Kyoto Dies

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


You are wrong. There is no serious dispute as to whether humans are responsible for global warming ( but there is a lot of junk science disputing it). What is in serious dispute, is the amount that is caused by us.

You're splitting hairs I reckon. Saying that humans are responsible for a minute, insignificant amount of global warming is pretty much the same as saying we are not responsible for it.

As for your second point, the wisest thing to do, were your previous statement even close to the truth, would be to be cautious with the enviornment. Economies can be restarted, but only if there's an ecosystem still around. With one scenario shwoing that global warming could lead to a snawball Earth scenario, I really don't want to be in a position to say, "I told you so!"

I think we'll be able to find out whether or not the 'snowball earth' scenario or anything like it has the remotest possibility of happening way before it's upon us. So far the evidence is unconvincing at best.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by elijah
Tell me about it . Some dude was seriously in love with the word "homogenous".

The mixing will occur of course, but not before disrupting the gulf stream. It wont restart of its own accord, or at least its highly unlikely.

Sure it will. My understanding is that the currents are still working just fine but that the distance a given amount of heat energy can travel is reduced. Thus the amount of heat energy which goes from the carribbean to western Europe would be less but the current would still be going from the caribean to Europe.

Much of the way our ocean currents work is contrained by geography. You see 30 million years ago South America wasn't connected to North America and Africa was connected to Eurasia so much of the world's currents were east-west currents. Once central America was formed and Africa blocked the Indian ocean off from the Atlantic/Med the currents sifted mostly north south. That meant tropical heat could be sent to higher latitudes.

We'd still have these geographic barriers and we'd still have warm water near the equator and cold water near the poles so I suspect we'd still see the currents going from warm areas to cold areas but the over all temperature would be lower.

[Az]

*scratches head*

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
as Emmision Reduction Programs like Kyoto put a Pressure on polluting Industries to lower their Pollution within a set Timeframe, I would suspect that those Corporation would put more even money into Pollution Reduction - Resarch Projects.

Either that or they just close the factory, fire all of their workers, and move to a 3rd world country who's emmissions aren't capped and where they can pollute without worrying about fines.

Is it any wonder most of the developing world loves Kyoto? If you want a treaty that actually reduces total emmissions you'll have to get all of the world to sign on to it.

[Giant_Squid]

(How do you people do this? I come back the next day and the post I need to reply to is all the way back on page 1!)

Ahem, Giant Squid.

I did not say that Global Warming does not exist (though I am sceptical), I am just saying that the cause is not adequatly identified. Why is the cause not adequatly identified? - that is the source of my sceptisim.

Measure the average increase of the ocean is one way I have seem them attempt to prove this. Well measure 5 different spots for 5 years and draw conclusions... Guess what, that means nothing to the average temperature of something that covers 2/3rds of the eart which has been around for eons!

I think environmentalists need to develop better global indicators, take a better look at naturalistic cycles (of which there is very little data on), and better identify the problem before the begin to claim the sky is falling.

Remember in the 80s and early 90s when everyone was hollaring about the ozone and that if we don't stop using hairspray we will all be burned to crisp? The, you remember the whole thing fading away when someone mentioned that the increase and decrease of the hole in the ozone is natural phenomena?

Well, global warming is the ozone of the 00s...

We can't walk across sand without leaving footprints.

Of course measuring the average temperature of certain spots on the ocean doesn't tell you everything about the ocean. However, it seems to me that science is basically a system of drawing generalized conclusions from small amounts of data (hence the term induction). No one's looked at every human's DNA, but we see all the ones we've looked at have a helix structure, so we assume everyone does. Likewise, we haven't measured the entire ocean, but if you measure 5000 (which is probably closer than 5) spots and most of them are going up, there are very well-known statistical methods you can use to decide whether that's significant or not for the ocean as a whole.

This could just be me being totally out of touch, but I thought that the ozone hole ceased to be as much of a problem because everyone cooperated on getting rid of it, signed the Montreal Protocols (that was what it was, wasn't it?) and cut use of of CFCs to a bare fraction of what they were before. I never heard of anyone discovering it was a natural process. Could you refer me to whatever you read that in?

Global warming is probably the most studied geological/climatological issue of the last twenty years (someone correct me if they can think of a better one). How much more proof do you need before you stop saying "We need more proof before we do anything" and "They're just catastrophic extremists"?

[Ned]

Originally posted by optimus2861

I read a news article on this phenomenon lately, but from what I gathered we'd see global temperatures decrease about 5 deg.C over a 10-20 year period to signal the start of the next 'deep freeze' (which would be very, very bad for civilization as we know it). What I took from that is if global temperatures are going up, not down, then we can't have hit that starting point yet.

What evidence are you referring to?

Two things: Antartica is getting colder very very fast. As well, the upper atmosphere has been getting colder steadily and at a relatively high rate.

The surface temperatures, especially near cities, seem to be getting warmer. But this may be an artifact of the location of the measurement sensors affected by the fact that cities cause localized warming. But it does seem that the Northern part of the world is warming due to longer growing seanson in the Northern forests and the thinning of the Artic ice cap.

Thus we have both warming and cooling going on. Why we are having both is not understood. But what concerns me is that the Global Warming models all predicted that the Antarctic was supposed to be getting warmer when in fact it is getting colder.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Ned
I think the theory is that fresh water from Antartica is what shuts off the Gulf Stream.

It's the Arctic.

I can link you to an article if you want to explain the theory. But to shut down the Gulf Stream, you need fresh water from the Antarctic.

I don't know if there is a similar theory about Greenland, but this does not mean that the main theory is that Antarctic fresh water is the control mechanism.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Japher
Remember in the 80s and early 90s when everyone was hollaring about the ozone and that if we don't stop using hairspray we will all be burned to crisp? The, you remember the whole thing fading away when someone mentioned that the increase and decrease of the hole in the ozone is natural phenomena?

Not true. The hullabalu faded when they concluded a treaty abolishing production of the suspect chemicals. It's been slightly over ten years now, and guess what, the ozone layer is recovering.

Nyah nyah, we were right, you weer wrong! In a few decades, Australias will even be able to go to the beach again without having to worry about skin cancer.

[Az]

I don't believe you don't know that, Japher.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
I don't know if there is a similar theory about Greenland, but this does not mean that the main theory is that Antarctic fresh water is the control mechanism.

What Antarctic fresh water!?! The fresh water is from the rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. The Gulf Stream reaches all the way to the Arctic, where it cools and mixes with fresh water and sinks and then flows back south. Look at any map of world currents.

R8gh idea, Ned, you just have the wrong end of the world in your brain. Easy enough to happen when they use the same damn name, practically.

[Ned]

Che, I will look for a link to the article on this topic I read. But the theory depends on the ice sheets in the Antarctic suddenly melting and creating massive amounts of fresh water in the South that flows North and spoils the origin of the Gulf Stream off the coast of Africa.

I will post back as soon as I find the article.

[chequita guevara]

But the Gulf Stream doesn't originate off of Africa. It's one giant current that goes around the world.

[Ned]

Hey, Che, I did find an article that suggested that the freshwater drainage into the artic acts as a feedback mechanism through its interaction with the Gulf Stream to moderate global warming.

http://www.co2science.org/subject/f/summaries/feedbacktc.htm

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
But the Gulf Stream doesn't originate off of Africa. It's one giant current that goes around the world.

In a way, it does. The water becomes extremely saline off Africa due to the hot dry winds that evaporate the surface water. It is this saline water that flows North and then submerges in the North Atlantic as it cools.

Freshwater from the north merely moves the location of the point the current submerges south. Thus Northern freshwater acts as feedback mechanism to Northern warming or cooling.

In contrast, a large amount of the freshwater from the south disrupts the current entirely.

I am still looking for the article.

[Ned]

Che, I give up. But here is an article that show that the water that becomes the Gulf Stream originated in the Drake passage to the south, near Antarctica. If this water is cut off from flowing north, the Gulf Stream stops.

The article also suggets that the NADW formation could be stopped by an excess of fresh water in the NA. However, this speculation seems to ignore the feedback mechanism that would prevent that much fresh water in the first place.

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/oceans/glodap/radiocarbon/Thermohaline.pdf