Global Warming

[JimG.]

I'm not Sad, I'm very happy. U gonna be sad though If I come down to Hunta this season, get you in the bumps, and school you in front of your boyz. U hearing me JimmyG. :wink:

Too funny!

Can't wait...I'm ready.

 

[YardSaleDad]

I know it is a bad example....how bout I use cooking oil car instead....thats certianly environmentally friendly...

???

I already own the Scion xB!

 

[Greg]

I'm not Sad, I'm very happy. U gonna be sad though If I come down to Hunta this season, get you in the bumps, and school you in front of your boyz. U hearing me JimmyG. :wink:

Oooohh. Now we're talking about important stuff. I want to be there to document this...

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

how so????? I think the scientists that believe what I believe are the majority....therefore overwhelming.....

Look there is no right answer here...M

Look Dog you wrote this:

Originally Posted by SkiDog
I think there are an equally overwhelming amount of scientists that agree with the flip of that...

You can't have 2 majorities in the same population. I knew what you meant though, I was just playin.

There is a right answer, the years ahead will prove what it is. IMO we have our heads in the sand on this issue and future generations will pay a terrible price. I sure hope I'm wrong.

 

[YardSaleDad]

From the texts ive read natural C02 production is the largest contributor to ozone depletion, can't stop that...

Can you provide a link for that?

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/)

[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] Q. What is the greenhouse effect? Is it the same as the ozone hole issue? [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] A. No, they are two different (but related) issues.[/FONT]

 

[andyzee]

I have to agree with two things here, we can't know for sure how bad humanity is screwing up the earth.
No reason to screw things up regardless how insignificant it may seem.

How long before ski season starts? :argue:

 

[SkiDog]

Can you provide a link for that?

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/)

[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] Q. What is the greenhouse effect? Is it the same as the ozone hole issue? [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] A. No, they are two different (but related) issues.[/FONT]

This is just one link I found easily this morning..I think my google search was exactly "greenhouse effect and natural c02 production"

This same stuff is found in MANY texts related to global warming...

http://www.munfw.org/archive/40th/unep4.htm

The greenhouse effect operating on the Earth's atmosphere is mainly the result of carbon dioxide and water vapor. If the Earth had no atmosphere, the average temperature would be well below the freezing point of water. As a result of the greenhouse effect, the Earth's surface temperature is 35 degrees centigrade higher than it would be if there were no trace gases in the atmosphere. It is precisely the greenhouse effect that makes the planet habitable. It is, in effect, the reason that the earth is hospitable to life.

Carbon Dioxide and Trace Gases

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the greatest contributor to global warming. Current analysis shows that carbon dioxide levels have risen 25% since 1958 and are the highest they have been in 160,000 years. This rise can be contributed mainly to an increase in burning of fossil fuels and continued deforestation.

This increase, however, represents only about 50% of total carbon dioxide emissions. The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) measured the amount of carbon that is released to the atmosphere. They found that approximately five billion metric tons of carbon (as fossil fuel) are burned each year and about half of this carbon ends up as atmospheric carbon dioxide. What they don't understand is where the remaining 50% goes. It may be absorbed by the oceans, either by being dissolved in seawater, or absorbed by aquatic plants. Or it may be used by land-based biological systems, mainly plants and soils. Scientists do not currently have an accurate way of monitoring carbon dioxide levels in either of these systems.

M

 

[SkiDog]

Can you provide a link for that?

According to the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/)

[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] Q. What is the greenhouse effect? Is it the same as the ozone hole issue? [/FONT]
[FONT=arial, ariel, helvetica] A. No, they are two different (but related) issues.[/FONT]

I also apologize with that original post..I believe I meant to say largest contributor to "global warming" However that previous text I posted does explain the NATURAL contributors to ozone depletion that we can do nothing to prevent really, so I suppose my point is still valid.

M

 

[thetrailboss]

Before responding to the substantive aspect of the thread, I want to again remind folks that politics are not to be discussed in this forum. I mention this because I see mentionings of the "R" and "D" parties and politicians. The last time we allowed political debates/topics, things got out of hand and I think that we are approaching that point here. So let's focus on the issue and not the politics.

That said, I did want to respond to one post:

I think that the effects that global warming would have on skiing in New England would be:

1) Earlier thaws in the spring with later frosts and freezing weather in the fall.

This has been happening needless to say. We got May's weather in April and April in May.

2) Higher overnight temperatures - critical to snowmaking

Ditto. This season it only went below zero a handful of times up here....not normal.

3) Higher daytime maximum temperatures.

January and Feb were warmer than normal.

4) More rain than snow in the winter as we do not have the elevaton in most areas to overcome global warming in the short term.

Welcome to this past season :roll: It rained every week from Late December right on through March.

5) A shorter more severe winter, with heavier snowfall in places until global warming reaches an equalibrium point.

It was a short season up here and Southern NE once again got lots of snow.

 

[awf170]

I am so sick of people using this season as an example for global warming. It was one bad season, you have bad season. In the last 100 years we have probably had worst seasons. You cannot use one winter as an example! Almost the whole west coast had a better than average season. The 90's-01 were epic for east coast skiing, so how can anyone ever mention global warming. Wait 10 more years before you say anything about how it is changing our ski season. Sorry, I had to rant about that. Back to doing school work.

 

[Greg]

I am so sick of people using this season as an example for global warming. It was one bad season, you have bad season. In the last 100 years we have probably had worst seasons. You cannot use one winter as an example! Almost the whole west coast had a better than average season. The 90's-01 were epic for east coast skiing, so how can anyone ever mention global warming. Wait 10 more years before you say anything about how it is changing our ski season. Sorry, I had to rant about that. Back to doing school work.

Well said. How old are you again?

 

[thetrailboss]

I am so sick of people using this season as an example for global warming. It was one bad season, you have bad season. In the last 100 years we have probably had worst seasons. You cannot use one winter as an example! Almost the whole west coast had a better than average season. The 90's-01 were epic for east coast skiing, so how can anyone ever mention global warming. Wait 10 more years before you say anything about how it is changing our ski season. Sorry, I had to rant about that. Back to doing school work.

True, but the items he listed have been present in the past seasons as well. 2002-2003 was very warm very early. 2003-2004 was the same. 2004-2005 was warm at the beginning and end. Some of the elements have been present for quite some time. That is what I am using as a reference...not just one season. Should have said that.

 

[Greg]

True, but the items he listed have been present in the past seasons as well. 2002-2003 was very warm very early. 2003-2004 was the same. 2004-2005 was warm at the beginning and end. Some of the elements have been present for quite some time. That is what I am using as a reference...not just one season. Should have said that.

Yeah, but even 2 or 3 or 100+ years is only a very small slice of a very large pie. Almost any "trend" can be demonstrated if the snapshot is narrow enough...

 

[YardSaleDad]

Yeah, but even 2 or 3 or 100+ years is only a very small slice of a very large pie. Almost any "trend" can be demonstrated if the snapshot is narrow enough...

Exactly. So if you look at the data for the system(planet) as a whole over many millenia, you then can compare apples to apples. Luckily there are records that go back that far( ice cores from Greenland & Antartica).

GIYF

 

[thetrailboss]

Yeah, but even 2 or 3 or 100+ years is only a very small slice of a very large pie. Almost any "trend" can be demonstrated if the snapshot is narrow enough...

If you count, you will see that there are more than two or three seasons :wink:

2002-2003
2003-2004
2004-2005
2005-2006

and

2001-2002

Heck, I will also throw in 2001-2002 in there as well. That season was very warm and dry. So that's five. May be a blip, but most scientists agree that there is climate change, the debate lies as to what is causing that change.

 

[JimG.]

Yeah, but even 2 or 3 or 100+ years is only a very small slice of a very large pie. Almost any "trend" can be demonstrated if the snapshot is narrow enough...

Indeed, we are talking decades, centuries, and millenia in terms of time references. Nobody stays alive long enough to study real time long term climate changes. And documented climate records have been kept for what, a scant 200 years? That's just not enough data to make substantive conclusions.

One thing is for sure...geologic records like core samples of soil and pack ice show that the Earth has been through many cycles of warming and cooling. I would not be surprised if the Earth is in a warming period. But the effect that man has on this warming is undetermined because our written records are so small.

One conclusion that can be reached is that Earth has warmed before, in some cases to a very large degree, without the benefit of any interaction with humanity. That's because those warming cycles occurred before humanity existed.

So why do so many folks feel that man is responsible? Or that man should try to stop it? Or that it's even a good idea to stop it?

From a scientific standpoint, what are those viewpoints based on?

 

[from_the_NEK]

One of the major causes of ozone depletion has to with CFC pollutants (MAN MADE!!!) and not CO2. I believe that the history of the Earth has never experienced a species that has penetrated every corner of the globe and has the ability to modify their surrounding environment to the extent that humans are able to. The amount of effect the activities of humans have on the environment I believe is more than a lot of people in this discussion want to admit. In the grand scheme of things, maybe the amount of climate change that is occurring is relatively small. However, how can you ignore the strong evidence that the activities of humans are most likely amplifying/accelerating any natural changes that may have been occurring. At what point do we reach that threshold where we drop off the edge toward turning our planet into Venus ( very extreme example :wink: )?
I don't buy the argument about a volcanic eruption either. Sure maybe volcanoes have erupted in the past that spew HUGE amounts of CO2 into the air. Sure, this probably caused a spike in global temperatures, although volcanoes usually cause an initial temporary global cooling as well. However, keep in mind that large volcanic eruptions are events that don't typically occur constantly, unlike humans burning fossil fuels, and that the Earth's natural systems can deal fairly well with the occasional eruption. Humans are releasing large (not huge) amounts of CO2 24/7 and the amount continues to increase. If a large volcanic eruption does occur, the combination of volcano released CO2 along with the CO2 already in the atmosphere from human activity will make survival of very resourceful humans that much more difficult.
At some point we are overextending that amount of CO2 that can be naturally scrubbed from the atmosphere on an annual basis. This amount compounds over time and if/when the ice cap at the north pole does melt drastically reducing the Earth's albeido, the energy balance (incoming shortwave solar, versus outgoing reflected solar and radiated longwave radiation) is going to get seriously out of whack. :smash: :smash: :smash:

The next 100 years are going to be very interesting. :flame:

 

[YardSaleDad]

This same stuff is found in MANY texts related to global warming...

http://www.munfw.org/archive/40th/unep4.htm

Are you really providing a high school student's paper as evidence?

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

One of the major causes of ozone depletion has to with CFC pollutants (MAN MADE!!!) and not CO2. I believe that the history of the Earth has never experienced a species that has penetrated every corner of the globe and has the ability to modify their surrounding environment to the extent that humans are able to. The amount of effect the activities of humans have on the environment I believe is more than a lot of people in this discussion want to admit. In the grand scheme of things, maybe the amount of climate change that is occurring is relatively small. However, how can you ignore the strong evidence that the activities of humans are most likely amplifying/accelerating any natural changes that may have been occurring. At what point do we reach that threshold where we drop off the edge toward turning our planet into Venus ( very extreme example :wink: )?
I don't buy the argument about a volcanic eruption either. Sure maybe volcanoes have erupted in the past that spew HUGE amounts of CO2 into the air. Sure, this probably caused a spike in global temperatures, although volcanoes usually cause an initial temporary global cooling as well. However, keep in mind that large volcanic eruptions are events that don't typically occur constantly, unlike humans burning fossil fuels, and that the Earth's natural systems can deal fairly well with the occasional eruption. Humans are releasing large (not huge) amounts of CO2 24/7 and the amount continues to increase. If a large volcanic eruption does occur, the combination of volcano released CO2 along with the CO2 already in the atmosphere from human activity will make survival of very resourceful humans that much more difficult.
At some point we are overextending that amount of CO2 that can be naturally scrubbed from the atmosphere on an annual basis. This amount compounds over time and if/when the ice cap at the north pole does melt drastically reducing the Earth's albeido, the energy balance (incoming shortwave solar, versus outgoing reflected solar and radiated longwave radiation) is going to get seriously out of whack. :smash: :smash: :smash:

The next 100 years are going to be very interesting. :flame:

Very well put IMO.

 

[JimG.]

One of the major causes of ozone depletion has to with CFC pollutants (MAN MADE!!!) and not CO2. I believe that the history of the Earth has never experienced a species that has penetrated every corner of the globe and has the ability to modify their surrounding environment to the extent that humans are able to. The amount of effect the activities of humans have on the environment I believe is more than a lot of people in this discussion want to admit. In the grand scheme of things, maybe the amount of climate change that is occurring is relatively small. However, how can you ignore the strong evidence that the activities of humans are most likely amplifying/accelerating any natural changes that may have been occurring. At what point do we reach that threshold where we drop off the edge toward turning our planet into Venus ( very extreme example :wink: )?
I don't buy the argument about a volcanic eruption either. Sure maybe volcanoes have erupted in the past that spew HUGE amounts of CO2 into the air. Sure, this probably caused a spike in global temperatures, although volcanoes usually cause an initial temporary global cooling as well. However, keep in mind that large volcanic eruptions are events that don't typically occur constantly, unlike humans burning fossil fuels, and that the Earth's natural systems can deal fairly well with the occasional eruption. Humans are releasing large (not huge) amounts of CO2 24/7 and the amount continues to increase. If a large volcanic eruption does occur, the combination of volcano released CO2 along with the CO2 already in the atmosphere from human activity will make survival of very resourceful humans that much more difficult.
At some point we are overextending that amount of CO2 that can be naturally scrubbed from the atmosphere on an annual basis. This amount compounds over time and if/when the ice cap at the north pole does melt drastically reducing the Earth's albeido, the energy balance (incoming shortwave solar, versus outgoing reflected solar and radiated longwave radiation) is going to get seriously out of whack. :smash: :smash: :smash:

The next 100 years are going to be very interesting. :flame:

We can go back and forth about this endlessly which is why I do not believe we understand the mechanics of this process. You are correct about aerosol propellants like CFC being partly responsible for the holes in the ozone. But those holes have been there in the ozone, growing and shrinking over time, since man started studying the ozone layer in a way that allowed us to visualize these changes. That's been for less than 50 years. Not statistically significant in terms of climatic or geologic time.

There's no doubt that humans burning fossil fuel contributes to CO2 in the environment. But how long have humans been burning fossil fuels? Being generous, the last 300 years?
That's not particularly significant when dealing with these time references either. And how do you explain the warming patterns that there is proof existed long before any human interaction?

I don't deny that man has some impact on this issue. There is no doubt that smart environmental practices should be a part of everyone's life. But there is a big and totally unresolved question of the degree of our effect. We just don't know enough about the phenomenon to say we are responsible to a definite degree, and it really worries me to hear folks say we can control it or even stop it. Who is to say that is good? Who put us in charge of the planet's cooling and heating cycles?