Climate Change

[Rambuchan]

This summer in the UK will probably see new records set for high temperatures, again. But as I type the heavens have opened up and Hertfordshire is being ROCKED by a very intense thunderstorm. My nephew's toy is being set off by the electric charge in the air and I can feel it in the ground everytime thunder claps. Yet just 2 days ago I was sitting around in my shorts sweating my balls off. I've never come across such intense thunderstorms in this country before. I also remember it snowing every winter here but now a snow fall is a novelty. It didn't used to be like this.

Last week a family friend died of an asthma attack at the age of 51. This was due to unnatural collections of pollen in the air which were being churned up and concentrated by yet more intense thunderstorms [explanation here]. Aside from respiratory problems, people have been dying in the streets of Delhi from heat exhaustion in temperatures reaching 110F over the last week or so. When I was last there I had to wear a jacket from the cold, and I live in England! From Greece to Australia and Hong Kong to LA, the rising temperatures, sea levels and increasingly unpredictable nature of the world's climate is causing death, expense and some increasingly frantic planning for the future.

The Prime Minister (President?) of Iceland recently invited President Bush to come and see the impact rising sea levels were having on his country. George declined the invite. The Inuit communities extended similar invites and you can guess what happened there too. Low lying countries such as The Netherlands, Bangladesh, and Britain are seriously upgrading their sea-defenses and their Environment Agencies are filing some pretty worrying predictions. Like this:

What the map of Britain would look like if global warming melted
the world's three main ice sheets, raising water levels by 84 metres
More explanation ​

Britain unsurprisingly plans to make Climate Change top of the G8 agenda (along with Third World Debt) when the world's most influential and responsible for the crisis meet at Gleneagles early July.

What can they do to address the situation?

America meanwhile still seems unconvinced that there is a problem and is balking at requests to enter into Carbon Trading programmes, which every other G8 nation has agreed to, along with business leaders. There are now Carbon Trading Exchanges in London, Chicago, Amsterdam and probably more in Asia too. These all offer some hope against the onslaught. But these efforts are being confounded by America, who remains the world's greatest consumer of energy and it's greatest contributor to green house gases. If we get onto it now the predicted maps of Britain for starters looks quite different, not to mention the future of humankind.

Besides, it's about a lot more than rising sea levels.

Will they see sense and sign up? Is there an argument for them not signing up? What of the role of the developing world?

Some details on rising sea levels coming in a bit.

 

[Akka]

Good luck trying to convince Americans that corporations profits and the Holy Free Market don't take precedence over the future of the planet, and that it's not just a worldwide plot to destroy USA because you're all jealous.

 

[E-Raser]

Good luck trying to convince Americans that corporations profits and the Holy Free Market don't take precedence over the future of the planet, and that it's not just a worldwide plot to destroy USA because you're all jealous.

Damned Akka, you're freaking right

 

[EdwardTking]

Well Zulu, I live in one of the blue-bits. No doubt I (age 49) will snuff it
before it floods, but it won't be much of a legacy for my grand-children.

I find the US denial a form of corporate negligence.

I don't believe in the benefits of this trading Carbon at all, just added
to treaty in hope that USA would sign. USA don't sign but plans to make money, disgust. There will just be speculative profits for a few and gross fraud.

 

[Gelion]

Trully people need to feel the danger with their own skins to start thinking ahead. This temperature changes are just a beginning. People are too caught up in their profits and struggles for power to notice anything until its too late. The problem with prophecies and warnings is that if things do not happen people say "why did you lie to us" and if they do "why didn't you warn us"? We will not start spending resources on climate and nature in right amounts untill its too late to change anything back. It already may be too late.
The best hope (if things come to worst) we have right now is to create isolated zones where climate will function normally and nature will be helped and controlled. This could be done by those who understand the scale of the problem and have the money (not many of those). However as you cannot separate those zones the rest of the Earth, and as unified humanitys effort is not possible, these zones will not help that much.

 

[E-Raser]

Let's terraform Mars in time

 

[Rambuchan]

Detail on rising sea levels:

(can someone please clear up the time period the study is refering to? I can't seem to find it atm)

A recent study, quoted above and studied by the UK's Environment Agency (see here), outlined three possible scenarios:

• A seven-metre rise in sea levels if the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted.

• A 13-metre rise if both the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheet melted.

• An 84-metre rise if the East Antarctic Ice Sheet also melted.

~ The latest paper suggests this new, fast-melt scenario would lead to a rise of six to seven metres in sea levels that would drown the centre of London and leave cities and towns including Edinburgh, Newcastle, S****horpe, Bristol, Plymouth, Norwich, Peterborough and Bournemouth waterlogged.

~ In the highly populated London area, it would mean a massive relocation project, with much of the boroughs of Southwark, Lewisham, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Bexley and Barking under water, along with large areas of south Essex and north Kent.

~ A 13-metre rise would see the sea encroaching far inland, especially in East Anglia, Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire, Cheshire and the Severn Estuary.


~ The worst scenario is the 84-metre rise. The team pointed out that this would only happen if the world did nothing about carbon gas emissions, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect. If we ever reached this state, little beyond the hills and mountains making up Wales, Scotland, the south-west and spine of England, will remain above the waves.

So what's causing the sea levels to rise?

Sea level rises and falls in response to several factors, which act over different time scales.

* ‘Eustatic’ change in sea level is due to long-term variations in ocean circulation or ocean volume. These changes can be brought about by the oceans warming or cooling as a result of climate change. Eustatic change can also occur as glaciers and ice sheets melt and freeze, adding or removing water from the oceans.
* ‘Steric’ change in sea level is due to water density changing (salinity and/or temperature).
* Storm surges, river run-off and waves reflecting in bays and harbours can cause very localised, but often quite large changes in sea level.

In Britain this is resulting in: "Over the past century, global sea level has risen by 1 to 2.5mm per year. Four sites in England show sea level increases ranging from 2.3 to 4.6mm per year since 1900." [environment-agency.gov.uk]

But it isn't the same everywhere. Here we see sea level records for Stockholm and Brest, France:

Stockholm

Brest

http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/sea.htm

Will countries unaffected feel the inclination to assist for the common good? What will happen once the polar ice caps really start to melt and large parts of the world arre rendered uninhabitable?

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This isn't a bad summation of the situation but there is so much more, which we only discuss in passing when we read of new energy technologies from XIII.

In this report, WWF and the Wildlife Trusts analyse both the costs and the choices facing conservationists and the government. "We can't stop sea levels rising altogether" it says, "but by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, we could slow the process down and give nature time to adapt."

And once again The Global Issues site offers an outstanding summary!

 

[Chukchi Husky]

(can someone please clear up the time period the study is refering to? I can't seem to find it atm)

It says "the next two centuries".

Also, I heard somewhere that some places are naturally rising and sinking because the the ice from the last ice age weighed down the land, but when the age ended, the land underneath began to rise.

 

[stormbind]

I fail to see how the exponential increase in Hurricane & Typhoon activity profits DC unless it intends to sever ties with most southern states?

Bush might think he is protecting corporations, but even Arnold Brownsneger has spotted a massive inconsistency and has started preaching in California that now is the time to take action against climate change.

President Bush's policies are a direct threat to US and EU lives, and he isn't even saying the same as his own party members. I bet if you kick out Bush (or whoever controls Bush) then you find the US is more aware of, and more active in, global concerns.

 

[stormbind]

On the topic of current climate in the UK, temperatures feel higher and thunderstorms are very alien!

My memory does not recall previously seeing British skies turn black, pelt the ground with heavy rain for 10 minutes, and have powerful fork lightning striking the ground - and then return to beating sun and clear skies!

My memory recalls the skies of Britain dropping rain less intensely for longer periods of time, and seeing mostly lightning is of the sheet variety that just makes the clouds flash a bit.

This is, in my opinion, a climate change. Thunderstorms in the UK are now more like those you would expect in the sub-tropics, and those in the sub-tropics now demonstrate "mega lightning" which can be viewed from the ground with the naked eye.

Mega-Lightning has to be a new phenomena because it has not been previously recorded, and has more recently been witnessed by civilians on the ground

 

[amadeus]

Once again, even the slightest change in the weather is attributed to "global warming." Two, five, or ten years from now, it'll be cold out and the same people who said the world was going to end now will be saying the same things again.

And regardless of whatever happens, wherever it happens, and however it happens, the United States is always at fault.

 

[Gelion]

RMS you do realize that every summer is hotter in Europe that it was the year before and that almost every year is breaking the temperature records? What is the cause of that in your view? (besides the United States)

 

[storealex]

It used to snow here all winter. Snow would be everywhere, for months. Now snow is rare, comes a few times in the winter, and quickly melts away.
Every year the summer get's warmer, and every year the weather get's more extreme. Storms and Hurricanes used to be something in other countries, or once a decade...

Every year we pollute more...

Blair is very cool. His work to help out Africa, and especially his work to slow down the climate change, has made me forgive anything else I had against him.

My number one quarrel with America (Including Canada) is their pollution, which is too high, and especially their indifference. Sure, they have lot's of land where they can live, but we don't! Lot's of us Europeans supported you in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but where is our reward? We helped you out, now please help us and stop polluting so much!

 

[Reno]

Intresting, but the Kyoto treaty will have no value if many more industrial nations don't sign it.

@Ram Can you find more estimated maps for what Europe or the World will look like if the 84 meter water level rise will happen?

 

[Gelion]

RMS you do realize that every summer is hotter in Europe that it was the year before and that almost every year is breaking the temperature records? What is the cause of that in your view? (besides the United States)

And I am being ignored by RMS as he cannot find argmunets. Very typical (i.e. 100th and 1st time)

 

[Reno]

The Prime Minister (President?) of Iceland

President, Iceland does not have a monarch.

 

[storealex]

And I am being ignored by RMS as he cannot find argmunets. Very typical (i.e. 100th and 1st time)

Happened to me several times too...

 

[Strider]

Not all to hot here... mid 90s. The usually summer temperature. I was actually more worried, because it got much colder than usual this winter.

 

[Gelion]

Not all to hot here... mid 90s. The usually summer temperature. I was actually more worried, because it got much colder than usual this winter.

That happens in Europe too apparently....

To those that might not know: "global warming" is not about the rise of temperature as such it is about increasing the gap between maximum and minimum tmperatures in an area. Global warming also changes the typical climatic picture of a region, quote oftenly making it more harsh, through greater temperature gap (more exremes) and things like hurricanes that appear when the change is too shift (or thereabouts anyway).

 

[JoeM]

Well it's one of the reasons I haven't bought property in Greenwich...