Antarctic Ice Increasing

[shinbits]

Yea I agree. The way I see it is that you have to ask yourself a few questions:

1) Do you think humans have influence on nature on this planet?
Probably everyone will say yes to this one.

2) Do you think that influence is positive or negative?
Once again, probably everyone will say negative.

3) The next question is about the amount of negative (or positive) impact.
This is where you can argue whether global warming is really bad or not.
But if you've already established that we have a negative impact (no matter how small) on this Earth. I really don't see why anyone would object to an anti-polution kind of attitude.

Sure global warming potentially might be overrated. Maybe it won't cause a flood or ice age. But how is lowering CO2 emmisions and other polution ever a bad thing? We have an oblige to our children to hand this Earth over in good health.

- Ectezus

good points.

 

[Nathan45]

Well shin, one reason to have doubts about human involvement is that earth temperatures go up and down like the stock market. Since the end of the last glacial advance the boreal forest like in manitoba nad been down into Tennessee, and likewise with mixed hardwood forest that advanced up into canada. why was that?

Why has the been an ice age at all? Why the advances and retreats? i dont think anyone really knows. Now, IF there is actually a significant shift in climate going on, who is to say it would not happen if there was not person one on earth?

I dont claim to know why or ig there is global warming.. I cant do anything about it, i have other things to think about.

I just dont think its a slam dunk anymore than were the WMDs of Saddam the H.

As far as global warming is concerned, two things are pretty well established:

1) Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it's closely associated with temperature. Putting more CO2 into the atmosphere will cause heat to be trapped in the earth.

2) Carbon dioxide is increasing dramatically as a result of industrialization.
(here's the same chart i posted in another thread... )




there is a lot of uncertainty about exactly how much temperatures will increase or decrease, this is due to two things:

1) Other factors besides CO2 which may be bigger factors.
2) Feedback loops.

Scientists pretty much know what direct effects CO2 has on the atmosphere, what isn't well understood is the indirect effects... that is to say what effects the warming itself will have on the temperature.

if you raise temperature 2 degrees, that's going to cause glaciers to melt, which can affect ocean currents, and also affect the net reflectivity of the earth (ice reflects more solar radiation than water). It's also going to change the ecology, which might cause a rise in plants that consume more CO2, lowering it back, but it's hard to take all these factors into account. they can't really even say if the feedback loops will net more temperature or less. To calculate that you'd basically need to model the location of every glacier and every ocean current, and all kinds of other stuff... which they actually try to do. Also some amount of the CO2 emitted is absorbed by the oceans, which makes it more complicated.

There's actually some pretty scary stuff that they don't know though, for example, look up: Clathrate gun hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

that's a huge feedback loop there. if it ever gets hot enough to melt the methane frozen into the ocean (i'm not really sure if it can), that could cause a death spiral of further global warming.

 

[Hespera]

yeah, those methane hydrates are weird and scary. Im in favor of keeping them down there.

 

[Steve Petersen]

Every breathing thing creates CO2.

I suppose if you want to eliminate them, we could reduce it.

 

[Nathan45]

Every breathing thing creates CO2.

I suppose if you want to eliminate them, we could reduce it.

Most of the increase is comming from burning fossil fuels not breathing... If we made a push towards solar energy or wind energy i think we could do a lot. we're going to have to do that anyway, eventually.

You're right there are no easy solutions to the global warming problem, but I don't think that letting the graph of CO2 just keep ticking up at the same rate it's already going up at is a good idea as far as climate is concerned... 380 ppm now, 480 in 50 years at the current rate ( which admittedly could change)... how much in 200-300 years?

the problem is everyone thinks so short term, but 100 years in geological terms is such an incredibly short time.

 

[canukian]

The ice of Antarctica is on land. A correct analogy would be putting ice on a plate tilted toward your glass and watching it melt. The water level will certainly rise. Reality is even worse than the analogy since in the analogy some of the water might spill onto the counter rather than enter the glass. There are only two places the melting ice in Antarctica can go: The air, due to evaporation, and the ocean.

ETA: Or what Split Rock said.

the anratrtic is getting colder.

also the ice mass in antartica is increasing.

same with greenland.

 

[canukian]

Yea I agree. The way I see it is that you have to ask yourself a few questions:

1) Do you think humans have influence on nature on this planet?
Probably everyone will say yes to this one.

2) Do you think that influence is positive or negative?
Once again, probably everyone will say negative.

3) The next question is about the amount of negative (or positive) impact.
This is where you can argue whether global warming is really bad or not.
But if you've already established that we have a negative impact (no matter how small) on this Earth. I really don't see why anyone would object to an anti-polution kind of attitude.

Sure global warming potentially might be overrated. Maybe it won't cause a flood or ice age. But how is lowering CO2 emmisions and other polution ever a bad thing? We have an oblige to our children to hand this Earth over in good health.

- Ectezus

co2 is not a polutant, without it there would be no plants.

 

[canukian]

yeah, those methane hydrates are weird and scary. Im in favor of keeping them down there.

i would like to see an atemptto see that energy oxploited.

lol i can see some people being curious about fire and its possibilitys, and others getting burnt and saying, fire is scary, lets leave it alone.

 

[canukian]

Most of the increase is comming from burning fossil fuels not breathing... If we made a push towards solar energy or wind energy i think we could do a lot. we're going to have to do that anyway, eventually.

You're right there are no easy solutions to the global warming problem, but I don't think that letting the graph of CO2 just keep ticking up at the same rate it's already going up at is a good idea as far as climate is concerned... 380 ppm now, 480 in 50 years at the current rate ( which admittedly could change)... how much in 200-300 years?

the problem is everyone thinks so short term, but 100 years in geological terms is such an incredibly short time.

there are thousands of people die every day from stuff like no food.

MMGW is nothing but a shill for a power grab by the left.

 

[Tenka]

i would like to see an atempt to see that energy oxploited.

lol i can see some people being curious about fire and its possibilitys, and others getting burnt and saying, fire is scary, lets leave it alone.

So...you are in favor of dredging the bottom of the ocean for something to burn but you are against utilising proven sustainable sources of energy like wind and solar.

Yes, truly sir you are a forward thinker.

MMGW is nothing but a shill for a power grab by the left.

Extrapolating from this statement, climate change denialism is simply a ploy by the right and by pollution profiteers to retain power.

co2 is not a polutant, without it there would be no plants.

Anything can be a poison or a cure, at the right dose.

 

[Baggins]

there are thousands of people die every day from stuff like no food.

And those numbers will be multiplied many times once climate change changes crop zones around the world, turns marginal land to desert and floods coastal plains.

MMGW is nothing but a shill for a power grab by the left.

And here we see the real reason why right wing extremists dislike AGW. They don't understand the science but they dislike the political solutions puyt forward to deal with the science.

Any political movement that can't find policies to deal with a major global problem is moribund.

Any political movement that ignores the science because it can't formulate policies to deal with the problem has rendered itself irrelevant.


All they can do is hope to gull the ignorant and the unthinking, and those people are shrinking.

Outside the US the right is coming to terms with reality and putting forward solutions to AGW. The fact that the right in teh US isn't is another sign of its navel gazing and irrelevance in teh current political climate.

If they don't snap out of it and start dealing with reality rather than ignoring it it will be a long time before they taste power again.

Thankfully there appears to be no major power than doesn't accept the science and knows we need to act now that Obama is in charge of the US. And to be fair to Bush he had made an accommodation with reality by the end of his presidency.

 

[Split Rock]

I am soooo glad that we scientists are being heard, instead of Evangelicals who say,"Don't worry... we'll be raptured before the end anyway. No need to worry about teh consequences of global warming, or a collision with an asteroid. Let's not waste the time and money on that stuff."

Why should we?

This shows why creationists are not just curious enigmas, but are actually dangerous to our society, and even to the continued existance of our species.

 

[Steve Petersen]

This shows why creationists are not just curious enigmas, but are actually dangerous to our society, and even to the continued existance of our species.

Seeing that Mother Nature has extincted 99% of all species, I am inclined to think that She is the real threat to our existence.

 

[Split Rock]

Seeing that Mother Nature has extincted 99% of all species, I am inclined to think that She is the real threat to our existence.

The example of an asteroid collision, would be an example of this. Yet, creationists here seem to think that preparing for the worst that mother nature can throw at us is a waste of time.

 

[Naraoia]

What's global warming?

Is that where all the ice in the oceans are supposed to melt and wipe us all out in a flood, despite the fact that when you put an ice cube in a glass of water, and it melts, the water level actually goes down, not up?

First of all, as others have said, the problem is the ice that's on land. The ice cover of Antarctica is kilometres thick. That's a huge amount of water.

Second, it's not just that the polar ice caps are melting, but also that like all well-behaved materials, water warmer than 4[sup]o[/sup]C expands when it's heated.

Every breathing thing creates CO2.

Yes, but breathing things don't normally create CO[sub]2[/sub] faster than photosynthesising things can remove it (you know, plants breathe in CO[sub]2[/sub]). We, on the other hand, are burning the carbon that accumulated in sediments over millions of years a few orders of magnitude faster than that.

I suppose if you want to eliminate them, we could reduce it.

Was that meant to be sarcasm?

 

[Steve Petersen]

Was that meant to be sarcasm?

No, it was a veiled reference to people who want us to become vegetarian because the livestock we eat contribute to global warming.

I would venture to guess that there are more deer in Wisconsin than there are cattle in the world. Do they not contribute to global warming?

 

[Naraoia]

I would venture to guess that there are more deer in Wisconsin than there are cattle in the world. Do they not contribute to global warming?

I'm pretty sure you'd lose that wager.

 

[Cabal]

Thank you, sir --- but I have to interject here --- God promised never to flood the earth again like in Noah's time:

Fair point. But I don't think anyone's ever said that GW would destroy the human race or flood the entire earth. It could still however kill a lot of people, and make life rather uncomfortable for the rest of us.

 

[canukian]

The question is whether what's happening now is just the natural give and take of the planet, as Erik the Red and my town's early settlers understood it. Or whether it's something so unprecedented that we need to divert vast resources to a transnational elite bureaucracy so that they can do their best to cripple the global economy and deny much of the developing world access to the healthier and longer lives that capitalism brings. To the eco-chondriacs that's a no-brainer.

Mark Steyn Calls Global Warming Alarmists ‘Eco-Chondriacs ...

 

[Cabal]

The question is whether what's happening now is just the natural give and take of the planet, as Erik the Red and my town's early settlers understood it. Or whether it's something so unprecedented that we need to divert vast resources to a transnational elite bureaucracy so that they can do their best to cripple the global economy and deny much of the developing world access to the healthier and longer lives that capitalism brings. To the eco-chondriacs that's a no-brainer.

Mark Steyn Calls Global Warming Alarmists ‘Eco-Chondriacs ...

Yes, because phrasing the dilemma in THAT way is totally fair and balanced....

You do realise that IF global warming turns out to be man-made and is getting worse that much of the developing world's food sources will be utterly ruined?