Al Gore on 'climate crisis' : 'Worse than we thought'

[kalivor]

Why doesn't the UN focus on the obvious first?

I am uncertain as to why you believe that we cannot try to address both at once.

(Other than that you only see one of the two as an actual problem.)

[keith]

This is the kind of thing we should be focusing on. I think 95% of everyone would agree that ships should stop dumping garbage in the ocean; people and companies shouldn't dump garbage and chemicals into lakes, rivers, streams, etc. I say 95% only because there is always some idiot who will disagree.

Why doesn't the UN focus on the obvious first? Personally, I think the only reason the UN cares about pollution at all is as a method of redistributing wealth from the US to other countries.

This made me laugh.

Yeah somebody should do something about that.

[Inquartata]

Most likely, yes. We are discussing global warming. Local weather fluctuations -- even where "local" is a large area, and "fluctuations" are a 200-year warming period -- are different things that are not necessarily related.

Let me try to condense my post and highlight my actual question:

"during that time, "the Arctic appears to have been much warmer than now" ( even though mean temperatures in some other parts of the world were lower that current ones. Without human help, right?

Yet instead of the dire effects predicted for global warming, that was a fairly prosperous time. Venice and London and Constantinople and Athens weren't drowned by rising sea levels or anything. No runaway methane releases from melting permafrost. Right?

And "This warm period...just preceded the Little Ice Age..."

I'm wondering how modern climatologists and geologists explain these goings on. Wiki didn't say. And so many of the current predictions of bad consequences seem to involve the Arctic..."

So again...many of the worst predicted effects of GW seem to involve the melting of Arctic ice. Higher sea levels, especially---I mean, if not that, what other effect of GW is supposed to raise them?

This did not happen when the Arctic was warmer than today, when it's supposedly diminishing at an alarming rate.

How does the fact that things weren't as warm everywhere matter to what the effects of Arctic warming were, are or may be? It's this about which I was curious...

Oops, I forgot---this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage is the Wiki entry which says that the Arctic was warmer during the MWP. In the section on "Effects of Climate Change", about 2/3 of the way down the page.

[kalivor]

With change of emphasis:

"during that time, "the Arctic appears to have been much warmer than now" ( even though mean temperatures in some other parts of the world were lower that current ones. Without human help, right?

Yet instead of the dire effects predicted for global warming, that was a fairly prosperous time. Venice and London and Constantinople and Athens weren't drowned by rising sea levels or anything. No runaway methane releases from melting permafrost. Right?

You should also note that, at present (lower temperatures in the Arctic), those same cities are still not drowned by rising sea levels.

The concern is about what is predicted based on current information (and human behaviour) 50, 100, 200 years from now.

Also, we are not presently in the medieval warm period. The permafrost is releasing a lot of methane. Even the Daily Mail is reporting it -- albeit with the Daily Mail mandated quote from a scientist who disagrees that it's significant.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...cientists.html

(It should be noted that they picked a good scientist to quote -- a climate change researcher who believes that global warming is real and is the director of the Max Planck institute. Good authority.)

And "This warm period...just preceded the Little Ice Age..."

I'm wondering how modern climatologists and geologists explain these goings on. Wiki didn't say. And so many of the current predictions of bad consequences seem to involve the Arctic..."

So again...many of the worst predicted effects of GW seem to involve the melting of Arctic ice. Higher sea levels, especially---I mean, if not that, what other effect of GW is supposed to raise them?

This did not happen when the Arctic was warmer than today, when it's supposedly diminishing at an alarming rate.

How does the fact that things weren't as warm everywhere matter to what the effects of Arctic warming were, are or may be? It's this about which I was curious...

Oops, I forgot---this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage is the Wiki entry which says that the Arctic was warmer during the MWP. In the section on "Effects of Climate Change", about 2/3 of the way down the page.

Sorry ... I don't understand the science well enough to explain it to you. But I did link to an article titled "Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly". I thought that might help to answer your question, as it appears to address it directly.

Here's the link again: http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/share...lScience09.pdf

[Inquartata]

You should also note that, at present (lower temperatures in the Arctic), those same cities are still not drowned by rising sea levels.

The concern is about what is predicted based on current information (and human behaviour) 50, 100, 200 years from now.

Right. When Arctic temperatures are projected to be---what? A couple of degrees warmer than currently? Or is that predicted couple of degrees expected also to be confined to certain regions?

This is what I am wondering: Dire predictions are being made on the assumption that warming will melt off Arctic ice and raise sea levels. Yet if warming of the same magnitudes being predicted have occurred before without raising sea levels significantly, either the predictions are off base or there must be another factor to explain why they are correct---another factor than Arctic melting, that is. No?

Also, we are not presently in the medieval warm period. The permafrost is releasing a lot of methane.

Again, though, what is the explanation for the fact that either this did not occur when the region was similarly warm a few centuries ago or the releases then did not have the effects predicted for today's releases? I have not heard this question asked before, let alone answered...

(It should be noted that they picked a good scientist to quote -- a climate change researcher who believes that global warming is real and is the director of the Max Planck institute. Good authority.)

Ah...part of your definition of a "good authority" is "has taken a position with which I agree"?

Seriously---wouldn't the same opinions be even more convincing coming from a skeptic of the conventional views?

I did link to an article titled "Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly". I thought that might help to answer your question, as it appears to address it directly.

Thanks. It doesn't appear to address why A, B and C are expected to occur when mean Arctic temperatures approach X in the future, but did not occur when they approached X in the past, though. It appears only to attempt to explain why temperatures changed using more of those darned computer simulations. ( And the computer models all seem to yield different results which are incomplete in different ways. )

[kalivor]

Ah...part of your definition of a "good authority" is "has taken a position with which I agree"?

Seriously---wouldn't the same opinions be even more convincing coming from a skeptic of the conventional views?

Um ... this was a quote dismissing the methane release from the permafrost as being insignificant. To me, this has the most impact when spoken by a respected researcher who IS concerned about global warming.

If you're skeptical about the whole global warming thing, and dismiss the permafrost methane ... well, that's just par for the course, isn't it?