Why worry about global warming?

[dad]

The reason why I don't believe in global warming as a doomday waterworld, is because of the rainbow!

Good point. The promise God made that the world will never be underwater again.

 

[Cabal]

Good point. The promise God made that the world will never be underwater again.

Not that that verse doesn't rule out partial flooding of course.

 

[dad]

Well, yes. It is also important to change the power grid to renewable energy sources. Nuclear would also be an improvement.

There was fear in Japan, because of the possible consequences of a meltdown. With good reason. Populated areas are a problem. I wonder how possible it would be to build new nuclear reactors very low down, and have little mounds or hills of dirt all around them? In case the thing melted down, they could just bulldoze the whole site under the dirt!

Yes, better public transportation would also help significantly.

Hmm. I think the problem is cities. People need to get into and out of them from far away. If for example they worked and could buy food etc. in their village, or town, maybe billions of commutes would not be needed? But this sinful world can't get fixed. It needs replacement.

Man cannot save himself. That is just plain obvious!

 

[dad]

Not that that verse doesn't rule out partial flooding of course.

Noah was so glad about the rainbow kids...why? Because some partial flooding would not happen again? No. You see kids partial flooding did and does happen all the time. All the animals had to be in the ark because a partial flood occurred? Strange. If say half the world or more wasn't flooded, why not just have them move for awhile??

 

[Lillen]

The next time God will destroy the world it will be through fire!

 

[Cabal]

Noah was so glad about the rainbow kids...why? Because some partial flooding would not happen again? No. You see kids partial flooding did and does happen all the time.

That was my point. The verse rules out total annihilation by flooding - doesn't rule out partial flooding of the planet due to climate change.

 

[Chalnoth]

The reason why I don't believe in global warming as a doomday waterworld, is because of the rainbow!

So, you don't think the whole world will flood because water has an index of refraction that varies with frequency? Wow. That's pretty screwy.

But at any rate, nobody seriously believes the entire world will flood anyway. The most that can reasonably happen is a sea level rise of ~80-100 meters or so. And that would take many centuries to occur, and would require truly massive warming.

What we are worried about instead is sea level rise over the next few decades (~30-50 years) that is enough to cause serious problems for many coastal cities, such as dramatically increased chance of flooding during storms.

 

[Tim the Plumber]

The area with summer melt on Greenland increased from ~450,000 km2 when satellite
observations began in 1979 to more than 600,000 km2 in 2002 (Steffen et al 2004). Linear fit to data for

1992-2005 yields an increase of melt area of +40,000 km2 per year

​

The basic idea of using a graph to predict future melting is silly beyond the next few years.

As the temperature warms up the snow line moves up in altitude. Because it has got a little warmer the ice front will move up a little. The change is 100m per degree.

The sensable calculation is the amount of ice located close to the edge of the ice extent in Greenland and Antarctica. Noting that the floating stuff does not matter.

Because the Greenland ice sheet is at 3000m it is and there is some ice at sea level it will take an increase of 30 degrees c to trouble the big central ice sheet. The stuff at the edge has had a suden melt. That is because it was allways the marginal stuff. The edge of the draining glaciers will have a bit of a tumble as they find a new balance point but the amount of melt will be restricted by the mountains which suround the island of Greenland.

The link you quoted is the first which has suggested that ice can become other than white and I have not seen any photos of this happening. Arctic storms will throw ice all over the place and scour the surface into a crazed reflective whiteness fairly often I would think.

Google earth is a good tool for looking at how much ice is in danger of melting. When you add it up and double you get a very low figure.

The idea of water lubricating the glaciers is strange. There is allways a river under the glacier. If more than normal amounts of water flow it will enlarge it's river "tunnel a bit but the pressure of the glacier will allways mean that this is a very resticted area compaired to the area of contact between the ice and the rock.​

 

[Chalnoth]

The basic idea of using a graph to predict future melting is silly beyond the next few years.

Nobody does. This is why actual physical models are used.

As the temperature warms up the snow line moves up in altitude. Because it has got a little warmer the ice front will move up a little. The change is 100m per degree.

I think you're off there. But at any rate the increase in temperature at the North Pole is far and away beyond the increase in temperature at more southern latitudes, largely because of the feedback effect of the lower sea ice cover:
Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis

This shows that the current warming around the North Pole, which includes parts of Greenland, is between 2-4C, despite an average global warming of only about 0.7C-0.8C. It isn't unreasonable to expect 10C warming in a place like Greenland due to feedbacks like this if the Earth gets in the range of 3C-5C warming.

Secondly, your statement about the altitude of the Greenland ice sheet is just misleading, because for long-term warming it isn't the altitude of the surface of the ice that is important, but instead the altitude of the ground below it (and the mean altitude is 2135 meters, by the way, with only the highest-altitude parts reaching 3000m). And most of that is actually below sea level. So what will happen is that there will be melting in the periphery, and then ice will flow from the higher, central parts towards the edge. Through this sort of mechanism, a total collapse of Greenland's ice sheet is entirely plausible with only a few degrees of warming.

The link you quoted is the first which has suggested that ice can become other than white and I have not seen any photos of this happening. Arctic storms will throw ice all over the place and scour the surface into a crazed reflective whiteness fairly often I would think.

You're thinking of snow, not ice. Snow is white. Ice is not. Ice can be pretty dark, depending upon the conditions. If you've ever seen a lake or stream that has iced over, for instance, once you wipe off the surface snow, the ice below is quite dark.

Google earth is a good tool for looking at how much ice is in danger of melting. When you add it up and double you get a very low figure.

And you're clearly not taking into account the fact that glaciers move.

The idea of water lubricating the glaciers is strange. There is allways a river under the glacier. If more than normal amounts of water flow it will enlarge it's river "tunnel a bit but the pressure of the glacier will allways mean that this is a very resticted area compaired to the area of contact between the ice and the rock.

And when you increase the rate of melt, you increase this area.

 

[Gracchus]

So, you don't think the whole world will flood because water has an index of refraction that varies with frequency? Wow. That's pretty screwy.

But at any rate, nobody seriously believes the entire world will flood anyway. The most that can reasonably happen is a sea level rise of ~80-100 meters or so. And that would take many centuries to occur, and would require truly massive warming.

Actually that could happen in as little as a century.

What we are worried about instead is sea level rise over the next few decades (~30-50 years) that is enough to cause serious problems for many coastal cities, such as dramatically increased chance of flooding during storms.

The rise in sea level is just the side show. Arctic warming will disrupt the atmospheric equatorial to polar flow. The jetstream has already retreated northward by 1 degree. With the equatorial polar flow stopped the monsoons will cease meaning droughts over southeast Asia, and in Africa. That means crop failures, starvation, and monkey fights.

Models also show that hurricanes are to be looked for in the Mediterranean, as well as in the south Atlantic. Climatologists may disagree about time lines, but almost all agree that it will happen.

What makes the future so hard to predict is that there are so many related variables, that are poorly understood and described by differential equations that we cannot solve exactly. Droughts lead to forest fires and crop failures which put even more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Warmer oceans put out more CO2 and methane. That will also shut down ocean circulation, so that England for instance will freeze before its total ruin is emphasized by a northward march of the subtropical desert.

Surface warming of the oceans will stop the upwelling of nutrients from the cold depths meaning massive die-offs of phytoplankton, and taken with the vanishing of the rainforests that will mean less oxygen in the atmosphere. That will mean even less carbon fixation leading to even more warming. We have already overfished the oceans and the die-off of phytoplankton, the base of the food chain will likely render the oceans lifeless.

The Sahara will probably get more rain for a while, but there is no vegetation to hold the water so all that would happen would be that all that sand would get washed off the bedrock. Thing of subtropical desert extending all the way to the Canadian border. We've already draw down that aquifer, so the bread basket will become a sandbox.

It is not just going to get hotter over the short run. It is going to be completely unpredictable. But the bottom line is this: Several thousand years ago a drop in temperature of only five degrees below present norms caused human populations to fall from hundreds of thousands to about seven thousand. But even massive vulcanism would cause the ground to cool and crops to fail even as the atmosphere continued to rise. So even if we devise a solar shade it will mean crop failures on a massive scale.

We live in a very limited box of tolelrable climatic conditions. Just a bit outside that box and we are trying to live on a Mars-like Earth or a Venus-like Earth.

I believe that humans are too lazy, greedy, and ignorant to do anything about climate change until it is too late. It is already too late to stop the change, and billions are going to die. If we continue to burn fossil fuels and overpopulate the Earth with humans the species will become extinct, dead of its own greed and slothful ignorance.

And if there is a just God, future generations, what there are of them will curse us before his face.

 

[Chalnoth]

Actually that could happen in as little as a century.

That's pretty unlikely. Our most pessimistic models at present show sea level rise by 2100 of at most 3-5 meters. I haven't met anybody that believes that Antarctica can melt within a hundred years. I doubt even Greenland could.

But yes, global warming has many wide and far-ranging effects, and many of them are extremely uncertain.

 

[dad]

The next time God will destroy the world it will be through fire!

Guess evos can breathe that sigh of relief?

 

[dad]

That was my point. The verse rules out total annihilation by flooding - doesn't rule out partial flooding of the planet due to climate change.

No idea what you are talking about. A rainbow verse rules out a worldwide flood?? Explain?

 

[dad]

So, you don't think the whole world will flood because water has an index of refraction that varies with frequency? Wow. That's pretty screwy.

But at any rate, nobody seriously believes the entire world will flood anyway. The most that can reasonably happen is a sea level rise of ~80-100 meters or so. And that would take many centuries to occur, and would require truly massive warming.

What we are worried about instead is sea level rise over the next few decades (~30-50 years) that is enough to cause serious problems for many coastal cities, such as dramatically increased chance of flooding during storms.

Always some fear mongering going on with science. I seem to recall hearing that kids were told in the 60ies that population increase would mean mass starvation.

 

[dad]

Actually that could happen in as little as a century.

Ha. So called science really are intellectual terrorists.

'The sky is falling'! 'Quick, every one run around trying to save themselves from the eco boogy men'!

Now what if man developed some science to where he used the ocean water for power or something? Maybe the worry would be lowering levels? You guys predicting the future is pretty pathetic. Man doesn't really know.


God already told man how it will be. The saved will escape, and live forever. He will rule earth forever, and there will be peace and plenty for all. Take that to the bank.

With all the already fulfilled prophesies (most of the bible prophesies are a done deal already) the ones still to come are as good as history!


Those that reject Jesus will face a time of great trouble, with unequaled natural and supernatural disasters in a short span of time. The events will rapidly get worse, till they culminate in things like an earthquake that levels ALL mountains on the planet...ruins all water on the planet, sees all stars and sun and moon go dark....etc. There is only one way out kids....really.

What man does is the least of your worries...fear God. That is the beginning of real wisdom...and salvation.

 

[Chalnoth]

Always some fear mongering going on with science. I seem to recall hearing that kids were told in the 60ies that population increase would mean mass starvation.

And there is mass starvation in the developing world...has been for some time.

But by the way, hearing something on the news that was wrong is hardly an indictment of science. It's an indictment of the news. Which gets the science so incredibly wrong so often it isn't even funny.

 

[dad]

And there is mass starvation in the developing world...has been for some time.

But by the way, hearing something on the news that was wrong is hardly an indictment of science. It's an indictment of the news. Which gets the science so incredibly wrong so often it isn't even funny.

Man and civil wars and etc are usually the culprit. I don't agree with this site's conspiracy propaganda, but it does bring out how man is involved in famine...

Somalia: the Real Causes of Famine


The ever changing complicated elite papers of science are not the place most look for info. Teachers in school speak for science, documentaries, books, and etc. (so they need to be held accountable) Reliable news sources are a great place to simplify the long toothed coded, boring papers of the puritan science crowd.



By the way, the only attitude man should have concerning global warming is this....to thank Him sincerely for the water and trees, and sky, and stars and moon, and sun and etc that we do have, cause it won't be here one day.

 

[Chalnoth]

The ever changing complicated elite papers of science are not the place most look for info. Teachers in school speak for science, documentaries, books, and etc. (so they need to be held accountable) Reliable news sources are a great place to simplify the long toothed coded, boring papers of the puritan science crowd.

No, they're really not. The popular media gets the science so incredibly wrong with such incredible regularity that you're much better off not listening to science reports in the media at all, even without an alternative source of information.

The best place to obtain good popular science accounts is in the blogs of scientists and the relatively small number of good science journalists. Blogs are so good precisely because they form a conversation: you not only get the blog post of one person describing the science, but you also get comment below that post (many of which are very informative, though obviously many are the exact opposite), as well as subsequent blog posts discussing the issue, often by bloggers with different ideas. By paying attention to the conversation, you can be exposed to the full range of ideas and come to a reasonable conclusion for yourself.

Though I should mention that I'm really writing this post for other people. Given your content here, I don't expect any source of science information will ever be able to penetrate the walls of illogic that you have erected, dad.

By the way, the only attitude man should have concerning global warming is this....to thank Him sincerely for the water and trees, and sky, and stars and moon, and sun and etc that we do have, cause it won't be here one day.

Um, what? That doesn't even make sense. In what way, shape, or form does thanking your god have anything whatsoever to do with the fact that we humans are managing to change our own habitat in ways that are going to be extremely painful for us moving forward?

 

[dad]

No, they're really not. The popular media gets the science so incredibly wrong with such incredible regularity that you're much better off not listening to science reports in the media at all, even without an alternative source of information.

No. Actually the major reliable news sources are fine generally.

The best place to obtain good popular science accounts is in the blogs of scientists and the relatively small number of good science journalists. Blogs are so good precisely because they form a conversation: you not only get the blog post of one person describing the science, but you also get comment below that post (many of which are very informative, though obviously many are the exact opposite), as well as subsequent blog posts discussing the issue, often by bloggers with different ideas. By paying attention to the conversation, you can be exposed to the full range of ideas and come to a reasonable conclusion for yourself.

Opinions from the same sort of limited perspective are not all that impressive.

Um, what? That doesn't even make sense. In what way, shape, or form does thanking your god have anything whatsoever to do with the fact that we humans are managing to change our own habitat in ways that are going to be extremely painful for us moving forward?

Everything! No matter what you possibly do, it will not even be dust in the balances compared to what God is setting up to do here. The judgments on those left behind will be total. At first a third of the eater fouled, a third of the stars fall, part of the sun won't shine, etc etc,. but it rapidly progresses to all. So, yes enjoy the water and whatever peace might be here, and air, and plants, and daylight, sun etc you have...by all means. Thank God for it sincerely while you have it.


But I talk to lurkers and honest open minded posters here, apparently you prefer to be too far gone to get it?

 

[Chalnoth]

No. Actually the major reliable news sources are fine generally.

You keep saying that as if it means something.

I'm saying this as a scientist: when I see a popular news article regarding any field of research which I know well, the popular news article almost always gets it wrong.

Everything! No matter what you possibly do, it will not even be dust in the balances compared to what God is setting up to do here.

So, your line of argument is, "I doesn't matter how big a mess I make of things! God will come and clean it up for me!"

Sounds like equal parts lazy and arrogant to me. Why should your god pick up your mess?