Give me your opinions about global warming

[rigadin]

Give me your opinions

I think it will get colder in Scandinavia because when the ice melts in the North Pole the gulf stream will get colder and it will be colder than before without the warmth of the Gulf Stream. The deserts will expand. I actually have some friends in Australia and they are farmers. They have a lot pf problems because there was nearly no rain at all!!

I would love to get your opinions on global warming. Does it effect the way you live?

[Chupacabra]

I think it will get colder in Scandinavia because when the ice melts in the North Pole the gulf stream will get colder and it will be colder than before without the warmth of the Gulf Stream.

 

Well, should it get colder in Arctica, the ise will build up again. Then the Gulfstream will come back, and everything will return to normal.

[imp]

Well, should it get colder in Arctica, the ise will build up again. Then the Gulfstream will come back, and everything will return to normal.

 

My question is: Does the chupacabra as originally described in folklore really exist? imp

[Realitycheck]

I think the problem with the shifting rains is a temporary phase, kind of something to do with the El Nino effect, only in Australia, though I suppose this might be affected by melting ice. I have a hard time seeing how deserts will expand, as well, in the long run. The earth might get hotter, but this should cause a larger percentage of water vapor to be shifted into the atmosphere, causing more rain to fall, overall. Either way, it should still be kind of cyclical, or at least not permanent.

[nootropolis]

I think the problem with the shifting rains is a temporary phase, kind of something to do with the El Nino effect, only in Australia, though I suppose this might be affected by melting ice. I have a hard time seeing how deserts will expand, as well, in the long run. The earth might get hotter, but this should cause a larger percentage of water vapor to be shifted into the atmosphere, causing more rain to fall, overall. Either way, it should still be kind of cyclical, or at least not permanent.

 

Not so, http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19426064.100-global-warming-is-shrinking-the-great-lakes.html

 

and on a personal note, all the lakes in texas are flooded right now, some by more then 12 feet above normal, and the rain patterns are completely ****ed

[Jadey12]

Well, should it get colder in Arctica, the ise will build up again. Then the Gulfstream will come back, and everything will return to normal.

 

Okay, so I'm no genius, but since the ice melts and mixes with salt water, even if it gets colder, it won't re-freeze or build up again will it? Of course, I don't know how the ice caps were developed in the first place. I'm just asking.

[1veedo]

Precipitation

[Chupacabra]

Okay, so I'm no genius, but since the ice melts and mixes with salt water, even if it gets colder, it won't re-freeze or build up again will it?

 

Why wouldn't it? Ice caps form when snow falling in winter can't be melt over during the warm season. If it gets colder, ise would surely re-freeze, the water would again become rather saline, and all conveyor would start working again.

[SkepticLance]

One thing that is very clear about global warming is that it is very political. Lots of people are pushing views that may, or may not be valid. Exaggerations are rife.

 

I have been interested for a long time in the human propensity to predict disaster. In the last 60 years, since Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, there have been a large number of predictions of global disaster.

 

- Rachel Carson - ecological disaster by pesticide poisoning

- Paul Ehrlich - famine disaster by over population

- Disaster by ozone layer destruction

- Nuclear War

- Nuclear winter

- Nuclear reactor melt-downs, like Chernobyl, only worse

- Y2K

- assorted plagues

etc

 

The one thing they all have in common is that none of them happened. Or at least, not to anything like the extent predicted.

 

I suspect global warming, which is real, will be the same. It will happen, but will not be the major disaster predicted.

[theCPE]

Wasn't the population of Earth supposed to be about 10 billion by now........

 

Yeh, predictions by uninformed people tickle me in a way that if Loretta....oops sorry.

[1veedo]

One thing that is very clear about global warming is that it is very political. Lots of people are pushing views that may, or may not be valid. Exaggerations are rife.

 

I have been interested for a long time in the human propensity to predict disaster. In the last 60 years, since Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, there have been a large number of predictions of global disaster.

 

- Rachel Carson - ecological disaster by pesticide poisoning

- Paul Ehrlich - famine disaster by over population

- Disaster by ozone layer destruction

- Nuclear War

- Nuclear winter

- Nuclear reactor melt-downs, like Chernobyl, only worse

- Y2K

- assorted plagues

etc

 

The one thing they all have in common is that none of them happened. Or at least, not to anything like the extent predicted.

 

I suspect global warming, which is real, will be the same. It will happen, but will not be the major disaster predicted.

Yeah, that's nice. Global warming isn't predicting disaster by any comparable extent of the above. The media might be, or Al Gore, but not the actual scientists. I love how people use straw men so often on these forums. It is a bad thing but... nuclear winter? I'd take global warming over a nuclear winter any day of the week.

- Disaster by ozone layer destruction

This shouldn't be on the list. Again you spend too much time watching TV. Everything predicted by scientist about ozone depletion were coming true, eg holes in the ozone becoming bigger. Scientists were not making the claim that ozone depletion would cause global disaster, just speculation that if the ozone hole got big enough it would cause cancer (eg in New Zealand / Australia and southern South America). Because of the dangers of ozone depletion new regulations are in place and ozone concentration in the atmosphere is now increasing while the ozone hole over Antarctica is now decreasing. We're not seeing any effects simply because we have mitigated ozone depletion.

 

Again, I absolutely love how many straw men pop up around here.

Y2K

Lol media hype here too. Most computers were "fixed" before Y2K so there weren't many problems. A few computer malfunctions here or there and a guy getting a credit card bill over a million dollars.

 

Anyone who knew anything about Y2K knew that the world wasn't going to end. A few religious groups thought Jesus would come back but lets not count all the religious people cause they never know what's up. Jesus might come back to destroy the world in 2012 though, you never know

[SkepticLance]

1veedo

 

Sorry, but the straw men are yours.

I talked of exaggerations of disaster. You have made of that something that wasn't there. Like suggesting I was criticising scientists. I did not even use the word scientist.

 

My list of predicted disasters is real, and correct. You are making of it something I did not say. Do not accuse others of setting up straw men, when it is yourself who is guilty.

[Dak]

The one thing they all have in common is that none of them happened. Or at least, not to anything like the extent predicted [by the media/public]

 

I think we can all agree. however, in most those cases, the predictions by people who actually knew what they were talking about were accurate enough.

 

a few from your list:

 

Disaster by ozone layer destruction

 

prediction: as 1vedo pointed out

accuracy of prediction: pretty accurate, as it came to pass

public oppinion: ZOMG, TEH END OF TEH WORLDZ IS COMINGZ!!!!1

accuracy of public opinon: inacurate

 

- Y2K

 

prediction: if the bugs aren't fixed, then the year 2000 might cause lots of odd behaviour in computers.

accuracy of prediction: n/a: bug fixed before 2000. valid prediction all the same, as i think it's undisputed that lots of odd behaviour would actually have happened if the bug weren't fixed.

public oppinion: ZOMGZORS! planes will fall out of skies, hospitals will explode, our nuclear defence mechanisms will shut down, and all the other things that an integer-overflow usually cause will come to pass

accuracy of public opinon: stupid.

 

 

- assorted plagues

 

(using the latest flu scare as an example)

 

prediction: we've found strains of flu that are similar enough to 1918 flu that they could possibly mutate into something as highly pathogenic. based on 1918 flu, if we have one similar it could kill up to 15,000,000 (iirc) in the uk.

accuracy of prediction: didn't come to pass, but note the 'could possibly' bit. based on sound evience/science/logic etc.

public oppinion: zomg, teh plague is coming and we're all going to die etc.

accuracy of public opinon: crap.

 

 

all you're really pointing out is that the media overblow things to sell papers, and that people are generally stupid enough to buy it.

 

so then "I suspect global warming, which is real, will be the same. It will happen, but will not be the major disaster predicted" should be:

 

I suspect global warming, which is real, will be the same. It will happen, but will not be the major disaster predicted by uninformed members of the public and/or the media.

 

which is true enough, but still leaves the possibility that it could be the Very Bad Thing that the people who know what they're talking about say it could be.

[SkepticLance]

Actually Dak, you got the outcomes of the predictions somewhat different to the reality.

 

Ozone hole. This was not predicted. It was discovered. The prediction was a worsening into complete disaster, unless CFC production and use stopped. CFC production and use has stayed pretty much the same, since China took up the business after the Montreal Accord stopped western nations making the stuff. CFCs have been exported from China in massive quantities. End result? Not the disaster predicted. Simply a thin ozone layer in the southern hemisphere which has not changed much overall. It gets better or worse year by year, but on average seems to be pretty much the same.

 

Y2K

Sure, the bugs were 'fixed' in the west. However, many third world countries did not have the resources to do that. And there was no problem.

However, Y2K was a great source of revenue for computer companies!

 

You are correct in saying that the main source of overblown reports is the news media, rather than scientists. However, there is a small contingent of scientists who are also guilty. Dr. Stephen Schneider even admitted in an interview to exaggerating global warming. He felt that the distortion of truth was justified in alerting the world to a disaster he perceived was coming. In other words : 'The end justifies the means.' Not good science.

[swansont]

all you're really pointing out is that the media overblow things to sell papers, and that people are generally stupid enough to buy it.

 

But when the disasters don't come to pass, it's often passed off as a failure/shortcoming of science, rather than placing blame on the media and the individual scientists who were peddling fear.

 

You can usually find a well-credentialed person to support an extreme position if you look hard enough; there are many examples of this. You end up with "you expert said that, but my expert says this." One needs to take the next step to look at the merits of the arguments. Science isn't a democracy. It's not something that comfortably fits under a heading of "give me your opinion"

[1veedo]

Actually Dak' date=' you got the outcomes of the predictions somewhat different to the reality.

 

Ozone hole. This was not predicted. It was discovered. The prediction was a worsening into complete disaster, unless CFC production and use stopped. CFC production and use has stayed pretty much the same, since China took up the business after the Montreal Accord stopped western nations making the stuff. CFCs have been exported from China in massive quantities. End result? Not the disaster predicted. Simply a thin ozone layer in the southern hemisphere which has not changed much overall. It gets better or worse year by year, but on average seems to be pretty much the same.[/quote']It was getting worse, now that CFC levels are down it's getting better. And we predicted the hole before we actually found it, back in the early 1980s and it was discovered in 1985.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ozone_cfc_trends.png

 

By 2050 we're predicting "complete recovery" and 2068 for a return to pre-1980 conditions.

Sure, the bugs were 'fixed' in the west. However, many third world countries did not have the resources to do that. And there was no problem.

However, Y2K was a great source of revenue for computer companies!

Well yes, I'm perfectly sure of this -- it falls back to the "media" thing in a way. And contrary to what you're saying there were in fact problems associated with Y2K. One of the more publicized incidents I remember seeing on the news during this time was some guy getting billed over a million dollars or something and a clock reading 19100. We didn't have any apocalyptic errors that weren't resolved but there were errors no doubt.

[Dak]

Ozone hole. This was not predicted. It was discovered. The prediction was a worsening into complete disaster, unless CFC production and use stopped. CFC production and use has stayed pretty much the same, since China took up the business after the Montreal Accord stopped western nations making the stuff. CFCs have been exported from China in massive quantities. End result? Not the disaster predicted. Simply a thin ozone layer in the southern hemisphere which has not changed much overall. It gets better or worse year by year, but on average seems to be pretty much the same.

 

do you have a citation for the 'no change in CFC levels'?

 

also, the prediction wasn't 'disaster', by anyone other than the media.

 

Y2K

Sure, the bugs were 'fixed' in the west. However, many third world countries did not have the resources to do that. And there was no problem.

However, Y2K was a great source of revenue for computer companies!

 

third world countries aren't as computerised as us, so massive computer oddities would be less well noticed. as for 'no problem': there undoubtably were problems, as integer overflows always cause computer oddities (espescially in timekeeping, as it can screw up scheduled operations).

 

the point is that society didn't crumble, which was what was only predicted by the media/general populance.

 

You are correct in saying that the main source of overblown reports is the news media, rather than scientists. However, there is a small contingent of scientists who are also guilty. Dr. Stephen Schneider even admitted in an interview to exaggerating global warming. He felt that the distortion of truth was justified in alerting the world to a disaster he perceived was coming. In other words : 'The end justifies the means.' Not good science.

 

yes, that's tru. and the media tend to latch on to these.

 

anyway, 'scientists' != science. when i said 'predictions by people who know what they're talking about' i should better have said 'peer-reviewed and consensus predictions by people who know what they're talking about'.

 

 

But when the disasters don't come to pass, it's often passed off as a failure/shortcoming of science, rather than placing blame on the media and the individual scientists who were peddling fear.

 

also, to add to the illusion of 'failure of predictions', when science says 'x might happen' but then it doesn't come to pass, this is quite often viewed as a 'predictive failure' despite the 'might'

 

You can usually find a well-credentialed person to support an extreme position if you look hard enough; there are many examples of this. You end up with "you expert said that, but my expert says this." One needs to take the next step to look at the merits of the arguments. Science isn't a democracy. It's not something that comfortably fits under a heading of "give me your opinion"

 

yeah, like i said above i should have said the predictions by science, rather than 'scientists' (i.e., people who know what they're talking about).

[SkepticLance]

Dak said :

 

do you have a citation for the 'no change in CFC levels'?

 

No I do not. I doubt anyone actually knows how much CFC were made an released. The Chinese were not terribly forthcoming on this. We know that enormous amounts of CFC were made and sold by the Chinese right up to the present, but exactly how much has not been revealed.

 

The point really is that the ozone hole continues to appear, and continues to be large some years and small some others, just as it always has. Predictions of it disappearing by 2050 are meaningless. A prediction only has meaning after it has been proven correct. And usually they are not correct.

 

I have been a bit cynical about the ozone story for a long time. The first time instruments were used to check the ozone layer, they found the ozone hole. Ever since, instruments show either the hole, or a thinned ozone layer in the areas affected. Nothing else has ever been seen.

 

In other words, we lack a control to this experiment. People assume the ozone hole is recent, but there is no empirical evidence. Historical measurements are needed to confirm that humans and CFCs cause the ozone thinning, and historical data is totally lacking.

 

I am old enough to remember the times before the ozone hole was discovered. I am 58, and can easily remember my childhood 50 years ago, well before the ozone hole was supposed to exist. I also live, and lived in the part of the world most affected by the thinner ozone.

 

When I was a child, we used to get out in summer, and play in the sun with no real protection. We got burned to a frazzle! Today, New Zealand children who go out to play in the sun also get burned to a frazzle. No change there!

 

By comparison, I remember going to California in June. I made the mistake of spending the day in the sun without protection. To my utter surprise, I did not get burned. The distinction between a thin ozone area (New Zealand) and an area (California) where it is not thin, was dramatic.

 

I have this sneaking view, based on my inadvertant sunburn experiments, that the ozone has, in fact, been thin over the south for a hell of a long time.

We just assume, wrongly, that it is a recent phenomenon.

 

I even have a 'silly bugger' theory to explain it. The hole originates in the Antarctic, and the Antarctic has an active volcano (Mouth Erebus) which continuously puffs vast amounts of various gases into the stratosphere. Of course, it is only a wild theory, and is probably wrong. However, it is also possible it has as much validity as the CFC idea.

[1veedo]

I believe you are mistaken.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion

 

Btw, Anecdotes are not science, not now not ever. Learn this.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ozone_cfc_trends.png

[SkepticLance]

Good reply 1veedo.

Your graph showing ozone loss since 1980 looks quite convincing. However, I still believe that ozone levels here in the south have been less than the north for a lot longer than that. Do you have any long term north/south comparisons? I am still concerned that we do not seem to have historical data much before 1980.

[Jadey12]

Why wouldn't it? Ice caps form when snow falling in winter can't be melt over during the warm season. If it gets colder, ise would surely re-freeze, the water would again become rather saline, and all conveyor would start working again.

 

I was just asking because I've heard from various sources that salt water can't freeze. Of course, those sources could be wrong. I was just checking to make sure.

[1veedo]

Salt water does, however, evaporate Jadey12.

Your graph showing ozone loss since 1980 looks quite convincing.

It's a graph that' date=' contrary to what you're saying, shows that cfcs have been [i']decreasing[/i].

do you have a citation for the 'no change in CFC levels'?

 

No I do not. I doubt anyone actually knows how much CFC were made an released. The Chinese were not terribly forthcoming on this. We know that enormous amounts of CFC were made and sold by the Chinese right up to the present, but exactly how much has not been revealed.

Of course you have no citation to support your claim simply because your claim is incorrect. On the other hand there is contrary evidence that proves CFCs are decreasing.

However, I still believe that ozone levels here in the south have been less than the north for a lot longer than that. Do you have any long term north/south comparisons? I am still concerned that we do not seem to have historical data much before 1980.

This is a red herring though I'm short on what exactly it is that you're trying to prove here. I'll take your word for it that ozone levels have been less than the north for longer then 1980 but I'm not sure why this is important.

[freewheelin]

Give me your opinions

 

I think the evidence is pointing towards noticeable, short-term warming that is otherwise than what would normally be the, er, norm (read: anthropogenic in origin).

 

How global warming will impact climate change is anyone's guess. I do not consider myself an environmentalist, but as a future scientist, I have to consider the possible rammifications of increased global temperatures. They range from the 'extremely likely' to the 'how awful would that be if it happened?' to the entirely 'out of left field' effects that we cannot yet foresee.

 

I think politics are masking both the truth of the issue and confusing the response. I don't think that will change in the coming years, and I foresee some turbulence ahead. But, as usual, I think the human race will manage to squeak through.

 

It's the 'impending' ice age that I think will be verrry interesting for all of us.

[Chupacabra]

I was just asking because I've heard from various sources that salt water can't freeze. Of course, those sources could be wrong. I was just checking to make sure.

 

That's wrong, salt water does freeze, though requiring a bit lower temperature to do so, depending on the level of salinity. If it couldn't, there would be no sea ice.

[swansont]

How global warming will impact climate change is anyone's guess.

 

... but as a future scientist ...

 

One of the first thing you should learn on your path to being a scientist is how wrong your first statement is.