Eocene Park!

[dabize]

http://www.skeptical...tml#commenthead

Not really new, but worth reminding us all about why some here are AGW "alarmists".

Simply put, all available evidence indicates it really is alarming.

Particular things worthy of note:

Human physiology (I teach a college undergrad course in this BTW), is far better geared to tolerating cold than it is to tolerating heat.

Ice Ages are no problem for us - they merely select against those dumb enough to expose their extremities to frostbite. We have very little defense (especially low tech defense) against excessive heat. We also weren't around the last time GHGs got so high.

Once you rule out migration and evaporation, we DIE as soon as temps get much above 40C.

This means that temps over 40C with 100% humidity (negating evaporation, fans, going naked, burnouses etc.) are FATAL - heat stroke for all.

Obviously you have to do the heat index calculation for less than 100% RH, raising the actual death threshold some (OK, how about 110 degrees), but we WILL be exposed soon to prolonged spells of weather that are fundamentally inhospitable to human existence without the aid of a complex infrastructure (able to drive us to the ocean, generate AC etc.). Ironically, use of that infrastructure (while it lasts) will only accelerate the time when humans will be finally run out of their own biosphere by their own stupidity and greed and become extinct. Also, AGW will be generating precisely the type of politico-social changes (mass refugee movement, drought induced starvation, ethnic cleansing wars etc.) that will kill the widely available energy access needed for our basic survival as a species.

Another irony: High temps on the order of the PETM would probably have been OK for large, poikilothermic beasts like dinosaurs. They would just slow down and look for rocks (for T Rex, think BIG rocks). Its only obligate homeotherms (such as us) who will inevitably get croaked by a return to PETM like temperatures, rocks or no. There's probably a very good reason that enormous mammals such as the Titanotheres (20 foot tall elephant-like creatures - the worlds largest ever land mammals) didn't show up until the Oligocene. Their surface area/volume ratios (remember the "square/cube" Law?) would preclude their survival in PETM-like conditions.

Bottom Line: We don't need Venus like conditions to win the ultimate Darwin award as a species - just a century or so (or possibly much less) of business as usual. Much too soon to select for Short People.

If you aren't alarmed by that, you are either a hostile non-human alien or a human traitor to your own posterity.

A variant on the "traitor" possibility: you might be Dr. Strangelove - we may be re-entering the cold Way days of the "mineshaft gap".

Now back to your regularly scheduled squabbling over minutiae

[LithiaWx]

We're all gonna die of heat related illnesses? I almost feel sorry for you. Do you walk around all day thinking about the extinction of mankind?

[Vergent]

We're all gonna die of heat related illnesses? I almost feel sorry for you. Do you walk around all day thinking about the extinction of mankind?

Do you like to take blindfolded strolls on the rim of the Grand Canyon?

[dabize]

I forgot an obvious additional irony - of course, Michael Crichton - noted denialist - wrote "Jurassic Park"

[LithiaWx]

Do you like to take blindfolded strolls on the rim of the Grand Canyon?

I've never been to the grand canyon.

[dabize]

Do you like to take blindfolded strolls on the rim of the Grand Canyon?

I didn't preclude the possibility that some exemplary Darwinists might might want to "leave early to avoid the rush"..........

[PhillipS]

We're all gonna die of heat related illnesses? I almost feel sorry for you. Do you walk around all day thinking about the extinction of mankind?

Did you miss the news about the 2003 European heat wave? From the Wikipedia article: More than 70,000 Europeans died as a result of the heat wave. And that was a just a brief heat wave during the month of August.

Here in North America, and much of Europe, we are somewhat insulated (literally) from the effects of higher temperatures by the widespread use of air conditioning. But rising energy costs and rising demands on the energy grid will erase much of that buffer. Already there are elderly people on fixed incomes who have to choose between AC and food because they can't afford both. And rolling blackouts during heat waves are becoming a fact of life. We will see an increasing toll among the very old, and the very young, due to higher temperatures.

So my suggestion would be to lose the smug attitude.

[dabize]

Already there are elderly people on fixed incomes who have to choose between AC and food because they can't afford both. And rolling blackouts during heat waves are becoming a fact of life. We will see an increasing toll among the very old, and the very young, due to higher temperatures.

We'll see weather capable of producing the France 2003 scenario in Philly and St Louis in most summers pretty soon.

The only difference will be readily available AC.

Can you imagine what it will be like in places like Karachi, Mumbai and New Delhi if the monsoon gets delayed from June to July?

[LithiaWx]

Did you miss the news about the 2003 European heat wave? From the Wikipedia article: More than 70,000 Europeans died as a result of the heat wave. And that was a just a brief heat wave during the month of August.

Here in North America, and much of Europe, we are somewhat insulated (literally) from the effects of higher temperatures by the widespread use of air conditioning. But rising energy costs and rising demands on the energy grid will erase much of that buffer. Already there are elderly people on fixed incomes who have to choose between AC and food because they can't afford both. And rolling blackouts during heat waves are becoming a fact of life. We will see an increasing toll among the very old, and the very young, due to higher temperatures.

So my suggestion would be to lose the smug attitude.

So you think 1 degree Celsius of warming caused that heat wave? The heat wave would have happened regardless of man's CO2 emissions. When someone makes a thread saying "OMG, everyone is going to die from heat stroke". I'm going to mock it, it's based entirely in opinion and there is no science to support such an outrageous claim. It's bat **** insane crazy, I'm sorry that you think it's a topic worthy of good faith discussion. Show me some peer reviewed papers that show we are headed towards the extinction of mankind due to CO2 emissions. I'd love to read it. But wait they doesn't exist because it's fringe lunacy that any scientist would never hitch their wagon to. People in New Orleans and other very hot cities didn't die from having no A/C before it was invented. The Heat index climbs above 120 frequently in the summer there and other gulf states. Why didn't those cities die off back then? The OP is lunacy and shouldn't be taken seriously. He actually said if we don't curb or emissions in 100 years we are all going to die and mankind will fail. You don't find that insane? Show me peer reviewed literature that shows temperature trends that support the OP and then we can have a good faith discussion.

[LithiaWx]

We'll see weather capable of producing the France 2003 scenario in Philly and St Louis in most summers pretty soon.

The only difference will be readily available AC.

Can you imagine what it will be like in places like Karachi, Mumbai and New Delhi if the monsoon gets delayed from June to July?

When is pretty soon? Can you provide links to peer reviewed papers that support this claim?

[WeatherRusty]

So you think 1 degree Celsius of warming caused that heat wave? The heat wave would have happened regardless of man's CO2 emissions. When someone makes a thread saying "OMG, everyone is going to die from heat stroke". I'm going to mock it, it's based entirely in opinion and there is no science to support such an outrageous claim. It's bat **** insane crazy, I'm sorry that you think it's a topic worthy of good faith discussion. Show me some peer reviewed papers that show we are headed towards the extinction of mankind due to CO2 emissions. I'd love to read it. But wait they doesn't exist because it's fringe lunacy that any scientist would never hitch their wagon to. People in New Orleans and other very hot cities didn't die from having no A/C before it was invented. The Heat index climbs above 120 frequently in the summer there and other gulf states. Why didn't those cities die off back then? The OP is lunacy and shouldn't be taken seriously. He actually said if we don't curb or emissions in 100 years we are all going to die and mankind will fail. You don't find that insane? Show me peer reviewed literature that shows temperature trends that support the OP and then we can have a good faith discussion.

I have no idea if mankind will go extinct due to AGW. I rather doubt it actually, but I will tell you one thing. A world more than 2C warmer than today will not support 7,000,000,000 humans. Or anything close to that number.

The whole science of climate change supports the possibility of global temperature reaching 1,2,3,4,5 degrees warmer than today. Because that warming will not be equally distributed, some place will see their average condition rise by more than 10C. Humans don't live in an insulated bubble distinct from nature. What that type of chaotic warming will do to ecosystems and the biosphere is what is most frightening. We depend on the health of that biosphere for our very existence more than most people realize.

[LithiaWx]

I have no idea if mankind will go extinct due to AGW. I rather doubt it actually, but I will tell you one thing. A world more than 2C warmer than today will not support 7,000,000,000 humans. Or anything close to that number.

The whole science of climate change supports the possibility of global temperature reaching 1,2,3,4,5 degrees warmer than today. Because that warming will not be equally distributed, some place will see their average condition rise by more than 10C. Humans don't live in an insulated bubble distinct from nature. What that type of chaotic warming will do to ecosystems and the biosphere is what is most frightening. We depend on the health of that biosphere for our very existence more than most people realize.

Fair enough, I didn't think you subscribed to the level of extremism that the OP portrayed.

[PhillipS]

So you think 1 degree Celsius of warming caused that heat wave? The heat wave would have happened regardless of man's CO2 emissions. When someone makes a thread saying "OMG, everyone is going to die from heat stroke". I'm going to mock it, it's based entirely in opinion and there is no science to support such an outrageous claim. It's bat **** insane crazy, I'm sorry that you think it's a topic worthy of good faith discussion. Show me some peer reviewed papers that show we are headed towards the extinction of mankind due to CO2 emissions. I'd love to read it. But wait they doesn't exist because it's fringe lunacy that any scientist would never hitch their wagon to. People in New Orleans and other very hot cities didn't die from having no A/C before it was invented. The Heat index climbs above 120 frequently in the summer there and other gulf states. Why didn't those cities die off back then? The OP is lunacy and shouldn't be taken seriously. He actually said if we don't curb or emissions in 100 years we are all going to die and mankind will fail. You don't find that insane? Show me peer reviewed literature that shows temperature trends that support the OP and then we can have a good faith discussion.

I don't know whether the 1C rise we've had so far caused the 2003 European Heat Wave, but I do think that it was a preview of what we'll see more often in a warmer climate. And you are correct that people have weathered extreme heat waves throughout history. But if you study history you'll find that cities, and indeed whole civilizations, have perished due to unrelenting heat. Especially when the heat is combined with drought. Remember the Saharan was once relatively lush and supported a much higher population than it does today.

You mentioned New Orleans, let's look at Las Vegas for comparison. This city of about two million residents is heavily dependent on power from Hoover Dam and water from Lake Mead behind the dam. I think it is fair to say that Las Vegas' very survival depends on that power and water. Well, those resources are in jeopardy today. From the Wikipedia article on Lake Mead:

Changing rainfall patterns, climate variability, high levels of evaporation, reduced snow melt runoff, and current water use patterns are putting pressure on water management resources at Lake Mead as the population depending on it for water and the

Hoover Dam

for electricity continues to grow. A 2008 paper in

Water Resources Research

states that at current usage allocation and projected climate trends, there is a 50% chance that live storage in lakes Mead and

Powell

will be gone by 2021, and that the reservoir could drop below minimum power pool elevation of 1,050 feet (320 m) as early as 2017. Lake volume is now at the mercy of a cascade of forces that include the fact that it is very likely impossible that the prevailing climate pattern of profound drought will or can change to precipitation surcharge in a time frame shorter than that in which the lake level will fall below the dead storage level of the downstream diversion and hydro-power intake tunnels.

(sorry about the small plot - that's the most recent I could find in my quick search)

What do you think will happen to Vegas if the lights go out and the faucets run dry? My opinion is that it will become a ghost town very quickly - and all of us taxpayers will probably have to reach into our pockets to compensate those poor Las Vegas resort and casino owners for their losses. And where will those two million residents go in that event?

Las Vegas is not the only US city whose existence is threatened by heat and drought - Los Angeles and San Antonio are two others that come to mind. And I'm sure there are others.

One corollary to Dabize's OP that you may be aware of is that coal and nuclear power plants are sensitive to rising temperatures, too. Both coal and nuclear plants depend on large quantities of cooling water - about 95 liters per KWH - and the plants have to reduce output or shut down entirely when the available water drops too low or the water temperature at the intake is too high. Can you see any scenario where this will be less of a problem in a warmer world? Me neither.

[TerryM]

I don't know whether the 1C rise we've had so far caused the 2003 European Heat Wave, but I do think that it was a preview of what we'll see more often in a warmer climate. And you are correct that people have weathered extreme heat waves throughout history. But if you study history you'll find that cities, and indeed whole civilizations, have perished due to unrelenting heat. Especially when the heat is combined with drought. Remember the Saharan was once relatively lush and supported a much higher population than it does today.

You mentioned New Orleans, let's look at Las Vegas for comparison. This city of about two million residents is heavily dependent on power from Hoover Dam and water from Lake Mead behind the dam. I think it is fair to say that Las Vegas' very survival depends on that power and water. Well, those resources are in jeopardy today. From the Wikipedia article on Lake Mead:

Changing rainfall patterns, climate variability, high levels of evaporation, reduced snow melt runoff, and current water use patterns are putting pressure on water management resources at Lake Mead as the population depending on it for water and the

Hoover Dam

for electricity continues to grow. A 2008 paper in

Water Resources Research

states that at current usage allocation and projected climate trends, there is a 50% chance that live storage in lakes Mead and

Powell

will be gone by 2021, and that the reservoir could drop below minimum power pool elevation of 1,050 feet (320 m) as early as 2017. Lake volume is now at the mercy of a cascade of forces that include the fact that it is very likely impossible that the prevailing climate pattern of profound drought will or can change to precipitation surcharge in a time frame shorter than that in which the lake level will fall below the dead storage level of the downstream diversion and hydro-power intake tunnels.

(sorry about the small plot - that's the most recent I could find in my quick search)

What do you think will happen to Vegas if the lights go out and the faucets run dry? My opinion is that it will become a ghost town very quickly - and all of us taxpayers will probably have to reach into our pockets to compensate those poor Las Vegas resort and casino owners for their losses. And where will those two million residents go in that event?

Las Vegas is not the only US city whose existence is threatened by heat and drought - Los Angeles and San Antonio are two others that come to mind. And I'm sure there are others.

One corollary to Dabize's OP that you may be aware of is that coal and nuclear power plants are sensitive to rising temperatures, too. Both coal and nuclear plants depend on large quantities of cooling water - about 95 liters per KWH - and the plants have to reduce output or shut down entirely when the available water drops too low or the water temperature at the intake is too high. Can you see any scenario where this will be less of a problem in a warmer world? Me neither.

As a long time Las Vegan I have to jump in. Las Vegas is survivable even on the hottest days without power for air conditioning because of the dryness, Swamp coolers use little more electricity than the power to run the fan, and mist cooling is extremely effective. As recently as the 50's swamp coolers were the preferred residential cooling systems, and today a system that basically straps a dampened pad in front to the condensing coil can save a considerable amount in cooling costs.

Before electrification the few hardy pioneers built coolers that were basically an open frame covered in burlap that was kept moistened. Not a refrigerator, but it did help. The problem of survivability comes down to the availability of water. Building underground worked for indigenous types dating back at least as far as the Basketmakers, and I've found their subterranean hogans comfortable in 120+ temperatures . The problem at present is that very few today would find these accommodations suitable, and for those that did, the water table has been pumped down far to low for it to be accessed without mechanical pumps.

I'd guess that, even if the Colorado dried up a few hundred could survive there, but it would be a pretty bleak existence. I know of a few paleo springs that still flow, and the locations of a number of caves in the area that are cool on the hottest days. Civilization, by any meaningful standard wouldn't be possible (the Paiute were basically family groupings).

The last aboriginals to succeed with any tribal structure were the Anasazi, and they pulled out when things warmed up a thousand years ago.

I suppose my guess is that humanity will survive whatever warming it encounters, but not civilization, and at only a tiny percentage of present population. A scattering of tribal entities, near water sources, that in a few generations will consider tales of our time as the overwrought babbling's of old fools blessed with euphoric recall.

Terry - an overwrought old fool babbling without euphoria

[dabize]

I kind of favor the extinction idea as a worst case (but not necessarily an unlikely case) scenario because of this:

Once we lose civilization (due to the disruptive factors listed in the OP and in Phillip's and Terry's responses), we'll have lost all ability to defend ourselves from the heating that we will already have put in the pipeline.

It won't matter any more that we will no longer be generating GHG when our civilization falls apart and our numbers are reduced to post Toba levels. We'll have lost the civilization we'll need to actively stop the changes we ourselves have set in motion.

AGW is (most unfortunately) a change with a long timeline.

[skierinvermont]

Humans are incredibly resilient in the wild. Most people in their comfy armchairs don't know what a healthy young adult is capable of surviving. Humans have survived in all but the hottest deserts to the north coast of Greenland as recently as 1000 years ago. I highly doubt complete extinction.

If we do reach eocene type warming (not saying this is likely), which I think would require some kind of arctic methane gun given CO2 emissions would stop once civilization began to decline, then there would still be habitable climate zones in the mid to high latitudes. Pockets of humans would survive. And it would be an interesting experiment because some, not all, knowledge and technology would be preserved. You could have small tribal units which still have basic electricity or advanced farming techniques.

[LocoAko]

So you think 1 degree Celsius of warming caused that heat wave? The heat wave would have happened regardless of man's CO2 emissions. When someone makes a thread saying "OMG, everyone is going to die from heat stroke". I'm going to mock it, it's based entirely in opinion and there is no science to support such an outrageous claim. It's bat **** insane crazy, I'm sorry that you think it's a topic worthy of good faith discussion. Show me some peer reviewed papers that show we are headed towards the extinction of mankind due to CO2 emissions. I'd love to read it. But wait they doesn't exist because it's fringe lunacy that any scientist would never hitch their wagon to. People in New Orleans and other very hot cities didn't die from having no A/C before it was invented. The Heat index climbs above 120 frequently in the summer there and other gulf states. Why didn't those cities die off back then? The OP is lunacy and shouldn't be taken seriously. He actually said if we don't curb or emissions in 100 years we are all going to die and mankind will fail. You don't find that insane? Show me peer reviewed literature that shows temperature trends that support the OP and then we can have a good faith discussion.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v432/n7017/full/nature03089.html

Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003

Peter A. Stott

¹, D. A. Stone^2,3 & M. R. Allen²

• Met Office, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (Reading Unit), Meteorology Building, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK
  
• Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK
  
• Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
  

Correspondence to: Peter A. Stott¹Email: [email protected]

Topof page

Abstract

The summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at latest ad 1500^{1, 2, 3, 4}, and unusually large numbers of heat-related deaths were reported in France, Germany and Italy⁵. It is an ill-posed question whether the 2003 heatwave was caused, in a simple deterministic sense, by a modification of the external influences on climate—for example, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate. However, it is possible to estimate by how much human activities may have increased the risk of the occurrence of such a heatwave^{6, 7, 8}. Here we use this conceptual framework to estimate the contribution of human-induced increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the risk of the occurrence of unusually high mean summer temperatures throughout a large region of continental Europe. Using a threshold for mean summer temperature that was exceeded in 2003, but in no other year since the start of the instrumental record in 1851, we estimate it is very likely (confidence level >90%)⁹ that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave exceeding this threshold magnitude.

[dabize]

Humans are incredibly resilient in the wild. Most people in their comfy armchairs don't know what a healthy young adult is capable of surviving. Humans have survived in all but the hottest deserts to the north coast of Greenland as recently as 1000 years ago. I highly doubt complete extinction.

If we do reach eocene type warming (not saying this is likely), which I think would require some kind of arctic methane gun given CO2 emissions would stop once civilization began to decline, then there would still be habitable climate zones in the mid to high latitudes. Pockets of humans would survive. And it would be an interesting experiment because some, not all, knowledge and technology would be preserved. You could have small tribal units which still have basic electricity or advanced farming techniques.

It might be a close run thing, though.

And those incredibly resilient humans living in the Ahaggar have things like low RH and oases to keep them alive at low population densities.

If we load enough GHG into the atmosphere without mitigation (the essence of BAU) until climate induced changes actually start interfering with our industrial base, then all bets are off. That would be the 6 degree/1100 ppm scenario, or even worse, and there no guarantee at all that places as hospitable to humans as the Ahaggar (you may well laugh) would still exist. It might be Empty Quarter all the way by then.

The problem is that many of these changes will be masked by the presence of the ocean as a heat sink until a political system driven by nitwits such as Watts et. al. is incapable of continued existence, let alone coping with the problem.

[Jonger]

http://www.skeptical...tml#commenthead

Not really new, but worth reminding us all about why some here are AGW "alarmists".

Simply put, all available evidence indicates it really is alarming.

Particular things worthy of note:

Human physiology (I teach a college undergrad course in this BTW), is far better geared to tolerating cold than it is to tolerating heat.

Ice Ages are no problem for us - they merely select against those dumb enough to expose their extremities to frostbite. We have very little defense (especially low tech defense) against excessive heat. We also weren't around the last time GHGs got so high.

Once you rule out migration and evaporation, we DIE as soon as temps get much above 40C.

This means that temps over 40C with 100% humidity (negating evaporation, fans, going naked, burnouses etc.) are FATAL - heat stroke for all.

Obviously you have to do the heat index calculation for less than 100% RH, raising the actual death threshold some (OK, how about 110 degrees), but we WILL be exposed soon to prolonged spells of weather that are fundamentally inhospitable to human existence without the aid of a complex infrastructure (able to drive us to the ocean, generate AC etc.). Ironically, use of that infrastructure (while it lasts) will only accelerate the time when humans will be finally run out of their own biosphere by their own stupidity and greed and become extinct. Also, AGW will be generating precisely the type of politico-social changes (mass refugee movement, drought induced starvation, ethnic cleansing wars etc.) that will kill the widely available energy access needed for our basic survival as a species.

Another irony: High temps on the order of the PETM would probably have been OK for large, poikilothermic beasts like dinosaurs. They would just slow down and look for rocks (for T Rex, think BIG rocks). Its only obligate homeotherms (such as us) who will inevitably get croaked by a return to PETM like temperatures, rocks or no. There's probably a very good reason that enormous mammals such as the Titanotheres (20 foot tall elephant-like creatures - the worlds largest ever land mammals) didn't show up until the Oligocene. Their surface area/volume ratios (remember the "square/cube" Law?) would preclude their survival in PETM-like conditions.

Bottom Line: We don't need Venus like conditions to win the ultimate Darwin award as a species - just a century or so (or possibly much less) of business as usual. Much too soon to select for Short People.

If you aren't alarmed by that, you are either a hostile non-human alien or a human traitor to your own posterity.

A variant on the "traitor" possibility: you might be Dr. Strangelove - we may be re-entering the cold Way days of the "mineshaft gap".

Now back to your regularly scheduled squabbling over minutiae

The arctic ice is basically going to be gone within 50 years, next the warming will start eating away at Greenland at an increased rate. Now we change the salinity levels and transport is slowed and we plunge back into another ice age. Pretty much our future on earth.

[Jonger]

I have no idea if mankind will go extinct due to AGW. I rather doubt it actually, but I will tell you one thing. A world more than 2C warmer than today will not support 7,000,000,000 humans. Or anything close to that number.

The whole science of climate change supports the possibility of global temperature reaching 1,2,3,4,5 degrees warmer than today. Because that warming will not be equally distributed, some place will see their average condition rise by more than 10C. Humans don't live in an insulated bubble distinct from nature. What that type of chaotic warming will do to ecosystems and the biosphere is what is most frightening. We depend on the health of that biosphere for our very existence more than most people realize.

People will just shift inland and north, eventually we run out of fossil fuels and forests will probably start growing at incredible rates due to CO2 and longer growing season... everything will work out for humanity in the end.

[TerryM]

Humans are incredibly resilient in the wild. Most people in their comfy armchairs don't know what a healthy young adult is capable of surviving. Humans have survived in all but the hottest deserts to the north coast of Greenland as recently as 1000 years ago. I highly doubt complete extinction.

If we do reach eocene type warming (not saying this is likely), which I think would require some kind of arctic methane gun given CO2 emissions would stop once civilization began to decline, then there would still be habitable climate zones in the mid to high latitudes. Pockets of humans would survive. And it would be an interesting experiment because some, not all, knowledge and technology would be preserved. You could have small tribal units which still have basic electricity or advanced farming techniques.

I think you're optimistic, but it's not beyond supposition. Remember that the Easter Islanders and the inhabitants of Tasmania forgot how to build the ships that got them there.

I think fairly large communities are needed to retain knowledge over generations, and the're subject to attack from nomadic bands. Nomads may have an edge being less burdened in having to find a suitable local for all seasons, but they're limited to what they can carry. Generators are easy enough to repair until new bearings are needed, then you need a machine shop.

Even the Amish farmers were/are reliant on imports into their communities.

God what a depressing topic!

Can't we just get somebody in power to actually do something?

[Jonger]

I think you're optimistic, but it's not beyond supposition. Remember that the Easter Islanders and the inhabitants of Tasmania forgot how to build the ships that got them there.

I think fairly large communities are needed to retain knowledge over generations, and the're subject to attack from nomadic bands. Nomads may have an edge being less burdened in having to find a suitable local for all seasons, but they're limited to what they can carry. Generators are easy enough to repair until new bearings are needed, then you need a machine shop.

Even the Amish farmers were/are reliant on imports into their communities.

God what a depressing topic!

Can't we just get somebody in power to actually do something?

You are going to have a task of convincing the developing world to stop developing. We are passing a point where economics are forcing change.

[WeatherRusty]

People will just shift inland and north, eventually we run out of fossil fuels and forests will probably start growing at incredible rates due to CO2 and longer growing season... everything will work out for humanity in the end.

So civilization will continue to prosper in a manner similar to how modern day industrial societies have? The next 50 to 100 years will progress unscathed by climate change and resource depletion? All we have to do is continue burning fossil fuels at ever increasing rates and everything will turn out just ducky? If we burn fossil fuels to the point of near total depletion we can expect not to be seriously and negatively affected by complimentary side effects? Don't worry, be happy?

[Jonger]

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2011/02/10/CarbonWeb.pdf

Notice that most of the world has reduced CO2 emissions, except China and India.

[The_Global_Warmer]

http://www.nature.co...ature03089.html

Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003

Peter A. Stott

¹, D. A. Stone^2,3 & M. R. Allen²

• Met Office, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (Reading Unit), Meteorology Building, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6BB, UK
  
• Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK
  
• Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
  

Correspondence to: Peter A. Stott¹Email: [email protected]

Topof page

Abstract

The summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at latest ad 1500^{1, 2, 3, 4}, and unusually large numbers of heat-related deaths were reported in France, Germany and Italy⁵. It is an ill-posed question whether the 2003 heatwave was caused, in a simple deterministic sense, by a modification of the external influences on climate—for example, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere—because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate. However, it is possible to estimate by how much human activities may have increased the risk of the occurrence of such a heatwave^{6, 7, 8}. Here we use this conceptual framework to estimate the contribution of human-induced increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the risk of the occurrence of unusually high mean summer temperatures throughout a large region of continental Europe. Using a threshold for mean summer temperature that was exceeded in 2003, but in no other year since the start of the instrumental record in 1851, we estimate it is very likely (confidence level >90%)⁹ that human influence has at least doubled the risk of a heatwave exceeding this threshold magnitude.

70,000K died?

holy crap.

The 2010 heatwave took out tens of thousands as well.

Wow, it sure is nice to sit in my cozy air cooled apartment during 100/84 days here in the summer.

[WeatherRusty]

http://image.guardia...0/CarbonWeb.pdf

Notice that most of the world has reduced CO2 emissions, except China and India.

The climate system does not care how or who is responsible. Were screwed.

[Jonger]

The climate system does not care how or who is responsible. Were screwed.

Obviously, but as the chart shows, most countries are reducing CO2 emission. Its time to use some of your millions and head over to China and start innovating a solution over there.

Its been a movement for years to clean the earth, but technology is finally starting to make it a reality. Its pretty much a done deal that the arctic will melt out, its more about finding a solution to mitigate and bridge us to the next level of sustainability.

[beneficii]

So you think 1 degree Celsius of warming caused that heat wave?

Let me say it clearly, AGW increases the probability, incidence, and duration of such events.

[beneficii]

People will just shift inland and north, eventually we run out of fossil fuels and forests will probably start growing at incredible rates due to CO2 and longer growing season... everything will work out for humanity in the end.

Yeah, let's just have civilization collapse on our posterity as they have to undergo mass migrations with limited resources, leading to bloody conflicts; let's not try to do what we can do prevent that NOW.

[Jonger]

Yeah, let's just have civilization collapse on our posterity as they have to undergo mass migrations with limited resources, leading to bloody conflicts; let's not try to do what we can do prevent that NOW.

Let me tell you a little secret, there will brief hell on earth economically before this all shakes out. If suddenly all the fossil fuel on earth vanished, global meltdown would occur. This process needs a boot to the ass, but its not going to happen over night. MONEY will make this happen, its happening here already and it will eventually spread to the only developing countries left.