Climate change predictions.

[funflower]

Are there models out there that predict what kinds of changes are likely for places other than Europe? I'm always hearing how Europe will warm up, then cool off due to the slowing or stoppage of the Gulf Stream.

Anybody know what is expected for various parts of N. America or elsewhere in the world?

[illbill]

1. The CNN special today get you in the mood?

Miles O'brien laid the deal out to me pretty well. I'll look around the net for you.

[funflower]

2. Didn't know there was a special on CNN. Wish I'd seen it.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. I've seen a lot of them over the years...

and there are so many "ifs" that your eyes glaze over.

Two things are really the key to what we'll be living under-- the Antarctic land ice and the Gulf Stream. The Humbolt current is another, but that might pale after the effects of the other two.

If the various ice shelves in the Antarctic break up, the hundreds of cubic miles of land ice will slip into the southern oceans. This, on top of melted glacial ice, will raise the sea level 6-30 feet. No ones knows for sure just how much it will rise, but even a 6' rise will wipe out coastal lowlands and many watersheds worldwide. There goes New Orleans, Bangla Desh, Florida, Venezuela... The weather effects of that much extra water are impossible to calculate.

I read an article a few months ago where they analyzed some crustacean fossils, and founs out that instead of hundreds of years to trigger an ice age when the Gulf Stream shifted, it was only maybe 10 or 20 years. The stream could, and has in the past, shift for many reasons, but all that icewater falling off the Antarctic land mass would probably do it. So, if the stream shifts next week, we won't have to worry about fixing Social Security because by 2040 we'll be under an ice sheet that extends down to Georgia.

Links? Sorry, none offhand.

[Melodybe]

4. Google my grandpa, Dr. Wallace S. Broecker, he is a professor

at Columbia University and one of the fathers of the Global Warming debate. He has written countless articles on what may happen. I wish I actually knew, I've never asked, we always talk family and not shop. I do know that he says that cutting emmissions will NOT be enough, they are working on a machine prototype that will convert atmospheric CO2. He says that the time for cutting emmissons was a while ago and that now we will have to actively get rid of the overabundance of CO2.

Anyway, look at his stuff, if anyone would know it is him.

And yes, I'm very proud, and no, I did not get his brains, my smart ass siblings did!!

[jpak]

9. I've seen your grandpa at ASLO/AGU meetings

and have used his books as references in my oceanography classes.

The most dire consequences of global warming occur at CO2 concentrations >600 ppm.

Curbing CO2 emissions today would forestall many of these consequences - but this has to happen very soon.

But it won't happen if we wait until someone else (government, industry) takes action.

If you want to "solve" the problem of global warming, look at what's parked in your driveway, the appliances and light bulbs in you home, and ask yourself - can I do this with less????

(the answer is "yes" and you won't give up a thing - except high energy bills)

:hi:

[cprise]

5. Yes, see signature...

The project has already finished one experiment and the second is already under way.

[rfkrfk]

6. you can get any result you want

That's what is great about these models.
What typically is done,
numerous curve fitting routines
are adjusted to fit past data,
then 'tested' in the future.
Pick one, that predicts what you or your client wants.
Everybody wins.

[cprise]

7. The model you pick still has to hold up to scientific scrutiny.

ClimatePrediction.net is an actual weather simulation system which computes hundreds of different models. Each of these has a different range of values for a set of variables which allows researchers to test assumptions about how the climate works. Then it statistically weighs the outcomes of these models according to their likelihood.

[phantom power]

8. If Europe's temp drops as predicted...

the rest of the northern hemisphere will follow. That is assuming the "glaciation" model, where the temperature drops like 10 degrees. The new stable climate in this model is glaciers over all northern hemisphere landmasses. I'm a believer in this model. Paleoclimatologists have accumulated a lot of data that indicates this is responsible for the alternating periods of warming and glaciation that have ruled the globe in recent geologic history. The current acts like a blinker-switch on a turn signal, and it's about to flip itself again.

What the transition period looks like, I'm not sure if anybody knows, since it will be chaotic. I'm sure we can expect some very odd weather, whatever it is. If the atlantic current halts, enormous amounts of heat energy that used to move north via the current will no longer be able to. Equatorial ocean temperatures would rise. Maybe that means more available heat energy to drive hurricanes.

Last week, Britain issued it's first-ever tornado warning.