Global Warming Has Accelerated and Will Go On for Centuries

[Rhykker]

Global Warming Has Accelerated and Will Go On for Centuries

According to the head of the UN World Meteorological Organization, global warming has not reached a standstill - in fact, it has accelerated. Our planet will continue to warm for centuries to come, with disastrous consequences.

On Monday, the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) issued its annual statement on the Status of the Climate. UN weather agency chief Michel Jarraud spoke out against climate skeptics, stating that "There is no standstill in global warming," and pointing to some of the extreme climate events of 2013.

"The warming of our oceans has accelerated, and at lower depths," Jarraud said. "More than 90% of the excess energy trapped by greenhouse gases is stored in the oceans.

"Levels of these greenhouse gases are at a record, meaning that our atmosphere and oceans will continue to warm for centuries to come. The laws of physics are non-negotiable."

Droughts, heat waves, rising seas, floods and tropical cyclones around the globe last year are just a glimpse of what may be coming in the future, the WMO's statement pointed out.

While skeptics point to natural phenomena like volcanoes or the El Niño or La Niña weather patterns as an explanation for the observed warming and disasters, Jarraud rejects their arguments. "Many of the extreme events of 2013 were consistent with what we would expect as a result of human-induced climate change," he said, pointing to the destruction wreaked by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Other 2013 examples that Jarraud pointed to were huge bush fires in Australia, winter freezes in the US south-east and Europe, heavy rains and floods in north-east China and eastern Russia, snow across the Middle East and drought in south-east Africa.

Source: News24 [http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Global-warming-will-go-on-for-centuries-WMO-20140324]

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[The White Hunter]

Many will point to natural occurences and be told to shut the hell up, for example when the big smokey bastard erupted in Iceland and much of Europes travel via air was halted for a time, the volcanoe significantly reduced the emissions for the period by outputting less greenhouse gases than the travel for the period would have.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

What climate skeptics fail to realize is that NOBODY WANTS THIS TO BE REAL! But it is. So instead of denying that the problem exists we should do something about it.

 

[JoJo]

At this point, our only hope for avoiding catastrophic climate change is some sort of technology to scrub carbon dioxide out of the air, since let's be honest we're never going to give up on oil and gas fast enough otherwise. Renewables are being adopted at a fairly slow rate, nuclear fission is unpopular for understandable reasons (though I personally quite like it) and nuclear fusion is still decades away from being economically viable. Whatever happens, humanity will live on to fight another day, but it's going to hit us hard if we don't act soon :-/

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Many will point to natural occurences and be told to shut the hell up, for example when the big smokey bastard erupted in Iceland and much of Europes travel via air was halted for a time, the volcanoe significantly reduced the emissions for the period by outputting less greenhouse gases than the travel for the period would have.

I try to stay out of this conversation because its such a big deal and I'm a hard sell on what we really know about weather vs. human existence, and the other factors in our world. I don't say no, and that we shouldn't care about taking care of things but I do say I'm a wait and see kinda guy. Besides all I heard this winter was "this is how winter used to be about 15 years ago and people forget".

 

[SKBPinkie]

What climate skeptics fail to realize is that NOBODY WANTS THIS TO BE REAL! But it is. So instead of denying that the problem exists we should do something about it.

Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I find Jeremy Clarkson to be annoying.

I mean, he is still pretty entertaining about 70-80% of the time, but he should just STFU about the environment, politics, women, or anything even remotely serious.

OT: Hydrogen cars seem to be coming along decently. I'm not sure of the specifics, but they seem to be pretty viable alternatives to what we have today. And seeing how their only emission is water, they'd be fantastic for the environment as well.

Not sure how much gasoline alone contributes to global warming, but I'd bet it's a fairly significant amount.

 

[sir neillios]

At this point, our only hope for avoiding catastrophic climate change is some sort of technology to scrub carbon dioxide out of the air, since let's be honest we're never going to give up on oil and gas fast enough otherwise. Renewables are being adopted at a fairly slow rate, nuclear fission is unpopular for understandable reasons (though I personally quite like it) and nuclear fusion is still decades away from being economically viable. Whatever happens, humanity will live on to fight another day, but it's going to hit us hard if we don't act soon :-/

Yeah I've been thinking about this idea of a CO2 scrubber, we should patent it; a construct with a high surface area mostly suspended in mid-air. Ideally with a long lifetime - say several decades per unit. How cool would it be if they were self-replicating?!

 

[Nimcha]

The UN is a political organisation so this guy hyperboles it a bit, but yeah it's not a surprise that whatever's going on is not going to just magically stop.

I see no reason to worry though. If we can cause it, we can reverse it.

 

[Mahorfeus]

A single molecule of certain inorganic emissions contributes to the greenhouse effect what hundreds, if not thousands of CO2 molecules could. How the hell do you go about fixing something like that?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be making an effort to switch to renewable energy sources and what not, but thinking about the damage that has been done is just scary.

 

[McMullen]

Many will point to natural occurences and be told to shut the hell up, for example when the big smokey bastard erupted in Iceland and much of Europes travel via air was halted for a time, the volcanoe significantly reduced the emissions for the period by outputting less greenhouse gases than the travel for the period would have.

I'm a little mystified by this. What are these people suggesting? That we don't have to worry because volcanoes will halt air travel and reverse the warming trend? If that's the case, then "shut up" and maybe "the adults are talking" might be the most tactful responses those people deserve, but there has to be more to it than that.

Volcanoes are short-term events, the eruptions that can impact climate are too rare to halt the trend in the long term, the ash and gasses pose a far greater health and economic hazard per day of exposure than the consequences of warming, and there are better ways to reduce emissions from air traffic anyway.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Whenever someone comes out with stuff like this I want to ask them outright, "So are we just fucked at this point no matter what we do, or is there a deadline we ought to be aiming for?" Because they always make it sound like it's literally hopeless, yet we still ought to be trying to fix it. Pick one, guys.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

Meh i have like 60 years tops left and considering that global warming is a very slow process and it will take a while for the worst to come i guess i just do not care. Even if we all went green right now we would not see any improvements within our lifetimes so i guess what i am trying to say screw your children and let them deal with the floods droughts and wars.

 

[JoJo]

At this point, our only hope for avoiding catastrophic climate change is some sort of technology to scrub carbon dioxide out of the air, since let's be honest we're never going to give up on oil and gas fast enough otherwise. Renewables are being adopted at a fairly slow rate, nuclear fission is unpopular for understandable reasons (though I personally quite like it) and nuclear fusion is still decades away from being economically viable. Whatever happens, humanity will live on to fight another day, but it's going to hit us hard if we don't act soon :-/

Yeah I've been thinking about this idea of a CO2 scrubber, we should patent it; a construct with a high surface area mostly suspended in mid-air. Ideally with a long lifetime - say several decades per unit. How cool would it be if they were self-replicating?!

Heh, trees are all well and good but there isn't enough free land surface for them to make the significant reduction we need, especially as we'll need even more farmland as our population continues to grow to 8 or 9 billion strong. That and when trees die and decompose, guess where most of that carbon stored ends up? Right back in the atmosphere, they aren't a permanent solution. Storing carbon dioxide deep underground seems like the best option to me.

 

[The White Hunter]

Many will point to natural occurences and be told to shut the hell up, for example when the big smokey bastard erupted in Iceland and much of Europes travel via air was halted for a time, the volcanoe significantly reduced the emissions for the period by outputting less greenhouse gases than the travel for the period would have.

I'm a little mystified by this. What are these people suggesting? That we don't have to worry because volcanoes will halt air travel and reverse the warming trend? If that's the case, then "shut up" and maybe "the adults are talking" might be the most tactful responses those people deserve, but there has to be more to it than that.

Volcanoes are short-term events, the eruptions that can impact climate are too rare to halt the trend in the long term, the ash and gasses pose a far greater health and economic hazard per day of exposure than the consequences of warming, and there are better ways to reduce emissions from air traffic anyway.

No the suggestion they tend to put forth is that the volcanoe does more damage than a few weeks of human air travel, which is absolutely not the case, by a few orders of magnitude.

At this point, our only hope for avoiding catastrophic climate change is some sort of technology to scrub carbon dioxide out of the air, since let's be honest we're never going to give up on oil and gas fast enough otherwise. Renewables are being adopted at a fairly slow rate, nuclear fission is unpopular for understandable reasons (though I personally quite like it) and nuclear fusion is still decades away from being economically viable. Whatever happens, humanity will live on to fight another day, but it's going to hit us hard if we don't act soon :-/

Yeah I've been thinking about this idea of a CO2 scrubber, we should patent it; a construct with a high surface area mostly suspended in mid-air. Ideally with a long lifetime - say several decades per unit. How cool would it be if they were self-replicating?!

Heh, trees are all well and good but there isn't enough free land surface for them to make the significant reduction we need, especially as we'll need even more farmland as our population continues to grow to 8 or 9 billion strong. That and when trees die and decompose, guess where most of that carbon stored ends up? Right back in the atmosphere, they aren't a permanent solution. Storing carbon dioxide deep underground seems like the best option to me.

There is so much land near me used for "farmland" that has absolutely nothing growing or grazing on it.

 

[moggett88]

I've always wondered, and perhaps someone could enlighten me, but could a lot of our global warming problems be mitigated by planting a shit load of trees? Like, on every spare strip of land that can support them? They take CO2 out of the atmosphere and put oxygen in, isn't that what we're after?

EDIT: Never mind, just saw the post directly above this one :s

 

[McMullen]

Whenever someone comes out with stuff like this I want to ask them outright, "So are we just fucked at this point no matter what we do, or is there a deadline we ought to be aiming for?" Because they always make it sound like it's literally hopeless, yet we still ought to be trying to fix it. Pick one, guys.

Among scientists, the current discussion is: "Alright, we already fucked up the climate and there's no stopping it at this point, so what can we do to make it less bad?"

Unfortunately, scientists are rarely policymakers, very few policymakers are scientists or even have proper scientific training, and many policymakers are wasting time in a fruitless discussion about whether it's even possible to have an impact on the climate.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Whenever someone comes out with stuff like this I want to ask them outright, "So are we just fucked at this point no matter what we do, or is there a deadline we ought to be aiming for?"

Kind of, what it comes down to is do you want a dick up the ass or 12? Would you at least like some lube? And would you prefer your fucking to come from a human dong or an elephant?

Edit: I see someone got in before me, but I feel a phrased things far more elegantly.

 

[Skeleon]

As long as short-term profits thanks to inaction based on denial are high enough, nothing will be done, simple as that. Unfortunately, it'll be quite a while before major corporations start feeling the pain and a market-based change will become feasible. A lot of suffering will have to occur before that, especially in poorer regions that already suffer from rather harsh weather conditions. We'll simply build deichs, if it comes to that. We can keep this up for several decades more. Oh, food will be a little more expensive, insurance premiums will go up, some people will lose their homes. But overall, we'll be alright for a very long time. Meanwhile, huge portions of the world will suffer and only once it gets to be too expensive in the short-term will we actually change our policies. Our markets are ultimately self-destructive because of these messed-up incentive structures where long-term survival is not part of the goals anymore, only short-term benefit is.

 

[Gorrath]

The chemical reaction that causes carbon to be released when fuel is burned is a reversible one. The issue is that you'll have to put way more energy into creating fuel from the CO2 already in the air then you'll ever get out of burning the fuel in the first place. If we were able to generate a huge amount of surplus energy, we could take the CO2 out of the air and turn it back into fuel which could then be used to power cars and such. Of course the hard part is producing a massive surplus of energy, but if we nail down fusion or maybe geothermal power, we might be able to pull it off. Using this method, we could reduce the carbon in a controlled manner and keep it at whatever levels we need to stabilize the climate.

This is just me toying with conjecture though, I've no idea what roadblocks might make the whole idea bunk.

 

[Floppertje]

The UN is a political organisation so this guy hyperboles it a bit, but yeah it's not a surprise that whatever's going on is not going to just magically stop.

I see no reason to worry though. If we can cause it, we can reverse it.

You are naive my friend. just because we have the ability to reverse it, doesn't mean the political or societal will exists. Do you think people would give up their cars and airplanes and power stations to change something that's not all that tangible? I mean, if you're in a cage with a lion, you'll give up your steak dinner, but here you can't see the lion coming, and by the time you do, it's too late.

Of course WE will be fine, we've been kicking the sea's ass for over 70 years. We'll just build some more dikes.