Global Cooling. The sky is falling.

[Alan Klein]

Hi Allan,

Are you aware of the fact that Russian submarines have already planted their flag on the bottom of those "mineral exploration sites"? And that "ships to pass through the Northwest Passage", might be Russian? The DoD has.

Cheers,
Bart

There you go again turning the warming into a negative.  The fact is that minerals and potential huge wealth will be available if reduced sea ice in the Arctic allows exploration.  The American navy is there and so is the Canadian navy as well as the Russians and five other nations as we all have territory in the Arctic and have to defend it to keep it. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

There you go again turning the warming into a negative.  The fact is that minerals and potential huge wealth will be available if reduced sea ice in the Arctic allows exploration.  The American navy is there and so is the Canadian navy as well as the Russians and five other nations as we all have territory in the Arctic and have to defend it to keep it.

There you go again turning the warming into a positive. Why is it so hard to understand that these issues have multiple effects, positive and negative. It's the balance that counts!

And the balance is negative, it will cost our generation, but especially future generations, dearly. And not just in money but also in health.

To give you an idea, in my home town, the people on one side of town on average live 6 months shorter than those on the other side, due to pollution (particulate matter). And that's a finding that surfaced through epidemiological research. The PM sources are 70-80% anthropogenic versus 20-30% from natural sources like e.g. sea salt (we predominantly have wind directions coming from the sea) and pollen and decaying biomatter. And it's not just that these people will keel over faster, but they will suffer from all sorts of diseases like Cardiovascular issues and failure of organs like kidneys. So they will already become less productive and less healthy earlier in life, and will need more medical intervention (and thus face higher costs if they can pay for them).

What will happen in the Arctic is, territorial conflicts, drilling for oil, oil-spills that kill ocean life, and more burning of fossil fuel to accelerate the global warming even more (after it was already boosted again by the Albedo reduction from the loss of ice).

Being prepared, or better yet reducing/preventing such things from spiraling out of control, makes a whole lot more sense than closing one's eyes and hoping it will go away (spoiler alert: it won't go away). And prevention is a lot cheaper in the end as well, so it also makes more economic sense.

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Klein]

It would cost trillions and trillions of dollars to reverse CO2 with no guarantee it will change the climate.  In any case, where does that money come from?  No one, especially the worse polluter the Chinese, will spend a dime on it.  Even European countries have backed off and are not meeting their Paris commitments.  Maybe more money should be spent helping those people on the other side of your town pay for medical care and change particulate pollution rather than worrying about some climate change dream that might happen or not happen 75 years from now. 

Meanwhile, the people who build in flood zones by the shore here in New Jersey have lots of money.  They have flood insurance (paid by the government) and are now building their homes on stilts so the next hurricane like Sandy will wash under their first floor leaving them unaffected.  They don't seem to be that concerned with Sandy's, higher tides, or sea levels or they would have moved inland where I live. 

[RSL]

No one needs to make predictions - the data shows the earth warming at an alarming rate. The magical thinking of climate change deniers might stop it happening, but it won't stop what has already happened.

Hi Bill, You gotta remember that I've been seeing this kind of bullshit for seventy years now, quite a bit longer than you've been alive. First, in the late forties, it was the imminence of a new ice age, a belief supported by all sorts of reliable data. I believed that one. My much loved aunt, who was a geology PhD and head of the geology department at a major university was convinced. So was her husband, my favorite uncle, a nationally-known geophysicist. But later on that prediction (which was "settled science") faded away. The crap that's going on now will fade the same way that scare faded away. As several people, myself included, have pointed out, the earth always is either warming or cooling. None of the global warming true believers will dare touch on that fact. It's been mentioned several times in this thread, and always ignored. Being a true believer won't change things.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Bill, You gotta remember that I've been seeing this kind of bullshit for seventy years now, quite a bit longer than you've been alive. First, in the late forties, it was the imminence of a new ice age, a belief supported by all sorts of reliable data. I believed that one.

Russ, maybe you didn't listen well enough, it takes some 14000 years from now to reach a new Ice-age. Your aunt and her husband knew that, and are still right (unless we screw the system out of balance).

Cheers,
Bart

[Alan Klein]

Russ, maybe you didn't listen well enough, it takes some 14000 years from now to reach a new Ice-age. Your aunt and her husband knew that, and are still right (unless we screw the system out of balance).

Cheers,
Bart

There are some arguments being made that global warming from CO2 will forestall the next ice age.  So maybe CO2 is good?  I live in a 55+ community where many retired residents are "snow birds".  They move to Florida for a few months during the winter where it's around 30-40 degrees hotter than here in New Jersey.    Europeans flood to Florida and the Caribbean during the winter too.

So who cares about 2 degrees warmer. 

[Alan Klein]

Les, would you mind if it got 2 degrees hotter up there in Canada?

[RSL]

Russ, maybe you didn't listen well enough, it takes some 14000 years from now to reach a new Ice-age. Your aunt and her husband knew that, and are still right (unless we screw the system out of balance).

Cheers,
Bart

Wrong. There was a block that was going to change ocean currents. The new ice age was going to come almost as fast as you seen to think the new heat wave will come. For the past fifteen years there's been no warming, and for the past two or so there's been cooling. Yeah, I know that if you're a true believer in the religion of global warming you think that's just a pause. Keep watching. It may be. It may not be. You don't know. Nobody knows. (But of course it's settled science in the global warming catechism.)

[LesPalenik]

For the more visually oriented climate change deniers, here are some pictures of the Drastic and Deadly Impacts of Climate Change
Damage and risks across USA from Florida to Alaska, and from East Coast to California

https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/drastic-impacts-of-climate-change-are-growing-14581752
(34 images - best to switch to "Show on one page" mode)

[LesPalenik]

Les, would you mind if it got 2 degrees hotter up there in Canada?

Well, Canadian snowbirds would appreciate any warming trends, but not the polar bears. Also not the hikers, who will have to deal with more ticks and mosquitos.
The effects of warming are felt not only by Canadians, but also in the northern US states. On my winter drives to Florida, I noticed more frequent occurences of heavy accumulation of lake snow on i 90 from Buffalo to Cleveland, and also on i 79 south. It can get quite dangerous there anytime between November and March.
Here is a video about how will climate change affect Cleveland. 

http://www.cleveland.com/weather/blog/index.ssf/2018/01/what_effects_will_climate_chan.html

[Robert Roaldi]

Les, would you mind if it got 2 degrees hotter up there in Canada?

Would you mind if the Dakotas turned into Death Valley or if the Columbia river dried up (more than it already has, I mean)?

No need to answer, these are rhetorical questions.

[Rob C]

It's in the bones.

For the past few years I found my fingers turning white (in Mallorca!) - Raynaud's friggin' syndrome - and then this year, I managed to avoid that without doing anything at all. Winter has felt longer, more dry, but less cold. Almost forty years ago, winter here meant amazing thunderstorms and torrential rains in autumn and winter. Lightning now appears more often in studios than in nature. There was very little snow on the mountains this time, and the almond blossom season passed me completely by; the cherry outside the office window seemed to last a day.

We used to get visiting robins every winter - very fierce little guys, but relatively fearless of people and friendly; I have not had such a visitor in a couple of years; also, the blackbirds seem to be elsewhere. I suspect our feathered friends have a more acutely tuned ear to nature than do we.

Rob

[RSL]

Hi guys, All you "scientists" might be interested in an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal by Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at University of Virginia, who founded the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

Here's his final paragraph:

"Currently, seal-level rise does not seem to depend on ocean temperatures, and certainly not on CO2. We can expect the sea to continue rising at about the present rate for the foreseeable future. By 2100 the seas will rise another 6 inches or so -- a far cry from Al Gore's alarming numbers. There is nothing we can do about rising sea levels in the meantime. We'd better build dikes and sea walls a little bit higher."

The body of the article explains why this is so.

Oh dear. Another "denier," also known within the religion as an "unbeliever" or "infidel."

[LesPalenik]

One morning about two months ago, I've seen with my own eyes in Ft. Lauderdale that the sea water spilled overnight over almost the entire beach width, The beach in that place is at least 100 ft wide and several feet high. I have never seen that in the 40 years before.

“Nothing in the next 100 years is going to change South Florida’s built environment more than climate change,” said Jeff Huber of Florida Atlantic University.

Lately those reminders have become more frequent. The rate of sea-level rise has tripled over the last decade, according to a recent study from the University of Miami, bringing with it more frequent coastal flooding. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects that Miami-Dade County will see about 15 inches of sea-level rise by 2045.

https://archpaper.com/2017/04/south-florida-rising-sea-levels/

[Ray]

We used to get visiting robins every winter - very fierce little guys, but relatively fearless of people and friendly; I have not had such a visitor in a couple of years; also, the blackbirds seem to be elsewhere. I suspect our feathered friends have a more acutely tuned ear to nature than do we.

Good point, Rob.

Not only our feathered friends, but most plants and animals, including our early ancestors who gradually moved out of Africa in search of greener pastures, between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago during the time of the last Ice Age when sea levels were 120 metres lower than present, at the height of the ice Age, and around 4-6 metres lower 120,000 years ago.

One major reason why many people are so easily alarmed about the effects of climate change is because they are stuck in particular locations, attached to their expensive homes and apartments in cities, and find the pseudo-scientific narrative that they can be kept safe from extreme weather events and rising sea levels by reducing CO2 levels, very comforting.

[Robert Roaldi]

It's because of the falling rocks: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/17/politics/mo-brooks-nasa-climate-change/index.html.

[Rob C]

It's because of the falling rocks: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/17/politics/mo-brooks-nasa-climate-change/index.html.

That's just misleading propaganda put out by the junk food industry.

The real cause, and which explains the cyclical nature of the rising sea phenomenon, is the increase in the number of "large" people going swimming every summer. This is patently measurable in the Mediterranean which, as every schoolboy knows, is virtually landlocked. Even a rapid application of the Archimedes Eureka Moment will show the truth of this, something which all of the same schoolboys learn at their mother's knee. If for different reasons.

[Alan Klein]

That's just misleading propaganda put out by the junk food industry.

The real cause, and which explains the cyclical nature of the rising sea phenomenon, is the increase in the number of "large" people going swimming every summer. This is patently measurable in the Mediterranean which, as every schoolboy knows, is virtually landlocked. Even a rapid application of the Archimedes Eureka Moment will show the truth of this, something which all of the same schoolboys learn at their mother's knee. If for different reasons.

How does the Mediterranean Sea stay so clean looking like the Caribbean?  It is mostly landlocked and doesn't it get a lot of crap runoffs?

[Rob C]

They put blue flags on the beaches and that means they are clean. Don't argue with City Hall and the tourist business.

You are probably seeing the reflection of all the blue plastic in the fish. In the 60s, my dentist refused to set foot in the Med because of all the bugs he described.

:-)

[LesPalenik]

That's just misleading propaganda put out by the junk food industry.

The real cause, and which explains the cyclical nature of the rising sea phenomenon, is the increase in the number of "large" people going swimming every summer. This is patently measurable in the Mediterranean which, as every schoolboy knows, is virtually landlocked. Even a rapid application of the Archimedes Eureka Moment will show the truth of this, something which all of the same schoolboys learn at their mother's knee. If for different reasons.

In the interest of science, one has to consider also larger volume of water displaced by males under influence of Viagra.