Study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse

[macdoc]

The best amelioration of global warming will come from technologies to remove the need for excessive CO2 and methane emissions. Many of these are already in use, and many more are under development. I predict that the real impact of such measures will take another 40 years to hit, and another 50 years after that before the world stops warming further.

remove the need for excessive CO2 and methane emissions.

You still seem to think that stopping emissions will return the planet to pre-industrial or even stop the warming...it won't.
It will reduce the extent of te warming some multiple decades beyond the stop point as the climate settles to a new balance.

It is unsolvable with current technologies without geo-engineering. Why would you propose a space based albedo control when planetary are much cheaper and achievable.

http://www.impactlab.net/2009/08/07/clo ... te-change/

Since air-water and water-air interfaces are equally refractive, cloud droplets and microbubbles dispersed in bodies of water reflect sunlight in much the same way. The lifetime of sunlight-reflecting microbubbles, and hence the scale on which they may be applied, depends on Stokes Law and the influence of ambient or added surfactants. Small bubbles backscatter light more efficiently than large ones, opening the possibility of using highly dilute micron-radius hydrosols to substantially brighten surface waters. Such microbubbles can noticeably increase water surface reflectivity, even at volume fractions of parts per million and such loadings can be created at an energy cost as low as J m-2 to initiate and milliwatts m-2 to sustain. Increasing water albedo in this way can reduce solar energy absorption by as much as 100 W m-2, potentially reducing equilibrium temperatures of standing water bodies by several Kelvins. While aerosols injected into the stratosphere tend to alter climate globally, hydrosols can be used to modulate surface albedo, locally and reversibly, without risk of degrading the ozone layer or altering the color of the sky. The low energy cost of microbubbles suggests a new approach to solar radiation management in water conservation and geoengineering: Don’t dim the Sun; Brighten the water.

http://www.coolrooftoolkit.org/knowledg ... te-change/

The issue is the ditzheads floating about as well evidenced here that are denying the problem and the risk that every science body of note has stated clearly confronts us.

The AGU notably

AGU Position Statement
Human Impacts on Climate

Adopted by Council December 2003
Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007

The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change. A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate.

During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change—an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade—is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections.

With climate change, as with ozone depletion, the human footprint on Earth is apparent. The cause of disruptive climate change, unlike ozone depletion, is tied to energy use and runs through modern society. Solutions will necessarily involve all aspects of society. Mitigation strategies and adaptation responses will call for collaborations across science, technology, industry, and government. Members of the AGU, as part of the scientific community, collectively have special responsibilities: to pursue research needed to understand it; to educate the public on the causes, risks, and hazards; and to communicate clearly and objectively with those who can implement policies to shape future climate.

The AGU is multi-disciplinary and international in scope

The American Geophysical Union (or AGU) is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 61,000 members from over 146 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics. The geophysical sciences involve four fundamental areas: atmospheric and ocean sciences; solid-Earth sciences; hydrologic sciences; and space sciences.

The AGU is divided into 11 sections that provide the main structure for managing volunteers, developing leaders and honoring scientists. These sections also reflect the breadth of science within geophysics:[8]

* Atmospheric sciences
* Biogeosciences
* Geodesy
* Geomagnetism and paleomagnetism
* Hydrology
* Ocean sciences
* Planetary sciences
* Seismology
* Space physics and aeronomy
* Tectonophysics
* Volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology

There are also 12 focus groups that organize research involving two or more sections. These are[8]

* Atmospheric and space electricity
* Cryosphere sciences
* Earth and planetary surface processes
* Earth and space science informatics
* Mineral and rock physics
* Global environmental change
* Natural hazards
* Near surface geophysics
* Nonlinear geophysics
* Paleoceanography and paleoclimatology
* Study of the Earth's deep interior
* Societal impacts and policy sciences

They have a serious concern along with dozens of other national science bodies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

Statements by dissenting organizations

Since 2007, when the American Association of Petroleum Geologists released a revised statement,[105] no scientific body of national or international standing rejects the findings of human-induced effects on climate change.[10][11]

So it's not speculation and it's in your court to show evidence that C02 emissions will be controlled to stay under 4 degrees.they are not even trending in that direction..there is just about zero chance of that no save perhaps an outbreak of volcanism or nuclear winter and the latter would be AGC on a big scale.

Your speculation base is that

a) the emissions will be controlled ( that window is closing rapidly ) - little or no evidence for that
b) some technology will emerge to deal with it......now THAT is pure spec.

There has been NO drop in C02 emissions other than a brief one caused the 2008 economic crisis.
That hardly constitutes a trend or evidence there will be one. Formidable pollyanna.

[Atheist-Lite]

With all the clean carbons being about used up the reality is that the next stage of 'industrial development' will see a return to dirty carbons bigtime as peoples try to stave off further industrial and population decline.

[Blind groper]

macdoc

I am fully aware of most of the things you are saying. However, our interpretations will quite different. For example : you say that the 0.6 C rise in temperature over 50 years shows things are urgent. I see it a little differently. The fact that it took 50 years for such a small global temperature rise is encouraging. This makes a rise of 4 C in any near future time somewhat less likely.

Global warming is not that new. It began a good 150 years ago, and has been progressing quite slowly in human terms. Total warming to date is not much above 1 C, and that was starting from a much cooler than normal period - the Little Ice Age. This slow progress means that we probably have a little time.

I have not suggested some miraculous technology to deal with global warming. Instead, there will be many - probably hundreds - of technologies, each of which does a small part of the job of managing climate change. For example ; we now have a range of new battery electric vehicles coming off the assembly line. Just a beginning, of course, but heralding a move away from burning fossil fuels to drive motor vehicles. We have new nuclear technologies based on thorium being researched. These have the potential to replace all coal burning power stations. Incidentally, an appropriate thorium based reactor could also propel an ocean going vessel, and remove the need for all that diesel burned to support ocean going trade.

There is nothing miraculous about any of this. Just good basic science driving new technologies. I could name a number of other technologies also either being introduced or being developed. No single one will solve the problem, but hundreds each making a small contribution will change the world.

You asked why I proposed a space going geo-engineering solution? I didn't really. I said I did not like any of them, but the silvered balloon was the idea I liked better, and I explained why. It is because this could be readily reversed if it went wrong, which many of the other proposals can not. For example : squirting sulfate aerosol into the air would takes years, or decades to clear if it turned out to have disastrous side effects.

On stopping emissions not stopping warming.
If you read my statements a bit more carefully, you will see that I have already said that. It would take many decades after greenhouse gas levels started falling before warming ceased. But nevertheless, stopping emissions is the best approach. Global geo-engineering projects carry far too much risk.

[Atheist-Lite]

Nothing will happen except a series of rapid declines and eventual collapse. Attempts will be made to change direction, too late as the scientific consensus is beginning to show, and these attempts will be futile with human nature as it stands. Technological progress it must be recalled was a byproduct of avarice, violence and greed not altruistic heroism. So what could possibly go wrong with saving planet beyond using it as a excuse for 'accidental genocide' as fuel crops displace food crops in the far reaches of the third world?

[Seth]

The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850. The observed rapid retreat of Arctic sea ice is expected to continue and lead to the disappearance of summertime ice within this century. Evidence from most oceans and all continents except Antarctica shows warming attributable to human activities. Recent changes in many physical and biological systems are linked with this regional climate change. A sustained research effort, involving many AGU members and summarized in the 2007 assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, continues to improve our scientific understanding of the climate.

During recent millennia of relatively stable climate, civilization became established and populations have grown rapidly. In the next 50 years, even the lower limit of impending climate change—an additional global mean warming of 1°C above the last decade—is far beyond the range of climate variability experienced during the past thousand years and poses global problems in planning for and adapting to it. Warming greater than 2°C above 19th century levels is projected to be disruptive, reducing global agricultural productivity, causing widespread loss of biodiversity, and—if sustained over centuries—melting much of the Greenland ice sheet with ensuing rise in sea level of several meters. If this 2°C warming is to be avoided, then our net annual emissions of CO2 must be reduced by more than 50 percent within this century. With such projections, there are many sources of scientific uncertainty, but none are known that could make the impact of climate change inconsequential. Given the uncertainty in climate projections, there can be surprises that may cause more dramatic disruptions than anticipated from the most probable model projections.

Meh. The earth has been much warmer than "19th century levels" and "projections" seem to conveniently fail to include the increases in arable land in the arctic regions that global warming would allow. Didn't they just find evidence of tropical plants at the North Pole?

These alarmists just want things to stay the way they are, but that's not how the earth works.

This is all about political and economic power and control, nothing else.

Adapt or die.

[Blind groper]

Seth

No tropical plants at the North pole.
What was recently found was evidence of stunted forests in the high Arctic - in areas currently covered by snow and ice most of the year. So the climate was much warmer then (Miocene), but not tropical - in fact still cold enough to keep trees from being more than stunted. Probably a bit like Iceland is today.

[amused]

I suspect that part of the global warming movement is an effort to create the political will to move away from dependence on Middle East oil. Given the evil that we in the West are supporting in Saudi Arabia alone, that's okay by me.

[Seth]

Seth

No tropical plants at the North pole.
What was recently found was evidence of stunted forests in the high Arctic - in areas currently covered by snow and ice most of the year. So the climate was much warmer then (Miocene), but not tropical - in fact still cold enough to keep trees from being more than stunted. Probably a bit like Iceland is today.

Sorry, "subtropical":

North Pole 'was once subtropical'
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Polar bear and cubs A Gerdes, IODP
Curious and hungry onlookers (Image: A Gerdes, IODP)
An international scientific team which has been drilling beneath the bed of the Arctic Ocean says it enjoyed a sub-tropical climate 55 million years ago.

The Arctic Coring Expedition (Acex) has recovered sediment cores from nearly 400m (1,300ft) below the sea floor.

It says fossilised algae in the cores show the sea temperature was once about 20C, instead of the average now, -1.5C.

[macdoc]

. The earth has been much warmer than "19th century levels" and "projections" seem to conveniently fail to include the increases in arable land in the arctic regions that global warming would allow.

He trots out the usual denier crap right on cue.

Never been very far north have you?? Farm muskeg eh ???

This is on the James Bay Road about 1,000 km north of Toronto - had a nice caribou trotting beside me.



fine bottom land that....

See these things called glaciers pushed all the arable soil off the bedrock and that created the prairies.....the minute you hit the shield rock you got nuthin'......aside from a very few alluvial river valleys. ( Peace River ).
If you wait a 100,000 years or so you might get some soil.

You forget desertification at the other end of the midlat band.

“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,” or so the song goes. Well, not anymore. Spain is one of the countries most deeply affected by climate change. Vast areas in the Communities of Murcia, Andalucía and Valencia are slowly but surely becoming desert. .

[Seth]

. The earth has been much warmer than "19th century levels" and "projections" seem to conveniently fail to include the increases in arable land in the arctic regions that global warming would allow.

He trots out the usual denier crap right on cue.

Never been very far north have you?? Farm muskeg eh ???

See these things called glaciers pushed all the arable soil off the bedrock and that created the prairies.....the minute you hit the shield rock you got nuthin'......aside from a very few alluvial river valleys. ( Peace River ).
If you wait a 100,000 years or so you might get some soil.

Oh, I suspect technology will deal with it, after all, there are vast regions of boreal forest up there, not just in Canada but in Russia as well, all of which can be cleared and used for wood products and biomass, leaving the soil for cultivation using the necessary amendments provided by the farmers once the water's off and the permafrost has thawed.

You forget desertification at the other end of the midlat band.

“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain,” or so the song goes. Well, not anymore. Spain is one of the countries most deeply affected by climate change. Vast areas in the Communities of Murcia, Andalucía and Valencia are slowly but surely becoming desert. .

Fuck Spain. Let the Spaniards move to Libya, or Congo, or Canada. Less than 5000 years ago North Africa was a vast, fertile, well-watered area that supported much life, and deeper in the past was underwater. That changed and people migrated elsewhere. Changing rainfall patterns can just as quickly turn North Africa back into a garden. And then there's all that vacant land in central and southern Africa.

If you can't make a living off the land where you are, then go somewhere else, dumbfuck. (and I'm rhetorically addressing Spaniards, not you) Adapt or die.

[amused]

Or, move (north) to where the money is.

From Texas, I'm liking DC more and more...

[Blind groper]

One of the consequences of global warming, according to climate change theory, is more water. The reason is simple. Warm air holds more water, which will fall as rain in the usual way.

There will be areas that become drier, of course. But overall, more areas will become wetter. The driest continent in the world today is Antarctica, due to the cold. Warming will produce more rain for dry areas, in most cases.

I agree with Seth about the increase in arable land. Soil may be poor, but we already know how to create more soil.

[Seth]

One of the consequences of global warming, according to climate change theory, is more water. The reason is simple. Warm air holds more water, which will fall as rain in the usual way.

There will be areas that become drier, of course. But overall, more areas will become wetter. The driest continent in the world today is Antarctica, due to the cold. Warming will produce more rain for dry areas, in most cases.

I agree with Seth about the increase in arable land. Soil may be poor, but we already know how to create more soil.

And more moisture in the air due to increased evaporation and plant-based transpoevaporation creates more clouds that...wait for it...reflect sunlight by increasing planetary albedo, which reduces warming caused by insolation which...wait for it...causes a global decrease in surface temperature.

As I recall, it is believed that the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 ejected enough particulates into the upper atmosphere that a severe worldwide cold spell lasting more than five years, with a 1.2C temperature drop worldwide in the first year after the eruption. Eighteen eighty four was, as I recall, called "the year without a summer" in the UK.

And that's just one volcanic eruption.

You see, it all balances out quite nicely over time. Higher global temperatures melt ice and stimulate plant growth, as do CO2 levels, higher temperatures increase evaporation and transpoevaporation from plants, which increases cloud cover, which reduces temperature and allows snow to fall in higher latitudes. Back and forth, back and forth the temperature pendulum goes, self-correcting over time. And then there's the axial-tilt cycle, and the solar activity cycle, all of which cause changes in average global temperature over time that are greater than anything we've seen attributed to AGW. And the predictions for the future for AGW are just so much horseshit because the margin of error in the predictions subsumes the maximum predicted swings in temperature within a SINGLE YEAR, and even five years out such predictions are utterly useless due to the margins of error, which are plus or minus as much as 12C or more at five years.

The only thing the IPCC models and their temperature "predictions" are good for is wiping one's ass, because they are nothing more than eco-propaganda for the lumpen proletariat and credulous idiots who will believe any sort of tripe they are spoon-fed by their masters.

[Blind groper]

Hmmm

I do not fully agree with that, Seth.

The thing is that water vapour is also a greenhouse gas. So, while more water may produce more clouds, it also increases the greenhouse effect.

[Seth]

Hmmm

I do not fully agree with that, Seth.

The thing is that water vapour is also a greenhouse gas. So, while more water may produce more clouds, it also increases the greenhouse effect.

The question is whether or not the increase in greenhouse effect is offset by the increase in albedo. I've not seen any compelling evidence that convinces me that the system will not balance itself out again long before the planet superheats like Venus, which, by the way, was the prediction made by the global warming alarmists back in the 1970s. We were all supposed to be dead by now if we didn't change our wicked ways immediately, or so they told us.

Well, they were lying about it then, and I'm entirely unconvinced that they are not lying about it now. In fact, the evidence from the secret emails gives me very strong reason to believe that "climate scientists" are in fact lying about it, deliberately, with malice and for their own self-aggrandizement and financial gain, and that governments are supporting the lies in order to gain more power and control as a part of creating a one-world global government.