01-24-2011, 03:13 AM
01-24-2011, 03:37 AM
Based on a study commissioned by the United Nations, global warming is projected to increase the average tempature by 3.5 degrees over the next century. According to the IPCC (Inter-govermental Panel on Climate Change) the likely result would be that sea levels would rise by between 0.09 and 0.88 meters. While lots of the experts disagree on the details, even if the entire Greenland Ice Sheet melted and West Antartic Ice Sheet fell into the sea, its projected that the sea level would rise roughly 10 meters. While this would definitely cause big problems, especially in low lying coastal areas, it doesn't appear possible that it would "flood the rest of the world". Check out the Earth Observatory website by NASA for more details.
01-24-2011, 03:41 AM
Nearly all scientists agree that the planet is warming. What is still open for debate is how much of the warming is due to human activites, and what all the potential effects will be worldwide. The Pentagon commissioned a report on the possibility of rapid climate change -- in particular examining the collapse of the north atlantic thermohaline conveyor (a process that delivers warmth from the gulf stream to Europe).>br /<
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The report looks at historica precendent for such significant events, of which there are a few. The good news is that life survived all those previous events, the bad news is that there could be significant negative political and economic consequences to such a rapid shift.>br /<
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In terms of what we can do, everyone can work to reduce carbon emissions... but we need to realize that such a fix will not stop warming for quite some time. Current models show that even with a complete halt to human based carbon emissions, that the world would not stop warming for decades. This same lag effect has made it difficult for scientists to finally agree that long term warming was taking place. Now we have enough data to be pretty sure on that, but we don't have many solutions as how to significantly slow the warming.>br /<
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Ultimately, it would be ideal for the human race to move toward energy and economic growth solutions that would sustainable in the long long term (centuries or more)... To reach that state we need to move entirely to renewable energy sources and close the loop on materials and toxics used in manufacturing. This will probably take at least 50-100 years, but we'll never get there unless we start... and not getting there is not really an option for the human race as a whole.
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<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.ems.org/climate/pentagon_climatechange.pdf">http://www.ems.org/climate/pentagon_climatechange.pdf</a><!-- m -->>br /<
>br /<
The report looks at historica precendent for such significant events, of which there are a few. The good news is that life survived all those previous events, the bad news is that there could be significant negative political and economic consequences to such a rapid shift.>br /<
>br /<
In terms of what we can do, everyone can work to reduce carbon emissions... but we need to realize that such a fix will not stop warming for quite some time. Current models show that even with a complete halt to human based carbon emissions, that the world would not stop warming for decades. This same lag effect has made it difficult for scientists to finally agree that long term warming was taking place. Now we have enough data to be pretty sure on that, but we don't have many solutions as how to significantly slow the warming.>br /<
>br /<
Ultimately, it would be ideal for the human race to move toward energy and economic growth solutions that would sustainable in the long long term (centuries or more)... To reach that state we need to move entirely to renewable energy sources and close the loop on materials and toxics used in manufacturing. This will probably take at least 50-100 years, but we'll never get there unless we start... and not getting there is not really an option for the human race as a whole.