Concerned about global warming?

[Mangudai]

It is an effect that was predicted 120 years ago based on solid foundational science.

Interesting. Sources?

I don't know who predicted global warming 120 years ago, but the absorbtion of infrared radiation by CO2 is fundamental science which has been known since at least that time. Here is one source which pre-dates the politicization of the issue:



The greenhouse effect is very real, and we should be happy for that. The Earth is much more comfortable than the moon because of it.

[Thayne]

Henpecked

Your assertions are incorrect. Either a doubling of CO2 concentrations will cause the atmosphere to absorb a base 4 watts/square meter column of air, requiring a base 3 degree C increase in temperatures to dissipate, barring some countering influence, or the laws of thermodynamics will have to be repealed.

This is basic science. If you know about the emission spectrum of the earth, and the absorbtion spectrum of CO2, there is no way short of magic to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere without increasing the amount of energy absorbed, all else being equal.

Granted, all else is not equal, but those who want to refute the global warming claim need to provide some evidence of some force working to negate the increases that CO2 will cause. The base case is solid science.

This is what the dark bands on an absorbtion spectrum means. If what the critics of global warming theory saying are true, 'absorbtion spectrum' (the spectrum of any body showing dark lines where a gas has absorbed energy) does not exist and it is impossible to determine a star's composition (for example) by looking at its absorbtion spectrum.

Either that or, as I said earlier, the laws of thermodynamics must be rewritten to allow a body to absorb energy and then have it just disappear, like magic, into nothingness.

The reason these critics cannot get their information published in peer reviewed journals is because their claims are complete nonsense in the world of science.

Concerning the source that global warming was predicted 120 years ago, the main source is actually only 108 years old:

Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927)
"On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" Philosophical Magazine 41, 237-276 (1896)

[mavraam]

Being Canadian, a renewed Ice Age basically would likely start off with my country being completely and utterly wiped out. Along with most of the northern hemisphere, in a poetic form of justice wiping out the industrialised nations for the most part.

The bitter reality is that the industrialized nations would almost certainly be the ones most likely to survive. With more wealth, education, technology and resources along with a military to secure them, they (we) will be the ones best suited to deal with any sort of disaster. That is if anyone can.

Plus, as a resident of Minnesota, I watched that movie and thought, "Big deal, I've been through winters worse than that!" [:D]

[Thayne]

Now, if I may address those who point out that climate change has occurred as a result of non-human influences.

Clearly, this is true. Nobody is denying this.

Let us imagine a body of water with 15 foot waves. Somebody raises the level of the water by 10 feet. It still has 15 foot waves, but now the base level for those waves is higher. So, instead of experiencing water levels between -7.5 feet and 7.5 feet, we need to prepare for water levels between 2.5 feet and 17.5 feet.

There will still be other influences on the Earth's climate. By increasing the base temperature, we are increasing the height of the heights, and decreasing the low of the lows.

You can't use the fact that there are 15 foot waves as evidence that the base water level is not rising -- and such a conclusion would be particularly absurd if you know that there is an increase in the amount of water going into this body, and the only way for outflows to match is for the water level to rise enough that the outflow can increase to match.

This is the case with global warming. We have solid science that says that doubling of CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) will mean more energy going into the system. Any who want to argue against the conclusion that temperature of the system needs to rise to a level that will allow that energy to bleed off needs to explain what happens to that extra energy, or explain why what we know about the absorbtion spectrum is incorrect (that it does represent a gas absorbing energy).

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

That's an interesting position to take mavraam.

Being Canadian, snow is just snow to me.

Of course 3 inches is not as bad as 3 feet or 3 yards of snow.

Now if we get 3 inches on an average day, what do I see, people suddenly unable to drive intelligently. What's up with that?

3 feet in a single day, and the whole world shuts down, the roads are uncleared in half the area, and schools close, businesses slow or shut down for the day.

Not really a problem though, just a couple of days worth of nuisance eh.

Now 3 yards of snow, and you can just forget driving anything, wheeled or tracked it ain't happening.
Ever see a tank slide off a road in winter, quite an odd sight actually. You would not think it possible. But I have watched it happen.

3 lousy yards of snow, 9 feet. Not even a fraction of what they implied in the film either.

The book the film is lousy based on made it evident what would happen.

If it snowed a month early, and just more or less didn't let up, even at normal rates, (just never stopped), our society would grind to a half in a month, be out of snow removal budget money, and it wouldn't even matter if you edited out that nifty ultra freeze effect.
The army would be no better off than anyone else. The plows being wheeled vehicles would be defacto out of action. Airports would not be cleared. Trains would not be in service.
Everyone that worked in these areas has to drive to work eh.
No one is delivering gas to the gas stations. So no one is getting gas to drive on roads not being cleared.
No food is being delivered to stores, but then the average grocery store will hold out for a good bit. But you better be with in skiing distance of it, because you ain't driving in your out of gas car that can't use the unplowed streets.

No cops means lawlessness. Suddenly you better own a gun.
Better not let that fire get out of hand, because the fire truck won't be coming.
Hope you were not in need of emergency medical attention. Because the hospital odds are it is understaffed if at all.

And all this, could be had with just 3 months of nonstop snow. Although the movie looked more dramatic, the book it is based off of was not nearly so drastic. It merely just started snowing early, and had nothing allowing it to stop.

Being in an industrialised nation makes you actually worse off.
Being in a poor developing nation likely means you live someplace where it never snows for starters. And odds are you would not get in a panic if you suddenly could not get to the supermarket. It would not be a serious problem to a poor person if they could not fuel their SUV. I know I would miss toliet paper and running water.
I am also not inclined to handle the electricity going out well.

Remember the last "big power outtage". Interesting eh. Something that small, and look at how it humbled us.
Can you picture what it might have been like if that had lasted say a month, 2 months, indefinitely, with several feet of snow on the ground?

Nope, I am not so stupid to think because my country is high tech and sooooo sophistcated, that we could manage that sort of hardship well.

[mavraam]

We got > 3 feet of snow in October '91 in one day (same time as storm of the movie 'Perfect Storm'). It stayed on the ground all winter and we had about 3 inches of solid ice underneath. I lost a hubcap from a hole in the ice. It was like an ice pothole. People would start up a hill in their car, get halfway up and slide back down. This was 3 months AFTER the blizzard!

As bad of a winter as I've ever seen.

What I found odd about the movie The Day After Tomorow, was the absurd notion that the rest of the world would somehow be more or less unaffected.

The whole northern half of the northern hemisphere is covered in ice, but people are still comfortably running around in t-shirts in Mexico. Hmm... I'm no climatologist but I think that sort of drastic change would have massive side effects all over the planet. Even parts that weren't covered in snow.

I think it was so that they could get in a politically correct statement about how the 3rd world countries that we've been 'exploiting' for all these years would now be the ones us ungratefull northerner industrialists would have to run to for help.

The guy I liked the best was the VP. He was the only one who wanted to try to save those of us up north! The scientists were basically saying f*ck em, lets save the ones we can!

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Mavram you did see the film correct?

Do you forget the part where Australia is hit with the worst typhoon on record?

What about the barrage of Tornados that wiped out LA?

Or the massive hail in Japan?

Sure they didn't film each and every section of the planet, but did you expect them too?

About your 3 feet of snow, the point was it stopped there. You ONLY got the 3 feet. Now picture it is 3 feet deep one month earlier than you normally get snow. And it STILL snowing daily.
That was the point, you missed it.

[mavraam]

Mavram you did see the film correct?

I must admit, I spent so much time laughing at the science and making piss runs, I had trouble keeping track of which catastrophe was hitting where.

BTW, what about conservation of energy?

In order for the entire north to have to stay that cold, wouldn't there have to be a corresponding rise in temperature somewhere else?

I mean, even Minnesota gets > 100 F in the summer. In order to stay permanently frozen, wouldn't our summer temp have to drop at least 50 F? Or does the whole earth's temperature drop? Wouldn't we have to move further from the sun for that to happen?

Just a thought.

Also, if ice ages hit this quickly, where do the glaciers come from? We've always been told that glaciers pushed all the top soil out of Canada and deposited it in the midwest. (Reparations are surely to follow)

But if it all hapened that quickly, would we still have glaciers?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Easy mistakes to make.

You don't have to have an existing glacier run amok like a rampaging bulldozer.

If you let snow fall, and it just keeps falling, you end up with a vertically generated glacier.

After a few thousand feet, I doubt it would matter much whether it flowed or not.

As for the energy thing. Well the fact it was all created (in the film) by a reduction of ice mass from warming, that triggered a rapid cooling of the Gulf Stream, that resulted in massive disruption of air currents and spawned freak storm systems.

If you paint the northern hemisphere white, you will reflect back a major sheetload of radiant energy from the sun, and I am sure it will stay cold easy just fine.

I am not yet currently conversant on what makes Ice Ages go away. It is apparent they do of course.
Just funny that while people seem comfortable with talking about them, hence we don't mind acknowledging they do indeed occur, but yet no one seems willing to accept that anything would ever make one begin.

Seems like the same as accepting babies exist, but no one will agree on what causes them.

Oh wait, just realised, there are actually all those surprised by surprise pregnancies. I guess I should have picked something else

[mavraam]

If you let snow fall, and it just keeps falling, you end up with a vertically generated glacier.

Since the elevation of the US tends to decrease as you move south (as evidenced by the flow of the Mississippi), is it possible that such a glacier once formed, would tend to 'slide' southward due to gravity?

If so, this could account for glacial flow. It would roughly follow the same path as the Mississippi river which acts as a drainage ditch for the entire central plains region.

I'm not sure where the 'continental peak' of elevation is, but I'm sure once you get far enough north in Canada, the ground must 'tilt' the other way in order to get back down to sea level in the north.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Hmm all I know, is enough weight on top of enough snow compacts to ice, which given enough weight crushes it down to a slurry that if allowed, will follow what qualifies as "downhill".

It just depends on where you are actually piling up that snow eh. Downhill is a matter of lay of the land.

[Mangudai]

I was somewhat confused by the movie. Was it the start of a new iceage? Or was it just a massive storm? They said the Earth would return to equilibrium. But, I wasn't sure if that equilibrium was supposed to have glaciers across the northern hemisphere, or if it would be slightly warmer than before.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

It was the beginning of an Ice Age.

And the equilibrium mentioned would have implied the world would become balanced out and not so unstable, just considerably colder and like that for a few thousands of years.

But don't fret, it will never happen. I have several wargamers positive of that

[Culiacan Mexico]

ORIGINAL: Warrior
Concerned about global warming?

No.

[dinsdale]

ORIGINAL: wodin
Yes it will happen also as the ice melts at present it could cool down the oceans thus affecting the gulf stream then its by by UK.

This happens periodically. I forget the name of the scientist, but a Nobel prize was handed out for his studies into the gulf stream switching on/off and finding evidence of it happening before.

There was a medieval occurence, again I don't remember the specifics, but Britain went through a "mini ice age" until the stream turned itself on again.

[Paul Vebber]

Lets try to keep the discussions here to games and military history. We have a link to a forum for political discussion. please use it.