Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: winnar111

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: smack Down

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Every time I see a sentence like this, "Make up your mind already....", I get the strong feeling that we need to do a better job teaching science in schools. Changing theories to fit new facts or new ideas is the hallmark of GOOD science...it's only political tools with an agenda that demand and present absolute certainty in all situations. I think climate scientists should "make up their mind" when they have the facts and evidence to support it, NOT because people who want to argue politics are unable to deal with issues that aren't black and white.

Scientist should also have the smarts to look at the data and see that they don't have enough data to come to a conclusion.

That IS what they are doing. You're using the current debate to judge the scientists studying the issue, but the problem is that our current debate really doesn't involve many scientists. It's Al Gore and Bill O'Reilly screaming at each other, and while Al Gore is closer than old Bill to having a scientific perspective, don't confuse EITHER of them with actual climate scientists.

If people were listening, what they'd see is scientists studying the data and saying "...BASED ON WHAT WE KNOW RIGHT NOW, this is the issue as we see it." Science doesn't wait for absolute certainty, because there IS no such thing. And that would be fine if both sides of the debate didn't treat science like it SHOULD BE (or already is) at that point.

All the more reason, I'd think, not to sign a ridiculous Kyoto treaty 9 years ago, when they didnt even have the insufficient data that we do now.

Kyoto? Seems like a nice duh-version to me. Kyoto has nothing to do with the current state of climate science. Why? Because it is political in nature. If Science determines based on available data that a dangerous GW scenario is likely, then it is up to the politicians to do something. The Kyoto treaty was not flawed because of the science of the day. If anything, the data we have now further supports the hypothesis of the time of the Kyoto treaty. Nice try.

 

[Ozoned]

I often wonder what caused the conditions of the earth, while the fossil fuel reserves we now enjoy, were being created. Where did all of that co2 come from that was required to optimize the conditions needed to create these massive carbon based reserves we have?

Perhaps some natural process of global warming?

What happened after nature scrubbed all of this co2 from the atmosphere?

Perhaps some natural process of Global cooling?

 

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
I often wonder what caused the conditions of the earth, while the fossil fuel reserves we now enjoy, were being created. Where did all of that co2 come from that was required to optimize the conditions needed to create these massive carbon based reserves we have?

Perhaps some natural process of global warming?

What happened after nature scrubbed all of this co2 from the atmosphere?

Perhaps some natural process of Global cooling?

Life itself evolved in much less hospitable conditions than exist today. Heck, there used to be only a negligable amount of O2 n the air, before life itself changed the atmosphere via photosynthesis. In the new conditions, life adapted to the new atmosphere and began to use Oxygen in new ways to their advantage.

The question really is not about life going on if/when the atmosphere changes, or gets changed again. This will be a given. The question is, where do we and all the other critters today fit in the picture? The rest of the universe is happy to go right on along without us, without skipping a beat.

What we are doing now may amount to such a change. Even if GW is not man-made per se, but is only an accelleration of natural processes, that gives current life less time to adapt than they otherwise would've had. Life will survive, but we can pretty much say goodbye to a lot of species, maybe including our own one day...

 

[GoPackGo]

More global warming goodness:

-50 with windchill , -30 without tonight into early morning.

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
More global warming goodness:

-50 with windchill , -30 without tonight into early morning.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can still create an ice age with sustained 31 F and no wind chill.

When more snow falls in the winter than melts in the summer, even if the difference is only 1 inch per year, it does not take all that long to create impressive ice deposits.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
Perhaps some natural process of global warming?

Perhaps some natural process of Global cooling?

Denying human involvement in climate change by citing examples of natural change is like defending a murder case by saying look, this guy died last week, and HE wasn't murdered...

Of course there were ice ages and warm periods in prehistory, and even in recorded history - anyone who has read a science book meant for an eight year old knows that.

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
What we are doing now may amount to such a change. Even if GW is not man-made per se, but is only an accelleration of natural processes, that gives current life less time to adapt than they otherwise would've had. Life will survive, but we can pretty much say goodbye to a lot of species, maybe including our own one day...

True, but well before our species is threatened, our way of life would be threatened. A few degrees warmer or colder on average could mean drastic local changes, up to and including submerged cities, frozen or desterified farmland, etc etc. We've spent the last 5000 years building civilizations perfectly tuned to this extraordinarily calm and forgiving climate. There's no reason to think the earth couldn't become an iceball again, or a superheated wasteland like Venus. We might be grateful one day if it only warms by two degrees in the next century and raises the sea level by ten feet, flooding London and New York.

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
More global warming goodness:

-50 with windchill , -30 without tonight into early morning.

Material fallacies

Converse Fallacy of Accident (also called reverse accident, destroying the exception, or a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter)--argues from a special case to a general rule (e.g., Every swan I have seen is white, so it must be true that all swans are white.)

 

[WHAMPOM]

Ice age tonight and global warming next week. Thirty below tonight and tomorrow's high is a minus, but next Tuesday it hits thirty degrees and up for the rest of the week. The average monthly temp. may still come out above normal for january.

 

[0marTheZealot]

Originally posted by: Ozoned
I often wonder what caused the conditions of the earth, while the fossil fuel reserves we now enjoy, were being created. Where did all of that co2 come from that was required to optimize the conditions needed to create these massive carbon based reserves we have?

Perhaps some natural process of global warming?

What happened after nature scrubbed all of this co2 from the atmosphere?

Perhaps some natural process of Global cooling?

There is a vast amount of carbon/CO2 in the Earth. The Earth and Venus have approximately the same amount of CO2, but more than 90% of it is locked into carbonate rocks on the Earth, while on Venus, it somehow escaped and stayed in the atmosphere.

Life can tolerate zero CO2 to 1000 ppm CO2, the question is, can human civilization tolerate 400 ppm CO2? More and more the answer seems to be "no, we cannot." Plus, you have to remember that CO2 levels gradually rise over geological time, such that 400 or 500 ppm CO2 is tolerable, because organisms have had several million years to adapt. We are pushing the CO2 level faster than ever in Earth's history. That's what makes it do dangerous.