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Global warming figures are becoming even worse (Earth Times) (1 Viewer)

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BF Newsroom

Well-known member
What are we going to do about energy production, while the Paris Summit on carbon emissions looms in December? While we twiddle our thumbs, global warming is worsening at a faster and faster pace. Each individual on earth needs to act like his personal government and environmental agent, to gain a fuller appreciation of how technology and 'new' thinking can prevent such vast amounts of emissions. Many solutions are being found, but they have to appear this year. Otherwise, the winter in Paris could be uncomfortable in so many different ways.

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Governments should target big businesses which I feel are the organisations that could mostly reduce their carbon foot print. My bank keeps sending me adverts in the post for their various products. All that paper and effort wasted.....
 
Look at humanity's history; our track record shows that we will do nothing until it is too late. So, get your fiddle out and make merry. Hopefully, in another 100 million years or so, our little blip will intrigue a visiting geologist and its xenobiologist colleagues.
 
Don't worry. Hollywood will come up with an ingenious answer thought up by some spotty 17 yr old nerd that nobody believes in the first place until some attractive female scientist believes that his blueprint to remove all the excess CO2 within an hour has some merit. As there is nothing now to lose they build the gadget and, hey ho, it has an instant effect, the sun comes out the world temperature drops to the ideal setting to stop global warming.............................

Or not.
 
chris butterworth said:
Erm. Could it be that it is a significant benchmark level as well as showing that atmospheric CO2 levels are still rising?
Click to expand...

But why is 400ppm scientifically more significant than 399ppm or 401ppm? It's a significant benchmark level for our own internal reference system, nothing more.
 
see link below, from which:
Current [atmospheric] CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than any time in the last 25 million years). This new record represents an increase of 85 ppm in the 55 years since David Keeling began making measurements at Mauna Loa. Even more disturbing than the magnitude of this change is the fact that the rate of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing over the last few decades, meaning that future increases will happen faster. When averaged over 55 years, the increase has been about 1.55 ppm CO2 per year. However, the most recent data suggest that the annual increase is more than 2.75 ppm CO2 per year.

These increases in atmospheric CO2 are causing real, significant changes in the Earth system now, not in some distant future climate, and will continue to be felt for centuries to come. We can study these impacts to better understand the way the Earth will respond to future changes, but unless serious actions are taken immediately, we risk the next threshold being a point of no return in mankind's unintended global-scale geoengineering experiment.

– Dr. Charles Miller
Click to expand...
http://climate.nasa.gov/400ppmquotes/

Or, elsewhere, the 400 is/was a goal to do something, as at 450 it is basically too late
Policymakers worldwide have been stymied in their effort to reach a global agreement on reducing fossil fuel emissions. Many scientists argue that the CO2 concentration must be stabilized at 450 ppm to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Some activists argue for a more ambitious goal of 350 ppm. NOAA has not recorded an average monthly CO2 reading below 350 ppm at Mauna Loa since October 1988.
Click to expand...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm/
 
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I read somewhere that it all went downhill with the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, so I blame him, because from then on we needed more coal, and became industrialised, and the ball started rolling, for what its worth I try and cycle to work twice a week and leave the car at home, but then even a bicycle has a carbon footprint !

Mark
 
Throughout the entire geological history of the earth, atmospheric CO2 has been lower than present-day ONLY in the Carboniferous and in the Quaternary. Essentially high CO2 levels are the NORM for Earth.
 
If the planet has sutained higher CO2 levels than at present for long geological periods and such increased levels are the "norm" then everything is fine except - for the c3 billion years of earth history the planet has been in a state of ecological balance. Volcanic eruptions have pumped CO2 ( amongst other gasses ) into the atmosphere, just as they do today. Wild fires have raised CO2 levels, just as they do today. Mankind has depleted the areas of flora needed to capture CO2, and has released captive CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels just as he's don......... Oops. It seems that he hasn't done that in previous geological times. And he wasn't around to check if increased CO2 levels were conducive to the well being of those species present today ( and that includes us ). Increased CO2 equates to an increase in warming on a global scale ( basic science ). Increased warming, at a time when basic resources such as water / available agricultural land are already under pressure through over use, coupled with a rise in anthropogenically manufactured CO2 is creating a scenario that has never before occurred in the entire existence of earth. The argument that in previous geological times there was more / less CO2 is fine, as far as it goes. But such simplistic counter claims fall down when more wide ranging and complex considerations, relevant to todays situation, are thrown into the mix.
 
mike_gss said:
Throughout the entire geological history of the earth, atmospheric CO2 has been lower than present-day ONLY in the Carboniferous and in the Quaternary. Essentially high CO2 levels are the NORM for Earth.
Click to expand...

Sudden vs slow change.


Life flourished in the Eocene, the Cretaceous and other times of high CO2 in the atmosphere because the greenhouse gasses were in balance with the carbon in the oceans and the weathering of rocks. Life, ocean chemistry, and atmospheric gasses had millions of years to adjust to those levels.


But there have been several times in Earth’s past when Earth's temperature jumped rapidly, in much the same way as they are doing today. Those times were caused by large and rapid greenhouse gas emissions, just like humans are causing today. In Earth's past the trigger for these greenhouse gas emissions was often unusually massive volcanic eruptions known as “Large Igneous Provinces,” with knock-on effects that included huge releases of CO2 and methane from organic-rich sediments. But there is no Large Igneous Province operating today, or anytime in the last 16 million years. Today’s volcanoes, in comparison, don’t even come close to emitting the levels of greenhouse gasses that humans do.
Click to expand...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm

OK, I'm outta here. This topic. Been there, done that. No point in getting bogged down in dozens of post again.
 
mike_gss said:
Throughout the entire geological history of the earth, atmospheric CO2 has been lower than present-day ONLY in the Carboniferous and in the Quaternary. Essentially high CO2 levels are the NORM for Earth.
Click to expand...
True, but not relevant. It is the rate of change that matters. Even the cited extinction-causing volcanic gas emission events were measured in tens of millenia; human global warming is measured in decades, or centuries at the most. That rate of change is far too fast for most life to adapt to.
 
I'm very skeptic about the agenda behind all this, how can you pretend to harness CO2 emissions, while the world population is doubling every 40-50 years ?

The same people who whine about green house gas, are pushing for more growth, more developpment, more immigration, more everything !

Sorry, but it makes no sense at all. Even with much more efficient technologies, if you have twice the 1970's population (when northern populations already peaked), you will pollute more and produce more GHG.

Also have a look at this, and go directly to BUBBLE #6 Global Warming.
 
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