Global warming-I know the answer

[Geog3]

Well its always worried me when the Earth might end due to global warming. I now think that the world is starting over. And the next 'World' you might say in 300 years will be blank and a ice age will happen. Its a weird thought I know but what if the world has done this before? and they were other people thinking this previously in the worlds history. Therefore why not plant a device deep under ground with a set timer for like 500 million years on the clock. Then errupt when the time has been matched. Its just weird how the whole earth could end and thats the whole exsistance of us gone. Maybe it's happened before.

 

G-Wizz.

[herpguy]

Did you get this idea off of "The Day After Tomorrow?" What evidence do you have? Why do you think this will happen?

 

Here's what I think: The chance of earth "ending" from global warming is very real. Global warming is causing a very wild climate. Europe will begain to cool down in the next ten years or so (I'll explain later), Africa will face extreme drought, Gulf Coast and East Coast states in the U.S. may just about be destroyed by hurricanes, the rainforests of Central and South America will be destroyed by fire, the artic will mealt, and a lot more. So you may be on to something.

 

Have you ever heard of the Snowball Earth Theory? During this period of time the entire earth was covered with ice. It took millions of years for this to happen. Afterward, there was a huge oxygen supply that the melting oceans gave. The oxygen allowed life to become more complex, and this may be why you and me are here. Is this, or something like it, what you think will happen soon? Please reply, your theory sounds interesting, I just want more evidence.

[Geog3]

yea, I know its a weird theory however it seems possible, because of all the resources dieing out, and then maybe getting re-built/formed during the ice age and millions of years before we are here. It gives the fossil fuels etc more time to form and humans to get here.

Also whil we're on the subject, have you ever heard of the theory where the Earth When it first started (in this case before dinosaurs etc) when bactirias mixed with grass/moss and reacted and over millions of years formed us. Or formed apes, then us.

[YT2095]

in future, Please keep this kind of erm... yeah whatever, OUT OF the Chemistry forums!

[herpguy]

Also whil we're on the subject, have you ever heard of the theory where the Earth When it first started (in this case before dinosaurs etc) when bactirias mixed with grass/moss and reacted and over millions of years formed us. Or formed apes, then us.

Umm...no?

[bascule]

As more regional climate vulnerabilities are exposed people will begin looking for regional level solutions. Right now people are relatively unaffected by both regional and global warming effects, and therefore while alarmism runs strong very little is actually done in terms of moving to a solution.

[herpguy]

But we will be effected later on, and that's why I think we should do something now before it's actually a major problem. Then we will be prepared if something expected to happen gradually happens suddenly.

[insane_alien]

politicians don't understand how fudged up a system can get from a tiny disturbance. They don't have very much foresight in this and don't believe the expert because they can't see any of the effects. when the effects are glaringly obvious and its too late anyway then they will try and do something.

[herpguy]

Why don't polititions know from experience?

 

There are already some minor effects of global warming, as demonstrated to the gulf coast u.s. residents in 2005. Or does this mean it's already too late?Maybe it's partly our fault, maybe we have to do more protests, or send more letters, or do whatever we can to change the views of world leaders.

[tejaswini]

Why don't polititions know from experience?

 

Maybe it's partly our fault' date=' maybe we have to do more protests, or send more letters, or do whatever we can to change the views of world leaders.[/quote']

not partly but entirely our fault.we have to do something fast and quick or as

Geog3 says our world will turn towards ice age in less than 300 years of time.protests and stuff will not change the mind of leaders there has to be some kind of a fear that should creep among them, they should be threatened

that they will loose their lives first before us. then may be they will act.

[silkworm]

Well its always worried me when the Earth might end due to global warming.

 

I'd just like to clarify here that if global warming kills us all (which is unlikely because of the word "all") the Earth will be fine. If the human species disappears, that doesn't mean the Earth will be deleted. The Earth is unlikely to end until it is swallowed by the sun several billion years from now, barring any unseen very catastrophic events. The most expected effects of global warming are costal flooding/islands disappearing due to sea levels rising, radical climate shifts, and eventually a new ice age. These changes will no doubt cause mass migrations and probably many deaths, but I'm sure the human species will still survive because we adapt very well, although we thrived during a period when the Earth was relatively cool compared to it's history.

 

To illustrate I've ripped off a graph from a site I highly recommend that you visit http://www.scotese.com/. It's a site about the history of Earth. I don't know how well you read graphs so allow me to explain. The extreme left is 22'C, which is a very comfortable room temperature for us, but it's warm for a global temperature. The extreme right of the graph is 12'C. The top of the graph is where we are today. As you can see our species has thrived while the temperature was at the extreme right of the graph, and now we're approaching the left, an extreme for us but by no means an extreme for the Earth.

 

 

I do understand where your concern is coming from, and my advice to you is to learn as much about it as you can. Ignorance is the cause of many things, including fear. Sounds like you're curious about nature. I'd study science if I were you, it's amazing how powerful it makes you to do so.

 

politicians don't understand how fudged up a system can get from a tiny disturbance.

 

I too worry about reaching a point of no return that permanently changes atmospheric composition. Also, it's not the job of politicians to care about anything but getting elected. It's our job to care. And if they don't care about what we care about, we fire their asses so one of us can get in there. I know this is hard to do when the ignorant's hunger for comfort is what dominates a democracy, but it can be done. We can either do it, or the ignorant will become less ignorant when they become uncomfortable.

 

What is also concerning me is this bizarre winter we seem to be having. It's not just in Kansas either.

[bascule]

Not sure what they mean by "average global temperature" but I'm going to guess that's a series of approximations of Global Mean Surface Temperature.

 

I work for a research group that studies climate vulnerabilities, particularly on the regional scale, and that really is the important issue. If you're interested, my boss has blogged extensively on the vulnerability paradigm:

 

http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/category/water-vulnerability/

[mr d]

Hello

 

First off are we experiencing global warming, the answer is yes. Is mankind totally responsible, the answer is no. The earth through out its history has gone through periods of warming and cooling in cycles, times of global warming and ice ages. At times the planet has nearly been completely covered in ice, and at other almost void. The Earth manages to survive. Can mankind prevent this from happening, the answer is no, the Earth will go through these cycles.

What is now the problem is that activities carried out by human kind are showing signs of effecting the speed and intensity of an approaching warming period. It will warm, but will that be by 3 to 4 degrees or by 10 to 15 degrees. Will it take 3 to 4 thousand years to fully develop or just a few hundred. With a longer time humans will adapt or migrate to new living areas, being able to rebuild their cities and discover new ways of producing and finding new crops to feed themselves.

If it happens too quickly the human species may not have the time to adapt itself, nor would more importantly our domestic livestock. Cows, pigs, sheep, and goats can only survive so high a temperature rise. Same is true for most major rice, corn, and wheat varieties of cultivated plants. Remember it was the retreat of the last major ice age a few thousand years ago during which cultivatable wheat first showed in Europe. One of the major reasons civilizations was able to begin developing there.

Also much of current civilization, cities and farmlands or in areas where a high raising of the temperature and melting of the ice sheets would flood many large cities (New York, San Diego, Sydney) that already sit near sea level. Plus how many major cities lie in low areas that were once flood plains (Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo). What happens to these people, millions of them, where would they go and how could huge high-rise cities be swiftly built to house them, or power supplies built to provide lighting and heating. How much of the earth’s best farming land would suddenly be under water. America’s Midwest which supplies much of the world’s grain was an inland sea last time the caps melted.

Plus how will people react if there is this huge sudden migration of people, if northern Africa became to hot for people to live, would Europe welcome these people as southern Africa does not have the means to support them. Or what if American’s had to move northward into Canada, what if Canada refused to take in American citizens.

Last time there was a minor temperature drop that caused what many consider a mini ice age was in 16th-17th century. If you look at history you will see the political problems being faced by European nations at that time. As the cold brought on large amounts of crop loss, those who had did not care to share, and those who did not where quite willing to try and take it. Plus this failure in food supplies lead to a great social upheaval and lead to changes and downfalls of a number of governments.

 

Think about it this way. You live in the woods where lightning strikes cause the occasional wildfire. Now you are outside throwing your left over gasoline out the back door. Damages the area and makes it and unpleasant place to live but you can survive alright, but then one day that wildfire just happens to come your way.

 

The Earth will survive this global warming, we may be another question.

 

Strange thoughts

 

Mr d

[tejaswini]

Hello

 

First off are we experiencing global warming' date=' the answer is yes. Is mankind totally responsible, the answer is no[/color'].

so we are not responsible, are u aying that this process is spontaneous? how is that possible

i thought that global warming was basically because of the increased amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. isn't it .i'm not very deep into the subject, so excuse me.

[mr d]

Hello

 

In response to your question.

Yes it is normal for the Earth’s temperature to change. But also yes you should still be worried.

Just take a look at where you live; doe the temperature always stay the same? Or does it change with the seasons, which are in fact, related to the earth’s orbital pattern around the sun, plus the earth’s pivoting on its axis (the reason for seasons being reversed in northern and southern hemispheres). Can mankind effect that orbit or tilting of the earth, for the most part no. The seasons will change no matter.

But can people effect weather? Since you seem interested in researching these matters, look into acid rain and its effects on forests. Rain, very natural; the chemicals humans dump into the atmosphere not quite so normal.

That is the problem here, there are temperature shifts on the earth (remember all those ice ages, plus time when it rose and there were almost no polar caps), but is what we are doing going to cause those effects to be far more severe that they might be otherwise.

Perhaps the earth normally warms it over time by a few degrees or loses a few degrees. For most life forms if given time they can adapt to the changes, with even species of plants and animals may dying out due to climatic changes, to be replaced by other species. Example here: think wooly mammoth. Developed during the last major ice age, when the earth’s temperature rose once again it could not adapt to temperature change and loss of feeding areas and died out (also possibly further aided by hunting by humans with newer hunting technology and\or perhaps new diseases created by changing conditions). Yet other related animals did survive to evolve into African and Asia elephants.

What we are seeing here is that emission and industrial gases produced by humans are increasing the normal greenhouse effect more rapidly and perhaps more severely than what would happen if mankind was not around. Think what would happen if temperature worldwide sudden increased 20 or 30 degrees. How many areas of the earth would become uninhabitable to humans? How would our crops fair, could we find enough water to supply plants more use to a cooler temperature? In the sea the food chain starts with plankton that are themselves sensitive to temperature variations. You kill off the plankton fish that survive on them die, and then the larger fish that eat those fish starve and die and so on down the line.

All that sound rather melodramatic, and chances are mankind will survive, the question is what measure will we have to take to survive, and what type of world will it be when all is said and done. It would be a very good bet it would not be the world you are accustomed to now.

And by the way if you think a greenhouse effect is all bad, remember that it’s a greenhouse effect that helps to keep heat trapped here on earth now. A quick way to see this is go out on a winter night when you have cloud cover, and one when there’s not a cloud in the sky see which is warmer. Heat emanating from the earth is being reflected back from the clouds raising temperature. Natural, man dumping to many gases into the atmosphere increasing this effect bad.

 

Bit rambling there but hope some help

Mr d

[Y-S]

ice caps are already happening fast

[rising moon]

@silkworm

I wonder why our earth up and down?what is meaning of it?

trend our world is global warming with no stop polluting earth. do we get disaster, ...soon because of it...?

[dehammer]

if man is responsible for global warming, what cause it to start 14000 years ago.

[silkworm]

@silkworm

I wonder why our earth up and down?what is meaning of it?

trend our world is global warming with no stop polluting earth. do we get disaster' date=' ...soon because of it...?[/quote']

 

I'm not 100% sure I understand your question. Sometimes the earth is cooler, sometimes the earth is warmer. We've been leaving a cool period. There are many factors responsible for this. Solar output, geologic activity, atmosphere composition, contribution by biological organisms etc. The earth is definitely warming up. The ice caps are definitely melting. How much our burning our burning of fossil fuels has contributed to it, I cannot comment on. All of this excess water now flowing and high temperatures will cause climate shifts, flooding, and of course disasters. Realitively soon. I'm expecting to see significant effects in my lifetime (I'm 25). The odd weather of this entire year seems to be an indication of that.

 

The contribution of greenhouse gases to this phenomenon is still trying to be understood, though studies generally indicate that it is significant. However, I'm not sure how the trend can be remedied without Herculelian technological feats. We're probably going to adapt, and, though I'm sure many will die, I think we'll be okay as a species. Global warming will not be the end of man kind.

 

I hope that answers your question.

[MacroQuantum]

Stil, the orginal theory is an interesting one. I would find it highly ironic if, having acheived so much in the terms of technology, we were knocked back into the stone age by weather.

 

Although I'm not sure I could actually say as far back as the stone age. Certainly our technology would take a hard hit if circumstances got servere enough.

[neo007]

if man is responsible for global warming, what cause it to start 14000 years ago.

 

It could be that global warming is a natural phenomena, but is being speeded up by human influences

[reyam200]

is it possible that humans 10,000 years ago had some of the technology that we have today? isnt that when the atlantiens were supposed to live. also alot of the technology that the egyptions had has bein burried for centries.

 

a global warming or ice age could wash away Alot of the remnetns of a lost civillization. the Proof could be at the bottum of a trench in the ocean.

[SkepticLance]

Reyam.

Your Atlantis idea cannot be correct, since there have been glacial periods interspersed by interglacial warmings going back the best part of a million years - to well before humans existed. When there were no humans around, they could not have been responsible for global warming.

 

Herpguy.

For your information, snowball Earth, or its ending was not responsible for our oxygen atmosphere. That was released by cyanobacteria, who were the first living things capable of photosynthesis. Remnants of cyanobacteria have been dated back to 3.5 billion years BP. The entire run of snowball Earth was between 500 and 800 million years BP.

 

What caused the interglacial warmings, including our most recent one 14,000 years ago? The leading theory (for which there is significant evidence) is periodic shifts in the Earth's orbit. Incidentally, the previous interglacial, 120,000 years BP, led to global temperatures 5 Deg. C warmer than we have today. So there is plenty of scope for further warming by purely natural mechanisms in the present interglacial.

 

Some of you are getting to the end of the Earth. For your information, the most likely end to life on Earth is set for 400 to 500 million years hence. Not being engulfed by the sun (that will happen in about 5000 million years), but falling victim to the simple fact that the sun is slowly getting hotter and bigger. In 400 million years, the sun will be hot enough to raise the Earth's surface temperature to 100 Deg. C. I doubt there will be too much life left!

 

Of course, there might be a wild-cat event, like an asteroid strike, before that.

[herpguy]

Herpguy.

For your information' date=' snowball Earth, or its ending was not responsible for our oxygen atmosphere. That was released by cyanobacteria, who were the first living things capable of photosynthesis. Remnants of cyanobacteria have been dated back to 3.5 billion years BP. The entire run of snowball Earth was between 500 and 800 million years BP.[/quote']

For your information, I never said it made our oxygen atmosphere. All I said was oxygen levels shot up afterward.

 

Also, when I said the end of the world, I was thinking of when humans either die off, or they are forced to leave the planet.

 

BTW, if the earth floats away from the sun (it loses its gravity when it expands) then another galaxy will crash into the Milky Way to kill us.

[silkworm]

BTW, if the earth floats away from the sun (it loses its gravity when it expands) then another galaxy will crash into the Milky Way to kill us.

 

I can't remember the name of the galaxy, Andromeda?, and us are already on a collision course that will reach us in around 100 million years, long before the sun expands. Our solar system is supposed to be unharmed due to the mind boggling distances between stars.