At last a proper economic assessment of the impact of climate change by a respected economist (Sir Nicholas Stern is former chief economist at the World Bank) and supported by Gordon Brown (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer). Will the potential to shrink the global economy by 20% and a projected cost of £3.68 trillion (yes that is pounds not dollars) be enough to make the US administration take the problem seriously?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096084.stm
Quote from: goat starer on October 30, 2006, 12:27:28 PM
Will the potential to shrink the global economy by 20% and a projected cost of £3.68 trillion (yes that is pounds not dollars) be enough to make the US administration take the problem seriously?
Will there be enough of a change over any particular 4-year period to let people say "things were much worse than when you were elected!"?
Will it be clear that any particular elected official (or any particular country) is to blame for what happens?
Would they be able to institute costly environmental programs without any losing votes?
Hmm... didn't think so. I'm not optimistic.
Not that my country's any better. I'm furious with my government after the "flipping the environment the bird" exercise that they had the gall to call the "Clean Air Act". Bah.
I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina. I rather doubt that even if this were the case politicians would respond. They would simply deflect attention with a big foriegn adventure just before an election.
Quote from: goat starer on October 30, 2006, 04:51:22 PM
I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.
But Katrina happened because God was punishing us. It has nothing to do with global warming.
???
Quote from: Sibling Lambicus the Toluous on October 30, 2006, 04:54:50 PM
Quote from: goat starer on October 30, 2006, 04:51:22 PM
I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.
But Katrina happened because God was punishing us. It has nothing to do with global warming.
???
And for those folk who are not so comfortable with that idea, there's the "Once in a 100 years hurricane" idea that most of the rest use. With the idea that it'll be at least 100 more years before the next one ... too bad it doesn't work quite like that, isn't it?
I keep seeing the 'usual suspects' in the media saying that "the electorate" hasn't changed that much. They're forgetting something.
The "average guy" in the Not-Major-Market. He's pissed. He thinks the guys in charge are idiots, he thinks that he ones that MIGHT replace them aren't that much smarter, and they're tired of being patronized and told they don't understand.
I have been amazed at the depth of climatological knowledge of the old farmers and ranchers, and how much so many of them have bothered to learn from the internet. At least around here, there's a HUGE disconnect between the expected level of knowledge and the actual level.
And these folks are pissed off. Pissed at the government for weakening standards, for selling off our natural resources, for NOT signing the Kyoto Treaty...2 old ranchers in ther late 70's cussing the Repubs for not stickin' to what was agreed, not signin' in...using the phrase "tinhorn jackasses that can't do nothin' but cut brush and pretend that dang pig farm's a ranch."
It's not certain, but it seems the 'common man' is just too tired of bailing out the corporate man. I hope it's so. that's how it's looking here in the boonies...
Well, at least they can stop using economy as an excuse - that's our government's main reason for not ratifying Kyoto. Though I'm sure they'll come up with some babble to cover themselves. ::)
But at least my school's going to take my entire year (120 spoilt rich girls) to An Inconvenient Truth... that's a start.
Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on October 30, 2006, 11:00:15 PM
And for those folk who are not so comfortable with that idea, there's the "Once in a 100 years hurricane" idea that most of the rest use. With the idea that it'll be at least 100 more years before the next one ... too bad it doesn't work quite like that, isn't it?
I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on. They DO teach math in US schools, right? ;)
Hmmm... I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back. It happened two years after the 100-year storm.
Quote from: Sibling Lambicus the Toluous on October 31, 2006, 01:29:10 AM
I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on. They DO teach math in US schools, right? ;)
Hmmm... I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back. It happened two years after the 100-year storm.
Yup. The ODDS of a 100-year, 50-year or whatever-year are what the meteorologists are saying.
What STUPID, IGNORANT people HEAR, is "once every 100 years, like clock-work, so since we just had one I'm obviously safe".
Just LOOK at the number of gullible idiots who purchase LOTTERY TICKETS, for a FINE example of the number of people totally ignorant of STATISTICS.
*bleh*
Quote from: Sibling Lambicus the Toluous on October 30, 2006, 04:54:50 PM
Quote from: goat starer on October 30, 2006, 04:51:22 PM
I rather thought they had over the last 4 but maybe I am underetimating the US electorates response to Katrina.
But Katrina happened because God was punishing us. It has nothing to do with global warming.
???
he was punishing you FOR global warming!
Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on October 31, 2006, 05:04:35 AM
Quote from: Sibling Lambicus the Toluous on October 31, 2006, 01:29:10 AM
I guess those are the folks who leave me hoarse from yelling at the TV when "Deal or No Deal" is on. They DO teach math in US schools, right? ;)
Hmmm... I got to ride out a 300-year storm a while back. It happened two years after the 100-year storm.
Yup. The ODDS of a 100-year, 50-year or whatever-year are what the meteorologists are saying.
What STUPID, IGNORANT people HEAR, is "once every 100 years, like clock-work, so since we just had one I'm obviously safe".
Hmm...
I suppose it could be also a misunderstanding of how the world works.
After a big earthquake, I suppose it would take time for the stress to build up along the fault line again... this might mean that an earthquake is less likely for say... several years after a big one (or that any quakes that happen then will be smaller).
Maybe people think that big storms take a while to "form up".
QuoteJust LOOK at the number of gullible idiots who purchase LOTTERY TICKETS, for a FINE example of the number of people totally ignorant of STATISTICS.
I actually figured out the odds for our local lottery, and occasionally when they get a BIG jackpot, the expected value is slightly above the price of a ticket.
Personally, I see lotteries and gambling to be entertainment: I approach it like I would the movies. If I play craps (which I haven't done in a while, but I do like it), it's for the fun of the game; the money I'll probably lose is the cost of admission.
Quote from: goat starer on October 31, 2006, 11:50:51 AM
he was punishing you FOR global warming!
Oh... really?
I guess I'll be leaving now. Hopefully I'll take my curse with me.
:(
Yup, the "one in a hundred year" storm, flood, drought (insert weather phenomenum of your choice) is simply the one that has a one in one hundred chance of occurring in any given year. These are not the ones I worry about, I worry about the one in a thousand year, or one in ten thousand year events.
All of these are far more likely than winning the lottery, although to be fair, each year we only get to sample the pot once for the "one in ..." events, whereas in the lottery there are enough people buying tickets (ie enough samples) that someone wins almost every time its drawn (at least with lotto type lotteries, other types may have a winner every time, but let us not be distracted.)
Getting back to lotteries if I sold you a ticket at the normal price and it had a one in ten thousand chance you would be pretty happy I would think, even more so with one in a thousand. One in a hundred would be simply outstanding. Probability is not something that most people seem to have a very good handle on.
WRT the weather it amuses me to hear people saying things like "well recent events like Hurricane Katrina or the drought in Australia prove that global warming is happening". That global warming is occurring is not in dabate here (at least not by me) although I am far more skeptical that it is entirely or even at all anthropogenic. However, its effects are far more subtle than most people seem to think and big storms and long severe droughts are part of the natural order of things and will continue to occur in irregular cycles global warming notwithstanding.
The danger of this sort of ill-informed debate is that when the cycle swings around, as it surely will, then all those who believed it because of these false arguments will turn around and say "we were lied to" and the reputation of honest scientists will be further damaged and continuing necessary work to prepare for the real effects of global warming will run into trouble (and you thought they were in trouble now - well, you ain't seen nothing yet!)
We owe it to our future to be honest in our assessments of the situation, let us not get carried away with the current fashion in climate science and be altogether more skeptical about the extreme claims that are being made. The reality is we still do not really have a good handle on all the mechanisms involved and until then all our predictions are nothing more than guess work. Indeed, given that the climate is almost certainly a non-linear system even fully understanding how it works does not mean that the behaviour of the system is at all predictable in the long run. People who make claims that they have a model of the global climate and that they can confidentally predict anything with it about long-term climate are either ignorant of the basic math of non-linear systems (commonly called "chaos theory"), or they are telling porkies.
I think we should certainly be cautious and do what seems to be the best things to ameliorate any effects we may be having on the global climate, but lets be honest that we are only making as yet rather poorly educated guesses and admit that we may be wrong and in fact it is possible (if unlikely, at least on current knowledge) that these efforts may actually make things worse in the long run. Let us also spend some serious dollars on basic research that is not tied to any particular point of view to find out what is really going on.
Hmmm... enough of a rant for now, I guess.
Bluenose
The evidence of climate change is NOT the frequency of extreme weather events. These are interesting and may be related but the real evidence is statistical measurement of a number of indicators including sea ice area, global mean temperature, sea levels, long term temperature change estimated from physical environmental indicators, plant and animal related changes such as treeline rise etc. There is a clear 20th century trend in these and other indicators that shows that a very rapid and consistent change. This is science. When you see a pattern you look for possible explanations, hypothesise and experiment before reaching a conclusion. Any number of possible causes were proposed before scientists reached a conclusion that fits the available facts, explains previous results and has a sound scientific basis in physics. The result is undeniable. Atmospheric emissions change the climate and change it rapidly. The IMPACT of this is yet to be determined. Global mean temperatures are rising, sea levels are rising, the proportion of temperature change is scientifically significantly higher that at any period since the last ice age over a consistent period of time and has happened more quickly but what this will do is still unknown. You change one thing in climate and everything else shifts so it might mean an increase in extreme weather events and this is likely in most models.
The science behind this is really solid. Just as the science behind the link between smoking and lung cancer was solid long before the link was widely accepted. There is a very strong lobby that has spent millions to argue the case against and yet has come up with no alternative theory that holds water to explain the trends seen over the last hundred years.
When those of us who understand the evidence for climate change use incidents like katrina to make people sit up and take notice it is because it takes this type of event to break through the doubt sown by the oil lobby and our politicians.
The money has been spent on serious research. the results are very clear. But like all scientific discovery that is unpalatable and will impact harshly on our comfort today there will be naysayers for some time to come. Unfortunately as the rate of change increases we are wasting time and energy arguing with people who actively want to undermine this clear evidence.
I want to reply to your post in some detail, but I have no time just now, and may not have much time over the next few days since I'm going away for 4 or 5 days and will have only limited access to the Internet.
However, let me say that although I agree with most of what you say, I think that many climatologists have yet to come to terms with the lack of predictibility of non-linear systems. You can completely know everything about even quite simple non-linear systems, all the forces, the starting positions of everything (to wihin the quantum level of uncertainty) and yet still not be able to predict the behaviour of the system beyond the immediate future with better than chance accurracy.
The climate is by no means a simple system and that will magnify the problem significantly.
Bluenose
look forwards to the full discussion!
Regarding odds, I never win when the odds are 1 in 5 why would I win with 1 in 10k? :-[
--
Thanks to a related thread in omnia I did a bit of research on the subject, and while I lean on the anthopogenic wagon, there are certain arguments that merit review. On the same token I agree with Bluenose in that we have to be as honest as possible regarding the unknowns.
To name one argument, one skeptic mentioned that the ability of CO2 as a greenhouse gas has a ceiling and he sugested that such ceiling had been reached already. The consequence of that argument is that adding more CO2 wouldn't change climate any further (his example was that in a greenhouse after certain point it was pointless to have a thicker glass).
I never got to voice the thought that I got considering it:
If that is true then we are royally screwed; either our current abrupt warming is NOT anthropogenic and there absolutely nothing we can do to stop it, or, it is athropogenic but we already did the damage and there is little to none that we can do about it.
Perhaps one of our more chemically savy siblings [size=0]*cough*Swatopluk*cough*[/size] can shed some light on that one.
Oh, that would require a whole essay, overflowing with equations etc.
Let's try to make it short, risking abit of oversimplification.
Effect 1
Any linear filter (i.e. most substances not specially engineered to act otherwise) absorb a certain percentage of radiation per length. This depends on the wavelength and the stuff involved and its concentration.
e.g. substance A absorbs 40% in the first centimetre. In the second centimetre it absorbs 40% of what is left and so forth. It will not absorb everything in the first 2.5 centimetres.
The transmission is inversely proportional to the concentration, i.e. double the conc. and the transmission will half.
This is called the Lambert-Beer law.
Effect 2
The above quoted linear law is not valid above a certain limit, then it becomes non-linear. That means the "law of diminishing returns" begins to affect the effect.
The argument quoted in the post above could (ab)use both those effects depending on the claim about the greenhouse gas distribution in the atmosphere. If we would assume the gases to form a layer proportional in thickness to the total amount then one could argue that the logaritmic relationship will make any added gas less effective than the same amount added before. If we would assume a homogeneous distribution than the argument would run that the concentration has alredy reached the less than linear increase region thereby having the same "diminished returns".
I think that both assumptions (layer model, non-linear region) are bogus and even if they were valid they ignore that the effect would only be diminished in its increase, not its total.
Like Bush's claim that the US in on the right course because the increase rate of new debts is shrinking (this year only 8 gazillions compared to last year's 10 more debts added).
One thing not discussed above is the pressure valve effect. The greenhouse gases (esp. water vapour) are mainly critical because the close a gap in the absorption spectrum thereby acting like a control valve. If it is too far open, the engine is not working (=> ice age), if it is too tight the boiler will explode (=>it will get too hot down here for our way of life).
Unfortunately this is not discussed enough in public.
I admit, I extremly oversimplified the matter and a physics teacher would rip me to shreds if I talked that way in an exam.
The "hurricanes are proof for global warming" meme is already used as a straw man by both sides of the discussion.
The lack of a Katrina this year is used to discredit gw as a whole ("if there was gw we would have 2 Katrinas this year and 3 next year")
on the other hands false predictions were made that the "1 yesteryear, 2 today, 3 to-morrow" would prove gw. Both views are of course against the scientific consent that climate change effects are visible only over a prolonged time period and mainly in statistic probabilities and long term averages. But try to explain that to the editors of a daily newspaper that want a "Katrina ate my dog's homework" headline not a "your probability to suffer from trimethyamineuria is increased from 1:12345.67 to 1:122345.67 in the next decade"
a good article from the BBC on the overuse of catastrophic language in relation to climate (in the wake of yesterdays Climate 'Chaos' demo in London) and the worry that this could devalue the argument appeared today...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm
an older one linked below on the media...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5236482.stm
It should be noted hovever that that scintists are firm in the opinion that climate change is happening and will be serious but that the use of language is irresponsible in terms of reflecting the issue and maintaning public trust!
Quote from: Swatopluk on November 04, 2006, 11:33:56 AM
Oh, that would require a whole essay, overflowing with equations etc.
[snip]
I admit, I extremly oversimplified the matter and a physics teacher would rip me to shreds if I talked that way in an exam.
Your explanation is perfect for the layman among us. Thanks.
I knew it was a good idea to call you to this thread.
;D
Picking up on where I left off before I went away.
First, thank you Swato for you simple explanation of the importance of CO2 in the greenhouse effect, plus the points you and Goat Starer made about overstating the effects of global warming. This latter is a point I have made here and elsewhere, but alas, what
passes for public debate generally misses the point.
I would like to discuss my thoughts about global warming here by referring to what is usually known as chaos theory. Unfortunately in the media this is usually "explained" by using the "butterfly effect" example in which a butterfly flapping its wings in Outer Mongolia "causes" a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico or some such proposition. The problem with this is that it does nothing to explain the important points about chaotic systems, that is non-linear systems, which includes a great many systems including classical ones like the orbits of the planets.
To explain my point, and at the risk of boring those who are already familiar with chaos theory, I would like to repeat a different example that illustrates what I am getting at. Then i will bring it back to the climate and discuss the implications of that I am talking about for global warming.
Lets us conduct an experiment in which we know all the starting parameters and see how well we can predict its behaviour.
We start with two spherical fairly strong magnets mounted on non-magnetic stands above a flat surface marked out in a grid. One magnet is painted blue and the other red. Directly above the mid point between the magnets we suspend on a long string a steel ball bearing. In our experiment we can conduct it in a vacuum, so wind resistance is not a factor and we can assume a perfect, frictionless string, since we can run the experiment in a computer if we want to. The point is, we can describe all the forces in action and the positions of all components to within the boundaries of quantum uncertainty, and this experiment yields the same results.
To start we move the ball bearing to a point directly over the middle of one of the squares on the flat surface and let it go. The ball bearing will describe a path around one or both of the magnets, perhaps a figure of eight course or whatever and when it comes to rest we paint the starting square with the colour of the magnet that the ball bearing comes to rest against.
Now what would you suppose would be the likelihood that if the first square ends up blue, that adjacent squares would also be blue? Certainly you would think that there are likely to be more blue than red. However, what actually happens is that there is no predictive power in what colour nearby squares may be for any square in question. The pattern is completely random, and the kicker is, it is random at any scale! We can go down right to the quantum level and still not achieve predictability. Oh, we can predict with reasonable accuracy the first few movements of the ball bearing. For example, if the previous one described a path around one magnet and then swung around the second and then back round the first and then orbited the second a few times before stopping next to it, a ball released from an adjacent position is likely to follow more or less the same path for the first movement or two, or even three, but then it is likely to depart from the previous course, and even if it ends up against the same magnet, it may well not follow the same course eventually to get there.
This is an important point about chaotic system, the lack of predictability beyond the immediate future. The weather has now for some time been recognised as a non-linear (chaotic) system. This is why weather predictions work OK for a few days, but once they get about a week out or so their accuracy is much less than perfect. As we know more about the weather we will improve our ability to predict it by a small factor, but in the end there is a limit to just how far into the future predictions can be made with much more than random accuracy.
So considering the climate system, it seems to me that many of the people clamouring about climate change and the anthropogenic cause of it, seem to "forget" (if they know to start with) that making predictions about how a non-linear system will behave beyond the immediate future is an invalid exercise. We don't even know all the factors involved sand as I have shown even if we did, our predictions are nothing more than wishful thinking if we expect reality to reflect those results. The mathematical models that are all being used are similar to those that sometimes get used to predict the positions of the planets in the distant past or future. Certainly the models yield results. Its just that the real system is extremely unlikely to give the same results.
So what does this all mean for global warming? Well IMO, we need to do a lot more basic science. the more we know about how the system works, the better we can make predictions and the longer the predictive window will be.
We can use the limited predictive window as a guide to what we should do. Certainly it seems likely that human induced increases in the level of CO2 could be a factor. It makes sense to look at ways of reducing that output. Of, course, reducing carbon output will also have other beneficial effects such as reducing outputs of pollutants and so on, so it is a good idea anyway.
However, it is a big mistake to assume we have more than a very tenuous grasp on what is going on in the climate. We should remember that the planet has been significantly glaciated over the last two or three million years and that glaciation over the long term seems related to continental drift. When the continents are lumped together we have little glaciation, when they are spread apart as they are now the tendency is for glaciation. We are currently in an interglacial period and based on the history of thelast few million nears we are nearing the end of it. Just what effect our little input into the climate may have is not clear. The common consensus is that we might trigger a "thermal runaway" and increased greenhouse effect as per all the doomsayers. However, I urge caution, because we might have few years in the sun and then plunge into another ice age.
Finally, we do not even know for sure that the observed warming is in fact caused by humans. Until we do better understand the climate we are being very brave, and perhaps a little arrogant, to claim it is all down to humans. The system could be getting warm all on itsown and what we do make not the slightest jot of difference. I say instead of getting all excited about hurricanes or hundred year droughts (or even thousand year droughts) we really should be doing as much as possible to understand just what is going on. In the end, though, we would be wise to remember that even if we ever understand everything about the climate, we will still not be able to predict its behaviour in the long term.
Sibling Bluenose
As long as it does not just serve as a "stay the course" excuse, I'd agree. I think we know at least that we potentially sit in a gunpowder magazine and that until we can be sure that we are wrong we should refrain from playing with matches too much.
That is, we should try to at least stop the increase of manmade CO2 release and if possible reduce it to a sustainable level by investing in alternatives. Additionally, as some of my chem profs used to say: Oil and (to a degree) Coal are far to precious to just burn. Better use them differently first (making e.g. polymers) and burn those after use (provided we get rid of halogenated ones). That's both more efficient and more clean.
Quote from: Swatopluk on November 23, 2006, 08:45:42 AM
As long as it does not just serve as a "stay the course" excuse, I'd agree. I think we know at least that we potentially sit in a gunpowder magazine and that until we can be sure that we are wrong we should refrain from playing with matches too much.
That is, we should try to at least stop the increase of manmade CO2 release and if possible reduce it to a sustainable level by investing in alternatives. Additionally, as some of my chem profs used to say: Oil and (to a degree) Coal are far to precious to just burn. Better use them differently first (making e.g. polymers) and burn those after use (provided we get rid of halogenated ones). That's both more efficient and more clean.
Why burn at all? :D With proper procedures, all polymers are completely recyclable. In that way, you'd have high-quality feedstocks for your polymer-manufacturing facilities.
At present, most plastics are stamped with the type [of plastic]. I've seen some discussion of micro-tags embedded into the plastic matrix. It was originally developed for explosive tracing, but it could easily be used to identify the type and quality of the polymers, so that a machine could sort the different types for a very high-quality end-product.
It seems such a waste to simply burn it-- especially considering the vast quantity of PAPER (basically cellulose) waste we generate each year. Now THAT I can see as a simple heat-fuel. ;D
At least according to one of my technical chemistry profs in most cases the recycling of plastic has a worse total energy balance than its use as "white coal". One problem is that there are still too many mixed polymers (i.e. those only consisting of C,H,O mixed with those also containing N,P,Cl etc.). Even the "pure" ones usually contain problematic additives. The first step should be towards "clean" distinctions and to the avoidance of plastics where not strictly necessary (a lot of wrapping for example could be done as well with other, renewable materials. Just compare the US with Europe in the production of "wrapping waste" (and Europe is far from perfect in that area).
At least until now polymer recycling is combined with a loss of quality, i.e. with each recycling the product range shrinks.
There is still a lot to do (and not enough done).
"Condoms don't belong in schools and neither does Al Gore"
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/2007/01/condoms_dont_be.html
A school bans outright the showing of Al Gores "An Inconvenient Truth" because of creationist complains
There is a part of me that believes that the people with such beliefs should gather together and make a region/zone of their own. The amish are a good example, and they don't interfere with everybody else.
If they just could be a little *selfish* and leave *salvation* just for themselves... ::) ::)
Move 'em all to Idaho. They've got a good representation there already.
Do we need a second Utah :-\ ?
Utah's getting crowded, and the non-Mormons are getting numerous.
I'm not sure there's much to miss in Idaho, and it'll be a shorter move for some of the nutcases in the northwest quadrant of the country, which seems to be overaking the South as nutcase territory.
As long as we can have potatoes at a reasonable price...who is gonna miss Idaho?
The Princess of Darkness says you can get good potatoes from Maine so we don't really need Idaho.
Lol.
I hear Idaho is beautiful, so why don't persuade them to go live somehwere sterile enough to be ugly and/or useless. South Dakota or something. More then enough grass elsewhere on the plains to let them have that and leave the rest of us in peace.
As the spawn of two generations of geologists, I was always told that a lot of what's happening is a result of post-ice age warming. The rest is us, of course, but that that ice was recent enough for the planet to still be warming up.
I hear that argument too. The problem is the average temperature just doesn't change that quickly. When it does there are mass extinctions like now. I think CO2 is contributing to Global Warming but other gases like Methane and R134A are worse.
Works for me. All I can ever get to grow is the small red skinned ones that count as "new potatoes" until they get big, so i'll have to have some good baking potatoes...
Otherwise, Idaho's not got a lot going for it. (Both people I know on-line that live there would rather be elsewhere anyway.) I say good riddance to 'em! And they HAVE to take Falwell. And Robertson.
--------------
We have a member and spouse in South Dakota. Get 'em out and that'd be fine with me. Or maybe we could just build them an island somewhere...
My grandmother really liked it up there. She used to live outside Boise and she said it was pretty.
An island with a big fence might work. We could stick them on Greenland or something, if South Dakota doesn't work.
Quote from: MentalBlock996 on January 13, 2007, 09:13:33 PM
I hear that argument too. The problem is the average temperature just doesn't change that quickly. When it does there are mass extinctions like now. I think CO2 is contributing to Global Warming but other gases like Methane and R134A.
True. I suspect we're speeding things up a lot, but I doubt we've done this all by ourselves.
Quote from: Kanaloa the Squidly on January 13, 2007, 09:13:33 PMTrue. I suspect we're speeding things up a lot, but I doubt we've done this all by ourselves.
Hardly worth arguing about. It's probably too late to do anything anyway.
I omly corrected a missing bracket... Griffin
I like the send'em to Idaho bit. I'd also suggest North Dakota-- the cool weather will do'em some good. Give'em lots of time to think about who they are and such.
In fact-- we should make a deal with Canada, and some of their even farther north wilderness areas, put'em all up there.
Then, they can have legitimate reasons to complain about how miserable their lives are. ::)
I also like the idea of sending the lot of'em to the middle of Antarctica. There're some nice rocky areas that are not snow-covered that they could live on. They could bask in the hot air that they all spew constantly...
Quote from: Kanaloa the Squidly on January 13, 2007, 08:57:40 PM
but that that ice was recent enough for the planet to still be warming up.
Warming or melting?
:inky:
Quote from: Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith on January 14, 2007, 04:04:02 AM
I also like the idea of sending the lot of'em to the middle of Antarctica. There're some nice rocky areas that are not snow-covered that they could live on. They could bask in the hot air that they all spew constantly...
That would bring them nearer to their beloved emperor penguins.
The question is, do the penguins deserve such neighbours?
They could carry the Emperor Penguins over rough terrain caused by iceberg collisions. We could make it a game or something. That should keep them entertained and give them a good goal in life.
Wouldn't that be interference with the ineffable plan.
And what happens , if they find out about the gay penguins?
On a related note, we're so damn warm here because Lake Erie is too damn warm.
Lake Erie is too damn warm in part because of general warming.
BUT, for the most part, Lake Erie is too warm because of well documented, well studied human caused introduction of heated water into the Lake.
The same thing that helped make the lake so very polluted in the 1970s is at fault here- it's a giant lake with very little water (at its deepest, it is 50ft.)
This is not some nebulous water warming caused by something exotic and invisible...
We know exactly what is causing it, and the views now are exactly the same as they were in the "lets dump solvents into the lake" days- that the lake is big enough to take it, unaffected.
Ignoring CO2, Methane and the rest, the fact remains that you can only add so much heat into a mostly closed system without heating the system up.
We already have to deal with natural additions of heat to the system- fires, volcanoes, etc, and we're pretty sure (again, without discussing the CO2 stuff that bothers some people) that times of geological stress in the past have been crap for the human race.
Therefore, we can be pretty sure that adding heat to the system in completely unregulated quantities is crap for the human race...
We need to be researching how to disperse extra heat, not kvetch about what is causing the most heat....if for no other reason than because a big honking geologic unshift is enough to knock humanity's effect on the climate right off the radar.
People will make plans for a big honking asteroid, but not for what might happen if 5 of the Earth's massive volcanoes erupted close to each other in time, which anyone who studies randomness knows is just as likely as unlikely (maybe a little more likely, actually.)
And for the record, that warm lake made me fall down, so I am still mad at global warming, and YES, a temperature rise of 10 degrees in one lake is global warming- it effects the whole, bloody system. It's all connected.
Proacticity is needed, not reactivity....anyone up for flooding the Sahara? (It was that way before!)
I just had an evil thought. :devil2:
Lets put all these nutters in a nice remote place where they can't do any harm, maybe Idaho. I don't know, but somewhere pretty far from everywhere else, so maybe South Georgia Island or something. Anyway, then, since they also tend to be the ones who think that we are in the "end time" we agree with them and say that the scientists have worked it out and they are right, it is the end time and the final date is in 2036.
Then we do all the work on Asteroid Apophos and instead of making it miss the Earth, we give it just the right nudge so it hits the Earth - right where we put the twinks. Then they get to have that apocolyptic feeling they all seem to want and we get rid of all the loonies all in one fell swoop!
We can do it! Just give me the controls of that nudge motor! Mwahahahahahaaaaar!
:toadfishwink:
Sibling Bluenose
Additionally the dust stirred by that will have a cooling effect on the Earth. Just one problem: the ozone layer would get it too.
Are we willing to accept increased skin cancer rates in exchange for getting rid of the current generation of loonies?
Quote from: Swatopluk on January 15, 2007, 12:28:11 PM
Additionally the dust stirred by that will have a cooling effect on the Earth. Just one problem: the ozone layer would get it too.
Are we willing to accept increased skin cancer rates in exchange for getting rid of the current generation of loonies?
Let's us all buy stock in SPF40 skin products, and take that chance. In a generation or three, the ozone will rebound (as long as there is free oxygen and the sun is shining, it
will rebound eventually).
And think of all the lovely new mutations a few years of increased ultra-violet will produce--make for interesting living. ::)
I seem to recall reading somewhere, that in the past, the ozone was depleted by volcanic activity for a time (or else the sun had vastly increased ultra-violet output).
Either way, we can get in the habit of wearing long sleeves, can we not? Adapt or perish. ::)
Last time that happened was about 9500 years ago, when a broken-up comet hit the earth. Some believe that this event gave rise to the universal flood myth (though the biblical one is derived from a local event in the Gulf much later). Interestingly many of these myths also claim the occurence of mutants in connection with the event and also the typical rain of concentrated acid, when an asteroid/comet hits the sea producing HCl from the salt and HNO3 from burnt air ("burning rain of blood" is a perfect description of this).
You know, I went to the hospital last night and it turns out that global warming sprained my back. I therefore am allowed to totally scream at global warming.
Quote from: Swatopluk on January 15, 2007, 02:06:33 PM
Last time that happened was about 9500 years ago,
9500 years ago? Whew! You had me going, there for a minute, and then I remembered: this would put the event BEFORE the earth was created, so we're all safe. ::) :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Depends wich school of YEC you follow. If you are from the liberal 10000 year fraction, you should worry post festum.
If you are orthodox "World is half as old as Jericho"*, then you may sleep well.
*Jericho is estimated to be about 10000 years old (though the walls were erected possibly a bit later)
How cansomething on the world be twice the age of the world.
Okay. That's it, YEC gave me a headache.
It is now, also, on my list.
Well, in the beginning there was Void... maybe Jericho wrote some bad cheques?
Would global freezing unstrain your back? Clearly there's a need for some new diagnostic publications. Hope the pain is not unbearable but I suspect it must be.
Maybe we could interest the YECs in the idea that the big bang was actually the fall of the walls of Jericho.
"A musical performance that not just brought the house down."
Actually the sirens built into Stukas were called Jericho fanfares.
Hm, maybe G*D provided Joshua with dive-bombers on the occasion.
Anyway, weather too warm around here for the season (and Moscow is even 25-30°C warmer than normal for mid-January)
Quote from: Swatopluk on January 17, 2007, 10:55:50 AM
Maybe we could interest the YECs in the idea that the big bang was actually the fall of the walls of Jericho.
"A musical performance that not just brought the house down."
Actually the sirens built into Stukas were called Jericho fanfares.
Hm, maybe G*D provided Joshua with dive-bombers on the occasion.
Anyway, weather too warm around here for the season (and Moscow is even 25-30°C warmer than normal for mid-January)
I can offset that with colder-than-normal around here. Been below freezing for almost a week now, and ice all over everything.
(Of course, "normal" has only been the past 10 years. Prior to that, this weather
was "normal" for January. ... Will Rogers had it right about Oklahoma: 'don't like the weather? wait.' )
Extremly heavy storm announced here for the afternoon (130-150 km/h in squalls).
That'd be the freak "German Hurricane," eh?
It actually made our news.
Our whole city is under 2cm of ice since the day before yesterday. It's finally starting the melt.
It was beautiful.
Schools, of course, were not closed.
The storm obviously uses German Railways. It is clearly late.
It is raining heavily but no sign of a hurricane around here (not even a Spitfire).
Quote from: Swatopluk on January 18, 2007, 05:20:31 PM
The storm obviously uses German Railways. It is clearly late.
It is raining heavily but no sign of a hurricane around here (not even a Spitfire).
Nice WWII reference! As it happens, I had the history channel on as background noise.... <grin>
The storm was late by almost 6 hours. The railway stopped its service all over the country for the first time in recorded history (including WW2) but the airport north of here audibly still worked.
I read in the papers that the name of the depression causing the storm was bought as a gift.
The donors now are a bit ambiguous about "Kyrill racing West!". [headlines]
The storm was quite powerful even around here.
It actually reached a around 200 km/h in a few places in the Czech Republic. And over 30 people died around Europe.
And it appears that the storm will be causing trouble till Sunday.
They have sounded the all clear here in the early morning.
Now even the sun is shining a bit.
It's all clear here as well.
But the forecast says that it should start again in the afternoon (around 15:00) and last till Sunday late evening.
Don't know if we can trust the forecast, but the sun disappeared very quickly.
I dentical here.
Now it is wind and rain.
Hm, should I be boating home?
(I actually could. The canal behind this house could be used for about 3/4 of the way)
Quote from: Swatopluk on January 19, 2007, 04:59:48 PM
Hm, should I be boating home?
That reminds of this little picture:
(http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i5/bronko84/zaplava.jpg)
This is no photoshop, it's from a newspaper.
It was taken April 2006 in Belgrade and it's a picture of a large street there, which is about 500 metres away from the Danube.
And this one taken on the same street in the same period, once again, no photoshop:
(http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i5/bronko84/1404v.jpg)
:mrgreen:
Hamburg suffers from that occasionally. They were lucky yesterday.
There are pictures of people driving through the water and it takes some time to realize that they are on a bridge crossing the river Elbe.
But I admit that I have not seen waterskiing/boarding in that situation yet.
There has actually been talk for decades to build an emergency weir for the Elbe that would be pushed into the river, if a storm surge is predicted.
The main problem is that ships have very long brake ways (several miles for the big ones) and could run into the barrier.
Anybody looked at the data on volcanic eruptions and it's effects on global temperature? I am pretty sure the temperature goes down after a big eruption, short term anyway.
Yes, it does. It's basically the same effect as nuclear winter despite the extra CO2
The effect can be quite complex with long and short term effects, winter warming, general short term cooling, etc. here is a little article....
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Volcano/
Is someone suggesting plotting a volcanic erruption?
That supervolcanoe under Yellowstone looks appealing ;)
A bit smaller but also connected to the end of the world (ragnarök) is the Katla in Iceland.
That one is located under a glacier and highly unpredictable. When it erupts, it melts part of the glacier and creates an icy flood that wipes out everything in its way south to the sea.
There are good reasons to believe that the Norse end-of-the-world scenario in the Edda is inspired by that. The Eddic poems that originated from Iceland itself (some are from Norway) have numerous connections to the local geography. From that it can be concluded that the world ash tree Yggdrasill is located exactly above that volcanoe. Below the tree there is the boiling well Hwergelmir (but the rivers flowing from it carry ice) and the apocalyptic dragon Nidhöggr.
It's always interesting to see that the old mythmakers didn't get their inspiration out of the blue ;D .
There was a Horizon (U.S. Nova) program on Global Dimming (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml).
Apparently the sunlight at the Earth's surface measurably increased in the few days when most aircraft were grounded following 911. It turns out aerosols in vapour trails have been reflecting light back into space for decades, leading to a lowering of temperatures partly cancelling or masking global warming.
I have heard that some coal proponents tried to use a study to their advantage that concluded that a closing of all coal power plants would cause a significant temperature rise because of the disappearence of the aerosols usually emitted.
This would of course be a pro for the dirtiest plants and a con for those with up to date filters (and what do you think that would mean in current US politics?).
I think it's a separate issue from greenhouse gasses. I think it would result in adding/reducing heat to the atmosphere rather than to the surface, which might have it's own effects...
It's almost on the level of "let's start a nuclear war to combat global warming"*.
A cynic would also say that after a nuclear war there would be far less emitters of CO2 left.
Why not build a huge tin-foil sail that can be placed between earth and sun and rolled out when necessary ;).
* some ultra-fringers actually propose just that and want to start with Iran
Oh great. You want the entire earth to wear a tinfoil hat! ::) :D
How about a set of blinds the size of the Earth? When it gets warm we just close them a little. ;D
Quote from: The Meromorph (Quasimodo) on January 21, 2007, 06:19:46 PM
Oh great. You want the entire earth to wear a tinfoil hat! ::) :D
At least it would protect us from space aliens beaming those microwaves directly into our brains. ;D
(actually, I should not mock-- my buddy over at Industrial Radiography once fielded a phone call from a very sincere little old lady, who was convinced that they were beaming microwaves -- to read her thoughts, of course. ::) She later called back, and my buddy was out, so someone else took the call. He listened very politely to her "complaint" and then, apparently with nary a chuckle suggested that wearing aluminum foil inside a hat would definitely stop any microwaves from penetrating. The truth, as it turns out... <heh>)
It could still get uncomfortably hot inside the hat.
Btw, the huge foil in space was actually thought about but not for shielding but as a reflector to direct sunlight to benighted areas (maybe even for destructive purposes).
Definitely cheaper than the solar-powered lasers also under discussion.
Quote from: beagle on January 21, 2007, 04:15:56 PM
There was a Horizon (U.S. Nova) program on Global Dimming (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary.shtml).
Apparently the sunlight at the Earth's surface measurably increased in the few days when most aircraft were grounded following 911. It turns out aerosols in vapour trails have been reflecting light back into space for decades, leading to a lowering of temperatures partly cancelling or masking global warming.
I read a related article (in scientific american I believe) and the effect is more interesting: during the day the trails reflect light (lowering temperatures) but during the night help keep day temperatures in the same way clouds do.
The article suggested a reduction on evening flights.
Remember that the volcanoes erupting change our climate differently depending on the type of eruption, too.
A few huge slow eruptions would do different things than the giant plume eruptions.
Not to speak of long-time events like the Dekkan-volcanism. Probably had a thing to do with the departure of our Jurassic movie favorites.
All this talk about Volcanic and nuclear winters finally brought some result, it's finally snowing around here.
And the forecast says it's not going to stop for a while...
The weather frogs are currently not to be trusted in this city.
Currently the sun is shining, and it is lovely despite the drop im temperature (now it starts to be apt for the season).
Snow is probably postponed to next week.
Down here in Florida it's rainy, humid and cloudy all the time. Normally in the winter it's so dry we have fires occasionally.
The snow has arrived and I hop it will stay for a few days.
After two days of snowing the snow stopped and the sun is shining.
The result of the snowing was quite interesting, half of the roads around here blocked (especially the main highway from Brno to Prague, which was impossible to get through) and the Prague airport was closed till something around 5 AM...
Good luck to the Germans... :)
[ :offtopic: ]
In a completely unrelated note, my first french horn was made in Brno. :)
[/ :offtopic: ]
Certainly, it has been rainy this past few days down here in south florida too.
It seems that analysis of the recent gulfstream studies has changed the predictions a bit.
Now it is thought that the effects of warming through CO2 and the cooling due to weakening of this part of the great conveyor will more or less cancel each other out for about a century and that then the warming will proceed. This of course concerns mainly Europe.
Hasn't the Thames frozen over in recent history? That would be fun! ;D
Clearly better than the situation in "The Day the Earth caught Fire".
Despite the unscientific premise (nuclear tests shift earth orbit towards sun), the description of the (physical and psychological) results is quite persuasive/believable.
The Thames - Big freeze of 1963 (http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorhistory/freeze63.html) - not since then I think.
Today we had a severe weather warning for the whole of Britain, snow etc, but my part of London has not seen any change in the weather at all - or else my windows have been replaced with film screens as I often suspect.
Meanwhile, in other news....
if our great big lake here were properly frozen over (can we really call them lakes, they do sequester 1/5 of the world's nonbrackish water...geologists don't.) it would now be officially too cold to snow, as it is -15C.
When it is far below freezing and the lakes are frozen over, the movement of water vapour into the air is very limited, and we get, at most, "dust cloud snow" which never piles up or accumulates in any amount.
However, as the Lake is at 36F degrees with a thin film of slush, it is happily being sucked into the air and sprinkled on our neighbors.
Quote from: Griffin NoName The Watson of Sherlock on January 26, 2007, 02:39:44 AM
The Thames - Big freeze of 1963 (http://www.thamesweb.co.uk/windsor/windsorhistory/freeze63.html) - not since then I think.
One of the few vivid memories I have as a child in the UK before we migrated to Aus, is of standing on the Thames during the '63 freeze and looking at all the barges that had been frozen in unexpectedly. My father would not let me walk out to the middle of the river where there were some people having a bonfire on the ice, much to my regret at the time and I have never forgiven him. ;)
Sibling Bluenose
There were a few occasions when the whole Baltic Sea froze over (the top layers are more or less fresh water). Don't know when this happened last.
New Thames barrier could be built (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6964281.stm). At last a glimmer of hope London might not be submerged without my having to write to my MP about it. ;)
It will also serve to keep some water in in sommer, I guess
QuoteIt will also serve to keep some water in in sommer, I guess
Actually, I still have misgivings. The barrier(s) are downstream and prevent tidal influx overwhelming London. However the flooding this year was working it's way downstream from the source, swept through Oxfordshire and Berkshire and got as far as the stretch before mine. "They" don't seem to have noticed that rivers are duo-directional and letting more water out might be needed too ;D
"They" never seem to notice simple things like that until it hits them in the face.
We had a freeze here this last winter. I live in a Mediterranean climate, and normally, we might get a little bit of frost, maybe twice a year. We nineteen straight days of hard frost. We normally warm up before April, it's been mid to late April these last two years, which is nice, but not good for the farms.
Quote from: Griffin NoName on August 26, 2007, 01:27:39 PM
QuoteIt will also serve to keep some water in in sommer, I guess
Actually, I still have misgivings. The barrier(s) are downstream and prevent tidal influx overwhelming London. However the flooding this year was working it's way downstream from the source, swept through Oxfordshire and Berkshire and got as far as the stretch before mine. "They" don't seem to have noticed that rivers are duo-directional and letting more water out might be needed too ;D
Has the Thames be straightened too? Over here that aggravated the problems with e.g. the Rhine or the Oder.
If it has been straightened, it wasn't very successful ;)
Pfft. Thames. Doesn't compare to the mighty surges of the raging Hillsborough!
Oh, wait. Our river is pathetic.
We just have The Arms of God River...
El Brazos de Dios, aka the Brazos River. Which feeds the lake. This one, that's MUCH bigger than the town.
http://www.texassportfishing.com/Region_2/Lake_Somerville.htm