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Who here is a global warming skeptic?


Mr Rayon

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I agree, the methodology of the provided article appears to be more sound to me (judging from abstract alone). It is also interesting to note that fewer articles are likely to have a definite stance on AGW as all the evidence towards it and it appears a bit moot to ruminate on it.

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Geologists didn't give a shot for plate tectonics in 1950.

 

By 1970, they thought of little else.

Excuse me, but as a geologist who lived through 'the change' I find that comparison ill-informed and an affront to logical thinking.

 

In 1950 there was precious little evidence in support of plate tectonics. At the risk of plagiarising my own writing here is a synopsis of how the theory evolved.

 

Many are aware that continental drift was actively promoted by the meteorologist Alfred Wegner following his publication of the theory in 1915[1]. His favoured mechanism (differential centrifugal ‘force’) was faulty, as was that (tidal forces) of an earlier proposal by Taylor[2] in 1910.

Although some researchers flirted with the idea of convection as the driving force, Arthur Holmes[3] was the first to place it on a solid footing (pun intended), as early as 1931. Despite his work and that of other visionaries, the idea continued to be rejected by the majority of Earth scientists.

There is no doubt that the American geological establishment was generally opposed to Wegner’s hypothesis. Yet this opposition was certainly not unanimous. Two examples will illustrate this.

  • Alexander Logie du Toit received a substantial grant from the Carnegie Institute of Washington for a study of the Atlantic coast geology of South America, with a view to comparing and contrasting it with that of South Africa. Recall that Wegner had noted such similarities.

The powerful influence of and necessity for a uniformitarian approach is revealed in this cautious observation in the introduction to Hess’s History of Ocean Basins:

I shall consider this paper an essay in geopoetry. In order not to travel any further into the realm of fantasy than is absolutely necessary I shall hold as closely as possible to a uniformitarian approach; even so, at least one great catastrophe will be required early in the Earth's history.

The point in all this is that the balance of opinion was against drift, because the balance of evidence failed to support it. This began to change in the late 1950s and early 1960s as growing evidence forced a reevaluation.

There were two strands to this. Firstly, there was now clear evidence for divergent polar wandering, best explained by continental drift, from the research of scientists such as Blackett[4] and Runcorn[5]. Secondly, seafloor spreading from mid-ocean ridges was posited by Hess[6] and expanded upon by Dietz[7], and demonstrated through the analysis of magnetic anomalies, first by Mason[8], then by Vine and Mathews[9].

By the end of the 1960s these threads had been pulled together, by the pioneering work of the likes of Wilson[10], Morgan[11], McKenzie and Parker[12], and Le Pichon[13]. Plate tectonics was born. (The phrase was first used in print by Morgan and McKenzie[14] in a 1969 paper in Nature.)

 

It should be clearly evident that the volume of evidence in support of plate tectonics in 1950 was less than skimpy. In comparison the current volume of evidence in support of AGW is far greater than the evidence that converted a science community to plate tectonics.

 

I hope your future posts will be free of such ill considered comparisons. If your argument has any merit, such nonsense does nothing to support it.

 

 

[1] Wegener, A. (1915) Die Enstehungder Kontinenteund Ozeane. Vieweg, Braunschweig

[2] Taylor, F.B. (1910) Bearing of the Tertiary mountain belt on the origin of the Earth’s plan. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 21, 179–226.

[3] Holmes, A. (1931) Radioactivity and Earth movements, XVII. Trans.Geol.Soc.Glasgow, Vol.XVIII–Part III, 1928–3118, 559–606.

[4] Blackett, P.M.S.(1956). Lectures on Rock Magnetism. Weizmann Sci. Press of Israel, Jerusalem, 131pp.

[5] Runcorn, S.K. (1956). Palaeomagnetic Comparisons between Europe and North America. Proc. Geol. Assoc. Canada 8, 77–85.

[6] Hess, H.H. (1962). History of Ocean Basins. In Petrologic Studies –A Volume in Honor of A.F. Buddington, pp.599–620

[7] Dietz, R.S. (1961). Continent and ocean basin evolution by spreading of the sea floor. Nature 190, 854–7

[8] Mason,R.G.(1958).A magnetic survey of the west coast of the United States between latitudes 32and36N, longitudes 121and 128W. Geophys.J.Roy.Astron.Soc.1,320–9

[9] Vine, F.J. & Matthews, D.H. (1963). Magnetic anomalies over oceanic ridges. Nature 199, 947–9

[10] Wilson, J.T. (1963). Hypothesis of Earth’s behaviour. Nature 198, 925–9

[11] Morgan, W.J. (1968). Rises, trenches, great faults, and crustal blocks. J. Geophys. Res. 73, 1959–82

[12] McKenzie, D.P. & Parker, R.L. (1967). The north Pacic, an example of tectonics on a sphere. Nature 216, 1276–80

[13] Le Pichon, X. (1968). Sea-oor spreading and continental drift. J. Geophys. Res. 73, 3661–97

[14] McKenzie, D.P. & Morgan, W.J. (1969). Evolution of triple junctions. Nature 224, 125–33

 

 

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I just started looking into climate change just a few days ago. I haven't looked into global warming since roughly 1997, and never once thought about it as one of the top dire problems in the world today. Honestly it was a problem somewhere around number 5 on my list. Other than computer science, I also read into Quantum Mechanics. I don't know much about ecosystems and climate; other than the basics you learn in college. What I do know is physics and mathematics. I get the jest of some of the things they say... I completely understand the chain reaction effect of gasses and warming; which is just chemistry + physics, and the exponential curve rates which is mathematics. If someone presents me information that's objective to the truth; which is what happened here. I can then read the information, compare that information with other information, and make an informed opinion.

 

If you look at my thread I recently created about climate change, I looked at the case with complete scrutiny, and debunking pseudoscience and crackpots like Roy Spencer and Marc Morano. My friend isn't delusional schizophrenic, but he's very irrational(Which I was a little worried there). I convinced him that Global Warming is a dire problem, and media bias distorts the truth. I did this by debunking Glenn Beck his lord and savior. :P

 

Anyway, my point is this. By doing the research and coming to an objective consensus. I was able to convince an irrational person of the truth about Global Warming, and it's now the number 1 problem on my list.

 

It only took me roughly 27 hours of research to come to that consensus. I haven't slept much lately! :P Not because I'm scared, but just because it's some interesting information, and it gets me out of the physics world for a bit. :D

Edited by Gankfest
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  • 4 weeks later...

We know there's more CO2.

We know that it's down to us- partly because we can, in effect, carbon date it; but largely because we know how much carbon we burn because we know how much tax we paid on it.

We know that CO2 absorbs IR

We know that the earth is not as hot as the sun.

Because of those, we know that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas.

We know that the measurements show that the earth is warming.

 

What's left to be sceptical about?

 

The only possible debate seems to be that something else might also be affecting the climate. So what if it is? It's not a valid reason to keep making things worse.

 

Denial of AGW is like saying

"I know we put another blanket on the bed, and I know it's warmer now; but I don't think the two are causally related."

 

The key word is "skeptic".

 

If you claim to be a climate change "skeptic", you're not, you're a climate change DENIER.

 

A skeptic holds an open mind (which is good), but confronted with sufficient evidence would accept the reality of a proposition. That is exactly the situation with climate change. The science IS in, it has been in for at least a decade, and it all points in one direction.

 

A denier is someone who denies reality in the face of mountains of evidence. And that is exactly the case with someone who refuses to acknowledge the fact of global warming. For two reasons. Either they are simply uninformed or ignorant, or more likely, their livelihood is threatened by any change to the fossil fuel industry. If you find someone on a public platform "doubting" climate science, they'll either have heavily vested interests or work for someone who does.

 

There's an important distinction to make. If people think there is some kind of debate, but yes in the shockingly biased media perhaps, but not in the scientific community. The issue is well and truly settled there.

 

Not that I'm expecting humanity to solve the catastrophe it's created for itself.

Edited by Swedgen
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I look at this issue differently. The Earth is my home, and so I treat it like my house. A number of people say my home may be affected by global warming. In other words my house may be in danger, and as I live in it and cannot escape if it burns down, I need to protect my house (home). Insurance to recover damages is not good enough, because if it burns down, I could be killed. I need to do something to save myself in the event of a fire, or I need to make damn sure there is no fire. The experts say I cannot be protected from a fire, the house is too big and impossible to make me safe, in fact, since everyone else lives beside each other and their houses abut mine, it is possible everyone will perish in a fire storm.

 

The UN says 10F global warming by 2100, which some others say will release the methane hydrate from the ocean and cause another 10F warming. At 20F warming, a 95% mass extinction is possible with no human surviving. I believe no one wants such a thing to occur; however, we cannot guarantee it will not happen--there is a finite probability it will occur. We can work hard to reduce the possibility, and maybe make it 99% probable we will survive. On the other hand, we can do nothing and live with a higher probability we will be wiped out by a mass extinction.

 

What do you want?

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  • 3 weeks later...

My feelings on this matter are conservative.

There are many facts, and many presumptions on this matter, many of which are fueled by political gains.

I feel that given the potential gain and the potential loss associated with either side of this debate being right, it would only be prudent to begin looking for cleaner and more efficient ways of interacting with our planet as a species.

Also looking at the samples taken from surface readings the past 150+ years, samples taken from the ice at the poles dated thousands of years ago, there is a lot we don't know about the weather patterns of our entire solar system, let alone our planet.

Seeing as how our recorded history on this subject only goes so far, we have to take into account some unknowns. How many ice ages have there been in the last 100 million years for instance? How many thaws? what were the temperatures prevalent on the surface of the planet before for 100 years, and after for 100 years of these ice age events?

Might what we are seeing as human created global warming might be a natural shift by a 10th of a degree from the planet in its position relation to the sun? Perhaps one that happened before recorded history? (This is just a for instance.....)

There a lot of possible scenarios for the visual recorded trend of warming in the last 150 years or so, including a natural solar cycle.

The point being, why are we pointing fingers? We should be mathematically calculating if the current technologies and resources on the planet can save us from a severe shift in one direction or another in time, or can't they?

I don't care whose right in the debate, just want all of us to be right for a solution. One major change in anything, and our delicate system goes splat. So while figuring out the answers, please keep that in mind.

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The point being, why are we pointing fingers?

Because decades and decades of research has answered the questions you pose, and more than 97% of people who are experts on the subject and study it in close detail every day of their lives agree that human contributions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are the current primary cause of the rapid warming trend we are seeing... And we've been confident in this conclusion since 1990. That's why.

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Because decades and decades of research has answered the questions you pose, and more than 97% of people who are experts on the subject and study it in close detail every day of their lives agree that human contributions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are the current primary cause of the rapid warming trend we are seeing... And we've been confident in this conclusion since 1990. That's why.

 

If you'd said: "human contributions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are probably a contributory factor to the warming trend we are seeing", then I think everyone would accept that as reasonable.

 

But I think what gets people's goat is this - the unqualified assertion that our CO2 emissions are the primary cause of current global warming. As Nystuul points out, many other factors may be involved - as they have been throughout the Earth's geological history.

 

The Earth's temperature has constantly fluctuated between warm and cold. Thus, it experienced the extreme cold of "Snowball Earth" (if that really existed, which seems dubious),, and the hot Carboniferous Period (which undoubtedly was real). And all these temperature cycles happened aeons before humans came on the scene. Therefore, to suggest that recent changes must be attributed primarily to a mere 150 years of our industrial activity, seems unjustified.

 

True, we may be adding a bit to the current warming. Eg by building big coal-burning factories in China. But AGW fans seem to go further than this. They imply that if we shut all these factories down, and got rid of industrial civilisation all over the Earth, we could absolutely prevent future climate change. They seem to think we have the power to stop the Earth from ever warming up again - so that it'll stay always at its present (humanly-convenient) temperature.

 

Doesn't that smack, a little, of unscientific hubris?

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If the history of Science has taught us one thing, it's this:

 

Be wary of any idea which is said to be supported by the overwhelming majority of professional and scientific opinion.

 

Because opinions can quickly change. Only facts are immutable.

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If the history of Science has taught us one thing, it's this:

 

Be wary of any idea which is said to be supported by the overwhelming majority of professional and scientific opinion.

 

Because opinions can quickly change. Only facts are immutable.

Indeed.

Perhaps I should repeat a few facts I posted earlier.

We know there's more CO2.

We know that it's down to us- partly because we can, in effect, carbon date it; but largely because we know how much carbon we burn because we know how much tax we paid on it.

We know that CO2 absorbs IR

We know that the earth is not as hot as the sun.

Because of those, we know that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas.

We know that the measurements show that the earth is warming.

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It's such a pleasure to contact a mind which appreciates facts. Set out in quasi-logical order (though with some irrelevancies, such as the Earth not being as hot as the Sun)

 

However I can't yet subscribe to the theory you seem to deduce from these facts. Which appears to be -

 

That the reason the Earth is getting warmer, is down to us. Because we're burning carbon.

 

So, by implication - if we stopped burning carbon, the Earth wouldn't ever get warmer, It would just stay at the same temperature.always?

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If you'd said: "human contributions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are probably a contributory factor to the warming trend we are seeing", then I think everyone would accept that as reasonable.

 

But I think what gets people's goat is this - the unqualified assertion that our CO2 emissions are the primary cause of current global warming. As Nystuul points out, many other factors may be involved - as they have been throughout the Earth's geological history.

 

The Earth's temperature has constantly fluctuated between warm and cold. Thus, it experienced the extreme cold of "Snowball Earth" (if that really existed, which seems dubious),, and the hot Carboniferous Period (which undoubtedly was real). And all these temperature cycles happened aeons before humans came on the scene. Therefore, to suggest that recent changes must be attributed primarily to a mere 150 years of our industrial activity, seems unjustified.

 

Your position sounds like mysticism. The implication is that we can't figure out why the temperature was different in the past — that we have no clue, so it's all guesswork. What are these "many other factors"?

 

Or, perhaps, this is science, and we can quantify the effects we're observing. And that if you remove the anthropogenic effects from the equation, that we would not be warming.

 

True, we may be adding a bit to the current warming. Eg by building big coal-burning factories in China. But AGW fans seem to go further than this. They imply that if we shut all these factories down, and got rid of industrial civilisation all over the Earth, we could absolutely prevent future climate change. They seem to think we have the power to stop the Earth from ever warming up again - so that it'll stay always at its present (humanly-convenient) temperature.

 

Doesn't that smack, a little, of unscientific hubris?

 

Strawmen often do. Who, specifically, is claiming "we could absolutely prevent future climate change"?

It's such a pleasure to contact a mind which appreciates facts. Set out in quasi-logical order (though with some irrelevancies, such as the Earth not being as hot as the Sun)

 

However I can't yet subscribe to the theory you seem to deduce from these facts. Which appears to be -

 

That the reason the Earth is getting warmer, is down to us. Because we're burning carbon.

 

So, by implication - if we stopped burning carbon, the Earth wouldn't ever get warmer, It would just stay at the same temperature.always?

 

No, that would be an elementary failure of logic. If A, then B can be true. But Not A, therefore not B is a fallacy.

 

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

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I am convinced that both sides of the debate have a hidden agenda and that both sides skew the facts to advance their personal interests.

 

I am convinced that qualitative arguments are no substitute for quantitative understanding. CO2 is not all bad. Plants need CO2. Too much is bad. Too little is also bad. We need to understand where the line is and why. There are known ways to reduce CO2 -- iron can encourage a red algae bloom (but we had better know all the ramifications before we do something that might prove to be rash).

 

I am damn tired of either side telling anyone not in complete agreement with them that they are stupid.

 

First of all, you may well be right about ocean PH being a bigger problem. This gets especially scary when you start figuring out the Earth's oxygen budget.

 

OTOH, I also want to know what my hidden agenda is.

 

But I have to agree that qualitative arguments are no substitute for quantitative ones. The thing is, though, we've been refining those quantitative arguments now for almost forty years. At a certain point, I have to ask, rhetorically, "Whadda ya want, blood?"

 

And finally, heh, congratulations you managed to insult everyone. ;)

And since this seems to be a discussion of why we who are convinced there is global warming are convinced, as well as why those who are not are not, let me see to my evidence:

 

First and foremost is the almanac. This tells us amounts of coal and oil extracted and burned, as economic statistics, as well as cement produced and other important human atmospheric carbon sources.

 

Then it's simple industrial chemistry to figure out how much carbon is emitted. Maybe with a bit of accounting, but you don't really even need algebra.

 

So that's the theory. Then all we have to do to test the theory is measure the atmospheric carbon. And in fact we have done so; the best known station is on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, but there are thousands of others, and furthermore aircraft operators have kindly donated unused cargo space to carbon measuring experiments exposed in the cargo compartment, and placed close to vents to the outside atmosphere, remote from the engine emissions.

 

And in fact, yes, the carbon is going up; but until a few years ago, not quickly enough. We were losing carbon and we didn't know where it was going.

 

Now, today, we have done the ocean research, and we know where the carbon is going. It's going into the oceans. As Dr. Rocket has noted above, the acidity of the oceans is increasing due to increased concentrations of CO2 in the oceans. And this is now being added into the Global Circulation Models, GCMs, which are now becoming Atmospheric and Oceanic Global Circulation Models or AOGCMs.

 

Meanwhile the climate cranks continue to argue against decades-old models as if nothing has changed.

 

I contend these people deserve no more notice than flat-earth proponents.

 

If we really want to get into this we can discuss how the ENSO oscillation causes La Niña pauses in both heat and CO2 buildup, followed by El Niño accelerated heat and CO2 increases. That's where Hansen has gone.

Edited by Schneibster
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But I think what gets people's goat is this - the unqualified assertion that our CO2 emissions are the primary cause of current global warming.

The science remains valid whether or not it "gets people's goat."
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It's such a pleasure to contact a mind which appreciates facts. Set out in quasi-logical order (though with some irrelevancies, such as the Earth not being as hot as the Sun)

 

However I can't yet subscribe to the theory you seem to deduce from these facts. Which appears to be -

 

That the reason the Earth is getting warmer, is down to us. Because we're burning carbon.

 

So, by implication - if we stopped burning carbon, the Earth wouldn't ever get warmer, It would just stay at the same temperature.always?

Interesting, you don't understand that the temperature of the sun is important to its ability to warm the Earth,

"(though with some irrelevancies, such as the Earth not being as hot as the Sun)"

yet you tacitly ask if effects other than CO2 concentration could warm the Earth.

"It would just stay at the same temperature.always?"

 

The other reason that the temperature difference matters is that the sun is hot enough to emit light- which can easily pass through our atmosphere, but the Earth isn't. It is warm enough to emit IR which is absorbed by the CO2.

 

The other problem, as has been pointed out, is that all alsatians are dogs, but not all dogs are alsatians.

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If I accept the IPCC's figures (although I think they have been stretched upwards as far as they will go) and still think that the small bit of warming they predict is going to be a nice thing and not a problem does that make me a sceptic, a denier or a realist?

 

The only humans who will be significantly adversely effected by global warming are, as far as I can see, those who own a ski chalet. It will be on the wrong mountain.

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If I accept the IPCC's figures (although I think they have been stretched upwards as far as they will go) and still think that the small bit of warming they predict is going to be a nice thing and not a problem does that make me a sceptic, a denier or a realist?

 

The only humans who will be significantly adversely effected by global warming are, as far as I can see, those who own a ski chalet. It will be on the wrong mountain.

No, it makes you arrogant and ill-informed.

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If I accept the IPCC's figures (although I think they have been stretched upwards as far as they will go) and still think that the small bit of warming they predict is going to be a nice thing and not a problem does that make me a sceptic, a denier or a realist?

 

The only humans who will be significantly adversely effected by global warming are, as far as I can see, those who own a ski chalet. It will be on the wrong mountain.

 

Actually changes in the climate will wreck the US breadbasket in the Midwest. It wouldn't be a problem to move to Canada except the dirt has all been scraped down to bare rock by the glaciers and pushed south. That's why there's lots of dirt in the Midwest. Oops.

 

So all of the US population in the Midwest will be unable to grow food any more.

 

Meanwhile, the sea level will be rising and the storms will be getting bigger and bigger on both coasts of the US. New York is history. So's most of the LA basin and a lot of Seattle. The California Central Valley will become a sea. Florida will be a series of undersea mountains, as will most of Texas and all of low-lying Louisiana.

 

And that's just in the US.

 

Meanwhile a quarter billion people in Bangladesh will die. Meanwhile all the Pacific islands will be inundated, except the mountain peaks like Mauna Kea. Meanwhile half a billion people will die in China and India. Meanwhile most of Pakistan's Punjab (one of the richest agricultural regions in the world) will be underwater.

 

I project excess deaths of 3 billion or more by 2100.

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Actually changes in the climate will wreck the US breadbasket in the Midwest. It wouldn't be a problem to move to Canada except the dirt has all been scraped down to bare rock by the glaciers and pushed south. That's why there's lots of dirt in the Midwest. Oops.

 

So all of the US population in the Midwest will be unable to grow food any more.

 

Meanwhile, the sea level will be rising and the storms will be getting bigger and bigger on both coasts of the US. New York is history. So's most of the LA basin and a lot of Seattle. The California Central Valley will become a sea. Florida will be a series of undersea mountains, as will most of Texas and all of low-lying Louisiana.

 

And that's just in the US.

 

Meanwhile a quarter billion people in Bangladesh will die. Meanwhile all the Pacific islands will be inundated, except the mountain peaks like Mauna Kea. Meanwhile half a billion people will die in China and India. Meanwhile most of Pakistan's Punjab (one of the richest agricultural regions in the world) will be underwater.

 

I project excess deaths of 3 billion or more by 2100.

1 I don't see how a 0.5 to 2.5 degree c temperature increse by 2100 will stop agriculture in the mid west.

 

2 The wrost case scenario of sea level rise in the IPCC's IR4 report was for a 59cm rise by 2100 and that required a 6.4 degree c temperature rise. The temperature rise has droped and the worst case scenario is now 1m. I don't understand where they have got that figure from because they are very opacke about which ice they expect to melt. Is Central California with 1m of sea level? If it is then perhaps they should have already built some sort of sea defences.

 

Bangladesh gains 2cm a monsoon in silt. That's for land 10km away from the rivers and there isn't really any such land. Bangladesh will grow in this century and the next.

 

We have had a bit of warming and the incidence of storms has not increased.

 

Do you know where the Punjab is? It is nowhere near the ocean (mostly). It will also gain sediment every monsoon.

 

The Neitherlands will not be disapearing despite being up to 17m below sea level. This is because they will add a bit to the sea defences. But you don't want to think about that because your dream of catastrophy will melt away.

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1 I don't see how a 0.5 to 2.5 degree c temperature increse by 2100 will stop agriculture in the mid west.

 

 

You are a plumber. That's why you don't see it.

 

Maybe if you were a geophysicist.

2 The wrost case scenario of sea level rise in the IPCC's IR4 report was for a 59cm rise by 2100 and that required a 6.4 degree c temperature rise. The temperature rise has droped and the worst case scenario is now 1m. I don't understand where they have got that figure from because they are very opacke about which ice they expect to melt. Is Central California with 1m of sea level? If it is then perhaps they should have already built some sort of sea defences.

 

The first refugees whose islands have been inundated have already been relocated from the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The Marshall Islands have been inundated and buried dead have been disinterred along with massive damage in the hundreds of millions of US$. This has happened in the last month.

 

I can't see why I should argue physics any more with a plumber.

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So the Mashall Islands have dispeared due to a sea level rise that has not yet happened?

 

Did I miss the sudden sea level rise? How big was it and when did it happen?

 

Or have they had a storm and being sand bars on the top of coral reefs they tend to be precarious at the best of times.

 

Personally I'd put some of the money they get from selling fishing rights into putting some solid stuff on the islands so they can keep claiming those fishing rights.

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