Opens can of worms....Global Warming

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by MantaBase

I almost feel like saying "worthy opponent" - but you are not an opponent I suspect.

Nope, just a like minded individual that likes swapping information to get the most out of a situation.

What got me more was when I heard the cooler waters were already carbonate rich. See, bringing up cold water from below via stronger currents won't work as a sink. That water is already saturated...In fact, it makes it worse because as that water warms at the surface it releases CO2 (hopefully as a precipitate - but I bet its a gas).

Then we're in agreement. The ocean is the main carbon sink, the land based ones are insignificant compared to it (globally, on a local scale they are essential). I pointed out that the atmosphere is not where we should be looking, but at the varying temps of the ocean at different levels. It's a massive entity, the ocean is, upwards on the scale that most brains can't comprehend just how much water is there. A hundred years of slightly higher temps dotted between a years of normal temperature is not going to have much if any of an impact on it.
Like you said, the deep colder water is already saturated with absorbed carbon, but if the surface temps are warming it won't effectively absorb carbon and other gases from the atmosphere.
However, think of it like this. If it is just a human influenced event, with no outside interaction from solar or volcanic activity, then how long would it take to actually heat the ocean enough to where the deep currents warm and release their held carbon stores? The surface temps would more readily rise, yes, and that would have a bad effect on the overall carbon cycle but what I'm talking about are the deep water hotspots often mentioned in Ocean Warming papers and attributed to Global Warming. Has the ocean taken enough heat already in the last 100 years to penetrate down and warm the cold currents often a mile or more under the surface? That's what's got me pondering, that something else like the activity at the Gakkel Ridge could be having an adverse effect on the cold currents in areas of high volcanic activity and making life even worse for us on the surface.

Usually in an area where the water is warm, you get biology picking up the slack for the warm water's lack of carbon sinking ability through reef formation via algae (and yes, it starts with algae first and then moves along). But our reefs are basically crapped out now.

This I agree on. Although most of the coral beds have been destroyed or disrupted due to offshore drilling, runoff pollutants and other fun things humans love to do, a warming trend in the ocean will only serve to slow down or stop their growth.

On land, we have depleted much of our old growth.

Yes, but I wouldn't call old growth forests an actual sink. The carbon they retain is from their own decaying detritus, they're not actually removing gases from the atmosphere any better then any other equal sized tree.

Nearly all of the coal we burn is from great carbon sinks created by swamps. They sink decayed leaves and turn them to carbon.

Coal is found in swamplands that have long since passed and dried up and the rotting material given time to petrify. Much like the forests, the swamps in existence today sink their own detritus and keep it from rotting and releasing. Since it's their own rotting matter, however, without them no rotting matter forms and there's no gases being emitted. The problem is with draining the swamps, like the Everglades where I grew up. If a live and active swamp is drained, then all that muck will rot and generate the problematic gases.

In an irony, because of our dislike of acid rain, sulfer emissions have been greatly reduced world wide (especially in the US) in the last 30 years.

Just merely pointing out it's more then just the various carbon oxides we're emitting.

Now, that I need a citation for. That would surprise me.

Lemme see if I can dig some up...
SitNews: Icy Bay glaciers get up and go By Ned Rozell
Chance discovery: Alaska Range glacier surges
News in Science - Greenland icecap thickens despite warming - 21/10/2005

Seems the Arctic glaciers are in a state of flux, some melting and others growing while others still bounce back and forth.
This one also seems to be in flux:
http://cgip.wetpaint.com/page/Effects+of+Climate+Change+on+Baffin+Island's+Glaci ers?t=anon

Originally Posted by screwballl

I read through some of this and saw that most of the information pretty much all come to the same conclusion... that one of these years in the near future, when the earth has tilted during a normal solstice will keep on tilting until it is partially moved so the new north pole is over Hawaii (an example) or completely move the planet upside down so the poles have reversed placement. this has nothing to do with man, it is something that has happened before.

Hold on, what? The Earth is always at a 33 degree tilt as measure from the position of the poles. That makes no sense at all, the Earth doesn't just randomly dip over in the winter and then right itself in the spring, it is always at that angle (which is theorized to have happened from a Mars sized object striking the planet in it's early formation with enough force to through off it's axis and form the moon from the ejecta). The tilt of the planet has nothing to do with the position of the magnet poles, in fact the planet is only considered tilted because the poles are at an odd angle as opposed to most of the other planets (aside from Uranus, which has an even more crazy angle). The poles flip themselves due to the currents of the molten iron in the core which generate the magnetic field itself.

[RA1D]

what the hell is going on here?

[Jokerswild]

none here

[oldman_gamer]

Originally Posted by RAID

what the hell is going on here?

:deal::dito:

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Hold on, what? The Earth is always at a 33 degree tilt as measure from the position of the poles. That makes no sense at all, the Earth doesn't just randomly dip over in the winter and then right itself in the spring, it is always at that angle (which is theorized to have happened from a Mars sized object striking the planet in it's early formation with enough force to through off it's axis and form the moon from the ejecta). The tilt of the planet has nothing to do with the position of the magnet poles, in fact the planet is only considered tilted because the poles are at an odd angle as opposed to most of the other planets (aside from Uranus, which has an even more crazy angle). The poles flip themselves due to the currents of the molten iron in the core which generate the magnetic field itself.

In general, the rotation versus the magnetic tilt is closely in alignment, the present 23 degree being an aberration. The last pole shift, during the Jewish Exodus, was violent and quick, the passage so close and rapid that the ocean rifts were ripped wide enough to drop the ocean 16-20', as has been measured, as the shift no sooner started than stopped. This was a lurching, ramming effect to the plates, which bumped into each other and ricocheted and ripped. Therefore, because of the quick and violent nature of the last pole shift, there is a difference between the geographic and magnetic poles, which usually tend to be closer than 10 degrees. It is anticipated the next passage to be more in alignment, although it will be many decades before the survivors can determine where the magnetic north and south poles are, due to the period of time the core takes to settle down and demonstrate its regular resonance.

One explanation is the merging of another galaxy with our own and in close enough proximity to our own solar system to be a cause for concern:
One of the closest satellites of our galaxy, the dwarf elliptical galaxy SagDEG, lies less than a hundred thousand light-years from our galaxy, and is being torn to pieces by its gravity. Recent studies show that there is a torus of debris from this devastation -- the Sagittarius tidal stream -- scattered around our galaxy, as shown in the artist's conception above. Over time, larger galaxies in a cluster of galaxies, such as our Local Group, assimilate fragments from other galaxies which may retain their individual motions, if not their individual structure, for long periods of time before interactions with passing stars sufficiently disturb their motions to conceal their origins. (Note: The odd designation of SagDEG is intended to distinguish it from the much more distant dwarf irregular galaxy, SagDIG.) (David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA) & Gabriel Perez (IAC), apod050529)
SagDEG is one of the most recently discovered members of the Local Group, and is currently in a very close encounter to our Milky Way galaxy.
Globular cluster M54 coincides with one of the galaxy's two bright knots, and is also receding at about the same velocity. It may also be at the same distance (about 88,000 light years), so probably M54 is the first "extragalactic" globular ever discovered (by Charles Messier in 1778), or a recent immigrant to the globular cluster system of our Milky Way galaxy. When SagDEG will be disrupted after the current encounter, M54 and the other at least three globulars of this dwarf (Arp 2, Terzan 7 and Terzan 8, which are all much fainter than M54) will be the "remnants", while the other stars will be spread over the galactic halo, or escape as intergalactic travelers. The globulars will perhaps be captured and find their place in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy. There are several other Milky Way globular clusters which are suspected to have been captured from SagDEG: NGC 4147, Palomar 2, Palomar 12, and recently discovered Whiting 1 (Van den Bergh 2007).
Because of the extreme intrinsic luminosity of M54 in comparison to the other globular clusters associated with SagDEG, it has been speculated early that M54 may be the nucleus of this dwarf galaxy, or the remnant of its nucleus (Bassino and Muzzio, 1995).

now what effect this will have on us and our planet is unknown but it could cause major problems or nothing may happen at all....

edit: found that another galaxy that is only 25,000 light years from our own solar system may cause more of a disruption than SagDEG. It is the Canis Major dwarf galaxy.
Press Release

the moon affects our rotation and revolution slightly....
http://library.thinkquest.org/29033/...barycenter.gif

http://library.thinkquest.org/29033/...rbitwobble.jpg

and with each wobble it gets closer to throwing things "off center" as we know it...

[screwballl]

found a great website which I think explains more about the so called "global warming" than anything man made called Milankovitch Cycles

Milankovitch Cycles

[Jokerswild]

I've read about the cycles and there's scientists on both sides of this issue so it's going to be up in the air until there's more of a consensus among scientists.

[azianai]

personally like many others here i think its a totally natural thing and just blown way out of proportion for political benefits. I doubt man has caused any severe significant change to the weather. And the nobel peace prize for gore is a fucking joke, he's the biggest hypocrite on this matter, his house alone takes up more energy than my entire block. He says he pays more to use more, kinda like preaching one thing and doing another.
Now i got a little nagging thought that'll totally prob go into left field with this discussion, but why is it the USA is always expected to be 1st in line to do anything that'll "benefit" the world? Everyone looks at us to "cut consumption, go green" etc. Now think about this for a sec, if the US decides to cut its dependency on fossil fuel, does that mean that consumption will be saved? Absolutely not. China and India will jump right on that surplus to power their countries. So the USA "cutting down" in the end has no lasting effect whatsoever. I can speak as a Chinese (generalizing because im from taiwan but the whole 1 china thing is a whole other can of worm) that China/Taiwan don't give 2 craps, they want to build themselves up economically.

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by azianai

...why is it the USA is always expected to be 1st in line to do anything that'll "benefit" the world? Everyone looks at us to "cut consumption, go green" etc.

Well in this case, we are the #1 contributer with China a closing second. When you ask if anyone can "cut back", do you ask the 90 pound weakling or the 800 pound gorilla? We are the later. But, BTW - the others counties (outside of China) were also asked and already agreed to step up to the plate. We were not the "only ones asked".

Now think about this for a sec, if the US decides to cut its dependency on fossil fuel, does that mean that consumption will be saved?

Yes, in the US - in the country that is the #1 consumer right now.

Absolutely not. China and India will jump right on that surplus to power their countries.

Maybe thats true. But here is a fallacy. If we cut back and are not #1, then someone else has to be - that doesn't mean we make no difference. Further, they are going to do what they do anyway - regardless of us (or US). There are actually counties that have no dependence on oil in South America. We are not one of the (well, obviously we are not in South America but you get what I'm saying), but we could be if we invested the R&D required. As for what China and India do - if we isolate ourselves from oil dependably, who give a fly rats butt about them. They have come to the oil table 100 years late - they will suffer for it. TO use them as an excuse to continue our current trend serves them more than us really.

So the USA "cutting down" in the end has no lasting effect whatsoever.

All actions have a lasting effect.

I can speak as a Chinese (generalizing because im from taiwan but the whole 1 china thing is a whole other can of worm) that China/Taiwan don't give 2 craps, they want to build themselves up economically.

Well said - I bet a lot of people don't know that - and even after you said it don't really understand that part of the culture.

But the question is, they are just waking up to the end of the 19th century (all be it with 21st century knock offs), so why should we even bother competing with them for the sake of competing?

No matter how you look at it, "going green" is the future - one way or another. So why not get the jump in and do it now and let those throw back rot on it?

BTW - China is changing it's tune and may sign on to the Kyoto before even us. They may be stubborn but not stupid.

But really, I look at it all like this -- Our room is dirty. Our parents say so. They give us shit. Our brother uses us to not clean his room by pointing out our room is dirty. We get stubborn and point out his room is dirty. Nothing gets done and everyone is stressed out, freaked out and pissed off and has dirty rooms.

Why not just clean our room and then our parents and brother can both STFU. We can then move on and invite the hot ladies over - while brother and parents stew in thier mess.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by MantaBase

Why not just clean our room and then our parents and brother can both STFU. We can then move on and invite the hot ladies over - while brother and parents stew in thier mess.

Haha, well said Manta. Chicks dig a man in green.

The point is simply that the US has a population of roughly 300 million. China has around a billion. We use more then China, so that's saying something right there. Also, assume the US goes completely green and stops importing oil and burning coal (yes, laugh with me folks). That would make a huge impact, even though there will be a lot more excess fossil fuels, its not like China and India are going to buy them all up and horde them like a dragon over its treasure. The companies and government will continue to spend only what they need, oils expensive, it makes no sense to import and therefore spend more then they'll actually use if they want to make a profit.