Global Warming: as real as it gets .. those in denial are RD (real dense)

[doc mercer]

Edited on Sun Nov-22-09 03:39 PM by JohnWxy


This is a ride nobody's going to enjoy. Actually the warming is accelerating so rapidly, scientists are having a very hard time getting their models updated fast enough to keep up with it.

Also, here's another interesting feature of Global Warming. Don't think Global Warming is going to continue in a nice steady rate. THe scientists know we are in for incidents of abrupt climate change, where the temps can move up significanly faster, over a very short time period. But the interesting thing is, because of the complex interactions of melting snow and ice (lowering Earth's albido), the defrosting of the permafrost (adding methane to the atmosphere) and movement of ice sheets off land (e.g. Greenland, South Pole) which will raise the levels of the world's oceans, nobody knows just when these "step-ups" are going to happen. Will the first one occur in 30 years, or 20, or perhpas in 10 years? Nobody knows. .....But they are coming.

To put it bluntly we are sliding toward the "Event Horizon" of Global Warming...the point beyond which we will not be able to slow it down, no matter how much we reduce our emissions of GHGs.


Global Warming proceeding fasater than predicted

~~
~~


_Temperatures over the past 12 years are 0.4 of a degree warmer than the dozen years leading up to 1997.

Even the gloomiest climate models back in the 1990s didn't forecast results quite this bad so fast.

"The latest science is telling us we are in more trouble than we thought," said Janos Pasztor, climate adviser to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

~~
~~

Back in 1997 "nobody in their wildest expectations," would have forecast the dramatic sudden loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic that started about five years ago, Weaver said. From 1993 to 1997, sea ice would shrink on average in the summer to about 2.7 million square miles. The average for the last five years is less than 2 million square miles. What's been lost is the size of Alaska.

(more)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


James Hansen has said President Obama may have four years to "save the world". Other climate scientiest have said we have about 10 years to start achieving some appreciable reductions to our GHG emissions - they said that about 5 years ago.


We do not have 20 years to wait for electric cars to be on the road in large enouogh numbers to achieve significant reductions to our CO2 emissions.

Approaches that can produce reductions in the near term:

1__ Conservation efforts.

2__ Efficiency improvements in appliances, and residential and commercial buildings. (retrofits for current structures can yield good results .. e.g. improvements in insulation, increased shade trees reduces demand for power for A/C, reduces wind impact on houses, results in Carbon sequestration.

3__ Incentivize mass transit use.

4__ Quickly and dramatically increase ethanol use. Import more from Brazil and combine with domestic production to achieve 20% displacement of gasoline in perhaps 7 years. Support investment in Combined Heat and Power for ethanol production facilities (increases GHG reduction of ethanol over gasoline from current 51% to approx 78%). This could be achieved in 5 years (with a real commitment). That would be like increasing domestic production of ethanol 50% without growing one additional bushel of corn to make ethanol. This would also require quickly and dramatically increasing the number of E85 pumps available.

Along with this effort, Auto makers should make Flex-fuel cars with turbo-charging and to optimize for E85's much higher octane than gasoline. the result would be smaller engines producing the same amount of power resulting in comparable mileage to gasoline powered cars with comparable engine power.

In Case 3, CHP reduces total net fuel consumption by 55 percent; CO2 emission reductions from displacing central station power, exceed the CO2 emissions at the plant itself, resulting in NEGATIVE net CO2 emissions for the CHP system ...compared with base case conditions. (see Table 6. CHP Total Energy Consumption Comparison—Natural Gas


Witbout reductions of CO2 emissions starting in the next few years, the 20% to 36% GHG reductions potentially achieveable with Plugin Hybrids and electrics (depending on how many are actually sold) will not matter. If we do not get more reductions much sooner than 20 years from now, the Warming of the Earth will be proceeding so rapidly in 20 years that it will be beyond our ability to bring under control.

[Minnesota Mike]

I just turned on my space heater to warm me up, burn that coal baby!

[doc mercer]

Has nothing to do with that aspect ... contrary to Dirty who claims to be an expert on this topic

turn off Fox Newsless and cancel your MICHELLE BACHMANN TAKING BACK AMERICAN newsletter and you will be fine