Thread: End of the Line for any effort to be put in place for Global Warming?

The Minister for Climate Change at DECC is Gregory Barker.
On his website, he has a video of his interview with Senator John McCain (about 4 mins). Purpose of the interview, Climate Change, is dealt with towards the end. McCain expresses his concerns that it may be too late to get greenhouse gas emissions under control.

http://www.conservat...er_Gregory.aspx

Sounds like it could be the end of the line for humans to do anything about Global Warming.

Lets hope these fears don't come true or certain predictions (Global Warming - World could end in summer 2013 or even sooner as ice shelves melt: Summer 2013 to be the next global extinction) will probably be regarded as rational.

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unfortunately, if you look at the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere it would appear that, despite all the political posturing, carbon caps and carbon trading, it's just business as usual

several countries who appear to make a genuine effort to limit CO2 still have missed their targets by a mile, and even those paltry efforts are made meaningless by unbridled increases in many of the major polluters

If you give the smallest amount of credence to the linked blog
then
maybe it's time to think of being fitted for one of those fancy new sportscoats with the wrap around sleeves
..........
Nutjobs and lunatics are to be found in abundance on the web

Too late and therefore we should not bother - is on the list of arguments used by those who don't want to and can't be bothered. I don't believe there will ever be a point at which there is no point to serious emissions reductions because failure to do so can and will make things worse.

Any amount of reduction is worth it as it buys us and the rest of the biosphere time to adjust.

What about Residents Action on Fylde Fracking | Blackpool & Fylde Coast
Ribble Estuary Against Fracking - News
http://gasdrillingin....wordpress.com/

Very recently the Lancashire borehole being drilled by Cuadrilla, has had to be abandoned. The cement was poor quality and also some of the equipment got stuck down the well pipe at 2000ft, even though the casing was exploded hoping to release it. So there now remains a leaking well for ever, with a good conduit for methane to migrate uncontrollably into the neighbouring permeable and fissured rocks, then up to the atmosphere. This company (funded by American and Chinese money) plans to come back in January and drill a fresh well just a few feet away.
They have hopes of having hundreds of wells in Lancashire. So how many of those will fail?
Other parts of the UK are under threat by other companies seeking planning permission..

Of course Australia and the US are further along with shale gas developments. There's loads of videos on line showing methane escaping near drilling areas, but really the world has hardly had a pinprick yet from this impossible-to-regulate industry.
Seems to me the greenhouse gas accumulations will develop horrendously making for a very nice Venus Runaway Global Warming scenario

Sounds like it could be the end of the line for humans to do anything about Global Warming.

What utter rubbish!

If we let bad things happen, we might let worse things happen. If we get our act together, we'll avoid the worst that would otherwise be in store for us.

I happen to think we've done enough damage that some pretty nasty things will happen before we get a firm handle on our own behaviour. But we've fought and won wars on the same basis - we didn't really believe those people would do something. They did it. We reacted a bit late and the wars we fought were nastier than they would have been if we'd got it right in the first place. Some wars and their horrible consequences were avoided because a few people did the right thing.

But we succeeded. We can do the same with climate change.

Hilarious. I love the process we went through.

Climate change is a scam...
Climate change isn't our fault...
Climate change isn't as bad as you think...
Climate change is too expensive to fix...
F*ck it, it's too late...

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

Hilarious. I love the process we went through.

Climate change is a scam...
Climate change isn't our fault...
Climate change isn't as bad as you think...
Climate change is too expensive to fix...
F*ck it, it's too late...

what'do you mean "we" white boy?

When it comes to climate change, we're in this together. Come on, let's hold hands for a bit.

ok
but no kissing

Originally Posted by adelady

Sounds like it could be the end of the line for humans to do anything about Global Warming.

What utter rubbish!

If we let bad things happen, we might let worse things happen. If we get our act together, we'll avoid the worst that would otherwise be in store for us.

I happen to think we've done enough damage that some pretty nasty things will happen before we get a firm handle on our own behaviour. But we've fought and won wars on the same basis - we didn't really believe those people would do something. They did it. We reacted a bit late and the wars we fought were nastier than they would have been if we'd got it right in the first place. Some wars and their horrible consequences were avoided because a few people did the right thing.

But we succeeded. We can do the same with climate change.

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

But don't worry, if we can just get our act together...

War is raised quite often when talking about solving the big problems. WWII is frequently mentioned. But past wars are not a good analogy for social collapse. And we have fought far too many wars already. This not a war (though the apocalypse may include one or more wars).

And any efforts made in the past to solve our problems have not really solved our problems at all. We have simply put off the day of reckoning. We don't have a crystal ball, but the scientific evidence we do have seems to indicate that the day of reckoning is fast approaching. We don't have a growing body of scientific evidence for your claim that:

...we succeeded. We can do the same with climate change.

"Yes we can!" is not science. It is a political slogan.

And I am not suggesting that we give up in any way. I am only asking that we try to a least realistically assess our situation so that we can acheive the best possible result for ourselves, our children, and our planet. That is the responsible thing to do, IMHO, don't you agree?


---Futilitist

I'll admit, I'm pessimistic about viable solutions to climate change, as well. Whether the science is sound or not- Politics and the common voters priorities are not always.
As a society, we tend to procrastinate and drag our feet. We're doing it currently with space vehicular science.

Perhaps, "we can" is, indeed, a political slogan with the intent of encouraging readers to take a stand politically and prevent such foot dragging. Maybe it isn't and I'm just a grouchy muttenhead, too.

I dunno... I just have the opinion that humanity doesn't take a liking to the necessity of having to hoist itself up by the petard.

Futilitist
We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

Of course we have. No matter what we do now, things are going to be unbearable and probably lethal for far too many people for too many decades.

However, we can stop anything like 'runaway' global warming. I see it as being a lot more like the build up to WW2 than, say, WW1. We've blown all the easy, sensible, gradual options, so when the excrement hits the rotating device in enough people's minds, moving onto something like an emergency footing will be almost taken for granted.

My preference is for the next international agreement (for want of a better description) to do two separate things. Everyone will have the same, quite onerous, restrictions on emissions - everyone includes developing countries. Lord Stern: developing countries must make deeper emissions cuts | Environment | The Guardian The advanced industrial economies should have an additional obligation to reduce CO2 concentrations. It might be quite crude to start with, blowing up mountains or holes in the ground wherever you can find olivine or similar deposits of CO2 absorption minerals and then spreading gravels and dusts in suitable places - for the least expenditure of emissions. But there will be plenty of scientific, engineering and economic opportunities to start large scale removal of excess CO2 from the atmosphere.

It might even be attractive enough to get a few developing countries to want to get into the category they've been (justifiably) pointing fingers at in order to get easier access to lucrative contracts. Basically, everyone has responsibilities for getting emissions and biological carbon cycle offsets into neutral or negative territory. The biggest offenders get the job of cleaning up the geological carbon cycle disruption. (Much like vandals cleaning up their own graffiti - just on a bigger, life-threatening scale.)

We have to move into carbon neutral economies as soon as possible because we've let land ice and permafrost start to thaw and we have no Tardis to let as go back and restart this economic restructuring 25 or 30 years ago. There will be more methane and CO2 released before we get a chance to slow any of these already initiated processes down. I really do think we'll blow past 2.5 or 3C temperature rise - and so long as we can avoid nuclear war between a couple of countries hard-pressed by droughts and/or floods - we'll be on the trajectory back to something more civilised.

We should be aiming for CO2 concentrations below 300ppm, rather than the 350 of that well-known organisation, but just getting into downwards territory is the first target we should hit.

But domestically speaking, countries with suitable climates and a reasonably sizeable middle class should be able to get households into neutral or negative territory without too much trouble. I just got my first power bill with a credit balance on it - our solar panels didn't quite put more back into the system than we used, but we haven't done all the other upgrades to this house that we've planned, and our mains power is 25% from wind in the first place.

So we've used about 1.5kWh per day net of fossil generated power for the last 90 days. Should be able to get that down to average nil from the grid for most days by the time we've installed and replaced everything we've got planned. The big challenge would be balanced or negative from the grid on every single day. Eventually, none from the grid at all - biggest challenge there, probably can't be done without some sort of household level storage. Hopefully, more and more of our power from the grid will be wind-generated as time goes on.

Originally Posted by Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

"Runaway greenhouse," as most scientist define it, means escalating temperatures, continuous positive feedback until the oceans boil over and the atmosphere is mostly waver vapor in a process that might have happened on Venus. That is a physical impossibility on Earth until our solar irradiation is much stronger a billions or si years from now.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

"Runaway greenhouse," as most scientist define it, means escalating temperatures, continuous positive feedback until the oceans boil over and the atmosphere is mostly waver vapor in a process that might have happened on Venus. That is a physical impossibility on Earth until our solar irradiation is much stronger a billions or si years from now.

Thanks for the terminology correction. I was under the impression that the word "runaway" was in reference to positive feedbacks forcing the system. It actually is just that, but the expression "runaway greenhouse effect" seems to only apply to Venus, as you say. Mea culpa.

But, clearly, the Earth does not have to turn into a copy of Venus to really mess things up for us, and all of the other life forms on the planet. A partial "runaway" effect, due to positive feedbacks, would be sufficient. That is the important part. I think that it is obvious, from the context, what was meant. After all, adelady, who seems quite competent to me, answered my post in great detail without getting hung up on my unfortunate word choice.

From now on I will use the term "catastrophic climate change". The only reason I used "runaway greenhouse effect" in the first place was to avoid some awkward rhetorical repetition.

But the point I was trying to make is still true.

Here is a corrected version of my statement:

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that it really could be too late to do anything to stop positive feedbacks from amplifying warming, resulting in catastrophic climate change. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

IMHO, the above statement is true.

1. Do you have any more rhetorical objections to my phrasing?

2. Do you have any substantive objections to the statement?


---Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that it really could be too late to do anything to stop positive feedbacks from amplifying warming, resulting in catastrophic climate change.

define: Bad things
define: catastrophic climate change

This tendency to sell fear for climate change is unsubstantiated by the science of paleoclimatology

however if you have real expectations
let's discuss them in the light of what science has to offer

Originally Posted by sculptor

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that it really could be too late to do anything to stop positive feedbacks from amplifying warming, resulting in catastrophic climate change.

define: Bad things
define: catastrophic climate change

This tendency to sell fear for climate change is unsubstantiated by the science of paleoclimatology

however if you have real expectations
let's discuss them in the light of what science has to offer

Bad Thing : noun; Something that you would rather not have happen.

Specifically, In this case I mean the release of enough carbon and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to cause a "runaway" effect.

Catastrophic Climate Change is climate change that would be a catastrophe were it to happen. Basically synonymous with Runaway Climate Change.

Runaway climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

---

Runaway climate change describes a theoretical scenario in which the climate system passes a threshold or tipping point, after which internal positive feedbackeffects cause the climate to continue changing without further external forcings. The runaway climate change continues until it is overpowered by negative feedbackeffects which cause the climate system to restabilise at a new state.

The phrase "runaway climate change" is used to describe a theory in which positive feedbacks result in rapid climate change.^[2] It is used in the popular media and by environmentalists with reference to concerns about rapid global warming.^[2][3] Some astronomers use the similar expression runaway greenhouse effect to describe a situation where the climate deviates catastrophically and permanently from the original state - as happened on Venus.^[4][5] It is rarely used in relation to climate change events in climatological literature.

---

I have been informed by Lynx_Fox about my use of terminology here. But I really didn't think these basic ideas were actually scientifically controversial. Pseudoscientifically, perhaps. I learned of the concept in 1980, in my freshman BIO 104. I think we are in more immediate danger from the economic effects of peak oil, anyway. Climate science is a very messed up field.

I look forward to hearing why I am wrong.

---Futilitist

Climate science is a very messed up field.

There's not much in climate science to worry about.

There's a great deal to worry about in communication about the implications of climate science - and climate politics is about as messed up as you can get.

Originally Posted by adelady

Climate science is a very messed up field.

There's not much in climate science to worry about.

There's a great deal to worry about in communication about the implications of climate science - and climate politics is about as messed up as you can get.

We cannot escape politics. That is why, IMHO, collapse is a certainty.

"Money to gain power; power to protect money."
—de’ Medici Family Motto

---Futilitist

climate change is the norm
this relatively stable interglacial ain't

there will most likely be no "run away climate change", nor any eco-catastrophy
this earth has many dampening mechanisms
and feedback loops
which we are only now beginning to quantify

.....
if, however by catastrophy, you mean adapting to a different climate, and we as a species ain't up to the task, then maybe there will be a serious problem
if, however by catastrophy, you mean the possible failure of our political/economic systems to adapt, then maybe we need to look more closely at their flaws?

Originally Posted by sculptor

climate change is the norm
this relatively stable interglacial ain't

there will most likely be no "run away climate change", nor any eco-catastrophy
this earth has many dampening mechanisms
and feedback loops
which we are only now beginning to quantify

.....
if, however by catastrophy, you mean adapting to a different climate, and we as a species ain't up to the task, then maybe there will be a serious problem
if, however by catastrophy, you mean the possible failure of our political/economic systems to adapt, then maybe we need to look more closely at their flaws?

Why are you being so inscrutable?

Why are you so sure there will not be rapid climate change?

I am clearly not implying that the earth will be reduced to a cinder.

Our political systems failing is hardly a catastrophe. That happens every day.

Catastrophe means really bad problems causing great and widespread suffering, and increased mortality. I think we will experience that. Do you? Can you answer these questions in a way that I can make some sense of? I can't figure out what your position is.

if, however by catastrophy, you mean adapting to a different climate, and we as a species ain't up to the task, then maybe there will be a serious problem

Do you believe that your own statement above is likely or unlikely?


---Futilitist

unlikely

and as/re rapid climate change, that again seems to be the norm
add in our escalation of CO2 and we may see those oft-repeated changes soon
if, however, as many have stated, the milankovitch cycles are aiming us toward a reglaciation
then the extra CO2 may just be a factor delaying that onset of glaciation
if the delay can carry us over into another "interglacial norm" then we get a "super interglacial"
but during the one circa 400kybp, we had forest surrounding the arctic ocean, and were missing the west-antarctic ice

inscutable?
naw, I'm just keeping an open mind as further field studies reveal more information about our earth's past climates.

The phasing would be wrong if we're thinking this might help us get through a colder period to the next inter-glacial. We won't get deeply colder for another 50,000 years. By then the current surge of man-made CO2 (+water vapor) will have receded back to natural levels. The small dips between than and now could be compensated for with far less above natural levels than we are at now.
--

The tipping point ideas are pretty sound but somewhat uncertain.
But here's some regional level tidbits of what they might look like:

-Imagine Hadley enlargement so Subtropical regions such as the I10 states experience drought almost continuously.

-Tropical storms in the South Atlantic (never recorded until about ten years ago....we've had two so far).

-Tropical storms in the Mediterranean. Forecast in climate models--not observed yet, though a couple hybrid storms aka Sandy style have been over the past decade.

And of course all coastal effects get worse as sea levels rise.

The uncertainty of larger dynamic changes to the system are far less certain. Some models call for regular severe droughts in middle of the US, enough to effectively stop corn production except along the major rivers. Others suggest a perpetual reduction of gulf stream flowing over NW Europe in response increased ice melt. Although the models are based on physical equations, they are also conservative and don't well to identify strongly dynamic tipping points.

Although the models are based on physical equations, they are also conservative and don't well to identify strongly dynamic tipping points.

I remember reading (maybe RealClimate but maybe not) that the models are not really capable of projecting the initiation of tipping points. Paleoclimate tells us they're there, and approximately what the likely scenarios are, but there's no way to get the models to do it on their own - unlike things like the SOI and ENSO or expansion of Hadley cells which emerge quite naturally regardless of initial conditions in a physically correct model.

They can make a model continue on from events like loss of an icesheet or a sudden release of methane by specifically writing them in at a chosen time, but they can't get them to emerge from the models. Seeing as the models are completely, decades or a century or more, out of whack with loss of sea ice and land ice and increases in severe weather, it really shouldn't come as a surprise.

Futilist I would strongly disagree that climate science is "a messed up field". Certainly there are well organised efforts to create a popular impression that it is messed up but the fundamentals are relatively simple and sound. Precise regional predictions may be elusive but the top of atmosphere changes that would be expected are there and whilst there is a lot of focus on surface air temperatures they have remain a measure with a lot of year to year and decade to decade variability. Actual heat content of atmosphere, ocean and land shows a strong and consistent trend without so much of the ups and downs of air temperatures that are used to distract and mislead -

Originally Posted by Ken Fabos

Futilist I would strongly disagree that climate science is "a messed up field". Certainly there are well organised efforts to create a popular impression that it is messed up but the fundamentals are relatively simple and sound. Precise regional predictions may be elusive but the top of atmosphere changes that would be expected are there and whilst there is a lot of focus on surface air temperatures they have remain a measure with a lot of year to year and decade to decade variability. Actual heat content of atmosphere, ocean and land shows a strong and consistent trend without so much of the ups and downs of air temperatures that are used to distract and mislead -

I was referring to the politics at the IPCC. I'm a big believer in the science behind climate change. I thought that was clear. Although I expect that the economic effects of peak oil will be more severe in the short term, I think that climate change has the grave potential to cause human extinction. It is a race to the finish line.

Anyway, that is my boring old humble opinion. What were we talking about again?

---Futilitist

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

The phasing would be wrong if we're thinking this might help us get through a colder period to the next inter-glacial. We won't get deeply colder for another 50,000 years.

Where do you get the 50,000 year number?
almost everything I've read on the subject does not specify interglacials to last nearly that long.

IPCC = Intergovernmental panel on climate change
political?
no more so than any modern government
and maybe
no more so than any government past, present, or future

Originally Posted by sculptor

IPCC = Intergovernmental panel on climate change
political?
no more so than any modern government
and maybe
no more so than any government past, present, or future

Maybe no more so than this forum, yes?

Why are you talking to me anyway? I just got back from my latest ban. My best thread is locked. Everyone thinks that is fair, even a good thing.

This discussion sucks. I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

Do you want to fight?

---futilitist

Originally Posted by Futilitist

Originally Posted by sculptor

IPCC = Intergovernmental panel on climate change
political?
no more so than any modern government
and maybe
no more so than any government past, present, or future

Maybe no more so than this forum, yes?

Why are you talking to me anyway? I just got back from my latest ban. My best thread is locked. Everyone thinks that is fair, even a good thing.

This discussion sucks. I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

Do you want to fight?

---futilitist

in order:
yes
because you ain't a total f---ing idiot(no matter what everyone else says about you)
only if you throw the first punch, and it's a good one-------
(otherwise, I'll get a good laugh out of it)

Where do you get the 50,000 year number?
almost everything I've read on the subject does not specify interglacials to last nearly that long.

That's because interglacials aren't usually enhanced or extended by the biological occupants at the surface releasing a huge bolus of normally sequestered CO2 from beneath the surface.

In pure Milankovitch cycle terms, we should be heading downwards now along the path to a gradual glaciation. That cycle will be skipped entirely regardless of what we do now. The big issue is whether we can extract and sequester enough of the excess CO2 so that there's a more natural concentration for one of the following ones. Some people think we're already on course to skip 100000+ years worth.

You can't have a glaciation if CO2 concentrations are above 180 ppm, it's really that simple. And you can't get down to that in the years a Milankovitch cycle gives you unless the high point is less than 300 ppm, 280 is the usual number.

We'll be well over 400 soon and some not-too-bright people are suggesting we can "stabilise" at 550ppm. We can't live at 550ppm - well we might if there were any grains and any fish to eat, but there won't be. At 550ppm in the atmosphere, the oceans would be at a pH that means we'd be very unlikely to have much coral or shellfish or phytoplankton, if any, so there's little or nothing at the bottom of the food chain for fish to eat nor any habitat for reef fish - if their young could survive the acidified waters anyway.

Some people think we're already on course to skip 100000+ years worth.

who?

Originally Posted by sculptor

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

The phasing would be wrong if we're thinking this might help us get through a colder period to the next inter-glacial. We won't get deeply colder for another 50,000 years.

Where do you get the 50,000 year number?
almost everything I've read on the subject does not specify interglacials to last nearly that long.

Rather than pull up the papers again I'll just post to here,
It doesn't need to be as bad as Venus to be unthinkable

see post 65.

There are others:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/297/5585/1287.short
http://www.geotop.ca/pdf/hillaireMC/2004-Science.pdf

There was a very detailed tread three or four years ago, but our search isn't pulling it up (argg).

The conclusions are similar: This will be a very long interglacial with relatively small temperature fluctuations because of low tilt and low eccentricity. Well it would be without humans changing the atmosphere.

--
I echoe Adalady's comments about ocean acidity. I hope it gets much more extensive treatment in the upcoming IPCC report, there's been quite a bit of interdisciplinary work over the past five years...and most of it should make us worry.

yeh,
the acidity is the kicker
the rest of warming, seems most likely to be benign, if rising sea levels is considered benign

but the ph balance in the oceans should be better studied
over greater areas, and at different depths
the deep ocean currents may take many decades to centuries to recycle what is drifting down to their depths

how little we know

Chad I removed your off the mark polical rant.
-It didn't have much of anything to do with the thread.
-McCain supports the idea of man-made climate change and in fact brought up concerns; so using him as an example of your black and white view of republicans was not only off the mark, it was disputed by the very OP video of Senator McCain expressing concerns about the issue.
You may continue that conversation from the trash can...and hopefully learn to be a bit more discerning before your spam the hard science part of the forum with your excitable political views.

pH balance of the ocean?

Originally Posted by Neverfly

pH balance of the ocean?

Just dipped below 8.1 average for the surface waters, which is about a 30% increase in acidity from pre-industrial levels.

That's surprising. The ocean is big.
Understatement, eh?
I realize there are a lot of human beans on the planet and all but how can we effect that massive ocean so dramatically?

I realize there are a lot of human beans on the planet and all but how can we effect that massive ocean so dramatically?

Because the ocean is, quite literally, a carbon sink.

Each year, for the last couple of centuries, we've been releasing more additional CO2 than stays in the atmosphere. The volume of the oceans may be large compared to the surface of the earth, but it's not very large at all compared to the total volume of the troposphere (plus a tiny bit of the stratosphere). The ocean's been absorbing about half of that extra CO2. The atmospheric increase is about 2ppm per annum. It would be 4 ppm if the oceans didn't soak up half.

What about surface algae?

Are you talking about the phytoplankton thing? I might always have been convinced about climate change being a problem but the loss of phytoplankton paper was my first "Oh shit" moment. (There've been a few since, but that was the first time ever, when I was merely reading through climate news, that I actually felt my stomach turn over.) Global phytoplankton decline over the past century : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

I had a quick squiz for items on Google Scholar on climate,ocean, algae, but couldn't see anything easy (free) that's relevant. More clues about anything you've read and I'll see what I might dig up on Ari's site.

Originally Posted by Neverfly

pH balance of the ocean?

ScienceDirect.com - Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta - Instability of seawater pH in the South China Sea during the mid-late Holocene: Evidence from boron isotopic composition of corals


PH levels go up and down. Oceans are not acidic, and they will not become acidic.

Keep in mind that something like 96-97% of all CO2 released into the air each year is done so by nature, not man.

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Keep in mind that something like 96-97% of all CO2 released into the air each year is done so by nature, not man.

And respired by organisms. But it doesn't matter, the fossil fuel contribution to the accumulated and increasing CO2 is not in dispute. The main smoking gun is looking at the carbon 12 & 13 isotope ratios, which shows addition of primary C12 from fossil fuels and dropping C13/C12 ratio closely aligned with the Keeling curve's increase in overall CO2. The graph shows the annual variation of changing C13/C12, through the seasons (black), as well as the averaged annual change (red).

c13_mlo_spo.jpg--
Did you read the science direct abstract you linked to? Just asking before we dig into that and other papers, because it doesn't say what your think it does....

Gonzales, a hose trickling into a swimming pool is a tiny fraction of the water going in, far exceeded by what enters via the filter return. Yet the water level will inexorably rise despite the trickle from the hose being a tiny fraction of what is entering. Of course the filter system takes water out as well as returns it. The Carbon Cycle is like that filter system, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and feeding it back. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't even have to be - and isn't - all directly from human emissions; a portion of those emissions get sucked into that 'filter system' in place of natural CO2 and replaced in the atmosphere by what that was taken up, by ocean, vegetation, soil carbon etc, in the past. Yet the atmospheric concentration rises as a direct consequence of that human addition. Actually the Carbon Cycle is like a pool filter system that holds more water than the pool itself.



Any claim that what humans add to the atmosphere is insignificant, based on ignoring the role of the Carbon Cycle, is not evidence of superior knowledge about the CO2 in our atmosphere.

And the ocean acidification thing? You are correct that the oceans are not acidic and aren't going to become acid but acidification - becoming more acidic - is a direction of change. Alkalis becoming less alkaline are, in chemistry terminology, becoming more acidic. That terminology should not have to be changed because people choose not to understand it correctly.

Ken, the carbon in fossils are part of the cycle, they are not "outside of the pool".

The terms "more acidic" or "less acidic" apply to things that are acidic. Something that is not acidic cannot be getting more acidic but, like tabloids, it sells and like prophets of doom, it scares the fools.

The oceans fluctuate in its Basic (alkaline) levels, roughly between 7.5 and 8.5 pH levels. I understand this does not sell or scare fools but, it is science.

Fox, pH levels go up and down in the oceans and the world does not blow up nor does the animals and plant life on earth go through massive extinctions when pH in the oceans go up and down. That is the point of the chart.

The terms "more acidic" or "less acidic" apply to things that are acidic. Something that is not acidic cannot be getting more acidic but, like tabloids, it sells and like prophets of doom, it scares the fools.

So, I take it you're not a gardener? Or a farmer? You don't keep fish in an aquarium? Acidify is the common term used for reducing the pH of soils and water even if there is never any intention of getting a pH below 7.

Scientifically, the oceans fluctuate in its Basic (alkaline) levels, roughly between 7.5 and 8.5 pH levels. I understand this does not sell or scare fools but, it is science, this is fact.

Where on earth is there a body of seawater larger than a kitchen sink with a pH of 7.5? If this is a 'historical' value, what coral structures were maintained at the time? What kinds of shellfish and little bottom-of-the-food-chain creatures were there? Were there any fish or sea mammals like the ones we're familiar with? Anything that we might eat?

Originally Posted by adelady

The terms "more acidic" or "less acidic" apply to things that are acidic. Something that is not acidic cannot be getting more acidic but, like tabloids, it sells and like prophets of doom, it scares the fools.

So, I take it you're not a gardener? Or a farmer? You don't keep fish in an aquarium? Acidify is the common term used for reducing the pH of soils and water even if there is never any intention of getting a pH below 7.

Scientifically, the oceans fluctuate in its Basic (alkaline) levels, roughly between 7.5 and 8.5 pH levels. I understand this does not sell or scare fools but, it is science, this is fact.

Where on earth is there a body of seawater larger than a kitchen sink with a pH of 7.5? If this is a 'historical' value, what coral structures were maintained at the time? What kinds of shellfish and little bottom-of-the-food-chain creatures were there? Were there any fish or sea mammals like the ones we're familiar with? Anything that we might eat?

Today's coral ecosystems are believed to have formed about 500mya. Shell fish, fish, algae, etc., have all went through ocean changes in pH, including 7.4-7.5 pH levels. Now there are studies that state pH levels in the oceans hit 7.4-7.5 21 million years ago, 50 million years ago, etc...

Roughly 50 million years ago the CO2 levels in the atmosphere was about 2,000 ppm and the world did not blow up, the oceans did not boil over and life did not spontaneously com-bust into flames. . .

Roughly 50 million years ago the CO2 levels in the atmosphere was about 2,000 ppm and the world did not blow up, the oceans did not boil over and life did not spontaneously com-bust into flames. . .

And how big a population of large modern mammals did that biosphere support?

The indisputable fact that the earth can survive nearly 100 million years as a snowball and/or any number of episodes with the oceans converted to murky stews reeking of hydrogen sulphide is irrelevant. Nobody believes that anything except the sun blowing up/ burning up / dying down or an almighty asteroid collision could destroy the earth itself.

We are only interested in the particular atmosphere/biosphere that supports us and the plants, birds, fish and other animals that feed us. Some of us also have an interest in maintaining non-food living things, either 1) because they're there or 2) because we don't know what their role really is in sustaining the things that do feed us so we'd better be careful. That biosphere we generally refer to as the Holocene - the only known era in the geological record that could have supported our intensive cultivation of grasses for agriculture.

Ken, the carbon in fossils are part of the cycle, they are not "outside of the pool".

There are two carbon cycles.

The short-term biological cycles all the way from the annual seasonal fluctuations due to deciduous plants through to the 1000+ years of terra preta soils. Peat bogs are probably the longest of these. Our logging and farming and soil destruction interferes with these processes, but that's much more easily remedied than ......

The long term geological cycles work on the basis of tectonic movements subducting deposited carbon and eventually releasing some through volcanic eruption - alongside the pressure of continental movements pushing mountains upwards to expose rocks which can absorb carbon, deposit as river silt and finish up after several multitudes of biological processes deposited on the seafloor. These cycles are in the multi-million year range.

When we burn 3 million years' worth of oil every year, we are artificially accelerating or whatever you want to call it, interfering(?) in the geological carbon cycle. And we're not doing anything to balance that by, say for an example, identifying CO2 absorbing rocks and reducing them to dusts and gravels to accelerate absorption to match or at least compensate for some of our release of that sequestered carbon. Of course, we're not just burning oil, we're also burning coal and gas. Doesn't matter for these purposes because we're not doing anything to absorb that either.

Originally Posted by adelady

Roughly 50 million years ago the CO2 levels in the atmosphere was about 2,000 ppm and the world did not blow up, the oceans did not boil over and life did not spontaneously com-bust into flames. . .

And how big a population of large modern mammals did that biosphere support?

The indisputable fact that the earth can survive nearly 100 million years as a snowball and/or any number of episodes with the oceans converted to murky stews reeking of hydrogen sulphide is irrelevant. Nobody believes that anything except the sun blowing up/ burning up / dying down or an almighty asteroid collision could destroy the earth itself.

We are only interested in the particular atmosphere/biosphere that supports us and the plants, birds, fish and other animals that feed us. Some of us also have an interest in maintaining non-food living things, either 1) because they're there or 2) because we don't know what their role really is in sustaining the things that do feed us so we'd better be careful. That biosphere we generally refer to as the Holocene - the only known era in the geological record that could have supported our intensive cultivation of grasses for agriculture.

Ken, the carbon in fossils are part of the cycle, they are not "outside of the pool".

There are two carbon cycles.

The short-term biological cycles all the way from the annual seasonal fluctuations due to deciduous plants through to the 1000+ years of terra preta soils. Peat bogs are probably the longest of these. Our logging and farming and soil destruction interferes with these processes, but that's much more easily remedied than ......

The long term geological cycles work on the basis of tectonic movements subducting deposited carbon and eventually releasing some through volcanic eruption - alongside the pressure of continental movements pushing mountains upwards to expose rocks which can absorb carbon, deposit as river silt and finish up after several multitudes of biological processes deposited on the seafloor. These cycles are in the multi-million year range.

When we burn 3 million years' worth of oil every year, we are artificially accelerating or whatever you want to call it, interfering(?) in the geological carbon cycle. And we're not doing anything to balance that by, say for an example, identifying CO2 absorbing rocks and reducing them to dusts and gravels to accelerate absorption to match or at least compensate for some of our release of that sequestered carbon. Of course, we're not just burning oil, we're also burning coal and gas. Doesn't matter for these purposes because we're not doing anything to absorb that either.

Modern Atmospheres

Not to bad at all. Perhaps even better for food production and water and land resources.

Not to bad at all. Perhaps even better for food production ....

But the grasses didn't even start evolving from earlier plant forms until 40 million years ago. And they changed the planet and its climate tremendously - apart from eventually becoming our main food source. Books and Films - How to Grow a Planet (BBC documentary presented by Iain Stewart) Episode 3 gives a good precis of how the grasses came to dominate (by killing off the great forests mainly) and change the atmosphere and the biosphere to suit a different mix of animals and plants - and they changed the main food of herbivores from shrubby or tree foliage to grasses within a million years.

As far as climate goes, given its dependence on flows of warm and cold waters, we really shouldn't be over-confident about any climate regime before 5 million years ago. The Isthmus of Panama closed up about 4 and a half million years ago and created the Atlantic Ocean with its Gulf Stream and the climates of Europe and Northern America. Cautious and conservative is a more prudent approach than careless or cavalier when we really, truly don't know what we're letting ourselves in for.

Originally Posted by adelady

Not to bad at all. Perhaps even better for food production ....

But the grasses didn't even start evolving from earlier plant forms until 40 million years ago. And they changed the planet and its climate tremendously - apart from eventually becoming our main food source. Books and Films - How to Grow a Planet (BBC documentary presented by Iain Stewart) Episode 3 gives a good precis of how the grasses came to dominate (by killing off the great forests mainly) and change the atmosphere and the biosphere to suit a different mix of animals and plants - and they changed the main food of herbivores from shrubby or tree foliage to grasses within a million years.

As far as climate goes, given its dependence on flows of warm and cold waters, we really shouldn't be over-confident about any climate regime before 5 million years ago. The Isthmus of Panama closed up about 4 and a half million years ago and created the Atlantic Ocean with its Gulf Stream and the climates of Europe and Northern America. Cautious and conservative is a more prudent approach than careless or cavalier when we really, truly don't know what we're letting ourselves in for.

Did I miss something, or did you?

Dinosaurs dined on grass
"The work is the first evidence that dinosaurs ate grass and that the large grass family, known as Poaceae, had originated and diversified during the Cretaceous era. The results will have important implications for studies of evolutionary interactions between ancient plants and herbivores."

I am far from cavalier when it comes to many issues but, why should I not be concerning this topic? The evidence shows Us that a pH of 7.4 in the oceans is fine, that 2,000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is fine, that the earth having ice at the poles year round is not the norm, that a warmer planet is good for life, that the planet does not get extremely hot at the equator (it remains close to what it is today) and the rise/change in temperature is gradual as one heads up north from the equator (which north of the equator still remains cooler than areas around the equator).

The grass that dinosaurs ate is a precursor to modern grasses.

The evidence shows Us that a pH of 7.4 in the oceans is fine,

For which sets of aquatic plants, algae and animals? Certainly not for the phytoplankton, oysters, barnacles and corals we now have. They'll need either major shifts in locations and/or major changes in their biology to survive warmer more acidic oceans.

I'm absolutely sure that oceans can survive at a pH of 7.4 if, and only if, the rate of change from the previous state accommodates a 'normal' evolutionary process of adaptation (of various sorts), extinction, emergence of various species. That normal process, if we're talking a whole 1000% change to pH of 7.4, ought to take several hundred thousand years, if not millions. How many whales can survive on a reduced or different supply of krill? You might laugh at 'save the whales' but there's a strong possibility that digestion and excretion from the diet of the large whales is an important part of iron fertilisation of oceans. It may not be. But that's part of my earlier position that we simply don't know enough details about how things have worked in our favour for the last 10000 years to risk losing something vital out of sheer pig-headedness.

he rise/change in temperature is gradual as one heads up north from the equator (which north of the equator still remains cooler than areas around the equator).

How does this affect the seasonal weather needed to grow our most important food crops? How does this affect extreme weather in any region? I happen to live in a place, Adelaide, that has already had a 'once in 3000 years' heatwave. Do you think we should completely rebuild our railway system to avoid buckling the lines in the heat? Adelaide is used to high summer temperatures, just not for weeks at a time. Are you suggesting that allowing or forcing the average global temperature to go higher will mean that we will need to keep commercial refrigeration trucks handy to accommodate the inevitable overflow from the morgues? Having been through it once, I'm not really keen to see it again.

In the chapter, McMichael highlights how heat waves in Melbourne and Adelaide in 2009 put "power supplies, morgue capacity and transport systems" under stress. In Adelaide, he writes how railway lines buckled under the heat and commercial refrigeration vans were hired as makeshift morgues.

He says: "It is intuitively obvious that more extremes of heat means more distress and more hospitalisations and deaths. Again it is important for us all to understand that this is not a simple incremental increase in risk but this will be a steep rise in risk as we approach the threshold capacity of human bodies to handle extra heat loads."

One study has suggested that if Australia's temperature increased by 4°C, there would be 17,200 annual temperature-related deaths, up from 5,800 in 1990.

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/ar...10/3650095.htm

Originally Posted by adelady

The grass that dinosaurs ate is a precursor to modern grasses.

The evidence shows Us that a pH of 7.4 in the oceans is fine,

For which sets of aquatic plants, algae and animals? Certainly not for the phytoplankton, oysters, barnacles and corals we now have. They'll need either major shifts in locations and/or major changes in their biology to survive warmer more acidic oceans.

I'm absolutely sure that oceans can survive at a pH of 7.4 if, and only if, the rate of change from the previous state accommodates a 'normal' evolutionary process of adaptation (of various sorts), extinction, emergence of various species. That normal process, if we're talking a whole 1000% change to pH of 7.4, ought to take several hundred thousand years, if not millions. How many whales can survive on a reduced or different supply of krill? You might laugh at 'save the whales' but there's a strong possibility that digestion and excretion from the diet of the large whales is an important part of iron fertilisation of oceans. It may not be. But that's part of my earlier position that we simply don't know enough details about how things have worked in our favour for the last 10000 years to risk losing something vital out of sheer pig-headedness.

he rise/change in temperature is gradual as one heads up north from the equator (which north of the equator still remains cooler than areas around the equator).

How does this affect the seasonal weather needed to grow our most important food crops? How does this affect extreme weather in any region? I happen to live in a place, Adelaide, that has already had a 'once in 3000 years' heatwave. Do you think we should completely rebuild our railway system to avoid buckling the lines in the heat? Adelaide is used to high summer temperatures, just not for weeks at a time. Are you suggesting that allowing or forcing the average global temperature to go higher will mean that we will need to keep commercial refrigeration trucks handy to accommodate the inevitable overflow from the morgues? Having been through it once, I'm not really keen to see it again.

In the chapter, McMichael highlights how heat waves in Melbourne and Adelaide in 2009 put "power supplies, morgue capacity and transport systems" under stress. In Adelaide, he writes how railway lines buckled under the heat and commercial refrigeration vans were hired as makeshift morgues.

He says: "It is intuitively obvious that more extremes of heat means more distress and more hospitalisations and deaths. Again it is important for us all to understand that this is not a simple incremental increase in risk but this will be a steep rise in risk as we approach the threshold capacity of human bodies to handle extra heat loads."

One study has suggested that if Australia's temperature increased by 4°C, there would be 17,200 annual temperature-related deaths, up from 5,800 in 1990.

Life at four degrees – Features – ABC Environment (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The South China Sea has shifted very swiftly in its PH levels in the past, and has done so on a scale of decades and centuries. The process of evolution is not always about outside forces pushing or forcing genetic change in order for a species to survive.. In fact, that type of demand usually leads to the extinction of species rather than the survival of them. It is often random and continuous mutations that are life's insurance policy against the future's unknown and multiple possibilities. Environmental, biological, chemical, etc. changes that favor some within a species over others based on existing mutations is perhaps the most important aspect to and for survival. There are always going to be a % of life, and life within a highly populated species, that will amaze you concerning how resilient, capable and genetically prepared they are to deal with change/s.

Same goes for people. If they cant move (human's have had to move from the very day they started walking) then they may very well die.

Same goes for people. If they cant move (human's have had to move from the very day they started walking) then they may very well die.

That's hardly news. The question is how many people do we think it's OK to force into a quick death or neglect into slow death by not doing things it is perfectly within our power to do. How fast do we expect 1 or 10 million or 100s of millions of people to move to get away from what's killing them - for the sake of doing things the way a Victorian industrialist would if he were here to do it.

I'm not talking about world peace or ambulances at the bottom of every cliff, just that it's no loss to those of us with money and power to have a car or a bus that uses no CO2 producing process just to get around for our daily activities. We still have transport, even our own vehicles, but we operate them cleanly and efficiently ... because it's a better way to do things than we could have done a century ago. And we have houses with lots of electric and electronic equipment. It's no skin off our noses if the power comes from a renewable source rather than from burning something, all we want is for the switches to work when we flick them.

Same thing goes for fossils generally. Carbon fibre technology tells us that these things could be fantastically valuable in the future as the technology develops further, but we're willing to just burn the stuff to use in the next 5 minutes. Like writing a will and then your grandchildren finding that the 'great big house' they inherited is just a scorched block of land - because you decided one day that the house would be a good bonfire.

I'm not at all worried about the fact that we will, one day, be extinct. There may not even be descendants of our primate family. But there's no good reason for us to throw away the benefits of a biosphere and an atmosphere that exactly suits us. All for the sake of being stubborn about doing things in one particular way when there are dozens of technological and organisational options for literally doing more with less.

There may not be anything 'special' about our climatic environment according to some people, but there's even less 'special' about the particular suite of technologies that some people, often the same people, think we should stay with - just because that's what they've always done. If it's no problem to live with a drastically different climate, then it's an entirely trivial problem to use different versions of the technology we're so fond of.

Originally Posted by gonzales56

The South China Sea has shifted very swiftly in its PH levels in the past, and has done so on a scale of decades and centuries. The process of evolution is not always about outside forces pushing or forcing genetic change in order for a species to survive.. In fact, that type of demand usually leads to the extinction of species rather than the survival of them. It is often random and continuous mutations that are life's insurance policy against the future's unknown and multiple possibilities. Environmental, biological, chemical, etc. changes that favor some within a species over others based on existing mutations is perhaps the most important aspect to and for survival. There are always going to be a % of life, and life within a highly populated species, that will amaze you concerning how resilient, capable and genetically prepared they are to deal with change/s.

Same goes for people. If they cant move (human's have had to move from the very day they started walking) then they may very well die.

Indeed but consider that the acidity in the South China Sea is NOT representative of global average sea level acidity. In fact the very paper you pulled makes this quite clear:

"The pH variation in the mid-late Holocene is most likely linked to a change of the monsoon climate in the SCS. A unique feature of climate conditions in the SCS is the influence of the East Asia (EA) monsoon and their response to both terrestrial and marine climatic changes (Fig. 1).Upwelling induced by the summer monsoon is a common phenomenon in the SCS (Wu and Li, 2003). The modern pH value of the SCS at a depth of 500 m is 7.60 (Chenet al., 2006), significantly lower than the pH value of surface seawater which ranges from 7.96 to 8.10 (Pelejero et al.,
2005; Chen et al., 2006). Thus, the average pH value of surface seawater will increase as upwelling of subsurface waters wanes when the summer monsoon weakens. On the other hand, strengthening of winter monsoon will bring more dust (nutrients, trace elements like Fe) from the arid
areas in the north—for example, the loess plateau, into the SCS (Fig. 1), which can elevate surface nutrient levels and lead to increased photosynthetic fixation of CO2 and increased seawater pH."

There Conclusion also makes the point:
"CONCLUSIONS
The P-TIMS isotopic technique is demonstrated to be a good method to determine the d11B composition of corals
and satisfies the high analytical precision required to document the small variability of d11B related to surface
seawater pH change. Our data are the first to show that significant variations of the boron isotopic ratios recorded
in fossil corals in the Holocene may be linked with synchronous climate change. In contrast to a trend
of gradually increasing pH in the SCS since the Holocene thermal optimal, modern pH of the SCS is much lower. We believe that increasing concentration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have reversed the natural pH trend in the SCS since the mid-Holocene. It is estimated that global seawater already has been acidified by 0.1 pH unit relative to the pre-industrial times (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003). Further
studies in this area can potentially provide important information regarding the links between changes of surface seawater chemistry and climate change."

It's a regional phenomena more related to the Monsoon strength and up-welling than a general measure of sea acidity, though they think that there's been some contribution by increased CO2 during the period of their study.

The resilience of life doesn't so much come from rapid evolution...but from displacement of species to remaining niches. For corals and its life, most likely from other places that aren't as sensitive to the up-welling, such as the mid-Pacific. The relevant question here is what happens when there are no remaining niches of greater than PH 8, for life to survive in?

from what I've read, it was, globally, (at least a couple degrees, maybe more) warmer than today roughly 6-7 thousand years ago, and then there was a sudden cold snap about 5200 years ago.....
(the cold snap was said to have preserved everything from plants in the high equatorial andes, to oetzi in the alps)
Anyone got any good information where to look for the cause of the cold snap? and approximations of the degree drop.
It seems to have been very fast.

Are you referring to the "Holocene Climatic Optimum"?

Here's the standard Holocene temperature graph, from the wiki page, Temperature record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plot showing the variations, and relative stability, of climate during the last 12000 years.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by gonzales56

The South China Sea has shifted very swiftly in its PH levels in the past, and has done so on a scale of decades and centuries. The process of evolution is not always about outside forces pushing or forcing genetic change in order for a species to survive.. In fact, that type of demand usually leads to the extinction of species rather than the survival of them. It is often random and continuous mutations that are life's insurance policy against the future's unknown and multiple possibilities. Environmental, biological, chemical, etc. changes that favor some within a species over others based on existing mutations is perhaps the most important aspect to and for survival. There are always going to be a % of life, and life within a highly populated species, that will amaze you concerning how resilient, capable and genetically prepared they are to deal with change/s.

Same goes for people. If they cant move (human's have had to move from the very day they started walking) then they may very well die.

Indeed but consider that the acidity in the South China Sea is NOT representative of global average sea level acidity. In fact the very paper you pulled makes this quite clear:

"The pH variation in the mid-late Holocene is most likely linked to a change of the monsoon climate in the SCS. A unique feature of climate conditions in the SCS is the influence of the East Asia (EA) monsoon and their response to both terrestrial and marine climatic changes (Fig. 1).Upwelling induced by the summer monsoon is a common phenomenon in the SCS (Wu and Li, 2003). The modern pH value of the SCS at a depth of 500 m is 7.60 (Chenet al., 2006), significantly lower than the pH value of surface seawater which ranges from 7.96 to 8.10 (Pelejero et al.,
2005; Chen et al., 2006). Thus, the average pH value of surface seawater will increase as upwelling of subsurface waters wanes when the summer monsoon weakens. On the other hand, strengthening of winter monsoon will bring more dust (nutrients, trace elements like Fe) from the arid
areas in the north—for example, the loess plateau, into the SCS (Fig. 1), which can elevate surface nutrient levels and lead to increased photosynthetic fixation of CO2 and increased seawater pH."

There Conclusion also makes the point:
"CONCLUSIONS
The P-TIMS isotopic technique is demonstrated to be a good method to determine the d11B composition of corals
and satisfies the high analytical precision required to document the small variability of d11B related to surface
seawater pH change. Our data are the first to show that significant variations of the boron isotopic ratios recorded
in fossil corals in the Holocene may be linked with synchronous climate change. In contrast to a trend
of gradually increasing pH in the SCS since the Holocene thermal optimal, modern pH of the SCS is much lower. We believe that increasing concentration of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may have reversed the natural pH trend in the SCS since the mid-Holocene. It is estimated that global seawater already has been acidified by 0.1 pH unit relative to the pre-industrial times (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003). Further
studies in this area can potentially provide important information regarding the links between changes of surface seawater chemistry and climate change."

It's a regional phenomena more related to the Monsoon strength and up-welling than a general measure of sea acidity, though they think that there's been some contribution by increased CO2 during the period of their study.

The resilience of life doesn't so much come from rapid evolution...but from displacement of species to remaining niches. For corals and its life, most likely from other places that aren't as sensitive to the up-welling, such as the mid-Pacific. The relevant question here is what happens when there are no remaining niches of greater than PH 8, for life to survive in?

Fox, it does not matter what caused the pH fluctuation. The point is that life forms and the ecological system survived that fluctuation.

Originally Posted by adelady

Same goes for people. If they cant move (human's have had to move from the very day they started walking) then they may very well die.

That's hardly news. The question is how many people do we think it's OK to force into a quick death or neglect into slow death by not doing things it is perfectly within our power to do. How fast do we expect 1 or 10 million or 100s of millions of people to move to get away from what's killing them - for the sake of doing things the way a Victorian industrialist would if he were here to do it.

I'm not talking about world peace or ambulances at the bottom of every cliff, just that it's no loss to those of us with money and power to have a car or a bus that uses no CO2 producing process just to get around for our daily activities. We still have transport, even our own vehicles, but we operate them cleanly and efficiently ... because it's a better way to do things than we could have done a century ago. And we have houses with lots of electric and electronic equipment. It's no skin off our noses if the power comes from a renewable source rather than from burning something, all we want is for the switches to work when we flick them.

Same thing goes for fossils generally. Carbon fibre technology tells us that these things could be fantastically valuable in the future as the technology develops further, but we're willing to just burn the stuff to use in the next 5 minutes. Like writing a will and then your grandchildren finding that the 'great big house' they inherited is just a scorched block of land - because you decided one day that the house would be a good bonfire.

I'm not at all worried about the fact that we will, one day, be extinct. There may not even be descendants of our primate family. But there's no good reason for us to throw away the benefits of a biosphere and an atmosphere that exactly suits us. All for the sake of being stubborn about doing things in one particular way when there are dozens of technological and organisational options for literally doing more with less.

There may not be anything 'special' about our climatic environment according to some people, but there's even less 'special' about the particular suite of technologies that some people, often the same people, think we should stay with - just because that's what they've always done. If it's no problem to live with a drastically different climate, then it's an entirely trivial problem to use different versions of the technology we're so fond of.

Lady, the principles and politics of taking care of and/or providing for millions (and even billions) is at odds and at war with the principles and politics of reusable and sustainable resources and environmental conservation. One cannot keep providing, protecting and trying to sustain billions and billions of people while also advocate for conservation, the environment and sustainable or stable production/consumption. It's hypocrisy at its finest, it's a lie.

People cannot have it both ways, they will have to choose at some point. Push social and economic programs that over produce and over consume or support a sustainable existence with the environment/planet. As it stands right now I think we can all agree that the rate of production and consumption we have cannot and will not be sustained.

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Fox, it does not matter what caused the pH fluctuation. The point is that life forms and the ecological system survived that fluctuation.

It does matter very much. For one thing you haven't shown past conditions happened as quickly as we are changing it now, nor that life adapted to that rapid change. If anything, the evidence points to extinction events caused by rapid ocean wide Ph changes such as during the Paleocene–Eocene boundary--current rates of acidification appear to be ten times faster than that extinction event--meaning many ecological systems DID NOT SURVIVE. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/5728/1611.abstract, also Ocean acidification on track to be among the worst of the last 300 million years | Ars Technica)

Shelled organisms with exposed aragonite have no way to adapt, they cannot replace damaged shell. They can only survive in tiny remaining niches that might exist in such a acidified world--such as at the mouth of a particularly high alkiline river or spring. So imagine a world with almost no shell life, nor some of the most important oxygen producing phytoplantons, and nearly complete collapse of every fishery humans have tried to save via conservation areas around the globe.

Originally Posted by adelady

Are you referring to the "Holocene Climatic Optimum"?

Here's the standard Holocene temperature graph, from the wiki page, Temperature record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plot showing the variations, and relative stability, of climate during the last 12000 years.

Who?
Me?
we've had several warmer periods during this interglacial
that wasn't the question

What I'm looking into is that sudden violent cold snap about 5200 ybp
that preserved the aforementioned( everything from plants in the high equatorial andes, to oetzi in the alps )
what caused it?

It ain't really well defined in these old charts---even knowing to look for it, I ain't seeing it.
It seems to have been a violent sudden temperature drop of well over 3 degrees in the high altitudes,,,,and I ain't found a lot of lower elevation effects dating to that time----------so, atmospheric?
if so then (a shrinking of the outer layers?---pushing down the colder outer layer of the troposphere?)

So far, what I've come up with is that the extreem, and extreemly fast, cold snap was accompanied by more precipitation.

It seems roughly (but only roughly) near the time of the doggerland inundation----------but the dates seem off by 1000years?

and not a whole lot else.

help me if you can.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Fox, it does not matter what caused the pH fluctuation. The point is that life forms and the ecological system survived that fluctuation.

It does matter very much. For one thing you haven't shown past conditions happened as quickly as we are changing it now, nor that life adapted to that rapid change. If anything, the evidence points to extinction events caused by rapid ocean wide Ph changes such as during the Paleocene–Eocene boundary--current rates of acidification appear to be ten times faster than that extinction event--meaning many ecological systems DID NOT SURVIVE. (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/308/5728/1611.abstract, also Ocean acidification on track to be among the worst of the last 300 million years | Ars Technica)

Shelled organisms with exposed aragonite have no way to adapt, they cannot replace damaged shell. They can only survive in tiny remaining niches that might exist in such a acidified world--such as at the mouth of a particularly high alkiline river or spring. So imagine a world with almost no shell life, nor some of the most important oxygen producing phytoplantons, and nearly complete collapse of every fishery humans have tried to save via conservation areas around the globe.

It does not matter fox. The pH of the ocean will not become acidic and the pH will not drop below 7.4... Shell fish and algae can survive and flourish at those pH levels.

There is simply no future doom and gloom concerning the impact increased CO2 in the atmosphere will have the oceans pH. Likewise, attempting to extrapolate the current percentage change in pH over x amount of time, and then declaring that said percentage change shows that pH levels in the ocean can continue at that same rate indefinitely is kin to quackery. Do so is not science, it is garbage.

Originally Posted by sculptor

help me if you can.

Perhaps I can. Adelady is showing that there was no such global "cold snap" as you put it. Of course regional fluctuations can and do happen.

...drop below 7.4... Shell fish and algae can survive and flourish at those pH levels.

This is where I get to challenge you for sources that support that contention. So far the past periods of acidification which you used were associated with extinction events. Aragonite organisms in many places are already dying even with much more basic Ph, such as that along the Oregon and Washington coastlines. Even the South China sea, where your study comes from, experiences massive bleaching during those strong upwelling acidificiation events.

So show us a single study that shows shell fish "flourishing" at 7.4 Ph.

The breaking point for Pacific Northwest Oysters was about 7.9 to 8--they no longer naturally reproduce here.
​Ocean Acidification | Marine | Water| Washington State Department of Ecology

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by sculptor

help me if you can.

Perhaps I can. Adelady is showing that there was no such global "cold snap" as you put it. Of course regional fluctuations can and do happen.

...drop below 7.4... Shell fish and algae can survive and flourish at those pH levels.

This is where I get to challenge you for sources that support that contention. So far the past periods of acidification which you used were associated with extinction events. Aragonite organisms in many places are already dying even with much more basic Ph, such as that along the Oregon and Washington coastlines. Even the South China sea, where your study comes from, experiences massive bleaching during those strong upwelling acidificiation events.

So show us a single study that shows shell fish "flourishing" at 7.4 Ph.

The breaking point for Pacific Northwest Oysters was about 7.9 to 8--they no longer naturally reproduce here.
​Ocean Acidification | Marine | Water| Washington State Department of Ecology

regional
as in both the andies and the alps at the same time?
and damned fast as the preservation of materials shows.
as I said earlier---that is one old chart which needs refinement
so far, the high altitude glaciers of the himalayas are growing and not revealing their treasures of that time.

more research
polen distribution/europe may show some of that cold snap
any big volcanoes then?

so far, the high altitude glaciers of the himalayas are growing and not revealing their treasures of that time.

Only some of the highest on the Western side--which are benefiting from enhanced monsoon flow and precipitation while remaining cold enough for snow. Most of the Himalayan glaciers are in retreat.
Tibetan glaciers shrinking rapidly : Nature News & Comment

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

so far, the high altitude glaciers of the himalayas are growing and not revealing their treasures of that time.

Only some of the highest on the Western side--which are benefiting from enhanced monsoon flow and precipitation while remaining cold enough for snow. Most of the Himalayan glaciers are in retreat.
Tibetan glaciers shrinking rapidly : Nature News & Comment

from your link:

The status of the glaciers has been a point of contention. Earlier this year, an analysis of 7 years' worth of measurements taken by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission suggested2 that high-altitude Asian glaciers on the whole are losing ice only one-tenth as fast as previously estimated, and that glaciers on the Tibetan plateau are actually growing.

most of the "glaciers studied for the past 30 years" are lower altitude glaciers from which they were extrapolating to the higher altitude glaciers, which were poorly studied.

There but for the G.R.A.C.E. go I

have you read the article entitled "the sky is falling"
Shrinking Sky! Cloud Tops Dropping Closer to Earth, NASA Satellite Finds | Atmospheric Science & Climate Change | Cloud Formation & Height | LiveScience

just wondering if something like that could've happened approximately 5200 years ago

If you do not want to beleive that there was a sudden cold snap
you will not be able to find the cause.

And I'm sure, besides being very short term at 7 years, the articles mention of the key problem for the Grace data:
"“As the GRACE satellites can only feel the gravitational pull and can’t tell the difference between ice and liquid water, they may have mistaken expanding glacial lakes for increases in glacier mass,” says Yao.John Wahr, a remote-sensing expert at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead author of the GRACE study, concedes that the criticism is valid. “This is an important weakness of GRACE for any non-polar glacier study,” he says."
--
Here's 4 reconstructions of European temperatures:


What cold snap?

spain and israel are showing a hint of it
the israel one showing from 3+ degrees warmer to over 2 degrees colder----circa5kybp-------a drop of 5 degrees

more measurements
more details

as/re "what cold snap?"
hell man
you're showing me the information
thanx

you read the linked article?

.........
epimetheus
I'm still leaning to looking for an altitude connection

Spain is flat at 5200 years ago. The Israeli one is the only one showing something happening at 5200 years ago, a change in moisture availability and not in Europe. There were some large volcanic eruptions about that time, which usually show some effects, but more often than not, short term and often not global.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by sculptor

help me if you can.

Perhaps I can. Adelady is showing that there was no such global "cold snap" as you put it. Of course regional fluctuations can and do happen.

...drop below 7.4... Shell fish and algae can survive and flourish at those pH levels.

This is where I get to challenge you for sources that support that contention. So far the past periods of acidification which you used were associated with extinction events. Aragonite organisms in many places are already dying even with much more basic Ph, such as that along the Oregon and Washington coastlines. Even the South China sea, where your study comes from, experiences massive bleaching during those strong upwelling acidificiation events.

So show us a single study that shows shell fish "flourishing" at 7.4 Ph.

The breaking point for Pacific Northwest Oysters was about 7.9 to 8--they no longer naturally reproduce here.
​Ocean Acidification | Marine | Water| Washington State Department of Ecology

Fox, I surely will find specific "shellfish" and algae species for you when I get back on monday.

We know that shellfish and algae that reside in freshwater or in areas where freshwater and saltwater meet and mix, those species withstand wild fluctuations in pH and can and have lived in waters as low as 5 pH.

I will spend a few hours of my time on monday listing and finding specific species for you though.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Spain is flat at 5200 years ago. The Israeli one is the only one showing something happening at 5200 years ago, a change in moisture availability and not in Europe. There were some large volcanic eruptions about that time, which usually show some effects, but more often than not, short term and often not global.

ok
what is the orange line on the spain graph supposed to represent?

.......................
back to the altitude thing:

Researchers at The University of Auckland have reported a decreasing trend in average global cloud heights from 2000 to 2010, based on data gathered by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The change over the ten-year span was 100 to 130 feet, and was mostly due to fewer clouds at higher altitudes. Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey have also noticed that “the sky” in general has fallen about 90 feet.

It’s suspected that this may be indicative of some sort of atmospheric cooling mechanism in play that could help counteract global warming.

“This is the first time we have been able to accurately measure changes in global cloud height and, while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides just a hint that something quite important might be going on,” said lead researcher Professor Roger Davies.

A steady reduction in cloud heights could help the planet radiate heat into space, thus serving as a negative feedback in the global warming process. The exact cause of the drop in cloud altitude is not yet known, but it could reasonably be resulting from a change in circulation patterns that otherwise form high-altitude clouds.

Cloud heights are just one of the many factors that affect climate, and until now have not been able to be measured globally over a long span of time.

“Clouds are one of the biggest uncertainties in our ability to predict future climate,” said Davies. “Cloud height is extremely difficult to model and therefore hasn’t been considered in models of future climate. For the first time we have been able to accurately measure the height of clouds on a global basis, and the challenge now will be to incorporate that information into climate models. It will provide a check on how well the models are doing, and may ultimately lead to better ones.”

While Terra data showed yearly variations in global cloud heights, the most extreme caused by El Niño and La Niña events in the Pacific, the overall trend for the years measured was a decrease.

SCIENTISTS CONFIRM: THE SKY IS FALLING! | Weekly World News

it might be a tad easier to see if you take your hands away from infront of your eyes?
But you don't gotta look.

Originally Posted by sculptor

what is the orange line on the spain graph supposed to represent?

Change in precipitation. (See Terral & Menguel)It's in the figure 16 description of the original paper from which the four figure composite was pulled:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...31018299000796

The black line is temperature and doesn't show the 5200 change...see for yourself it's listed as delta T in figure 15 of the original work.

--
As for the "sky is falling" article you keep putting up: do you think it's science or entertainment?: From the article "Brindle told WWN “our data shows that the sky had not moved in two thousand years, but since January of 2012, it is falling approximately 2 feet a day. That means the earth’s atmosphere could collapse by December 21, 2012.”

It might be serious, but without the authors, title of the research paper, or DOI....well it's, at best, "science reporting" at its worst. Certainly not something to pin an argument on in the science forum.

my what a large font you have
(said little red riding hood)

actually
the data is from nasa


1% drop in 10 years

we live in an age of technological miracles
satelites that can measure a 3 inch bulge in the beufort gyre, or the top of the troposphere
really facinating stuff
..........
as we slow down, it seems that some science is increasing it's pace of new data
(oh to be young again)
...........................
untill we see more lower altitude cold snap confirmation
altitude seems to be the commonality
for the cold/wet snap that grew the glaciers quickly enough to preserve the aforementioned flora and fauna .
................
if the edge of the hadley cell was directly over israel, could that account for the stray readings?

Na....the font thing was trying to remove a pasted font...no change in tone intended.

Perhaps be so kind as to at least find the abstract of what ever was published as we have something to look at the source for the "sky if falling article." As it stands its nearly meaningless...not from a credible source, too short to indicate anything about climate, and unconfirmed.

from:

NASA - NASA Satellite Finds Earth's Clouds are Getting Lower

Earth's clouds got a little lower -- about one percent on average -- during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate.

Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.

Lead researcher Roger Davies said that while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides a hint that something quite important might be going on. Longer-term monitoring will be required to determine the significance of the observation for global temperatures.

A consistent reduction in cloud height would allow Earth to cool to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperature of the planet and potentially slowing the effects of global warming. This may represent a "negative feedback" mechanism – a change caused by global warming that works to counteract it. "We don't know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower," says Davies. "But it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude."

Cloud changes may lower global temperature*- The University of Auckland

Cloud changes may lower global temperature

22 February 2012




Research from The University of Auckland on changes in cloud height in the decade to 2010 has provided the first hint of a cooling mechanism that may be in play in the Earth’s climate.

Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the analysis of the first ten years of data from the NASA Terra satellite revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around 1 per cent over the decade, or around 30 to 40 metres. Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes.

“This is the first time we have been able to accurately measure changes in global cloud height and, while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides just a hint that something quite important might be going on,” explains lead researcher Professor Roger Davies. Longer-term monitoring will be required to determine the significance of the observation for global temperatures.

A consistent reduction in cloud height would allow the Earth to cool to space more efficiently, reducing the surface temperature of the planet and potentially slowing the effects of global warming. This may represent a “negative feedback” mechanism – a change caused by global warming that works to counteract it. “We don’t know exactly what causes the cloud heights to lower,” says Professor Davies, “but it must be due to a change in the circulation patterns that give rise to cloud formation at high altitude.”

Until recently however, it was impossible to measure the changes in global cloud heights and understand their contribution to global climate change.

“Clouds are one of the biggest uncertainties in our ability to predict future climate,” says Professor Davies. “Cloud height is extremely difficult to model and therefore hasn’t been considered in models of future climate. For the first time we have been able to accurately measure the height of clouds on a global basis, and the challenge now will be to incorporate that information into climate models. It will provide a check on how well the models are doing, and may ultimately lead to better ones.”

University of Auckland physicists Professor Davies and Matthew Molloy, a BSc Honours student, analysed measurements of the Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), one of the instruments on the Terra satellite launched by NASA in December 1999. The instrument uses 9 cameras at different angles to produce a stereo image of clouds around the globe, allowing measurement of their altitude and movement.

izzat 'nuff man?
are you gonna look into helping me research the above?
or just f--k around and waste time?

TY. No snide remarks needed. All of us are better served by providing sources in the hard science parts of the forum...especially if it's to be taken seriously and repeated :-)

While this be a negative feedback to surface warming, we'll need to determine whether it's a longer term trend, or more a factor from the article of "Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes," which means it won't be much of a negative feedback at all, especially given high cloud reflectivity to sun light. In other words, while interesting, decreased high cloud coverage would allow more sunlight in as well as lower the average cloud hieght--overall a positive feedback. More research will no doubt sort out which is the greater effect.

yeh
longer term tells more
...no offense intended dad
just feeling a tad grumpy today

Well isn't time we started by getting rid of all fossil fueled power stations, then covering all new building with solar panels. It's clean cheap energy that we have in abundance all we have to is collect and we can illiminate so much pollution in one fell swoop. Then we can start looking at things like cars and boats to what we can power with clean electricy. Lets then make a complete break from coal and oil altogether and start helping other, especially developing, countries to do the same.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

"Runaway greenhouse," as most scientist define it, means escalating temperatures, continuous positive feedback until the oceans boil over and the atmosphere is mostly waver vapor in a process that might have happened on Venus. That is a physical impossibility on Earth until our solar irradiation is much stronger a billions or si years from now.

It is not a physical impossibility, rather today's (available) data states, it is "unlikely to be possible."

The scientists that made these conclusions say, atmospheric physics is so complex that climate scientists have only a rudimentary understanding of how it works. These scientists admit that the above conclusion takes no account of the role that clouds might play in this process. And these scientists’ say, ignorance of the processes at work raises a significant question mark.

These scientists state, there may have been missed physics or weak assumptions in these current beliefs.


The final words said by these MIT scientists in their "Runaway Greenhouse" paper were these,
It's all the more reason to redouble our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “The imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions remains.”


How Likely Is a Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth? | MIT Technology Review


Chad.

“The imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions remains."

Of course, and that imperative has absolutely nothing on the likelihood of runaway greenhouse on Earth.
--

I'm not going to quibble over the distinction between "unlikely to be possible" and "impossible."

Originally Posted by chad

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

"Runaway greenhouse," as most scientist define it, means escalating temperatures, continuous positive feedback until the oceans boil over and the atmosphere is mostly waver vapor in a process that might have happened on Venus. That is a physical impossibility on Earth until our solar irradiation is much stronger a billions or si years from now.

It is not a physical impossibility, rather today's (available) data states, it is "unlikely to be possible."

The scientists that made these conclusions say, atmospheric physics is so complex that climate scientists have only a rudimentary understanding of how it works. These scientists admit that the above conclusion takes no account of the role that clouds might play in this process. And these scientists’ say, ignorance of the processes at work raises a significant question mark.

These scientists state, there may have been missed physics or weak assumptions in these current beliefs.


The final words said by these MIT scientists in their "Runaway Greenhouse" paper were these,
It's all the more reason to redouble our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “The imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions remains.”


How Likely Is a Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth? | MIT Technology Review


Chad.

The report mentions a limit that when we are close to reaching that limit we will hit a full on runaway greenhouse effect. I wonder if that would happen next summer as a result of the degassing of hydrates, turning the earth into a pressure cooker perhaps.

Originally Posted by seregate

Originally Posted by chad

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Originally Posted by Futilitist

We have already let bad things happen. Real scientific evidence is beginning to mount that that it really could be too late to do anything to stop runaway global warming. That is not just my opinion. "What utter rubbish" seems a little out of proportion.

"Runaway greenhouse," as most scientist define it, means escalating temperatures, continuous positive feedback until the oceans boil over and the atmosphere is mostly waver vapor in a process that might have happened on Venus. That is a physical impossibility on Earth until our solar irradiation is much stronger a billions or si years from now.

It is not a physical impossibility, rather today's (available) data states, it is "unlikely to be possible."

The scientists that made these conclusions say, atmospheric physics is so complex that climate scientists have only a rudimentary understanding of how it works. These scientists admit that the above conclusion takes no account of the role that clouds might play in this process. And these scientists’ say, ignorance of the processes at work raises a significant question mark.

These scientists state, there may have been missed physics or weak assumptions in these current beliefs.


The final words said by these MIT scientists in their "Runaway Greenhouse" paper were these,
It's all the more reason to redouble our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “The imperative to cut greenhouse gas emissions remains.”


How Likely Is a Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth? | MIT Technology Review


Chad.

The report mentions a limit that when we are close to reaching that limit we will hit a full on runaway greenhouse effect. I wonder if that would happen next summer as a result of the degassing of hydrates, turning the earth into a pressure cooker perhaps.

To be honest, I feel your second source presents great information, but not much science. But I wish more people took global warming seriously, like he does.

As the scientists in my link said, "atmospheric physics is so complex that climate scientists have only a rudimentary understanding of how it works."
Perhaps no one knows whats going to happen. But I do (not) think it will happen next summer.

Also the source I listed earlier from MIT says, a runaway greenhouse effect is unlikely.


The following is a link to NASA's website. NASA states that in a few decades, America and Europe could be covered in huge amounts of ice for 365 days a year, because of global warming stopping deep ocean currents.

A Chilling Possibility - NASA Science


But many scientists believe, that in about 20-50 years global warming will devastate this planet. By things like, causing food crops to no longer grow, where they grow now, from temperature changes. Causing some areas to change from warm to frozen, or from wet to dry. And the most dangerous part being the human riots and wars, during the lack of food, and lack of land.

But at this moment I believe we have at least 15 years, before any huge changes could happen.


Perhaps your view of the world does not allow you to notice the following things, I only noticed it recently.
There are many people out there, that truly care about the dangers of global warming like we do.

There are many, many, many scientists, that want to take real steps against global warming.
Even many rock and roll, and hip hop bands, want to do something real about global warming.
And many big players in Hollywood, want to do something real about global warming.

Many governments around the world, take seriously the dangers of global warming.
And groups like GreenPeace want to do something real about global warming.

Point is, hopefully the above people and countries, will make a stand someday.
Some one has to do something, because I do not want to send the young children in my family, into the world that waits for them.

Chad, I think everyone is concerned about global changes, we just have different ideas concerning how to deal with them and how to prepare for them based on what might happen or what will possibly happen.

If food supplies shrink drastically, if riots start, we know governments have one plan and that is to only protect themselves and their friends while leaving the rest of the people, the vast majority of the people, to fend for themselves. Governments and their privileged friends will hunker down with their massive hoards and heavily secured supplies and safe spots and watch millions and billions suffer and/or die .

If your prediction comes true, those that are not the privileged few are going to have to come up with their own plans or suffer and/or die.

Originally Posted by gonzales56

Chad, I think everyone is concerned about global changes, we just have different ideas concerning how to deal with them and how to prepare for them based on what might happen or what will possibly happen.

If food supplies shrink drastically, if riots start, we know governments have one plan and that is to only protect themselves and their friends while leaving the rest of the people, the vast majority of the people, to fend for themselves. Governments and their privileged friends will hunker down with their massive hoards and heavily secured supplies and safe spots and watch millions and billions suffer and/or die .

If your prediction comes true, those that are not the privileged few are going to have to come up with their own plans or suffer and/or die.

I'm not worried about myself suffering and dying, because I think this world will be somewhat stable, for the next 15 plus years.


I worry about the future. Today most of this worlds countries have deficits and debt. And their only plans to fix these problems, is to cut programs for regular people and the poor.
These countries already have problems, with honest and hard working people living in poverty. And because of deficit and debt problems, these things can only get worse.

And we don't even care about, these honest and hard working people living in poverty.
We don't care that millions of American children are hungry.
We could be heading into a world like in the time of kings, were some people live in ultimate luxury, while a huge percentage of the population, lives in pathetic poverty.

In this time of my life, I notice the future world my young nephews will live in, and to be honest it is unacceptable. Its unacceptable for any of our children.
When Americas 12 year old's are 75 years old, what kind of country are we leaving for them?


And its not just financial problems.

The worlds population is growing, and at the same time Americas bread basket farmland is running out of water.
We are putting cancer causing chemicals into our bodies and ecosystems.
We are using too many antibiotics and creating super germs.
There are constant wars, when in 50 years any person with a good computer, will be able to make biological weapons.

What happens when these school shooter madmen, are using biological weapons instead of guns?
What happens when terrorists use biological weapons instead of bombs?

And there are many other dangerous future problems for this world, besides the ones above. But when you add global warming to the mix, it just becomes plain stupid.


We are sending our children into a world, worse than the one we live in today. We are going backwards.
It seems we no longer care about our children's future, we only care about stock markets.

I'm not worried about myself suffering and dying, because I think this world will be somewhat stable, for the next 15 plus years.

You're probably right about your own suffering and dying. I'm not so sure about stability for the next 15+ years.

By that time we'll regularly have either nil or too little to bother about sea ice in the Arctic at the end of summer. That will have enormous effects on the seasons of the northern hemisphere. It will also hasten further ocean warming by having more open water absorbing more sunlight than ever before. Considering how fast the decline of this ice, glacier ice worldwide and the deterioration in the world's weather (measured by the number and extent of 'extreme' events) have occurred compared to the very conservative projections of the IPCC, I'd not set much store by notions of stability.

Which particular things being unstable will have which particular impacts on which particular parts of the world is something we can't know yet. I'm optimistic that we'll get on top of it - but pessimistic that it will take far too many catastrophes, far too many deaths, before we finally put our shoulders to the wheel and get the job done. Regardless, whatever we do will be far too late to stop significant sea level rise for at least a couple of centuries, so we might as well be resigned to that now. Which does not mean that we shouldn't do what we can to initiate processes to slow or reverse that - we just have to accept (a bit like building a 15th century cathedral really) that we won't live to see the success of these projects.

As George Carlin would say about global warming.............

George Carlin On Global Warming Scam - YouTube

"save the fucking planet"
thanx

With regards earth becoming Venus, it seems that little has to happen as enough surface heating will put plate tectonics to a stop on earth.

Hot climate could shut down plate tectonics

This is not something we can expect from climate change, even change beyond the 6C that could wipe out civilisation even if our species could survive it in small pockets.

"The heat required goes far beyond anything we expect from human-induced climate change, but things like volcanic activity and changes in the sun's luminosity could lead to this level of heating," said lead author Adrian Lenardic, associate professor of Earth science at Rice University. "Our goal was to establish an upper limit of naturally generated climate variation beyond which the entire solid planet would respond."

This is more like what will happen towards the end of the solar system or a catastrophic change of another kind.

If I may introduce a moment of levity (tragi/comedy) into this serious situation.
George Carlin presents our dilemma in stark terms, but it bears considering.

George Carlin - Saving the Planet - YouTube

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

As George Carlin would say about global warming.............

George Carlin On Global Warming Scam - YouTube

Originally Posted by Write4U

If I may introduce a moment of levity (tragi/comedy) into this serious situation.
George Carlin presents our dilemma in stark terms, but it bears considering.

George Carlin - Saving the Planet - YouTube

Great minds and all, right?

As long as global warming is associated with Al Gore, it will be considered a joke.

Originally Posted by Jim Colyer

As long as global warming is associated with Al Gore, it will be considered a joke.

You probably mean the false caricature of Al Gore, and might not even realize most of the claims against him are completely and utterly incorrect an often directly opposed to what he's said, done and recommended as solutions.

It's never too late to do something, humans.

Originally Posted by Jim Colyer

As long as global warming is associated with Al Gore, it will be considered a joke.

As long as people keep calling it 'global warming' it will probably be considered a joke.

As long as people keep calling it 'global warming' it will probably be considered a joke.

I take it you're not in the southeast of Australia at the moment. No?

And you weren't on Greenland while it was melting over the whole of the island a few months ago. No?

Presumably you're not a US corn (brown stalks) farmer or a Mississippi barge operator. Thought not.

Just because global warming - and the entirely predictable polar amplification of warming - has weird effects on the movement (or staying in place) of both warm and cold weather systems in the northern hemisphere, doesn't mean that it's not warming. It just means that climate changes in unexpected ways (well, unexpected by non-experts) to enhance, disrupt or delay/ hasten/ stall/ override all kinds of normal seasonal changes.

Unless. You're not one of those who think that warming means that every year/ season should be warmer every year/ season, are you? That probably doesn't apply to you, but I can get quite irritated with people who say that "it's not warming" by that 'reasoning'. It seems it's not enough for them that we've had 334 consecutive months of global average temperature exceeding the 20th century average temperature.

adelady
be not so quick to judgement
you may want to read:
http://www.agweb.com/blog/Farmland_Forecast_148/
therein, you'll note that U.S. per acre yields were up for the year
along with new suppliers coming on line---ukraine, south america,

The Corn Belt is also moving farther west and north into areas that may have never planted corn. North Dakota is expected to plant 4.3 million corn acres in 2013, nearly double the 2011 total

-(--an advantage from "global warming"?)

from a personal perspective, we had the best crop of plums ever(since I got here--20 odd years ago)
apples were well above average also

as the weather changes, some crops do better, and some worse

australia lies on a world wide desert belt---both north and south latitudes of roughly 25-33 degrees latitude----going further north in the centers of the continents
so you shouldn't be too surprised by that weather

(just to be on the safe side---
plant a tree for every 1000 kilometers driven or for every 1000 degree days of heating or cooling)
better still
double that