Global Warming Debate ll

[TheMercenary]

Editorial
No Place to Hide
Published: January 20, 2008

Skeptics about global warming often point to Antarctica to show that Al Gore and others who worry about climate change have exaggerated the dangers greatly. They may concede that the Arctic is melting and even that Greenland is beginning to appear a bit shaky. But look at Antarctica, they will say. It’s actually growing colder, and the ice sheet is thickening.

That argument is becoming harder to sustain. According to a study published last week in the journal Nature Geoscience, changes in water temperature and wind patterns related to global warming have begun to erode vast ice sheets in western Antarctica at a much faster rate than anyone had previously detected.

The study pointed out that the ice loss is very small compared with the continent’s miles-deep ice sheets. Even so, the study suggests that if the trend continues, global sea levels could rise higher and more swiftly than previously supposed. The findings give more urgency to the search for a new global agreement to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

There has always been uncertainty over Antarctica’s weather, partly because it is so hard to find what is happening in large parts of the continent. And there are, in effect, two Antarcticas. East Antarctica, which makes up about 90 percent of the total, sits above sea level and is relatively stable, with increased snowfall compensating for any loss of ice. A study in 2002 concluded that the interior had actually cooled over the previous decade.

Then there is the western shelf, an expanse of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas and largely below sea level. Using measurements from satellites that scanned about 85 percent of Antarctica’s coasts from 1996 to 2006, the study’s authors found that West Antarctica has been losing ice at a rate that is 60 percent faster than 10 years ago.


Continues:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/opinion/20sun4.html

[regular.joe]

Merc, I've found that you might need to add about another quart of mogas to the mix....if your gonna stir that much shit.

I'll bet on any given day I could find someone who just knows for sure that we are all gonna die of heat stroke in 5 years. And on any given day I can find someone who says what the fuck ever, not gonna happen.

They both sound like they know what they are talking about, and they both site "scientific" research and observation.

They way I see it we are either killing ourselves and our children with shortsightedness or we're not. I guess we'll find out, huh?

[classicman]

Kill all the cows NOW!

[xoxoxoBruce]

And termites.

[ZenGum]

How about killing, say, 80% of the humans? Thats what the planet really needs. Plus measures to keep population down after the big cull...

[classicman]

As long as I, and all I care about, are in the 20% thats fine too.

[Aliantha]

Well I have a theory about all this global warming stuff.

For one thing, the whole way we base calculations on carbon dating could be totally wrong.

for another thing, if it's right and we know the northern ice caps are going to melt, it could simply be a case of switcheroony and the southern icecaps will freeze over more. Wind paterns will reverse etc and everyone will have to swap over how they live.

All of a sudden us sunburned aussies will have to learn how to live in the ice and snow all the time, and you lot up north will have to get out the waxing strips and prepare yourselves for summer.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

All of a sudden us sunburned aussies will have to learn how to live in the ice and snow all the time, and you lot up north will have to get out the waxing strips and prepare yourselves for summer.

Fine by me. And if NYC and LA are submerged in the process - even better!

[classicman]

I'll see your NY & LA and raise you the entire state of California.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by regular.joe

I'll bet on any given day I could find someone who just knows for sure that we are all gonna die of heat stroke in 5 years. And on any given day I can find someone who says what the fuck ever, not gonna happen.

There aren't too many people saying "not gonna happen". Mostly they say "let's wait a bit until there's more evidence", "sure it's happening, but it's not our fault/nothing we can do", or "maybe it's a good thing."

[classicman]

or maybe the period of time which we have measured is so historically insignificant that our data is equal to no more than a "sun fart." Did/is something happening? yes are we responsible - no one knows. its a pointless issue to raise. 30 - 40 years ago we heard about global cooling, not its warming - nothing, NOTHING says it isn't perfectly normal and caused by the natural order of things.

[BrianR]

Originally Posted by classicman

I'll see your NY & LA and raise you the entire state of California.

just as long as you throw in California's suburb, Oregon.

[regular.joe]

You know, when I think about it...everything is caused by the natural order of things. Unless we should consider ourselves unnatural.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by regular.joe

You know, when I think about it...everything is caused by the natural order of things. Unless we should consider ourselves unnatural.

One of my favorite...what's the plural of paradox?

If what we are doing to the planet is "unnatural" then what is it's source? The supernatural? I can only conclude that there is no such thing as unnatural behavior. Of course, you have to consider man a part of nature, and not God's special thing-above-all-others, for this to apply.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by classicman

or maybe the period of time which we have measured is so historically insignificant that our data is equal to no more than a "sun fart."

It is true that our written records are very short, but analysis of tree rings (especially of oak preserved in peat bogs for thousands of years), the rings of coral growths, the layers of ice (and the bubbles trapped in ancient ice) and ocean and lake sediments, all combine to deliver a record stretching back much much further.

(You might argue about the interpretations placed on each of these, of course. What follows presumes that these records are reasonably accurate.)

The record they deliver does indicate that climate has been wobbling all over the place for at least the last 300,000 years. There is no "correct" or "stable" global climate that Earth is "supposed" to be at. Nevertheless, the earth is much hotter now than it has been for a long time.

Originally Posted by classicman

Did/is something happening? yes are we responsible - no one knows. its a pointless issue to raise. 30 - 40 years ago we heard about global cooling, not its warming - nothing, NOTHING says it isn't perfectly normal and caused by the natural order of things.

The fact of change is not abnormal. The rate of change is entirely unprecedented in the last 300,000 years. Likewise the rate of increase of CO2 (also lead, CFCs, etc etc) is also unprecedented.
These unprecedented rates of change indicate that human activity is probably the cause. Change is natural, really fast change is not.

Natural or not, ask yourself: do you want big climate change? In the short term: more and bigger storms, hurricanes, etc? Heatwaves killing more people? The spread of mosquito borne diseases? We are (perhaps) seeing some of these now.
In the middle term, sea-level rise? Land lost to this? Widespread extinctions as animals are unable to adapt to the changes in climate?
I'd prefer that these things not happen, not just for my future self but as a general responsibility to the future people of our civilization.
If we are the cause of it (and a solid majority of scientists agree that we are) then we ought to stop doing the things that cause it, and start undoing them.
Even if we aren't the cause, we still ought to see what we can do to reduce and mitigate the effects.

[Texan] Are you wit' us or are you agin' us? [/Texan]