Global Warming

[retro]

Re: Global Warming

This will allow easier access to the arctic oil. Ice breakers will no longer be needed (breaking up large pieces of arctic ice into smaller ones speeds up the process of eliminating the ice).

It also opens up the Northwest passage to trade. Which means that Europe and Asia can trade unmolested. As the Suez canal has never been ideal.



Northwest Passage

http://geology.com/articles/northwest-passage.shtml

[retro]

Re: Global Warming

While hurricanes are nothing new to America and they have always has wild weather. This years drought in the US will impact global food security and the farmers in the US have been having problems for the last few years.

Sea levels are rising and it's not just in the North pole were the ice is melting. There is also a massive ice sheet in the south that they are worried about.


The Atlantic Jet Stream is moving northwards and weakening.

The jet stream — America's stormy weather maker — is creeping northward and weakening, new research shows.

That potentially means less rain in the already dry South and Southwest and more storms in the North. And it could also translate into more and stronger hurricanes since the jet stream suppresses their formation. The study's authors said they have to do more research to pinpoint specific consequences.

From 1979 to 2001, the Northern Hemisphere's jet stream moved northward on average at a rate of about 1.25 miles a year, according to the paper published Friday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The authors suspect global warming is the cause, but have yet to prove it.

The jet stream is a high-speed, constantly shifting river of air about 30,000 feet above the ground that guides storm systems and cool air around the globe. And when it moves away from a region, high pressure and clear skies predominate.

Two other jet streams in the Southern Hemisphere are also shifting poleward, the study found.

The northern jet stream "is the dominant thing that creates weather systems for the United States,'' said study co-author Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, Calif. "Bascially look south of where you are and that's probably a good guess of what your weather may be like in a few decades.''

The study looked at the average location of the constantly moving jet stream and found that when looked at over decades, it has shifted northward. The study's authors and other scientists suggest that the widening of the Earth's tropical belt — a development documented last year — is pushing the three jet streams toward the poles.


Climate models have long predicted that with global warming, the world's jet streams would move that way, so it makes sense to think that's what happening, Caldeira said. However, proving it is a rigorous process, using complex computer models to factor in all sorts of possibilities. That has not been done yet.

A rate of 1.25 miles a year "doesn't sound like much, but that works out to about 18 feet per day,'' Caldeira said. "If you think about climate zones shifting northward at this rate, you can imagine squirrels keeping up. But what are oak trees going to do?

"We are seeing a general northward shift of all sorts of phenomena in the Northern Hemisphere occurring at rates that are faster than what ecosystems can keep up with,'' he said.

Dian Seidel, a research meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who wrote a study about the widening tropical belt last year, said she was surprised that Caldeira found such a small shift. Her study documented that the tropical belt was bulging at a much faster rate. Caldeira said his figures represent the minimum amount of movement.

The jet stream also factors into bumpy air travel. It is a cause of clear air turbulence that airline pilots try to avoid by tracking where the jet stream is.

http://news.securityorg.net/Jet%20st...kening-130.htm

[Eddo211]

Re: Global Warming

Haykakan are you suggesting that mankind is bringing about an ice age that has happened several times in earths history without humans even in existence?

I think the Western world is trying its best to switch to clean energy.....I don't think there is another choice in the long run and how reserves run out, it is something that will happen we like it or not, but I personally don't think events such as the super storm "Sandy" that we see now is the cause of human influence on earths atmosphere.

What you are witnessing now in eastern US is what is called a perfect storm. You have a very large CAT 1 (lowest lever btw but big) hurricane that mixed with a super cooled low coming down from north and they collided over populated area. In Aviation weather that is the worst recipe for FTSU.

[Haykakan]

Re: Global Warming

I do not think this will kill the human race but it will kill many other life forms and will surely kill many of us but it won't lead to our extinction. Humans are very adaptable animals and will survive this climate change but it will alter our thinking and the way we do things and look at the world. I guess i am interested to see how humanity evolves to adept to this challenge but this is not going to be pretty. I was watching Romney ducking questions about what he said earlier about how the government should not get involved in disaster relief and that coorporations will step up and take care of it instead.. I have not seen exxon mobile rescuing anyone yet. This Hurricane along with this climate change is an example of an economic term called negative externality which i will be discussing in my class this week. While i try to educate people about important things-i feel at times like i am climbing the tallest mountain in the world an inch at a time because there is so much bs and misinformation already rooted in peoples minds.

[Siggie]

Re: Global Warming

What is happening is scary as it is but there could be much worst things coming our way. We can expect more unprecedented severe storms, drought, cities swollowed up by the oceans..but the ice melting into the oceans is going to ulter the weather in unpredictable ways. We may be on our way to another ice age or mass desertification but nobody seems to care. I remember when Bush junior doomed the Keyoto climate talks-i was like wtf is going on like how can you pass up an opportunity to do something when the whole world was ready to take action. If i was an alien looking upon humanity i think i would be glad that such a reckless lifeform is doomed to extinction. A last minute effort is not going to fix this problem and it may already be too late. What pisses me off is that we recognized the problem-saw the solution-but failed to act because of xxxxin greed.

I think it is actually too late for the ice caps. It's melting way faster than the estimates. It won't kill all life and maybe not forever, but either ice age or desertification probably would result in the extinction of our species among nearly all others. It's gotten to the point that it's no longer fun for scientists (geologists, (astro)physicists, climatologists, etc.) to talk about the end of the world and such because it's gotten too real. When they're asked about the most likely threat to our survival its always climate change now. It gets tense and uncomfortable and everyone just wishes they could go back to talking about the zombie apocalypse instead.

Its okay, water will become a scarcity and Armenia will come to rule the world with our unlimited water supply.

In all seriousness, its unbelievable how dumb the American public is that basic scientific facts like this can't even be mentioned in a public debate.

Yes, it's incredibly sad. The anti-intellectualism will kill the human race.

[Mher]

Re: Global Warming

Its okay, water will become a scarcity and Armenia will come to rule the world with our unlimited water supply.

In all seriousness, its unbelievable how dumb the American public is that basic scientific facts like this can't even be mentioned in a public debate.

[Haykakan]

Re: Global Warming

What is happening is scary as it is but there could be much worst things coming our way. We can expect more unprecedented severe storms, drought, cities swollowed up by the oceans..but the ice melting into the oceans is going to ulter the weather in unpredictable ways. We may be on our way to another ice age or mass desertification but nobody seems to care. I remember when Bush junior doomed the Keyoto climate talks-i was like wtf is going on like how can you pass up an opportunity to do something when the whole world was ready to take action. If i was an alien looking upon humanity i think i would be glad that such a reckless lifeform is doomed to extinction. A last minute effort is not going to fix this problem and it may already be too late. What pisses me off is that we recognized the problem-saw the solution-but failed to act because of xxxxin greed.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Global Warming

In just a few years there won't be any ice at the poles. I guarantee we'll be talking a whole lot MORE about climate change then than we are now. Especially in LA when we have to don our scuba gear to swim to work.

This will allow easier access to the arctic oil. Ice breakers will no longer be needed (breaking up large pieces of arctic ice into smaller ones speeds up the process of eliminating the ice).

People will migrate from the areas affected by climate change to safer areas of the planet to survive. You won't be talking about it, you'll be living it and will be in the past.

[Siggie]

Re: Global Warming

The term global warming was abandoned for "climate change." Obama hasn't mentioned it? I don't recall them discussing it in the debates, but there's been no other discussion? They are talking about clean energy, wind power, electric cars, etc. though which are related.

The offspring of forefathers who killed Indians in the name of progress surely aren't going to stop progress because of some bad weather. Whatever happened to that whole ozone layer thing? What happened to acid rain? In a few years, nobody will remember climate change either.

In just a few years there won't be any ice at the poles. I guarantee we'll be talking a whole lot MORE about climate change then than we are now. Especially in LA when we have to don our scuba gear to swim to work.

------------------

You can go to the NCSE website and educate yourselves about climate change. It's an excellent resource with scholarly sources.

http://ncse.com/climate

Genie Scott on Climate Change and NCSE

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mVrjrm10CHo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[KanadaHye]

Re: Global Warming

That's because anything that could potentially hurt "big business" is a socialist conspiracy in the US

The offspring of forefathers who killed Indians in the name of progress surely aren't going to stop progress because of some bad weather. Whatever happened to that whole ozone layer thing? What happened to acid rain? In a few years, nobody will remember climate change either.