Global Warming? or is it cooling?

[Kuasimodem]

You be the judge.

Original Government Press Release

While recent studies have shown that on the whole Arctic sea ice has decreased since the late 1970s, satellite records of sea ice around Antarctica reveal an overall increase in the southern hemisphere ice over the same period.

Overall, the area of the Antarctic with trends indicating a lengthening of the sea ice season by at least one day per year was 5.6 million square kilometers (2.16 million square miles), about 60 percent the size of the United States. At the same time, the area with sea ice seasons shortening by at least one day per year was 3 million square kilometers (1.16 million square miles).

Hmmmmmmmm...

could this all really be due to normal grand scale climatic changes that the earth has been going thru since the dawn of time?

I say chalk up another failure for the environmental wackos, rught under the "pristine forest" theory of wilderness management. Over 460 million acres of formerly pristine forest is now barren of wildlife and covered with charred poles that used to be living trees And that's just what has been consumed this year

EDIT - Forgot to mention that the 460M+ acres burned in one forest fire, this number doesn't include what has been destroyed in other "smaller" forest fires.

[surreal]

So are you saying we should be cutting it down so it won't burn?

[samwichse]

Frankly I think it's a bunch of BS

There's no hard evidence for global warming in the least that might be caused by humans. Look at a long term geologic record of sea levels and see that we're in the midst of large scale changes in climate that come in and out like the tides. Humanity thinks that "right now" is the norm because we're here and that's the way it should be. I say we're pertty egocentric then to think we can cause some huge interruption in these processes by burning even all the fossil fuels in the world. To us, a big petrolium deposit in say... the middle east is just that, big. But look at its occurance compared to the overall mass of the crust there and see what an insignificantly small amount of material that is.

I guess I got a little off my point there, which was that the worldwide temperature is anything but stable, and there is evidence that the oceans have covered over 50% of georgia in the past. The island I worked on this summer was a "rollover" barrier island, where as sea levels rise it gets rolled over backwards. Well, it had stopped rolling over because it ran into a pleistocene aged rollover island and stuck there. The meaning? The sea level had dropped almost 200 feet and was rising again. And it wasn't rising any 200 feet while humanity was in existance, way to short a time period.

And surreal, we can't cut them down to prevent fires When they do cut, all the branches and such are left behind as slash, which is a huge fire risk. Thinning/burning is the way to go for fire prevention.

Sam

[osprey4]

You people need to turn off Rush and do some reading.

Please keep in mind that the term "global warming" contains the term "global". It's an average. Some places are warmer than others. Some places are colder than others. But on average (average meaning more than your back yard), the hard evidence is that world is warming.

By the way, while the pols and Rush debate this, corporations are already preparing.

[Kuasimodem]

So are you saying we should be cutting it down so it won't burn?

Selective cutting and management of undergrowth buildup will greatly reduce the chances of future forest fires. A company that a friend of mine works for has been harvesting and replanting the same area of forest for decades, the forest is healthy and has had no large-scale fires.

Please keep in mind that the term "global warming" contains the term "global". It's an average. Some places are warmer than others. Some places are colder than others. But on average (average meaning more than your back yard), the hard evidence is that world is warming.

As compared to what, the Ice Age? It is also a proven fact that the earth goes through long term increases and decreases in its history, this "warming period" is just that, a normal part of the cycle.

BTW - Notice the source, this did not come from Rush's site. I was reading through online news releases and found this story, which the major media chose to ignore because it doesn't support their "green" agenda.

[samwichse]

Please notice also my information does not come from Rush but from my university's forestry, biology, and geology professors.

Sam

[Gomer]

My thoughts on Glogal Warming... Some of you may have seen this before, it was put together at that other site.

Global warming.
CO2 is one greenhouse gas. Gasses which trap much more heat per molecule include CH4, NOx's, and CFC's. At the beggining of the industrial revolution CO2 concentration was at 280 parts per million (ppm). From 1860-1995 CO2 concentrations have risen exponentially to 360 PPM higher then any time in 150,000 years. It rose from 316 ppm-360 ppm from 1960-1995. From 1976-1994 CFC (traps 1,500-1,700 more heat then CO2) concentration rose from 1.50 parts per billion to 3.00 ppb, CH4 (traps 25 times more heat then CO2) concentration went from 1.52 ppm - 1.75 ppm, and NO2 (traps 230 times as much heat as CO2) conc. went from 300 ppb - 310 ppb.

Since 1860, mean global temperature has risen 0.3-0.6C. Between 1946-1995 temp has risen 0.3C. Since 1860 the 12 warmest years on record have occurred between 1979 and 1997. In it's 1995 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change concluded that "the observed increase over the last century is unlikely to be entirely due to natural causes" and "the balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernable human influence on global climate." The IPPC projects the earths mean surface temp will rise 1-3.5C over the next century. Even at the lowest projected increase of 1.0C the earth will be the warmest it has been in 10,000 years. The larger landmasses in the Northern Hempisphere causes it to warm more and faster Surface temps north of the Arctic cirlce have risen 5.5C since 1968. Since 1947, the average summer temp in Antarctica has risen 2C. The IPPC warns that that warmings or coolings by more then 1C over a few decades (rather then over many centuries, as the pattern has been over the last 10,000 years) will cause serious disruptions of the current structure and functioning of earth's ecosystems and of human economic and social systems.

Nature has many checks and balances built into its climate control. Positive and negative feedbacks. As the ocean warms, it releases more CO2 into the atmosphere. Ocean currents act like a conveyor belt transferring heat and storing CO2 in the deep sea. If the density and the salinity of the water changes it effects this conveyor belt. If it stalls out, evidence from past climate changes suggest it could trigger atmospheric temp changes of more then 5C over 40 years. So now there is all this water vapor in the air. Clouds form. They can have both a warming (trapping heat) or cooling effect (reflecting sunlight). It dependeds on the thickness and altitude of the clouds and if it is day or night over them. As the icecaps melt, less sunlight is reflected, more is absorbed, temp goes up. Or, the warmer air will carry more water vapor, causing more snow to be dropped on the polar glaciars causing them to grow, reflecting more sunlight, and maybe plunging us into the next ice age.

Then there is the pollution we create that helps to reduce global warming. Sulfate aerosals and most other aerosals reflect sunlight back into space helping to keep the earth cool. However, as laws are passed and greater steps are taking to reduce the amount of aerosals emmitted we lose this buffer. Aerosals do not stay in the atmosphere for long periods of time as the greenhose gasses do.

What about plants and and increase in photosynthesis? All the excess CO2 could be gobbled up by vegatation helping to keep temps down. Warm temps and an increse in food would allow plant eating bugs to breed faster and year-round offseting the increase in vegatation. Weeds could also grow faster at the expense of food crops.

I mentioned methane earlier as a greenhouse gas. As CO2 uptake by wetland plants is increased, there would be more organic matter for methane prdoucing anaerobic bacteria to decompose. There is also a large amount of methane tied up in the arctic tundra soils. If the blanket of permafrost melts this CH4 would be released causing an increase in warming. I am pretty sure I saw something on the news within the last 6 months or so about the permafrost in some areas melting causing houses built on it to sink and collapse.

So is there global warming? It is getting warmer, that is obvious. Are we causing it? 10,000 years ago nature could hold its own and keep the scales balanced. We have thrown so many more variables into the mix no one knows what is happening. So many different things we are doing affects things on different levels.

We are raping mother nature on a daily basis. And we aren't being gentle about it. We destroy nature to provide ourselves with what we consider a better quality of life. Think about landfills. We need them, no doubt about it. But think about the cocktail of chemicals that it is pooling at the bottom. They are there and eventually they will find their way out. Picture that cocktail and then imagine taking a microliter of it and adding it to a glass of water. Would you drink it? Every landfill liner will fail given time. They can't design one that won't. Will we be around. I hope not but someone will.

I don't know what the answer is. We are too wrapped up in our lifetimes and short term personal goals to give a damn about the future of the earth. So every day we slowly destroy something amazing that tooks billions of years to build. I do it myself. I just hope that the other foot doesn't fall while I am still around.

One thing though. I am sure many of leave your computers on 24/7. If you are cracking RC5 more power to you, at least something is being done with them. But if you just leave it on so you don't have to wait for it to boot, turn it off. Think about the 16 hours that computer isn't doing anything. Multiply that by a million and think about all that power getting slurped up to do nothing. Cheap electricity won't be around forever and turning them off is an easy step of conservation.

(most data taken from G. Tyler Miller's "Environmental Science")

[Epidemic]

Gomer,

Although your source seems to be well versed in political rhetoric there is very little hard science involved here. For all we know we are holding back the iceage which is due on it's 10,000 year cycle.

The hole in the Ozone layer and green house gasses are two junk science footballs being bounced around for years.

The ozone hole was never closed in the time we have been able to measure it. So is the hole caused by man or a fact of cylical atmospheric conditions.

We may be entering the period of the highest temperatures in recorded history. But is that cylical or not. don't think in terms of 10,000 years or even 100,000 years. Think in terms of millions. The dinosaurs lived in a tropical environment on all land masses. This would suggest that temps have been much much much higher in the past.

I am not saying we should not reduce greenhouse gasses. I am more stating that the scientists have an agenda that they are trying to put fourth. At this point I have not heard any one with a credible story.

I would like to see bio diesels and corn mobiles for the off chance they are right and the side benefit of choking off terrorist funds. But right now it is all junk science to me.

[nomaxim]

Not only the hole in the ozone layer but also El Nino. We have no idea how long these two have existed.

Did they both form recently, or have they both been around for millions of years?

We don't know. Just because we find something new with our technology doesn't mean it wasn't there before.

Besides geological records suggest that we are past due for another ice age. Plus another massive die-off of species is about due!

[osprey4]

Originally posted by nomaxim
Plus another massive die-off of species is about due!

Fortunately, we've avoided a massive die-off by killing them off first.

Actually it matters very little what the academics think, one way or the other. Their opinions are as irrelevant as the politicians. The fact is that if the martketplace believes there is global warming, and it does, companies will respond. And they are responding.

It's academic.