Global Warming

[The Grand Nudger]

Climate change isn't all about extremes of weather. There is also the plus side, large amounts of land previously inhospitable or otherwise less than ideal for commercial agriculture will open up. I can't remember all of the other less than awful conclusions that modelers have come to. That's just the one that stuck with me..lol.

[Anomalocaris]

Doesn't the deep ocean take on the order of centuries to react to such?

Different thing. Currently Northern Europe is kept at temperatures unusually warm for its high latitude by the strength of warm equatorial current in the Atlantic. This current is powered by evaporation generated differential salinity Basically, as the warm equatorian surface water moves north, parts of it evaporates while leaving its salt in the water, making the warm surface water progressively more saline as it moves north. Eventually when the warm water near the poles it had become so saline that its density surpass the density of the cold water at depth, so it sinks, displacing the cold water at depth southward, driving what is effectively a salinity powered vertical convection cell whose width is equal to the entire height of north Atlantic.

If global warming were to occur in great strength, precipitation in temporate climates at intermediate latitudes around 20-30 degrees would increase greatly, creating much more freshwater run off into the Atlantic near the equaltor. This has the effect of diluting the salinity of Atlantic surface waters at its source. When the equatorial surface water becomes sufficiently dilute, it would no longer be able to evaporate enough on the way north to gain the sort of salinity needed for it to sink near the poles. So the Atlantic warm equatorian current stops flowing north. When this happens Northern Europe regains the climate appropriate to its latitude and effective turns into Siberia.

So in a severe global warming scenario, UK and North Europe would enter a deep freeze. North Atlantic would freeze over each winter down to the latitude of the Thames. You would need icebreakers to get to Antwerp. The opening of Arctic thought by some to be one side economic benefit of global warming would totally reverse. The arctic ocean would freeze solid again.

[Autumnlicious]

Assuming global warming stats regarding salinity changes by the USGS on the Pacific US Coast are true, we will lose a million dollar salt pond restoration project to increasing sea levels and now-favorable environmental factors for invasive cord grasses.

On the upside, the increasing salinity will eradicate the ultra-fast breeding hybrid cordgrass species in one fell-swoop.

Here's the bad news for California though -- to increase coastal upwelling for predicted salinity changes, there needs to be stronger N->S winds. That means more of Alaska weather will be visiting us instead of pleasant pineapple expresses.

Ergo, I expect, unless the findings are reversed or revised, that California will see a lot more arctic storms on an increasing frequency in the next century or so.

Hopefully I'll live long enough to either say "I told you so" or "I was fucking wrong. Let's get high."

The last part of the latter will be said regardless.

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Dammit Chuck! You're making me learn again! Thanks.

[Paul the Human]

Right now it's 94 degrees with a heat index of 103. But, in the winter we have blizzards and 3 feet of snow. Every year I have to listen to people say, "Boy! I sure had to sweep a lot of 'global warming' off my car this morning!"

Makes me want to throw things.

Is anyone surprised to realize that the idiots that say that are the same idiots that say things like, "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Yuck, yuck!"

[Anomalocaris]

Is anyone surprised to realize that the idiots that say that are the same idiots that say things like, "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? Yuck, yuck!"

Because only some of us evolved, others, like the said idiots, remained monkeys.

[edk]

I'm a little bit confused. Are you guys saying that anyone who questions global warming and/or its causes is stupid, or just those who think global warming can't be happening because it's snowy?

[DeistPaladin]

Whenever I think about climate change stupidity I am reminded of two years ago when we had an unusually large amount of snow, the guys at Fox News' morning program put Al Gore's book in the snow and said, "Where's your global warming now?" The goddamn idiots didn't realize that the heavy snow is actually more proof of global warming. Too many dumbasses think that global warming just means it's going to be hot all of the time when it actually means more extreme weather in winter and summer.

Even more basic than that is logic that you shouldn't need to be a meteorologist to understand. Using an anecdote of one specific location in freaking January to say, "look, snow, global warming is false" is stupid on two different levels. First, global warming is about AVERAGE GLOBAL temperatures (key words being in all caps). Second, even snowfall and the worst storms have become more mild.

On the latter note, if you want to talk about anecdotes, Fox Noise made a lot of hey about the snowstorm in DC last February. I watched that and said, "yeah, I remember a snowstorm that bad when I went to school in CD. We had two feet of snow and the city was shut down. I remember it because it was during Thanksgiving break, not during the winter. Fat chance of that happening today."

I have a full body snowsuit in my closet that I used to wear during the colder months in Louisville. It's been in the closet and only seen the light of day once since 93. A sweater is usually all I need. Snowfall used to begin sometime around Thanksgiving and continued until mid March. The snow during Christmas time was more often than not real, not the artificial kind. These days, it seems like we're a month behind schedule going from fall to winter. A couple dustings and maybe one solid snowfall is what passes for winter these days. /end anecdotal account.

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I'm a little bit confused. Are you guys saying that anyone who questions global warming and/or its causes is stupid, or just those who think global warming can't be happening because it's snowy?

The latter.

[Paul the Human]

I'm a little bit confused. Are you guys saying that anyone who questions global warming and/or its causes is stupid, or just those who think global warming can't be happening because it's snowy?

As DP said... the latter. It is just frustrating that so many people are too dense to understand that there is a difference between Average Global Temperature and Local Weather Patterns.

[edk]

Fair enough, I'm with you on that, although I think it's more frustrating that some people don't know that "United States of America" begins with U, or what a triangle is (I could continue, but I'm sure you've all seen the Americans Are Not Stupid video). Sometimes I think there should be a minimum competence test which you must pass before you can vote.

[Faith No More]

Apparently 1 in 5 Americans cannot locate the U.S. on a world map.