The Urge to Explore

(Henry Spencer) writes:

In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:
globabl warming models predict a large increase in randomness of waether,
including large increase for scenarios that could cause global crop
failures.

Here, I'm told, there are some nagging doubts,

More than nagging doubts. The IPCC summary is pretty
careful on this issue. In some regions, and some seasons
there is increased variability but it is too early to
say that this will get worse, or even to attribute these
changes with confidence to global warming. Next IPCC (2007)
should have more to say.

It is possible to have the same global variability, but
still suffer. Emmanuel's work on hurricanes (i.e. not more
of them, but more intense) implies bad things happening for
some.

On the other hand, if the sea ice area in the Arctic is
reduced or eliminated we shouldn't have polar lows (aka
"arctic hurricanes") any longer. Thus there would in that
case be fewer intense storms, but more damage (polar lows
are mainly a threat to shipping).

because the recent natural
warm periods seem to have actually been times of calm weather(*) and (at
least in Europe) abundant harvests. How that relates to an artifical
warming is another question, mind you... and even for a natural warming,
the historical records cover only small parts of the world.

Not to mention that while a little of something may be
good for you, it does not follow that much more of the
same is a good idea.


(* E.g., the Vikings routinely crossed the North Atlantic in vessels that
would hardly make decent lifeboats by modern standards. )

They were more tolerant of high loss rates than we are.

And very good sailors.

--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

In article , Mike Schilling
says...

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:19:03 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Mike
Schilling" made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

[Villainy of James Watt]

Odd that the title of this is "Bill Moyers Smears a Better Man Than
Himself". I can't recall when Moyers was indicted on 18 counts of
felony perjury and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury
and had to plea-bargain his way out of it.

Regardless, it's an urban legend, as you pointed out. Who is the
better man is subjective, depending on what criteria one wants to use.

Sure, comitting felonies

He wasn't convicted.

Nor tried; he accepted a plea bargain.


This is the part where Keith Lynch informs us all that James Watt was a
Good and Decent Man, innocent of any wrongdoing, who was railroaded by
an Evil District Attorney out to rack up another conviction on his
scoreboard no matter the cost.

Er, right?


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

wrote:

Here's the latest answer:

http://www.livescience.com/technolog..._solution.html

Sell advertising space on it. Self-funding :-)

Catch is, people'd then want to build too many of the things. We'd
need solar mirrors to fire sunlight at them to reflect down to us and
get a decent climate back.

You might have come up with a good basis for a near-future Military
SciFi thriller...

GLOBAL WARMING WARS!

- Stewart

In article , David Bilek says...

"Mike Schilling" wrote:
wrote in message
. ..

If any Danes are fleeing a freezing Europe any time soon could
some move to Toronto? We need a good Danish restaurant downtown.

I can't picture a part of the world that wouldn't be improved by an influx
of 6-foot-tall blonde women.

Some research has suggested that natural blondes will die out in the
next 200 years through intermarriage. Very sad.


Does this research posit a mechanism for natural selection against blonde
alleles, in defiance of observed human mating habits, or was it done by
innumerates?

Colorblind intermarriage does *not* select against (or for) any particular
alleles, it just randomizes the distribution. Random distribution of a
gene pool containing a finite percentage of blonde-hair alleles results in
a steady, finite percentage of blonde-haired individuals. And, in fact,
the intermarriage is unlikely to be colorblind and so the distribution not
random - gentlemen *do* prefer blondes, and the preference of a gentleman
is helpful to a lady seeking to marry and/or reproduce.

But even given the random-mixing hypothesis, genetics doesn't work the way
these "researchers" seem to think it does.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

"Shawn Wilson" writes:

"Jordan" wrote in message
oups.com...



Actually, if Venus and the Earth swapped places and day lengths and
sufficient time was allowed for things to complete their adjustments, Venus
would become Earthlike and vice versa.

Earth would become Venus-like, but Venus would not become
Earthlike. An atmosphere of 95 bars CO2 will keep it toasty
even in Earth orbit.

If that were the only effect of increased global temperatures I'd view
global warming as a good spinoff of fossil fuel burning. But increased
global temperatures can also make deserts of formerly fertile lands,


Nope. That increased evaporation and rainfall thing precludes that.

Except it didn't last time the earth warmed. The Arabian
peninsula also seems to have been wetter in the ice age
than now.

Note that Jordan said "can" not "must". For the most part
the Earth did get wetter between the ice age and now.

drown rich coastlands, and (in some theories) set off the chain of
events that produces a new Ice Age.


Ice ages are about COLD, not warmth.

I'm not a believer in the "new ice age by global warming"
thing, but climate is a nonlinear system, and you cannot
refute such an idea by merely using your caps key.

Climatology is _not_ a mature science by any means, and when we alter
the Earth's climate on a large scale the results are unpredictable.


We alter? We have no real reason to believe we ARE altering the climate.
So far what we're seeing is within natural variation.

Glaciers which have been in place for thousands of years
are melting, worldwide. CO2 levels are higher than they
have been for millions of years. We've no evidence of
natural variation happening this rapidly, other than
asteroid impact or ice age oscillations.

--
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

In article ,
David McMillan wrote:

wrote:

She claimed that all required power could be produced in three
states.
I would guess that if that is correct, it would require a pretty
dense network of windmills. It would be fun to model the effects
of such a network, but I don't have access to a sufficiently
detailed GCM (or the computer time, for that matter).

Time to hack together CLIMATE@HOME....

....with open-source climate models.

A lot of the computer work that put people into the current frenzy is
being kept off-the-record by the authors.

--
I don't have a lifestyle.
I have a lifeCSS.

wrote:



We alter? We have no real reason to believe we ARE altering the climate.
So far what we're seeing is within natural variation.

Glaciers which have been in place for thousands of years
are melting, worldwide.

Yes, we are in an inter-glacial period - that is what glaciers do
during an inter-glacial period - melt.

CO2 levels are higher than they
have been for millions of years.

.... and the playing of the game of baseball hasn't happenned in
millions of years - therefore, playing BASEBALL leads to glaciers
melting AND global warming.

We've no evidence of
natural variation happening this rapidly, other than
asteroid impact or ice age oscillations.

So, we better start to panic - and I mean RIGHT NOW!

- Stewart

:: We have no real reason to believe we ARE altering the climate.

:
: Glaciers which have been in place for thousands of years are melting,
: worldwide. CO2 levels are higher than they have been for millions of
: years. We've no evidence of natural variation happening this rapidly,
: other than asteroid impact or ice age oscillations.

I thought it was demonstrated by isotopic analysis that lots of the
CO2 increase was from burning fossil fuels? Am I misremembering?


Wayne Throop http://sheol.org/throopw

horseshoe7 wrote:
wrote:

Here's the latest answer:

http://www.livescience.com/technolog..._solution.html

Sell advertising space on it. Self-funding :-)

Catch is, people'd then want to build too many of the things. We'd
need solar mirrors to fire sunlight at them to reflect down to us and
get a decent climate back.

You might have come up with a good basis for a near-future Military
SciFi thriller...

GLOBAL WARMING WARS!

Aha, James Bond already did When Solar Mirrors Go Bad. Twice; _The Man
With The Golden Gun_ (ground-based, initially), and _Die Another Day_
(orbital death ray, subdivision "non-polluting". [If you don't count
launch.)

I don't recall if climate change as a weapon was ever featured, apart
from the incidentality of nuclear winter in any of several
confrontations.

In rec.arts.sf.written wrote:

I don't recall if climate change as a weapon was ever featured, apart
from the incidentality of nuclear winter in any of several
confrontations.

John Wyndham's When the Kraken Wakes/Out of the Deeps has the
alien invaders raising the temperature of the sea enough to
melt the ice caps and seriously inconvenience humanity. I
can't remember if it was a deliberate attack or just a
by-product of other things they were doing Down There. I'm
not sure the human characters ever found out, either.

Pete