I read the post you are replying to as a jab at those who believe change leads to death and destruction. We could move the cities inland. We could optimize buildings to keep people cooler. We could find more efficient forms of energy to enable more indoor climate control.
The current stress right now is to stop climate control. We humans believe we can stop climate control, but what if we can't? What if it actually is due to sun spots and beyond our control? It seems like it would make sense to adapt to the change rather than try to stop the change.
And if it is due primarily to carbon why not stop putting out so much carbon? I can't seem to find it right now, but I've seen a study that showed that the temperature changes we've seen do not coincide with sun activity. We can measure these things.
Also, global warming will cause death, disease, and destruction. This is clear from only one of it's effects, sea level rise.
"I read the post you are replying to as a jab at those who believe change leads to death and destruction."
What I was saying is that global warming will lead to death and destruction.
"We could move the cities inland. "
I love how people say this like it's no biggie. Let's hire some contractors and bam, city moved. LOL. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to reduce are use of fossil fuels than it is to move a few major cities. what do you think?
China moved hundreds of millions of people away from the lake formed behind the three gorges dam. That's ultimately what will happen. Either we'll build levies around the whole continent to protect coastal areas or the people will move. It'll probably be a combination of both.
China doesn't have the same level of infrastructure as we do. Imagine trying to move large chunks of Los Angeles. That's a completely different animal isn't it? Doesn't it seem easier and cheaper to reduce our energy use than to move multiple cities like Los Angeles?
I personally think it's a better idea to avoid serious problems than to accept the enormous pain that will come with ideas like "hey, change is normal".
I don't believe reducing our energy consumption is going to have much effect on global warming. I think the sun is way more powerful an influence on our climate than humans.
I don't understand your point of view. The sun certainly can affect climate in large ways, but that does not mean that all climate change is due to the sun or that human activity can't cause climate change.
"But even if solar forcing in the past was more important than this estimate suggests, as some scientists think, there is no correlation between solar activity and the strong warming during the past 40 years. Claims that this is the case have not stood up to scrutiny (pdf document).
Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .
Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity."
Wouldn't that easily be offset by gains in citrus production? After all, more people drink orange juice that consume syrup. Heck, most of the syrup you get doesn't come from trees anyway.
Sure. I believe that global warming has the potential to be a big net positive because it will shake things up and create new markets and opportunities. I think the syrup thing is just an example of the straws that the "no changes anywhere ever" people have to grasp at to show how bad global warming will be.
Since artificial syrup > Canadian syrup > Vermont syrup, we're talking about economic damage to a small fraction of one product. But those workers have their very own senator or two.
Most likely both crop production and pesticide use will increase in the north, mostly due to increased temperature allowing for both longer growing seasons and better conditions for pests. The CO2 effect will be dwarfed by the temperature effect in the north. The effect in the south will mostly be determined be access to water, either as rain or irrigation, and have huge local variations. Where there is good access to water, production will rise (due to increased CO2), where there isn't, it will drop.
Overall, I'd expect a significant increase in crop production, but we may have to get used to new crops and varieties to get the full effect.
The conditions that crops need aren't based on average temperature, but rather they're based on the minimum temperature, the maximum temperature, and how long it takes to go from very cold to very warm and vice versa. With global warming the climate zones don't just shift north, but rather you get these situations where certain crops just won't grow at all. For example, grape vines have certain mechanisms to protect the buds during winter, but these mechanisms get disabled as soon as you get the first warm snap. The problem is that if it then gets cold again you lose all the buds, so no grapes.
With global warming what happens is you still have very low minimum temperatures in winter, but the average temperature is warmer and so you have these temporary warm snaps disable all the natural protection mechanisms that have evolved over thousands of years. So if you just move the vines north then they all die because their cold protection mechanisms get disabled and the buds freeze, and you can't keep them where they are because it's too hot in the summer so they die also. So what happens is that you just can't successfully grow good wine grapes anymore. Now obviously this is a pretty trivial example, but there are similar things going on for a lot of our major food crops. You can't just move them north, so we're just going to have major food shortages.
Another good example is wheat rusts. Every winter our top scientists go down to Mexico and create new types of wheat based on whatever rust is currently spreading. The only reason they have time to do this is because the wheat sprouts later in the US than it does in Mexico. But with global warming all the wheat will come up much closer together, so what may happen is that we just don't have wheat anymore.
(And believe me, wheat rust is pretty much the scariest shit you can imagine. There's a reason it was one of the biblical plagues.)
For example, grape vines have certain mechanisms to protect the buds during winter, but these mechanisms get disabled as soon as you get the first warm snap. The problem is that if it then gets cold again you lose all the buds, so no grapes.
But in fact, we know that grapes were grown at more northerly areas in the British Isles in warmer historical times. If it has been done, it's too late to suggest it's impossible.
The British Isles (as long as you don't stray too far north in Scotland, at least) aren't all that cold in terms of minimum temperatures (my guess is that it doesn't get that much colder than it does here in northern Italy). They're just damp. And don't get that hot in summer. And once you get any sort of trade happening, you're far better off with Italian wine anyway, so why bother.
Global warming is off topic for HN anyway. Few people here that I know of are climate scientists, and most people seem to make up their mind along political lines rather than scientific ones anyway, so discussions are unproductive at best.
"But in fact, we know that grapes were grown at more northerly areas in the British Isles in warmer historical times. If it has been done, it's too late to suggest it's impossible."
That's vitis labrusca, I was talking about vitis vinifera. I have no doubt it can be done to some extent, but there's a large difference between being able to do something in theory and having large quantities of good wine for relatively cheap.
What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last tree and doom the island think as he used his stone axe?
While I remain skeptical about global climate change, I can also appreciate the fact that polluting less and taking care of the environment is a good thing.
The problem is that even as America becomes cleaner, China, India and the rest of the third world are burning trees and coal like crazy.
I do not believe that human contribution to global warming is significant.
Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect, yet somehow it is never brought up in global warming discussions. Why is this?
We've raised CO2 concentrations 100 ppm to 370 ppm... a concentration that's tiny in comparison to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere... after all, we're on a giant ball of water.
I subscribe to the theory of giant ball of nuclear fire leads to warmer temperatures -> increase in ocean temperatures -> release of dissolved CO2 & increase in water vapor -> greater greenhouse effect
I don't hate the environment and obviously we should be reducing our impact, but cleaner air and water should be cause enough.
If anyone can explain to me why my reasoning is flawed I'll be happy to champion the idea that global warming is primarily driven by man... it would actually make my life easier to embrace it as fact. However, as it stands now, it seems to me a rather arrogant proposition.
> Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect
"For clear skies, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, accounting for 60% of the total. The second most important greenhouse gas is CO2, which contributes 32 W m−2"
"Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor."
It is important to note the next sentence, however:
"In the stratosphere, the contribution is about 80 percent from carbon dioxide and about 20 percent from water vapor."
As is always the case in these matters, conflicting sources
Not being an atmospheric scientist I cannot be sure but I feel like the vast majority of the atmosphere's density being in the troposphere temperature effects from the stratosphere would be negligible.
It doesn't matter if 99.9% of greenhouse effect is not caused by humans, if the extra 0.1% is. The gross heat fluxes in and out are enormous, but because they precisely balance they're not noticeable. An extra 0.1%, while very small compared to the total heat flux, is a purely net flux because it's not canceled out (until the Earth has warmed). It's simple conservation of energy.
Think of it this way: If you have a gallon of water and you pour it back and forth between two containers, you will eventually run out of water even if you lose only a few drops each time.
Another example: If you trade your assets back and forth between different stocks (and they don't change value), it doesn't matter how much money you start with, if you do it for long enough you will eventually run out of money due to the transaction cost.
A small effect can have a big impact if it's allowed to accumulate over time, and that's precisely what's happening with the greenhouse effect.
Btw, the fact that the major greenhouse gas is water vapor does not make things better, it makes them worse. It means there's a feedback loop that amplifies the effect of increased CO2, because as the world warms, the atmospheric concentrations of H2O will increase, further increasing the warming.
"Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect, yet somehow it is never brought up in global warming discussions. Why is this?"
Because the water vapor isn't what's increasing, except as an effect of the warming trend caused by higher CO2 concentration.
"I subscribe to the theory of giant ball of nuclear fire leads to warmer temperatures -> increase in ocean temperatures -> release of dissolved CO2 & increase in water vapor -> greater greenhouse effect"
Care to explain why the sun progressively got hotter in a way that strongly correlates with the release of CO2 since the Industrial Revolution?
I still haven't heard convincing arguments for global warming as fact. Climate change, yes, but warming as a result of human activity on a global scale no. Chief among my concerns is the fact that Mars seems to be warming as well. http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/nasa-study-shows-sun-resp...
I measure how serious someone is about CO2 and global warming by their enthusiasm for nuclear power.
A govt that claims to be concerned about CO2 that isn't pouring concrete for dozens of reactors isn't worried about CO2, it's worried about something else.
36 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 72.3 ms ] threadhttp://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/global-warming-the-grea...
Let me be even more sarcastic and snide... maybe people who are afraid of global warming are close minded and afraid of change...
The current stress right now is to stop climate control. We humans believe we can stop climate control, but what if we can't? What if it actually is due to sun spots and beyond our control? It seems like it would make sense to adapt to the change rather than try to stop the change.
Also, global warming will cause death, disease, and destruction. This is clear from only one of it's effects, sea level rise.
"I read the post you are replying to as a jab at those who believe change leads to death and destruction."
What I was saying is that global warming will lead to death and destruction.
"We could move the cities inland. "
I love how people say this like it's no biggie. Let's hire some contractors and bam, city moved. LOL. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to reduce are use of fossil fuels than it is to move a few major cities. what do you think?
I personally think it's a better idea to avoid serious problems than to accept the enormous pain that will come with ideas like "hey, change is normal".
"But even if solar forcing in the past was more important than this estimate suggests, as some scientists think, there is no correlation between solar activity and the strong warming during the past 40 years. Claims that this is the case have not stood up to scrutiny (pdf document).
Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .
Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity."
source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650-climate-myths-gl...
A weather aggregator and tracker (and projector)?
Information services that decrease carbon emissions? Ex: http://neighborhoodfruit.com
Let's brainstorm right here.
Also not sure why maple syrup is worth mentioning.
Since artificial syrup > Canadian syrup > Vermont syrup, we're talking about economic damage to a small fraction of one product. But those workers have their very own senator or two.
Most likely both crop production and pesticide use will increase in the north, mostly due to increased temperature allowing for both longer growing seasons and better conditions for pests. The CO2 effect will be dwarfed by the temperature effect in the north. The effect in the south will mostly be determined be access to water, either as rain or irrigation, and have huge local variations. Where there is good access to water, production will rise (due to increased CO2), where there isn't, it will drop.
Overall, I'd expect a significant increase in crop production, but we may have to get used to new crops and varieties to get the full effect.
The conditions that crops need aren't based on average temperature, but rather they're based on the minimum temperature, the maximum temperature, and how long it takes to go from very cold to very warm and vice versa. With global warming the climate zones don't just shift north, but rather you get these situations where certain crops just won't grow at all. For example, grape vines have certain mechanisms to protect the buds during winter, but these mechanisms get disabled as soon as you get the first warm snap. The problem is that if it then gets cold again you lose all the buds, so no grapes.
With global warming what happens is you still have very low minimum temperatures in winter, but the average temperature is warmer and so you have these temporary warm snaps disable all the natural protection mechanisms that have evolved over thousands of years. So if you just move the vines north then they all die because their cold protection mechanisms get disabled and the buds freeze, and you can't keep them where they are because it's too hot in the summer so they die also. So what happens is that you just can't successfully grow good wine grapes anymore. Now obviously this is a pretty trivial example, but there are similar things going on for a lot of our major food crops. You can't just move them north, so we're just going to have major food shortages.
Another good example is wheat rusts. Every winter our top scientists go down to Mexico and create new types of wheat based on whatever rust is currently spreading. The only reason they have time to do this is because the wheat sprouts later in the US than it does in Mexico. But with global warming all the wheat will come up much closer together, so what may happen is that we just don't have wheat anymore.
(And believe me, wheat rust is pretty much the scariest shit you can imagine. There's a reason it was one of the biblical plagues.)
That's a non sequitur. If certain things don't grow as well, it doesn't follow that nothing will.
In my explanation, but not in reality.
But in fact, we know that grapes were grown at more northerly areas in the British Isles in warmer historical times. If it has been done, it's too late to suggest it's impossible.
Global warming is off topic for HN anyway. Few people here that I know of are climate scientists, and most people seem to make up their mind along political lines rather than scientific ones anyway, so discussions are unproductive at best.
That's vitis labrusca, I was talking about vitis vinifera. I have no doubt it can be done to some extent, but there's a large difference between being able to do something in theory and having large quantities of good wine for relatively cheap.
It's hard for people to fathom the thought of global warming while their local weather is in fact colder.
Jared Diamond's Collapse is a good reference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)
What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last tree and doom the island think as he used his stone axe?
While I remain skeptical about global climate change, I can also appreciate the fact that polluting less and taking care of the environment is a good thing.
The problem is that even as America becomes cleaner, China, India and the rest of the third world are burning trees and coal like crazy.
Water vapor is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect, yet somehow it is never brought up in global warming discussions. Why is this?
We've raised CO2 concentrations 100 ppm to 370 ppm... a concentration that's tiny in comparison to the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere... after all, we're on a giant ball of water.
I subscribe to the theory of giant ball of nuclear fire leads to warmer temperatures -> increase in ocean temperatures -> release of dissolved CO2 & increase in water vapor -> greater greenhouse effect
I don't hate the environment and obviously we should be reducing our impact, but cleaner air and water should be cause enough.
If anyone can explain to me why my reasoning is flawed I'll be happy to champion the idea that global warming is primarily driven by man... it would actually make my life easier to embrace it as fact. However, as it stands now, it seems to me a rather arrogant proposition.
"For clear skies, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, accounting for 60% of the total. The second most important greenhouse gas is CO2, which contributes 32 W m−2"
See "Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget", page 203 (7th page of PDF): http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/at...
From the DOE...
"Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor."
It is important to note the next sentence, however:
"In the stratosphere, the contribution is about 80 percent from carbon dioxide and about 20 percent from water vapor."
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd...
(end of last paragraph)
As is always the case in these matters, conflicting sources
Not being an atmospheric scientist I cannot be sure but I feel like the vast majority of the atmosphere's density being in the troposphere temperature effects from the stratosphere would be negligible.
Think of it this way: If you have a gallon of water and you pour it back and forth between two containers, you will eventually run out of water even if you lose only a few drops each time.
Another example: If you trade your assets back and forth between different stocks (and they don't change value), it doesn't matter how much money you start with, if you do it for long enough you will eventually run out of money due to the transaction cost.
A small effect can have a big impact if it's allowed to accumulate over time, and that's precisely what's happening with the greenhouse effect.
Because the water vapor isn't what's increasing, except as an effect of the warming trend caused by higher CO2 concentration.
"I subscribe to the theory of giant ball of nuclear fire leads to warmer temperatures -> increase in ocean temperatures -> release of dissolved CO2 & increase in water vapor -> greater greenhouse effect"
Care to explain why the sun progressively got hotter in a way that strongly correlates with the release of CO2 since the Industrial Revolution?
A govt that claims to be concerned about CO2 that isn't pouring concrete for dozens of reactors isn't worried about CO2, it's worried about something else.
It's porkulus II, bigger and badder.