Climate Change

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by LaurV

All the rain forest recycles just a very small percent of the carbon dioxide.

Wikipedia says 28% - not 'very small' by any reasonable definition of the term.

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Can Miami Beach Survive Global Warming? | naked capitalism

[Mayor] Levine models himself after Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s mayor from 2002 to 2013—as a first-time officeholder whose wealth and outsider status allow him to bypass an entrenched political culture of intransigence and inaction. After he took office, in November of 2013, Levine fast-tracked a program to install electric pumps along Alton Road and other prime flooding spots on the city’s west side so that, during a storm surge or high tide, the pumps can be switched on, suctioning water off the streets and out into Biscayne Bay.

The cost of the program is huge, in the range of $400 million—for perspective, nearly the size of the city’s annual budget. So far, the results have been encouraging. In October of 2014, with just a handful of the 80 or so planned pump stations installed, the streets stayed dry during the season’s king tide, and, this season, the results have been much the same. Still, Levine told me, “We don’t declare victory. It’s one small step in a long war that we know we’re facing.”

Actually, the more apt military metaphor here is that this is one small rearguard action in a long retreat inland which Miamians are facing. The LOL-worthy reference to iPhone-style innovations pointing to a not-too-distant-future maguc techno-bullet fix for climate change is the Hitlerian ‘Wunderwaffen to turn the tide of the war’ delusion.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Wikipedia says 28% - not 'very small' by any reasonable definition of the term.

I hope you are not serious. That refers to land only, and the sentence is deliberately misleading. Look to the map, only few paragraphs below the "28%" text row in the introduction, and tell me how much in surface compared with the rest of the forests, is rain-forested. Think Canada, Siberia, all Mountains (big areas, like Himalaya, Urals, Andes, Alps, etc, down to small like Carpathians) they also have (HUGE) forests. Even if the rainforest is 10 times more efficient like the other "forests" in "producing oxygen", it would still means that all the other forests produce nothing. Rainforests may produce few percents of the land production of oxygen. I really doubt the 28%, but say that is true for the "land producers". No word about the sea there...

Edit: reading further (to which I agree 100%) on the "Effects on global climate" sub-chapter:

On a global scale, long-term fluxes are approximately in balance, so that an undisturbed rainforest would have a small net impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, though they may have other climatic effects (on cloud formation, for example, by recycling water vapor).

Whoops... didn't I say something like that just before?

[Xyzzy]

https://bangordailynews.com/2015/11/...ng-sea-levels/

A glacier in northeast Greenland with enough ice to raise world ocean levels by 20 inches has begun to slide faster toward the sea, extending ice losses to all corners of the vast remote island, a study showed on Thursday.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

https://bangordailynews.com/2015/11/...ng-sea-levels/

I seriously doubt this could be a real danger, a world flood. Do you really take
imminent apocalypse warnings very seriously? Perhaps the one millimeter rise
that might actually occur can be used to water the deserts, if desired?

I see no reason to believe that climate improvement is necessarily bad.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by davar55

I seriously doubt this could be a real danger, a world flood. Do you really take
imminent apocalypse warnings very seriously? Perhaps the one millimeter rise
that might actually occur can be used to water the deserts, if desired?

I see no reason to believe that climate improvement is necessarily bad.

You are reveling in deliberate ignorance. Have you any idea of the volume of ice on Greenland? Did you even read the article?

It seems plain that you enjoy spouting drivel. Will you next have us believe that more CO² is beneficial because plants use it?

Don't expect me to be regretful for stating the obvious about your posts.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by LaurV

I hope you are not serious. That refers to land only, and the sentence is deliberately misleading. Look to the map, only few paragraphs below the "28%" text row in the introduction, and tell me how much in surface compared with the rest of the forests, is rain-forested.

The article says "Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world's oxygen turnover." There is no 'land-based' caveat on that sentence. So where do you infer 'land only'? Seriously, if Wikipedia has it wrong it is important to know, but I simply fail to see the basis for your 'land only' claim.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by kladner

You are reveling in deliberate ignorance. Have you any idea of the volume of ice on Greenland? Did you even read the article?
It seems plain that you enjoy spouting drivel. Will you next have us believe that more CO² is beneficial because plants use it?
Don't expect me to be regretful for stating the obvious about your posts.

Greenland is not "melting".

Greenland contains enough ice to raise world sea levels by about 20 feet if it ever all melted in a slow-motion collapse that could take thousands of years.

Twenty feet in two thousand years equals one inch per decade, IF it all melts, which is ridiculous.

This is not something to be worried about.

Cheer up !

[kladner]

As I said, you revel in deliberate ignorance.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by kladner

As I said, you revel in deliberate ignorance.

Hardly.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by davar55

Hardly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/videos...-conveyor-belt

One part of this worldwide system is the Gulf Stream, which warms lands bordering the North Atlantic.
If you cared to look at the articles, you would see that circulation is 'pumped' by water becoming saltier from evaporation and sea ice formation. This water becomes dense enough to sink to the deep ocean where it forms a current.

One of the places this happens is near Greenland. Like it or not, there are immense rivers running off Greenland, both on, and under the ice. One of the effects of all this fresh water, right there, is that salinity is reduced. This slows the descent of less-dense water. This, in turn, reduces the impetus which draws the Gulf Stream from the South.

The results of slowing the conveyor, the thermohaline circulation, would be far reaching, to say the least. There is a great deal of authoritative work on this subject.

You seem to have religious devotion to all sorts of anti-scientific notions. Your pronouncements are creeds for which you alone are the prophet.

I repeat, this is willful ignorance.

http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2342/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...tlantic-ocean/

[davar55]

Originally Posted by davar55

Greenland is not "melting".
Twenty feet in two thousand years equals one inch per decade, IF it all melts, which is ridiculous.
This is not something to be worried about.
Cheer up !

Originally Posted by kladner

As I said, you revel in deliberate ignorance.

Originally Posted by kladner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
http://pmm.nasa.gov/education/videos...-conveyor-belt
One part of this worldwide system is the Gulf Stream, which warms lands bordering the North Atlantic.
If you cared to look at the articles, you would see that circulation is 'pumped' by water becoming saltier from evaporation and sea ice formation. This water becomes dense enough to sink to the deep ocean where it forms a current.
One of the places this happens is near Greenland. Like it or not, there are immense rivers running off Greenland, both on, and under the ice. One of the effects of all this fresh water, right there, is that salinity is reduced. This slows the descent of less-dense water. This, in turn, reduces the impetus which draws the Gulf Stream from the South.
The results of slowing the conveyor, the thermohaline circulation, would be far reaching, to say the least. There is a great deal of authoritative work on this subject.
You seem to have religious devotion to all sorts of anti-scientific notions. Your pronouncements are creeds for which you alone are the prophet.
I repeat, this is willful ignorance.
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2342/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...tlantic-ocean/

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.