Global Warming is Stuck in the Ice

[El_Machinae]

And on the other hand, we've had large-scale scientific studies showing that higher CO2 reduces food quality.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13179.html
Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition

 

[Farm Boy]

It's not necessarily a win for agriculture. Increasing temperatures shift fertile and productive bands away from areas that already have been tapped and developed hard for current production. Just take a spin through the grain belts in Murica/Canada if you want a very visible idea of what you need to do to the land to grow what we use now. It will decrease the efficiency of agriculture in those areas while shifting new fertile weather bands to areas that are not developed(as much). You then need to develop infrastructure in those areas, and if they're untapped, you need to turn them into fields. And that isn't even getting into the fact that we irrigate land at unsustainable rates now. It's not so much raw amount of precipitation you get, it's also when and how often you get it. Deluges are destructive rather than productive, often enough, and don't actually reduce the need for irrigation when you aren't getting rain in between them.

 

[CavLancer]

Deniers!

 

[FriendlyFire]

It's not necessarily a win for agriculture. Increasing temperatures shift fertile and productive bands away from areas that already have been tapped and developed hard for current production. Just take a spin through the grain belts in Murica/Canada if you want a very visible idea of what you need to do to the land to grow what we use now. It will decrease the efficiency of agriculture in those areas while shifting new fertile weather bands to areas that are not developed(as much). You then need to develop infrastructure in those areas, and if they're untapped, you need to turn them into fields. And that isn't even getting into the fact that we irrigate land at unsustainable rates now. It's not so much raw amount of precipitation you get, it's also when and how often you get it. Deluges are destructive rather than productive, often enough, and don't actually reduce the need for irrigation when you aren't getting rain in between them.

I figure we will instead just find a way to process red algae blooms into edible algae bread. The amount of agricultural land mass is about to become a lot smaller.

The big losers will be all the countries around the equator which will be extremely warm desert like changes.
Places with fragile ecosystem like the middle east, large parts of America, Africa and Australia

 

[Farm Boy]

Algae has been about to happen for quite a while now.

 

[El_Machinae]

Red algae is toxic, which makes me assume it was sarcastic.

It's 'been about to happen for awhile', but this will be one of those exponential things, where you get very little warning that you're going to hit the elbow of the graph.

 

[Farm Boy]

Red algae is toxic, which makes me assume it was sarcastic.

It's 'been about to happen for awhile', but this will be one of those exponential things, where you get very little warning that you're going to hit the elbow of the graph.

I'm really not sure I buy that. I think like most agriculture there will be profit margins and infrastructure to work out when people finally figure out a way to make it viable. Theory and practice have significant divergence here, I'd wager.

 

[classical_hero]

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/05/226015.htm

FOREIGN MINISTER FABIUS: Well, I’m very happy to be with John. There is no week without a phone call or a visit between John and myself, and we have on the agenda many items, many issues – Iran, because negotiations are resuming today; the question of Syria, and we shall meet next Thursday in London together; Ukraine as well; and very important issues, issue of climate change, climate chaos. And we have – as I said, we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos. And I know that President Obama and John Kerry himself are committed on this subject and I’m sure that with them, with a lot of other friends, we shall be able to reach success on this very important matter.

Let's start counting down the days.

 

[El_Machinae]

You can read between the lines, there, ya?

 

[peter grimes]

Hint: There's an election coming up!

At least, that's my guess

 

[LoneRebel]

I think it's a bit selfish and callous, not to mention shortsighted, to say that global warming will help agriculture in nations in the higher latitudes. True, it'll help places like Russia and Canada - for a while. And what of the tropical nations, so conveniently overlooked?

And besides, if the temperature rises further still, even Russia and Canada are going to be in trouble. Carl Sagan had something to say about this; I'll go look for it.

Ah, here. "Some agricultural exporting nations in middle to high latitudes (the United States, Canada, Australia, for example) may actually gain at first and their exports soar. Poor nations will be most severely impacted."

"For a while some places - Canada, Siberia - might get better (if the soil is suitable for agriculture), even if the lower latitudes get worse. Wait long enough and the climate deteriorates worldwide."*

*Taken from Sagan's essay "Ambush: The Warming of the World", as collected in "Billions and Billions".

 

[timtofly]

It is already working that way with just human economy. Why wait to blame it on global warming?