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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 02:27 PM EDT |
I was asking you to back up your assertation that the planet hasn't been
hotter than this for the past 150,000 years.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Tyro on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 07:17 PM EDT |
I think the "5-mile thick" glaciers that you are talking about need to
climb some hills to reach the ocean. The ones that are moving quickly I believe
to be a lot thinner.
This isn't reason for aplomb. There are real problems. Just not quite as bad
as you are seeing.
E.g., in Europe I think, despite the hot weather, you need to start preparing
for a mini-ice age. If the Arctic warms up enough the Gulf Stream will shut
down, and then the warm current that's been heating Europe will go away. At
that point you can expect weather like that of Southern Russia or Northern
Georgia. Extremes of both heat and cold, but with the emphasis on the cold.
OTOH, Greenland might stop melting. So in a few decades it might start back up
again. FWIW, this would also affect the east coast of the US. I haven't heard
any signs that the Japanese current is weakening, but it wouldn't surprise me.
If THAT happens it would affect not only Western North America as far south as
Mexico, but also Japan, Siberia, Korea, China, etc. I'm not quite sure what the
effects would be at the southern end, but at the northern end there would be
lots of extreme cold. Glaciers forming is not beyond the bounds of possibility,
depending on how long it shut down. (I've got a lot less understanding of they
dynamics in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. The Atlantic is a lot smaller and
simpler. Greenland acts as a heavy ballast, and there's just been more reports
about it that I've read.
P.S.: Do not assume I'm talking about global warming stopping. That won't
happen quickly, but the heat doesn't need to be distributed evenly. Currently
we depend on the Jet Stream and various ocean current to distribute the heat,
but the Arctic has been warming faster than the tropics, and this means that
there is less energy available to keep the heat conveyor systems working. So
far that has mainly shown up as a sluggish Jet Stream, which has tended to leave
weather patterns in one place for longer than was usual, but "if this goes
on" one can expect other systems to also be modified. (Someone earlier
said that a cold water upwelling along the western side of South America has
stopped for the first time in centuries. This could have quite unpleasant
effects over a very large area.)
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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