h a l f b a k e r y0.5 and holding.
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I'll illustrate using the
specific example of
Burlington,
VT.
Gorgeous place. I'd love to
live there (as I'm sure a lot
of people would,) but it's
just
too dang cold in the winter. I
live near Boston, and it's bad
enough down here, but
Burlington is downright arctic
in Jan/Feb.
Now
I know global warming is
only supposed to affect
average
global temperatures by, like,
a
degree or two max over the
next
20 years, or something. But
weather patterns are fragile
creatures (e.g. the effects of
El Nino). What if that one
degree rise was enough to
shift
things around so that
Burlington dipped below 0 F
only once per winter instead
of
8, and added an extra month
of nice weather at the
beginning and tail-end of
summer. Suddenly Burlington
becomes a kick-ass,
year-round-hospitable town.
[link]
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Since the average temperature of the Earth's surface is 14.1deg C (about 57.4 deg F) I am personally unconvinced that another 2deg C will make all that much difference. The Earth has been warming steadily since the early 1800's, when the "little ice age", which began about 1400AD, abated. Coincidentally, the Industrial Revolution began to power up as it was ending. CO2 levels have been much higher than current levels at many times in the past. |
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6,000 years ago, during the Holocene Maximum, it was about 1.5C warmer than today and the Sahara desert was a green forest of lakes and swamps. Warmer weather may mean more precipitation in previously dry areas such as the arid centre of the US and that of Australia. Burlington may just become a subtropical paradise where bananas and oranges grow all year 'round. |
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In keeping with this idea I would be divesting real assets in Florida, Australia's Gold Coast, Venice and much of the Chesapeake Bay area, as well as low-lying areas such as Holland, Belgium, Brittany and Cape Cod. |
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UnaBubba: I'm confused... first you say you don't think 2
degrees will make a difference, then you proceed to
illustrate how 1.5 degrees actually made a tremendous
difference. Did I miss something? |
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kiki: I don't think lbjay intends to cause the global
warming; the idea sounds like it's only to buy land that will
be positively affected and then wait for it to happen on
its own. |
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What UnaBubba may be saying is
that changes of only a few degrees
-- which you'll barely even notice
from a "gee, it's warm outside"
point of view -- can cause drastic
changes in weather patterns,
precipitation, sea levels, and
ecology (especially marine ecology). |
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So, global warming that is an
unadulterated disaster from an
environmental point of view may
leave the winters just as cold as
ever, as far as you're concerned.
In fact, in some areas, the
winters may be even colder. |
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On the other hand, UB may be in
the scientifically unsound but
politically fashionable "global
warming is a myth" camp. Who can
say... |
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[waugsqeke] Analysis of air trapped in ice cores provides evidence to show what the atmosphere was like up to 100,000 years ago. Then, atmospheric changes shown by ice core analysis can be correlated with the effects of climatic changes such as extinctions and changes in vegetation cover which are shown in the geological record. Then, high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere at the moment imply imminent climatic change... |
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How about Globally Forewarned Real Estate? |
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With this varient you look for correlations between property prices and tmeperature/climate variations due to the theory that collectively the housing market might be able to predict castrophic global conditions ... |
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Don't think of it in terms of getting warmer. Think of it as
so much more energy being put into a chaotic system
that already had the ability to kill thousands at random
and destroy billions in property.
Think of it as even more power to move air and water
towards you at high speeds. If you're unsure what that
means just ask the people of Houston who now measure
rainfall in feet. |
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sirrobin is right (and I agree mostly with waugs as well). The only thing we can know is that in the short term, we have upped the C02 level in the atmosphere. IN the short term (again) this increases the amount of energy trapped in the atmosphere. It doesn't mean that the temperature will necessarily go up. The global average might, but the more relevant issue is the increase in energy in the system, which is likely to cause more severe weather systems in the future, more hurricanes, more flooding etc.
I have yet to see a reliable predictor of what will happen to cloud cover under this principle and how much more of the sun's energy will be reflected back as a result (the Gaia theory, though mostly claptrap, is right in one extent that these things do reach an equilibrium).
The only thing I would say against waugs argument is that while it is true most of these changes in the past have happened in geological time, so has the increase in CO2 levels. The natural effects which balance the equilibrium (such as warmer seas producing more shellfish whose shells act as a major CO2 sink, for instance) will not have time to react to the current increase which is in a much shorter time span. The likelihood, therefore, is that in the short term, the global average temperature will rise due to this effect - but only in relation to this effect.
I don't think it makes it absolute guesswork - it is the most likely overall scenario in the short term. But this is not a one way street - the natural effects which gave us a mini-ice age in the 17th century (which appears to be mostly down to the solar cycle and an almost absence of sunspots in this period) will also continue to occur, and therefore, the temperature over the next hundred years is almost impossible to predict, in which sentiment I agree with waugs entirely. |
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What I was saying is that 'unadulterated disaster' is a relative term. |
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Global warming won't much affect the Earth, rather our perception of things. We will believe it's terrible because our cities will go underwater but the planet will sail merrily along on its way as it's always done. We are a relatively unimportant mammal species in the grand scheme. The global warming we are experiencing may just be an accelerated extension of the warming trend already in place. |
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The Mediaeval warming experienced from 1000-1300AD saw wine grapes growing 300 miles farther north than they do currently. It saw habitation on Greenland and a population on Iceland at a level double what it was by the 1600's. Famine killed off those immobile people as the Earth cooled a few degrees during the Little Ice Age. We are hardly as immobile any more. The Little Ice Age was not continuous in its effect... glaciers grew and receded rapidly (sometimes following the intervention of the local priest) and temperatures fluctuated wildly. It all may have occurred because of a 1% drop in power output by the sun, no-one knows. |
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Much of the "Chicken Little" brigade is predicting the end of the planets ecology. Not so, it will simply be different. Our civilisation may well be radically altered by the changes. Farmers may become the nouveau riche as their substantially higher ground assumes importance as potential sites for new conurbations. Social upheaval is almost certain. The building industry will boom for a very long time if our realty from 0-200 ft ASL is inundated. Is this 'unadulterated disaster'? It is for those people who don't take a gamble early and move up into the hills. The Catholic church, famous for taking up real estate on hilltops may find many of their urban churches are on islands within 500 years. |
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I read an interesting proposal recently that "The Great Flood" referred to in the bible may well have been sudden inundation of the Caspian coastline. The Mediterranean had risen several hundred feet with the recession of the last ice age and broke through the Dardanelles Strait and filled the Caspian Sea up by about 300 feet. Many cultures relate floods of almost mythic proportions in their history. Will this one spell the end of mankind? Probably not. |
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Finally, we won't feel any different, as the temperature change is quite marginal by our standards of physical comfort. More to the point, we have no idea what will happen. We can't accurately predict the temperature next month, let alone next century. |
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Within a few decades, British wine will be the best available as current wine-producing regions will have to suffer desertification or else sinking under the rising waves. |
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Buy land in the north of Scotland and prepare it as a future holiday camp. |
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Nobody mentions the sea level rising affecting real-estate prices. When I moved 17 years ago I checked that the house was more than 200 feet above sea level, so that even if all the ice in the world melts, I and my heirs will have somewhere to live.. Yet NOBODY ever considers this! They stlll buy, at high prices, in areas a few feet above sea level. |
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Isn't Venice already flooded? |
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