Friday, February 17, 2006
The Sky is Falling
The headlines are screaming--Global Warming Causing Glaciers in Greenland to Melt Quickly (or something like that). Run for your lives.
Although one of the divides between the parties is along the fault-line of global warming, the Republicans are not all knuckle-dragging cretins who wouldn't know science if you shoved it in their ears (just as not all Democrats are effete, fatuous emoters who will believe anything any scientist tells them as long as it's bad). We on the right know that it's gotten slightly warmer over the last 150 years or so and that some of the world's glaciers are in retreat (and that in the past 150 years the World's CO2 level has gone from 280 to 360 ppm, a 22% increase--while at the same time the population of the World increased from 1 billion to 6.4 billion, a 540% increase).
We also know that World CO2 levels have been much higher in the distant past (unfortunately, they were quite high during one of the worst mass extinctions in the fossil record) and even in the past 2000 years it has gotten warmer and then colder; the sea has risen and fallen; ice has formed and melted--all with no small effect on human civilizations (some have flourished--some have perished). Go back 15,000 years and it's a lot colder and a lot more of the World's water is locked up in mile deep ice sheets across the top of the North American, European and Asian Continents.
We also know that the sea level rising and falling in the past has been 80% the result of the fact that warm water takes up more space than cold water, and only 20% was the result of glaciers melting or freezing. We also know that currently 90% of the World's fresh water is locked up as ice in Antarctica (where although the Antarctic Peninsula is locally suffering some slight melting, the 7 mile deep ice sheets elsewhere in Antarctica are actually growing, as is the sea pack ice around Antarctica. So even if all the ice in Greenland melts and flows to the sea (which it won't), there will be only a tiny rise (I bet imperceptible) in the sea levels. Greenland obviously does not have the other 10% of the fresh water not in Antarctica; it has only a tiny percentage of the other 10%. That the decreased salinity, caused by fresh water ice melting, in the Northern Atlantic couldl disrupt the Gulf Stream and plunge Northern Europe into a severe deep freeze each winter is a much more interesting prospect, but it won't effect us here in the US, so who really cares?
A lot of the temperature increase is probably from better thermometers and that asphalt and concrete cities act like heat traps. Some is just as surely from increased CO2, and some may well be from the Sun burning just a bit hotter. I certainly don't know how much of the very slight global warming over the past 150 years is a result of human activity, but then again, neither does anyone else.
I do know that it's freaking cold in Denver tonight.
Although one of the divides between the parties is along the fault-line of global warming, the Republicans are not all knuckle-dragging cretins who wouldn't know science if you shoved it in their ears (just as not all Democrats are effete, fatuous emoters who will believe anything any scientist tells them as long as it's bad). We on the right know that it's gotten slightly warmer over the last 150 years or so and that some of the world's glaciers are in retreat (and that in the past 150 years the World's CO2 level has gone from 280 to 360 ppm, a 22% increase--while at the same time the population of the World increased from 1 billion to 6.4 billion, a 540% increase).
We also know that World CO2 levels have been much higher in the distant past (unfortunately, they were quite high during one of the worst mass extinctions in the fossil record) and even in the past 2000 years it has gotten warmer and then colder; the sea has risen and fallen; ice has formed and melted--all with no small effect on human civilizations (some have flourished--some have perished). Go back 15,000 years and it's a lot colder and a lot more of the World's water is locked up in mile deep ice sheets across the top of the North American, European and Asian Continents.
We also know that the sea level rising and falling in the past has been 80% the result of the fact that warm water takes up more space than cold water, and only 20% was the result of glaciers melting or freezing. We also know that currently 90% of the World's fresh water is locked up as ice in Antarctica (where although the Antarctic Peninsula is locally suffering some slight melting, the 7 mile deep ice sheets elsewhere in Antarctica are actually growing, as is the sea pack ice around Antarctica. So even if all the ice in Greenland melts and flows to the sea (which it won't), there will be only a tiny rise (I bet imperceptible) in the sea levels. Greenland obviously does not have the other 10% of the fresh water not in Antarctica; it has only a tiny percentage of the other 10%. That the decreased salinity, caused by fresh water ice melting, in the Northern Atlantic couldl disrupt the Gulf Stream and plunge Northern Europe into a severe deep freeze each winter is a much more interesting prospect, but it won't effect us here in the US, so who really cares?
A lot of the temperature increase is probably from better thermometers and that asphalt and concrete cities act like heat traps. Some is just as surely from increased CO2, and some may well be from the Sun burning just a bit hotter. I certainly don't know how much of the very slight global warming over the past 150 years is a result of human activity, but then again, neither does anyone else.
I do know that it's freaking cold in Denver tonight.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:23 PM 
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Hey Roger,
Been off in Frankfurt for a couple of weeks. This is a good strong post. Sorry but I have to point out an error in your methodology. An increase from 280 to 360 would be a 29% increase. If you figure the percent increase as the quotiant of the difference and the result (as you did: 80/360 is 22) your second example would read "the population of the planet increased from 1 billion to 6.4 billion (a 119% increase). The difference being divided by the result.
I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it.
I think the point, however, is that increasing the carbon level by nearly 30% in 150 years, while continuing to burn over 80,000,000 barrels of oil (not to mention huge amounts of coal, and a good chuck of forest land) each and every day, will eventually have SOME effect.
We can argue if it is getting colder or warmer, but it seems pretty clear that things are getting more intense, at least here in Europe. (By the way, I resent that comment about it only affecting Europe: I care!)
We had a 500 year flood, followed by the next year where we had a hundred year freeze. This year saw a record warm fall followed by a bitter cold, short, stormy winter (it is 45 today in Prague, balmy for Feburary). Record snow toppled roofs all over the country. Time to change the building codes.
Anyway, I'm glad you can see that anyone is foolish to purport to know what the outcome will be. I hope you can see that to continue down this path and do nothing and expect our weather not to change significantly is not very logical.
One thing I read postulates that we owe the level of civilization we enjoy today largely to the nearly unprecedented stability in tempurature coming out of the last ice age. Change has been gradual allowing for the development of societies and customs unhampered by climate disruptions. The earth, it was theorised, is currently experiencing a mechanisim that balances the temperature. Something like what is postulized in the articles you posted: a warming here creates the opposite somewhere else balancing things out.
Kind of like a skipping record.
Maybe we should try not to bump it too hard.
Stay warm and remember... Denver is supposed to be cold in Feburary. You don't want global warming do you?
Mike
Been off in Frankfurt for a couple of weeks. This is a good strong post. Sorry but I have to point out an error in your methodology. An increase from 280 to 360 would be a 29% increase. If you figure the percent increase as the quotiant of the difference and the result (as you did: 80/360 is 22) your second example would read "the population of the planet increased from 1 billion to 6.4 billion (a 119% increase). The difference being divided by the result.
I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it.
I think the point, however, is that increasing the carbon level by nearly 30% in 150 years, while continuing to burn over 80,000,000 barrels of oil (not to mention huge amounts of coal, and a good chuck of forest land) each and every day, will eventually have SOME effect.
We can argue if it is getting colder or warmer, but it seems pretty clear that things are getting more intense, at least here in Europe. (By the way, I resent that comment about it only affecting Europe: I care!)
We had a 500 year flood, followed by the next year where we had a hundred year freeze. This year saw a record warm fall followed by a bitter cold, short, stormy winter (it is 45 today in Prague, balmy for Feburary). Record snow toppled roofs all over the country. Time to change the building codes.
Anyway, I'm glad you can see that anyone is foolish to purport to know what the outcome will be. I hope you can see that to continue down this path and do nothing and expect our weather not to change significantly is not very logical.
One thing I read postulates that we owe the level of civilization we enjoy today largely to the nearly unprecedented stability in tempurature coming out of the last ice age. Change has been gradual allowing for the development of societies and customs unhampered by climate disruptions. The earth, it was theorised, is currently experiencing a mechanisim that balances the temperature. Something like what is postulized in the articles you posted: a warming here creates the opposite somewhere else balancing things out.
Kind of like a skipping record.
Maybe we should try not to bump it too hard.
Stay warm and remember... Denver is supposed to be cold in Feburary. You don't want global warming do you?
Mike
Thanks, Mike, math was never my strong point, but still the population increases more than fivefold while co2 goes up less than 30%. It's certainly not a 1 to 1 ratio. And I remain convinced, as I did 30 years ago when I first saw the increase in co2 that such a change will almost certainly have a result; but what result, huge or tiny, for the good or for the bad? We still don't know. It's a kind of hubris to think that we can do much to stop planetary climate change (or really much to start it, I think). Frankfurt am Main, huh? Not my favorite city. Enjoy your warm day in Prague as we shiver here a mile up.
Roger,
The thermometer in the tractor measured the outside ambient temperature @ minus 6 as I turned onto the trail last night. Not the minus 20 it read one day late last year but cold enough.
I come much closer to Mike than you here. Yes, the outcome may not be exactly knowable, but I think that we can agree that warming trend is responsible for the increase in severe weather we are experiencing world wide. To wit, warmer oceans engender more tropical storms hence the record # of named storms last year. As I recall @ least 2 of those had a rather severe impact in the US of which it is hard not to be reminded evreytime we pull up to the pump, although that increase has other causes, including but not linited to increased demand here and in Asia nad increased greed here.
It is not hubris to think we can stop planetary climate change even if we are in fact unable to slow it. On the other hand, it is classic hubris to ignore the effect of human activity on climate change.
Cheers,
T
The thermometer in the tractor measured the outside ambient temperature @ minus 6 as I turned onto the trail last night. Not the minus 20 it read one day late last year but cold enough.
I come much closer to Mike than you here. Yes, the outcome may not be exactly knowable, but I think that we can agree that warming trend is responsible for the increase in severe weather we are experiencing world wide. To wit, warmer oceans engender more tropical storms hence the record # of named storms last year. As I recall @ least 2 of those had a rather severe impact in the US of which it is hard not to be reminded evreytime we pull up to the pump, although that increase has other causes, including but not linited to increased demand here and in Asia nad increased greed here.
It is not hubris to think we can stop planetary climate change even if we are in fact unable to slow it. On the other hand, it is classic hubris to ignore the effect of human activity on climate change.
Cheers,
T
# posted by 
: 7:39 AM
: 7:39 AM
Suffice to say, any major change is bad. Can we agree on that?
Too hot, flooded citys,
Too cold, ports left high and dry.
Frankfurt am Main is not my favorite city, but I had to give it credit, I was able to drive right through the center at 930 am the day before the biggest show that they have (about 150,000 visitors). Throughout the show, public transport could handle the people and the freeways were clear.
Things worked.
It was refreshing.
Too hot, flooded citys,
Too cold, ports left high and dry.
Frankfurt am Main is not my favorite city, but I had to give it credit, I was able to drive right through the center at 930 am the day before the biggest show that they have (about 150,000 visitors). Throughout the show, public transport could handle the people and the freeways were clear.
Things worked.
It was refreshing.
Tony, I'm going to stick with hubris to think we can have much of an impact on world wide and a lesser hubris to think we can know what our impact, if any will be. The storms you blame on global warming seem a regular 22 year sunspot pattern to me. Tough to talk you out of your belief though
And Mike, not all change is bad. But if CO2 gets too high, we can build giant scrubbers and put them anywhere out of the way--Northern Nevada, Saskatchawan, shallow oceans. We'll be OK.
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And Mike, not all change is bad. But if CO2 gets too high, we can build giant scrubbers and put them anywhere out of the way--Northern Nevada, Saskatchawan, shallow oceans. We'll be OK.
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