[QuantumDelta]

People who say it's natural, or don't believe in the concept at all, should be made to live in micronesia.

And yea. As much as Joshua likes his graph; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RYBDTnS7dg
I think that video pwns it

[Beskargam]

what will be really scary is if we keep producing enough greenhouse gases to trigger the methane hydrates. i think thatll be pretty close to, if not the point of no return. and ya it really doesnt matter if its natural or not, **** is still gona happen. question is what are we gona do about it. at least i wont be around for the oncoming ice age.

[QuantumDelta]

The permafrost is already verging on the boundary of 'defrost' that is self-sustaining due to methane release :<

[Beskargam]

oh goodie. thats bad. reall bad. so is that acclerating us towards the next ice age or is that gona massively disrupt the natural cycle?

[QuantumDelta]

Well it sort of depends on events we probably don't even understand yet.


The Earth has been in an interglacial period known as the Holocene for more than 11,000 years. It was conventional wisdom that "the typical interglacial period lasts about 12,000 years," but this has been called into question recently. For example, an article in Nature[34] argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years. Predicted changes in orbital forcing suggest that the next glacial period would begin at least 50,000 years from now, even in absence of human-made global warming[35] (see Milankovitch cycles). Moreover, anthropogenic forcing from increased greenhouse gases might outweigh orbital forcing for as long as intensive use of fossil fuels continues.[36] At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (December 17, 2008), scientists detailed evidence in support of the controversial idea that the introduction of large-scale rice agriculture in Asia, coupled with extensive deforestation in Europe began to alter world climate by pumping significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the last 1,000 years. In turn, a warmer atmosphere heated the oceans making them much less efficient storehouses of carbon dioxide and reinforcing global warming, possibly forestalling the onset of a new glacial age.[37]

Taken outta the wiki on ice ages.

The problem is, although we're doing a lot better on predicting things, there's just too many variables (we are too stupid), for us to handle reliably on anything other than almost-immediate weather right now.
We can give probabilities that things will happen, but even if we're 99% sure, we're not ever gonna be 100% sure.


It does seem fairly likely that if we end up in a long-arse interglacial we're really going to have to rethink the way we- wait we have to do that anyway.
But a lot of people are going to have to move, most of london, tokyo, the netherlands in general, the oceanic nations, sydney, even my city, which is built on a series of hills, is likely to loose real-estate to sea level rises that are GOING to happen, and we are making happen faster.

I vaguely recall the last ice age being (most responcibly) caused by a huge amount of non-saline water from the great lakes being dumped into the atlantic, or something similar, well,
The Western Antarctic Shelf is resting on a bed of land, that basically seems to allow water to sandwich in between, this water causes warming in the ice underneath the sheet, which with just a 6 degree (from initial formation conditions, which, btw was 4-5 degrees ago, so, UNDER the UN 'target' temperatures that we're 'failing' to meet), will break off completely and plunge into the ocean, at which point it will drift from the continent and melt, massively increasing sea level.
*Info from the Royal Society via the antarctic observation missions(sourceinbbchorizon).

So uhh..... Yea.


Edit;
This is why the island nations are jumping up and down about their entire countries disappearing, and being completely sidelined by people like america, india and china.

[QuantumDelta]

Also, I should qualify that a bit, ice ages are generally accepted to be caused by positive feedback events, such as; ice forming, which reflects more solar energy, which means less is absorbed by the planet, which means it gets colder, which means more ice forms, etc, atmospheric changes (generally accepted to be mainly driven by plant and animal life (eg; during interglacials plant life esplodes, and thus co2 is normally reduced to tiny levels, which means less green house effect (*though lots of water vapour at such times mean it's a gradual process as that water vapour is slowly converted through the water cycle into ice at the poles), Methane being trapped by biomass, especially trapped permanently by biomass that has died in swampy areas which then freeze over, and so on and so forth.
Other events are those such as effecting both water flow and ability to absorb solar energy (in various forms), orbital positions (distance, the eccentricity of earths orbit), supervolcanos, and asteroidal impact (you can probably throw nuclear winter in there as well should it ever happen).
I think I missed some.
The thing I drudged up from my memories, even if it's not old info, I imagine would be the preverbial straw.

[Beskargam]

hmm i thought we were in year 18,000 of the holocene. and several of my sources when i was web hunting info said that interglaciels usualy lasted about 20k years.

         "I vaguely recall the last ice age being (most responcibly) caused by a huge amount of non-saline water         from the great lakes being dumped into the atlantic, or something similar, well,"

the big great lakey thing was in the smack middle of northern us and candad and covered a lot of the landmass.


other eventts = volcanic eruptions 2.
      whoops u already said that

[IceFire]

what will be really scary is if we keep producing enough greenhouse gases to trigger the methane hydrates. i think thatll be pretty close to, if not the point of no return. and ya it really doesnt matter if its natural or not, **** is still gona happen. question is what are we gona do about it. at least i wont be around for the oncoming ice age.

Although I firmly believe that there is a significant warming occurring and that the climate is changing (in front of my eyes in fact) the methane issue has received an interesting twist recently. The oil platform disaster in the gulf has revealed that despite a massive amount of methane that should have been released from under the ocean floor... almost none of it ever reached the surface. Apparently some tiny organisms think methane is like Thanksgiving dinner.

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

[Beskargam]

BEWARE THE HOLOCENE HAS ENDED AND THE EVERLASTING FREEZE HAS BEGUN!!

we have a 3 day ice storm comin thru. school better be closed

[Beskargam]

Although I firmly believe that there is a significant warming occurring and that the climate is changing (in front of my eyes in fact) the methane issue has received an interesting twist recently. The oil platform disaster in the gulf has revealed that despite a massive amount of methane that should have been released from under the ocean floor... almost none of it ever reached the surface. Apparently some tiny organisms think methane is like Thanksgiving dinner.

huh didnt know that. do you know what the organisms are by chance? that would be good for paper.

not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

not so haha! we must build all bamboo villages to survive!
http://www.coast.net/stories/philippines-designing-defence-against-climate-change-ips-i

and school is indeed closed

[Bobboau]

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

[iamzack]

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

Uhm... You do realize that the question isn't whether we are causing climate change or not, but rather HOW ARE WE GOING TO GO ON?

[Mars]

This planet will still exist if there's a supernova a few dozen light years off, or if we have a nuclear apocalypse. In fact, there will probably still be life.

Just not us.

[bobbtmann]

Well, some natural factors that can be attributed to global warming are water vapour and methane from cows and rice.

Of course, as the earth warms because of manmade activity, more water evaporates and further increases the rate of global warming. So water vapour causing global warming is also our fault. And the cows and rice are our fault as well. Factory farms aren't really natural.

And once the permafrost melts in Manitoba, there willl be a lot more methane in the atmosphere too. And as the polar ice caps recede, more sunlight will be absorbed, further warming the planet. And we keep driving cars and burning fossil fuels, so that's putting more CO2 into the atmosphere.

I think the deadliest thing about anthropogenic global warming is that it's happening very fast, so nature can't adapt. Species go extinct, and biodiversity drops. Without biodiversity you get problems like pests and disease. Like dutch elm disease and the pine beetle, potato blight.

[Topgun]

I personally can't wait for global warming to kick in. In fact I hope it gets as bad as Gore said it would. Its about time for a cataclysm to advance our species.

[IceFire]

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

Uhm... You do realize that the question isn't whether we are causing climate change or not, but rather HOW ARE WE GOING TO GO ON?

By planning ahead? Seems like a good method to me

Thinking about it more... let's apply some project management here. We can categorize our risks, resources, major show stoppers and budget and move forward.

At this point it doesn't matter what the short term plans are...

[bobbtmann]

Interesting stuff. The Earth has quite a few checks and balances... although we push the limits far too often the planet and indeed much of the life will continue to survive. Probably thrive. No matter what we do. Which is good news... so the thing we really need to focus on is our survival. Methane release or not... the climate is changing and it will change "rapidly" over the next few hundred years thanks to what we've been doing for the last few hundred years/or not. It doesn't really matter. We have to be prepared and plan ahead... not too many organizations seem to be doing that.

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

Uhm... You do realize that the question isn't whether we are causing climate change or not, but rather HOW ARE WE GOING TO GO ON?

By planning ahead? Seems like a good method to me

Thinking about it more... let's apply some project management here. We can categorize our risks, resources, major show stoppers and budget and move forward.

At this point it doesn't matter what the short term plans are...

Wouldn't planning ahead involve avoiding the problem altogether?

[redsniper]

But planning ahead might keep an oil exec from buying another yacht. So we can't have that.

[QuantumDelta]

wha...? it's almost like the planet has been around a fair while and endured **** far scarier than us or something, but that cannot be, for we are little god people, we HAVE to be special in some way.

We discussed people like you on page 1.

Sure, the earth has seen worse, sure the earth will still be here after we've made it unsuitable for human existance.

Isn't that a bit BESIDES the point though?

 

Well, some natural factors that can be attributed to global warming are water vapour and methane from cows and rice.

....

1.3Billion cows, 700 million tonnes of rice, and then the rest of your post, plus more since we tear up the natural environment and damage most of the checks and balances.

IceFire raises an interesting point, but those organisms are sea dwelling and probably wouldn't help with atmospheric based methane anywhere near as effectively, it'd be valuable to see if we could harness that (bacteria I assume?) entities ability to consume it in some way.

In terms of action plans we're actually really screwed unless we turn to advanced technologies, and green technologies too.

Why?
Well, we are going to be steadily losing landmass to the oceans over the next few hundred years, our population is already at a point where if _everyone_ on the planet, ate at the level of any westerner (americans are /by far/ the worst, british next, then germany/france/the netherlands, then the poorer european nations), we simply wouldn't have enough food for everyone.
If everyone ate at the level of your average indian (that's less than HALF what the average american eats a day, and two thirds of the average brit's consumption), then we could just about swing it right now, if we killed population growth completely.

The problem is, as I mentioned, losing land mass, and population growth, well, we've already used something close to 99% of all arable land on the planet, most of which (the vast majority) is coastal, or near tidal rivers, if you look things over via satellite we are _at_ capacity in terms of farmland, and what's worse is the food stocks in the ocean are being over-sourced, they will eventually collapse on current level of consumption.

So we need to sort out food, more than anything else.
Water goes with that (drinking).
We also need to sort out energy.
Climate management (in terms of biodiversity and life cycle) are also pretty important to properly sort out.
Flood defences.
Desertification defences(because, even though it's natural, and even though it'll happen if we do nothing, we're likely to eventually lose the entire southern hemisphere to the spread of the Sahara).
Population growth.


I'm sure I forgot some major ones.

[Beskargam]

population growth. . . nuke china?