climate change denial is worse than anti-vax movement

[Sava]

Unrelated, I'll be at ohare for 3 hrs at 5:07pm today just fyi

That's too close for comfort!



Why were you in Chicago?

[Guynemer]

So, my stay at O'Hare was uneventful, but when I got back to Rochester it was snowing super hard and I couldn't bust 20 miles an hour on the drive home, not even on the interstate, and lost control once. **** O'Hare that place is cursed.

O'Hare will always get you, one way or the other. Always.

NEVER FLY THROUGH O'HARE

[molly bloom]

Maybe we should execute people for being climate deniers.

You belong to an organisation which used to have people tortured and executed for not believing that a Jewish man was the son of a god, and that a Jewish woman couldn't be a virgin and have given birth and that there wasn't a trinity made up of the aforementioned son/non-son of a god, a holy ghost/spirit/Casper and a big ol' daddy god.

So you'll have some inside knowledge about what to do with non-believers in climate change won't you ?

Of course the difference between climate change and religious beliefs is that one can be shown to exist or not, and the other is just a lot of tripe for the gullible and sadistic.

[Hauldren Collider]

O'Hare will always get you, one way or the other. Always.

NEVER FLY THROUGH O'HARE

Quoted. For. Mega. ****ing. Truth.

I went to O'Hare once. Ended up staying about 23 hours longer than planned.

[regexcellent]

That's too close for comfort!



Why were you in Chicago?

Layover from Montana. I was hoping you'd be in the vicinity, which is why I posted.

[Felch]

Although we're within the projections, it's hard for me to take the predictive power of the models seriously. You'd think we'd be on the high end of the estimates since we've done jack **** to prevent Global Climate Change, but we're on the low end instead.

If I didn't know any better I'd say that climatology is incredibly complex, and probably a bit beyond the abilities of our best scientists to accurately predict. And if that were the case, I'd have a tough time justifying trillions of dollars on a huge project to save the world from a two degree change in average temperature.

[Felch]

Here's an interview with a German climate scientist Hans von Storch.

The interesting bit:

SPIEGEL: Do the computer models with which physicists simulate the future climate ever show the sort of long standstill in temperature change that we're observing right now?

Storch: Yes, but only extremely rarely. At my institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations. The answer was: in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98 percent of forecasts show CO2 emissions as high as we have had in recent years leading to more of a temperature increase.

SPIEGEL: How long will it still be possible to reconcile such a pause in global warming with established climate forecasts?

Storch: If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations.

SPIEGEL: What could be wrong with the models?

Storch: There are two conceivable explanations -- and neither is very pleasant for us. The first possibility is that less global warming is occurring than expected because greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have less of an effect than we have assumed. This wouldn't mean that there is no man-made greenhouse effect, but simply that our effect on climate events is not as great as we have believed. The other possibility is that, in our simulations, we have underestimated how much the climate fluctuates owing to natural causes.

In other words, the models aren't to be trusted. Climate change might be terrible, but could also be beneficial. A slightly warmer planet can support more life than a slightly colder planet, and it will open up barren arctic wastelands to exploration and exploitation. Instead of working to fight global warming, we should work to mitigate problems (flooding, desertification) and adapt to the new possibilities (warming tundra, northwest passage).

[Dinner]

A friend recently reported this denier's statement from a podium: "How bad can two degrees be? In Rome it's warmer than here [Berlin area, E.] and they managed to build an empire."

Although that guy supposedly wasn't just a denier but a local manufacturer of some sorts or something, so stupid, with an interest

The ice age was only a change of 3 degrees C. Also it would result in changing weather patterns such as how, in north America, the jet stream dips even further to the south resulting in arctic air getting much further to the south. This is the so called "arctic vortex" and all the models show that is exactly what they expect to happen. Now, the retarded deniers, of course, claim to not understand how changing weather patterns can result in more extreme weather ("How can global warming make things colder?") but that is the whole reason they call it climate change instead of global warming.

[Dinner]

Because the diseases the anti-vaxxers' children get and spread are primarily a danger to the children of the stupid anti-vaxers.

Everyone has to live on the same planet w/ weather wrecked extra thanks to climate deniers gumming up the process. When billions die early, no revenge will be adequate to their crimes.

WRT to anti-vaxxers, yes, the children of anti-vaxxers get it first but if there are enough anti-vaxxers then even people who got the vaccine can still get infected.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Apples and oranges, ennit, really?

I suppose a lot of the difference is a matter of range. Wrecking the climate is going to cause harm for a lot longer.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

'Small' Nuclear War Could Trigger Catastrophic Cooling
LiveScience.com
By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor March 29, 2014 2:10 PM






Even a relatively small regional nuclear war could trigger global cooling, damage the ozone layer and cause droughts for more than a decade, researchers say.

These findings should further spur the elimination of the more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that exist today, scientists added.

During the Cold War, a nuclear exchange between superpowers was feared for years. One potential consequence of such a global nuclear war was "nuclear winter," wherein nuclear explosions sparked huge fires whose smoke, dust and ash blotted out the sun, resulting in a "twilight at noon" for weeks. Much of humanity might eventually die from the resulting crop failures and starvation.

Today, with the United States the only standing superpower, nuclear winter might seem a distant threat. Still, nuclear war remains a very real threat; for instance, between developing-world nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan.

To see what effects such a regional nuclear conflict might have on climate, scientists modeled a war between India and Pakistan involving 100 Hiroshima-level bombs, each packing the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT — just a small fraction of the world's current nuclear arsenal. They simulated interactions within and between the atmosphere, ocean, land and sea ice components of the Earth's climate system.

Scientists found the effects of such a war could be catastrophic.

"Most people would be surprised to know that even a very small regional nuclear war on the other side of the planet could disrupt global climate for at least a decade and wipe out the ozone layer for a decade," study lead author Michael Mills, an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, told Live Science.

The researchers predicted the resulting firestorms would kick up about 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons) of black carbon high into the atmosphere. This ash would absorb incoming solar heat, cooling the surface below.

The simulations hint that after such a war, global average surface temperatures would drop suddenly by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), their lowest levels in more than 1,000 years. In some places, temperatures would get significantly colder — most of North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East would experience winters that are 4.5 to 10.8 degrees F (2.5 to 6 degrees C) colder, and summers 1.8 to 7.2 degrees F (1 to 4 degrees C) cooler. The colder temperatures would lead to lethal frosts worldwide that would reduce growing seasons by 10 to 40 days annually for several years.

The ash that absorbed heat up in the atmosphere would also intensely heat the stratosphere, accelerating chemical reactions that destroy ozone. This would allow much greater amounts of ultraviolet radiation to reach Earth's surface, with a summertime ultraviolet increase of 30 to 80 percent in the mid-latitudes, posing a threat to human health, agriculture and ecosystems on both land and sea.

The models also suggest colder temperatures would reduce global rainfall and other forms of precipitation by up to about 10 percent. This would likely trigger widespread fires in regions such as the Amazon, and it would pump even more smoke into the atmosphere.

"All in all, these effects would be very detrimental to food production and to ecosystems," Mills said.

Previous studies had estimated that global temperatures would recover after about a decade. However, this latest work projected that cooling would persist for more than 25 years, which is about as far into the future as the simulations went. Two major factors caused this prolonged cooling — an expansion of sea ice that reflected more solar heat into space, and a significant cooling in the upper 330 feet (100 meters) of the oceans, which would warm back up only gradually.

"This is the third independent model examining the effects a regional nuclear conflict on the atmosphere and the ocean and the land, and their conclusions all support each other," Mills said. "It's interesting that every time we've approached this same question with more sophisticated models, the effects seem to be more pronounced."

These findings "show that one could produce a global nuclear famine using just 100 of the smallest nuclear weapons," Mills said. "There are about 17,000 nuclear weapons on the planet right now, most of which are much more powerful than the 100 we looked at in this study. This raises the questions of why so many of these weapons still exist, and whether they serve any purpose."

The scientists detailed their findings in the March issue of the journal Earth's Future.

http://news.yahoo.com/small-nuclear-...181056235.html

...

In other science news, a 'small' nuclear war could trigger catastrophic dying...

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I'm not googling to find evidence to cure anyone of being wrong on the internet or anything - I just post a lot of science articles at AC2, and it's a simple copy/paste to put them up here, too, when it's something sorta relevant.

Nearing Collapse? West Antarctica's Glaciers Speeding Up
LiveScience.com
By Becky Oskin, Senior Writer 23 hours ago



An iceberg breaks off Pine Island Glacier into the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica.



Six big glaciers in West Antarctica are flowing much faster than 40 years ago, a new study finds. The brisk clip may mean this part of Antarctica, which could raise global sea level by 4 feet (1.2 meters) if it completely melts, is nearing full-scale collapse.

"This region is out of balance," said Jeremie Mouginot, lead study author and a glaciologist at University of California, Irvine. "We're not seeing anything that could stop the retreat of the grounding line and the acceleration of these glaciers," he told Live Science. (A grounding line is the location where the glacier leaves bedrock and meets the ocean.)

From satellite observations such as Landsat images and radar interferometry, Mouginot and his co-authors tracked the speed of West Antarctica's six largest glaciers. The biggest of the half-dozen are Pine Island Glacier, known for cleaving massive icebergs, and its neighbor, Thwaites Glacier. The other four are Haynes, Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers.

Ice from the six glaciers accounts for almost 10 percent of the world’s sea-level rise per year. Researchers worry the "collapse" of West Antarctica's glaciers would hasten sea-level rise. The collapse refers to an unstoppable, self-sustaining retreat that would drop millions of tons of ice into the sea.

The amount of ice draining from the six glaciers increased by 77 percent between 1973 to 2013, the study found. However, the race to the sea is happening at different rates. Recently, the fast-flowing Pine Island Glacier stabilized, slowing down starting in 2009. (The slowdown was only at the ice shelf, where the glacier meets the sea. Further inland, the glacier is still accelerating.)

But Pine Island Glacier's sluggishness was matched by an increase at Thwaites Glacier starting in 2006, the researchers found. For the first time since measurements began in 1973, Thwaites starting accelerating. Thwaites quickened its pace by 0.5 miles (0.8 kilometers) per year between 2006 and 2013, the study found.



Rates of change in West Antarctica's glaciers measured from satellite observations since 1973.


"To see Thwaites, this monster glacier, start accelerating in 2006 means we could see even more change in the near future that could affect sea level," Mouginot said. The acceleration extends far inland for both Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier, he said. Pine Island Glacier's acceleration reached up to 155 miles (230 km) inland from where it meets the ocean.

Mouginot said warmer ocean waters contributed to the speed up. The huge ice streams flowing from West Antarctica are held back by floating ice shelves that act like dams. Several recent studies have suggested that warmer ocean water near Antarctica is melting and thinning these ice shelves from below. The thinner ice shelves offer less resistance, making it easier for glaciers to bulldoze their way toward the sea.

"This region is considered the potential leak point for Antarctica because of the low seabed. The only thing holding it in is the ice shelf," said Robert Thomas, a glaciologist at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, in Wallops Island, Va., who was not involved in the study.

The study was published March 5 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

http://news.yahoo.com/nearing-collap...231152148.html

[Sava]

Layover from Montana. I was hoping you'd be in the vicinity, which is why I posted.

30-40 mins depending on traffic

[Dinner]

I almost married a girl from Montana. It was a good thing I didn't because of her history of divorce and unhappiness combined with her suing for spousal support from the suckers who did marry her. Still the power of the ***** was strong and I almost fell for it.

[Dinner]

That starred word starts with a p, followed by a u, then has two s'es, and lastly a y.