Heard about this on NPR this morning. Thought I'd post this interesting article.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn6615

Arctic warming at twice global rate

* 17:58 02 November 2004
* NewScientist.com news service
* Shaoni Bhattacharya

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Global warming in the Arctic is happening now, warns the most comprehensive scientific report to date. The reports concludes that the northern ice cap is warming at twice the global rate and that this will lead to serious consequences for the planet.

Hmmm... hope the polar bears can tred water for a long time.

Heard about this on NPR this morning. Thought I'd post this interesting article.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn6615
Hmmm... hope the polar bears can tred water for a long time.

I think the focus should be on the underlying cause. I do not think the underlying cause is carbon dioxide. Instead the problem is the consuming of fuels. Fuels such as uranium, oil and coal release heat which increase temperature levels. One day I was curious how much oil was consumed per day. I calculated that it would fill a swimming pool that is 10 feet deep by 1000 feet wide by 1000 feet long per day. Roughly that is 1.3M deep by 1km wide by 1km long.

Imagine burning that much oil on top of an iceberg.

So, there is this nihilistic point of view that solving this problem means killing people which leads one to conclude that war kills people and that will save the environment. That idea and other nutty ideas will throw the world into war and not solve the underlying problem.

Along the same lines, as heat is added to an object, the more heat that object releases. At some point, the earth will reach a new equilibrium. At that point the water levels will be higher and there will be more CO2 for plant growth and the planet will be wetter. California may become dryer but water evaporates when heated and that water falls in rain. The more heat -> the more rain…

I do not think the underlying cause is carbon dioxide. Instead the problem is the consuming of fuels.

What an interesting notion.

That we are literally heating the planet, by uhm,,,, heating it.

The new equilibrium might well be one such as is found on Mars.

Or Hawaii

Heat from the earth escapes into space as infrared radiation. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases prevent the radiation from escaping, trapping the heat.

It's greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that are the issue. If we generate heat some other way, for example hydroelectric, nuclear, wind etc. we would not have significant global warming.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/09/22/BAwindmills22.DTL

We in California have stopped windmills because they kill hawks.

That's because, when it comes to energy, Californians are goddamned idiots =D

'Hi! We don't want Nuke power in California, its icky'
'Oh nos, we can't use windmills, it might hurt birdies'
'This isn't fair! We can't power our own state and have massive brown-outs whenever the Bush family needs to pay for another daughter's rehab and raises our energy rates waaaah'

Idiots being preyed upon by the greedy. Here's a hint, California...you have the most money in the nation...build some goddamned reactors power your state and sell power to Oregon!

Have you posted about the ozone hole closing? I thought I read that somewhere.

I've seen those massive windmill farms. ALL of them off. This was at the peak of the power problems there a few years back. I also lived there while a power company tried several locations to put a new plant, all of them turned down.

Have you posted about the ozone hole closing? I thought I read that somewhere.

Hole in Ozone at record size. (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/16/antarctic.ozone.reut/index.html)

I just couldn't remember if Panamah had posted some good news lately or not.

Have you posted about the ozone hole closing? I thought I read that somewhere.
It closes every year I think. Unfortunately it gets bigger every year too.

Hmm... good news? Heck yeah! Tom DeLay being indicted is good news in my book! Yeehaw! Go to http://www.happynews.com and read until your heart swells and eyes well up.

It's greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that are the issue. If we generate heat some other way, for example hydroelectric, nuclear, wind etc. we would not have significant global warming.

Shrug, then everyone should insulate their house with a barrier of carbon dioxiode or solid carbon which is a conductor. I don't believe it and I think it is a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Shrug, then everyone should insulate their house with a barrier of carbon dioxiode or solid carbon which is a conductor. I don't believe it and I think it is a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

Most CO2 pollution comes from power generation and transport, not homes.

There's no reason to think it's smoke and mirrors really. There's very little scientific basis for the atmosphere being so large that it can accept unlimited pollution.

Nobody makes money, power, or prestiege by campaigning for cleaner air. People make money out of pollution. They're the ones with the smoke and they've probably some mirrors too.

There's also a lot of CO2 being released from deforestation and other stuff like that.

How exactly does deforestation release carbon dioxide?

http://www.google.com/search?hs=6gK&hl=en&lr=lang_en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=co2+deforestation&btnG=Search

Forests, bogs, stuff like that is a CO2 sink. It goes inside the plants and soil and stays there. When you get rid of the plants, the CO2 they were storing is released.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Deforestation/deforestation_3.html
Deforestation and the Global Carbon Cycle
Deforestation increases the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases in the atmosphere. The plants and soil of tropical forests hold 460-575 billion metric tons of carbon worldwide with each acre of tropical forest storing about 180 metric tons of carbon. When a forest is cut and burned to establish cropland and pastures, the carbon that was stored in the tree trunks (wood is about 50% carbon) joins with oxygen and is released into the atmosphere as CO2.

The loss of forests has a profound effect on the global carbon cycle. From 1850 to 1990, deforestation worldwide (including the United States) released 122 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, with the current rate being approximately 1.6 billion metric tons per year. In comparison, fossil fuel burning (coal, oil, and gas) releases about 6 billion metric tons per year, so it is clear that deforestation makes a significant contribution to the increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. Releasing CO2 into the atmosphere enhances the greenhouse effect, and could contribute to an increase in global temperatures (see Global Warming Fact Sheet, NF-222).

Deforestation and the Hydrologic Cycle
Tropical deforestation also affects the local climate of an area by reducing the evaporative cooling that takes place from both soil and plant life. As trees and plants are cleared away, the moist canopy of the tropical rain forest quickly diminishes. Recent research suggests that about half of the precipitation that falls in a tropical rain forest is a result of its moist, green canopy. Evaporation and evapotranspiration processes from the trees and plants return large quantities of water to the local atmosphere, promoting the formation of clouds and precipitation. Less evaporation means that more of the Sun's energy is able to warm the surface and, consequently, the air above, leading to a rise in temperatures.

Deforestation and Biodiversity
Worldwide, 5 to 80 million species of plants and animals comprise the "biodiversity" of planet Earth. Tropical rain forests-covering only 7% of the total dry surface of the Earth-hold over half of all these species. Of the tens of millions of species believed to be on Earth, scientists have only given names to about 1.5 million of them, and even fewer of the species have been studied in depth.

Many of the rain forest plants and animals can only be found in small areas, because they require a special habitat in which to live. This makes them very vulnerable to deforestation. If their habitat is destroyed, they may become extinct. Every day, species are disappearing from the tropical rain forests as they are cleared. We do not know the exact rate of extinction, but estimates indicate that up to 137 species disappear worldwide each day.

The loss of species will have a great impact on the planet. We are losing species that might show us how to prevent cancer or help us find a cure for AIDS. Other organisms are losing species they depend upon, and thus face extinction themselves.

Global warming in the Arctic is happening now, warns the most comprehensive scientific report to date. The reports concludes that the northern ice cap is warming at twice the global rate and that this will lead to serious consequences for the planet.
I've witnessed some of this first hand on the east coast of Greenland. On the occasions I've been there we've used aerial photographs as maps (no roads, no towns, no people, no maps). The particular aerial photos we used were taken in the early '70s and it's often difficult to figure out where you are on the maps due to the fact that things don't look the quite same now. The glaciers have receded significantly and much more of the underlying rock is exposed. There have been plenty of studies which document this scientifically but it's interesting to see it yourself.

What took you to Greenland?

What took you to Greenland?
For me, the trips were vacation from sitting behind a desk coding. For the geologists whose infrastructure I availed myself of in order to get there, I was a "geological assistant" which is, apparently, the term they use for "the guy who gets to carry all the heavy stuff".

LOL! Sounds great!

The NPR segment I heard they were a bunch of biologists studying the weird little life forms in the "melt ponds" on the polar ice. That is actually fresh water and it is teeming with life. And they were also getting samples of stuff from off the floor of the sea, 2 miles down. Sounded like they were very excited, but a little sad to think they were only now getting around to looking at this stuff and it seems to be going away.

When were you in Greenland?

"Hmmm... hope the polar bears can tred water for a long time."

Polar bears need ice sheets to survive. They find a hole in a middle of a large ice sheet and when a seal surfaces (since seals are mammels they have to) in that hole they snatch them. Without winter sea freezings polar bears are as good as dead, so wild polar extinction will happen rather soon...

I was there during the late summer of 2001 and 2003. If I can get things worked out just right I'll be back there next summer. It's spectacularly pretty -- here's a picture (not one of mine) of the area I spent most of my time around. Looking West (http://wwwdsa.uqac.ca/~mhiggins/skaergaard2%20(Medium).jpg)

Pretty indeed! I'll use that as my new wall paper.

"Hmmm... hope the polar bears can tred water for a long time."

Polar bears need ice sheets to survive. They find a hole in a middle of a large ice sheet and when a seal surfaces (since seals are mammels they have to) in that hole they snatch them. Without winter sea freezings polar bears are as good as dead, so wild polar extinction will happen rather soon...

Or they'll wander further south and discover the tasty goodness that is caribou and humans.

Mmmmm, humanburger.