...and personally, I think they are trying to change it from "global warming" to "climate change" for a reason, don't you? Maybe because they realized this 'warming' stuff ain't all it's cracked up to be. I could agree more with someone who said "we are having climate changes" than "there is global warming and it will eventually do us all in"
That switch from "global warming" to climate change is actually pretty old. The "global warming" term was, as I understand it, always more of a simplification of the concept for the masses who often aren't not to astute in science, and need a nice simple concept to wrap their heads around.
Saying that climate change is caused by pumping large amounts of additional energy into an already chaotic system isn't such a convenient bite. But that's what it is. And you have to keep in mind that rise in average global temperature is just an average, because a change in one location can cause effects in another that aren't linear. In a sort of extreme example, have a container of water at 211 deg F, theres a certain amount going on in the water, but add one degrees worth of energy and you have a much more chaotic situation. Rather extreme, as it's also a phase change, and no one is saying the oceans are going to boil, just a broad illustration.
I recall one politician, forget who, years ago, who said something on the order of "So the temperature goes up a degree or 2, that ain't gonna do nothin'!" But if you figure the amount of energy to do that on a global average, it would make the total energy output of blowin' up the worlds supply of nuclear weapons at once look a bit like a pop-gun. At least in initial energy density, not the after-effects. Looking for exact numbers on that, but I don't think I'll have time today, kinda busy.
Are human activities the exclusive cause of this? Dunno, models of chaotic systems are only as good as our understanding, the folks writing the software, and the apparently not quite beefy enough computers we have at the moment. From what I've seen over the years, it does seem pretty clear to me, at least, that it is at least a pretty solid contribution to the process. I always find the argument that "it might not be, so it doesn't matter" to be ridiculous to the point of making me want to scream. "Well, the cancer might get better by itself, so screw looking into the treatment, I'll just wait and see. Kinda reminds me of the people who won't wear seatbelts because a small percentage of people may be more seriously injured because of them, ignoring the overwhelming percentage who are injured less.
Even a couple of feet of sea level rise would really bollox up large portions of the worlds economically and agriculturally most productive areas. Huge amounts of the worlds population live on land that's awful close to the current sea level. From my own point of view, give a few feet and from most of the places I've lived in Brooklyn, I'd be sloshing to work and never see another unflooded basement, close to the water table and the East River as I am. A couple more feet and Canal St. goes back to being a canal. Lou, you mention the fact that water contracts somewhat, and that might have a bit of an easing factor for floating ice, like a lot of the ice in the high arctic. The real problem is all the ice that's on land. Greenland and Antarctica in particular have vast swatches of miles thick ice sheets sitting on top of land, and that is what would really screw the pooch if it melts. And a lot of it does seem to be. The sea level rise is only part of the problem. One in particular is the Gulf Stream, and probably also a few other major ocean currents, but that's the one I'm most familiar with. Just as ice is less dense than liquid water, fresh water is less dense than salt water. The engine driving the gulf stream depends on the water at the end of it's run cooling and sinking lower in the ocean, to run back down off the coast of Africa where it get's re-warmed. It's a big circular transfer of energy. Enough northern icemelt into the oceans at the top end, the cold water no longer sinks as it has been doing, and the current could be slowed or disrupted. There's already some evidence that it's happening just like that already, I'll have to look for the citation. Since the gulf stream keeps much of northern Europe about 15 deg. F warmer than it would be without it, if it got too badly messed up someplace like, say, England, would likely be looking a lot more like Norway. Maybe a boom in ice skating in Nice. Stuff like that.
It's really hard to say what exactly are all the the causes are. I think it's unlikely, but if it was all natural, you'd still have to figure out how to deal with it. Because even if it takes a number of years, if someplace like India ends up with 3/4 of it's land under water, you've got a billion people who are going to go somewhere else, whether anyone likes it or not, folks are like that. Moving food supplies - a few degrees and wheat doesn't grow so good in the Midwest anymore. A smaller but still indicative bit is that sugar maples are growing and being productive farther north than they've been recorded before, and their seems to be a little trouble on the southern end of their range. They need a pretty particular pattern of cold-warm temperature variations to produce sugar properly when the sap is running, and towards the bottom end of their range that can be a little iffy. It's a small thing, but enough small things added together can amount to a whole load of suck.
There's always going to be some shrill bastids on any side of an argument, but if you listen to the people who know what they are talking about, and not the people who like to hear themselves talk, you don't really hear the phrase "end of the world". Economic disruption, changes in productive capacity, large population movements, increasingly unpredictable climate until things (maybe) stabilize again, that you hear. Things changing in a way that not much of anybody would really like. Whatever the causes, anybody sticking their fingers in their ears and going "Nyanyanya! Not happening!" are just wishing. If things are likely to change, plan for it. If you know that you're job is about to go away, you don't go out and buy a new car.
Okay, that's a little of my take. I'll go back to thinking 'bout zombies now.
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Originally Posted by Khardis
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