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They have got to be kidding.

Could A Small Nuclear War Reverse Global Warming? Double Click

If finger tip has cancer in it, you have to cut the arm off.

I'm not sure they're recommending it.

I have no opinion at all on whether global average temperature variations are tending toward warmer or cooler values, and if they are whether it's a short or long term effect, and whether the cause of any variation is related to man-made atmospheric pollution. I have no opinion because I'm not competent to analyze the relevant data even if I'd seen it. What bewilders me is that so many people have an opinion on the subject. Where do they get it from, other than some quasi-religious belief?

On the other hand I'm quite certain that man-made atmospheric pollution is real, and that changing a system on that scale increases the chance of it reaching a tipping point and adopting a new stable state, and that getting back from the new state to the old would be far more difficult than just re-establishing the old environmental variables because that's not sufficient push to pass back over the tipping point. I'm also aware that tipping points can cascade. I regard them as very dangerous indeed.

On the basis that the shift in man-made atmospheric pollution is potentially capable of pushing beyond a tipping point, I'd do a great deal to reverse the pollution and re-establish the original conditions before a catastrophe occurs, even if it's not a likely catastrophe. And going back to pre-human atmospheric levels doesn't mean increasing the pollution less quickly, the way we seem to discuss "reducing the deficit", it means bringing the pollution figures down. Not the rate of increase of pollution, the actual parts-per-million pollution level. And do you know what? I haven't seen a single governmental forecast that will bring that actual parts-per-million pollution level down at all. Ever. All any government target has indicated is a reduction in the rate of increase. And deniers griping at even that, too.

If it tips, any reversal is tens of thousands of years in the future at the very least. It's distressing that people should be so uninterested in the efforts to reduce the possibility.

spot;1354704 wrote: I'm not sure they're recommending it.

I have no opinion at all on whether global average temperature variations are tending toward warmer or cooler values, and if they are whether it's a short or long term effect, and whether the cause of any variation is related to man-made atmospheric pollution. I have no opinion because I'm not competent to analyze the relevant data even if I'd seen it. What bewilders me is that so many people have an opinion on the subject. Where do they get it from, other than some quasi-religious belief?

On the other hand I'm quite certain that man-made atmospheric pollution is real, and that changing a system on that scale increases the chance of it reaching a tipping point and adopting a new stable state, and that getting back from the new state to the old would be far more difficult than just re-establishing the old environmental variables because that's not sufficient push to pass back over the tipping point. I'm also aware that tipping points can cascade. I regard them as very dangerous indeed.

On the basis that the shift in man-made atmospheric pollution is potentially capable of pushing beyond a tipping point, I'd do a great deal to reverse the pollution and re-establish the original conditions before a catastrophe occurs, even if it's not a likely catastrophe. And going back to pre-human atmospheric levels doesn't mean increasing the pollution less quickly, the way we seem to discuss "reducing the deficit", it means bringing the pollution figures down. Not the rate of increase of pollution, the actual parts-per-million pollution level. And do you know what? I haven't seen a single governmental forecast that will bring that actual parts-per-million pollution level down at all. Ever. All any government target has indicated is a reduction in the rate of increase. And deniers griping at even that, too.

If it tips, any reversal is tens of thousands of years in the future at the very least. It's distressing that people should be so uninterested in the efforts to reduce the possibility.


I don't think they are recommending either-----it's just the thought that is distressing.

Climate change? Global Warming?----------I don't know---------It seem that over millions and thousands of years the earth has always been in a state of change. How could the earth ever stay the same given all the non man made influences on it? Sea levels will rise and sea levels will fall. Ice will melt and ice will form-----------irrespective of what humans do.

Lon;1354706 wrote: Climate change? Global Warming?----------I don't know---------It seem that over millions and thousands of years the earth has always been in a state of change. How could the earth ever stay the same given all the non man made influences on it? Sea levels will rise and sea levels will fall. Ice will melt and ice will form-----------irrespective of what humans do.


And, indeed, the planet has ice ages (every tens-of-thousands of years) and the occasional ice-free high-sea phase (every few hundred million years). What I suspect is rare is a huge change in a driver in a very short geological timeframe.

Doubling the atmospheric CO2 load in just 300 years is a major stress, it drags the system out of equilibrium so fast that there's no time for long-term compensation. And if that causes a global albedo change, or releases a significant fraction of costal and tundral methane clathrates, that's going to roll the system into a new equilibrium in an equally short timeframe. And it might well be an equilibrium state in which most of the human race dies prematurely and the remaining population is much reduced.

I can see it as a possibility. I can see that it's avoidable if the swing outward from equilibrium is reversed. I can see that the reversal isn't going to happen. I think it's an unacceptable risk, but that's not enough pressure to change governmental thinking to a "take action" mindset. What they're proposing is putting some very expensive fingers into a few poorly-selected dikes.

Whilst I have never seen a small nuclear war as a serious suggestion for "curing" climate change I have seen it suggested that we seed the upper atmosphere with dust to reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface.

Trouble with that is that it's a short term cure. The dust leaches out of the atmosphere too quickly and we're no better off afterwards - all we've done is generated chaotic conditions for a few years in the middle.

And no, I'm not capable of performing the detailed analysis myself but I am capable of going through the papers that do so and looking at the methods and arguments used. Given enough papers, I've enough scientific training to form an opinion of the strength of those arguments and, overwhelmingly, the papers supporting global warming and man made climate change have a more rigorous treatment of the data with strong arguments supporting the conclusions reached. The papers setting out to prove that climate change is not occurring have, in me view, tended to be appeals to the emotions or to have fairly obvious logical fallacies within their arguments.

So no, no quasi-religious belief, just a belief in the application of the scientific method.

Apart from that, agree completely, the current extreme rate of change cannot be countered by the existing feedback systems and the known tripping points are not far away - we know that man made pollution is high and is likely, through known or unknown mechanisms, to be having an effect and that the only reasonable response to the observed data is to reverse the changes we know we are making to the environment.

Bryn Mawr;1354773 wrote: And no, I'm not capable of performing the detailed analysis myself but I am capable of going through the papers that do so and looking at the methods and arguments used. Given enough papers, I've enough scientific training to form an opinion of the strength of those arguments and, overwhelmingly, the papers supporting global warming and man made climate change have a more rigorous treatment of the data with strong arguments supporting the conclusions reached. The papers setting out to prove that climate change is not occurring have, in me view, tended to be appeals to the emotions or to have fairly obvious logical fallacies within their arguments.I've heard that's the case. I've not personally checked, hence my lack of opinion. I think the reporters have an untrained bias even if the scientists don't. I do not, to be honest, think I need an opinion, nor do I think that if I painstakingly acquired one it would help the state of the weather.

spot;1354779 wrote: I've heard that's the case. I've not personally checked, hence my lack of opinion. I think the reporters have an untrained bias even if the scientists don't. I do not, to be honest, think I need an opinion, nor do I think that if I painstakingly acquired one it would help the state of the weather.


The weather will do what it always has - behave chaotically.

The climate, however, would benefit from an informed opinion clearly expressed to counter the high volume of misinformation that is being spread.

Bryn Mawr;1354813 wrote: The climate, however, would benefit from an informed opinion clearly expressed to counter the high volume of misinformation that is being spread.


And that's what they call a slapping, is it.

spot;1354821 wrote: And that's what they call a slapping, is it.


As if

There is no way I could make an informed opinion on global warming since I'm not likely to do the reading necessary for that, but I will comment on the prediction that it only takes a minute change in the Earth's temp to change the dynamics of life here in a major way. So my question if I chose to try to answer it, which I will not, most likely, is who determined that? >It's so fun to drag topics in different directions<