Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[CapelDodger]

they did both actually.

Could you be more specific about the distinction between "adaptation" and "evolution", as you see it?

I can think of a distinction by analogy : evolution is when successive generations become whiter as the poplation depends more on hunting on a white surface, whereas adaptation is learning to feed from dumpsters because the white surface you grew up with isn't there any more.

Is that how you see it?

 

[CapelDodger]

Let us agree that Global warming is a fact just for the sake of argument. How are we going to stop it ...?

We're not.

 

[Furcifer]

"Extreme" in what regard?

Relative to the climate in the Mesopotamia. Generally milder climate than Europe and much of Asia.

Cultural impact of climate change : nil.

It lead to migration and adaptation. An indirect result, at least until now.

 

[Furcifer]

Let us agree that Global warming is a fact just for the sake of argument. How are we going to stop it with the third world building their infrastructure and increasing their consumption of fossil fuels? We could just go back to an agrarian lifestyle and let the third world take over but I just don't see that happening. We will need to compete with the third world and can't just screw our economy to sing kumbaya.

We're not going to stop it. We'll continue on our course of replacing fossil fuels with nuclear and alternatives as the market dictates. We'll adapt to any changes, and at some point we'll invent the technology to reverse the change if it proves detrimental to society.

 

[CapelDodger]

I shoulda highlighted the key part of my polar bear synopsis for you...

I coulda highlighted my "terribly amusing" and still failed to make you see my point. Speak softly and hide a big grin, that's how I work an audience.

You've grown up (shall we say) in an environment where people like, say, us here go on about polar bears a lot. When you come here and find that we don't, do you adapt or evolve to the situation? You do not : you try to introduce the environment you're used to into this one.

Here you have a completely different kind of top predator. Not only can't you see us coming, you don't even know when we've been.

 

[CapelDodger]

Relative to the climate in the Mesopotamia. Generally milder climate than Europe and much of Asia.

Not the greatest influence on Romanticism, and generally regarded as the toilet of the world back then. The climate (arid, watered by Asia Minor and the Taurus Mountains) couldn't make up for thousands of years of salination by irrigation. The Cradle of Civilisation that filled with its own poop, for no fault of their own (how could they have known?). Great while it lasted but there's more to agriculture (the foundation of everything) than climate.

It lead to migration and adaptation. An indirect result, at least until now.

No such result at all. Mass European migration (which I assume is what you're referring to) only kicked in towards the later 19thCE and was made possible by steamships, both to make the journey affordable and to bring the new lands available into a global market. Nothing to do with climate change, everything to do with the Industrial Revolution. Which was not "adaptation" either.

 

[Furcifer]

No such result at all. Mass European migration (which I assume is what you're referring to) only kicked in towards the later 19thCE and was made possible by steamships, both to make the journey affordable and to bring the new lands available into a global market. Nothing to do with climate change, everything to do with the Industrial Revolution. Which was not "adaptation" either.

Wrong migration.

 

[Furcifer]

Empiric evidences and supports are the most glaring differences.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

That might be helpful in determining or the origins of AGW, but it doesn't explain the blind faith people express in the future of global warming.

 

[Trakar]

In which case, what I've said about finding ways to learn to live with it, is even more important.
As long as we don't continue to compound the matter by continuing to pollute the atmosphere.

We've already compounded the problem to the point where things are going to get pretty bad for a long time even if we shut off all sources of fossil fuels yesterday. Currently, our rate of usage is still increasing. Tipping points are real boogeymen, not imaginary ones. Something wicked has already arrived, it is the corruption of its presence we anticipate with dreadful foresight.

 

[Trakar]

...Don't paint me as responsible for any meaningless distractions, or concerns about carbon costs I might pay. If everyone had my carbon-footprint there wouldn't be a problem.

Blame my generation or blame my species, but don't blame me.

Currently, for myself as well, but the problem I see is a lifetime of excess that still needs amending for, not to mention the last several generations. With climate issues the sins of our fathers weigh upon us as well as our own ilconsidered transgressions, past and present.

 

[Travis]

I love the east coast bias here. Because NYC is having a cold winter the whole world must be in the same boat. Except they aren't. Here in California this was an extremely warm January.

 

[Furcifer]

Something wicked has already arrived, it is the corruption of its presence we anticipate with dreadful foresight.

For all our sakes I hope waxing poetically doesn't contribute to Global Warming.

This is really the most contentious issue with Global Warming. I believe the issue with tipping points was first lamented over when the role of CO2 in the atmosphere was discovered. It's impossible to look at the history of Global Warming and not see the correlation between political interest and correctness of the theory.

I think working out which came first is key. I'm pretty sure "something wicked" arrive to the party with Al Gore.

 

[icerat]

I explain it to people this way - the air causing cold winters in Europe and parts of North America is actually way way warmer than usual. The problem is it's arctic air, and it's not where it normally is. Even warm arctic air is damn cold.

 

[macdoc]

Let us agree that Global warming is a fact just for the sake of argument. How are we going to stop it with the third world building their infrastructure and increasing their consumption of fossil fuels? We could just go back to an agrarian lifestyle and let the third world take over but I just don't see that happening. We will need to compete with the third world and can't just screw our economy to sing kumbaya.

We're not - it's a done deal - all we are is building up the eventual magnitude and perhaps the speed of the of onset of substantive change.
Carbon does not go away.

Tackling methane which does go away in human scale terms may be a more effective route to slowing the energy gain as methane is 20 x more potent than C02 and lends itself to control from a number of approaches.
Eat roo burgers.

 

[tkmikkelsen]

Depending on the people and where they live. Tell people in Greenland they're having colder winters and they'll give you a very strange look.



Call it climate disruption and they start to make the connection. The idea that "climate always changes" is not deeply-bedded in popular culture because it hasn't been a common experience since civilisation began. The Little Ice Age and so on were only invented in the 20thCE as a historiographical fad.
People understand disruption and they don't like it.

To the best of my knowledge the little ice age was not invented. It is a period of time where the mean temperature was lower than the period before and after and therefor someone named it the little ice age. This name did not come about until the 20th century, but to say that it was invented gives it the feel of voodoo science, which to the best my knowledge is not the general accepted stance.

 

[BadBoy]

It never had much credence. The simple fact of having the Atlantic to the west, where the prevailing winds normally come from, far outweighs the Gulf Stream. With these "blocking highs" that have switched the winds to the continent and down from the Arctic we've seen all the cooling we'd see if the Gulf Stream turned off. Cold, but not outrageously so.

It would have an effect on Greenland, Iceland and Norway, no doubt about that. Maybe Labrador. If the warm water pooled in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean that would also have an effect, I'd have thought.

The consensus opinion has always been that it's very unlikely anyway.

I also beleive we are at the bottom of the sun activity cycle at the moment, which could be causing the cooler winters? rather than AGW effects. I guess time will tell. I heard something mentioned on a radio program and looked it up.

http://www.lunarplanner.com/SolarCycles.html

I also found this in the Telegraph while I was looking, but I wouldnt beleive much I read in that paper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7819201/Nasa-warns-solar-flares-from-huge-space-storm-will-cause-devastation.html

3body, this is what I would call alarmism BTW. Its from a right wing paper, but will probably get attributed to loony libral ranting so deniers can complain AGW proponents are all deluded within a few months.

 

[macdoc]

I also beleive we are at the bottom of the sun activity cycle at the moment, which could be causing the cooler winters?

wrong on too many fronts to even start

- the explanation for the cooler continental interiors is very straight forward and hardly a breakthrough.... try Occam sometimes...
The extra snow is simple....warmer ocean and atmosphere = greater water vapour content.
Stalled continental highs in the northern winter ( due to warmer Arctic ocean ) hit the warm moisture laden air and New York and Washington grind to a halt.

try some real climate science instead of media trash.

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...05/start-here/

 

[Mikemcc]

The paradox.

If you call it Global Warming and then say colder winters people look at you cock eyed. Call in climate change and no one cares, because the climate always changes.

It's not an either / or name change. Both are happening and are aspects of the same thing. If anything global warming is just one aspect of climate change, which also includes changes to land use, precipitation, sea-level, ocean acidification, growing season, bio-diversity...

 

[Furcifer]

Both are happening and are aspects of the same thing.

Hence the paradox of calling it Global Warming, as the OP suggested.

 

[macdoc]

No they are not.

AGW refers to a forcing caused by mining and burning of fossil carbon that IS causing a radiative imbalance. The planetary physicial systems ARE warming.
That is the forcing mechanism so it is global warming.

Cooler continental winters and increased snowfall are shifts in weather patterns and perhaps ocean currents.....it is not a counteractive forcing the way say a big volcano would be.

The colder interiors and increased snow in a limited number of areas are simply more frequent extreme swings in weather and "local" climate regimes.

It's a consequence, just as increased rainfail intensity, shifts in desert and tropical bands are consequences.
There is no paradox.
One is a forcing
One is a consequence of that forcing.

But do keep trying to muddle things 3b....one wonders if some are getting paid for it.....not the first time