General Climate Discussion

[ghi]

i would welcome the global warming,at this moment,i'm on transcanada hwy,  west of Winnipeg,MB it's about minus 47 degrees Celsius here ,

[Angus]

Would you welcome it with generally more windspeed and weather energy?

[C(Sea)Bass]

I rember talking about sea level changes as related to Global warming in Geology last week. From what I can remember the instructor was explaining that the increase in sea level, even a minute one, increases the surface area of the ocean, and decreases that of the land. Land reflects more heat energy back into the atmosphere where greenhouse gasses (CO2 , Methane, and Water Vapor) trap some from escape the atmosphere. Water has a tendancy to absorb more energy than it reflects, thus increasing the temperature of the oceans, but also decreaseing the affect that greenhouse gasses have on the situation.

So what this theory means is that you can reduce emissions alll you want,  but it won't do much untill the changes in ocean temperature and salinty cause a refreezing of the polar regions.

[lazs2]

angus...  you are still missing the point..  co2 has about shot it's wad so far as any affect on global climate.. the lions share of it's ability to do anything at all has already happened and no sea rise above the normal amount has happened.. nothing bad has happened..  

the temp of the globe has risen maybe half a degree..  less than the margin of error..  the remaining ability of co2 to raise temp by even the most alarmist predictions is tiny...  maybe another couple of tenths of a degree.  maybe not even that.

lazs

[Angus]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an extremist MMGW fellow. However I just hate when people get into their trenches and don't see above their tin-hats.
I zoom out and what I see is that the seas are rising and warming. The atmosphere seems to be warming. Which is normal, since the arctic icecaps are shrinking.
Looking better in and doing some basic maths, I get to realise that the mass of the landbound ice surpasses the mass of the atmosphere. So does the equivalent of (760 mm hg/approx 0,7) of water in SL.
So...I see...hmmmm..it's warming.
Some scientists have predicted this due to over releases of co2 which we know as a greenhouse gas, and I know that those should better be there in at least some quantity, for otherwise the earth would be mostly or all frozen over.
Then I look at the debaters. I see a camp that seems to fight against every inch of fact. One day there is no GW, the oher it's in a natural cycle, and on the third day it's a climate change, on the fourth no GW etc etc.
The other camp seems to be concerned, and clings on to scientific data, sometimes to the extreme. Camp one laughs.
I think "alas", - well what did Nero do while Rome burned. Que Vadis my mates?

[john9001]

what i found is that worst case scenario the SL will rise 20 feet/600cm  in 1000 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Greenland_ice_sheet_melt_figure.gif

call me unfeeling, but i don't care where the SL is in 1000 years.

[C(Sea)Bass]

Another little bit to add from geology today.

We looked at a graph of the earth's temperature fluctuations over the last 100,000 years and saw something quite interesting. Prior to the evoloution of humans there were dramatic changes in climate, the temperature flutuated as much as 40 degrees celcius above and below today's current average temperature. The only reason human's exsist in the numbers that we do is that there was an anomaly in the fluctuations, allowing man to flourish.
Therefore it is possible that our emissions are keeping us from plummiting into a Glaciation.

Thought that was interesting and may put this 0.5 degree warming into a better perspective.

[Jackal1]

Originally posted by Angus
You are missing the point Lazs and so is Jackal.
Just the Icelandic glaciers would give you a bigger rise in SL than all the last century together.
Greenland would be some 20 feet.
You'd have 20 feet way before Greenland was gone though, for proportionally you'd be at 20 feet with 1/10th of the Greenland gone, with a mere 10% melting in Antarctica, - or so.
Add them up and you have some 200 feet.
You'd not fancy a trip to many an area after just a couple of feet, say alone 20, except for scuba diving down to remains of human habitat, - this is not new......
Ang Jackal's fridge has to be quite big to counter this.
Bottom line, Greenland's Glacier is still in place, but it's shrinking at a scary speed, - speed increasing.

Like riding in 60 mph then 70, then 80, and noticing you went from 60 to 70 in 200 secs, 70 to 80 in a 100, and 80 to 90 in 30, - where does that point you?

No......I believe it is you who are missing the point.....entirely.
I expect change.in all forms. The climate is and has been constantly in a state of change as long as it has been recorded.or in this case guessed at.
All your figures amount to naught, nada, zilch. They are based on what ifs, maybe/maybe nots, could be/could not be BS that has been instilled in you by the Sky Is Falling For Lunch Bunch.
They can`t predict and nobody can simply because you cannot come up with any prediction that holds water unless everything is factored in. In this case it is totaly impossible due to the many, many, many unknowns.
The light bulb just doesn`t seem to come on for some even after they have witnessed the complete fiasco and constant stammering, changing, making excuses for, etc. of their own making.
They have even screwed up the  known .
You really better get with it and go with the big change from GW to Climate Change.

[Angus]

Todays climate change is a global shift totalling as warming. Do you have allergy for the letters G & W?
And what is happening in the arctic areas is quite big. If this carries on (for me it would be nice if it carried on a little more and then stopped, say in 10 years ), our children and/or grandchilfren are going to see and feel a vlimate that was never so in the story of our last 7000 years or so, - I am only counting backwards to civilization there.
Actually the arctic change might be unique for very much longer time.
And even today, we are getting to see exposed waters and areas that were not so since civilizarion.
But I guess you'll never get that.....

[MORAY37]

A little paper came across the Smithsonian pipeline...(That's where I work, for those that don't know already) about CO2 and plant growth.  It hasn't been published as of yet (currently in peer review) so I cannot post it or quote specifically from its' text.  It may answer a question to those that say productivity will go up with higher CO2 levels.....

Short, abridged story...

Botanist have been lookin at what increased CO2 (undeniable, that levels have increased, we can argue all day about warming)  concentrations do to the internal workings of plants.  It was thought that yield would increase as well as static margin of growth.  That was, in fact, what their hypothesis was...

They took different species of plants...  harvested crop types and those that were natural occuring "cover" species.  Shortened version, is they studied the growth of these species and found that their hypothesis was partially  correct...these species did indeed grow faster than those that were not exposed to higher levels of CO2.  

There was a big surprise though...

All of the tested members of species which were exposed to high CO2 levels stopped growth earlier... and were smaller  than those that were grown without high CO2.  Furthermore, when tested, it was found that all  of the CO2 subjects were significantly lacking in nutritional substance.  It was figured that the "commercial harvest" subjects were 30% to 50% less nutritious than the non-CO2 exposed crop.

This outcome was found to be due to the increased CO2 load.  The plant simply never needed to store any nutrients for later and metabolized everything it could gather. (metabolic pathways were 92% to 95% efficient) Furthermore, levels of Chlorophyll A and B were significantly deficient, meaning the plants also began to shut down photosynthetic pathways due to the lack of need to keep them.  (It was thought that CHL A (C55 H72 O5 N4 Mg) was first manufactured by plants in response to the marked decline in CO2 concentrations in past eras.)  The study went on to postulate that plants may well "revert" to their old metabolic set-up when exposed to high levels of CO2.  I wish I could post the pictures... they are really eye opening.  One side looks green and healthy, (regular, "normal" CO2) the other, smaller and spread out with yellow and brown leaves, with highly abnormal palisade parenchyma.  (High CO2 exposure)

Take with it what you will.  I personally think it's eye opening.  When it clears peer review... I will post it.

[lazs2]

it most certainly is eye opening!   It means that all farming practice for the last 30 years or so has been wrong and the farmers are simply imagining the extra growth.

I would be interested in seeing the paper...

In any case... right or wrong.. crop production is up 15% on available land from before the high rates of co2.   maybe it is just the longer growing seasons..

no matter what..  less people freezing and more food is better.

lazs

[john9001]

MORAY37
so you are saying all the scientists were wrong about plant growth, but the scientists are right about man made global warming?

do your "scientists" do anything besides publish peer review papers and collect government grants?

[MORAY37]

Originally posted by lazs2
it most certainly is eye opening!   It means that all farming practice for the last 30 years or so has been wrong and the farmers are simply imagining the extra growth.

I would be interested in seeing the paper...

In any case... right or wrong.. crop production is up 15% on available land from before the high rates of co2.   maybe it is just the longer growing seasons..

no matter what..  less people freezing and more food is better.

lazs

Lazs, it means at a certain point, the plant stops storing nutrients... the same ones we need to eat, and simply become metabolic factories.

Like I said, witch hunt me all you want... It just caught my eye.

[MORAY37]

Originally posted by john9001
MORAY37
so you are saying all the scientists were wrong about plant growth, but the scientists are right about man made global warming?

do your "scientists" do anything besides publish peer review papers and collect government grants?

No, that's just it... they weren't wrong.  The study was meant to confirm it... and the results were correct, to a point.  

The secondary effects (lack of nutrients, shorter growth) were not foreseen, due to the fact that it was not postulated previously that plants would lessen their use of chlorophyll for energy production.  It was thought that CO2 would be just another fertilizer and would let the plants simply grow faster and larger.

I was surprised as much as anyone.  I would have thought that any multicellular organism would just take up the extra fuel and convert it to growth.... this is very interesting, to me, that they were not.

[MORAY37]

Originally posted by john9001
MORAY37
?

do your "scientists" do anything besides publish peer review papers and collect government grants?

And those government grants got you most of the things you take for granted every day, sir.