We Got Film
Steve Easterbrook points to a series of National Geographic videos on what a global temperature rise of 1 C will bring. One degree is bad enough, 6 C, well, in the words of Nikita Kruschev about nuclear war, the living will envy the dead.
- Could Just One Degree Change the World?
- 2 Degress Warmer: Ocean Life in Danger
- 3 Degrees Warmer: Heat Wave Fatalities
- 4 Degrees Warmer: Great Cities Wash Away
- 5 Degrees Warmer: Civilization Collapses
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19 comments:
"The dead will envy the living." Or possibly the other way around.
Possibly oops.
Dr. Jay Cadbury
Eli the earth is not going to undergo rapid changes while it is below global average temperature and average atmospheric levels of co2. Not even nice try here, bad try.
Weeeellll, Jay, Eli coughed up a nice chocolate covered carrot on that one. Care to tell everyone the last time the global CO2 atmospheric level was over, say 350 ppm. That the early days atmosphere a few billion years ago was like pure CO2 tends to move that average, and the temperature range above todays was mighty unpleasant and mighty long ago.
Yes, yes, Eli knows, when you were a lad you walked to school in the swamp dodging stray dinos. Whatever.
I got this on DVD a couple of years ago. It is a very good program. It is also available on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Degrees-Could-Change/dp/B0012Q3T72/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312463539&sr=8-1
Berbalang
Indeed, a 1 degree rise in average temperature would transform Pittsburgh into Philadelphia- O the humanity!- and many places into places like places 90 miles south of most places.
7 degrees is too horrible to contemplate, as Somalia has already arrived there, and Somalians seem to like it that way
Color me Poed.
Shouldn't number 5 really include video of Britney Spears collapsing on stage?
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.
@Eli
No problem. The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has been gradually decreasing from a concentration of 7000 ppm 530 million years ago. In fact, only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
Now, Eli, I'm not saying that we should try to increase atmospheric co2 to 7,000 ppm. I do think though that our atmosphere can handle around 2,000 ppm of atmospheric co2 with no trouble. And I might be wrong but I think it is important to note the historic averages. Aren't you essentially betting on the averages anyway? I mean, you're predicting a temperature increase, that would fit the pattern of average temperatures.
"I do think though that our atmosphere can handle around 2,000 ppm of atmospheric co2 with no trouble."
Well done the atmosphere and Temnospondyl amphibians. Maybe we could adapt real quick to eat pine trees instead of cereals and crops?
Dr. Cadbury PhD makes two mistakes, one of which is addressed by J. Bowers. The other point is that the gradual increase in solar luminosity means that C02 levels are not directly comparable over hundreds of millions of years. See http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm for a good summary of our understanding of this topic. (And by "our" I mean scientists who work in this field. Obviously some people understand very little.)
Dr. Jay Cadbury,phd, makes a rather basic and inhumane mistake: we're not the planet. People can be hurt by the tiniest of things.
Jeffrey Davis
The videos say things like "Major rivers would be drying up at both ends". So these are snapshots of where the world would be at specific time points under different warming scenarios? If so, when? Is there more warming in the pipeline?
Thanks,
Blueshift
(Oh and coughing up chocolate carrots is a valuable skill!)
With his latest "more CO2 has been much higher in the past and thus will be good for us" post quack doctor Cadbury shows himself to be nothing more than a rank amateur.
Never mind that present CO2 is higher than at any time during the evolution of the genus homo, it is far higher than at any time during the domestication of any of the cereal species that our genus now depends on to feed 7 billion of us and that enable our urbanised civilization to exist in the first place.
Quite telling that Cadbury fails to take into account how different the hydrological cycle was during those high-CO2 regimes or how different sea level was in those long distant past times, not to mention how much built infrastructure we humans have constructed at or near sea level in this time of relative CO2-starvation.
Quite clearly Cadbury is a mere piker when it comes to thinking about climate and our dependence on its relative stability.
So we need to start planting pine trees in Somalia. I have heard that the elderly in N Korea had gotten to the point of boiling tree bark but that wasn't going over to well.
"Indeed, a 1 degree rise in average temperature would transform Pittsburgh into Philadelphia"
Say what?
Having spent time in both transforming Pittsburgh into Philadelphia would be a useful improvement.
Bollocks.
I got the DVD for it 1 year ago. It is very interesting program that you people will surely enjoy. I would love to watch it once again.
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