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General Global Warming / Climate Change Discussion
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| tracy18 | Date: Wednesday, 24.08.2016, 10:46 | Message # 166 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 3
Status: Offline
| Need help! I am doing a basic level research on global warming to give a presentation about it to my students.Till now I have read a few articles stating that 2016 is the hottest year and some global warming essays that explain the basic environmental effects, but I am looking for stats that prove that global warming is an impending threat to our existence. But, I have seen quite a few people in the internet claiming that global warming is a hoax. Any reliable proof or data that global warming is real?
P.S: I have seen a lot of complicated graphs and scientific data that I have failed to understand. So I am looking for very basic explanation that a commoner like me can understand
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| midtskogen | Date: Wednesday, 24.08.2016, 13:14 | Message # 167 |
 Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote tracy18 (  ) I am looking for stats that prove that global warming is an impending threat to our existence. But, I have seen quite a few people in the internet claiming that global warming is a hoax. Any reliable proof or data that global warming is real?
Global warming doesn't imply that it is an impending threat to our existence, and that there is no impending threat to our existence, doesn't mean that global warming isn't real.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| Watsisname | Date: Tuesday, 06.09.2016, 22:01 | Message # 168 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| There is certainly some warming threshold which would threaten our existence if exceeded, but we're not going near it. Global warming isn't a problem of our survival, but of our resilience. It forces life to be able to adapt to the various changes it causes. Anything that can't adapt quickly enough dies, but humans are pretty smart. Mainly we need to be smart about our infrastructure and agriculture.
Many will say the proof of global warming is in the temperature record, but I would say that this is observational evidence. It shows the Earth is warming but does not in itself tell you why. The deeper understanding comes from the physics. I describe some of it here under the 'greenhouse effect' tag.
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In other news, a recent collaboration between NOAA and the University of Colorado has worked out a reconstruction of Arctic sea ice coverage from 1850 to today through the use of a network of historical data observations.
Quote The results of all this work definitively show that the Arctic ice pack is shrinking. “We looked at the extremes back to 1850,” says Fetterer. “There’s been nothing like what we’ve seen in recent years.” In addition, the rate of retreat is also unprecedented in the historical record. There have been some regions where ice loss is less, such as the Bering Sea, but overall, Arctic ice as a whole has seen a rapid decline. “People have been recording ice conditions and putting analyses into charts for a long time—a century and a half,” says Walsh. “It’s nice to fit it all into a big picture so we can place the ice retreat into a longer perspective.”
These results also fit with previous, geological methods of reconstructing the Arctic sea ice conditions, which show that sea ice levels have not been this low in many thousands of years. Models also do not reproduce the current trends without the greenhouse forcing, so we can say with a lot of confidence that it really is our greenhouse gas emissions that are causing this and not some internal dynamics. There is natural variability and particularly some strong multidecadal variability as midtskogen points out, but these are more regional, smaller in magnitude, and do not explain the present changes. They do make it difficult to precisely predict when we might start seeing ice-free Arctic summers.
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| steeljaw354 | Date: Tuesday, 06.09.2016, 22:22 | Message # 169 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Pirate
Messages: 862
Status: Offline
| When theres Ice free Antarctic summers does that mean we can start colonizing Antarctica?
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| Watsisname | Date: Tuesday, 06.09.2016, 22:44 | Message # 170 |
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Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| Maybe. That's a few thousand years out though. I hope before then that we've established colonies on other worlds. 
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| midtskogen | Date: Wednesday, 07.09.2016, 08:57 | Message # 171 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote Watsisname ( ) These results also fit with previous, geological methods of reconstructing the Arctic sea ice conditions, which show that sea ice levels have not been this low in many thousands of years.
I don't think geological reconstructions confidently can tell us ice cover for short periods. But we do know from sediments and old beach ridges that during the early Holocene the north pole was regularly mostly ice free in summer until about 6000BP, then probably less reliably until about 4000BP and from that time the Arctic ocean has had perennial ice. If we do see decades of ice free summers in the 21st century, it will likely be the first time in 4000 years, possibly in 6000 years. It's difficult to rule out that, say, 5 summers between 328 - 321 BC the north pole was navigable due to a warm period that coincided with exceptional weather events. But it could hardly have been like that the entire 4th century BC or it would have left some traces.
If it happens (I think the window of opportunity now is closing until the 2060's due to multidecadal variability), our lives will go on pretty much as before, though.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| Salvo | Date: Wednesday, 07.09.2016, 09:24 | Message # 172 |
 Star Engineer
Group: Local Moderators
Italy
Messages: 1400
Status: Offline
| Quote Watsisname ( ) Anything that can't adapt quickly enough dies
A world where we live eating pills (that's going to happen anytime soon), insects or raw compounds, and where most of these beautiful animals except dogs and cats are extinct is... pretty much sad, if I gotta be honest.
I wouldn't call it "living", but just "surviving"... 
Yeah, we made a Lettuce grow in space so we could actually do something smart about agriculture, but salad wouldn't be something that anyone could eat like today. I think there will be a few restaurants in which you will eat "real food", but they will be mostly vegans because people will be so much used to eat other things that eating dead bodies of animals would make them disgusted.
Maybe I'm completely wrong and we'll keep eating normal food forever, I don't know, I can't predict the future. 
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770 GPU: ASUS Radeon R9 270 RAM: 8 GBs
(still don't know why everyone is doing this...)
Edited by Salvo - Wednesday, 07.09.2016, 09:32 |
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| Hornblower | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 02:20 | Message # 173 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 714
Status: Offline
| Here's a great video to watch:
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| midtskogen | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 05:02 | Message # 174 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| What? Did Greenpeace get pro whaling and pro sealing?
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
Edited by midtskogen - Thursday, 08.09.2016, 05:02 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 06:03 | Message # 175 |
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Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| I'm sympathetic to the Inuit people and have read some personal accounts and explorations of the Arctic to document their cultural history, how modern society is impacting their lives, and the changing climate. I think what's happening up there is pretty sad. My feelings for Greenpeace on the other hand are... variable.
The loss of Arctic sea ice cover has some direct effects on their way of life, and it also has much broader effects on the atmosphere and the global climate. The snow and ice provides a lot of Earth's reflectivity, and the loss of it further enhances the warming. Personally I think it would be nice if we could try to keep Earth's cryosphere intact because failing to do so is symptomatic of a failure to change our course from even greater warming with more severe effects.
Quote Salvo ( )
I wouldn't call it "living", but just "surviving"...
I don't think our future would be quite so bad. Well, to be more precise, I think my pessimism scales with how much warming we dedicate ourselves to in the next 100 years. 2C, we should do okay. 4C, I get worried. 6C and beyond, and I'm rather terrified. I'm optimistic that we'll be smart and able to deal with the changes that come and life won't be so bad as that, but that optimism is dwindled every time economic incentives win over science and reason, and we continue searching to expand our fossil fuel reserves in areas that weren't convenient until after they melted out because of the warming caused by the fuels we already burned...
I don't know of any way out of this loop except to beat it with the same economics. We must make it economically viable to transition to better energy sources and to build up our resilience to the changes we are committed to. And we are starting to figure out that we can actually do this, that it actually does make economic sense to do this. And that gives me a lot of optimism.
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| midtskogen | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 06:22 | Message # 176 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| We probably need to find more efficient ways to get our food. For a beef we need to raise cattle, make pasture for them, etc, so we can slaughter them for a few kg's of meat. We haven't transformed every inch of arable land yet, but with technology we can perhaps stop and return large areas back to nature even with a population increase. Technology is also the key to kill the CO2 worries. Fossil fuel is stone age technology that cannot become the cheap energy needed by the future.
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
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| Hornblower | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 10:41 | Message # 177 |
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World Builder
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 714
Status: Offline
| 6.15 FOR A COKE!?
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| midtskogen | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 17:58 | Message # 178 |
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Star Engineer
Group: Users
Norway
Messages: 1674
Status: Offline
| Quote Hornblower ( ) 6.15 FOR A COKE
Global warming is to blame!!11!!
Canadian dollars, though. I can't remember the last time I had a coke or pepsi. Last year, perhaps?
NIL DIFFICILE VOLENTI
Edited by midtskogen - Thursday, 08.09.2016, 18:12 |
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| spacer | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 20:37 | Message # 179 |
 Star Engineer
Group: Users
Israel
Messages: 1258
Status: Offline
| i am the only one in this world that hate coke? like i so hate it i can puke
"we began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still"
-carl sagan
-space engine photographer
Edited by spacer - Thursday, 08.09.2016, 20:37 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Thursday, 08.09.2016, 21:14 | Message # 180 |
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Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| I've mostly moved away from sodas, to the point where when I do have one my reaction is "wow, this like drinking liquid sugar -- gross".
Good when mixed with bourbon sometimes.
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