[CC] We Were Grossly Wrong

[Andrew_Fireborn]

No. No no no no no. No, this is not possible. Mammals cannot have made it through T-K and evolved into creatures this fucking stupid. I fucking refuse to believe it.

Without the pressures of natural selection, and a society that actively tries to prevent the stupid from removing themselves...

Believe it.

[Shinova]

On the other hand, it's apparently what was it, 65 meters over the course of a century? It's a huge amount, but if it takes place over a long period of time as long as a century, it could be enough for major businesses to slowly relocate out of places like NYC and much deeper inland. I believe some businesses are already moving out of NYC.

It is certainly too late to reverse the course of climate change, but it's probably not entirely too late to create some measures over that period of time to prepare ourselves for living through the long heat wave. Admittedly I don't know how though. Greenhouses for agriculture? Indoor meat cultivation? Most civilization will certainly move indoors though, I can figure. And perhaps move towards places that were previously too cold or ice-covered to live in, like closer to the poles and Greenland.

By the time that kind of mass migration and change becomes necessary, I doubt anyone will be deluding themselves when Manhatten is disappearing underwater and Malibu beach is now.... Malibu Cliffs or something? Over that period of a century, I figure most mankind will slowly adapt to the changing climate.

100 years is numbingly short geologically, but in human civilization terms it's a good amount of time. It's certainly not going to be 2+ meters of sea level increase overnight.

[Shinova]

Oh, and the people in poor countries will most certainly die off in huge numbers. Seriously very little we can do about that though.

[Darth Wong]

Out of curiosity, both myself and Mike would probably be interested to know what the predictions are for a place like Toronto that is fairly inland, yet bordered by the great lakes. I assume those levels would rise as well, but enough to wipe out our city? Anyone have a guess?

Why would the Great Lakes increase? At present, they're actually shrinking as a result of current climate trends. Although that's disquieting too.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Canada will have major fresh water issues in the future if anything, because of the need for that water to be split between farming, population centres and the tar sands which are soaking a huge amount up.

[Darth Wong]

Canada will have major fresh water issues in the future if anything, because of the need for that water to be split between farming, population centres and the tar sands which are soaking a huge amount up.

Luckily, Alberta has no claim on the eastern provinces' fresh water, and I don't foresee us giving away our fresh water to those short-sighted pollution-spewing cowboy-hatted redneck idiots out west.

[Molyneux]

It occurs to me that Manhattan is a fairly small island...any chance they could use dikes to preserve it?

[Shinova]

It occurs to me that Manhattan is a fairly small island...any chance they could use dikes to preserve it?

Manhatten's not the only part of NYC though. You've got the entire Long Island to protect as well.

[Sikon]

On the other hand, it's apparently what was it, 65 meters over the course of a century?

I'm not sure where you heard that figure, but it wasn't a reliable source. The current rate of sea level rise is 3 millimeters per year, like 0.3 meters over the course of a century. That can increase, being headed towards some further increase, but a so vast factor of 200 increase for 65 meters sea level rise would have to be based on calculations showing sufficient energy input and heat transfer to melt the corresponding ~ 26 million cubic kilometers of ice ... ~ 24 million trillion kilograms.

About ~ 8.1+ trillion trillion joules in 100 years required for the 335 kJ/kg heat of fusion alone (neglecting various additional energy requirements beyond this lower limit) over a relevant area of about 10 million square kilometers would require literally two orders of magnitude more power than average radiative forcing from global warming, and, though there is some local variance from average, there's certainly not calculations supporting such.

There can be other factors at play. The amount of effect from global warming can increase over the course of a century. If a segment of ice breaks up and slides into the ocean, it receives heat transfer from surrounding water beyond that from sunlight changes, although it first has to get into the ocean, with a lot of the ice relevant to a 65 meter figure being hundreds of kilometers inland, mostly the East Antarctica region.

There can also be thermal expansion of the oceans to some degree, but the amount of energy required for such to be much of 65 meters rise in a century dwarfs radiative forcing of solar energy from global warming.

To put it simply, there's no evidence whatsoever that any claim of 65 meters rise in a century is based on actual appropriate calculation as opposed to not being even the right order of magnitude.

This must be looked at quantitatively, not making assumptions without supportive figures based on observation or calculation.

Sea levels are rising but not remotely that fast.

[aerius]

Why would engineering New York's survival be that hard? Didn't the Chinese build a wall protecting one of the larger cities that would've otherwise been flooded by the building of the Three Gorges Dam?

Tides, big waves & surges from winter storms, and the occasional hurricane. A little more challenging than a nice calm artificial lake.

[Justforfun000]

Darth Wong Wrote:

Luckily, Alberta has no claim on the eastern provinces' fresh water, and I don't foresee us giving away our fresh water to those short-sighted pollution-spewing cowboy-hatted redneck idiots out west.

Indeed! Especially since they've been whining about sharing their precious oil profits with the rest of Canada. Would certainly serve them right if the shoe was on the other foot. It'd be a lot more important to them then the liquid gold they happen to be swimming in right now.

So the Great Lakes are shrinking instead of filling up? How does that happen when they are connected to the oceans? I don't understand the science behind this.

[aerius]

So the Great Lakes are shrinking instead of filling up? How does that happen when they are connected to the oceans? I don't understand the science behind this.

The Great Lakes are several hundred feet above sea level, the water's going to keep draining out of the lakes as usual even if all the ice in the world melted.

[Justforfun000]

The Great Lakes are several hundred feet above sea level, the water's going to keep draining out of the lakes as usual even if all the ice in the world melted.

Really? I didn't know that. Not something I ever came across as a factoid I guess. Well that sucks! So what is the reason they are shrinking? Is it related to the rising sea level or is this a separate problem?

[aerius]

So what is the reason they are shrinking? Is it related to the rising sea level or is this a separate problem?

The really long term reason is glacial rebound of the land, the land in our area is still rebounding from the last ice age and as it does so it slowly tips the Great Lakes into the sea. In the shorter term, we're currently in a below average trend for precipitation.

[His Divine Shadow]

I have for some reson remembered a discovery program I saw in like 1997-98, it talked about global climate and how the earth was self regulating and if it wasn't we'd either be like Hoth from Star Wars or like Venus, cold periods would cause changes that lead to global warming and warm periods would cause changes that lead to global cooling.

Anyone remember this? Is it possible global warming will result in conditions that will trigger an early start of another global cooling period, which I hear could be potentially more dangerous than global warming?

[Medic]

I have for some reson remembered a discovery program I saw in like 1997-98, it talked about global climate and how the earth was self regulating and if it wasn't we'd either be like Hoth from Star Wars or like Venus, cold periods would cause changes that lead to global warming and warm periods would cause changes that lead to global cooling.

Anyone remember this? Is it possible global warming will result in conditions that will trigger an early start of another global cooling period, which I hear could be potentially more dangerous than global warming?

Yes, Chewie brought this up as a critique of Surlethe's story on Global Warming in fanfics. It's the thermohaline conveyor and introducing as much freshwater into the oceans as global warming is has the potential to sufficiently slow it down or shut it off entirely which triggers an ice age.

That's likely a poor-looking source but if I dig through my bookmarks or just google for a bit longer I could find a university site detailing the same knowledge. I'll defer to experts or those with-more-time-than-me-at-2:38 am but depending on the extent that we've overloaded the earth's ability to handle all the greenhouse gases we've pumped into it, it could be a temporary bump-in-the-road in a warming trend, and at that, limited to Europe or certain other areas.

It depends on a number of factors. That's because even if there is a potential ice-age or cooling trend, that doesn't mean you've eliminated those greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it just means something keeping Europe as-warm-as-it-was ceased to function. In that situation, they'd curb some bite of a cooler-climate but will make the warming-up again twice as bad (whenever that eventually is) since, knowing humanity, they'd take it as a sign that nature fixed itself and promptly discard the notion of cutting down on greenhouse-gas emissions. (which, temperatures notwithstanding, it wouldn't have

The whole point behind the idea of CO2 leading to global warming (for one example; it's not the only greenhouse gas in question) is that we're putting it in the atmosphere at a rate which increases the net total that is in the atmosphere. A "carbon sink" in the carbon cycle is anything that gets rid of carbon in the atmosphere by using / absorbing it like vegetation, the ocean surface and marine life etc. This represents the natural environment's ability to stabilize itself (and is the source of the false talking-point of the anti-GW crowd that "the environment puts in *so many more billions of tons of CO2* in the atmosphere than all human activity combined every year!") but the thermal conveyor stopping doesn't (directly, to my knowledge) have any effect on this. (lower temperatures could lead to more arable land by reversing desertification in some areas, things like that and more vegetation growth but this is balanced against our always destroying more of the habitat that gets rid of carbon -- through suburbanization, building projects and pollution -- and my assumption that this would be taken as a sign not to abandon fossil fuels)

[ray245]

Sign...which reminds me why humans managed to succeed in the first place...

Didn't a mass extinction wiped out a large amount of humans, leaving the most clever ones alive?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Sign...which reminds me why humans managed to succeed in the first place...

Didn't a mass extinction wiped out a large amount of humans, leaving the most clever ones alive?

I won't say clever. From what I read, some 10K humans were left in that Ice Age, and all humans now trace their genealogy to those 10000.

But quite frankly, I would like to see concrete models saying what's happening before jumping onto any bandwagon. Yes, there's global warming. The empirical data says it all and there's a correlation between human activity etc. but some data says that it was rising even before our activity was growing exponentially. I would like to know why that was happening as well. Not to mention, there must be a reason why there were Ice Ages in the first place. There was not just one but several.

[ray245]

Sign...which reminds me why humans managed to succeed in the first place...

Didn't a mass extinction wiped out a large amount of humans, leaving the most clever ones alive?

I won't say clever. From what I read, some 10K humans were left in that Ice Age, and all humans now trace their genealogy to those 10000.

But quite frankly, I would like to see concrete models saying what's happening before jumping onto any bandwagon. Yes, there's global warming. The empirical data says it all and there's a correlation between human activity etc. but some data says that it was rising even before our activity was growing exponentially. I would like to know why that was happening as well. Not to mention, there must be a reason why there were Ice Ages in the first place. There was not just one but several.

[ray245]

Oh shit...I pressed the submit button too fast...can any mod help me?


Anyway, I was trying to say that humans want the current sistuation and prevent the society and civilization we build to be well able to sustain itself.

There is a high chance we will challenge nature just to ensure the continent and land mass stay in the exact same place if possible. Rather than adapt to the surrounding, what most people want to do is to change nature to their own liking...

Which brings me to ask one question, how come we adapt and ensure that our civilization can maintain itself if an ice age really come?

[Edi]

Anyway, I was trying to say that humans want the current sistuation and prevent the society and civilization we build to be well able to sustain itself.

What the fuck is this gibberish supposed to mean?

There is a high chance we will challenge nature just to ensure the continent and land mass stay in the exact same place if possible.

It's not. How the fuck do you propose that would be done? And with what energy?

Rather than adapt to the surrounding, what most people want to do is to change nature to their own liking...

Completely irrelevant to reality.

Which brings me to ask one question, how come we adapt and ensure that our civilization can maintain itself if an ice age really come?

What do you define as civilization? We need to know that before your question can be answered. If another ice age comes, with the kind of glaciers we had during the previous ones, the people living up north in the way of the ice will pack up and move, that's what. What gets left behind is pulverized under the ice, end of story.

And one final question for you: How the fuck do you manage to condense such an enormous amount of stupid into your posts? You are literally nothing but a drooling idiot who has absolutely nothing to contribute, a completely useless fucking waste of bandwidth. Fucking moron.

[ray245]

snip.

Basically, I'm asking how would the 'present' civilization managed to survive IF a next ice age happened.

How to put it...like all the present day knowledge and technology isn't lost like the dark ages.

And for this phrase, I'm trying to say what is some people trying to do now.

'There is a high chance we will challenge nature just to ensure the continent and land mass stay in the exact same place if possible.'

Like denying Global warming is real, and wanting to maintain the current lifestyle.

Basically as what some people has said, we can't really 'reverse' the change or something like that. The main point is, there are people who can be very illogical like oil companies for instance.

Instead of researching and developing new ideas and ways to generate electricity, they want to remain in control of the world's share of market through oil.