Look at this "Global Warming"

[Eric Demory]

Global warming has been occuring since the beginning of life on Earth. Our involvement doesn't seem to be helping out because we have goofballs who think they can solve anything while taking care of the situation.

Let's take a year off from associating with this global warming and see the results. If the results come in positive, we'll keep on staying on our side away from global warming. If the results come out negative, we'll kick Al Gore out and bring in a group of intelligent people who've studied at least ten years of science in college.

 

[TenEightyOne]

This is Georgia, where it rarely snows, and we just got a little blanket of snow, and it's going strong.
View attachment 107614

So, which part of global warming causing greater extremes in world climate is that? The snowy bit, I'd say. It's not a universal warmth so don't invest too heavily in cocktail umbrellas JUST yet

 

[Roger the Horse]

Climate change is far preferable terminology to global warming as it makes clear that the climate is not universally getting warmer across the planet, however, global warming is technically correct as a term because GLOBAL average temperatures have been rising.

 

[homeforsummer]

Let's take a year off from associating with this global warming and see the results. If the results come in positive, we'll keep on staying on our side away from global warming.

And in that sentence you've proved you know nothing about it.

"Taking a year off" would have little more effective difference than a year "on". Global climate forces are very long, drawn-out processes whose results are far too dispersed to be accurately determined after a year's observation. I'm not sure what you'd propose we do, anyway - burn fossil fuels willy-nilly just to see what happens? Make people drive cars that do half as many miles to every gallon? Get everyone to leave every light in their house on all night?

The global warming debate would be much more productive if people who don't have a clue about how the climate works kept their noses out of it. People dim enough to think humankind has no effect are equally as bad as those who think humans are solely responsible for climate change.

 

[Eric Demory]

What I meant was to live our daily lives without getting involved with trying to come up with solutions to reduce the rate of global warming for a year and calculate the results afterwards. That's all I meant.

I do have a clue about the situation. Calling one, who engages in the conversation, clueless is by far ignorant when they are giving their opinion. You respect my opinion, I'll respect you're opinion.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Climate change is far preferable terminology to global warming as it makes clear that the climate is not universally getting warmer across the planet, however, global warming is technically correct as a term because GLOBAL average temperatures have been rising.

Climate change is the preferred terminology when there's no longer any global warming but people want to save face and run around claiming they're right because there was a particularly cold winter or a hurricane or a couple of tornadoes. Sort of like when this happens after crying about global warming for so long:

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/12/18/no-global-warming-for-17-years-3-months-a-monckton-analysis/

 

[eSZee]

Our planet goes through long periods of colds and long periods of warms. Tens of thousands of years. Currently we are in a warming period, I believe, the problem is that the warming period should have ended a couple thousand years ago and we should be in a cooling period.

 

[Imari]

Our planet goes through long periods of colds and long periods of warms. Tens of thousands of years. Currently we are in a warming period, I believe, the problem is that the warming period should have ended a couple thousand years ago and we should be in a cooling period.

Damn polluting Romans! If only they'd had the foresight to not burn fossil fuels at such a wasteful rate, and use green energy like solar and hydro!

With my sarcasm mode disengaged, global warming/climate change tends to have a word skipped at the start, ANTHROPOGENIC global warming/climate change. Most of the fuss is around the way that humans and their lifestyles/industries are messing with the climate (or not).

There's also stuff about long term climate trends and such similar to what you're referring to, but it generally doesn't make the news. Doesn't make terribly good headlines.

 

[giorgos21]

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate_by_any_other_name.html

 

[eSZee]

Industrialization is definitely having a negative effect.
I honestly don't remember a lot from my EnviroBio classes but some of the stuff blew me away. CO2 emissions hang around in the atmosphere for over a 100 years I believe. So the crap we're burning up will be hanging around another century. That in turn blocks photons form the sun or space or something and also prevents some things from escaping from earth. Photons or something or other. This affects the climate and such things.
uhm, yeah

 

[homeforsummer]

What I meant was to live our daily lives without getting involved with trying to come up with solutions to reduce the rate of global warming for a year and calculate the results afterwards. That's all I meant.

And I've already given my reply: There will be no measurable result after a year. Thinking there will be grossly misunderstands the way the earth's climate works.

Part of the huge problem of understanding whether anthropogenic global warming is a thing is that scientists are struggling to spot trends in periods of a hundred years or more. Thinking we'll be able to make a snap decision based on one year of inactivity is ludicrous.

I do have a clue about the situation.

Not judging by the message I replied to.

Calling one, who engages in the conversation, clueless is by far ignorant when they are giving their opinion. You respect my opinion, I'll respect you're opinion.

Sorry, that's not how this works. For your opinion to be worthy of respect you need to demonstrate you're capable of making a sensible argument. The post I replied to displayed no such capability.

 

[Imari]

CO2 emissions hang around in the atmosphere for over a 100 years I believe.

CO2 (and anything else in the atmosphere) hangs around until something happens to it, either it reacts chemically, breaks down, is incorporated into some other structure (eg. plants) or escapes the planet entirely.

Average time spent in the atmosphere may be 100+ years.

Interesting fact: CO2 is a far smaller proportion of the atmosphere than most people think it is.

That in turn blocks photons form the sun or space or something and also prevents some things from escaping from earth. Photons or something or other.

Particulates block the sun, and actually cause cooling.

CO2s mechanism is that the band of energy it absorbs is what is emitted by the earth. Energy arrives from the sun mostly as visible and UV, to which CO2 is transparent so it lets them through. But that energy is then re-radiated from the earth as infrared, which CO2 is highly absorptive of. Heat stays trapped in the atmosphere, causing what is called the greenhouse effect.

The Greenhouse effect is actually very important, because without it the Earth would be bloody freezing. It's one of those Goldilocks things, it can't be too hot or too cold, it has to be just right.

This affects the climate and such things. uhm, yeah

Yeah, and that's about the state of the art on it.

If it was as easy as "more CO2 = warmer", there'd be no problem. We've got an entire ecosystem that's organised itself to stay within a range of fairly livable parameters for the last however many million years. Learning how that system interacts with what are essentially external forces (and we're not the only one, the sun is pretty variable at times too) is a big job, and the news tends to exaggerate how well current technology is able to actually predict effects on such a large and complex system.

 

[Touring Mars]

Interesting fact: CO2 is a far smaller proportion of the atmosphere than most people think it is.

It's one of those Goldilocks things, it can't be too hot or too cold, it has to be just right.

We've got an entire ecosystem that's organised itself to stay within a range of fairly livable parameters for the last however many million years.

CO2 is only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere - just shy of 400 parts per million (ppm) right now. But that is some way above 'normal'. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied massively over the history of the planet, but in times relevant to humanity (e.g. the last few hundred thousand years, say), the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has stayed fairly low, around the 280 ppm mark. The effect that this increase has on global temperatures is not entirely known, but the fact that CO2 levels are alot higher than they were just 200 years ago cannot be explained by natural mechanisms alone (and can be more readily explained when human activity is taken into account).

Your other two points above highlight for me what the danger is in making such changes to the ecosystem without any regard for the consequences (although I don't mean to sound like this has been done on purpose...). I fully agree with your Goldilocks analogy - it has to be just right... all the more reason then to be extremely cautious about making changes, either accidentally or on purpose. We've already done the 'accidentally' bit - unfortunately, many proposed solutions involve 'on purpose' changes, which could (and probably would) be just as dangerous.

Every living thing on Earth today owes its existence to the fact that the Earth's ecosystem has provided a suitable environment for them to survive and thrive. Of course, natural climate change will always ensure that species come and go as their environments change accordingly. But that we don't fully understand how the climate system responds to any particular forcing (either natural or manmade) is not a good reason to assume that everything will be OK - if anything, it is a good reason to be extremely cautious (or at the very least aware/mindful) of the potential impact of tinkering with a system that we utterly depend on. Climate change always has and always will happen, but the danger is that we do (and most likely already have done) something that provokes a climatic response on a timescale that our society (and alot of animal life) might struggle to cope with.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Every living thing on Earth today owes its existence to the fact that the Earth's ecosystem has provided a suitable environment for them to survive...

Exactly this.

The benefit of being in the Goldilocks Zone is of course a stable water supply, essential for our lifeforms to survive. Water only constitutes something like 0.002% of the planet (figure from rough memory, I'll check it out) so it's actually a pretty marginal amount when you look at the world's ecosystem as a whole and it's annual estimated energy throughput.

I think there's little doubt that eventually the Earth will become too hot to support life, and that that would happen regardless of the intervention of the rock-crawlers. We are, however, accelerating the process artificially and ultimately shortening the overall period of human life by potentially thousands of years.

That's a mere blink of an atom in the scheme of things, but that's not the point.

 

[Imari]

CO2 is only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere - just shy of 400 parts per million (ppm) right now. But that is some way above 'normal'. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have varied massively over the history of the planet, but in times relevant to humanity (e.g. the last few hundred thousand years, say), the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has stayed fairly low, around the 280 ppm mark. The effect that this increase has on global temperatures is not entirely known, but the fact that CO2 levels are alot higher than they were just 200 years ago cannot be explained by natural mechanisms alone (and can be more readily explained when human activity is taken into account).

Your other two points above highlight for me what the danger is in making such changes to the ecosystem without any regard for the consequences (although I don't mean to sound like this has been done on purpose...). I fully agree with your Goldilocks analogy - it has to be just right... all the more reason then to be extremely cautious about making changes, either accidentally or on purpose. We've already done the 'accidentally' bit - unfortunately, many proposed solutions involve 'on purpose' changes, which could (and probably would) be just as dangerous.

Every living thing on Earth today owes its existence to the fact that the Earth's ecosystem has provided a suitable environment for them to survive and thrive. Of course, natural climate change will always ensure that species come and go as their environments change accordingly. But that we don't fully understand how the climate system responds to any particular forcing (either natural or manmade) is not a good reason to assume that everything will be OK - if anything, it is a good reason to be extremely cautious (or at the very least aware/mindful) of the potential impact of tinkering with a system that we utterly depend on. Climate change always has and always will happen, but the danger is that we do (and most likely already have done) something that provokes a climatic response on a timescale that our society (and alot of animal life) might struggle to cope with.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think there's this mindset that the climate is this fragile thing. Maybe it is, but I find it unlikely that the climate has remained relatively liveable for however many millions of years if it's really on a knife edge. As far as I know there have been eruptions and the like in the past that have at least for short periods driven particulates and CO2 far beyond anything humans have managed.

And this is sort of the thing. If the climate responded directly to CO2, we'd all be boned already. We don't know what the ecosystem is capable of dealing with, long term or short term. It's wise to play it safe if possible, but at the same time there's no real reason to think that we're in a doomsday scenario.

I'd refer again to the recycling boom. When that was in full swing, the press would tell you that if we didn't all start recycling the planet would be unliveable by our children's generation. That turned out to be a load of twaddle, and actually all that was needed was some moderate effort to live more sustainably with respect to resources.

I see the climate change movement as the same thing. It's not a doomsday scenario, it's simply something that we should incorporate into our lives. Be mindful of how you use power. Consider whether you really need to buy new goods, or if you can get used. Think about your transport options. Etc.


Re: modern CO2 staying below ~280ppm. That's more or less true of the time period you say, the last few hundred thousand years. But there's been similar lifeforms on earth for millions of years and the CO2 has potentially been as high as several thousand ppm, although obviously the margin for error is fairly high on measurements that old. The models run a little lower, but still in the 1-2 thousand ppm range at peak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

That's the best image of it, but the data is drawn from: http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf

I'm ignoring the very early days where the earth was likely unlivable for most of the species extant today. But about 300 million years ago it wasn't so very different to today, and the variation between then and now is enormous.

 

[Dotini]

Climate change always has and always will happen, but the danger is that we do (and most likely already have done) something that provokes a climatic response on a timescale that our society (and alot of animal life) might struggle to cope with.

Humans, and other animals, have lived on Earth for millions of years. Ice ages have regularly come and gone many times over. The customary response to dramatic climate change has been migration to more hospitable climes. But for humans, migration has recently been constrained by artificial constructs called nation-states with their laws and borders. It will be interesting to see how humanity adapts to climate change that amounts to anything really significant. Fortunately, this seems unlikely in our lifetimes, despite the fact that a new ice age is overdue. If warming becomes significant within our times, food production may continue, but coastal cities may become flooded, forcing migration to slightly higher ground. As it is, the world ocean has risen only slightly, so no worries about humanity adapting to anything serious - yet.

 

[homeforsummer]

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think there's this mindset that the climate is this fragile thing. Maybe it is, but I find it unlikely that the climate has remained relatively liveable for however many millions of years if it's really on a knife edge. As far as I know there have been eruptions and the like in the past that have at least for short periods driven particulates and CO2 far beyond anything humans have managed.

To be fair, "knife edge" is still quite a broad term in a global context. Observable effects could take some time to realise - it might take decades to observe changes that signified we'd crossed the "edge".

It can be quite difficult to get your* head around sometimes. Climate observation involves measuring the effects of massive processes that cause tiny changes with big consequences over large timeframes. I.e. huge quantities of man-made CO2 may only affect global figures by a small amount; this could lead to dramatic changes, but these changes take a long time to observe.

Unfortunately, climate science doesn't have the gratification of instant results that humankind typically desires. Which leads to problems on both sides of the fence: Scientists struggle to illustrate that their hard-won results actually mean anything, and at the same time, the lack of definitive data leads some (politicians, often) to make short-term decisions based on inconclusive data.

I see it as a vicious circle: even if AGW is real, many will still dismiss it as nothing more than a political tool that encroaches on their rights. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Act on the concept of AGW now and people dislike it, act on AGW later and it may be too late to reverse processes that could be quite damaging in the long-term.



* Not you specifically, more a general "your".