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May 21, 2013
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 Climate on the BrinkPosted on May 30, 2011
In keeping with predictions made by the world’s most sober and clear-eyed climate and energy experts, the rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions is occurring more rapidly than official reports forecast, and a disastrous average global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius appears imminent and unavoidable. The faster-than-expected increase in greenhouse gas emissions is due to expanding, under-regulated economic activity, which is the one aspect of the climate crisis that humans could do something about. But as long as the international political will to limit pollutive industrial activity and rein in the commercial practices that guarantee it remains nonexistent, the predictions of our most gloomy prophets will continue to be the most reliable ones, as these most recent findings show. —ARK
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By Home Inspector Expert, June 1, 2011 at 11:07 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
From all that I have read, a 2 degree C rise would
Report thismake most of the planet too hot to support
agriculture, and it was chosen several years ago,
before the full impacts were understood, as a
reasonable attainable level. IIRC, 2 degrees C
correlates to 450 ppm.
Here are some of the problems:
We (planet) are already at or have just passed the
carrying capacity based on arable land and fossil
fuels. This means disruptions in the weather or in
fuel/fertilizer will send significant populations
into famine. With last year’s wheat harvest
destructions in Australia and Russia, and this year’s
disaster, which is still unfolding, in the American
Midwest, more people will face food insecurity this
year.
Dmitry Orlov characterized excess deaths (mortality
above the average rates for a cohort): Unless you
work in a morgue, you don’t see it as it happens, but
one year you go to a class reunion and you realize
many of your classmates are gone.
So, we might not even see the excess deaths until
several years after the fact just as we could not see
peak oil when it occurred in 2005, but only the
effect on the economy/housing market/debt system in
2008.
All this from just one half a degree (F) warming.
There is the problem of cascading effects. When one
system breaks, the ones dependent on it may also
break. We do not know how many instances of death via
starvation this will cause.
At some point, the non-linear effects will kick in.
Take sea level rise. When the wet process of glacier
disintegration accelerates, then this previously
unstipulated cause of sea level rise (because
scientists do not know how to quantify it, they do
not include it in their calculations) becomes a major
factor. Hundreds millions more displaced onto non-
arable land.
It just gets worsened and worsened.
So, all the dismal projections are based on linear
effects, but the larger non-linear effects are not
figured in because we do not know how to do so.
By Ben, May 31, 2011 at 4:39 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I recently watched the documentary Home. I really
Report thisenjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who is interested
in a broad overview of major climate issues presented
in a compelling way.
By rend it, May 30, 2011 at 2:23 pm Link to this comment
Hey Tom Friedman,,,, How’s your Flat Earth now?
Arrogant tool
Report thisBy TDoff, May 30, 2011 at 1:27 pm Link to this comment
The rapid increase in volume of methane gas being released will soon make the whole earth smell just exactly as ‘god’ now thinks of it, at this current, near-final, state of human ‘evolution’:
‘The Constantly-Emitting A**hole of The Universe’.
Report thisBy TDoff, May 30, 2011 at 1:16 pm Link to this comment
Dammit, some years ago when this climate-thingy was a big issue, and ‘W’ first became aware of it, he proposed a solution that he knew would cure it. But, as he put it, ‘Those %@&(^% idiot-democrats in Congress killed it’.
Report thisHis solution to ‘Global Warming’? “Everybody turn their fridges on ‘Coldest’, permanently, and every time your ice-makers fill-up, empty them in your back yard. That oughta cool this sucker down”.
You have to hand it to The Dummy. He did come up with some answers. As soon as he figured out the cause of terrorism, that ‘They hate us because of our freedoms’, he signed the ‘Patriot Act’, and got rid of a lot of our freedoms, so ‘they’ wouldn’t hate us any more. Didn’t work, but he tried.
I’ve heard he’s retard (that’s how they say ‘retired’ in Texas). Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
By berniem, May 30, 2011 at 11:30 am Link to this comment
Be that as it may the rubes in OK. will still vote for Inhofe as will all other “conservatives” for their own reactionary, t-bagger, trickle down promiser, or rah, rah Amerika First snake oil salesman because Faux Noise tells them that all pof this enviro-talk is nothing but a vicious international plot to bring down god’s chosen people!
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, May 30, 2011 at 10:07 am Link to this comment
If global temperatures continue to rise, massive amounts of methane gas could be released from the 10,000 gigaton reserves of frozen methane that are currently locked in the world’s deep oceans and permafrost. Passing this climate tipping point would result in global warming that would be far worse and more rapid than scientists’ current estimates.
http://www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/-59
Methane Seeps From Arctic Sea Bed
from BBC News Online
Scientists say they have evidence that the powerful greenhouse gas methane is escaping from the Arctic sea bed. Researchers say this could be evidence of a predicted positive feedback effect of climate change.
As temperatures rise, the sea bed grows warmer and frozen water crystals in the sediment break down, allowing methane trapped inside them to escape. The research team found that more than 250 plumes of methane bubbles are rising from the sea bed off Norway.
The joint British and German research team detected the bubbles using a type of sonar normally used to search for shoals of fish. Once detected, the bubbles were sampled and tested for methane at a range of depths. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the team says the methane was rising from an area of sea bed off West Spitsbergen, from depths between 150 and 400m. The gas is normally trapped as “methane hydrate” in sediment under the ocean floor.
Report this