I hesitate to bring it up, of course, since the science deniers like to use it as a dubiously-logical argument that non-human causes have led to climate change in the past and therefore it is impossible for humans to be causing climate change now.

If the permafrost melts in the arctic area, Alaska, Canada, Siberia, etc, there are massive pockets of methane and co2 that will be released into the atmosphere increasing the affect

Arctic soils are believed to hold 30 percent or more of all the carbon stored in soils worldwide. Although researchers are uncertain what will happen to this carbon as soils warm and permafrost thaws, one possibility is that the thaw will initiate significant additional emissions of carbon dioxide or the more potent greenhouse gas, methane.

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/2008-22.html

August 19th, 2008 at 2:01 am

Global disasters in the past, like the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, aka “The Day The Earth Farted,” in which a massive unexplained methane and CO2 release triggered a 9-degree rise in global temperatures and mass extinctions of land and sea creatures and that took 100,000 years for the Earth to recover to normal temperatures?

I hesitate to bring it up, of course, since the science deniers like to use it as a dubiously-logical argument that non-human causes have led to climate change in the past and therefore it is impossible for humans to be causing climate change now.

It’s exactly the same as running in insulated clothing. As your body heats, it sweats, and tries to cool itself. This can keep up, and even make one feel cool, until the heat created through exercise and trapped by the insulation exceeds the body’s ability to self regulate. Then our runner collapses from heat stroke.

In the case of global climate, the processes are different but they share some similarities. Human activities continue to add to the Earth’s insulation. And the Earth, being a dynamic system like an animal’s body, deals with the extra heat like a sweating human.

The Earth’s air and sea currents pump heat from warm areas to cold areas. On their journey, the warmed fluids pick up more moisture. When they reach the cold poles? They go about their contradictory jobs of melting ice and dropping snow. It would seem that there’s a great deal of resiliency built into the system. And there is.

The problem lies with those greenhouse gases, especially CO2. Remember those historically high levels? There is much evidence that high CO2 levels, usually attributed to times of extreme volcanic activity, have precipitated global disasters in the past. And some of those disasters were apparently caused by lower CO2 levels than those existing today.

That’s only one of the dangers. Another favorite argument of scoffers is that “plant’s like CO2″. There’s a big problem. First of all, we humans seem bent on deforesting the Earth much faster than increased growth can consume CO2. Except in the oceans. But, in the oceans, we are dealing with another dynamic.

Seawater can absorb CO2. This results in the formation of carbolic acid which actually lowers the pH of the ocean. This is a major disaster for sea life and it gets worse. The increased CO2 which is not converted to acid, along with human runoff, fuels algae “blooms” which can consume all the oxygen in the water and kill everything. This is the phenomenon responsible for “dead zones” one reads about from time to time.

So you see, human carbon emissions can kill us all without causing a climate disaster.

Global climate change is a fabrication of the democrats. They thrive on stressing out Americans so that they can appear to be the ones to come to the rescue.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
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Oh yes – just like that whole “War on Terror” thing the Democrats concocted. Right?

Toasterhead: Is there any weather event that can’t be explained by GW? It seems like no matter what the weather does, it is attributable to GW.
August 18th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
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Hot hail. That shit is all courtesy of Ming the Merciless.

But seriously, there’s a difference between “attributable to” and “connected to,” and I try to avoid saying the former. The number of factors behind any specific weather event make it impossible to say “global warming is the cause of storm X.” However, atmospheric instability caused by higher temperatures can lead to increased precipitation, as detailed in WG II.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU.evtnk6DPo&refer=worldwide

August 18th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

I’m sorry, but that’s just stupid. On so many levels.

For one thing, you are making the common right-wing mistake of interchanging “democrats” and “liberals” in effort to blame either for any absurdities committed by the other.

As for “stressing out Americans,” are you familar with the term “The Nexus of Politics and Terror”? If you research it, I think you’ll find that the Republican-controlled administration used fear to distract the public from their own mistakes or wrong-doing more than a dozen times.

RRally Says:
Global climate change is a fabrication of the democrats. They thrive on stressing out Americans so that they can appear to be the ones to come to the rescue.

And then, we have a vivid illustration of the kind of sentiment the reality-based community has to deal with on a regular basis.

Thanks for your 2 cents.

August 18th, 2008 at 9:25 pm

What’s that supposed to be, like “Seacrest out”? Out of what?

Just my $0.02.

http://sunburn.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/pielkeetalBAMS05.pdf

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/publications/special/2005.36_comment.pdf

ftp://texmex.mit.edu/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/Emanuel_etal_2008.pdf

pete Says:

Doesn’t it seem insane to argue about solid science and move on to how we can mitigate the damage?

It seems insane to me, pete, but I’m sure if you’ve got some financial interest at stake, or if you’re just irrationally afraid of mythical “liberals” using this crisis to further their “socialist agenda”, then it might seem very appealing to argue about solid science.

Here’s the deal. Atmospheric CO2 is at historic record highs and rising. Average global temps are at historic record highs and rising. Both are going up in proportion to measured human emissions and each other. There is no credible dispute of those three facts.

When one gets to more speculative science? Things get really scary. There is considerable evidence in the geologic record to suggest that, when temps and CO2 reach a critical “tipping point”, there is a rapid, cascading, release of trapped greenhouse gasses and catastrophic rise in temperature. This phenomenon is implicated in the greatest mass extinction event in the world’s history.

And none of that even touches the other toxins we spew out. Doesn’t it seem insane to argue about solid science and move on to how we can mitigate the damage?

Keltoi at Night Says:
ralph the wonder llama Says:

I thought you were okay. Lately it seems like you’re just here to annoy people.

Nah. Like I said, I don’t do GW threads because there is no toleration – none – of any thought other than the absolute certainty that GW is happening and that man is causing it (which I don’t think we can know with certainty.)

Well, you have a point in that we have little tolerance for dishonesty in the debate, or for poor reasoning. Most contrary viewpoints incorporate some measure of one or both of those elements.

You for instance, this evening seem to lean on poor reasoning, which I find unusual for you. That’s why I wondered if you’re just here to tweak noses for the fun of it.