Global Warming

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Link to projections on sea levels

One thing this page mentions is that the ice sheets on Antartica could produce a rapid collapse. What they don't mention is the size of the tsunami that would result from such a rapid collapse. I notice that much of Australia's population is along the coastline. Does your government have plans? Is there a tsunami warning system in place?

Here's an interesting interactive map showing what areas will flood. There's an option to change the map for how many meters of sea level rising. Zoom out to get the world map, then click on anywhere in the world, and zoom down to the street where you live.
world flood map
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[Katy]

Well, the good news is I survive global warming.
The bad news is my parents' vacation home won't, and the part of my family left near NYC and in Florida won't. Actually - it's far less dramatic than I thought it was going to be.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Keep in mind it isn't just the flooding itself, but especially if it is a rapid flood, all the debris, pollution, and stench of dead bodies both of those who couldn't get out in time, and of the fish that will die from all the sudden pollution from the waterfront properties (including such establishments as gas stations).
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[Katy]

Keep in mind it isn't just the flooding itself, but especially if it is a rapid flood, all the debris, pollution, and stench of dead bodies both of those who couldn't get out in time, and of the fish that will die from all the sudden pollution from the waterfront properties (including such establishments as gas stations).
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Just how rapid is a rapid flood? I was under the impression it was still years, just not decades or centuries.

Anyway, I recognize that rising sea levels are suspected to be the result of global warming looking at fossils and stuff... what I can't figure out is why. i mean, there's water coming in from the icecaps, yes, but... that's ice melting. Think about it. Take a glass and fill it with ice. Fill it with water. Watch it sit there. Let the ice melt. Look at the water level. Water level went down, not up. Why is it different on earth?

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Just how rapid is a rapid flood? I was under the impression it was still years, just not decades or centuries.

It is likely still years from now, but maybe not even a decade. By "rapid flood" I mean that if a substantial amount of ice falls into the water at once, we are talking about a tidal wave, and the final flood lines will not recede. Not all of the ice is under water. Some is on land, and some is floating above water (which could break away and fall in). This is where the water that will raise the oceans is coming from. Although it would be years from now, the actual flooding could take place in minutes.

Now if only there were a way to take a huge quantity of that while it was still ice and transport it to areas where there are droughts, that would at least reduce the raising of the sea levels. The reason heavy rains cause flooding in areas that have been in a drought is that dry land does not absorb moisture as well as moist land - it just runs off. Water takes time to seep into the land and make it feritle again. If they could take the ice shelf and transport some of it to Australia, where there is a drought, and drop the rest of it on - I think it was Africa - that has the perpetual huge forest fires, that would both use up enough water to prevent some of the flooding, and reduce the emissions contributing to global warming by the forest fires themselves. That water would be absorbed into the land instead, like a dry sponge.
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[Katy]

I don't know - I don't think that would really be any better. I think we're better off not messing with the environment any more than we have to. What if we make that land moist again but that increases evaporation and makes the monsoons worse, or changes where/when the monsoons land and ruin the agriculture of India or South East Asia? Not saying that's what would happen, but rather that the weather is pretty much completely unpredictable even in the short term (look how badly we do at predicting where hurricanes will land, for instance) so it would really be pretty impossible to predict the effects of such a drastic project.

Anyway, I still think global cooling has a good chance of occuring - cold fresh water from melting ice caps interrupts the gulf stream and freezes Europe followed by the rest of us - so again, I wouldn't really want to mess with it.

The earth has been here a long time with or without us - we're barely a second of its life. Some of us and some of our cities might die, but it's not the end of the world.

[brokenhead]

Katy wrote:

Anyway, I recognize that rising sea levels are suspected to be the result of global warming looking at fossils and stuff... what I can't figure out is why. i mean, there's water coming in from the icecaps, yes, but... that's ice melting. Think about it. Take a glass and fill it with ice. Fill it with water. Watch it sit there. Let the ice melt. Look at the water level. Water level went down, not up. Why is it different on earth?

Water is less dense than ice. When the ice in the glass becomes water, it takes up less volume, therefore the level goes down. In the open, the situation is different. Because ice is less dense than water, most of it is above sea level. It floats. When that immense volume melts it has to go somewhere.
But you are quite right in saying we should perturb nature as little as possible.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

The northern hemisphere just experienced its warmest winter on record and yet, 12% of North Americans have not even heard of global warming.

I'm not too sure they know exactly what is going to happen, since some sources say Europe may enter another ice age, and this source says that if emissions are not turned around in 10 years, European summers could become "unbearably hot."
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[Jamesh]

We could probably fit a few 10's of million tonnes of ice BACK into the Oz artesian basin

http://www.nrw.qld.gov.au/water/gab/

Many bores initially flowed at rates of over 10 megalitres per day (ML/d). However, the majority of flows are now between 0.01 and 6 ML/d. Total flow from the Basin reached a peak of over 2 000 ML/d around 1915, from approximately 1 500 bores. Since then, artesian pressure and water discharge rates have declined, while the number of bores has increased. The total flow from the basin during 2000 was in the order of 1500 megalitres per day.

[Faust]

hahah you're kidding me. Global warming's a phony hype, all those scientists are getting new nice jobs and they want to keep it that way. It's not going to happen, the evidence is not even that good. And Antarctica has been experiencing a cooling effect recently.

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=global+warming

[Nordicvs]

hahah you're kidding me. Global warming's a phony hype, all those scientists are getting new nice jobs and they want to keep it that way.

You're obviously young or from a hot climate, or both; it has been warming and it's continuing. Those in northern regions feel it the most because winters have shrunk and it's more obvious (whereas before we'd get one sorta warmish winter every five, six years, it's now the opposite---one cold winter every five-six years); precipitation in my region has dropped from 19 inches per year (1920 to 1970, when I was born) to barely 10. These are the climatic shifts that occur in what we (inaccurately, granted) call "global warming." A desert is forming in the southern part of the province where before it was just prairie.

Very wet regions get wetter (providing their forest cover isn't being bulldozed---much precipitation is generated from the plant portion of the biosphere, as well as serving as the planet's natural air filtration system), moderately dry areas get drier, warm areas get hot, and hot areas get hotter. Also, storm activity (and severity) increases as a result. All of this has been tediously documented---it's a pity that people like you poo-pooh it ignorantly and then go back to swaying their asses to Moby.

Not to mention the ozone hole that's been forming since the late '80s over northern North America---increased skin cancer reports per capita is staggering evidence; I personally can attest to (as a former sun-tanner) never before having need of sunblock until 1993, during which I received second degree burns after half the time I'd usually spend out in it (a couple years earlier), which never happened before in my life.

Millions of cities weather stats over the last two decades is more evidence, not to mention rising sea levels.

Perhaps don't be so dismissive and blasé unless you've actually given this more than one snotty moment's thought, hey?

It's not going to happen, the evidence is not even that good. And Antarctica has been experiencing a cooling effect recently.

Bullshit. There are fucking plants growing in Anarctica where---for over 20 million years---there were glaciers and thick ice packs and snow.

You think one cool year means it's all bosh? Mean global averages change all the time---fuckwads twist these stats to "prove" that global warming is crap so companies can be feminine and not take responsibility for their despicable and reckless ecocide. (Big companies actually hire "scientists" to do this.) Things like volcanoes erupting, for example, cause seasonal variances in mean averages that attribute to a year that doesn't break the previous year's record high temperature.

What's more likely---that "global warming" is a vast conspiracy to generate a few million in revenue to sell some products that people stop buying after a few years anyway or just lose interest in, or that it's called crap by vast multinational multi-billion-dollar corporations who collectively possess the ethics of a maggot-ridden corpse and hire child labour from third world nations, move a franchise into a country with water-shortage problems, buying up the land legally that has water and then selling it back to the people in the form of Coca-Cola, who lie about the lies they spin to increase profit margins, employ teams of demographic analysts and psychologist flunkies and public relations whores who all help polish their overall putrid image into one of "green" or "earth-friendly," all with a big shit-eating grin; who shirk work-codes concerning worker safety to save money, and would sooner kill, then fuck, their own mothers than spend a dime to store waste properly rather than simply and cheaply dumping it into a river or someone's backyard...?

Anyone who goes by the name of Faust should be swift enough to figure that one out...

[Philosophaster]

i mean, there's water coming in from the icecaps, yes, but... that's ice melting. Think about it. Take a glass and fill it with ice. Fill it with water. Watch it sit there. Let the ice melt. Look at the water level. Water level went down, not up. Why is it different on earth?

Under normal circumstances, there is a lot of ice above the level of the ocean. As long as the ice is above the level of the water, it does not affect the water-level (like holding an ice cube above a glass). When chunks of an ice shelf drop off into the ocean, the entire block of ice is now below or at the level of the rest of the ocean, which means it displaces (or turns into) more water.

[Philosophaster]

Water is less dense than ice. When the ice in the glass becomes water, it takes up less volume, therefore the level goes down.

Actually, liquid water is more dense than ice. Ice spreads the same amount of mass over a larger volume (is "less dense"), which is why plastic bottles full of water will sometimes crack if you leave them in the freezer. Here is a simple explanation of why liquid water is denser (takes up less volume per unit of mass) than ice.

[Nick Treklis]

Scientifically I can't prove anything either way about global warming on my own, but I can say this. Summers have been getting longer and hotter, and winters have been getting shorter and warmer. This years "winter" lasted a grand total of one month. Which is one month (January) in which temperatures consistently remained at or below freezing. It was nearly 50 degrees at the begining of the year, and have had only a few days since the end of January where it was below freezing. I remember freezing temperatures lasting from mid november all the way through mid march up until 10 years ago. I certainly don't remember 90-100 degree temperatures lasting for a solid month and a half from the begining of July through the middle of August. I live in Michigan! This is not normal for a state of this lattitude. The Earth's temperature is rising whether it's our fault or just a normal cycle, although I'm very inclined to believe it's the former.

And oh yeah, I hardly ever got sun burns when I was younger and hardly ever used sun screen, but I have also recieved not only second, but THIRD degree burns twice from being out in the sun over the past two summers.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

A third degree sunburn is quite a trick - I only managed a tiny spot of that once in Florida.

The winter here has been weird. Usually we get one freeze, but we didn't get one this year. Usually we only get one week of sweater weather. We've had that off and on since November this year. By "off and on" I mean it would go from a high in the 40's for a few days to a high of upper 80's for a few days - sometimes complete with summer-pattern rains (Florida normally rains from 2 - 4 p.m. in the summers - although it was off pattern last summer). A nearly 50 degree variance within a week, repeatedly over a course of months is pretty hefty (with, of course, massive winds in between each major shift), but overall, the weather has been extra nice this winter.

hahah you're kidding me. Global warming's a phony hype, all those scientists are getting new nice jobs and they want to keep it that way. It's not going to happen, the evidence is not even that good. And Antarctica has been experiencing a cooling effect recently.

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=global+warming

Here is the rebuttal to that video.
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[Jamesh]

Although global warming may or may not be demonstrably caused by man does it really matter when we also have the problems of pollution to solve. I'm pretty sure the "proofs" of those of oppose man-made global warming are as skewed as those who beleive the opposite - they tend to limit the scope of the subject matter to specific areas and in the process reality becomes hidden.

I have a preference that life should remain varied - too many species are dying off.

Without a massive exaggeration of the man made causes of global warming creating a focus "on the environment" there is no chance that things like land clearing will be minimised, and money put into developing ways of clearing pollutants from waste material.

The world actually needs global warming to provide a causal agent to limit population growth. Down the track, it may also be a strong enough issue that it has an effect on our unchecked consumption desires.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Well we don't bear any responsibility about the solar flares, etc. which are obviously contributing factors - but beyond that, the temperature is going higher than ever before. I watched the video, and they glossed over that the warm period they were talking about was not as warm as it is now.

Yes, CO2 is only a small part of the atmosphere, but it is an important part. Would you like one drop of arsenic in your soup, or two? We live in a biosphere. CO2 is a natural waste product, but so is feces. We have to deal with all that we produce, whether it is CO2 or feces. Actually, plants do a good job of dealing with that for us.... The thing is looking at how we are overwhelming the plants... with plants, of all things...



(okay the pun was gratuitous, but it was begging to be put here)
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[Nordicvs]

i mean, there's water coming in from the icecaps, yes, but... that's ice melting. Think about it. Take a glass and fill it with ice. Fill it with water. Watch it sit there. Let the ice melt. Look at the water level. Water level went down, not up. Why is it different on earth?

Under normal circumstances, there is a lot of ice above the level of the ocean. As long as the ice is above the level of the water, it does not affect the water-level (like holding an ice cube above a glass). When chunks of an ice shelf drop off into the ocean, the entire block of ice is now below or at the level of the rest of the ocean, which means it displaces (or turns into) more water.

True. Evidence is pretty clear and straightforward of low sea levels at the last glacial maximum (and the world-wide flooding that resulted as the glaciers retreated from the northern Eurasian and American continents, flooding the land bridges from Russia-Alaska, England-Europe, as well as Australia-South East Asia). All that ice, as it was in Antarctica (which is a landmass, on top of all that, unlike the Arctic), gets piled up far above sea level, and centuries of snow add to it's thickness.

The world actually needs global warming to provide a causal agent to limit population growth. Down the track, it may also be a strong enough issue that it has an effect on our unchecked consumption desires.

You're looking at this in terms of a natural biosphere in which all its creatures are going their business without awareness of much; there is a bald monkey species that has taken over Nature's "job," and is fretfully preoccupied with self-preservation: humans will not stop overpopulating so long as there is technology, adequate food supplies, motivation to continue it; Nature's left out of the loop, and thus an arid Earth is something we might survive, for a while, at the expense of the entire biosphere.

While this is great for feeding our "planet saviour" complex, our egos, as I'm sure more "conservation areas" will be set up to pay lip service to the idea and shut up all those hypocritical environmentalists, it's really a foolish way to manage a planetary ecosystem. Nature does an infinitely wiser job at managing that alone.

But our arrogance and greed won't let us stop manipulating it all...

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

While this is great for feeding our "planet saviour" complex, our egos, as I'm sure more "conservation areas" will be set up to pay lip service to the idea and shut up all those hypocritical environmentalists, it's really a foolish way to manage a planetary ecosystem. Nature does an infinitely wiser job at managing that alone.

Why do you have such great faith in that if we leave nature alone, everything will be alright? Nature has a tendency to decay, but nature has also given us intelligence, which we can grow and survive.

Fires, left alone with insufficient fuel being added, tend to burn out. Why would you think our sun is any different? What if our sun used to be larger - Earth would have been hotter, molten - like has been suggested that the earth once was before human life "developed" here. A planet in our solar system further away from our sun would have had an atmosphere more like what Earth has now. A planet further away - like Mars, which they are discovering used to have a habitable atmosphere, and they are finding things that look suspiciously like civilization might once have been there... What if we came from Mars, but when that planet was dying, there was only enough ability to evacuate one ship, or maybe there were more ships that opted for different destinations, as no one knew for sure if Earth or any other place would be hospitable enough for the human race to survive (maybe we took some plants/animals with us, too - who knows the details at this point). Maybe it was so last-minute (humans have a tendency to go into denial that a major catastrophe could actually happen) that most of the records were lost, and at the beginning of our habitation of Earth, survival was so much more important than knowledge of the past - and parents probably wanted to protect their children from knowledge of the horrors of the past and our lost home planet - so the children could adjust better, and maybe also because the adults were not strong enough to talk about it. We might have brought a little something with us - like the Vedas - but mostly it has been day-to-day living for the past few thousand years, so by now much of that time period would be lost.

As for Lucy and the "missing link" - as far as I understand the origins of HIV, it was passes on to the human species through contact with apes. Apes are closely genetically related, so maybe some kinky human/ape sex produced some offspring. Maybe the reason they can't completely trace the development of humans is because the true origins are on Mars - or maybe even some other abandoned planet from another burned out sun.

The Infinite has been around forever, so it's reasonable to assume there was a lot that happened that we don't exactly know about.
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[Katy]

As for Lucy and the "missing link" - as far as I understand the origins of HIV, it was passes on to the human species through contact with apes. Apes are closely genetically related, so maybe some kinky human/ape sex produced some offspring. Maybe the reason they can't completely trace the development of humans is because the true origins are on Mars - or maybe even some other abandoned planet from another burned out sun.

passed from apes to humans because humans were eating apes, not because they were screwing them!! Besides, that's relatively recent... The earliest evidence of AIDS was 1959. Comparing mutation rates and strains of HIV, it appears that it probably did not exist in humans prior to the end of ww1 at the very earliest.


And different species can't have viable offspring. Other apes and humans had a common ancestor. One didn't evolve from the other. For what you're suggesting, humans would have to have come from Mars and then de-evolved into chimps conveniently leaving all the evidence that fundies like to ignore about our evolution...

The Infinite has been around forever, so it's reasonable to assume there was a lot that happened that we don't exactly know about.
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Yes, but also reasonable to believe there are some things we do know about. :)

[Philosophaster]

And different species can't have viable offspring.

That depends on how you define "species." Lions and tigers can sometimes mate and produce viable offspring, for example. Female "ligers" are often fertile.

[Nordicvs]

Why do you have such great faith in that if we leave nature alone, everything will be alright?

1. I just know.

2. Nature is but a franchise for Life on this planet---untold eons of experience perfected its checks and balances, far beyond our comprehension. It knows what it's doing. Left alone it works fine.

3. We are ego-driven control freaks---Nature 'looks out' for everything; we look after our interests, only.

4. It's not a matter of it being 'alright'---it's an issue of naturality. Human settlements have come and gone over time---we're unearthing mounds and sites all the time, at some point manipulated to fuck by humans, rendered asunder for one reason or another---and every time Nature returns in these places, bringing life and balance back to it.

5. The quest for it to be 'alright' is part of our problem.

Nature has a tendency to decay, but nature has also given us intelligence, which we can grow and survive.

Sure, it does. Decay is a natural part of the cycle of life; death is as vital for life as much as "life" is for life. (With our beserk engrossment in "saving" life we've overpopulated, tipped the scales, made quite the mess.)

Frankly, what we praise ourselves with in terms of "intelligence" seems to me an oxymoron.

Every other species on this planet, well, each that hasn't been conquered and enslaved by us, is far wiser.

Our ultra-consciousness is both our doomsday curse and greatest hope.

But then again, we're still an infant of a species, "babes out of the woods," and civilized humans in particular think they know far more than they actually do, severely limited by ego, arrogance. So, I'm not a humanist masculist; I'm a naturalist masculist. Humans are rather pathetic and predictable; natural creatures are far more sound and deserving of my respect, as is the masculine---the last bridge between what was natural and what is unnatural.

Fires, left alone with insufficient fuel being added, tend to burn out. Why would you think our sun is any different?

I don't. Stars die, others pop up. Life has 3 or 4 billion years left here, they say, barring some catastrophic occurance... then it's gone, maybe stuck dormant in some chunk of rock, adrift in space until its seeds get planted elsewhere.

What if our sun used to be larger - Earth would have been hotter, molten - like has been suggested that the earth once was before human life "developed" here. A planet in our solar system further away from our sun would have had an atmosphere more like what Earth has now. A planet further away - like Mars, which they are discovering used to have a habitable atmosphere,

Oh, sure---I don't doubt that. I think there is life on Mars right now. Our definition of life is fairly pale and small, limited; we have no clue what's out there. Some of the satellite photos I've seen of detailed surfaces of Mars gives me a sense that why we're letting geologists control Mars investigations and study---and not biologists or exobiologists---means that others suspect life is still extant and afraid of how that will weigh on humanity's arrogant, self-absorbed little mind.

Most scientists agree: where there is water, there will be or already is life. Frozen or no. Insects can be frozen for long periods of time and re-animate themselves once thawed. Simplier forms of life survive even more harsh, severe, brutal conditions---to think there isn't life on Mars is silly. Bacteria just refuses to be contained, controlled, or wiped out. Here is a superior form of life.

(Once Sol begins to go nova/supernova, engulfing Earth, it's estimated that Mars will be habitable again for a few million years. So, even if humans never make it there, whatever is there might get a second shot at evolution.)

and they are finding things that look suspiciously like civilization might once have been there... What if we came from Mars, but when that planet was dying, there was only enough ability to evacuate one ship, or maybe there were more ships that opted for different destinations, as no one knew for sure if Earth or any other place would be hospitable enough for the human race to survive (maybe we took some plants/animals with us, too - who knows the details at this point). Maybe it was so last-minute (humans have a tendency to go into denial that a major catastrophe could actually happen) that most of the records were lost, and at the beginning of our habitation of Earth, survival was so much more important than knowledge of the past - and parents probably wanted to protect their children from knowledge of the horrors of the past and our lost home planet - so the children could adjust better, and maybe also because the adults were not strong enough to talk about it. We might have brought a little something with us - like the Vedas - but mostly it has been day-to-day living for the past few thousand years, so by now much of that time period would be lost.

The Vedas isn't that old. Anyway, it's not like I haven't thought all that before---life could have come here from meteorites (before Earth's atmosphere was complete, our planet looked very much like the moon, bombarded constantly with stellar debris), or formed independently from inorganic compounds.

It's quite possible Mars once had a civilization; I've examined all this so-called evidence (and "the face"), all of which can be explained, except for a five-sided, symmetrical "pyramid"---this thing---that never sat right me as a naturally occuring rock formation. Too smooth, too symmetrical. And it's possible that's where homo sapiens came from originally. No proof, but it's interesting to speculate about...

We'll never know by sending stupid robots there, however.

(Or maybe an alien stopped here long ago for a camp-out and took a crap somewhere and that's how life began. It's as possible as any other theory.)

As for Lucy and the "missing link" - as far as I understand the origins of HIV, it was passes on to the human species through contact with apes. Apes are closely genetically related, so maybe some kinky human/ape sex produced some offspring. Maybe the reason they can't completely trace the development of humans is because the true origins are on Mars - or maybe even some other abandoned planet from another burned out sun.

The Infinite has been around forever, so it's reasonable to assume there was a lot that happened that we don't exactly know about.

Yep. (Katy covered the HIV bit.) I wouldn't argue against any of that---again, though, you're completely homocentric here and only looking at life in terms of bipedal types like us. Might as well be called "Star Trek Syndrome"---every species worthy of interest looks exactly like us (except with wrinkled noses or funky foreheads). What limited imagination...

Well, I guess a species as awry as ours needs something to feel good about...

[Katy]

1. I just know.

This is the second time you've tried to use this as an argument in this forum. I'm begining to think you don't know the definition of science since "just know" is what fundamentalists say, not what scientists say.

Here, let me help you with that definition a bit

[Nordicvs]

1. I just know.

This is the second time you've tried to use this as an argument in this forum. I'm begining to think you don't know the definition of science since "just know" is what fundamentalists say, not what scientists say.

Here, let me help you with that definition a bit

I put 5 points there, and this is what you pick out as evidence of "trying to use as an argument?" Her fucking question was about "faith" anyway---what's that have to do with science?

Things I can prove I already know, and things I know I can prove.

I wouldn't expect you to comprehend things like perception, instinct, intuition, and such. I can arrive at a logical conclusion regarding something or I can randomly go on hunches and feel my way through something. Ultimately I arrive at the same place, no matter which I employ first.

So, feel free to attack the other four...

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Antartic melting may be speeding up

"There have been doomsday scenarios that west Antarctica could collapse quite quickly. And there's six meters of sea level in west Antarctica," says Tas van Ommen, a glaciologist at the Hobart-based Australian Antarctic Division.