Climate change

[Swatopluk]

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)

[Kiyoodle the Gambrinous]

Hm, should I be boating home?

That reminds of this little picture:



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:

[Swatopluk]

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.

[ivor]

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.

[Swatopluk]

Yes, it does. It's basically the same effect as nuclear winter despite the extra CO₂

[goat starer]

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/

[Griffin NoName]

Is someone suggesting plotting a volcanic erruption?

[Swatopluk]

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 .

[beagle]

There was a Horizon (U.S. Nova) program on Global Dimming.

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.

[Swatopluk]

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?).

[The Meromorph]

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...

[Swatopluk]

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

[The Meromorph]

Oh great. You want the entire earth to wear a tinfoil hat!   

[ivor]

How about a set of blinds the size of the Earth? When it gets warm we just close them a little. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Oh great. You want the entire earth to wear a tinfoil hat!   

At least it would protect us from space aliens beaming those microwaves directly into our brains. 


(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>)