Food for thought.

[MikeCuzzy]

It can't go anywhere can it? Could we end up like Mars?

It could and sort of.

The theories as to what Mars' climate was like in it's past vary greatly. However there is some general consensus on the evidence suggesting a) free flowing water on Mars and b) it was volcanically active in it's past and this could have created an atmosphere rivaling Earth's - at least for thickness.

So, in short Mars went through a very different process to us to end up like it is. It is also 70 million km further away from the Sun than us.

One thing that needs to be understood about Earth's climate is that it is ever changing. We have had ice-ages, hot Earth's with large droughts and the oxygen content of the atmosphere has varied massively over time. So technically some of the water molecules in your coffee came from Bruce the Sauropod, but Earth's sea levels have varied wildly. During the great dying of 252 million years ago, the drought was so great 96% of all sea life, 70% of land life became extinct at that point. It was one of the worst extinction events in Earth's history.

We will lose our atmosphere, in about 2 billion years our atmosphere will burn off and the liquid water will have been long gone as the Sun heats up to a Red Giant phase and begins the end of it's life cycle. At the point, the Earth will be unable to support terrestrial life. At the point, we will have to make our temporary home either Mars or an outer moon of the gas giants, such as Titan or Europa.

 

[Dr HaxZaw]

why are people so against climate change then? that ball of atmosphere is growing now which is a good thing

 

[87RB30VL]

Does anyone else's brain hurt after reading this thread? Haha

 

[DAKSTER]

why are people so against climate change then? that ball of atmosphere is growing now which is a good thing

It's not growing. Its composition is being changed to something which is less friendly to us. The balance is being altered.

One of the many side effects of this is so called 'global warming'. Many people will say 'big deal, so it gets a little warmer'. It is a big deal, a few degrees could kill off a major percentage of algae in the oceans, and these algae contribute MUCH more oxygen than trees do to the atmosphere.

Those few degrees also contribute to changing weather patterns, which make catastrophic weather events more common and more severe.

Then of course, you also have to consider rising sea levels, and the effect of such on the coastal population of the world.

Another thing to remember is that in order for sea levels to rise, it isn't actually necessary for ANY ice to melt. Water expands when heated, and an ocean temperature rise of just 3C is enough to provide sufficient expansion to reach well over that 6 inch level depicted on the second of the two images below.


The North pole is simply floating ice, and if it melts, it would not affect sea levels.


Antarctica is a (very large!) continent covered in ice averaging a little over 2km thick. If this were to melt, sea levels would rise about 61m.


Greenland also has a lot of ice, and as it is closer to the equator is likely to melt first. That would raise sea level by about 7m alone.


If both were to melt completely, sea levels would rise 220 feet, or 2640 inches.Sorry for the imperial measurements, the website below (using NASA data) does things in inches, so I have converted to inches.


This image shows approximately what would happen if this 2640 inch level was reached. Note the panel showing estimated of displaced/flooded population on the left of these images.

This image shows what would happen with a mere 6 inch rise in sea levels. In the last 100 years, the sea level has risen about 8 inches, and about one third of that in the last 20 years or so. The trend is accelerating.

 

[Cooper]

The Earths circumference at the equator is 40,075km.

The Airbus A380-800 can carry up to 853 people in its all economy class form, at 900kmh with a design range of 15,400 km. This means, assuming somewhere to land and fuel up where it needs to, an Airbus with 853 people on board can circle the world in 44.5hrs + 2 fuel stops.

Makes the Earth seem so much smaller doesn't it? We can go around it via commercial transport in less than 2 days, or could if anyone was offering that particular flight.

Even so, it's pretty huge compared to the water and air.

In the image below, the entire worlds water, (including oceans, lakes, rivers and humidity), is pictured on the left as a single huge ball of liquid.

On the right, the entire worlds atmosphere.. including the more than 90% of the atmosphere which is too thin to breathe.. is pictured as a single huge ball of gas.

The two things we need the most to survive. Suddenly they don't seem so plentiful.

A couple of questions regarding this post.

What does the whole Airbus thing have to do with anything? i see no relevance to the points you are trying to make.

Where did those 2 pics come from? I find it hard to believe they are an acurate representation. The water amount on the earth is and has always been the same amount, its just is form which changes, so we are not losing water. The gas ball show, is that at all compressed to that size? Or is it purely the volume of the earth minus the volume of the earth plus atmosphere?

Im not trying to have a go here, quiet the opposite, im just trying to clarify the info. Im happy to be proved wrong etc.

 

[MikeCuzzy]

Lets not forget places like the Maldives, the coral atolls. 300,000 plus people and 80% of their landmass is less than 1m above water. So it won't take much for the country to disappear from out maps. They are currently looking at purchase land in India, Sri Lanka or here in Australia so they can uproot the population and move elsewhere. They will be the first nation to be made homeless from rising sea levels.

Me personally, while there are many reasons I live 200m above sea level - rising sea levels is in the back of my mind. I want to make sure that my life can go on relatively normally despite climate change.

I think we are past the point of undoing the climate change we have (Dax feel free to correct everything I have said mate, I don't have all the information that you do), but rather we need to prevent further damage and make sure we and other life can exist in the environment we are creating.

That means, nuclear power, CSG, wind and solar power, geo-thermal energy, desalination plants. Effectively eliminating "old" and "dirty" technologies for sustainable ones.

 

[Dr HaxZaw]

here's something to think about dakster (btw i didnt read what you wrote cause it bores me)

we have been collecting data for at the very most 150 years... scientists claim the earth is how old? you look at the % of time the data has been taken over and they are making all their assumptions, claims and theories off this... you do that for anything else and scientists will laugh you all the way home because it will be incredibly inaccurate yet they can then do it as they please

I'm all for stopping pollution i.e. lead, sulphides and so forth but its carbon dioxide. really not worth ruining the whole economy over

also take all the money spent on climate change so far and spend it instead on curing disease and feeding africe and the world is a 200000000 times better place than it will ever be if we stop this so called "global warming"... oh wait no thats right its "climate change" now as that can be used to justify anything much more easily

 

[Troy711]

Eh, rising sea levels.... I've got a snorkel, I'll be right!

 

[Jecs]

Eh, rising sea levels.... I've got a snorkel, I'll be right!

ive got sab and his boat

 

[DAKSTER]

There are so many unseen consequences of every little thing that happens. Looking at the major map, on which all the ice melts.. most of the worlds most heavily populated areas are completely under water.

I wonder where .. hmm lets say several hundred million Indonesians, just since they are so close to us.. would go? Realistically, there are a couple hundred million Indonesians now but could be many times that number by the time this all comes about. And us with almost all of our arable land under water too..

This applies to huge areas of the world. The most productive agricultural lands are predominantly coastal low lying areas worldwide, so it won't just be a matter of moving to higher ground.. it will be a matter of sharing that higher ground with huge numbers of displaced people, and not having sufficient arable land to grow crops.

The Maldives are the first country that will go completely under water, but they won't be the first to suffer the effects of rising sea levels. That's most likely to be the many millions that live on the river deltas of Bangladesh.

The world can clean itself. There is no doubt that a lot of climate change is cyclic, and that many of the changes that are currently occurring may have occurred without our help. The world recovered, if that's an appropriate description. In reality, its returned to a condition that favours our species, rather than recovered.

The problem here is that we are altering the balance, the first species that has not only been able to alter the balance but also potentially restore it.

In our extremely short time on this planet, we have accelerated and exaggerated natural processes, and added additional stuff to the mix... particularly of course in the last 100 years. Is this going to hurt the planet? No, it doesn't care if its a molten red ball or a big ball of ammonia or a giant rainforest. Its the species that live on it that have something to care about.. and that includes us.

The world has had many species of life on it since life first appeared. Virtually none have survived, though many survived far longer as a species than we have been around so far. We are the first species that has the potential to withstand or alter the natural cycles. Instead, we are making them worse, and losing the chance to survive.

There will always be skeptics, you have that right. Some people still believe man never landed on the moon too. Science, however, disagrees with you. Yes, some scientists also don't support current theories, but they are the very small minority.

We aren't relying on 150 years of data at all. We have millions of years of data available to compare current figures at all. Yes, its a natural cycle. One that usually takes millions of years. We are accelerating that by a factor of thousands, and the data that we have is more than sufficient to support a strong hypothesis. No data exists to disprove it.

We have the ability to cease making things worse. We can assist the world in recovery, by reducing consumption and increasing efficiency. We could, if we tried, be the first species able to endure through the various ages of time, by attempting to control our climate in a good way rather than a bad way, and by adapting ourselves and our technology to suit future inevitable changes in millennium to come.