Global Warming

[Windu Chi]

I didn't say you weren't, but governments have disregarded the information they were given. Of course the government is ignorant, self serving and piss on you except if you were fire, but it's still very wrong.

They will still piss on you even if you were on fire, Nancy.

The government can't be trusted, with 100% assurance.

When we are freezing our asses off when most of the Northern Hemisphere climate become similar like the last Ice Age.

That if this happen this climate will probably last for centuries.

Because of the shut down of the Ocean Conveyor, because of decrease salinity in sea water cause by global warming effects of melting of glacial ice of the Arctic and Antarctic, that adds fresh water(low salinity) to the world's oceans.

 

The Great Ocean Conveyor is propelled by the sinking of cold, salty (and therefore denser) waters in the North Atlantic Ocean. That creates a void that pulls warm, salty Gulf Stream waters northward. The Gulf Stream gives up its heat to the atmosphere above the North Atlantic Ocean, and prevailing winds carry the heat eastward to warm Europe.

As that water moves north, it gives up heat and some moisture to the atmosphere, making climates in Europe much warmer and moister than one would expect for a landmass at such high latitude.

 

The process leaves behind cool, salty water that is denser than surface waters. In the seas that ring the northern Atlantic—the Labrador, Irminger, and Greenland seas—this dense water sinks to the depths and flows southward. These conduits of cold, deep waters converge into the Deep Western Boundary Current, which flows adjacent to and sometimes beneath the Gulf Stream. This sinking and southward flow draws more warm water north to replace it, and contributes to a worldwide circulation pattern known as the Global Thermohaline Circulation, or the "Great Ocean Conveyor."

 

The freshening tendency makes the surface water more buoyant, thus opposing the cooling tendency. If the freshening is sufficiently large, the surface waters may not be dense enough to sink to great depths in the ocean, thus inhibiting the action of the ocean conveyor and upsetting one important part of the earth’s heating system.

 

The ocean conveyor need not stop entirely when the NADW(North Atlantic Deep Water) formation is curtailed. It can continue at shallower depths in the N. Atlantic and persist in the Southern Ocean where Antarctic Bottom Water formation continues or is even accelerated. Yet a disruption of the northern limb of the overturning circulation will affect the heat balance of the northern hemisphere and could affect both the oceanic and atmospheric climate. Model calculations indicate the potential for cooling of 3 to 5 degree Celsius in the ocean and atmosphere should a total disruption occur. This is a third to a half the temperature change experienced during major ice ages.

 

These changes are twice as large as those experienced in the worst winters of the past century in the eastern US, and are likely to persist for decades to centuries after a climate transition occurs. They are of a magnitude comparable to the Little Ice Age, which had profound effects on human settlements in Europe and North America during the 16th through 18th centuries. Their geographic extent is in doubt; it might be limited to regions bounding the N. Atlantic Ocean. High latitude temperature changes in the ocean are much less capable of affecting the global atmosphere than low latitude ones, such as those produced by El Niño.

Then they will regard the physics and chemistry of global warming as facts.

But we will be probably living in snow iglus or ice caves by then, in about one or two decades.

Unless, we are lucky.

 

A link to Abrupt Climate Change

[Dagobahn Eagle]

[...] The more energy we have, the greater our overall productivity. With the extra productivity we can focus more on technological research, which would facilitate the development of a solution(s) to the global warming issue.

Yes, but the more global warming, the more extreme weather and rising waters, which translate into more deaths, more people being made homeless, and more people turned into refugees. It's a very, very high price to pay.

 

Also keep in mind that much of the Co2-emissions is unnecessary. There are people driving cars alone to work and school when they could've taken the bus or at the very least taken a passenger or two. There are people, me included:(, taking unnecessarily long showers. There are people who leave their TV on standby at night when it'd save hundreds of gigatonnes if "everyone" just shut it off. I could go on and on. Most of us simply don't gain anything monetarily for wasting energy this way. The oil business might, and the power plants might, but the Average Joe certainly does not.

 

Not to mention that the long lines caused by the individuals who drive cars alone to and from work and school are essentially wastes of time. Nobody gets much done while they are stuck in lines during rush hour, whereas if they took the bus, subway, or other collective transportation alternative, not to mention if they simply walked or rode a bike, you'd save yourself and whoever expected you time.

 

Of course, there are people who just cannot for the life of them be arsed into parking their cars and get on buses, and I understand them. I think the level of certain peoples' persistence is best illustrated by this friend of mine whose mom and house were lost in a mud-slide during exceptionally heavy rains last September. One year after, her family of three owns as many cars. She drives to and from school (30 min' drive) every day even though she could perfectly well have taken the bus. In short - if a natural disaster causing you to lose a parent doesn't make you learn, then... what's it going to take?

 

windu6: No offense, but Al Gore explains the "Conveyor" better than you do:). I'll post a link when YouTube allows searching again.

 

Related: Charlie Rose with Al Gore.

[Tyrion]

Yes, but the more global warming, the more extreme weather and rising waters, which translate into more deaths, more people being made homeless, and more people turned into refugees. It's a very, very high price to pay.

 

The hard part is analyzing the data and determining whether the cost of increased human pollution would offset the advances we would make. For instance, determining how much worse off the weather is than it was two hundred years ago.

 

Also keep in mind that much of the Co2-emissions is unnecessary. There are people driving cars alone to work and school when they could've taken the bus or at the very least taken a passenger or two. There are people, me included:(, taking unnecessarily long showers. There are people who leave their TV on standby at night when it'd save hundreds of gigatonnes if "everyone" just shut it off. I could go on and on. Most of us simply don't gain anything monetarily for wasting energy this way. The oil business might, and the power plants might, but the Average Joe certainly does not.

 

That's something different altogether, as you would have to deal with breaking the notion ingrained in society that your own contributions won't matter in the big picture. The decision to turn off or leave on my television means **** to the environment, but it takes a couple million of such decisions in order to make a difference. I concur, though, that the effort to help alleviate pollution problems begins at home.

 

Not to mention that the long lines caused by the individuals who drive cars alone to and from work and school are essentially wastes of time. Nobody gets much done while they are stuck in lines during rush hour, whereas if they took the bus, subway, or other collective transportation alternative, not to mention if they simply walked or rode a bike, you'd save yourself and whoever expected you time.

 

I'm not sure how it is in Norway, but here in America self-transportation is nearly a necessity; most people work around a good 10-25 miles from home if they live in suburbs, a very large portion of the population. You'd only have to look at how many highways we have in the country(particularly, Southern California) to see how necessary cars are; it's not a matter of convenience for most.

 

Of course, there are people who just cannot for the life of them be arsed into parking their cars and get on buses, and I understand them. I think the level of certain peoples' persistence is best illustrated by this friend of mine whose mom and house were lost in a mud-slide during exceptionally heavy rains last September. One year after, her family of three owns as many cars. She drives to and from school (30 min' drive) every day even though she could perfectly well have taken the bus. In short - if a natural disaster causing you to lose a parent doesn't make you learn, then... what's it going to take?

 

I'm not sure if I understand your point here. Are you describing how your friend drives a car regularly, contributing to the pollution problem, and remarking on how it was that sort of activity which had worsened the storm that had killed her mother? I would remind you, then, that rainstorms and mudslides have been happening in terrible force since long before we discovered combustion.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

The hard part is analyzing the data and determining whether the cost of increased human pollution would offset the advances we would make. For instance, determining how much worse off the weather is than it was two hundred years ago.

And the answer is that it's far, far worse. It doesn't take more than looking out your window.

 

We're not talking minor changes here. We're talking enormous changes. There's no way we'll be better off by polluting more and more, as we are now.

 

That's something different altogether, as you would have to deal with breaking the notion ingrained in society that your own contributions won't matter in the big picture. The decision to turn off or leave on my television means **** to the environment, but it takes a couple million of such decisions in order to make a difference. I concur, though, that the effort to help alleviate pollution problems begins at home.

Definetly, and it'd make a huge difference.

 

I'm not sure how it is in Norway, but here in America self-transportation is nearly a necessity; most people work around a good 10-25 miles from home if they live in suburbs, a very large portion of the population. You'd only have to look at how many highways we have in the country(particularly, Southern California) to see how necessary cars are; it's not a matter of convenience for most.

But it is to many. It's also a matter of lack of public transportation caused by a lack of interest in it.

 

I'm not sure if I understand your point here. Are you describing how your friend drives a car regularly, contributing to the pollution problem, and remarking on how it was that sort of activity which had worsened the storm that had killed her mother? I would remind you, then, that rainstorms and mudslides have been happening in terrible force since long before we discovered combustion.

The severity of the weather in Norway the last few years are definitely a new phenomenon, as it the heat. And, of course, so is mud-slides, which happen very rarely here.

 

An inconvenient truth shows a graph that goes 650 000 years back, from oxygen extracted from deep within glaciers. It does a very good job at showing how the Co2-level has been rising lately and how temperature have always been correlating to Co2-level (yes, they can measure temperatures this way, too).

 

The extreme weather and heat waves are not normal. Global warming is a reality, and the current "heat wave" in the "heat-ice age-heat"-cycle is far warmer and far longer than the previous ones.

 

An inconvenient truth is a worthwhile watch. It's not perfect (the director had the movie focus too much on Al Gore for my taste - and for that matter for Al Gore's own taste), but it's a fantastic movie. You'll be surprised by how many of his claims can be proven and how it's proven.

[Q]

That we need to find an alternative to burning fossil fuels should be a no-brainer. Even those who don't believe that global warming is happening have to realize that the oil isn't going to last forever. I'm afraid, however, that without some sort of political (monetary, really, because that's what it all boils down to in the end) incentive the development of an alternative energy source is not going to be pursued with any kind of zeal until all of the oil is gone or nearly gone. Mankind is just stupid that way.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

What we need is to get the ignorants who don't even believe in global warming out from under their rocks.

 

Fair enough to be a sceptic if it means looking up evidence, opening yourself to both sides, and truly being open-minded. In other words, it's great to ask questions, find the answers, and educate yourself in the process. But to manage the work of intellectual art it is to not even believe in global warming - that is simply scandalous beyond excuse.

 

What I mean to say is, if I wonder about how it comes that ibn Ladin wrote with his right hand in the allegedly false confession tape following 9/11, there's a difference between actually finding the answer (he did so because writing with your left hand is forbidden in his somehow backwards culture) and simply taking it for evidence Bush was behind 9/11.

 

The world is spending so much money on ignorance that could've been better spent elsewhere. We're defending evolution from the Creationists; we had to fight long court battles before we were able to "kill" Terri Schiavo because all these deluded activists thought she was fully alive and able to feel pain; and now we're suffering because right-wingers simply refuse to open their minds to global warming. If you don't even believe global warming exists, or believe it's part of the natural cycle of heat periods and ice ages, then you're exceptionally skilled at hiding from exceptionally easy-to-acquire facts (Google being what it is:p).

- - - -

More on-topic, I managed to procure this chart, which is the one I discussed earlier. It goes 650 000 years back in time and shows temperature and Co2-levels have correlated for just that long.

[Windu Chi]

What we need is to get the ignorants who don't even believe in global warming out from under their rocks.

I highly doubt that those fools are going to wake up, Dagobahn.

I foresee in the coming decades that us in the northern hemisphere will be probably dwelling in ice caves.

I feel sorry for you up there in Norway, y'all will probably living in snow mountains.