Global Warming - Bother You Much?

[xyryn]

/grin Isleh! Nice one!

My favorite one to think about is the stopping of the Oceanic Conveyor Belt. The mechanism is:

1..At some point in the melting of the Arctic icecap, enuff fresh water accumulates to flow out of the Arctic Basin via the Greenland Gap;
2..This cold, fresh waterfall interferes with the Gulf Stream flow;
3..The Gulf Stream slows and disperses;
4..The Converor Belt (the Stream is a major component) loses its connectivity in the northern Atlantic and stops...
5..Resulting in the rest of the Belt also dispersing.

6..An ice age ensues.

This one seems to me to be highly probable. The current projections for the length of time from the beginning of such an Event to the beginning of an ice age is anywhere from 2 years to a decade. I don't think that warmer weather or losing the low lying coastlines, or even a lot of class 4 and 5 hurricanes, will be anywhere as disruptive to modern civilization as an ice age would.

[Oniss]

/grin Isleh! Nice one!

My favorite one to think about is the stopping of the Oceanic Conveyor Belt. The mechanism is:

1..At some point in the melting of the Arctic icecap, enuff fresh water accumulates to flow out of the Arctic Basin via the Greenland Gap;
2..This cold, fresh waterfall interferes with the Gulf Stream flow;
3..The Gulf Stream slows and disperses;
4..The Converor Belt (the Stream is a major component) loses its connectivity in the northern Atlantic and stops...
5..Resulting in the rest of the Belt also dispersing.

6..An ice age ensues.

This one seems to me to be highly probable. The current projections for the length of time from the beginning of such an Event to the beginning of an ice age is anywhere from 2 years to a decade. I don't think that warmer weather or losing the low lying coastlines, or even a lot of class 4 and 5 hurricanes, will be anywhere as disruptive to modern civilization as an ice age would.

woohoo we get to parcialy freeze

[E-bo Obi]

oh yeah 2-10 years til the next ice age. lets just all kill ourselves now...

[xyryn]

/comfort E-bo

I don't think it is very likely given that 2-4 degrees centigrade difference between now and 350 BCE. We didn't have an ice age then. The current projections of temperature change are 4-6 degrees Fahrenheit...not even coming close. Also, if we are in an inter-glacial, we are not even half way through it. The inter-glacials are about 50,000 years, on average, if I'm remembering correctly. We are only about 11,000 years from the ending of the last one...and our ancestors lived thru' that one just fine.

However, I do think that an ice age now is more probable than an appreciable drop in the CO2 levels.

[E-bo Obi]

The real question is do you believe it is the fault of humanity. I really feel that it is very improbable that people can be so vain as to think that we could actually destroy the world.

[xyryn]

oh, I think we could destroy the planet if we really wanted to...but not in this century. I think we need a little more technology for that.

/evilgrin Of course, with the exponential curve in tech savvy, we might develop the ability in less than a century.

[E-bo Obi]

Well personally I think you have a little too much faith in mankind. The earth has been here for years and while I have no doubt we could kill everything on the planet, I know we don't have the ability to DESTROY AN ENTIRE PLANET. but maybe I am just too realistic.

[xyryn]

Oh, right now, we haven't even the means to kill all the rabbits, much less the cockroaches...with all the will in the world, we couldn't do it.

I suspect that killing the planet would probably be the ONLY way to get rid of the cockroaches. However, we would have to do it before we colonized any other world.

[Illbleed]

Dude, you're in VERMONT.

This is like complaining it's hot in Jamaica.

what about Arizona? Man it's hot in AZ in the summer...

Aye, it does get quite hot here.

[Skorixor]