Climate Change

[Willihammer]

NASA's global land-water temperature data is breaking records on almost a monthly basis. February 2016 was the most unusually warm month- 1.34 degrees C above the long-term average. You can see on the table that the previous record was set the month before, and that March 2016 came very close to breaking it again.

 

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

 

So the earth is warming, and its Earth Day, so why not talk about climate change. What are members' thoughts on this topic?

[Craig Arko]

We're pretty much screwed.

[Mike Sixel]

It is 100% warming. Anyone that denies it just isn't admitting the truth for some unknowable reason.

 

I'd say there are things that can be done, with low risk. There was an interesting idea bout "heat sinks" in the Caribbean being used to reduce hurricanes. If it does something bad, it is easy to remove them. There are other things that are like that, that we could try......that aren't going to lead to us all riding the world in a train.....

 

I'd suggest one easy thing is to eat 1 less meal with meet every week. 

 

Oh, and Solar now employs more people than coal and is adding more jobs every month than gas/oil (which was true even before the plunge). If governments would just not try to protect the past.....things could get better.

[Vanimal46]

In my uneducated opinion, the Oil & Gas industry had a good 200 year run where they were the only fuel source... People in that industry made boat loads of money, but it needs to end.  

 

I have high hopes for brilliant minds like Elon Musk to change the world as we know it. Whether it's creating better ways of travel like the hyper loop from California to New York, or creating cars that run on solar energy. 

It needs to be a global effort however, and some countries are still behind on the times. I may be wrong, but I think China still constructs more coal plants than anyone else in the World. 

Somehow this world needs to cut down on pollution, and utilize natural resources more responsibly. 

[Willihammer]

 

It is 100% warming. Anyone that denies it just isn't admitting the truth for some unknowable reason.

People resent the implication that their freedom to conspicuously consume might be compromised, I think. That fear drives the blindness towards the facts. People are also short-sighted.

 

As I see it, society will either need to become enlightened and through free will quit reproducing and consuming. We get to retain our freedoms that way, but I ain't holding my breath on that outcome.

 

More likely, IMO, is people continue to think in the short term, reproduce and consume at will, and global agreements must be made that compromise reproductive and consumption freedoms. And a whole lot of toes get stepped on, resulting in god knows what kind of conflict.

[Craig Arko]

Name your poison.

 

National Geographic:

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-effects/

 

NOAA:

http://www.education.noaa.gov/Climate/Climate_Change_Impacts.html

 

NASA:

http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

 

The United Nations:

http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/11/climate-change-threatens-irreversible-dangerous-impacts-options-exist-limit-effects/

 

NIH:

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/programs/geh/climatechange/health_impacts/index.cfm

 

[Badsmerf]

Listening to Ted Cruz denounce global warming with npr was a joke this winter. My career has been built on green energy. So, to say I'm passionate about it might be a slightly weak.

[Bark's Lounge]

I trust science above all things by a margin that is greater than any number that can be computed. Mythology and the big money grab by wealthy industrialists and their underlings will be the end of us.

 

This is why we need really intelligent and greed empty leaders on this planet. The system is suffocating us and we, the people as a whole, are letting this happen with not so much of a whimper. If something is going to change, It will take revolutionary tactics to change the systems that are in place.

 

Just speaking for the U.S.A., we have awful candidates running for POTUS... greedy and ideological ass clowns... maybe not Sanders, but what the hell is he going to accomplish as the POTUS... he will have no allies in the upper reaches of our government.

 

We need to start winning over each other and come to a conclusion, that what this country is doing, is not working. Compromise and the absence of big business and religious influence in our upper government is the right and only way forward.

 

In my dreams, I hope we can eliminate the Republicans and Democrats, start some new and positive productive organizations Politically and right this ship.

 

And this is only pertaining to this country, to make a change world wide will probably be way too late. Is it even possible here?

 

That is counterproductive to think that way, but what am I and what are you willing to do about it???

[Shane Wahl]

Yeah, that and a mis/under/dis educated populace generally are the two greatest actual threats to the U.S. (and world).

 

It's going to be quite disastrous over the next few decades. I think there is some hope to ramp up legitimate "green" alternatives, but we also just have to freaking stop consuming at this rate.

 

And we should certainly reduce our meat consumption quite radically.

[Craig Arko]

Don't forget the rest of the Carbon footprint, too.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint

 

[Mike Sixel]

This is a great article about how we talk about things......

 

http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/4/23/what-you-believe-about-climate-change-doesnt-reflect-what-yo.html

 

[diehardtwinsfan]

The whole concept of carbon being the big mean gas is problem number one.  It's not really a good greenhouse gas at all, and it's a much better lagging indicator than a leading indicator.  The greenhouse gas that causes real warming is methane, and that isn't a byproduct of most manufacturing.

 

My personal opinion is that climate change is real, but I am highly skeptical that man made climate change is as concrete as people would like to admit.  We often forget that science is just attuned to money as big business is.  Like it or not, how the scientific community is funded directly impacts this.  People who provide funding often times have a vested interest in the results, which  tends to skew them.  We really need to get people like Ted Cruz and Al Gore out of this debate altogether.  These are nothing more than blowhards who are seeking to rally bases or make money.  The debate needs to be had more among the actual scientists doing the research... the politicians need to stay out of it.

 

The other problem is that we've been keeping accurate weather data for maybe a hundred years now, hardly a drop in the bucket in terms of  the earth's age, and being able to say that we have concluded  that the changes we've observed are all man made in nature is quite frankly a leap. 

 

I do believe that we owe it to our children to keep this planet clean, but many of the proposed solutions out there are nothing more than means for well connected individuals siphoning money into their pockets as opposed to actual environmental changes, not to mention the massive double standards that allow the biggest culprits exceptions while the rest of us with no political voice have to deal with the laws. 

[Willihammer]

 

The other problem is that we've been keeping accurate weather data for maybe a hundred years now, hardly a drop in the bucket in terms of  the earth's age, and being able to say that we have concluded  that the changes we've observed are all man made in nature is quite frankly a leap. 

The man-made theory of warming is based on the earth's limited ability to capture and re-store greenhouse gases. It is true that man is resopnsible for a small portion of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the problem is that the yearly output has for some time exceeded the earth's capacity to recapture and store these gases. So the effect has compounded since the industrial revolution to the point we are at now where global temperatures are increasing exponentially.

 

I agree with the rest of your post. The sustainability movement has a lot of "feel good" aspects to it that are soft on facts and easily can be twisted for profit. I liken it to the organic food movement.

[Mike Sixel]

I'm not going to deny that science is swayed by money, and by "force of will", just look at fat vs sugar.....

 

OTOH, whether we are the cause or not, science might have answers that can slow/reverse some of the impacts coming our way. Instead of arguing about the climate, we should be discussing the specific risks facing us, and whether or not there are some low risk items we can try.......

 

That seems more likely to be successful than the approach we have largely taken up until now.

[Craig Arko]

I guess I'll submit that no matter what root cause d'jour somebody might favor, the end result works out the same.

 

We're screwed. Especially you poor bast**** who live on a coast.

 

So it behooves us to try to make improvements.

[PseudoSABR]

Cows toot methane, lots of it.  

[PseudoSABR]

And I always laugh when climate-change-deniers suggest there's an overwhelming vested interest in promoting a global warming myth.  If we want to trace the dollars, there's far more money and interest to deny global warming than to promote it.   If we should reject one side of the debate because of their own vested interest in the outcome, it's the climate-change-deniers...like duh.

 

That said, alternatives like ethanol and battery power are clearly problematic as it takes energy to make such alternatives, but solar and wind, and well, using less energy are alternatives which don't suffer from the lie-to-make-money scheme. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I guess I'll submit that no matter what root cause d'jour somebody might favor, the end result works out the same.

 

We're screwed. Especially you poor bast**** who live on a coast.

 

So it behooves us to try to make improvements.

 

I'm not as sure of that either. The water level of a cup of water doesn't change when the ice melts.  That's b/c the volume of water in the cup hasn't changed.  Water levels rising is only affected in areas where ice sits on land and that is melted into the oceans.  The amount of extra water in the oceans to simply raise the levels an inch is staggering.

 

The other side of warming is that it opens up more land for farming in northern climantes.  I

[Willihammer]

Re: historical weather data

 

Its true that hard temperature records are limited but we have tracked things like migrations patterns, and other cyclical events for longer. Eg. monks in Japan and Finland have recorded the dates of certain lake freeze/thaws going back 700 years.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/ice-lake-suwa-japan-torne-river-climate-change-monk-shinto/

 

[Willihammer]

 

 

I'm not as sure of that either. The water level of a cup of water doesn't change when the ice melts.  That's b/c the volume of water in the cup hasn't changed.  Water levels rising is only affected in areas where ice sits on land and that is melted into the oceans.  The amount of extra water in the oceans to simply raise the levels an inch is staggering.

 

The other side of warming is that it opens up more land for farming in northern climantes.  I

https://youtu.be/lPgZfhnCAdI?t=510

 

OK you already understand the concept.

I admit I don't know off hand that x temperature rise will equate to y- inches of water rise. But I have been to Florida, and anyone who's been quickly gets an idea of how badly things could go for them with just a small increase in the water level. Ditto NYC, Honolulu, Annapolis, Corpus Christi, etc.

[Craig Arko]

Basic physical chemistry.

 

http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/122Adensityice.html

 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

The man-made theory of warming is based on the earth's limited ability to capture and re-store greenhouse gases. It is true that man is resopnsible for a small portion of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the problem is that the yearly output has for some time exceeded the earth's capacity to recapture and store these gases. So the effect has compounded since the industrial revolution to the point we are at now where global temperatures are increasing exponentially.

 

I agree with the rest of your post. The sustainability movement has a lot of "feel good" aspects to it that are soft on facts and easily can be twisted for profit. I liken it to the organic food movement.

 

The assumption that the warming is being caused by greenhouse gases is part of my issue.  Cyclical sun spots for instance are known to affect the weather on Earth.  And there's plenty evidence that the sun's temp can change over time. 

 

As well, temperatures are not rising exponentially.  If they were, we'd all be dead by now.  We really need to take some of the myth out of this debate.  Gore's hockey stick is a good example as there really wasn't any good means to record temps for the length of time that he claimed, and he intentionally glossed over documented cooling periods experienced on this planet.  Heck, the last couple of years were much cooler than average where I'm at, and it's always amazing how this debate tends to get very muted when you have a cool year.

 

Personally, I'd like to see someone take the average temperatures and apply SPC analysis to it.  The manufacturing industry uses that to determine whether variation is the product of random occurrence or something within control, and the method would largely work here as well. 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Basic physical chemistry.

 

http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/122Adensityice.html

You do understand that this does not invalidate what I said.  Water level is not a function of density but of volume.  Floating ice exists above and below the water, and when it melts, the water level won't change b/c the volume of water hasn't changed. 

 

That does'nt account for spillage of water into the oceans where the ice exists on land, but the idea we are just a few warmer years away from Water World is patently absurd. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

I'm not as sure of that either. The water level of a cup of water doesn't change when the ice melts.  That's b/c the volume of water in the cup hasn't changed.  Water levels rising is only affected in areas where ice sits on land and that is melted into the oceans.  The amount of extra water in the oceans to simply raise the levels an inch is staggering.

 

The other side of warming is that it opens up more land for farming in northern climantes.  I

 

And completely dries out much of Peru and other nations that rely on snow and glaciers......

[Willihammer]

 

As well, temperatures are not rising exponentially

I think you're mistakekn. Just as a quick check, I plotted the NASA data and had excel run an equation for line of best fit. The polynomial equation fits best.

 

http://i.imgur.com/a3i6eFe.png

[Badsmerf]

You do understand that this does not invalidate what I said. Water level is not a function of density but of volume. Floating ice exists above and below the water, and when it melts, the water level won't change b/c the volume of water hasn't changed.

 

That does'nt account for spillage of water into the oceans where the ice exists on land, but the idea we are just a few warmer years away from Water World is patently absurd.

A few years is absurd, but not 50 years. There is some recently released data that shows the amount of increase we could expect. While it isn't water world, the result would be catastrophic.

 

Why do you think carbon us such a poor greenhouse gas? I've read some very compelling science that shows carbon to be a very reliable indicator.

[Craig Arko]

 

And completely dries out much of Peru and other nations that rely on snow and glaciers......

And what's a few wildfire related deaths among friends, right?

 

For those of you with children and grandchildren, you have my condolences and apology. I know I could have done more.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Is the natural state of the earth a greenhouse and we are just reentering that period? 

 

It's scary to think that within a few hundred years, major coastal cities might be uninhabitable. What the hell is going to happen?

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

And completely dries out much of Peru and other nations that rely on snow and glaciers......

yes, agreed there.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I think you're mistakekn. Just as a quick check, I plotted the NASA data and had excel run an equation for line of best fit. The polynomial equation fits best.

 

http://i.imgur.com/a3i6eFe.png

We'll have to agree to disagree there.  Either curve can fit (the dotted line shows the linear one), and I'm not sure you have enough correlation there to make a definitive statement.  If it's exponential, you'll know you a few years, that's for sure.