One thing I'll add to my list of things that can be reliably measured is that sea level is rising at about 3mm per year. 3cm in ten years is easy enough to measure. And it adds up as the decades pass.

At present most problems are in areas where the ground is subsiding. But we can't be sure if it will speed up as the earth warms.

Chris

[QUOTE=davar55;416255]OK, thanks for the link pointers. I read some of it.

It does mention that we don't yet understand all the relevant factors.
Like whether the underground water flows warming Greenland's ice
perform a beneficial world-ocean circulatory function, ultimately
helping to distribute warmth and coolness throughout the globe via
ocean currents. In the medium run, the planet corrects its heat imbalances.
That's why life developed and thrived on our planet.

In the short run, we get weather. In the long run, we get climate change -
possibly, just possibly, dangerous, but more likely improvements.
All we need to do, as inhabitants of Earth, is keep watching for patterns,
and learn not to do stupid things like excessive pollution or failing to
clean up after litterers.

The potential dangers are very long term, and as long as we stay vigilant,
we will avert them.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the response. However, it might be said that the patterns are already discernible, and on a less-than-long term basis in terms of planetary systems. The Greenland runoff is, in fact, threatening the very system which distributes a great deal of the planet's heat. Admittedly, these systems are highly complex, and not all factors are known, but changes can be seen, and many of those don't seem inclined to positive outcomes.

[url]http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2015/11/16/global-temperatures-skyrocketed-in-october/[/url]
[QUOTE]According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, this past October was the warmest in a record stretching back 1891, with a global average temperature for the month coming in at 0.85°C above the 20th century average.

In the United States, NOAA and NASA will be coming out soon with their own independent analyses of the climate in October 2015.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/oct_wld.html[/url]
[QUOTE]The monthly anomaly of the global average surface temperature in October 2015 (i.e. the average of the near-surface air temperature over land and the SST) was +0.53°C above the 1981-2010 average (+0.85°C above the 20th century average), and was the warmest since 1891. On a longer time scale, global average surface temperatures have risen at a rate of about 0.64°C per century.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Five Warmest Years (Anomalies)

1st. 2015 (+0.53°C), 2nd. 2014 (+0.34°C), 3rd. 2003 (+0.24°C), 4th. 2006 (+0.23°C), 5th. 2012 (+0.22°C)[/QUOTE]

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/world/europe/obama-climate-conference-cop21.html[/url]

[QUOTE]“The United States not only recognizes our role in creating this problem, we embrace our responsibility to do something about it,” Mr. Obama said.[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, Obama always gives good empty 'words are wind'-age. Rest assured that 'embrace' will be entirely voluntary and consequence-free for the big carbon economies.

[url=http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/01/why-the-paris-climate-talks-will-fail-just-like-all-the-others/]Why the Paris Climate Talks Will Fail, Just Like All the Others[/url] | Counterpunch
[quote]Nobody who sits at the negotiation table in Paris has the mandate nor inclination to ask fundamental, systemic questions of the logic of the dominant economic system and the way we consume the resources of this planet. [/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;417957][URL="http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/01/why-the-paris-climate-talks-will-fail-just-like-all-the-others/"]Why the Paris Climate Talks Will Fail, Just Like All the Others[/URL][/QUOTE]
Very good article, thanks for sharing.
[QUOTE]Instead, what is on the table are expanded and new mechanisms that will allow the rich, Western countries to outsource their emission cuts so they can paint themselves green.[/QUOTE]Isn't this all the global warning is all about? Kicking the emerging economies on their knees, to keep them from going over the line, so the big guys can sell their new - more environment-friendly, true, but more expensive too - technologies, to the world? How can we compete with China, India, Brazil, etc, when it comes to cheap products, cheap energy, etc.? So let's put sticks in their wheel's spokes... They are huge markets, too, let's not only impede their exports, but sell our crap to them too! Two ways profit. It was [U]never[/U] about [U]anything else[/U].

Of course, related to "cheap energy" and "cheap products", we know it is not always the best way, for environment, etc, and one can argue that the cheapest way to feed a child on long term is to give him potassium cyanide, once. But that is already a different story.

[QUOTE=LaurV;417970]one can argue that the cheapest way to feed a child on long term is to give him potassium cyanide, once. But that is already a different story.[/QUOTE]

On the population-reduction side of things I am very much an 'ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' guy. But condoms-vs-KCN debates aside, the problem there is that more or less the whole world is wedded to an economic paradigm whose fundamental tenet is 'growth'. That on top of the various religious and tribal 'win by outbreeding the other side' contests going on worldwide.

Perhaps the issue of climate change versus capitalism is better addressed under capitalism
than under the scientific-technological issue largely being discussed here.

I would argue that it was not capitalism (free markets, etc.) that got us to the point where
our energy sources are in question, but quite the opposite - it's capitalism and the profit
motive that is best suited to help generate the ideas needed to solve our possible problem.

(We're near post 2000 of this thread; climate change versus capitalism is the real issue.)

[url]http://time.com/4138158/beijing-red-alert-for-smog/[/url]

[QUOTE]Polluted air throughout broad swaths of China has had severe health effects. A study led by atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld of Germany’s Max Planck Institute and published this year in Nature magazine estimated that 1.4 million people die prematurely because of pollution in China each year.[/QUOTE]

Bring it on!!!!!!
 

Southern Saskatchewan has had the warmest summer on record (and I mean warm; not unbearably hot)
and so far we still have NOT had any Winter weather with only a couple days below average temperature and not enough snow to matter.
This weekend we got close to +10 degrees C; yes Plus 10 (Normal highs are -7; yes Minus 7)

Temps expected to stay above normal at least until Mid December

[QUOTE=petrw1;418497]Southern Saskatchewan has had the warmest summer on record (and I mean warm; not unbearably hot)
and so far we still have NOT had any Winter weather with only a couple days below average temperature and not enough snow to matter.
This weekend we got close to +10 degrees C; yes Plus 10 (Normal highs are -7; yes Minus 7)

Temps expected to stay above normal at least until Mid December[/QUOTE]

I'm substantially south of you and I've been between 1 and 8 C (give or take) for the last several weeks, including snow the weekend before (American) Thanksgiving.