![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerSo Brandi and I just bought tickets to see the noon showing of "The Day After Tomorrow" on opening day (May 28th) at Lowes Boston Common. If you're following, you may have picked up that I'm a big fan both of dangerous weather and of the end of the world.
Even better, we've printed out 200 copies of the MoveOn.org flyer about global warming to hand out afterwards. It's a good flyer -- it says outright that the climate change portrayed in the movie is over the top and could never happen in such a short time. And still global warming is very real, very damaging, and preventable -- and George Bush opposes any sacrifice we would need to make. The solution: John McCain's global warming bill! No mention of Kerry.
So yeah, I'm a big fan of the end of the world, but I'm not in favor of it either.
If you're inspired to participate, MoveOn has a sign up list of exit times at theaters in the area. Copies of the flyer are DIY. After all, MoveOn is just what, seven people? It works because they're the brilliantest yet at giving grass roots activists something effective to do.
Even better, we've printed out 200 copies of the MoveOn.org flyer about global warming to hand out afterwards. It's a good flyer -- it says outright that the climate change portrayed in the movie is over the top and could never happen in such a short time. And still global warming is very real, very damaging, and preventable -- and George Bush opposes any sacrifice we would need to make. The solution: John McCain's global warming bill! No mention of Kerry.
So yeah, I'm a big fan of the end of the world, but I'm not in favor of it either.
If you're inspired to participate, MoveOn has a sign up list of exit times at theaters in the area. Copies of the flyer are DIY. After all, MoveOn is just what, seven people? It works because they're the brilliantest yet at giving grass roots activists something effective to do.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Climate is more variable than you think!
Date: 2004-05-27 12:03 pm (UTC)Historical research into core samples in the arctic, antarctic, and
ancient lake beds in England seem to indicate a disturbing historical trend:
global warming usually is followed by a precipitous ice age- climates going
from pine forests to glaciers in 20 years or less- all that warming tending
to increase cloud cover until the scale tips suddenly the other way- then
slowly rebalancing over time. Yes, apparently you can have global warming
and your ice age, too! And almost at the same time!
What happens is that the additional heat melts the ice caps, this adds fresh water to the northern Atlantic. In the northern Atlantic there is a vast water column where cooling hot water drops from the surface gulf stream currents to a cold ocean bottom current. The saline level of this water is important to keep this process going as it drives a 3000 year water loop that covers all the oceans.
The additional fresh water kills this pumping system and then (I forget the mechanism for this part) this snaps us into an ice age in as little as 5 - 100 years. The trigger to get us out of the ice age is believed to be either an increase in solar output, or vulcanism which causes a greenhouse effect which kicks us back to a warmer cycle.
Also, the Sun has been shown to be a very important control of our climate, and there's a fairly large school of thought out there who believe the current warming trend is more related to the Sun than anything we've been doing for gas emissions.
Global Climate Change and Solar Variability
Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming
Blue is climate, red is solar.
Another factor is that the amount of cosmic rays hitting the Earth has been decreasing. There is research going on right now that shows that cosmic rays might play a strong influence in low level cloud formation. The cosmic rays interaction with aerosols (natural and man made) in the atmosphere cause cloud formations. These clouds tend to reflect solar energy away from the planet, cooling it. Less cosmic rays means less clouds which means a hotter planet.
Cosmic rays and clouds project.
PDF of an article from Science about cosmic rays and clouds.
I think the lesson here is, we still don't have a freaking clue what's going on. Obviously cleaning up our nasty emissions will help in other areas (like the removal of CFC's that put free chorine atoms into the atmosphere that loves to gobble up ozone). Also the last 10,000 years Earth's climate has been remarkably stable compared to all of pre-history, so who knows what might happen 10-100 years from now...
Re: Climate is more variable than you think!
Date: 2004-05-28 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-06-06 07:24 pm (UTC)