The Urge to Explore

On Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:21:41 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Paul F.
Dietz" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!

Well, we better start cutting down MORE trees, and quick - then convert
the pulp to paper and cardboard, and then start burying the carbon!
But noooooo... you want to preserve all trees... you want to recycle
all the paper products - but you worry about global warming due to
excess CO2.... make up your minds, please!

You enviroMENTALISTS are like a dog chasing its tail... it is HIGH
COMEDY!

Assinine misattribution of opinions noted. But then, you didn't
really have any way to defend the indefensible, so I'm not surprised.

Look, do yourself a favor and stop trying to appear to be an intelligent
being. You're just not cut out for it.

He's apparently as ignorant of atmospheric science as he is of launch
economics.

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:06:58 +0200, in a place far, far away, "Frank
Scrooby" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

There are certain types (of people) who hold the opinion that (according to
the incomplete data we have of our current climatic 'age' and of previous
climatic 'age' of life on Earth) that bio-diversity is greatest during
periods of global warming.

I don't buy into it.

I'll will agree that some very interesting critters walked the Earth in
previous ages, but that the last Ice Age produced some of the most (to me,
someone who favors the mammalian camp) interesting variations.

I, for one, do not weep at all for the great reptiles whose time ran out 70
odd million years ago. I am not in favor of sharing the planet with reptiles
that can use me as a toothpick.

Those are very unlikely to naturally occur any time soon, regardless
of the earth's average temperature. The main increase in biodiversity
in the near term will be at a much smaller scale, where creatures have
a much shorter generation time.

"horseshoe7" wrote in
ups.com:



Paul F. Dietz wrote:
horseshoe7 wrote:

But this does not mean it is negligible.

350 ppm is NEGLIGIBLE.

Repeating idiocy doesn't make it any less idiotic,
'horseshoe7'.

350 ppm is NEGLIGIBLE




Just so we have a benchmark as to what high levels of CO2 in the
atmosphere can do consider the 4 known episodes of Iceball
Earth.

CO2 had to reach 11% in the atmosphere (4% is lethal to humans)
before the temperature rose high enough to melt the ice cover.
The CO2 then reacted as part of the long term geological carbon
cycle and weathered the exposed rock reducing to the normal low
levels.

So do not get hysterical that we are going to have a runaway
greenhouse effect.

"Shawn Wilson" writes:

"Frank Scrooby" wrote in message
...

Yes. One of the things that piques my interest is that I have seen ZERO
analysis as to whether global warming would be good or bad. What I do
know about ecology indicates to me that it would be a GOOD thing for the
ecosystem.


There are certain types (of people) who hold the opinion that (according
to the incomplete data we have of our current climatic 'age' and of
previous climatic 'age' of life on Earth) that bio-diversity is greatest
during periods of global warming.

I don't buy into it.


Certainly the habitable area is greater without large parts of it covered in
ice.

Not at all. What you gain near the poles you lose elsewhere.
Particularly as much of Greenland and parts of Antarctica are
in fact below sea level, the loss (of productive, developed,
land) is far greater than the gain (of bare rock).



The increased precipitation from higher temps also means that deserts
will shrink, which is yet more area opened to life.

That does not follow. The Sahara was suitable for agriculture
(if we had it) during the last ice age. It became a desert
as the planet warmed up.

There is no simple relation between planetary temperature and
desert fraction. Precipitation may (or may not) go up at a
given site, but evaporation will as well. P - E is the relevant
quantity.

--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

In article .com,
"horseshoe7" said:

Yes, but in addition, the left-leaning press corps will also help
the Greenpeace fools hype this nonsense.

The big joke is that, as a result of the leftist's overblowing of
the GLOBAL WARNING whistle, the "enviroMENTALISTS" are now having

Oh boy.

--
William December Starr

In sci.space.policy Rand Simberg wrote:
On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:06:58 +0200, in a place far, far away, "Frank
Scrooby" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

There are certain types (of people) who hold the opinion that (according to
the incomplete data we have of our current climatic 'age' and of previous
climatic 'age' of life on Earth) that bio-diversity is greatest during
periods of global warming.

I don't buy into it.

The current climate change is so rapid compared to geological events
that species have little time to adapt. Sadly, the change will
mostly be in to one direction only.

of the earth's average temperature. The main increase in biodiversity
in the near term will be at a much smaller scale, where creatures have
a much shorter generation time.

It's absurd to talk about this when we're living in the middle of a mass
extinction phase (the sixth one).

--
-meiza

"Shawn Wilson" writes:

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...

Yes. One of the things that piques my interest is that I have seen ZERO
analysis as to whether global warming would be good or bad. What I do
know about ecology indicates to me that it would be a GOOD thing for the
ecosystem.


Sure, the melting of the polar caps will have nothing but good effects-


NO models of global warming predict the melting of the polar caps.

You will find references to this kind of prediction in
IPCC 2001, and more has been done since then.

There are three major polar ice caps, and they differ in
how they are responding to climate change.

The East Antarctic ice cap is likely to grow with moderate
warming, for the reasons you state. And this ice sheet is
several times larger than all the others combined so we are
safe from huge (50m, say) sea level rise unless we act very
foolishly.

Greenland is already experiencing melting seasons in areas that
haven't melted in recorded history or, as far as can be detected,
in the paleo-record. It also seems that the Greenland sheet is
not as stable as we thought.

The West Antarctic ice sheet is already thinning. It is
the smallest of the three, fortunately, but also for dynamic
reasons the one most likely to suffer rapid collapse, given
the dynamics of its marine based section. Just to keep it clear,
"most likely" *doesn't* mean "very likely". Not soon, anyway.

In fact,
actual observation and measurement indicates the polar caps are growing.
(higher temps more evaporation more precip).

Most importantly, this happens because the East Antarctic ice
sheet has (almost) no ablation (melting) zone. It is almost
everywhere well below freezing, even in the summer. So raising
the temperature a bit produces zero extra melting, and some extra
accumulation. But

(1) There's a limit to this. Warm it enough and you do have
an ablation zone. And it does lose mass via calving. Warm
the ocean and this could become much more rapid.

(2) Greenland has a substantial ablation zone. Warm the
weather and this will increase. The biggest change in
model results/thinking in the past few years that I've
seen is the conclusion that Greenland is more vulnerable
than we once thought it.

All that said, I don't think the East Antarctic ice sheet
is going anywhere - we're not going to raise the temperature
that much. Greenland may well melt off, but on a long
time scale, just how long depending on how warm it gets.
For a local warming of 5C, less than 1000 years, possibly
much less. And 5C over Greenland means much less globally.
The time to melt shrinks rapidly as a function of the warming.

A rapid shock is possible with West Antarctica, but that should
only be 1/3 of the ice sheet, or 1-2 metres of sea level. IPCC
chose not to discuss this in the 2001 report as it wasn't possible
to be sufficiently quantitative at the time - and may still not
be for all I know.

The sad thing about the debate is that so much of it seems to be made up of
false claims like you just made.

I thought he was joking.

In any event to distress the polar bears it is not necessary
to melt off the ice sheets. They depend on sea ice, which is
shrinking and thinning significantly.

--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

"horseshoe7" writes:

Paul F. Dietz wrote:


Trace gases can and do have profound effects
on radiation transport, if they have absorption features
in parts of the spectrum the other, more abundant gases are
transparent. Even gases with much lower abundances than
CO2 can have significant effects.

Yes - the fact is, when it comes to the impact of "greenhouse gases"
CO2 doesn't mean diddly-squat compared to the much more abundant
METHANE..

This statement is false.


.. which is mostly put out by decaying leaves...

This statement is false.

so -
destroying the rain forests actually HELPS prevent global warming.

And this is also false.

But at least you still have your caps key.

--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

Earl writes:

"horseshoe7" wrote in
ups.com:


Just so we have a benchmark as to what high levels of CO2 in the
atmosphere can do consider the 4 known episodes of Iceball
Earth.

Obligatory comment: this is still controversial.
It is quite possible that the snowball never happened.

CO2 had to reach 11% in the atmosphere

Back of the envelope calculation here. Certainly not good
to two significant digits.

Anyway, the sun gave off 6% less energy then. It was a very
different planet 600 million years ago. This makes the benchmark
less useful. On the other hand we have perhaps 6X as recently
as the Cretaceous, if we accept the GEOCARB III estimates.


(4% is lethal to humans)

Really? I thought far less.


before the temperature rose high enough to melt the ice cover.
The CO2 then reacted as part of the long term geological carbon
cycle and weathered the exposed rock reducing to the normal low
levels.

The weathering at the end of a 5 million year long snowball
earth 600 million years ago is rather ill-understood. I
don't think there is much of a lesson for today there.


--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

NO models of global warming predict the melting of the polar caps. In fact,
actual observation and measurement indicates the polar caps are growing.
(higher temps more evaporation more precip).

The scientists who measure this -- and issued another statement last
winter that the ice caps are shrinking -- are all wrong? Sounds like
you have a little Orwellian doublethink going on.

But hey, don't take anyone else's word for it, go to the NASA site and
look at the photos yourself. And don't be talking about a Photoshop
conspiracy until _after_ you look at them, please.

Global Warming is a fact, one that's been measured. The only
controversy is whether it's natural or man-made. That's something I
don't know, but Global Warming itself -- that's real. I'm not exactly
worried about it, but dude, you really have to not spout nonsense.

"The researchers found that in areas where the ice melts very little,
there was slight thickening of some ice caps, which could be due to
accumulation from increased snowfall; however, overall they found that
the ice caps and glaciers were thinning at the lower elevations where
melt occurs. In some locations, where the changes were most
substantial, this thinning appears to be a continuation of the retreat
or melting of glaciers that followed the end of the Little Ice Age -- a
period 150 years ago when the Earth was cooler and glaciers were more
prevalent. However, the researchers also attributed the melting of the
ice caps to the short-term warming trend of the late 1990s, which
appears to have been amplified in the Arctic. They determined that the
ice loss associated with these combined effects contributed to 0.065
millimeters (0.002 inches) per year to sea level rise during the
1995-2000 time period."

Doug