Global Warming

[kittygrrl]

Your thoughts. Fiction or Fact?

[Martina]

Hard to deny after this week. I heard on the radio today that most people in the U.S. think it's real, but that it's low on their list of priorities. That's why we haven't heard much about it during the election.

Sandy may have changed that. We'll see.

[Gráinne]

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

Skipping way ahead to the early Middle Ages, before 1300, they too were a warm period which was historically marked by the first few Crusades, and great journeys and a general leap forward for civilizations. But starting about 1300 and certainly by 1340, we entered what is called the "Little Ice Age". The LIA was much cooler and damper. The poor climate and failed crops left Europe's population a sitting duck for the Black Plague, smallpox, syphillis, and you name it.

As an aside, the ravages on society due to these epidemics led to great social change as feudalism collapsed and a new middle class emerged. The Roman Catholic church, though very powerful, found competition in the rise of Protestantism due in part to people's disillusionment with a church powerless against disease. The roots of later revolution in France, the Holy Roman Empire, and ultimately Russia were sewn by governments failing to respond to people in crisis. Obviously, all of these effects had other causes but the climate factor is interesting.

The LIA lasted until about 1850, and we've been warming ever since. Realize that the Industrial Revolution, which got going about the same time, only affected a small part of the planet as a whole-western Europe and northeast America. Even today, we actually have more wilderness land in America than we did 60 years ago. Car and industrial emissions are much more tightly regulated than in the 1950's and 60's.

So, in short, we are warming but it's my belief that man is not the great influence on it. Call me cynical, but it's worth looking into just what the "scientists" are saying, and following the (big) money involved. I'm all for recycling and using our resources responsibly, of course, but climate change in itself is natural and our main responsibility is not to build in hazardous areas (easier said than done).

[girl_dee]

Thank for that info!

i feel it's evolution. Like what guihong just posted, the world is evercharging.

i don't understand why people expect the Earth's climate to stop changing.

[kittygrrl]

Originally Posted by guihong

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

Skipping way ahead to the early Middle Ages, before 1300, they too were a warm period which was historically marked by the first few Crusades, and great journeys and a general leap forward for civilizations. But starting about 1300 and certainly by 1340, we entered what is called the "Little Ice Age". The LIA was much cooler and damper. The poor climate and failed crops left Europe's population a sitting duck for the Black Plague, smallpox, syphillis, and you name it.

As an aside, the ravages on society due to these epidemics led to great social change as feudalism collapsed and a new middle class emerged. The Roman Catholic church, though very powerful, found competition in the rise of Protestantism due in part to people's disillusionment with a church powerless against disease. The roots of later revolution in France, the Holy Roman Empire, and ultimately Russia were sewn by governments failing to respond to people in crisis. Obviously, all of these effects had other causes but the climate factor is interesting.

The LIA lasted until about 1850, and we've been warming ever since. Realize that the Industrial Revolution, which got going about the same time, only affected a small part of the planet as a whole-western Europe and northeast America. Even today, we actually have more wilderness land in America than we did 60 years ago. Car and industrial emissions are much more tightly regulated than in the 1950's and 60's.

So, in short, we are warming but it's my belief that man is not the great influence on it. Call me cynical, but it's worth looking into just what the "scientists" are saying, and following the (big) money involved. I'm all for recycling and using our resources responsibly, of course, but climate change in itself is natural and our main responsibility is not to build in hazardous areas (easier said than done).

I have to confess I am a little confused on this subject and read many conflicting ideas about if this new warming is more man made then just part of a cycle. I appreciate your expert opinion and leaning towards it being more of a natural cycle perhaps accelerated by our over use of fossil fuels. The only thing that bothers me is that some ice ages, including the little one seems to have been caused by a major volcano eruption?? Please correct me if I am wrong as I'm strictly going on my memory..btw, what a wonderful study!

[Glenn]

Originally Posted by kittygrrl

The only thing that bothers me is that some ice ages, including the little one seems to have been caused by a major volcano eruption?? Please correct me if I am wrong as I'm strictly going on my memory..btw, what a wonderful study!

Vostok Ice Core Data, Antartica- Well, yes there could be another ice age coming again soon considering the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, and the Earth is 4 billion years old. Back in the day, Folks use to sacrifice a virgin to volcano to stop it from erupting. Method must work since some of us are still living here and prospering. I suggest we throw Mitt Romney into a volcano tomorrow. It will appease the gods of fear-mongering, and the gods of bull-shi*t, and I'm sure we'll be just fine

[kittygrrl]

Originally Posted by Glenn

Vostok Ice Core Data, Antartica- Well, yes there could be another ice age coming again soon considering the last ice age was only 10,000 years ago, and the Earth is 4 billion years old. Back in the day, Folks use to sacrifice a virgin to volcano to stop it from erupting. Method must work since some of us are still living here and prospering. I suggest we throw Mitt Romney into a volcano tomorrow. It will appease the gods of fear-mongering, and the gods of bull-shi*t, and I'm sure we'll be just fine

i think the volcano would spit him right back out too full of ....!

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by guihong

I am a geologist by major. My thoughts:

"Global warming" can either mean the natural warming of the planet or the hypothesis that man is destroying the atmosphere and warming the planet by our own actions.

Earth has always had climate change, either cooler or warmer, most obviously in the Ice Ages. The Mesozoic era, when the dinosaurs dominated, was actually warmer than we are now.

The only problem I have with this is that yes, the Mesozoic was warmer but the species that were alive then but are no longer alive now were adapted to *that* climate. When the climate changed drastically and rapidly, most likely due to an asteroid strike, whole phyla were wiped out because they didn't have time to adapt. As you are aware, a change in climate happening over, say, 200K, 300K, 500K, years is one thing (that's a lot of generations for some animals) is one thing. That same change happening over a period of 100 or 200 or 300 years is not a lot of time at all. Sure, that's a lot of *mouse* generations but it's only 15 generations--at most--for, say, elephants or whales or, for that matter, us.

My concern isn't with the rise in temperature in absolute terms--provided we don't see serious spikes outside of the normal range that shouldn't be a problem. Rather, my concern is with the combination of the rapidity of change and the degree of change. Six or seven degrees C within a century is a big shift and one that I'm not sure how many species that live in temperate or arctic climes could handle that sort of shift long term.

I know that species extinction happens. I know that *mass* species extinction happens. But once we become aware that *we* are causing mass extinctions, I think both prudence and ethics dictate that we at least consider doing something to ameliorate the situation. We can't stop big rocks from hitting the planet (well, maybe we could) but we can stop ourselves from heating the planet so much that we get into a really bad feedback loop and then, a few thousand years from now, some intelligent species, following a faint radio broadcast that could *only* have come from an intelligent species, parks its ship in low-earth orbit and finds that Sol has two very hot, rocky planets with runaway greenhouse effects instead of the one it currently has.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by kittygrrl

Your thoughts. Fiction or Fact?

At present, I think it would be prudent to accept, at least provisionally, that climate change is happening and that there is good reason to believe that humans are contributing to this. I base this, in part, because one of the rules of the game in science is that you make predictions and if your prediction is born out by observation, you are justified in presuming you are on the right track.

To take just one example, current models (which are imperfect but still have their utility) predicted that we would start losing the Arctic ice cap sometime around 2015. We are pretty much on track for that to happen (we could have no summer ice cap in the Arctic next year or perhaps 2014). To me that looks like a prediction that is being confirmed in real-time. Yes, the planet has been both warmer than it is now and colder than it is now. Yes, our species survived both relatively warmer climates and relatively colder climates. This should not make us quite so complacent, however. The last real ice age almost wiped the species out. We are genetically 'small' which means that for our huge numbers, there should be more genetic diversity than there actually is. This means that our species went through a population bottleneck fairly recently (less than 100000 years ago).

My larger concern, aside from parochial concerns about the long-term prospects for our species survival, is that there we are well on our way to being the cause of the sixth largest extinction event the planet has ever seen. That puts us in the company of large asteroid strikes and super-volcano eruptions. Large, complex species can't adapt on a dime and we are not giving species enough time to adapt to the change in climate. The follow-on effects could be pretty drastic. Lose a predator species and suddenly their prey could have a population explosion which could cause further problems as they either expand into human inhabited areas.

Am I certain that humans are causing climate change? No, however none of the current alternative explanations, at least none that I've read, are able to account for the rapidity of the change. It's not enough to be able to say "maybe it is a solar cycle" one must be able to explain why the solar cycle explanation is superior to the view that humans are the prime cause and the alternative should also be able to explain any anomalies that the current model cannot. I don't believe that the solar cycle model can explain the Greenland ice sheet loss.

cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

So I'm curious, particularly to those who may not believe that climate change is happening, what would it take to convince you? Is there some observation or piece of evidence that you would find compelling? If so, what would that piece of evidence look like?

Cheers
Aj

[Sachita]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

So I'm curious, particularly to those who may not believe that climate change is happening, what would it take to convince you? Is there some observation or piece of evidence that you would find compelling? If so, what would that piece of evidence look like?

Cheers
Aj

I'm kinda like Toughy on this one. I hear so much crap and could drive myself fucking nuts with it all. I know what I see and even with that I just can't get too wrapped up in it. its not that I don't care, I do and I am as proactive as they come.

I think that almost any of theories could happen. I believe that earth changes are part of evolution and will happen regardless. I believe humans have accelerated the process. Then again some religious crazy group might find a way to end life as we know it.

I use to make myself crazy with it all trying to prepare for the worse case. Now I am reasonable prepared, have food storage, solar panels, seeds, guns, ammo and the ability to survive without electric, money or supermarkets. But if some idiot nukes us I probably won't survive radiation or the countless other things that could happen.

Today I live in the now as much as possible. I just don't get wrapped up in it.

[Glenn]

I disagree about oil. We have released a tremendous amount of carbon back into the environment, that took several billion years to bury.We dug up and released about 350 million years worth as of last year.We will be adding 10's of millions every year. We cannot remove this carbon from the atmosphere with current technology. Essentially , it's too late. So, I'm not going to worry about it. By releasing carbon back into the atmosphere, we are actually helping the planet back to it's normal state, and it's beneficial to plants. It's ironic that humans came during the last group of ice ages, and we will be responsible for ending them. Another reason it is pointless to inhibit CO2 release is because if we did, we would force the ice age. So, oil companies are only doing the will of the Earth right now. No need to worry, drive your SUV without guilt

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Sachita

I think that almost any of theories could happen. I believe that earth changes are part of evolution and will happen regardless. I believe humans have accelerated the process. Then again some religious crazy group might find a way to end life as we know it.

I'm assuming you are using evolution in the non-technical sense of the term? So you think that without, say, the burning of fossil fuels--if we had stayed at, for sake of argument, a pre-17th century level of technology the temperature of the planet would *still* be rising at or around the same rate it is now? Because I'm just not sure how that would work given that *something* has to account for the change in temperature and if the burning of a lot of carbon that had been sequestered isn't it, then what would cause that temperature to happen? Or am I not understanding you when you say that you believe that the changes we are currently witnessing (as opposed to *any* change in climate) in climate are part of (organic?) evolution and that it would happen regardless of human action.

Cheers
Aj

[Kätzchen]

Do you have any suggestions for credible, non-partisan, scientific sources of information regarding enviormental issues pertaining to water, soil, climate (micro- & macro- indexes) that a person could access online? If so, I'd be very interested in broadening my reading repertoire of such things.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide, Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

Do you have any suggestions for credible, non-partisan, scientific sources of information regarding enviormental issues pertaining to water, soil, climate (micro- & macro- indexes) that a person could access online? If so, I'd be very interested in broadening my reading repertoire of such things.

Thank you for any assistance you can provide, Aj

Quite honestly, I think that the best source is Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/.

They do a fantastic job of balancing articles that are accessible to a general readership while also having material written by working scientists whose work has been through the gauntlet of peer review. They are *not* a refereed (peer-reviewed) journal so they don't publish original research, rather they report on subjects that have already been published in journals.

Discover magazine also does a pretty good job: http://discovermagazine.com/

A lot of folks I know love New Scientist as well. I'm less fond of them but they still, on balance, do very solid science reportage for the general reader:

http://www.newscientist.com/

Slightly less approachable (because this is an actual refereed journal) is Nature magazine: http://www.nature.com/news/index.html. The thing is Nature is the gold-standard of science magazines. It is to science reporting what the Washington Post or the New York Times are to American news reporting, functioning as the 'paper of record' for the scientific community.

Cheers
Aj