Global warming current events and news...i'm now convinced global warming is for real

[ContrarianEcon]

Originally Posted by Spatula City

The warming isn't happening on a longer time scale, it's happening on a very short one.
The whole reason that AGW is such a serious issue is because it is happening so quickly.

Feedback Loop. The presence of a positive feedback loop will make a system resonate around an average state. We've had a recurring cycle like the Younger Dryas, looping every 1500 years approximately. It has been going on for that past 2 million years. Through ice ages and interglacial warm periods.

The cycle goes as follows. Starting with a warming trend out of a cold period it warms very quickly. Then it cools gradually, then you get a cold snap, then you go back through rapid warming. The little ice age, and the Younger Dryas were cold snaps in this repeating cycle.

Now the start of the little ice age was several centuries in advance of where it normally would've been. So we went into it from a warmer state than normal. It was ended prematurely by the start of the industrial evolution. So it didn't cool us off as much as it should've. So we are staring the warming trend from a warmer place than we should've. Now we are adding CO2 on top of the warming trend. In short we are going to over shoot on the high side.

My read is that now matter what we are able to do we can't stop Greenland from having its ice go into the Ocean. From here it is a done deal. I'm quite sure that I'm not the only one that has concluded that the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is the normal trigger for the start of an ice age.

Warming BY AGW is anti cyclical for the coming cooling phase. Reducing AGW or reversing it is pro-cyclical for the coming cooling phase.

The link is a good reference to an explanation of the recurring cycle. Along with the cross links.


File:Holocene Temperature Variations Rev.png - Global Warming Art

Originally Posted by Spatula City

We can't undo AGW unless you want to detonate a lot of nuclear weapons, but that would also be only a short term solution and not a very safe one.

Without the CO2 emissions the world would only be very slightly cooler than the early 20th century instead of warmer than practically any time in the past 10,000 years.

We've had this debate before and you don't seem to realize that glaciation is NOT an immediate threat.

I'll answer the rest in a mint.

[ContrarianEcon]

Originally Posted by Spatula City

We can't undo AGW unless you want to detonate a lot of nuclear weapons, but that would also be only a short term solution and not a very safe one.

Actually. We could probably put enough sulfuric acid up high enough to undo it if we wanted too. But again not that safe.

Originally Posted by Spatula City

Without the CO2 emissions the world would only be very slightly cooler than the early 20th century instead of warmer than practically any time in the past 10,000 years.

With out the soot input several centuries age we would still be in the little ice age and cooling off the Greenland ice sheet instead of warming it up.

Originally Posted by Spatula City

We've had this debate before and you don't seem to realize that glaciation is NOT an immediate threat.

Actually it is you that doesn't realize that it is. The Greenland ice sheet could easily collapse in the next 100 years. Or more precisely we would be hard pressed to stop it from collapsing. With that would come a major cooling event. A Younger Dryas size event. And that would start the next big ice age 7,000 to 10,000 years early.

Big picture. Where are we at and what do we need to be doing?

My take on this is warming it up. We are past the point where we can stop Greenland from the loss of it's ice and so we need to prepare for the consequences of our actions. Getting everyone to reduce CO2 emissions now and then speed it up latter is too much to ask. Keeping going as we are with being a bit more kind to the environment that we can easily do.

[ContrarianEcon]

Originally Posted by PullMyFinger

The ice ages tend to last about 100,000 years. Talk about a recycling event for the Earth. All signs of our existence in almost the entire North American Continent would be wiped out by the time those glaciers retreat.

Also, I've read that we are due and some say overdue for an ice age. It's been about 12,000 years since the last one and the pattern is 10,000 years of warmth and 100,000 years of ice.

The normal trigger for the next ice age is the collapse of Grenland's ice sheet.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by sanspeur

Winter maximum Arctic sea ice is on track to hit a record low since satellite records began in 1979. Not good, as there is evidence that disappearing sea ice can effect weather patterns in the northern hemisphere.

Arctic Sea Ice Dwindles toward Record Winter Low - Scientific American

Not meaning to off topic, but if you are going to talk science, you should use the proper word... it's "can affect," not "can effect."

[odanny]

Originally Posted by Fleet

Not meaning to off topic, but…..

Then don't post.

[Wendell Phillips]

"The earth is having a seizure."
- James Balog
http://asteroidsclub.org/wp-content/...ames-Balog.png