The horrible effects of global warming....

[Barbarossa]

SuperJude, do you want to know what happens to the carbon dioxide we produce? We don't need to wish it away, plants use it as food and make oxygen. So all this carbon dioxide is great for plants, which make more oxygen for us. So the Earth may well adapt to increased levels of carbon dioxide by growing more plants.

This is all good in principle, but where???? We are destroying all the green areas and building car-parks and hypermarkets instead, which are not known for their oxygen-creating abilities...


On a more serious note, I found this report last week rather worrysome..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4171591.stm

It seems to imply that the particulate pollution in the atmosphere is masking the true effect of global warming caused by excess greenhouse gases. It also seems to imply that since we are reducing particulate pollutants quicker than greenhouse gas pollution, this will reduce the dimming effect, and global warming will accelerate.

Eek!

[manker]

j2k4, as incredible as it may seem, global warming could well bring on another ice age. You can GOOGLE lots of articles about this. The Ice Age temperature chart posted by ilw shows how ice ages follow periods of high temperature, suggesting they are brought about by said temperatures.

No no no no. The high/low temperatures are caused by global phenomena, not the other way around.

It's not a theory I buy into, totally, but if we were to take ilw's graphs as the literal cause of ice ages then releasing more CO2 would seem to help guard against an ice age. Do you see that.

I refer the honorable gentleman to the sine wave analogy I made earlier - ilw's graph, to which you refer, confirms it. Glad you've got your head around it, maybe I should have posted a picture too - but then a sine wave is easily googleable, if you didn't already know what it looked like.

Ilw's graphs are intended to make the point of increased levels of CO2 in the 20th century and how these levels correlate to higher temperature, the graph going back 400,000 years is for context. Shame you missed that as it is pertinent because we can influence our CO2 emissions. The warming and cooling trait that's been proven as happening for hundreds of thousands of years is not down to us.

Google is not a substitute for your own ideas.

[Snee]

No no no no. The high/low temperatures are caused by global phenomena, not the other way around.

It's not a theory I buy into, totally, but if we were to take ilw's graphs as the literal cause of ice ages then releasing more CO2 would seem to help guard against an ice age. Do you see that.

That only works to a certain point.

If it raises temperatures enough, arctic and antarctic glaciers will start to melt, releasing cold water into, say, the gulf stream. If that happens it'll stop it flowing, and since our currently "mild" climes are dependent on certain streams to shift temperatures our average temperatures will drop, if the temps go high enough first.

At least that's the theory.

But it can also be argued that co2 levels have been this high many times without it resulting in an ice-age, volcanic eruptions and massive forest fires and many other natural events has raised our carbondioxide to high levels in prehistoric times without it always resulting in an ice-age, possibly.

EDit: it's not that I want to agree with billy, or that pop science he's posted, but even credible scientists have been known to follow the theory.

[UKResident]

Well Manker, when PROPER scientists come up with theories that contradict what you're saying l'm inclined to believe them,. What kind of scientist are you, a bank clerk was it? Something with a pen anyway.

Temperatures over time go UP then DOWN then UP then Down. Do you get it now?

Whoever told you that sarasm wins arguments was having you on.

[Snee]

Sarcasm is a bit like spelling, really, either you have it, or you don't.

If we have to get personal about it. *sigh*


And like I said, it's possible that temperatures at this level won't be dangerous.
At any rate I'm not sure we should worry as much about this, as we should worry about nuclear winter, what with all the hostile ppl in this world.

[Cheese]

I'm mostly worried about dinosaurs thawing out and wreaking havoc upon the world.

Apart from that I think the Earth will still be here doing its thing long after we're gone, be nice if certain nations could help reduce pollution but meh...Mother Nature will sort it all out.

[manker]

That only works to a certain point.

If it raises temperatures enough, arctic and antarctic glaciers will start to melt, releasing cold water into, say, the gulf stream. If that happens it'll stop it flowing, and since our currently "mild" climes are dependent on certain streams to shift temperatures our average temperatures will drop, if the temps go high enough first.

At least that's the theory.

But it can also be argued that co2 levels have been this high many times without it resulting in an ice-age, volcanic eruptions and massive forest fires and many other natural events has raised our carbondioxide to high levels in prehistoric times without it always resulting in an ice-age, possibly.

I was following ilw's diagrams so yeah, I understand what you're saying and agree with what you've written; that the temperatures rise, caused by a global phenomena (Co2 levels rising) and then the temperatures fall because of a global phenomena (ice melting) -- Both are global phenomena which have an effect on temperature.

The global phenomena is always the cause and the temperature fluctuation is always the effect, not the other way around. Which is what the UKResident got arse backwards. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg except that we know what came first - the phenomena.

I did mention that I don't fully subscribe to it as I believe that Co2 levels aren't soley responsible for the warming.

As to UKR's considered comeback; but for this simple comment, it's ignored as it contributes nothing.

^not sarcasm.

[Snee]

The global phenomena is always the cause and the temperature fluctuation is always the effect, not the other way around. Which is what the UKResident got arse backwards. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg except that we know what came first - the phenomena.

The one global mathingie causes the rise in temperature that causes the other globogizmo which causes the drop in temp.

The first change in temperature is thus both an effect, and a cause of a globular phenomena then, I thought.

Am I going mad at all?

I'm undecided as to whether an additional catalyst would be required, but it's certainly plausible.

[manker]

The first change in temperature is thus both an effect, and a cause of a globular phenomena then, I thought.

Actually yeah, that's where I fall down a bit. I am willing to conceed there

My intention there was to point out that temperatures can never just change without being provoked by something happening whereas phenomena can occur without being provoked by temperature.

However, my initial point was to contend that the graphs were not saying that we're going to have an ice age, merely that the temperature is going to rise if the Co2 rises. I think it would be fair to say that if the graphs are to be taken to their literal meaning, the troughs of the sine wave would not be so low in future if we kept pumping the atmosphere full of Co2.

The Co2 would be warming the earth while the melting ice flows are cooling the earth. While one could argue that it would still cool down, it's logical to say that it wouldn't cool down to the extent it had in the past.

Hence no ice age.

^That's basically what I was trying to get at, however badly I did it.


Edit: Bah! That's not to say I think this would happen, just following through logically from the graphs as if I believed in them 100%.

Personally I think that there are other factors to consider and that an ice age is inevitable at some point in the future because the effects we're having on the climate are not enough to throw nature out of kilter.

[Barbarossa]

Climate change is much too complicated and misunderstood for us to make any sense of it in with our limited awareness of time.

The facts of the matter are:

The Earth has been warmer in the past than it is now.
The Earth has been cooler in the past that it is now.
The Earth is currently getting warmer.
Mankind has generated alot of air and sea pollution in the last two centuries.
Mankind has destroyed alot of plant life in the last thousand years.

It's clear, that Mankind is having a detrimental effect on the enviroment, which has probably accelerated the warming of the Earth.

The bottom line is, nobody really knows what will happen next. Either this bistable equilibrium will be maintained (cooler warmer cooler warmer etc..), maybe slightly more erratically (hotter than before perhaps.. or windier..?) or we'll get a runaway greenhouse effect.. Helloooo, Venus! Nobody knows. All we can do is speculate...

...and hope it's not too late!

Oh, and try to reduce the impact we are making on the environment. Just in case, like, you know?

Oh, and be nice to animals. (Well, we just should be!)