h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We may not know if it is Global Warming or Global Freezing, but SOMETHING untoward is going on! We have atmospheric data from the Artic region which is showing that the temperature curve in the upper atmosphere is growing colder, with atmospheric clouding of the Artic regions starting sooner in the year and lasting later in the year. This allows for the increased precipitation of nitrogen from said area of the atmosphere, which allows more destruction of the ozone layer in the Northern hemisphere. We could be looking at a Northern ozone hole to match the Southern one. Guess where most of the humans live? (Although, to be fair to the rest of the planetary biomass, it won't be a picnic down South if this continues! Particularly if the holes meet in the middle )

Source of data: JPL press release, dated from April of 2000. Anyone interested in environmental news and satellite-Earth observations will get all the information they could wish for by signing up. Too bad our current Prez is not interested.

the scientists who are saying that global warming is coming have 100 years of data to base this on...100 years.... that is nothing in the Geological time scale! The satelites that measure the temp of the earth are not very accurate because of the lower earth orbit that they are in. Friction with the atmosphere heats them up and throws them off, and also, their orbit is degrading eratticaly thus making any data they take iffy at best.


magrat, maybe you will be able to give me an answer... all you said was you where horrified about the missile defence program.. why? as an ally of the US Austrialia will be defended with it as well. It can be done, there have been 3 tests, 1 failed horribly, the next was within 10 ft of the missile and the 3rd was right on target until one of the gryo-stableizers failed (in the intercept missile) about one second from impact with the other missile. Star Wars wasn't impossible either, impractical yes, impossible no. Star Wars would have used space based lazers to take out missiles and *alot* of high speed computers

Sorry, read that as "Arctic regions" not "Artic" regions.

SC

When I said the scientific community does not agree with the conclusion of global warming, I was talking about percentages. Some members of the community have reached the conclusion that global warming is actually occurring. Of those, a minority have concluded that it comes from man-made causes. I haven't encountered any compelling arguments from the extremists, so I ascribe to the "we don't know" camp. Truth is not determined by democracy, but if the extremists are correct, then they should be able to prove themselves in short order.

And remember, the community had 70 years' worth of atmospheric data on which to base their impending ice age scare in the 70's. And as for the ozone layer, if such changes in ozone coverage were so detrimental, there should be no life in Florida. But if our last election is any indication, there is no intelligent life to be found there.

One thing that has always puzzled me about the global warming scare... if our ozone layer is dying so quickly, then why is it that most of the smog that burns my lungs is made up of... ozone?

that's the million dollar question

... but has a simple black-and-white answer: ozone up there in the atmosphere is /good/, ozone down here is /bad/ - full stop. Producing ozone on the ground does not mean that it would drift up into higher layers in a short time. Down here on earth it irritates our lungs, whereas in the higher layers of the atmosphere it blocks the UV part of the sunlight.

I am getting into this one a little late, I think.....
But has 'Dubya' completely missed the plot??????????

'G'

"Producing ozone on the ground does not mean that it would drift up into higher layers in a short time. Down here on earth it irritates our lungs, whereas in the higher layers of the atmosphere it blocks the UV part of the sunlight." - Thank you Bossel, that has always bothered me. But now I've got another problem. We're producing ozone on the ground, and it doesn't rise very easily. We're producing gasses that destroy ozone on the ground. Shouldn't we be destroying low-lying ozone molecules, and cancelling out our own damage? Why do CFC's rise so easily to destroy high-level ozone? Don't CFC molecules weigh more than ozone molecules?

During the early 1970s, scientists discovered that CFC molecules did not easily decompose in the lower
atmosphere because of their chemical stability. Instead, they were drifting into the stratosphere and attacking the ozone layer, which shields the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

got that from [URL removed by moderator] when I was researching a report on CFCs for Chemistry eailier this year

CFCs and CFC Replacements I think was the key word search

I've had daffodils up this year much earlier than ever before. The weather is more tempremental than I've ever known. I've been on holiday to a lovely little riding centre in Wales on and off for the past 13 years; we used to admire the great green rolling hills and dales, now they're great brown barren slopes full of tree stumps.

The only thing I believe that will change corporate minds is "people power", but a sense of apathy seems to have come over most folk, which is a shame, as we may be fighting the biggest fight yet.

On the Friends Of The Earth (FOE) International website (I can't remember the address), there's an e-mail to copy and send to President Bush, appealing him to change America's chosen direction on the Kyoto Protocol. Have a look and please send it off, send the whole text to your friends, so they can copy the mail to Bush as well.


Talking of apes in office, there was a statement from our PM, Tony Blair, urging people to get back into the countryside, Foot & Mouth disease or no. I know lack of tourism is doing terrible things to the villages, but humans ARE carriers of the disease, and trekking it round the country to infect other areas will only make matters worse for even more rural villages. That did seem to me to be a blatently stupid statement.

we try this again!
post 69 (the one that was removed by our friendly neighborhood censor) should say

During the early 1970s, scientists discovered that CFC molecules did not easily decompose in the lower atmosphere cause of their chemical stability. Instead, they were drifting into the stratosphere and attacking the ozone layer, which shields the earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

got that from [entire post was deleted by monitor for having a URL in this spot, guess they couldn't take the time to just delete the URL it's self......] when I was researching a report on CFCs for Chemistry eailier this year

CFCs and CFC Replacements I think was the key word search

Yowuzupman: I said I was horrified about the missile defence programme because although its not fashionable in Australia anymore to think that we have to try to create more trading links with Asia, I think it is necessary. Europe is a trading bloc, America is, well America, and Australia is a long way from anywhere but Asia, or more specifically Asia pacific, and I feel it would beneficial to trade more heavily with them.

The US is seen as the world's Policemen, right (or was under democrat party)? Well when a certain prime minister around here said that we were like America's Deputy (after East Timor independence), it wasn't taken very well in Indonesia. The president of Indonesia still, pointedly, has not yet visited Australia. If we harbour defence programme stuff for the US in Australia, we're not going to be too popular with with any country in Asia (particularly Indonesia & china).

As I said before, these are only my views, and if I've got any details wrong, any aussies here that could point them out to me would be much appreciated, as this is only what I gather from reading/watching the news.

Colonel Sellers, you say the community had 70 years' worth of atmospheric data on which to base their impending ice age. Things have changed now because they're not just looking at meteorological records of the last 100 years or so. Yowuzupman isn't taking into account all the other information going back millions of year that is now available, from the palaeobotanists, dendrochronologists, oceanographers and so on and so forth. They know the behaviour of things like phytoplankton now. They know that coccolothaphores prefer warmer waters and don't use so much co2 and diatoms live in colder water and use much more co2. They can tell this from samples taken from the sea bed. Warmer waters are spreading north and south and the phytoplankton that use less co2 are doing very well while those that use more are reducing in numbers. They can tell this from satellite images of algal blooms. Fish that prefer cold water, like cod and salmon are also getting hard to find. There are all sorts of indications of global warming, and it's not just from the records of our weather over the last 100 years.

Sal

The difference between looking at limited records of observations and being able to go back in time thru the use of carbon dating and core samples, is the difference between reading a REVIEW of "War and Peace" and challenging your arm muscles by reading the weighty tome yourself.

We now have the tools to deeply analyze what could only be observed and speculated on in the past. We should use whatever tools are at our disposal to predict, recognize and avert disaster. We may or may not be alone in the Universe; all the more reason to keep up maintenance on our only spaceship.

The jury may still be out on global warming/neo ice age (pick your favorite prediction), but do we want to take the chance that the jury has been napping through all the important evidence?

Yes, it would make alot of sense to trade more heavily with your neighbors. (BTW you're the only person so far to give me an answer, let alone to the question)
I think the deployment of the interceptor missiles in Austrialia was part of the second phase of the project. The first phase is the making it work part and then the deployment of the missiles in either Colorado, or Alaska (I don't think they have the range to be fired from Austrialia to block a missile coming form Lybia or Iraq). The second phase (not sure Clinton really messed the program up) was the offering of deployment of missile sights in our closest allies territory: Britain, Austrailia and Israel. There has also been some talk of deploying somthing in Taiwan to block the short range missiles from China, that would be difficult tho.

About the police man thing, you are right. Clinton took it as his duty to stop just about every war there was except for the ones in Africa. That continent could have dropped off the face of the earth and he would't have sent ships in to pick up the few people that survived by swimming. We are over deployed, undertrained, under manned, under supplied, demoralized and some democrats say that we are paying the military too much. With something in the neigborhood of 1/8 of the armed forces on welfare how can they say that? We can't even supply our Carrier Battle Groups correctly! Thats the reason the Cole was able to be hit, the navy didn't have the money and a supply ship avalible to refuel it so the Cole had to dock in Yeman. And remember those Crusie Missiles that we used in the Gulf War? We have yet to replace them...



on to global warming

I did not know of these plankton movements, if they are doing what you say then somthing probably up. Did they just start moving or have these plankton been moving for years, decades, centuries, millenia? What about those gas pockets under the ocean floor that, when the ice age came and the water's pressure droped, released a gas? What is happening to the pockets now that there is more water pressure on them and was the gas methane or what was it if it wasn't methane? What are the levels of that gas in the atmosphere now? Couldn't the fish being harder to find be explained by overfishing?

Lastly are you saying that global warming is due only to human excesses? I know that it's alot of questions and they may not be in your field of expertice, but I'm curious, so shoot me

corrections my post above:
first words: To magrat: yes, it would...
in the parenthesis it should be ..to give me an answer to the question, let alone a reasonable one

When you start going back millions of years, though, you're getting a mudied picture. After all, haven't they found fossilized palm trees in Greenland? Pole shifts and continental drifts factor into the equation to skew our results. And through it all, we're trying to find out if there is a pattern. Because although global warming may be actually taking place, there is little evidence that it is a man-made situation. That is the issue at hand.

And how, may I ask, do we track plankton movements over millions of years? Cod and salmon could be getting harder to find because they're tasty. Diatoms could also be suffering from some outside source that doesn't involve temperature.

We had an ice age about 10,000 years ago. Then we had a mysterious episode of global warming. Global warming has happened in the past, without human intervention. There is a strong possibility that this sort of thing happens regularly, and no amount of smog reduction can stop it.

It's not plankton movements Yowuzupman. It's different types of plankton that live in different water temperatures. The ones that live in cooler waters use a lot more co2 and the ones that live it warmer water use much less. The cool/warm temperature boundary is changing and more northerly and southerly waters are warming up so the coccolithaphores are able to occupy these warming regions that no longer suit the diatoms. The pattern has changed quite recently. They can tell because when they die, their skeletons drift to the ocean floor and build up there. Samples taken from the ocean floor (like ice core samples, only cylindrical sections of mud instead of ice) can be examined to find out what the pattern has been over a long period.

From what I can remember about those gas pockets, they're thought to be likely to burst free and bubble up to the surface as the water warms so any increase in water pressure, if that's a factor may be counterbalanced by temperature change. This is what they fear, not what they know. I think you're right about it being methane. I don't know what the level of atmospheric methane is. Anyone else here know?

The ocean's fish are over fished and they have pollution to cope with. They've recorded the movements of fish shoals over quite a long period of time and they've noted the water temperatures preferred by various species of fish. Some species prefer cooler water temperatures and their migrations follow shifts in water temperature among other things. Those species that prefer (perhaps "prefer" is too weak a word - "require" is more accurate) cooler waters, like cod and salmon have been moving further north year by year while fish that prefer warmer water have been expanding their range to take advantage of the enlarged area of warm water. As the cold regions shrink, not only are cold water fish moving further north, but their numbers are diminishing. There may well be several reasons for the fall in numbers. All the answers to all these questions will probably turn out to be complex and multi-faceted and all the answers aren't known yet. The climate/weather is a chaotic system, so the answers aren't just going to fall into our laps.

Lots of scientists believe this climate change is being caused by human activities. The data they've analysed so far suggest that this climate change is happening very much more quickly than changes that happened in the past. Even the ones who don't like to commit themselves mainly take the attitude that, at the very least, climate is like an angry sleeping beast and we're giving it vicious little jabs with a sharp stick. There's the danger of positive feedback that might amplify any relatively small change that we might bring about, for example.

You're right Colonel, the evidence is sometimes confusing and contradictory. But the scientists do know about pole shifts and continental drift though. They, after all, are the ones who discovered pole shifts and continental drift so it would make sense for them to take those things into account.

I think even if you harbour doubts, given the potential cost to humanity and the rest of life on our planet, it would be better to take the cautious approach than wait till all the data's in and it's too late.

Sal

Let's not beat around the bush (pardon the pun!) all the Americans care about is number 1. So what if a few americans lost their jobs because of clean up measures, chances are more jobs would be created due to a government body to regulate such measures. I would love it if for once Europe could turn round and tell America to get their act into gear rather than them scaring the rest of the world into following them around. Your not a super power any more.... Just a playground bully and i'm bored of it!!!!!

fabbers

1 carrier battle group has more power then all of the British armed forces and you are telling me we are not a superpower.........BTW we have 14 CBGs. Care to think again?