Anyone wanna debate Global Warming?

[M14 Shooter]

Atmospheric co2 levels are increasing at about 2ppm, or 15 billion tons of co2 per year.

1: What is the current level of C0O2 in the atmosphere?
2: What was the per-year level of increase in 1950, 1900, 1850, 1800?
3: What is the per-year emission of CO2 from natural sources?

 

[bobn]

1: What is the current level of C0O2 in the atmosphere?

Just over 380ppm

2: What was the per-year level of increase in 1950, 1900, 1850, 1800?

1800 - about 0.1ppm a year
1850 - about 0.1ppm a year
1900 - about 0.3ppm a year
1950 - about 0.4ppm a year

3: What is the per-year emission of CO2 from natural sources?

net natural emissions are about negative 15 billion tons
About 750 billion tons a year emitted, with slightly more than that absorbed

 

[Foxfyre]

I have tried to look at the evidence for global warming, but to be honest, at some point it reaches a level of scientific complexity that exceeds (significantly) my ability to understand. So, I am just going to trust the majority of the experts.

To that end, it seems pretty clear that there is scientific consensus behind the issue of man-made global warming.

This is what I have found on wikipedia (I realize it is not the most trustworthy source, but it seems like it would be very easy to double-check if it is accurate, and the page has remained essentially the same for at least 3 months.)

Statements by concurring organizations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
Joint science academies’ statement 2007
Joint science academies’ statement 2005
Joint science academies’ statement 2001
U.S. National Research Council, 2001
American Meteorological Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Physics
American Astronomical Society
Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
Geological Society of America
American Chemical Society
Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)

Noncommittal statements
American Association of State Climatologists
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Dissenting Statements
"With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no scientific bodies of national or international standing are known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate."

I think closer scrutiny will show that most of these groups have done no research of any kind of their own on global warming and constitute essentially peer consent to the theories re AGW. I am not suggesting that they have done this improperly or that they hold uninformed opinions.

You will, however, be hard put to find as many as three bonafide credentialed climatologists, especially paleoclimatologists, who are willing to sign on to even cautious consent to AGW or even that any global warming at all occurring now is unusual in the grand scheme of things.

And the list of those formerly giving consent to global warming theories who have now defected from that camp continues to grow.

I don't have enough posts to post URLs yet, but Speroforum.com has an excellent list with comments from climatologists and other earth scientists who have defected from the AGW camp and Wikipedia also has an impressive list of global warming skptics and defectors.

I claim no expertise of any kind in climatology or any other earth science. I am one, however, who wishes I had chosen one of those fields back when I was still doing most of my formal education and I continue to have a big interest in all matters of planetary phenomenon. And from what I am able to understand--I admit that I also do not understand a lot of it--I simply find the arguments and evidence presented by the skeptics to be more persuasive than that offered by the AGW proponents.

 

[ReillyT]

I think closer scrutiny will show that most of these groups have done no research of any kind of their own on global warming and constitute essentially peer consent to the theories re AGW. I am not suggesting that they have done this improperly or that they hold uninformed opinions.

You will, however, be hard put to find as many as three bonafide credentialed climatologists, especially paleoclimatologists, who are willing to sign on to even cautious consent to AGW or even that any global warming at all occurring now is unusual in the grand scheme of things.

And the list of those formerly giving consent to global warming theories who have now defected from that camp continues to grow.

I don't have enough posts to post URLs yet, but Speroforum.com has an excellent list with comments from climatologists and other earth scientists who have defected from the AGW camp and Wikipedia also has an impressive list of global warming skptics and defectors.

I claim no expertise of any kind in climatology or any other earth science. I am one, however, who wishes I had chosen one of those fields back when I was still doing most of my formal education and I continue to have a big interest in all matters of planetary phenomenon. And from what I am able to understand--I admit that I also do not understand a lot of it--I simply find the arguments and evidence presented by the skeptics to be more persuasive than that offered by the AGW proponents.

There are plenty of self-professed climatologists that support the prevailing theories on global warming (the IPCC working groups have several themselves). However, I think it is probably a poor idea to get bogged down by labels. Climatology was not that impressive a field until recently, and much of the research on climate change was done in larger, more established academic departments. Climate science is inter-disciplinary. As more and more research was done on climate change, the scientists that focus on climate studies did not re-label themselves climatologists – they remained for the most part in their respective academic fields (physics, geology, oceanography, chemistry, etc.). That is why the remainder of the working groups of the IPCC is made up of scientists in these fields. That is why it is relevant that all of the different national and international scientific organizations that I listed have acknowledged humanity’s role in climate change.

Here is an article on the development of climate studies from the American Institute of Physics.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/climogy.htm

My favorite line is at the top:

"We cannot hope to understand the causes of climatic stability or change by restricting ourselves to any one field of earth science. Nature is ignorant of how our universities are organized..." — Peter Weyl

In any event, it is fine to wait for more evidence, as long as one understands that there is a price to be paid for waiting, and that at some point it is the same price as denying. If what one wants is complete agreement from all scientists, that day will never come, or at least it won't come until it is possibly too late.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There are plenty of self-professed climatologists that support the prevailing theories on global warming (the IPCC working groups have several themselves). However, I think it is probably a poor idea to get bogged down by labels. Climatology was not that impressive a field until recently, and much of the research on climate change was done in larger, more established academic departments. Climate science is inter-disciplinary. As more and more research was done on climate change, the scientists that focus on climate studies did not re-label themselves climatologists – they remained for the most part in their respective academic fields (physics, geology, oceanography, chemistry, etc.). That is why the remainder of the working groups of the IPCC is made up of scientists in these fields. That is why it is relevant that all of the different national and international scientific organizations that I listed have acknowledged humanity’s role in climate change.

Here is an article on the development of climate studies from the American Institute of Physics.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/climogy.htm

My favorite line is at the top:



In any event, it is fine to wait for more evidence, as long as one understands that there is a price to be paid for waiting, and that at some point it is the same price as denying. If what one wants is complete agreement from all scientists, that day will never come, or at least it won't come until it is possibly too late.

A giant rock could hit earth and wipe out most life on the planet. We know it probably happened before. We should ruin our economies making giant weapons designed to destroy incoming Asteroids, WE know that can kill us. If we wait, we all pay a price. At some point it is the same price as denying.

I can play this game with loads of situations. Some more proven to have happened then man made global warming.

 

[ReillyT]

A giant rock could hit earth and wipe out most life on the planet. We know it probably happened before. We should ruin our economies making giant weapons designed to destroy incoming Asteroids, WE know that can kill us. If we wait, we all pay a price. At some point it is the same price as denying.

I can play this game with loads of situations. Some more proven to have happened then man made global warming.

That was stupid. A couple of differences:

1. A global killing asteroid hasn't hit the earth in millions of years. There is no reason to suppose that such an event is imminent (as opposed to the evidence that changes from global warming are imminent (on a global scale of time)).

2. We don't know how to make asteroid destroying weapons. We have a pretty good idea on how we should make the switch from fossil fuels, and understand the technology that is and will be developed to make it happen.

3. Dealing with global warming will not "ruin" the economy. It will cost something, however, as we develop technologies and make changes that decrease reliance on fossil fuels - which is a good idea anyway as these are a) expensive, b) obtained from unstable regions of the world, and c) are clearly finite in amount.

4. We don't even know the extent to which modest measures will even hurt the US economy. The development of new technologies and eventual switch from fossil fuels may a) make us a leader in technologies that will be more efficient (and sought after) anyway; and b) prevent the inevitable competition for scarce natural resources with its negative political and economic (higher cost of those resources) effects. Imagine what a four-fold cost in the price of oil might do to the economy.

Your silly analogy works just as well with any threat to mankind. Why waste precious dollars trying to develop vaccines and antibiotics (which we may never find) for dangerous diseases when a rock from space could hit us at any time?

 

[ReillyT]

Actually, I have a better example:

Why spend trillions of dollars in Iraq (or possibly Iran) dealing with a threat that might not even exist, or may never harm us, when a rock from outer space could kill us at any moment?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Actually, I have a better example:

Why spend trillions of dollars in Iraq (or possibly Iran) dealing with a threat that might not even exist, or may never harm us, when a rock from outer space could kill us at any moment?

Except the threat DID exist. Records recovered after the invasion prove that Saddam Hussein intended to return to mass production of chemical and biological weapons and Nuclear research as soon as his buddies France, Russia and China managed to lift sanctions.

More over the threat of world wide terrorism is not a hypothetical, it is a fact. It is not ancient history it is current every day history.

To bad for you your example sucks.

 

[ReillyT]

Except the threat DID exist. Records recovered after the invasion prove that Saddam Hussein intended to return to mass production of chemical and biological weapons and Nuclear research as soon as his buddies France, Russia and China managed to lift sanctions.

More over the threat of world wide terrorism is not a hypothetical, it is a fact. It is not ancient history it is current every day history.

To bad for you your example sucks.

Your statement begs the question. If the threat of man-made global warming is real and there is evidence for it, why shouldn't we respond to it? The threat from Sadaam (different from world wide terrorism, by the way) was only theoretical at the time, and even now, the evidence only suggests that he might have become a threat in the future, but wasn't really a threat when we attacked - the possibility that he might have become a threat remains hypothetical.

Likewise, the threat of global warming is theoretical (but with strong evidence I believe), but if the theory is true, is causing damage even now (in the Sahel of Africa, changing weather patterns, drought, etc.), and will cause even more harm in the future.

All I can gather from your statement is that if the threat is real, or believed to be real, it should be dealt with. That I can agree with, your stupid space rock analogy aside.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

That was stupid. A couple of differences:

1. A global killing asteroid hasn't hit the earth in millions of years. There is no reason to suppose that such an event is imminent (as opposed to the evidence that changes from global warming are imminent (on a global scale of time)).

2. We don't know how to make asteroid destroying weapons. We have a pretty good idea on how we should make the switch from fossil fuels, and understand the technology that is and will be developed to make it happen.

3. Dealing with global warming will not "ruin" the economy. It will cost something, however, as we develop technologies and make changes that decrease reliance on fossil fuels - which is a good idea anyway as these are a) expensive, b) obtained from unstable regions of the world, and c) are clearly finite in amount.

4. We don't even know the extent to which modest measures will even hurt the US economy. The development of new technologies and eventual switch from fossil fuels may a) make us a leader in technologies that will be more efficient (and sought after) anyway; and b) prevent the inevitable competition for scarce natural resources with its negative political and economic (higher cost of those resources) effects. Imagine what a four-fold cost in the price of oil might do to the economy.

Your silly analogy works just as well with any threat to mankind. Why waste precious dollars trying to develop vaccines and antibiotics (which we may never find) for dangerous diseases when a rock from space could hit us at any time?

Your on to it, but in the wrong way. Using your argument that because of a miniscule 15 year trend that by most accounts has already stopped we should emasculate our industry and power structures for unknown supposed unproven gains to stop a natural event, we should instead spend billions every year making every conceivable vaccine in enough quantities each year for all citizens. We know these threats exist and we know they can break out at any time. Much more proven a threat then man made global warming, that may or may not effect us adversely in a few hundred years.

And as usual you have missed the entire point. WE ALREADY work on lower emissions, we already have fuel sources that can eliminate a large oil dependence, but we won't use it.

 

[M14 Shooter]

Just over 380ppm



1800 - about 0.1ppm a year
1850 - about 0.1ppm a year
1900 - about 0.3ppm a year
1950 - about 0.4ppm a year



net natural emissions are about negative 15 billion tons
About 750 billion tons a year emitted, with slightly more than that absorbed

Sources?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Your statement begs the question. If the threat of man-made global warming is real and there is evidence for it, why shouldn't we respond to it? The threat from Sadaam (different from world wide terrorism, by the way) was only theoretical at the time, and even now, the evidence only suggests that he might have become a threat in the future, but wasn't really a threat when we attacked - the possibility that he might have become a threat remains hypothetical.

Likewise, the threat of global warming is theoretical (but with strong evidence I believe), but if the theory is true, is causing damage even now (in the Sahel of Africa, changing weather patterns, drought, etc.), and will cause even more harm in the future.

All I can gather from your statement is that if the threat is real, or believed to be real, it should be dealt with. That I can agree with, your stupid space rock analogy aside.

What part of, we already work to lower emissions, we already work to remove man made pollution, we already work on alternate fuel sources, don't you get?

Why are the nutters on about alternate fuel when we have Nuclear energy? If we had not stopped it 20 years ago we would need a hell of a lot less oil and coal fired electric plants now.

Why is it every scheme to fight supposed man made warming ( an unproven theory) involves immasculating the developed countries while giving a by to the DEVELOPING countries, you know the ones that are using old pollution spewing CO2 Spewing plants and power facilities and burning record amounts of oil and coal?

Could it be because no one can tell China what it will or will not do, nor India? But we can guilt the west into just about anything?

 

[ReillyT]

Your on to it, but in the wrong way. Using your argument that because of a miniscule 15 year trend that by most accounts has already stopped we should emasculate our industry and power structures for unknown supposed unproven gains to stop a natural event, we should instead spend billions every year making every conceivable vaccine in enough quantities each year for all citizens. We know these threats exist and we know they can break out at any time. Much more proven a threat then man made global warming, that may or may not effect us adversely in a few hundred years.

And as usual you have missed the entire point. WE ALREADY work on lower emissions, we already have fuel sources that can eliminate a large oil dependence, but we won't use it.

Basically, all you are saying is that you don't believe in global warming. Bully for you. Most scientists (and nearly every major national and international scientific organization) appear to disagree with you, but feel free to hold any opinion that you like.

I am sorry that I didn't realize that your "entire point" was that we already work on lowering emissions (perhaps because you never stated it), but even on that point, the question becomes how much are we doing to lower emissions (relatively little) and can/should we do more, to which the answer of most scientists is "Yes."

 

[ReillyT]

What part of, we already work to lower emissions, we already work to remove man made pollution, we already work on alternate fuel sources, don't you get?

Why are the nutters on about alternate fuel when we have Nuclear energy? If we had not stopped it 20 years ago we would need a hell of a lot less oil and coal fired electric plants now.

Why is it every scheme to fight supposed man made warming ( an unproven theory) involves immasculating the developed countries while giving a by to the DEVELOPING countries, you know the ones that are using old pollution spewing CO2 Spewing plants and power facilities and burning record amounts of oil and coal?

Could it be because no one can tell China what it will or will not do, nor India? But we can guilt the west into just about anything?

I think most people today would say that nuclear energy is an option that we should pursue. I don't know what "nutters" you are referring to. Thirty years ago there were concerns about the safety of nuclear power and the threat from global warming wasn't understood. The calculus has since changed.

Why are developed countries asked to bear the brunt? One, because we still utilize much larger amounts of fossil fuels than developing countries per capita. Two, because we can afford to. Three, because we can regulate our own activities, but we can't make other countries regulate their own. It isn't a question of guilt (primarily). It is a question of morality and preservation. Hopefully, with enough energy and committment to developing alternative forms of energy, we can sell this technology to the developing world and enable them to make the transformation faster than they otherwise would.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Basically, all you are saying is that you don't believe in global warming. Bully for you. Most scientists (and nearly every major national and international scientific organization) appear to disagree with you, but feel free to hold any opinion that you like.

I am sorry that I didn't realize that your "entire point" was that we already work on lowering emissions (perhaps because you never stated it), but even on that point, the question becomes how much are we doing to lower emissions (relatively little) and can/should we do more, to which the answer of most scientists is "Yes."

You are wrong, I do NOT discount global warming. I discount that we are making it significantly worse and that we can do anything about it. The science does NOT exist to support either claim.

We are to destroy economies based on a 15 to 20 year natural trend that already may have stopped? In the 70's the science community claimed we were all gonna freeze and the oil would run out by 1985.

What I have advocated is spending money on learning more about the science. What we do not know is so far dwarfing what little we think we know it is idiotic. Rather then waste money on schemes to lower CO2 emmissions by less than 1 percent in 100 years we should be doing the basics to teach ourselves about the needed science.

We know so little, rather than make ignorant estimates that are nothing more than wild ass guesses we should invest in learning HOW to make more educated guesses. Instead of wasting billions on studies that have no real scientific grasp of reality, we should be spending that money on LEARNING the science to make those studies meaningful and believable.

We don't know so many basic things about climate and weather, it is appalling. We are damn good at observing something and predicting based on OBSERVED events what will happen out to weeks, We have no real science to make those predictions next year or 10 years or 100 years from now. Hell we may never be able to since nature does what the hell it wants.

Why do clouds form, we know what makes up a cloud, but not WHY they form when they do and in the types they do. Thats the stuff we need to work on.

When your model for predicting the future can not be used with known data to recreate what HAS already happened in previous years, your model is not very reliable And it is going to get worse as you project farther and farther out. We need to know the cycles of the earth, the natural cycles of everything, water, ocean, air currents, cloud formation and a myriad of events I do not know to mention.

THATS what we need to spend money on. THATS the science we should invest IN.

 

[bobn]

I think closer scrutiny will show that most of these groups have done no research of any kind of their own on global warming and constitute essentially peer consent to the theories re AGW. I am not suggesting that they have done this improperly or that they hold uninformed opinions.

You will, however, be hard put to find as many as three bonafide credentialed climatologists, especially paleoclimatologists, who are willing to sign on to even cautious consent to AGW or even that any global warming at all occurring now is unusual in the grand scheme of things.

As an exercise I took this months issue of Journal of Climate:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-toc&issn=1520-0442&volume=20&issue=20

I took all the authors that had published papers in that issue, and then attempted to track down their beliefs on AGW. Often this was found on personal websites, or in two cases interviews.

I categorize the authors into 3 groups:
ACCEPT - when I find clear evidence that they accept AGW
REJECT - when I find clear evidence that they reject AGW
UNKNOWN - when I could not find evidence either way

Remarkably I did not find one REJECT, but I did find seven clear ACCEPTs.

Here are the ACCEPTs with the reason:

Chunzai Wang
Ph.D Physical Oceanography
Research Oceanographer at NOAA/AOML since 2000
"Anthropogenic climate changes pose a great challenge for the climate research community as well as for mankind in general. On the global scale, exchange of carbon dioxide and heat between the atmosphere and ocean
has likely slowed down the rate of temperature rise so that its effects are just beginning to be observed."
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/people/wang/Eos_interview.pdf

Anthony D. Del Genio
Ph.D Planetary and Space Physics
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
"As humankind adds carbon dioxide, aerosol particles, and other nasty things to the atmosphere, we can expect our climate to change over the 21st Century"
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/adelgenio.html

Igor V. Kamenkovich
PhD Oceanography
Research associate professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington
See diagram on personal website:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~kamen/GlobalW.html

P. L. Vidale
Ph.D. Atmospheric Science
Senior Scientist, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading
"In view of climate change, water resources will become more and more vital for any nation, but the association of the two cycles (H2O and CO2) has not been sufficiently focused, despite the fact that anthropogenic CO2 is now almost universally recognized to be directly responsible for recent global warming and its influence on the atmosphere is mediated by water vapor"
http://www.iac.ethz.ch/staff/vidale/

Robert F. Cahalan
Ph.D. physics
Head of the Climate and Radiation Branch at NASA/Goddard
Personal webpage citing IPCC report:
http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/~cahalan/Radiation/RadiativeBalance.html

Edward J. Brook
Ph.D Chemical Oceanography
Assistant Professor of Geology and Environmental Science, Washington State University
"The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years,” Brook said. “There is now no question this is due to human influence."

...

“We predict, for instance, that rising levels of greenhouse gases will warm our climate,” Brook said. “There’s evidence that this is happening right now, and it would be interesting to find out if the same thing has happened at times in the distant past. And there are also concerns we’re exploring about rapid shifts in climate.”
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2005/2005112421092.html

Dennis L. Hartmann
Ph.D. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics
Professor - Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington
See:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/rtn.html

The rest are marked UNKNOWNS. This is because no clear stance could be found about their views online at all. This is not unusual, in fact many of the ACCEPTs above would have been marked UNKNOWN if it wasn't for a single piece of information found.

With some of the multiple authored papers there are one or more post-grad students, and typically they have no personal website or any interviews to their name. I don't expect information will be found to classify these people.

In several cases below, information online strongly suggests they do ACCEPT (eg they work with GCMs for example), but it's not clear cut so they are left as UNKNOWN. In contrast I found no information on any of the people below suggesting that they REJECT.

The unknown list:

Sang-ki Lee
David B. Enfield
Joanna M. Futyan
Anders E. Carlson
Peter U. Clark
Grant M. Raisbeck
Bernadette M. Sloyan
E. M. Fischer
S. I. Seneviratne
D. Lüthi
C. Schär
Lucie A. Vincent
William A. van Wijngaarden
Ron Hopkinson
Lazaros Oreopoulos
Steven Platnick
Anders E. Carlson
Peter U. Clark
Grant M. Raisbeck
Bradfield Lyon
Simon J. Mason
Scott J. Eichelberger
Ying Li
Riyu Lu
Buwen Dong
Robert Lund
Xiaolan L. Wang
QiQi Lu
Jaxk Reeves
Colin Gallagher
Yang Feng


In conclusion this supports a consensus of scientists publishing climatology papers accept AGW. Well that's to be expected really, the university courses teach it, virtually all climate related scientific organizations officially accept it, so of course you'd expect that he majority of experts in the field accept it too.

 

[bobn]

Sources?

law dome icecore
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/lawdome.combined.dat

 

[ReillyT]

You are wrong, I do NOT discount global warming. I discount that we are making it significantly worse and that we can do anything about it. The science does NOT exist to support either claim.

That is where we disagree and it pretty much what this thread was intended to be about.

We are to destroy economies based on a 15 to 20 year natural trend that already may have stopped? In the 70's the science community claimed we were all gonna freeze and the oil would run out by 1985.

I dispute that we are going to destroy economies. Nearly all of Europe is taking greater measures to reduce carbon emissions than the US, and it hasn't negatively affected their economies.

What I have advocated is spending money on learning more about the science. What we do not know is so far dwarfing what little we think we know it is idiotic. Rather then waste money on schemes to lower CO2 emmissions by less than 1 percent in 100 years we should be doing the basics to teach ourselves about the needed science.

We know so little, rather than make ignorant estimates that are nothing more than wild ass guesses we should invest in learning HOW to make more educated guesses. Instead of wasting billions on studies that have no real scientific grasp of reality, we should be spending that money on LEARNING the science to make those studies meaningful and believable.

Most of the scientific community believes that what is involved is more than "wild ass guesses," but if you feel you understand physics, geology, chemistry, etc. better than the world's accumulated scientists, you must feel very impressed with yourself.

The studies (which I am sure you have read and understand by the way) have "no real scientific grasp of reality?" So you want to spend more money on studies that you currently are willing to discount entirely? Interesting.

We don't know so many basic things about climate and weather, it is appalling. We are damn good at observing something and predicting based on OBSERVED events what will happen out to weeks, We have no real science to make those predictions next year or 10 years or 100 years from now. Hell we may never be able to since nature does what the hell it wants.

Why do clouds form, we know what makes up a cloud, but not WHY they form when they do and in the types they do. Thats the stuff we need to work on.

When your model for predicting the future can not be used with known data to recreate what HAS already happened in previous years, your model is not very reliable And it is going to get worse as you project farther and farther out. We need to know the cycles of the earth, the natural cycles of everything, water, ocean, air currents, cloud formation and a myriad of events I do not know to mention.

THATS what we need to spend money on. THATS the science we should invest IN.

Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know anything. Waiting until all the questions have been answered is just a convenient way to avoid doing anything, as that day may never come.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

I'm think I'm more worried about global cooling. Cooling is more brutal than warming. It could happen in as little as 10 years.

Researchers Syukuro Manabe and Ronald Stouffer of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J. have predicted that thermohaline shutdown could precipitate a sudden drop in North Atlantic water temperatures of up to 13 degrees Fahrenheit. That in turn could bring colder temperatures to the land masses on either side of the ocean.

But first things first. Isn't the earth actually warming?

Indeed it is, says Joyce. In his cluttered office, full of soft light from the foggy Cape Cod morning, he explains how such warming could actually be the surprising culprit of the next mini-ice age. The paradox is a result of the appearance over the past 30 years in the North Atlantic of huge rivers of freshwater—the equivalent of a 10-foot-thick layer—mixed into the salty sea.

"It could happen in 10 years," says Terrence Joyce, who chairs the Woods Hole Physical Oceanography Department. "Once it does, it can take hundreds of years to reverse."

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/cover

 

[ReillyT]

I'm think I'm more worried about global cooling. Cooling is more brutal than warming. It could happen in as little as 10 years.

Just fucking great. Deserts and drought in Africa. Ice Age in Europe and North America. I think I will buy a house in Sydney.