Climate change

[Argos]

Originally Posted by haku

Many vegetal and animal species will die out, including species that we use for food, we need to adapt and select species that will resist to a much warmer climate.
And while Africa will die for the most part, Canada and Siberia will become much warmer and inhabitable, very large and almost empty lands where hundreds of millions of people will be able to live.
The key is to prepare instead of just wait for it to happen.

Well, almost any plants and animals have a very high ability of adaption for warmer climate, whereas there is much lower tolerance for colder regions. So most species will not have problems. In general warmer climate means more evaporation of water, thus higher humidity, less deserts, more CO2, now bound in the ocean waters,which helps plants for assimilation. In fact many plants suffer because of the low concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and many plants had to find new ways of assimilation to avoid extinction (C4-cycle, CAM-cycle).

If we sum up all the positive and negative effects, there is a clear trend to more favourable conditions of a warmer earth. A good preparation for the future is nevertheless a good idea to benefit from the advantages and avoid harmful consequences.

[haku]

Carbon emissions rising faster than ever

Far from slowing down, global carbon dioxide emissions are rising faster than before, said a gathering of scientists in Beijing on Friday.

Between 2000 and 2005, emissions grew four times faster than in the preceding 10 years, according to researchers at the Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international researchers. Global growth rates were 0.8% from 1990 to 1999. From 2000 to 2005, they reached 3.2%.

Though alarming, the figures confirm expectations. "They make intuitive sense to me," says Jim Watson, deputy leader of the energy programme at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK.

One likely contributor is China, whose emissions slowed at end of the 1990s before rising again. China is now the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US. On Tuesday, the International Energy Agency released a report predicting that it would become the world’s top emitter by 2030.

Other growing developing countries, such as India and Brazil, are also fast becoming large emitters.

The US, meanwhile, is taking no nationwide action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme - created to help EU nations abide by their agreed Kyoto Protocol emissions limits - failed to do so in 2005, its first year of operation. It is unlikely to do so until its second phase of operation, which begins in 2008.

Unacceptably high

The Global Carbon Project report shows that carbon dioxide emissions over the last five years resembled one of the scenarios which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change uses to predict how the world will change with greenhouse gas emissions. The “A1B” scenario assumes that 50% of energy over the next century will come from fossil fuels, resulting in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations causing drastic climatic consequences.

"On our current path, we will find it extremely difficult to rein in carbon emissions enough to stabilise the atmospheric CO2 concentration at 450 parts per million and even 550 ppm will be a challenge," says Josep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project.

Research suggests that stabilising carbon dioxide concentrations at 450 ppm could limit global warming to 2°C.

Environmental inertia

The authors also highlight the importance of environmental inertia. This is the mechanism by which the environment stores up part of the energy of generated by greenhouse gas emissions, only releasing it to the atmosphere later on.

As a result, even when human emissions do begin to drop, atmospheric carbon dioxide will continue to rise for up to a century. Global temperatures will continue to increase for two or more centuries.

"This report shows how important it is for all countries to work towards more ambitious climate targets within the next phase of international action beyond 2012," says Watson.

He adds: "Action to persuade the US and large developing countries such as China and India to work towards such an agreement is particularly crucial. So is the acceleration of technological co-operation initiatives to help developing countries - particularly China - to move to a lower carbon development pathway."

New Scientist
10 November 2006

[rowe]

Actually Forre that is a misconception all of the scientists around the world (or at least the well recognised) are collaborating and agreeing that greenhouse gasses are too high and potentially disastrous. There is no doubt. Sure in moderation greenhouse gasses keep us warm but it is off balance.

[Argos]

Originally Posted by rowe

Actually Forre that is a misconception all of the scientists around the world (or at least the well recognised) are collaborating and agreeing that greenhouse gasses are too high and potentially disastrous. There is no doubt. Sure in moderation greenhouse gasses keep us warm but it is off balance.

That's one of the most stupid things scientists tell nowadays. I tell it again: There was never a time in earth history where there was such a low CO2 content than in the past 5 Mio. years. All scientists know that most climatic changes, even small ones, are quite fast. There is nothing to worry, only the necessity to adapt.

The amount of naturally produced CO2 is on average at least four times higher than human produced. The fluctuations of this production is extremely high (from about equal to human up to more than 20 times), nevertheless there is almost no fluctuation in graphs showing CO2 contents in the atmosphere.

This leads to a simple conclusion: Practically all produced CO2 is consumed by plants. This is done at least for the last 350 Mio. years, when plants spread over the whole earth and forrests became abundant.The remaining small value depends only on the temperature and the composition of earth's vegetation. For most plants the low CO2 amount of today is a serious threat to survive. Only plants with C4 or CAM metabolism don't have problems with that low content.

The scientists know all the facts, but they have to fight for money for research. Only those disciplines get enough which can prove great 'human relevance', Biology, Chemistry, Medicine. What to do? Create shock-scenarios: Kuno, the killer-carp is hunting you and bambi swallows up innocent walkers. That's nothing new, you have only to get accustomed to it.

[haku]

Melting of mountain glaciers is accelerating

Mountain glaciers are retreating three times faster than they were in the 1980s, says the World Glacier Monitoring Service.

On average, they lost about 66 centimetres in depth in 2005, according to the latest report from the UN-affiliated body, released on 30 January. This loss rate is 1.6 times more than the annual average for the 1990s and three times the 1980s average.

While the rate of change is certainly alarming, it is not a surprise, says Michael Zemp of WGMS. He says it fits in with the accelerating trend of the past 25 years, and simply serves to "make it sharper".

The truly worrying observation, he says, comes when the past 150 years are analysed in the context of the past 10,000 years of glacial history. Mountain glaciers reached their maximum extent for 10,000 years in 1850. But since then they have lost 50% of their area and retreated to their minimum extent for 10,000 years.

Biggest and highest

Global temperatures during that time rose by about 0.8°C. But a major report from the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is expected to announce on Friday that global temperatures will rise by a further 2.0°C to 4.5°C by 2100.

The WGMS believes that an increase of 3°C on current European temperatures would mean the European Alps would lose another 80% of their glaciers. If temperature predictions are accurate "only biggest and highest glaciers would survive into 21st century", says Zemp.

WGMS monitors 30 representative glaciers from nine mountain ranges around the world. They measure the thinning in metres of water equivalent, to account for differences in ice density (1.0 m of water equivalent is about 1.1 m of ice). On average, mountain glaciers have lost 9.6 metres of water equivalent since 1980.

The data indicate that glaciers in the European Alps are among those shrinking fastest. Since 2000, they have been losing an average of 1 metre every year and have lost 19 metres since 1980. They are now only about 30 metres deep on average.

Consensus and timing

The imminent release of the IPCC report has prompted speculation on how conservative the report will be, particularly in its predictions of sea-level rises. Media leaks suggest the report will predict rises of between 28 cm and 43 cm by 2100. The upper limit is considerably less than the IPCC's 2001 prediction of up to 88cm, but some recent studies suggest the upper limit should in fact be higher.

The issue is partly one of consensus. The 3750 report authors and reviewers and 154 participating governments need to agree on everything in the report. Inevitably, the most extreme predictions will be hardest to get agreement on.

There is also the question of timing. Studies published after mid-2006 may have come too late to be included in the IPCC report.

A study led by Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, is a case in point: published in Science in December 2006, it predicts rises of up to 140 cm.

But Zemp believes that, so far as mountain glaciers are concerned, the IPCC report will take all the latest data into account. He personally submitted a study in summer 2006 and believes it has formed part of the IPCC's deliberations, Furthermore, his colleagues have been working on the IPCC report, and have access to frequently updated WGMS data.

New Scientist

[haku]

Farewell to a melting glacier

[QueenBee]

I care, haku! But I don't have all the facts, and definitely not the necessary knowledge of English... so unfortunately I cannot join this debate. Thanks for the links. Also, I am freaking out about all these climate changes. I don't know who to believe.

But I will comment on what someone said earlier, about "An Inconvenient Truth", that was a really good movie. He should have been president instead. *sighs*

haku: I was in a bad mood, don't pay attention, but thanks.

[freddie]

One interesting thing about that projection is the vast melting progress from 1982 to 2001, which indicates the amoung of polution emited into the athmosphere in the late 80s & 90s. The 80s were the the 4th consecutive decade firmly established in industrial revolution - pretty much all aspects of modern life as we know today were present then as well... and yet the critical mass hasn't been reached and the planet could still maintain it's ballance. So It would appear modern way of life is not the root cause of all our woes, but rather the EXCESS
of it. Something brought by the 21st century.

One thing's for sure though: the corporate quest for profit will never back down to environmental concerns. Such is the nature of people. And in light of that... the Kyoto protocol was too ambitious.

[Станко394]

Originally Posted by Uhaku

It is a sad news when the animals are going to be extinct. I don't think there is a pessimistic prediction. It's the most true. Sad news, indeed. Is there a way to help?

Good question.
First of all, America should join those countries who are worried for climate, and all countries around world should start some programs for saving planet [any kind]

And if you ask what could WE do, I dunno.
Just try to keep nature clean..hahaha..XD

[Amy_Lee_Rocks]

Originally Posted by Станко394

Good question.
First of all, America should join those countries who are worried for climate, and all countries around world should start some programs for saving planet [any kind]

And if you ask what could WE do, I dunno.
Just try to keep nature clean..hahaha..XD

Yeah, i agree.
I care most about the animals...
look at the cute dolphins! awwwww

[QueenBee]

Even simple things like being careful about what groceries you buy can help. Things that are imported from countries far away obviously use more energy (if you know what I mean) because of the transportation, so it's a wise decision to buy things that are either from your own country, or somewhere not too far.

Or to sort your trash, like not mixing paper with plastic, that way it can be re-used and won't require as much energy (to make new material).

[simon]

I hadn't seen this before, but I must comment on it.

Originally Posted by Argos

Well, scientists can play with numbers and simply tell us anything. But if we look at those numbers which they don't show us so much, we get a quite different picture. The CO2-contents of the atmosphere was NEVER so low in earth history than in the last few million years (read beginning of glacial cycles), the surface temperature of the earth was most of the time considerably above the values of today. For a low resolution graph of temperature and CO2 for the last 550 mio years look here - sorry text in german, but I think, you can figure it out, anyway. I want to compare the hystery with a man who has almost been drowned, now the water goes up to the throat, and he has fear that he may die of thirst.

The important thing isn't that the CO2 level is getting higher, but that it's rising very rapidly and is beginning to cause rapid temperature rises.

Another interesting graph, rarely shown is this, again in german - the correlation between the length of the solar (sunspot) cycle and the global temperature. I always knew that some magicians can influence the irradiation of the sun!

Got to love the global warming deniers graphs! Notice that the graph ends just after 1980. Why is that? Because the relationship between length of solar cycle and temperature broke down then.

What else should we know, before "we die because of our own fault to destroy our environment"? Volcanic activity produces about 34 +/- 22 Megatons CO2 through active surface eruptions and about 31 +/- 22 Megatons of passive outgassing per year, both very strongly fluctuating, whereas mankind produces about 7 Megatons, of which 4 Megatons are buried by algae and plants. Despite those facts the rise of CO2 goes on in a very constant way of 1.5 ppm per year.

Argos' figures for emissions from volcanic activity are about right, but his figure for human emissions are 1000 times too low. Our emissions are 7 Gigatons, not 7 Megatons, and they're about about 100 times the emissions from volcanoes.

It's also incorrect that the rise of CO2 is constant. A few years ago it jumped to over 2 ppm per year and has stayed there. The reason is not known, but it suggests that positive feedbacks are beginning to kick in.

Originally Posted by Argos

Well, almost any plants and animals have a very high ability of adaption for warmer climate, whereas there is much lower tolerance for colder regions. So most species will not have problems. In general warmer climate means more evaporation of water, thus higher humidity, less deserts, more CO2, now bound in the ocean waters,which helps plants for assimilation. In fact many plants suffer because of the low concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and many plants had to find new ways of assimilation to avoid extinction (C4-cycle, CAM-cycle).

It's complete nonsense that plants and animals have a high ability to adapt to higher temperatures. If that were the case you should find all the polar and temperate species living in the tropics as well, but you don't. Plants and animals are found in certain climatic zones that they are adapted to.

Given space and time, species can move. The problem is that it's happening too fast for many of them and the experts predict that a large proportion of species will be made extinct.

The difference in global temperature between the middle of an ice age and an interglacial like we're in now is 5-6C. It takes about 5000 years for that change to take place. That's a rate of 1C per thousand years.

In the last 30 years the average global temperature has increased by 0.6C. That's a rate of 1C per 50 years. It's 20 times faster. It's been shown that climatic zones are shifting polewards much faster than most species can move. The rate is expected to increase over the course of this century unless our emissions fall a great deal. The climate models predict that the Earth will warm by at least a few degrees over the century. We're talking about getting on for the difference between an ice age and an interglacial, not in 5000 years, but in 100. It's the sheer speed of the change that's the big problem.

[Argos]

Originally Posted by simon

Got to love the global warming deniers graphs! Notice that the graph ends just after 1980. Why is that? Because the relationship between length of solar cycle and temperature broke down then.

Congratulations! You are the first to call the authors deniers. Nobody denies global warming. They made their study for the time between 1850 to 2000 (the time of publication was 2001) and because they used averaging techniques for the graph, they skipped the first and last ten years to avoid unreal artefacts. I don't know what you have to complain there.

Originally Posted by simon

Argos' figures for emissions from volcanic activity are about right, but his figure for human emissions are 1000 times too low. Our emissions are 7 Gigatons, not 7 Megatons, and they're about about 100 times the emissions from volcanoes.

You're right, big mistake, obviously I got lost during converting units. Thanks for clearing *embarrassed*

Originally Posted by simon

It's also incorrect that the rise of CO2 is constant. A few years ago it jumped to over 2 ppm per year and has stayed there. The reason is not known, but it suggests that positive feedbacks are beginning to kick in.

Well, I oversimplified a bit. The average of the last 50 years would be 1.5 ppm - in reality the slope of the accumulation increases constantly, but this can be seen since the last 'little ice-age' at the end of the 16th century. Whatever is the reason, it has to be in the past, not the present.

Originally Posted by simon

It's complete nonsense that plants and animals have a high ability to adapt to higher temperatures. If that were the case you should find all the polar and temperate species living in the tropics as well, but you don't.

The colonization of Australia is a good example, that adaption from species of cool temperate climate to a much hotter climate is not a big problem. You can easily plant most of your plants at home in UK into a tropical country without serious trouble, whereas to transplant in arctical regions it's often very difficult, if not impossible. The main adaption problem is competition, which is dramatically increased in tropical regions, not so much the climate.

Originally Posted by simon

The difference in global temperature between the middle of an ice age and an interglacial like we're in now is 5-6C. It takes about 5000 years for that change to take place. That's a rate of 1C per thousand years.

In the last 30 years the average global temperature has increased by 0.6C. That's a rate of 1C per 50 years. It's 20 times faster. It's been shown that climatic zones are shifting polewards much faster than most species can move. The rate is expected to increase over the course of this century unless our emissions fall a great deal. The climate models predict that the Earth will warm by at least a few degrees over the century. We're talking about getting on for the difference between an ice age and an interglacial, not in 5000 years, but in 100. It's the sheer speed of the change that's the big problem.

As for the speed of temperature increase, here is a quote from the NCDC on abrupt climatic changes in the past:

...the climate system has changed in the past in ways that are much larger and faster than anything we have observed in the last few centuries or estimated over the past 10,000 years. Most of these changes involve major rearrangements of the ocean-atmosphere-land-ice system.

During a brief period called the Younger Dryas, after temperatures in most of the Northern
Hemisphere had begun to warm from the last ice age, they rapidly returned to near-glacial
conditions. After about 1,000 years, they abruptly warmed again, with temperatures in Greenland warming by eight degrees Celsius (+14°F) in a decade. By comparison, the change in the global mean annual temperature over the last 140 years has been less than 1°C...

For reference

We can't blame everything on industrial revolution and exploitation of natural ressources. Things we see now, have happened numerous times before. The predictions of climate models are based on small data sets with significant lack of data for the oceans (currents, salinity, acidity, vertical distribution of their values and influence of it's biomass), the formation and energy balance of clouds (serious research begun only recently) and turbulances in the atmosphere are studied not well enough to come to firm conclusions about the future. At least nice mathematical playing around!

[Talyubittu]

Just jumping into this as an outsider...but...

Doesn't a volcanic eruption put an excess of carbon into the atmosphere alone? I seriously doubt that the planet - that has been here much longer than any of us, is going to just randomly stop working. This thing has been alive for years, and has dealt with more than any of us have ever immagined, I don't think that we need to get panicked about "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE", but I certainly do think that the world does need to re-adjust their scopes when it comes to taking care of our little blue planet.

[Larie't]

Originally Posted by Talyubittu

Doesn't a volcanic eruption put an excess of carbon into the atmosphere alone?.

Yes. But the amount of carbon that comes out of a normal size volcano isn't that much. But supervolcano eruptions have caused major changes in climate and are attach to many climate changes in the past..

..about "An Inconvenient Truth", that was a really good movie. He should have been president instead. *sighs*

Yey for Al!

[simon]

Originally Posted by Argos

Congratulations! You are the first to call the authors deniers. Nobody denies global warming. They made their study for the time between 1850 to 2000 (the time of publication was 2001) and because they used averaging techniques for the graph, they skipped the first and last ten years to avoid unreal artefacts. I don't know what you have to complain there.

It wasn't to avoid 'unreal artefacts', but because the pattern they were claiming can't be seen after 1980. The pattern of warming after 1980 is what needs to be explained. It's acknowledged that solar activity has had an influence on temperatures in the past and that was the traditional explanation for most temperature changes. But solar activity can't explain the pattern of warming since 1980 and so can't explain the 0.6C warming we've seen in the last 30 years, which is the main evidence that global warming is happening.

You're right, big mistake, obviously I got lost during converting units. Thanks for clearing *embarrassed*

After I caught you making such an elementary error, I'm surprised you still have the nerve to claim that you know more about this than me. Nobody who is at all familiar with the issue or scientific units would claim that human carbon dioxide emissions are only 1/1000th of what they really are and use that to claim that CO2 emissions from volcanoes are greater. It reveals that you're just a big mouth with no real knowledge of this subject.

Well, I oversimplified a bit. The average of the last 50 years would be 1.5 ppm - in reality the slope of the accumulation increases constantly, but this can be seen since the last 'little ice-age' at the end of the 16th century. Whatever is the reason, it has to be in the past, not the present.

The ice-core record shows that the atmospheric CO2 concentration was fairly constant around 280ppm until about 1800, since which it has increased increasingly rapidly.

Here are some graphs of what has happened over recent centuries.

And here are graphs and commentary about the last 650,000 years. The CO2 concentration was always between 180ppm (in the depths of the coldest ice ages) and 300ppm (in the warmest interglacials). Since 1800, though, the concentration has increased from 280ppm (which had been pretty stable for the last 10,000 years of this interglacial) to 380ppm in 2006.

The increase can be tied to the Industrial Revolution because that's when it started, it has been accelerating as human carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing and because the isotopic ratio shows that most of the additional carbon came from fossil sources, rather than somewhere in the biosphere.

The colonization of Australia is a good example, that adaption from species of cool temperate climate to a much hotter climate is not a big problem. You can easily plant most of your plants at home in UK into a tropical country without serious trouble, whereas to transplant in arctical regions it's often very difficult, if not impossible. The main adaption problem is competition, which is dramatically increased in tropical regions, not so much the climate.

Rabbits and sheep aren't an ecosystem. Some temperate species can make the transition, but a lot can't. Your view certainly isn't shared by the experts. This paper from the journal Nature estimates that 15-37% of a representative sample of species are at risk of extinction from expected global warming by 2050.

As for the speed of temperature increase, here is a quote from the NCDC on abrupt climatic changes in the past:

For reference

"During a brief period called the Younger Dryas, after temperatures in most of the Northern
Hemisphere had begun to warm from the last ice age, they rapidly returned to near-glacial
conditions. After about 1,000 years, they abruptly warmed again, with temperatures in Greenland warming by eight degrees Celsius (+14°F) in a decade. By comparison, the change in the global mean annual temperature over the last 140 years has been less than 1°C..."

That's describing a change in Greenland. The Younger Dryas event most affected the North Atlantic region and was centred on Greenland. What's more, changes in temperatures near the poles tend to be much greater than the global average - that's why we get ice ages with relatively small changes in global average temperatures. For example, Alaska has warmed by 6C in the last 30 years while the global average increase has been 0.6C. An additional 1.3C increase in global temperatures will probably trigger the complete and irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Even so, the start of the Younger Dryas was rather unpleasant. At exactly the same time most of the large animals in North America went extinct and the human hunter-gatherers who lived there (the Clovis people) were wiped out.

We can't blame everything on industrial revolution and exploitation of natural ressources.

We can, because the isotopic ratio shows that the additional CO2 in the atmosphere since 1800 is overwhelmingly from the burning of fossil fuels.

Things we see now, have happened numerous times before.

There has been nothing like such a rapid and large change in CO2 concentrations in the 650,000 years of the ice-core record.

The predictions of climate models are based on small data sets with significant lack of data for the oceans (currents, salinity, acidity, vertical distribution of their values and influence of it's biomass), the formation and energy balance of clouds (serious research begun only recently) and turbulances in the atmosphere are studied not well enough to come to firm conclusions about the future. At least nice mathematical playing around!

Don't believe what you read on propaganda websites that tell you that volcanic carbon emissions are greater than human emissions. The models do deal with oceans and clouds. There is an enormous mass of scientific evidence which has convinced nearly all the world's scientists. That's why they're raising the alarm.

[forre]

Climate change is irrelevant indeed. The humanity survived ice age, so it will survive the dry age too. Then, the Earth isn't center of the Universe, so sooner or later it's going to dissapear. If to speak using the Universal measurment, 1000 years of the acceleration towards the planet collaps mean nothing. Though, it's good that people try to take care.

[Amy_Lee_Rocks]

Originally Posted by forre

Climate change is irrelevant indeed. The humanity survived ice age, so it will survive the dry age too. Then, the Earth isn't center of the Universe, so sooner or later it's going to dissapear. If to speak using the Universal measurment, 1000 years of the acceleration towards the planet collaps mean nothing. Though, it's good that people try to take care.

Thats a pretty scary thing.

[forre]

Originally Posted by Amy_Lee_Rocks

Thats a pretty scary thing

No it isn't. Our problem is that we think we are invincible and immortal. None of this material world is immortal. Find your own ways of thinking and you'll be happy because that's the only thing we want.

[Talyubittu]

Originally Posted by forre

No it isn't. Our problem is that we think we are invincible and immortal. None of this material world is immortal. Find your own ways of thinking and you'll be happy because that's the only thing we want.

I don't think I am invincible or immortal...but I still don't want to die, or have my life/other species be threatened.

No offense forre, but if thats your honest outlook on this situation, I'm going to provide you with a number to a mental health facility in your area.


As far as this adaptation thing however...the only problem I see is mainly with sea animals. Animals that are contained at zoo's are maintained in fake atmospheres, and some of them are in entirely differen't ones, tropical birds for example. I have a tropical bird, but she hates heat. She's always trying to sneak out of her cage and crawl into the vent in my room. I swear one day I'm going to wake up and find birdie feathers all over the house becuase she got caught in it :-/ EEEP! My baby!