[Cold Iron]

Hi everyone.

I thought I'd open a thread where people can post news about climate change and related developments.

Mighty Waterfall Gushed at Greenland Ice Sheet

Quote

April 17, 2008 -- For an hour or so Greenland had it's own mighty waterfall, flowing secretly at three times the volume of Niagara.

Lovely.

[cerveza_fiesta]

There's no mention of it being linked to climate change at all if you read the article. This happens all over the world and is part of the normal seasonal freeze-thaw cycle of a glacier. I'm certainly not going to say that global warming isn't real, but it shouldn't be brouht up every time an ice cube melts.

There's a spot in the Rockies actually where there's a valley of mysterious origin and nobody could explain it's existence in geologic or glaciologic terms...until a giant lake inside one of the glaciers suddenly burst through the side of the glacier and caused a niagra-like surge to fire down into the valley. When the waters subsided they found that the valley was carved out deeper than it had been before and that silt from the valley was carried away down into the nearby rivers. They determined that this event must have happened many many more times since the last ice age. Not related to global warming at all...just seasonal melt cycles.

[Macros]

global warming's a myth

[cerveza_fiesta]

I've heard a lot of talk lately about the "ice core" stuff and how it's definitive proof of global warming and that it's not part of some massive planetary warming cycle associated with magnetic pole reversal or something.

In the inconvenient truth docu, I remember it being mentioned that ice cores are only good back to about 600k years. In the life of the planet, this is a pretty miniscule blip. Is 600k years even enough to draw a conclusion about the past cycles of the earth? Truly, with a sampling period of 600k years, the longest cycle period you could examine is 600k years. What if the cycle is actually of a longer period than that...on the order of 1M years. The ice core would contain absolutely no information about a warming cycle of that magnitude.

Just throwing it out there. Does anybody know anything more solid about this?

[Macros]

I think ice cores reliability can be stretched to 800 k years and are counted as some of the most reliable indicators availabe, but The earth is considerably older. But the gacial cycles are well interpretable from the data one of the better drilling sites (antartica?) and show we've been through at least 6/7 notable glacial cycles (I havn't looked at this stuff in a while) so warming and cooling are clearly defined cycle son this planet. It is interesting though for short term studies (AD realisitically) that the industrial revolution most definately affected the atmospheres make up, it would be hugely co-incidental if were nearing the enf of a million year cycle which featured vast increases in Co2 and other "ozone" gases and our vast increase in fossil fuel usage happened to fall at the same time.
I have little to do at work so I may just go and start following this stuff again

[cerveza_fiesta]

Last time I was hanging out with my old Prof from Univeristy he was talking about death of the dinosaurs actually, and how there's evidence that it might have been caused by a huge GHG release event. One of the major reasons that they think dinosaur extinction was a cataclysmic event of some sort is because the geologic age of most of the earth's fossil fuel reserves. They are all found in approximately the same age of rocks. If it's true that fossil fuels are made of...fossils, then it means something major must have happened for all those plants and animals to die at approximately the same time (geologically speaking) and form a layer of super carbon-enriched rocks in the earth's crust.

I don't know how that relates to the current situation, but he was suggesting that in the past, the earth's natural balance was to literally extinguish all surface life on the planet and trap up all that carbon in it's crust. This coupled with a few million more years equalized the carbon imbalance and allowed the surface to be repopulated.

[Macros]

we dont have any reliable climate date for millions of years ago so so we don't even know when the last ice age was (technically we're still in the ice age) what people commonly refer to as the last ice age was really just the last notable glacial cycle. Its an interesting idea that the extinction of the planet was a natural balance thing, the most common theory I've heard was the massive impact/ volcanic explosion which left sucha heavy cloud in the sky for such a prolonged period of time that everything just died. One thing I've always pondered, seeing as so much of the earths carbon is tied up in fossils, was the earths oxegen balance conisderably lower at one stage and if so would the deceased animals have trouble suriving in our climate today. I know that a considerable portion is also held up in currently living plants but does that mean there were more/ less densly forested areas in the jussarsic period? (joey reference )

[cerveza_fiesta]

I dunno...I's just a theory that my old Proff said he was reading up on. It made more sense the way he described it, hes a touch more eloquent with the word speaks than I. I don't think anybody's claiming it as a be-all end-all theory, just another perspective.

This would be along the same lines as a massive impact / volcanic thing, but rather than having ash / ejecta obscuring the sun and causing massive global cooling we have a situation where massive carbon venting causes global warming on a huge scale. There supposedly is other evidence in the rocks that suggest a high-carbon atmosphere at the time of the plant / animals' death. Anyway, the result is the same: the earth's climate is pushed outside the narrow margin where life can exist and flourish sustainably, key resources are used up or destroyed and the whole friggin deal goes into a near-lifeless dormancy period until balance returns.

[Macros]

yeah but a massive impact is hardly a natural balancing act its an outside force that screws the balance up.
What I was saying if the venting caused extinction where did it go to allow the resurgence of life as we know it, it didn't just get sucked into a warren and forgotten about, it had to be absorbed, and it couldn't be absorbed by the dying lifeform because as far as I remember form my basic biology lessons they already tie up a large portion of the existing carbon sources.
I think I'm saying what I want to, if a surge in the earths carbon levels caused death where did it go to permit us to have this conversation

[cerveza_fiesta]

I think the idea is that the existing life forms die, get covered in detrius or whatever...basically buried over thousands of years. As life resurfaced, it would have been plants that could exist in the high carbon, high temperature environement and absorb it from the atmosphere as they grow. Evolution would change the plants as the carbon and temperature levels decreased due to sequestration in the regrowing forests.

Basically burying the entire existing forest and regrowing a new one ontop of it in order to trap up the carbon. I don't think it's a natural cycle...obviously caused by an outside force of some kind like huge and sudden geologic activity. It just makes sense that that's how life would respond to a catastrophic global warming event.

I guess. I'll try and find the article. I gotta meet with him later today.

[Macros]

ah yes i get where you're coming from, I was (for some reason) basing it on happeninng in todays environ where the fossil fuels already exist.
Basically it happened, everything died, got buried in crap (dig my techno lingo baby) plants where the first tings to come alive again, they absorbed the extra shit and bingo bango, roberts your fathers brother, time for fish to flourish and climb outa the water.
So what we're doing NOW is bringing pushing us back towards that catclysmic level of carbon by burngin said fossil fuels. It terrbily logical when put like that. And we're screwed if we don't swap to renewable pretty damn quick

[paladin]

one thing ive read is that the planet has some natural defense mechanisms against these types of problems, like ancient rocks found off the coast of england that store tremendous amounts of carbon. that said, we've been here for no time at all compared to the earth and the earth will do as she pleases. we may have some effect on the planet, but i think we're being a bit arrogant suggesting that man is causing the problem rather than contributing to it.

oh, and cold iron, your avatar is causing global warming in my pants

[Macros]

we're not the cause we're a catalyst

[paladin]

i dont think so. we're a contributing factor. the sun is a catalyst, we're a flyspeck

[Cold Iron]

Ok firstly it's rediculous to deny that icesheets are melting faster every year, there is a mountain of evidence for this. The natural cycle argument shits me to tears because its just a stalling mechanism. We know we are emitting CO2, and we know that the CO2 in the atmosphere is rising and we know that atmospheric CO2 levels effects the climate and we know that changing climate conditions are not good for us or any other life form on this planet. We shouldn't need to know exactly how much to decide to change.

Second I posted about the mass extinction thing not long ago but i cant find it now. Short version is i read an article in new scientist, some dude went looking for why some meteor impacts and flood basalt eruptions caused mass extinctions and others didn't. He found massive cylindrical holes in bedrock around the sites that are linked with extinctions where underground hydrocarbons had been cooked by the impact/eruption, gasified and shot through to the surface, resulting in a high carbon atmosphere. He said the current levels of what we have released are already something like 7% of one of these mass extinction levels.

As always there is contention and debate. I don't care if the scientists debate, it's what they should be doing, the general public though should be aware and concerned. We need funds to be spent. We need the voting public to take notice. We shouldn't be swayed into complacency by the scientific debate.

[Macros]

paladin;291569 said:

i dont think so. we're a contributing factor. the sun is a catalyst, we're a flyspeck

The sun is a constant factor, a catalyst is something added to speed a reaction up, us. I don't think its to argogant say we are first intellegent race to ruthlessly exploit the planet in the manner we have, the sun won't dig those fossil fuels up, and before people cry "but if the oils nearly done why arent we dead?" crude oil is only a small part of the fossilised fuels, theres shale oil, coal, natural gas, turf, peat (bursn, do you know him?)( and other options. We arew most Definately having an impact
(basically what CI is saying)

[paladin]

the sun isnt constant because the suns output varies and can sometime spike or dip significantly. its a constant that its their(since the existance of earth, not for all time), but we're in our infant stages in coming to understand the effect of the sun and its ebbs, flows, and other(such as solar storms) on earth.

[Macros]

I think its presence is constant enough when viewing our impact on the world becuase calling us a flyspeck on the eco system is ridiculous. All overr the world wee're tearing down, digging up and changing stuff on a level unprecedened in natural history (in comparison with other species efforts) the impact we have had in the last 100 years ( or since the ind rev) is pushing cataclysmic levels in its enormity so I feel justified in calling us the catalyst.
Also you say the sun ebbs and flows and whatever, over the last however number of millions of years these have happened and so I feel its can be consicdered a constant when pulling up 800 k years of climatical data for analysis

[JoJo]

Changes in the sun have not been shown to provide a significant change to the earth's climate. There has not been any significant change in the total energy output of the sun since we have started measuring it, and no changes in the sun or sun phenomenon correlate with increased temperatures. One thing that can change is small perturbations in the orbit of the earth that draw the planet closer or further from the sun. These perturbations might be linked to the start of several of the major climate changes in the geologic history of the earth. However, the actual change in temperature due to these orbital changes is small and the large scale changes are due to feed back loops localized to earth pushing things in one direction or another.

There is no evidence that such an orbital shift is happening now, but even if it has, it can only explain a very small percentage of the increase in global temperature. One cause is an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, which partially due to humans burning fossil fuel and destroying carbon sinks.

[JoJo]

The global warming wager is an application of the principles of Pascal's Wager to the anthropogenic theory of global warming. Business Week columnists Jack & Suzy Welch say they believe that, whether the impact of global warming ends up being mild or severe, companies have to adopt a "here it comes" mind-set and mount a well-reasoned plan. Any other response would be bad business.