When and how bad?

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Dinner, Apr 9, 2013.

  1. Dinner Registered Member

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    Seeing as it seems inevitable that recent Climate Change will cause disaster beyond which humanity, at the present population, can adapt to with present agricultural practises.

    So the main question is, which would be in the back of people's minds for a long time, when will we see the full extent of the climactic disaster and how bad is it likely to be.

    Would the world be like the one that is described in the novel known as The Road whereas the world becomes an apocalyptic wasteland with land that one cannot cultivate and people are starving, often resorting to cannibalism.

    One could also wonder how soon this could strike, would this be something that we would see in a decade or so, or could it be just around the corner in let's say during the next month or so or during the next year at most.
     
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  3. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    In general it is a really bad idea to change a system when you cannot predict accurately how the system will respond. That being said I think the affects on agricultrure will not be that bad. The corn and wheat belts will move north. As far as an increase in droughts and floods it is anyones guess.

    I think it is pretty clear though, if you own beach front property it is not going to be worth very much in 50 - 100 years.
     
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly agree about it being a bad idea. I'm less sanguine about the effects on agriculture though. What I'm reading is that we can expect greater extremes of weather, generally making farming more unpredictable, hence less efficient and more costly. In the UK there are suspicions that the terrible rain and cold we've had in the last 6 months, which has depressed crop yields by 30% or so, may be due to the melting of Arctic ice in the Barents Sea and elsewhere, which in turn apparently affects the position of the jetstream across the Atlantic. I also read that the El Nino/La Nina effect in the Americas is now following a different and less stable pattern, with massive consequences for rainfall in Australia and elsewhere. So we already see disturbing signs and now is just the start. What's clear is it is not going to be simply just a case of everywhere getting a bit warmer over time. And of course if you live in a low-lying country, such as Bangladesh, you may find your fields are simply under water as the sea level rises.

    It's all very complex and difficult to predict, which is one reason why scientists are so worried about what may happen. If you can't foresee the consequences, you can't plan your way out of trouble.
     
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  7. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    the effect i've noticed is that the "rainy season" has generally moved from the "growing season" to the "planting season".
    this makes it hard to plant crops, and what DOES get planted doesn't fully develop because of lack of rain.
    i also believe that the current weather trends is largely responsible for the decimation of the honeybee.
    this will cause a large part of various crops to not be fertilized.
     
  8. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    A general circulation model (GCM) is a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean and based on the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources (radiation, latent heat). These equations are the basis for complex computer programs commonly used for simulating the atmosphere or ocean of the Earth. Atmospheric and oceanic GCMs (AGCM and OGCM) are key components of global climate models along with sea ice and land-surface components. GCMs and global climate models are widely applied for weather forecasting, understanding the climate, and projecting climate change. Versions designed for decade to century time scale climate applications were originally created by Syukuro Manabe and Kirk Bryan at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey.[1] These computationally intensive numerical models are based on the integration of a variety of fluid dynamical, chemical, and sometimes biological equations.

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...wIHACQ&usg=AFQjCNF4BUIbXJgATRQW8OewzIDUNsVRog
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Weather is one of the few possible factors that has been almost completely ruled out of even a contributory role.
     
  10. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but we sometimes blind ourselves with our own bullsh1t. We may be able to do all this modelling, but we still cannot predict with confidence the effect of climate change on individual areas of the world. For example this whole Barents Sea business was not predicted (or not widely), it was observed and then rationalised after the fact. And even now there is not really a consensus as to its effects. What the modelling does show us is we can expect trouble and the forms it might take. But that seems to be about it so far.
     
  11. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    2,862
    But that's quite allot of information that we can use to prepare for, adjust or stop doing things that may cause those things to happen. Any information that can be found in finding out what might happen in the future would be helpful to everyone and these models are of great importance.
     
  12. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    we might need to define terms.
    weather is the daily values of atmospheric conditions.
    climate is those values averaged over time.
    maybe i should have used climate instead.

    it's no big deal, it was only my opinion.

    i do believe we can, and are, manipulating weather.
    the question is of scope and effect.
    the US is funding the research and the possibilities have been noted.

    please note, i'm not even close to being educated in this matter.
    most of the info i get comes from here, there, and yonder.
     
  13. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    Can you provide a link to show everyone where you get your information that the weather is being controlled, thanks.
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    We need to separate political propaganda from hard science. Let me walk you through it. The hard data collected says the earth is warming slightly over the past 100 years or so. This data does indeed say warming, but it does not tell us why it is warming. The propaganda tries to merge these two separate issues, with only the warming aspect based on hard data. This can fool the layman but is hard to get past someone with the power of reason.

    Let us look at the hard data that is available for how. If we look at historical data, the earth has warmed and cooled before. This is not speculation or simulation but is based on hard data, which is important to the philosophy of science. This warming has happened more than once, which is important since any good theory has to be repeatable or have repeatable data.

    The alternative, which is more popular, is manmade global warming. This has no historical precedent based on hard data. There is no hard proof that this is even possible, based on hard earth data. It uses game engines to explain the warming physics. This is not the same as actual hard data, like the earth warming without human help; from the last ice age, for example. The philosophy of science is being violated; weak option.


    The question is why is mushy data and game engines given more priority than hard data? This is called mercenary science. It is similar to when the tobacco companies did studies to show how cigarettes are good for you. It can be done. They use soft empirical data and game engines. This was what they were being paid to do, and this is how they maintain funding.

    What i would like to see is proof of concept; manmade global warming, to show this is even possible, in hard reality, since there is no hard data that shows this technique has ever happened on the earth. How about global warming a small city for a pilot demonstration before we buy what could be mercenary swamp land; good cigarette?

    Let me give an example. Say the earth's magnetic field starts to shift. We will blame this on brain waves due to the growing population of the earth. We wish to control reproduction and need to move the herd. The earth has shifted the magnetic field before t without humans but we will ignore this hard data. This cannot be the explanation or else how can we manipulate? Instead, we will focus on games engines and brain waves. We need the government to put all the science funding into brain wave research. We also need to discredit the historical hard data explanations as pseudo-science, so the mercenary science to work. I would still ask for a small pilot demonstration to make sure this is not a manipulation to help sell tin foil hats.
     
  15. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    @ wellwisher

    Although the Earth's field is generally well approximated by a magnetic dipole with its axis near the rotational axis, there are occasional dramatic events where the North and South geomagnetic poles trade places. These events are called geomagnetic reversals. Evidence for these events can be found worldwide in basalts, sediment cores taken from the ocean floors, and seafloor magnetic anomalies. Reversals occur at apparently random intervals ranging from less than 0.1 million years to as much as 50 million years. The most recent such event, called the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred about 780,000 years ago.

    However, a study published in 2012 by a group from the German Research Center for Geosciences suggests that a brief complete reversal occurred only 41,000 years ago during the last ice age.

    http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...hYG4Aw&usg=AFQjCNGI9-XpHud8UdnsLeHQ40o2SlTCUQ

    So these reversals have occurred before when humans were here and nothing affected them that we have found. Humans have been here over 2 million years don't forget so there might have been many reversals since they were here. Why do humans need to worry about their brain waves because the problem that will happen is compasses will be reversed but nothing will happen to human brain waves unless you have proof that reversals do something. If you do please post a link to show your facts about this, thanks.
     
  16. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    how do you get controlled from manipulated?
    the very fact that the US is funding the research is PROOF that weather control/ manipulation is a reality.
    like i mentioned before, the real question is one of scope and effect.
     
  17. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    No, the question is providing proof, which as yet you have not done, showing that the government is somehow "manipulating/ controlling the weather.
     
  18. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    I was using this only as a parody, to show a parallel between hard and soft data, and how if you use mercenary science to cater to the layman, you can move the herd in the wrong direction. You first need to discredit the science of hard data.

    The philosophy of science is being violated by manmade global warming, since there is no hard proof this is even possible based on historical data or scaled demonstration data. We are supposed to ignore science philosophy of data and depend on politics? Why the exemption and why are we moving along the path that is most anti-philosophy of science?

    I requested a demonstration to prove the concept, since there is no hard data that shows the concept is even possible. Cloud seeding is not global warming.
     
  19. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    So you present data that isn't factual but represent it to be factual, why is that?

    Why would you want to "move the herd in the wrong direction" if this is a science forum dealing with truth and facts not nonsense and speculation.

    Please state factual science data and provide us with proof or just move over to another forum dealing with psuedo-science.
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    There are too many components of climate change to make such a confident prediction. One of these components hasn't happened in billions of years: major change in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The last time this happened was when plants evolved. They began transforming some of the CO2 into oxygen. Since then, IIRC, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has remained relatively stable. Only since the Industrial Revolution has it begun increasing again at a signficant rate.

    Science works by observing how the universe has behaved in the past, deriving theories from that behavior using logical reasoning, and using those theories to predict the universe's future behavior. When something happens that hasn't happened before, it's much more difficult to predict how the universe will respond to it.

    Nonetheless, as has already been pointed out, much of what's going on now is merely the tail end of a process that has been repeated many times: the end of an ice age. Sea level fluctuates by about half a kilometer between its low and high points. (Although the maximum fluctuation does not occur during each ice age.) At the end of an ice age, defined as the disappearance of permanent ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers, all that water flows back into the ocean.

    We probably have somewhere between 25 and 50 meters to go. This will result in low-lying regions like Florida, Bangladesh and the Maldives being effectively submerged. The Dutch will not be able to build a dike tall enough to hold it back so the people of Amsterdam will have to relocate. This is true of most of the world's major cities, which grew up around ports. New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New Orleans, Chicago, Rome, London, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong--a huge fraction of the human race will have to move inland--into a smaller and more crowded landmass.

    As temperatures rise, Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Scandinavia and Greenland will become agricultural paradises, as much of the traditional Farm Belt becomes arid. Say goodbye to the polar bear and the emperor penguin.

    None of these predictions are remarkable because they're based on billions of years of evidence of recurring climate cycles. Core samples of soil show us the climate of past millennia in various ways, such as the kinds of plants that were growing there. Artifacts of human settlements 25 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean from the Eastern Seabord of the USA show us not only how much lower sea level was 20KYA, but also that there was a migration of Paleolithic humans from Europe to North America that we never knew about.

    What will be remarkable is the contribution of Industrial Era technology. Since the middle of the 18th century, the CO2 and other byproducts of industrial processes have spiked the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere so high that it will clearly grow to exceed all prior levels, even if we come to our senses next month and try to slow it down.

    No one can predict with any accuracy what this will mean for civilization. But simply making the planet hotter than usual will be a calamity for humanity. The total acreage of arable land will obviously decrease, and that alone spells disaster.

    Fortunately the second derivative of population turned negative in 1980 so our rate of growth is slowing and by the end of this century the world population will begin to shrink. With fewer people to feed, it will be easier to keep their bellies full. But it could be another century or two before population drops to a sustainable level, and in the meantime there could very well be wars over food and water.
     
  21. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i said the government is providing the funds for weather control research.
    if you want to believe that no one is doing said research then be my guest.
     
  22. Buddha12 Valued Senior Member

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    I never said that were or were not, you said they were and I asked for proof and again you have avoided showing us where you find your information from to prove your point.
     
  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    That's akin to saying that smoking will not give you cancer, since there is no historical precedent that shows you getting cancer from smoking. Sure, studies can show that smokers get lung cancer a lot more often, but no studies show us WHY smokers get cancer. The propaganda tries to merge these two separate issues (smoking and lung cancer) with only the cancer aspect based on hard data. This can fool the layman but is hard to get past a smoker. At least one who really, really, really wants to keep smoking.

    Good example. The SAME PEOPLE who did the studies that showed cigarettes do not cause cancer are now doing studies, paid for by oil industries, that show CO2 does not cause global warming. That is what they are paid to do, and that is how they maintain funding. Climate change denialism is the new mercenary science.

    Do you believe in mercenary science?
     

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