Global meltdown

[Tindomul]

I would like to guage awarness in the orchid community about global warming and how serious it really is. Comments on the issue are appreciated.

I for one think we are in deep doo-doo as I don't think any of our world leaders have any true interest in saving the planet ---> in saving us from ourselves.


Global meltdown | Environment | The Guardian


Global meltdown

Scientists fear that global warming will bring climatic turbulence, with changes coming in big jumps rather than gradually

• Fred Pearce
• The Guardian
• Wednesday August 30 2006

Richard Alley's eyes glint as we sit in his office in the University of Pennsylvania discussing how fast global warming could cause sea levels to rise. The scientist sums up the state of knowledge: "We used to think that it would take 10,000 years for melting at the surface of an ice sheet to penetrate down to the bottom. Now we know it doesn't take 10,000 years; it takes 10 seconds."
That quote highlights most vividly why scientists are getting panicky about the sheer speed and violence with which climate change could take hold. They are realising that their old ideas about gradual change - the smooth lines on graphs showing warming and sea level rise and gradually shifting weather patterns - simply do not represent how the world's climate system works.
Dozens of scientists told me the same thing while I was researching my book The Last Generation. Climate change did not happen gradually in the past, and it will not happen that way in the future. Planet Earth does not do gradual change. It does big jumps; it works by tipping points.
The story of research into sea level rise is typical of how perceptions have changed in the past five years. The conventional view - you can still read it in reports from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - holds that sea levels will start to rise as a pulse of warming works its way gradually from the surface through the 2km- and 3km-thick ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, melting them. The ice is thick and the heat will penetrate only slowly. So we have hundreds, probably thousands, of years to make our retreat to higher ground.
Recent research, however, shows that idea is wholly wrong. Glaciologists forgot about crevasses. What is actually happening is that ice is melting at the surface and forming lakes that drain down into the crevasses. In 10 seconds, the water is at the base of the ice sheet, where it lubricates the join between ice and rock. Then the whole ice sheet starts to float downhill towards the ocean.
"These flows completely change our understanding of the dynamics of ice sheet destruction," says Alley. "Even five years ago, we didn't know about this."
This summer, lakes several kilometres across formed on the Greenland ice sheet, and drained away to the depths. Scientists measured how, within hours of the lakes forming, the vast ice sheets physically rose up, as if floating on water, and slid towards the ocean. That is why Greenland glaciers are flowing faster, and there are more icebergs breaking off into the Atlantic Ocean. That is why average sea level rise has increased from 2mm a year in the early 1990s to more than 3mm a year now.
Soon it could be a great deal more. Jim Hansen of Nasa, George Bush's top climate modeller, predicts that sea level rise will be 10 times faster within a few years, as Greenland destabilises. "Building an ice sheet takes a long time," he says. "But destroying it can be explosively rapid."
Alarmist? No. It has happened before, he says. During the final few centuries of the last ice age, the sea level rose 20 metres in 400 years, an average of 20 times faster than now. These were sudden, violent times. And the melting was caused by tiny wobbles in the Earth's orbit that changed the heat balance of the planet by only a fraction as much as our emissions of greenhouse gases are doing today.
Violent change
There is more evidence of abrupt and violent change, most of it culled from ice cores, lake sediments, tree rings and other natural archives of climate. We now know that the last ice age was not a stable cold era but near-permanent climate change. Towards the end, around 11,000 years ago, average temperatures in parts of the Arctic rose by 16C or more within a decade. Alley believes it happened within a single year, though he says the evidence in the ice cores is not precise enough to prove it.
All this comes as a surprise to us because, in the 10,000 or so years since the end of the last ice age, the climate has been, relatively speaking, stable. We have had warm periods and mini ice ages; but they were little compared with events before.
It is arguable that this rather benign world has been the main reason why our species was able to leave the caves and create the urban, industrial civilisation we enjoy today. Our complex society relies on our being able to plant crops and build cities, knowing that the rains will come and the cities will not be flooded by incoming tides. When that certainty fails, as when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans last year, even the most sophisticated society is brought to its knees.
But there is a growing fear among scientists that, thanks to man-made climate change, we are about to return to a world of climatic turbulence, where tipping points are constantly crossed. Their research into the workings of the planet's ecosystems suggests why such sudden changes have happened in the past, and are likely again in future.
One driver of fast change in the past has been abrupt movements of carbon between the atmosphere and natural reservoirs such as the rainforests and the oceans. Hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide can burp into the atmosphere, apparently at the flick of a switch.
That is why the Met Office's warning that the Amazon rainforest could die by mid-century, releasing its stored carbon from trees and soils into the air, is so worrying. And why we should take serious note when Peter Cox, professor of climate systems at Exeter University, warns that the world's soils, which have been soaking up carbon for centuries, may be close to a tipping beyond which they will release it all again.
Other threats lurk on the horizon. We know that there are trillions of tonnes of methane, a virulent greenhouse gas, trapped in permafrost and in sediments beneath the ocean bed. There are fears this methane may start leaking out as temperatures warm. It seems this happened 55m years ago, when gradual warming of the atmosphere penetrated to the ocean depths and unlocked the methane, which caused a much greater warming that resulted in the extinction of millions of species.
All this suggests that, in one sense, the climate sceptics are right. They say the future is much less certain than the climate models predict. They have a point. We know less than we think. But the sceptics are wrong in concluding that the models have been exaggerating the threat. Far from it. Evidence emerging in the past five years or so suggests the presence of many previously unknown tipping points that could trigger dangerous climate change.
Can we call a halt? Hansen says we have 10 years to turn things round and escape disaster. James Lovelock, author of the Gaia theory, which considers the Earth a self-regulated living being, reckons we are already past the point of no return. I don't buy that. For one thing, there is no single point of no return. We have probably passed some, but not others. The water may be lapping at our ankles, but I am not ready to head for the hills yet. I'm an optimist.
· Fred Pearce is author of The Last Generation - How Nature Will Take Her Revenge for Climate Change, Eden Project Books, £12.99. To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop

[tbentl]

I realize that autos, industry, etc. are a cause for the global warming, but I'm more convinced that the cause is cyclical too. There appears to be an overabundance of data on everything for everything.

[goodgollymissmolly]

I suspect that we are ruining the planet, but I don't expect it to stop. It isn't what we do, but instaed the number of people doing it. Overpopulation is the problem and nobody will touch that issue with a ten foot pole.

In the 60's the Population Bomb and other books caused a long term reduction in the American birth rate. I guess we really responded to the threat. However, with the help of ignorance and the Pope the remainder of the world kept right on making them babies.

Now the US is said to suffer because we have too few workers and have to send our jobs to China or import Indians and Mexicans to make up for the shortfall. It is not possible to reduce sex and apparently not possible to reduce the results of same. So the human part of the planet is doomed. I guess bugs will go on...maybe, maybe not...who knows. I guess I'll get to depart this world before the starvation and disease get too bad. Oh Well!!

[Magnus A]

No alternative for me!
I would like to se the alternative:

I knew it was realy bad but I will try to make it right!

/Magnus

[quiltergal]

I think it's really interesting that the thing that surely has the most impact on our current climate has been pretty much ignored. Isn't anybody interested in the effects the SUN has on our climate and weather patterns?

[watsgw1155]

Make no mistake; anyone who has lived in FL, IL, CO, CA and pretty much any other state has seen a change - especially when it comes to plant life. If people haven't noticed, then they aren't paying attention. Stop listening to the corrupt petroleum-fed Administration in Washington DC and open your eyes.

Global warming is real and not to be taken lightly. We have turned a blind eye toward the situation for far too long - just like Reagan did with AIDS and we all know how that turned out.

[Ross]

Funny thing is there are just two groups of people causing all the problems. There are the consumers who have a lust for fossil fuel consuming vehicles and processes (such as barbeque grills) and the folks who don't understand that clear-cutting their forests will one day spell their doom. It's pretty easy to blame those who live in central america/northern south america where the largest block of frorests remain, but we in the US are just as much to blame (as are other countries and continents) where more temperate forests have been reduced to subdivisions to provide yuppies a place to live. Ian McHarg, in his rather eye-opening book "Design With Nature", proposed that human beings live on the land base least important for farming or forests (like mountain areas). How strange that was, and I bet very few here have ever heard of this book, because it got little press - see it doesn't support the American "make a buck" attitude. Want me to get on a soap box, or has this been enough?

[shakkai]

I've been reading books on Self-Sufficiency to prepare - because the time is coming, and its probably coming within my lifetime. I was just commenting this morning that our weather now always seems to the 'something-est' - this past summer was the wettest, last winter was the warmest, the summer before that was the hottest, the winter before that was the driest. Wonder what this winter will be?

Ross, thanks for pointing out that book... I've not read it, but its now on the list! I'm currently reading "A Handmade Life" by W.M.S. Coperthwaite - this one doesn't support the 'make a buck' attitude either. I think overall consumerism has a lot more to answer for than just global warming.

Step on up on that soap box!!

[Tindomul]

Perhaps, the Coldest Shakkai.
Can you tell me more about this self sufficiency book? I have a feeling I'm gonna need it

[Tindomul]

Here is some news on the subject:
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer 46 minutes ago

If there's one document on global warming policymakers might put in their briefcase, this would be it. On Monday, scientists and government officials gather in Valencia, Spain to put together the fourth and last U.N. report on the state of global warming and what it will mean to hundreds of millions of people whose lives are being dramatically altered.

Unlike the past three tomes, this one will have little new data. Instead, it will distill the previous work into a compact guide of roughly 30 pages that summarizes complex science into language politicians and bureaucrats can understand.
It will be the first point of reference for negotiators meeting next month in Bali, Indonesia, to decide the future course of the worldwide push to curb greenhouse gas emissions after the 2012 expiration of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark agreement that assigned binding reduction targets to 36 countries.
The last of four reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "integrates all the elements, the connections between them," said one of its authors, Bert Metz, of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
U.N. officials delayed the Bali meeting by several months until after the report is released, expecting it would add political momentum to the conference.
Though the IPCC was created in 1988 to assess the science of global warming, its work gathered a momentum this year that has helped reshape opinion in the public and governments. In the ultimate validation, the IPCC's warnings of man-induced climate change shared the Nobel Peace prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, the world's best known global warming campaigner.
"The reactions that I heard from politicians around the world is that they were shocked by the reports and that they should be acted on," said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official.
The United States, Australia and many developing countries that shunned the Kyoto treaty are now ready to begin discussing a successor agreement at the Bali conference, De Boer said.
"There is a growing consensus that Bali needs to achieve a breakthrough to put negotiations in place, and that's very encouraging," he said. "But it's not going to be a piece of cake."
The studies issued earlier this year painted a dire picture of a planet in which unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive average temperatures up as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
Even a 2-degree-Celsius (3.6-degree-Fahrenheit) rise could subject up to 2 billion people to water shortages by 2050 and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, the IPCC said.
The consequences for mankind are legion: while some people will go thirsty from lack of rain, millions more will suffer devastating floods; diseases will proliferate; the food supply may at first increase in some areas, but will plummet later; countries that are now poor will grow still poorer.
The scientists set out a basket of technological options to keep the temperature rise to the minimum, with investments amounting to about 3 percent of the world's gross domestic product — far less than what the IPCC said it would cost later to fix the damage caused by higher temperature increases.
Campaigners are looking for the final "synthesis report" to emphasize the action governments can take, the consequences of inaction and the brief time remaining to put that action into gear.
"We would want to emphasize the urgency which comes from the science," said Stephanie Tunmore of the Greenpeace environmental group. "We know what's happening, we know what's causing it, and we know what we have to do about it."
A draft report of about 60 pages — distilling the previous three reports totaling more than 4,000 pages — has been circulating for months to governments, environmentalists and scientists for comment. The authors gathered in Valencia last week to incorporate some of the comments into the final draft.
Starting Monday, delegations from 145 countries meeting in this Spanish Mediterranean city will review the Summary for Policymakers, the critical document that becomes the single most important reference for nonscientists.
Each line must be adopted by consensus — and sometimes the use of a single word can be heatedly contested.
The final document is due to be released Saturday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's presence at the unveiling is meant to underscore its importance.
"I expect some scuffling over the final language," especially over the urgency and the level of certainty of some predicted events, said Peter Altman, of the Washington-based lobby National Environmental Trust.
Despite the haggling, the political input into a scientific document is essential, because governments cannot later disown it.
"After the summary is approved, it becomes the property of the governments," said Metz, who was one of about 40 scientists working on the final draft. "It becomes difficult for them to ignore the conclusions that they were subscribing to."