What is the truth about global warming?

CerebralCortex · 04-02-2005 11:19AM #1

I was wondering what the truth is behind global climate change. There seems to be alot of conflicting bs going around. Anybody got a clue? Also what effects will it have?

Zulu · 04-02-2005 11:22AM

The Earth will get too hot and the Ecosystem will collapse.

toiletduck · 04-02-2005 07:12PM

i was just wondering if maybe global warming is a good thing? I mean, think about the quotation (i cant remember who said it) "Civilisation is merely an interlude between ice ages." There is no possibility of ice age now because of the increasing temparatures. It's just a thought in any case. Anyone want to set me striaght on the topic?

Capt'n Midnight · 04-02-2005 07:39PM

CerebralCortex wrote:

I was wondering what the truth is behind global climate change. There seems to be alot of conflicting bs going around. Anybody got a clue? Also what effects will it have?

have a look through the green forum for other posts.

The general concensus is that it is happening , if you ask real people from certain areas they are certain it is happening to them ( lakes lower, longer dry spells ) it's very hard to find anyone who says it isn't happening. The real question is the degree.

As for scaremongering there are a lot of possible knock on effects that arent understood but they should be investigated on the off chance they are true because of the effect and because we can actually do something about it.

There are no statistics on fatal train crashes for the Japanese bullet trains or for the french TGV's but they still spend money on safety and research because if something were to cause a train crash at those speeds it would be fairly serious.

causal · 05-02-2005 03:12AM

I apolagise in advance for the terribly qualitative nature of the following statements, and I don't have a reference.

I recently heard (second hand) that the _effect_ of global warming is being offset somewhat by the phenomenon of global dimming.

Global dimming is a phenomenon whereby the amount of sunlight reaching the Earths surface is being reduced by 'pollution' in our atmosphere - more reflection less transmission.

The implication was that the full extent of global warming has been underestimated because the global dimming wasn't taken into account.

Funnily if you follow these phenomena to the nightmare scenario we'll end up in a dark and very hot planet - great for growing mushrooms!

Anyway our sun only has about 5 billion years before it goes boom.

"We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do..."

causAl

CerebralCortex · 06-02-2005 04:48PM

I was led to believe that global warming will bring about the next ice age due to the delicate balance between saltwater and freshwater in our ocean currents. More global warming equals more freshwater(melting ice caps). This has the effect of disrupting these important currents. Am I correct to believe this or not.

nesf · 06-02-2005 05:26PM

CerebralCortex wrote:

I was led to believe that global warming will bring about the next ice age due to the delicate balance between saltwater and freshwater in our ocean currents. More global warming equals more freshwater(melting ice caps). This has the effect of disrupting these important currents. Am I correct to believe this or not.

Yes and no. Yes it could cause another ice age due to disruptions of the ocean's currents. The no is because this has never happened so we really can't know what would happen if such a thing did occur.

Science is about theories, which are approximations or reality. Science doesn't claim to know exactly what will happen, it's just making very accurate educated guesses.

Oh and "The day after tommorrow" was a good movie, but not hard science by any stretch of the imagination.

CerebralCortex · 16-02-2005 11:43AM

causal wrote:

I apolagise in advance for the terribly qualitative nature of the following statements, and I don't have a .................

Global dimming is being sucessfully combated and the reason it is an issue is because it was negating the effect of global warming. The particules(man made) in the air which reflect light to produce global dimming are being reduced not increased although greenhouse gases are hence earth is becoming a greenhouse good for growing tomatoes in.

Zulu · 16-02-2005 12:17PM

CerebralCortex wrote:

Global dimming is being sucessfully combated and the reason it is an issue is because it was negating the effect of global warming. The particules(man made) in the air which reflect light to produce global dimming are being reduced not increased although greenhouse gases are hence earth is becoming a greenhouse good for growing tomatoes in.

For info on Global dimming see: Dimming

Capt'n Midnight · 16-02-2005 09:10PM

well 140 countries or something have signed up to Koyoto so there must be something in it.. ( we are about twice our limit )

causal · 17-02-2005 03:07AM

Sky News did a poll yesterday on which was more important - the Environment, or the Economy.
Last I saw it was 73% for the Environment, 27% for the Economy.

There's only one thing to say to the 27% :

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can't eat money"
- Cree proverb

causal

SkepticOne · 22-02-2005 11:21PM

toiletduck wrote:

i was just wondering if maybe global warming is a good thing? I mean, think about the quotation (i cant remember who said it) "Civilisation is merely an interlude between ice ages." There is no possibility of ice age now because of the increasing temparatures. It's just a thought in any case. Anyone want to set me striaght on the topic?

Well, it so happens that the last 10,000 years or so have been unusually stable in global temperature. The same 10,000 years have seen the development of agriculture, cities and civilisation. This stabilisation has been attributed by scientists to a system of connected currents that transport water around the world like a sort of conveyor belt that regulates climate. Without this regulating effect, the climate in a given area could change from one year to the next and farmers would not know what crops to plant. Measurements of global temperature from ice cores taken in the Arctic show a wide fluctuation over hundreds of thousands of years apart from the last 10,000 years of stability. If agriculture did not get started then we would not have cities and civilisation.

This conveyor belt current depends on salinity of sea water for its operation. The warm water moves towards the Arctic in the Atlantic. When it hits the ice cap, some of it freezes and forms more ice. Since ice can't contrain salt, the rest of the water, now with more concentrated salt and therefore heavier sinks to the bottom and continues on the floor of the sea.

As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, a rising of climate due to fossil fuels may melt the ice caps to the extent that the salinity of sea water has changed and this will effect the operation of the converor belt. This, I believe, was the subject of the film, The Day After Tomorrow.

toiletduck · 23-02-2005 02:22PM

What i was wondering is which is better (for lack of a better word): another ice age or the melting of the ice caps? Either way were screwed!

bonkey · 02-03-2005 06:46PM

causal wrote:

Global dimming is a phenomenon whereby the amount of sunlight reaching the Earths surface is being reduced by 'pollution' in our atmosphere - more reflection less transmission.

Being slightly pedantic, global dimming's causes are not purely attributable to pollution. There are other factors to consider there as well.

The implication was that the full extent of global warming has been underestimated because the global dimming wasn't taken into account.

The predictions of the future extent have not taken this into account. The measured global warming obviously has....but then again, we already know that our predictive models are not reliable, so this is merely adding somewhat to the uncertainty.

jc

What is the truth about global warming?

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