Climate change

[HaWe]

Environmental disasters in Missouri, Tennessee and in Louisiana (since Katrina) and in other countries (like monster hurricane Yasi in Australia) - the result of climate change due to world wide increasing carbon dioxide emissions?
What is to come to us in future?
How is this issue discussed in America itself - in the population and in the media?

[mattallen37]

Very interesting topic. A few years ago, most people were all talking about "global warming", and now it's "climate change". People used to always talk about how humans were making the earth get hotter, and as a result it was causing all these "environmental disasters". However, in the last couple years, there have been many record cold days (or months). Now it's all called "Climate change", and IMO, it happens twice a year (summer and winter ). Us humans have almost no effect whatsoever on the overall environment. Just one volcano (like Mount St. Helens) causes something like 100 times as much "pollution" as humans have in all history. Now how many of us are still effected by that volcano, even in the slightest manner? Nature will do what it does, and humans have no way of making any real effect on it.

What is to come in the future? I personally believe a lot more earthquakes and other disasters as described by God in the Bible.

I live in a fairly conservative neighborhood, and the only talk about things like climate change is in a joking manner. We don't talk about it as fact or as anything we should be concerned about. The media makes a fairly large deal of the whole thing, and sure makes for some good jokes I have talked to people that believe all the media says, and some people really are concerned about it.

[joke]
Q: Is global warming real?
A: Yes it is; it's called summer
[/joke]

[HaWe]

Ash clouds cause by covering a slowdown (as observed after outbrakes e.g. of Pinatubo (Indonesia), and Eyjafjallajökull (Iceland)), but we have - on average, over the years - a global (not local!) increasing heating of air and sea. Including increase of fluctuations, like extreme cold and extreme heat.
On the other hand, ocean warming (starting at warmer than about 25°C in the tropic seas) promotes the development of hurricanes, while increasing temperature differences between air layers unstable air stratification and promote Tornadoes, downpours, hailstorms, blizzards, and floods.
By the way, I'm afraid the biggest future greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4) will lie ahead because of the rapid economic development of emerging economies...

But I'm curious what other people are thinking and discussing...?

[muntoo]

Q: Is global warming real?
A: Yes it is; it's called summer

When it's a nice an' warm summer in the Arctic, it's a -50oC winter in the Antarctic, so I'm afraid that's not exactly global.

Eyjafjallajökull

At first I thought that was gibberish, then I thought it was some kind of Eragon-word, then I realized it was an actual place.

-----

I don't think we are causing all this; we may be contributing to it (maybe 0.0001% of the "greenhouse gases" or maybe 10000%, whatever difference that will make).

However, the pollution isn't good for our health. (e.x. Hong Kong, *cough cough*... *cough cough cough cough ACK ACK cough aackeaAErojal;dfe!/fafke\ENsaE$E5GAK!* )

[mattallen37]

According to several data-logs, the earth has cycles that take 80 years. Every 80 years, there will be a temperature high, and a temperature low. I've heard that we are at about the peak of the 80 year (or maybe it's 160 years total, I forget) cycle right now.

CO2 is a gas we produce, and is a gas plants use when performing photosynthesis. They produce O2, which is what we need to stay alive.

[muntoo]

CO2 is a gas we produce, and is a gas plants use when performing photosynthesis. They produce O2, which is what we need to stay alive.

And we're cutting down trees, right? This bears some thinking... Are trees really producing >50% of the earth's annual O2 production?

P.S. Has anyone here heard about Carbon Air Scrubbers? I think I've heard they're going to put them in the major cities eventually [if they haven't started already].

[nxtreme]

And we're cutting down trees, right? This bears some thinking... Are trees really producing >50% of the earth's annual O2 production?

The ocean actually eats up a lot of the carbon dioxide that humans produce, though it doesn't create much oxygen in return. I think if the Earth was left the way it was, we'd be free to drive our Hummers as much as we wanted to (until the Earth runs out of oil) but by cutting down trees we're cutting down our future (at least, it sounds poetic ). The Earth can handle carbon dioxide, but land fills are slowly polluting water supplies and such bit by bit. Newer technology (VS the old tech. of just dumping our junk in a hole...) like plasma arc waste disposal could really cut down on pollution but for an added cost.

I think our main goal should not be to reduce emissions in cars and such so much as to make sure we don't trash Earth up. A good place to start is replanting 100% of the trees we use. If we leave the trees, Earth will get rid of carbon dioxide by itself, but we need to get rid of the landfills.

[HaWe]

some facts for this discussion (taken from Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlenstoffdioxid) :

Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions amount to about 36.3 gigatons per year and are only a small proportion of the annually about 550 gigatons of carbon dioxide predominantly derived from natural sources.

The carbon dioxide concentration in the last 10,000 years has remained relatively constant at 280 ppm. The balance of the carbon dioxide cycle was thus constant over this time. With the beginning of industrialization in the 19th Century carbon dioxide concentration rises in the atmosphere. The current level is probably the highest one for 15 to 20 million years. From 1960 to 2005 the proportion of carbon dioxide increased on average by 1.4 ppm per year

The extra carbon dioxide is taken about by one half of the biosphere and by the oceans (this has the effect of acidification) , so they take on more carbon dioxide than they emit. (added: This acidification is causing death of corals and therefore death of these habitats and biotopes.)

The other half of the emitted carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere and results in measurable increases in concentrations; that could be shown by Charles Keeling by his Keeling Curve, named after him, first shown in the early 1960s.

It is generally accepted that there is a statistically significant anthropogenic influence on climate, which is largely responsible for global warming. This warming is very likely caused by the larger part of the increasing greenhouse effect due to the emission of greenhouse gases.
The additionally generated carbon dioxide accounts for about 60% of the greenhouse effect.

addendum:
The thawing of yet permanently frozen ground in the Arctic Circle - caused by earth warming - leads to the additional release of methane, which is even far more environmentally harmful than CO2. Another factor is the feared disintegration of the unstable methane hydrate on the seabed of the warmer oceans.

BTW: It would be interesting to find out the exact sources of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions (coal power plants, gas power plants, cars, domestic heating, industrial production (which?))

update:

http://www.g-o.de/wissen-aktuell-12595-2010-11-22.html
1.9 ppm increase in 2010
If economic growth and recovery of the markets after the financial crisis continues as before, could increase global emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels in 2010 by more than three percent over the previous year. This would again reached values ​​of 1.9 ppm increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. For comparison, the long-term average of the last 25 years stood at 1.5 ppm per year, the average of the years 2000 through 2008, at 1.9 ppm - and rising.

(translated by Google and ALHFMF from German references, sorry for my bad English.)