# The Next 20 Years of Life on Earth: Runaway Global Heating.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 4, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675 "2010-01-04T21:33:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/41 "2010-01-05T03:21:32Z")
> [@Uncle\_Goat](#):
>
> Weather extremes can happen. Cold weather is possible during a period of global weather. One of the reasons your summer was cool was because it was relatively hot in the arctic. Massive amounts of arctic air was displaced and it had to go somewhere.
So what you’re saying is that the Jet Stream affects the arctic regions. Did not know this. :dubious:
> [@Uncle\_Goat](#):
>
> I have no idea if you live in a hurricane prone area or not, but are you really wishing for more hurricanes? Somehow disappointed you didn’t have a hurricane a month during the season? If they arrive and destroy your town, will you suddenly understand what this is all about? Really?
Yes I’m wishing for more hurricanes to prove the great scientist Al Gore is right.:dubious:
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/42 "2010-01-05T03:23:27Z")
You know, Al Gore looks kind of swarthy to me. Maybe he’s part of the black blue blood elite. That’s why you won’t lift a finger as you benefit from the racist status quo, _isn’t it_?!?!?
Or have I lost track of my SDMB crackpots today?
---
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/43 "2010-01-05T03:25:30Z")
[QUOTE=Uncle Goat]
He’s fairly old. Won’t live to see it happen, so he can relax.
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s a relief then.
> [@](#):
>
> If you haven’t noticed anything odd in the weather in the past several years, like the early arrival of Spring and some wild storms, well… the weather is fairly stable if you’re living underground.
To put it gently, the weather has ALWAYS been unpredictable on this ball of mud. It’s no worse, afaik, today, than it’s been in the past. The difference is that, because of global communications that flow at light speed, is you (and I and everyone else) KNOW about it…basically instantly. 100 years ago only those effected by a disaster knew about it right away. Others found out about it days, weeks or months later. A 1000 years ago only those in the effected area EVER knew about it…everyone else never found out at all. 10000 years ago…well, you get the point. The sphere of knowledge that an individual knows about has expanded and expanded until today it’s global.
As for living under ground, no…and I don’t live under a bridge either, if that’s what you are implying there. 😉 If you want to present real, tangible data showing somehow that the weather has gotten worse today than it’s been in the past (good luck with that btw), then feel free. If it’s really GOOD data I may even be convinced. AFAIK, the weather today is well within the limits of simple season variation…i.e., wild weather happens. Early springs happen…even no springs or summers occasionally happen. Freak storms happen.
This isn’t to say that the temperature hasn’t been rising, globally…but the rise, thus far, hasn’t been all that great, and afaik, no reputable source believes that the rise will be anything nearly as extreme as 10 degrees C in the next century…more like 1-2, tops.
-XT
---
### Author:  [@Uncle\_Goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Goat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/44 "2010-01-05T03:39:32Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#):
>
> :sigh:
>
> That 6C is not expected by many serious researchers. A 4 degree rise is \*\*possible \*\*, but only if no changes or effort are made to control global warming gases. That would be really bad, but it is not the end of the world.
>
> [http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/en/ambition/evidence/](http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/en/ambition/evidence/)
And yet: [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#N\_56\_](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#N_56_)
it’s a long article here to the heart of the matter, my bold:
**Swings of temperature that scientists in the 1950s believed to take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s to take thousands of years, and in the 1980s to take hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades.** Ice core analysis by Dansgaard’s group, confirmed by the Americans’ parallel hole, showed rapid oscillations of temperature repeatedly at irregular intervals throughout the last glacial period. **Greenland had sometimes warmed a shocking 7°C within a span of less than 50 years. For one group of American scientists on the ice in Greenland, the "moment of truth” struck on a single day in midsummer 1992 as they analyzed a cylinder of ice, recently emerged from the drill hole, that came from the last years of the Younger Dryas. They saw an obvious change in the ice, visible within three snow layers, that is, scarcely three years!** The team analyzing the ice was first excited, then sobered — their view of how climate could change had shifted irrevocably. The European team reported seeing a similar step within at most five years. “The general circulation [of the atmosphere] in the Northern Hemisphere must have shifted dramatically,” Dansgaard’s group eventually concluded.
The main culprit was methane gas being released from the ocean. Methane is currently bubbling out of the arctic sea around Russia. No worries.
---
### Author:  [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/45 "2010-01-05T03:47:05Z")
Actually, methane gas is currently bubbling out of every ocean on earth…and most lakes too. And has been for quite some time now (millions of years to put it mildly). Do you have any data from reliable sources indicating that the pace of methane gas release in the oceans is increasing?
-XT
---
### Author:  [@Uncle\_Goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Goat)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/46 "2010-01-05T03:58:08Z")
Methane Gas Levels Begin To Increase Again
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029141043.htm](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081029141043.htm)
You can google all this stuff yourself you know. It’s not hidden in some secret plot to overthrow the oil companies and rule the world with science. Which is most likely a damn shame.
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### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/47 "2010-01-05T04:02:07Z")
I can Google that white people were created by an evil scientist named Yakub 6,600 years ago. The things I learn on teh interwebs!
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/48 "2010-01-05T04:23:07Z")
> [@xtisme](#):
>
> Do you have any data from reliable sources indicating that the pace of methane gas release in the oceans is increasing?
[Here’s](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7107/full/nature05040.html) an article about increasing methane release in Siberia from _Nature_. You’d have to pay to actually read it though.
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> I can Google that white people were created by an evil scientist named Yakub 6,600 years ago. The things I learn on teh interwebs!
Methane clathrates are hardly that kind of nonsense. For one thing, they actually exist. They can be dug up and examined before they evaporate. Your comparison is ridiculous.
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/49 "2010-01-05T04:25:35Z")
> [@Uncle\_Goat](#):
>
> And yet: [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#N\_56\_](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm#N_56_)
>
> it’s a long article here to the heart of the matter, my bold:
>
> **Swings of temperature that scientists in the 1950s believed to take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s to take thousands of years, and in the 1980s to take hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades.** Ice core analysis by Dansgaard’s group, confirmed by the Americans’ parallel hole, showed rapid oscillations of temperature repeatedly at irregular intervals throughout the last glacial period. **Greenland had sometimes warmed a shocking 7°C within a span of less than 50 years. For one group of American scientists on the ice in Greenland, the "moment of truth” struck on a single day in midsummer 1992 as they analyzed a cylinder of ice, recently emerged from the drill hole, that came from the last years of the Younger Dryas. They saw an obvious change in the ice, visible within three snow layers, that is, scarcely three years!** The team analyzing the ice was first excited, then sobered — their view of how climate could change had shifted irrevocably. The European team reported seeing a similar step within at most five years. “The general circulation [of the atmosphere] in the Northern Hemisphere must have shifted dramatically,” Dansgaard’s group eventually concluded.
>
> The main culprit was methane gas being released from the ocean. Methane is currently bubbling out of the arctic sea around Russia. No worries.
I already did check that before, in fact _the history of the discovery of global warming_ is one of the places I point people to check the history of this subject. IMHO you are confusing what feedbacks did before to the earth’s climate in the past with what they \*\*could \*\*do today; so far the evidence is that those feedbacks could hit us when the temperature increases by a few degrees, but that is not likely to take place in the coming decades. And again, it would be likely by the end of the century if nothing is done. It is true that there are worrying signs, but you need better evidence that the reported increases in methane are at a tipping point.
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/50 "2010-01-05T04:28:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Methane clathrates are hardly that kind of nonsense. For one thing, they actually exist. They can be dug up and examined before they evaporate. Your comparison is ridiculous.
What about the comparison of humans transitioning from ice age conditions to today’s climate? You seem pretty quiet about that one.
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/51 "2010-01-05T04:37:39Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> I can Google that white people were created by an evil scientist named Yakub 6,600 years ago. The things I learn on teh interwebs!
I have to take issue with alarmists, but one can forget the climate Truthers, 🙂 whoever accepts Yakub does so with no reliable support from serious academics, researchers or evidence.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/52 "2010-01-05T04:38:12Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> What about the comparison of humans transitioning from ice age conditions to today’s climate? You seem pretty quiet about that one.
Garbage. I already answered that; again, the present climate is better for humans than the glacial period was; so naturally we transitioned fine. Plus, we had no huge infrastructure to disrupt.
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/53 "2010-01-05T04:39:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Of course we did; because the present climate is a better one for us. And in all likelihood it’ll survive the upcoming climate change. But it’s much, much easier to destroy civilization than it is to destroy humanity. And it’s even easier to simply make us miserable.
Ah, you did respond. But your earlier hyperbolic point was that we have never been in the situation of dramatically rising temperatures before: which is demonstrably [false](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). But it sounds so much doomier and gloomier to say so, doesn’t it?
ETA: How do we know that the upcoming climate won’t be even better for us? Maybe we’ll be thriving.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/54 "2010-01-05T04:41:32Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> Ah, you did respond. But your earlier hyperbolic point was that we have never been in the situation of dramatically rising temperatures before: which is demonstrably [false](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). But it sounds so much doomier and gloomier to say so, doesn’t it?
Don’t distort what I am saying. Our species has never been in the kind of hot climate we are heading into.
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/55 "2010-01-05T04:44:41Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Don’t distort what I am saying. Our species has never been in the kind of hot climate we are heading into.
Our species has only been around for a blink of an eye, geologically speaking. Our experience doesn’t necessarily count for anything in that context, nor do our actions. But the world’s animals and plants have seen this kind of climate and even hotter, I imagine, and survived just fine. Wouldn’t a warmer climate with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere be even more conductive to lush plant life?
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/56 "2010-01-05T04:45:57Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> ETA: How do we know that the upcoming climate won’t be even better for us? Maybe we’ll be thriving.
And maybe ponies will fall from the sky too. In the real world, major disruptions of climate of any kind cause famines. Especially when you can’t just move to follow the changing weather.
And how are we going to be better off with entire countries underwater? Not to mention major chunks of California and Florida, for example? And changing ocean currents are expected to turn Europe’s climate into something like Canada; no more warm water from the equator keeping it warm.
---
### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/57 "2010-01-05T04:47:17Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> Our species has only been around for a blink of an eye, geologically speaking. Our experience doesn’t necessarily count for anything in that context, nor do our actions. But the world’s animals and plants have seen this kind of climate and even hotter, I imagine, and survived just fine. Wouldn’t a warmer climate with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere be even more conductive to lush plant life?
Or deserts. Or massive storms. And what wild species can survive, civilization can’t.
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/58 "2010-01-05T04:52:11Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> Or deserts. Or massive storms.
Civilization is impossible in deserts? I seem to recall that human civilization _began_ in close proximity to deserts, and there are quite a few people living there still. And why would massive storms be an existential threat to civilization? (Please, no jumping up and down shouting Katrina over and over. There are still some vestiges of civilization in New Orleans, and in Bangladesh for that matter.)
> [@](#):
>
> And what wild species can survive, civilization can’t.
Why not?
---
### Author:  [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/59 "2010-01-05T04:56:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> And how are we going to be better off with entire countries underwater? Not to mention major chunks of California and Florida, for example? And changing ocean currents are expected to turn Europe’s climate into something like Canada; no more warm water from the equator keeping it warm.
Instead of of ponies falling from the sky, you’re certain of wombats. OK, granted that wombats will happen, how do these unfortunate events and relatively localized occurances translate to “OMG!!! Civilization is totally going to be destroyed!!!”?
---
### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-20-years-of-life-on-earth-runaway-global-heating/523675/60 "2010-01-05T04:57:36Z")
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> Ah, you did respond. But your earlier hyperbolic point was that we have never been in the situation of dramatically rising temperatures before: which is demonstrably [false](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). But it sounds so much doomier and gloomier to say so, doesn’t it?
Speaking of distortions, that dramatic changes in temperature took place before has already been accounted for, the current warming is not natural.
> [@Koxinga](#):
>
> ETA: How do we know that the upcoming climate won’t be even better for us? Maybe we’ll be thriving.
There is no guarantee that the coming changes will be slow or desirable.
> **[Positives and negatives of global warming](https://skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives.htm)**
>
> \The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives.\
> [@](#):
>
> The negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health, economy and environment far outweigh any positives.
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