Global warming - stupid question?

[emily2otters]

today it occurred to me to wonder: is the global temperature expected to rise indefinitely if we continue with our fuelish ways, or will it eventually reach a peak/plateau?

[brianthepoet]

if you ask me (i guess you did) the authorities are, as they have with water shortage scares, trying to take us fluoride. The answer lies in radiation - that is, just as the sun dissipates heat into space by radiation, so does and moreso will the earth as it overheats.

It's frightening to think that with 5000 kg of plutonium dust in the atmosphere(1975) and spreading to our lungs and organs that soon it may not be possible to kiss anyone without contracting some form of leukemia - on the bright side, fossil fuel usage will decline as we all start to glow in the dark!

 

 

 

Thank God there is only one infinity! (brianthepoet)

[nemo]

my limited understanding of the earth's climate is that it follows a cycle of warming and cooling. your question; however, raises one of my own:

with all the emphasis being placed on cleaner burning fuels and alternative methods of meeting our economy's energy needs, is there any way to actively reduce the pollution already in our atmosphere? perhaps something like a large, solar powered Ionic Breeze (http://www.sharperimage.com), or are we stuck with planting as many trees as possible?

[Little Bang]

If you look at the graph of the change in global temperature over the past 400,000 years and compare it to the CO2 concentrations over the same 400,000 years, they almost look like duplicates.

Meaning the temperature raises and falls in direct proportion to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years has been between 200 and 300 parts per million. It was at 370 ppm in 2000. In the past 20 years the global temperature has climbed by 4/10 of a degree C.

A continued raise of between 4 and 5 degrees c. will boil off the approximately 40 billion tons of carbon locked up as methane ice on the ocean floor. that will raise the temp, another 5 degrees c. and that my dear friends will wipe out nearly 95% of all life.

[UncleAl]

For whatever reason the Earth alternates between a warm and wet Eden (e.g., the Carboniferous period) and frozen solid (ice ages). We are ramping up through an interglacial period. It will be warm and wet. Nothing is out of the ordinary. The Atlantic Ocean averages two miles deep, the Pacific Ocean three. What is a foot or two, give or take, compared with 11,000 feet average depth?

 

Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth. Calculate its insolation, power/m^2, compared to that of the Earth. Any runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth will then be proportionately less severe than that of Venus.

[Little Bang]

It’s very difficult to find data that supports rhetoric. There is data for anyone to see that supports my statements.

 

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

[Gabriella]

Little Bang, I have to admit I like Uncle Al's explanation better. Gives me that warm

Santa was here feeling.

[Little Bang]

I will agree Gabriela, I would prefer that the status quo be maintained. However there is a precedent in history for what I say, the mass extinction around two hundred million years ago is suspected of haveing been caused by a drastic build up of co2 in the atmosphere. That one wiped out 97% of all life on the Earth.

[Shapedoctor]

For whatever reason the Earth alternates between a warm and wet Eden (e.g., the Carboniferous period) and frozen solid (ice ages). We are ramping up through an interglacial period. It will be warm and wet. Nothing is out of the ordinary. The Atlantic Ocean averages two miles deep, the Pacific Ocean three. What is a foot or two, give or take, compared with 11,000 feet average depth?

 

Venus is closer to the sun than the Earth. Calculate its insolation, power/m^2, compared to that of the Earth. Any runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth will then be proportionately less severe than that of Venus.

 

 

Nice rose colored glasses you're wearing. Where'd you get them?

[justforfun]

okay, the little bang guy's got a point. But my question is how did we go from runaway greenhouse heating to an ice age in the past, and how do we know that greenhouse warming is the only thing keeping us from going into an ice age now? We need more data, especially on how 'global warming' affects local weather. Stay tuned ...

[infamous]

I will agree Gabriela, I would prefer that the status quo be maintained. However there is a precedent in history for what I say, the mass extinction around two hundred million years ago is suspected of haveing been caused by a drastic build up of co2 in the atmosphere. That one wiped out 97% of all life on the Earth.

If I'm not mistaken, and that is always a possibity, I remember hearing somewhere that this co2 was released as a result of an impact with a very large asteroid.

[brianthepoet]

There was a news article here in Sydney a few years ago that said the exhaust from new cars in los angeles was more pure than the air that went into the engine.

 

I wrote in 1996

 

Seven man factory, made in Japan,

sings "fly away bluebirds as fast as you can"

but our bluebirds of happiness, daily pursued,

crack 31 million barrels of crude.

 

I think that has reached a new peak.

[Little Bang]

No K2 type boundry was ever found. There's some thought that it might have been caused by the breaking apart of the supercontinent.

[Skippy]

No K2 type boundry was ever found. There's some thought that it might have been caused by the breaking apart of the supercontinent.

Is there any evidence of increased volcanic activity during that time? Seems like I remember reading about increases in atmospheric levels of volcanic dust as well as other gases which typically come out of volcanoes? Aren't some of those gases considered "greenhouse gases" as well? Would the volcanic dust act as a reflector of UV radiation from the sun and/or would it act as a barrier to the escape of heat from the earth's atmosphere?

[Little Bang]

Yes, the lava flow from that eruption covered over a hundred thousand square kilometers in Russia.

[Skippy]

Yes, the lava flow from that eruption covered over a hundred thousand square kilometers in Russia.

So a natural phenomenon was the cause of the previous heat wave you spoke of 200 mil yrs ago? Aren't trees one of the largest contributors of VOC's? And aren't volcanoes still contributing as well to atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases?

 

The CO2/global temperature curve spoken of earlier, has any of the efforts humans have made to decrease greenhouse gases caused the curve's slope to change?

[Little Bang]

The current theory is that the eruption 200, 000,000 years ago did release a great deal of CO2. This caused the average global temp to rise between 4 and 5 degrees C. That rise in temp did not cause the mass extinction but did cause all the methane on the ocean floor to boil off raising the temp another 5 degrees. thats what killed off 97% of all life on this planet. Humans burning fossil fuels is just like that eruption.

 

Obviously volcanos are contributing and I don't know what VOC's are and no the efforts aren't doing any good.

 

BTW, there is twice as much carbon locked up as methane on the ocean's floors as all the oil, gas, and coal reserves put together in the world.