or too much cooling would be a very bad thing. It is also normal to have climatic extremes; and just as there has been for millenia, there would be profound changes in civilization and probably not for the best.

Fortunately, extremes changes in the short term are not likely (but not totally unlikely either).