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I Smell...

  • #61
never said the world wasnt warming, my argument started over how much we have to do with it. Finch have i stated anywhere that the earth wasnt warming?
 
  • #62
I have a lot of trouble figuring out this whole global warming conflict.

People will spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war of questionable effectiveness to stop terrorists who might be able to kill off five million people in their craziest wildest dreams (even with pre-9/11 security in place).

They'll devote unbelievable amounts of time and resources to sustaining and spreading religions that will save them from hellfire which in all likelihood doesn't even exist.

But when a logical and scientifically-supported threat looms that can change the lives of all 6 billion of us in potentially dramatic and deadly ways, with some effects felt even by our very distant descendents... those same people who seem paranoid and reactionary toward just about everything respond with, "Pshaw. Silly tree-huggers."

They're barely even curious about it.

I just can't wrap my brain around it. Shouldn't this be right up their alley?
 
  • #63
FACT: Earth is currently on a warming trend

THEORY: it is because of us and is going to be worse for critters than it is for us

the theory is what Finch and i have been debating
 
  • #64
Yeah... I think it's because of us. I think it'll be worse for the critters than it will be for us, for a little while.

My co2 tank isn't helping matter much, hehe. Neither is our diesel Ford F250 lmao!
 
  • #65
I don't know if you guys know this but Water vapor is like 60 some odd percent of the green house gasses.
 
  • #66
But you really can't create any more water than there already is on earth, unless done so artificially, and even then I don't think water is anything to worry about. I use it everyday.
wow.gif


-Ben
 
  • #67
Water vapor will make the problem even worse because warming by human-driven greenhouse gases will increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.  Positive feedback when we don't want it.  Some will be in clouds, which can reflect solar energy and reduce warming, but I think the current consensus is that, overall, it'll make the problem worse than anthropogenic greenhouse gases alone.
 
  • #68
EDIT: Bruce you're so fast!
 
  • #69
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]
never said the world wasnt warming, my argument started over how much we have to do with it. Finch have i stated anywhere that the earth wasnt warming?


Rattler I believe that you did say the Earth wasn't getting any warmer. Let's see if I can find it.




[b said:
Quote[/b] (rattler_mt @ Jan. 08 2007,8:35)]The earth is not getting any warmer. It's all a lie that was started by the republican party and Satan himself, better known as George W. Bush.

See there it is in your quotes so don't try to say that you didn't say it.
 
  • #70
your just mad about my post on the other thread
tounge.gif
 
  • #71
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Go watch An Inconvenient Truth. I thought it was pretty good.
I have not seen it, nor have any plans to, so i can't vouch for it

[b said:
Quote[/b] ] Finch have i stated anywhere that the earth wasnt warming?
Not that i can recall...

The idea is more carbon dioxide, more greenhouse gas, warmer temperatures. We do know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the general idea being
greenhouse_effect-v1.jpg

The term greenhouse effect describes how water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other "greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere alter the return of energy to space, and in turn, change the temperature at the Earth's surface. These greenhouse gases absorb some of the energy that is emitted from the Earth's surface, preventing this energy from being lost to space. As a result, the lower atmosphere warms and sends some of this energy back to the Earth's surface. When the energy is "recycled" in this way, the Earth's surface warms.

Also, as i have shown previously, Ice core data shows the majority of the correspondence between temperature and carbon dioxide is consistent with a feedback between carbon dioxide and climate.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] While it might seem simple to determine cause and effect between carbon dioxide and climate from which change occurs first, or from some other means, the determination of cause and effect remains exceedingly difficult. Furthermore, other changes are involved in the glacial climate, including altered vegetation, land surface characteristics, and ice-sheet extent.

And yet, taking these different influences into account, it is possible to determine how much the temperature decreased when carbon dioxide was reduced, and use this scaling (termed climate sensitivity) to determine how much temperature might increase as carbon dioxide increases.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] Multiple paleoclimatic studies indicate that recent years, the 1990s, and the 20th century are all the warmest, on a global basis, of at least the last 1000 years. The most recent paleoclimate data reinforce this conclusion using longer records, new proxies, new statistical techniques, and a broader geographic distribution of paleo data.

"There is considerable debate centered on the cause of 20th century climate change. Few people contest the idea that some of the recent climate changes are likely due to natural processes, such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar luminosity, and variations generated by natural interactions between parts of the climate system (for example, oceans and the atmosphere). There were significant climate changes before humans were around and there will be non-human causes of climate change in the future. However, it is increasingly apparent that human induced atmospheric changes are having an effect on our climate." - NOAA final statement
 
  • #72
Isn't it weird how I always inadvertantly start long debates and then not even participate in them?

Ahhh I have trouble following a lot of this stuff.. too many things distracting me on this end. :p
 
  • #73
Finch, on your last graph over the last 400,00ish years with the CO2 vs Temps. do you have one that shows smaller time chunks? its to much data in to small of a graph. while it shows a corilation between CO2 levels and Temps it doesnt show cause and effect. seen referances elsewhere while skimming that the CO2 levels start to rise AFTER temps rise. if thats the case i think i know why but have to go quiz some chemestry/physics ppl on another board to see if i could be right.
 
  • #74
Good question.
figure5.gif



"Notice the saw-tooth shape of the Vostok record, with abrupt warmings followed by more gradual coolings.  Warming at the end of glacial periods tends to happen more abruptly than the increase in solar insolation.  There are several feedbacks that might be responsible for this.  One is the ice-albedo feedback.  Ice has a higher albedo (or reflectivity) than vegetation, soil, or water.  Therefore, when ice is present, less solar radiation is absorbed by the surface, temperatures decrease, and the ice will persist.  Once ice begins to melt and uncover land or water, more solar radiation will be absorbed by the surface, raising temperatures and causing even more ice to melt.  

This effect might be greatest over the oceans because sea ice can melt much more quickly than large continental ice sheets. A possible feedback also exists with atmospheric CO2.  The amount of atmospheric CO2 decreased during glacial periods, in part because more CO2 was stored in the ocean due to changes in either ocean mixing or biological activity, although vegetative feedbacks and the trapping of methane may also have played roles. This decreased the atmosphere's greenhouse effect and helped to maintain low temperatures.  Once CO2 began to rise at the end of the glacial periods, however, the atmosphere's greenhouse effect increased and contributed to further warming. "

-Mechanisms that Can Cause Abrupt Climate Change, National Climate data center http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/story2.html

I encourage you to follow the link and look around, though this is the only relevant data there pretaining to your question
 
  • #75
putting the second paper together today and dont have time to skim, will do so after work, havent had time to post my question on the other board but i guess ill give yah the jist of what im thinking.

well known fact that cold water contains more O2, my question was going to be does it also hold more CO2 also is there a difference between the CO2 holding capibilities between salt and fresh water. from here you can proll get along with what im thinking...............

if cold water also holds more CO2 than warming oceans would release this into the atmosphere correct? hence the rise in CO2 would kick in after the temps began to rise

anyways was just a side track my brain went on when i was driving to pick up the one newspaper at 6a.m. this morning
 
  • #76
Cold water can hold more of any gas, in this case oxygen or carbon dioxide. Also, the ocean is a realllly large body of water, so it would take a long time for it to change temperatures dramatically- perhaps this is shown in the lag-time between temperature and carbon dioxide changes when the earth was cooling.
 
  • #77
The amount of gas dissolved in water (at equilibrium) depends on the water temperature and on the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere.  Less CO2 can dissolve in warm water, but more CO2 can dissolve if there's more of it in the atmosphere.  It turns out that the ocean's CO2 concentration is currently rising.  Given the high pH of the ocean, the dissolved CO2 acts dissociates into carbonate/bicarbonate and acts as an acid.
 
  • #78
A little co2 can be a good thing as Bruce said it forms Carbonic acid when it combines with water and it can free Ca and allow it to be assimilated by invertebrates, but the levels we have now are becoming dangerous.

Co2 and O2 do not compete for space in an aqueous solution. This means that you can have water that's saturated with O2 and this will not affect the amout of co2 that can be dissolved in water. Theoretically you can have water saturated with O2 and CO2 at the same time, however this really isn't possible in nature, or atleast on earth... or atleast not yet
smile.gif
If it ever gets that bad that that's possible we'll all be dead by then.


As far as the oceans changing temperatures dramatically, a few degrees is all it takes to wipe out coral populations.


So can saltwater hold more or less CO2 than fresh... Very good question! Wish I knew! Just brainstorming here but since saltwater is more dense then perhaps CO2 isn't as easy to dissolve than it it is in fresh. Keep in mind that co2 is indeed easily dissolved in water compared to O2 which is relatively hard to dissolve.

If I was playing who wants to be a millionaire, I'd say that Co2 is easier to dissolve in fresh water than salt water.

Another idea is aquatic plants. They require co2 ppm of about 10 times that of normal air. If the limiting factor of CO2 is taken care of by man the plants will grow at a rate that is not sustainable with the limited nutrients available in the water column (and to a lesser extent the substrate), assuming that industrial and septic runoff is not a factor in this EQ. the plants will grow at a increased rate, use up the nutrients, die and release it all back into the atmosphere. Since all the nutrients are gone, nothing in the water will grow back (or atleast not porportionally) to re-utilize the co2 produced from the decayed plants, compounding our problem.

Without the aq. plants, species will starve, die, and release more co2.

Hey, just brainstorming. I could be wrong lol
 
  • #79
as i said was just a thought that was going through my half asleep brain this morning given that i ran across something saying that the CO2 levels rose after the temps rose sometimes by as much as 100 years later(will see if i can find the referance for yah tonight Finch) and to me it seems like a workable time table if what was going through my head was correct................

another thought that accured to me is being that most of the O2 produced on earth is done via the algae free floating in the top foot or so of the ocean. suppose a raise in temps could cause these algae to be less efficiant at turning CO2 into O2 which leads to higher CO2 levels?

anyways these two basic thought came to me due tome stumbling on the statement that the CO2 rise happens after the temps start to rise. and the fact that i dont have much to think about on the 100 mile drive i make on Wednesday mornings
tounge.gif
 
  • #80
When compared with the air above, the oceans react like a sluggish beast. Bubbles of ice age air preserved the glacial sheets of Antarctica and Greenland reveal that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and methane dropped significantly during the glacial times. Such low levels weakened the greenhouse effect and helped cool the Earth. To explain the dramatic fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels, we must turn to the oceans for answers. A reorientation in major currents during the ice ages is believed have increased the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and its slow change in temperature to cause the seen lag-time.http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=5004296751204&lang=en-US
 
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