Global warming to kill half the worlds coral reefs
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Those ****ing stingrays will FINALLY get what's coming to them.
Score for you. Can you say, "ocean view"?
while this is disturbing and a serious issue. If the polar caps melt significantly, won't sealevels 'only' rise like 50 feet (15m)?
While that would screw islands and nearly a couple miles of current ocean front property, it won't cause what some alarmists are suggesting a Waterworld (eg. movie).
While that would screw islands and nearly a couple miles of current ocean front property, it won't cause what some alarmists are suggesting a Waterworld (eg. movie).
The only "alarmists" that I know of that have suggested that are the people who actually made that carpfest of a movie.
You are right though, sea levels wouldn't rise enough to put the whole planet underwater. The larger potential danger (besides having NYC and other places completely underwater) is that sea currents will stop.
Existing sea currents will change and migrate - some places will get warmer and some places will get colder but the average trend will be warming. We've been warmer in the past, it just hasn't happened this fast naturally. It will be bad because most flora and fauna can't adapt to rapid changes in only a few generations.
Is that a typo, or are you trying to be really clever?
The little I've read suggest that substantial changes to currents wouldn't be apparent for at least 200yrs. I haven't seen anything that suggests currents will stop, rather the infusion of fresh water into the oceans will alter the currents by changing water density.
I should have been more precise. When I said that the sea currents would stop, I should have said that the sea currents would stop flowing the way that they do. It is an uncertainty that can have disastrous effects.
Neither. I intentionally wrote "carp" instead of "cr4p" because that's what I normally do. The pun was completely unintended.Slugman said:
There are some saying that at our current rate we could see a stoppage of the North Atlantic current within the next couple hundred years as fresh water (melted ice) from Greenland and the Arctic flows into the North Atlantic. I don't think we know exactly what effect it will have, or whether the currents would simply stop or be diverted. I think the more likely is that the currents would slowly be diverted over the course of those couple hundred years, and that we would see a change before the final product. I don't think it is likely we will see any abrupt shifts, relatively speaking. I say that it is relative, because to the ecosystem it will seem abrupt and will probably result is nasty consequences.
It's unknown what the correlation would be. The cooler water flowing down the east coast of the US would not be there, which could lead to increased water temperature off the coast of Florida. This, in turn, could lead to increased hurricane intensity. We might not see more hurricanes, but we might see higher intensity hurricanes.
I knew meterologists were good for nothing.
Seriously, they don't have models that reasonably predict this stuff?
Of course not. In the same way that we can't predict the stock market or the value of the dollar, some things defy modeling and prediction. Chaos theory anyone?
Models are inherently hard to do for accurately predicting chaotic, future events. I'm sure there are models out there that predict what could or could not happen, but due to the sheer number of variables involved it's not certain which would happen, and I'm not versed enough in them to really talk about what the models show. Also, more study must be done on the link (or not) between global warming and hurricanes. AFAIK, there is nothing out there that says hurricanes will increase or decrease in frequency, but there is some evidence that warmer ocean temps. would lead to increase in intensity for the hurricanes that do form.
The average global temperature is actually increasing faster than the best computer model is predicting.
Not necessarily.
Take climate models for instance. CO2 amounts are very important to the climate model, but how can we possibly know how much CO2 will be in the atmosphere? We have to create models that estimate how much CO2 will be present (linear growth, exponential growth, etc.) Then, the same must be done for all the other variables out there. We can make the models, but we can't tell which will be the most accurate. Of course, most of the models are predicting bad times ahead, so we can be pretty sure that there will be some rough times ahead of us. That said, we don't know how rough or how dire, nor do we know how long until we reach the breaking point. That said, some models made years ago have come pretty close to being accurate once we looked back to see how the variables matched up with what was predicted. I believe Hansen at NASA had some work that turned out to be pretty close.
I'm predicting another ice age. Year round skiing in mexico city will be awesome.
Ok, so with all due respect to those who are concerned about global warming... we don't know what will happen.
It's possible that destructive weather will mellow out, yeah?
yes, flora can't adapt, so slowing the warming is a good idea, but stopping it might not be.
It's possible that destructive weather will mellow out, yeah?
yes, flora can't adapt, so slowing the warming is a good idea, but stopping it might not be.
At this point the worry isn't that we don't know what will happen, but rather we don't know how bad it will be. If sea levels rise even a couple of feet, NYC would be a different place, as would many parts of Florida. If temps. continue to rise as fast as they are, we will see many species go extinct (we are already seeing species die off).
Like I said, perhaps slowing it is the best solution.
I'm not concerned about humans or human structures -- they can be relocated.
But consider Florida and the Everglades -- only eco-system of it's kind. If sealevels rise, say, 10 feet, that would be a good thing as that would make Florida too difficult to build over, while some species in the Everglades would die or have to move further inland, many that are now endangered would flourish.
I used to live there and am saddened by the slow destruction from sugar farmers or shopping malls.
All I'm saying is that global warming might have some serious benefits. Does anyone (not necessarily here, just in general) consider that?
I'm not concerned about humans or human structures -- they can be relocated.
But consider Florida and the Everglades -- only eco-system of it's kind. If sealevels rise, say, 10 feet, that would be a good thing as that would make Florida too difficult to build over, while some species in the Everglades would die or have to move further inland, many that are now endangered would flourish.
I used to live there and am saddened by the slow destruction from sugar farmers or shopping malls.
All I'm saying is that global warming might have some serious benefits. Does anyone (not necessarily here, just in general) consider that?
The problem with that is that the ecosystem as a whole is dependent on the species that are there. If species start to disappear abruptly, it causes chaos within the ecosystem.
Let's take the Everglades idea for instance. Water levels rise which changes the environment, the water temperature also changes which has an effect as well. Some species die off. The other species that are able to adapt quickly enough might have been dependent on the ones that died, so now there is increased competition for scarcer resources. It doesn't create a situation where we are likely to see species thrive. Abrupt change (and change on the level that we are causing is abrupt for ecosystems) is generally not a good thing.
Problem is that we aren't doing it slowly. We would need to seriously cut our greenhouse gas emissions in order to slow down global warming. Even then, it's not entirely clear whether we have pushed past some line in the sand or not. We could have consequences past a certain threshold regardless of how fast we cross it. At this point, we have warmed the globe beyond the natural variability, and it probably behooves us to try to return to that natural state as closely as we can. If we are counting on global warming to keep us from destroying fragile ecosystems, then we are in serious trouble.ok, so no abrupt changes. We'll do the global warming thing slowly.
I'm in agreeance*.
* just to annoy mike
Can we cut back? Sure. With the number of people and their needs on the planet tho, thing will NEVER get back to "normal".
I seriously doubt we know what "natural variability" or "natural state" state is.
The planet has gone through many drastic changes over it's history, far more than whatever we puny humans are doing to it. And life of all kinds have survived and flourished during those drastic times.
I'm not saying we shouldn't control our output of poisons, just saying that it's a good idea for human survival. The planet and whatever species that live on it at any given time will do just fine.
Humans are screwed tho.
just read "The Tipping Point". granted that we don't exactly know what to expect, but how quickly climate will change is really kindof unknown right now. prediction models (which are literally just a conglomerate of all variables in the atmosphere and on earth which scientists can quantify) range all over the damn place. at this point, the whole "stop global warming" thing is really just a 'better safe than sorry' method.
edit: unknown and unquantifiable variables are all over the place...for example, isostatic rebound (the rebounding uplift of landscapes since the last glacial retreat) can influence weather patterns and air movement worldwide.
edit: unknown and unquantifiable variables are all over the place...for example, isostatic rebound (the rebounding uplift of landscapes since the last glacial retreat) can influence weather patterns and air movement worldwide.
We can quantify how much pollutants we have put into the atmosphere and subtract back to get a pretty good indication.
The planet will not cease to be, but life as we know it may. True, something will probably survive, but to be cavalier about it boggles my mind. I'd rather us try to work out a way for humans to not be screwed, as well as many of the other plants and animals that will similarly be screwed. I don't think it will be as rosy as you make it sound when you say things like "...whatever species that live on it at any given time will do just fine." The species on this planet have not "done just fine" during catastrophic abrupt changes. There are plenty of examples of mass extinctions on this planet from such changes. Something does end up rising up in each recorded case, but that's not guaranteed.
From what I'm reading (multiple sources) I'm afraid we are on the verge of point of no return. The ecosystem of the planet is a variety of self balancing systems living in a near equilibrium. When one variable changes, the environment adjusts to correct it.
This is overly simplistic, but you'll get the drift. In the case of Co2, as the co2 level increases and the planet warms plants flourish, pulling more co2 out of the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gasses and cooling the planet. It the system cushions and minimizes the changes, so when you start to notice drastic changes it means there is an enormous stress pushing the system out of balance.
The problem is once the system leaves it near equilibrium, the changes accelerate as forces that once held the system in balance minimized and become ineffective, and others may actually add to to the imbalance. Another simplistic example, those plants that were soaking up co2, start to die off as the temperature continues to rise, actually giving off co2, instead of absorbing it. Since the temperature change is faster than the system can cope with there may not be plants capable of filling their niche, which reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses being absorbed.
Right now humans are adding more greenhouse gasses to the environment with fossil fuels and pollutants, and reducing the ability of the system to absorb those gasses and pollutants by cutting down rain forests and destroying ecosystems.
This is overly simplistic, but you'll get the drift. In the case of Co2, as the co2 level increases and the planet warms plants flourish, pulling more co2 out of the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gasses and cooling the planet. It the system cushions and minimizes the changes, so when you start to notice drastic changes it means there is an enormous stress pushing the system out of balance.
The problem is once the system leaves it near equilibrium, the changes accelerate as forces that once held the system in balance minimized and become ineffective, and others may actually add to to the imbalance. Another simplistic example, those plants that were soaking up co2, start to die off as the temperature continues to rise, actually giving off co2, instead of absorbing it. Since the temperature change is faster than the system can cope with there may not be plants capable of filling their niche, which reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses being absorbed.
Right now humans are adding more greenhouse gasses to the environment with fossil fuels and pollutants, and reducing the ability of the system to absorb those gasses and pollutants by cutting down rain forests and destroying ecosystems.
