AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: questions for you DU scientists

[kansasblue]

Just a couple of questions from the film.

1) One part of the film Gore notes that the glaciers are melting and notes (like the ice cubes floating in the glass, vs the ice cubes above the water in the glass)that the melting ice on land would raise sea levels. Then I thought he noted that in some parts of the world the sea level had risen 20 ft.

Q: Doesn't sea levels rise in one area mean sea level rise for everyone? Our Seas are connected, right? Shouldn't we see sea level rise in Florida?



2) He does a nice job of showing CO2 levels rising. He also shows Co2 and temp travel along going up and down thru history. In the film he gets on the lift to go up to where Co2 levels are now.

Q: If the temperatures are to closely follow CO2 then what would be the associated temperature if it moves up to the same level associated with co2 levels?

[Autumn Colors]

1. Well, what I heard him say was...

that sea levels WOULD or COULD rise as much as 20 ft, not that they already had.

[Hekate]

5. Pacific atolls are already sinking,they're so low-lying to begin with

I've been trying to remember the time-frame Gore gave for the rest of us -- 10 years? My home on the California coast is probably all of 3 feet above sea level itself.

Hekate

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. Sea level varies

"In reality, due to currents, air pressure variations, temperature and salinity variations, etc., this does not occur, not even as a long term average. The location-dependent, but persistent in time, separation between mean sea level and the geoid is referred to as (stationary) sea surface topography. It varies globally in a range of ±2 m

Traditionally, one had to process sea-level measurements to take into account the effect of the 228-month Metonic cycle and the 223-month eclipse cycle on the tides. Mean sea level does not remain constant over the surface of the entire earth. Mean sea level at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal stands 20 cm higher than at the Atlantic end."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level

[skids]

4. Or to put it in normal people speak...

The sea sloshes around, very very slowly because it is so big, so you get some variation, sometimes for years on end if there is low pressure air over a certain spot (which allows it to bulge up there) or some of the big currents are crashing together or whirl around each other.

(I think some of the wikipedia authors are more interested in showing off their vocabulary than creating material that is useful for the average man.)

Sometimes you get something a bit smaller but more drastic like this:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19340338-29277,00.html

[snot]

3. I heard same as Autumn Colors --

If Greenland or a significant part of Antarctic shelf melts, 20 feet (everywhere).

No idea about ? 2, although it looked like the two lines paralleled each other with frightening consistency . . .

[Dead_Parrot]

6. To address part 2...

Earth tends to flip-flop between hot and cold - Here's a graph of long term temperature trends:



There is a huge amount of inertia in the system, so we might not see a "hot" mode in our lifetimes. That's by no means a given, though: We've heated up enough to start melting frozen methane in the permafrost, which accelerates the process. If, between our emissions and these feedbacks, the oceanic methane also melts, we'll hit "hot" in a few decades.

The honest truth is, we don't understand enough about the system to predict exactly what it will do (a factoid the coal companies jump upon with glee). All we can say is, we're going to be fucked in the very near future if we carry on the way we are.

Of the top ten hottest years (since the invention of the thermometer) most of them have been in the last decade. The process has started, but maybe we can still stop it - or at least, slow it down enough for us and the rest of the planet to cope with it.

If we don't, it's worth bearing in mind that the last time we had similar CO₂ and temperature changes was at the Permian/Triassic boundary...

...It's nicknamed "The Great Dying", because it destroyed 95% of all lifeforms.

[depakid]

9. the Permian/Triassic extinction

May also have had an addition perpetrator...

http://www.sciam.com/includes/gallery_pop.cfm?file=000081E1-D765-1485-976583414B7FFE87

Of course, so might we....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_MN4

Then again a little impact winter might not be overall such a terrible thing... global systems are complicated enough to make your head spin....:crazy:

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Something will have kicked it off

Given that the permian tetrapods probably didn't drive hummers, it's reasonable to look a little farther afield...

[zbdent]

10. If the righties embrace the "fact" that the Earth has these periodic

"cool" and "hot" runs, doesn't that, therefore, eradicate their theories that the Earth is only thousands of years old, instead of Billions???????????

I mean, in arguing against the threat of "global warming", they have to go through periods of millions of years . . .

(Plus, if Adam named all the beasts of the Earth, and we have verbatim transcripts of his conversations with God, when there was no secretary present, then why weren't dinosaurs named in the Bible, other than "the behemoth"? Adam gave it a name! I also don't remember a reference to a platypus in the bible, either . . .)

[Dead_Parrot]

12. ...God knows! nt...

[zbdent]

13. and he (?) ain't talking . . .

[rock]

7. Sea level is about 20 cm higher on the Pacific side

If you want to be bored silly about it, try http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/puscience/

[Strelnikov_]

8. A Recent Study Indicates 20 ft. Rise By 2100, Displacing 800 M Worldwide

I think this is the one that has the Brits in a tizzy. Other studies show much less.

If all of the ice mass melted, 'sea level' would rise 260' displacing 80% of the worlds current population. I say current, because this would take a long long time. Thing is, considering once the energy crises hits the addicts will turn to coal to get their fix, I do not think this is out of the question.

"When the Industrial Revolution began, the atmospheric CO2 level was roughly 270 ppm. The 377 ppm registered for 2004 is not only far above any level over the last 740,000 years, it may be nearing a level not seen for 55 million years. At that time the earth was a tropical planet. There was no polar ice; sea level was 80 meters (260 feet) higher than it is today."

from Plan B 2.0 By Lester Brown