Anthropogenic Climate Change

Why do people keep thinking that the way to solve AGW is to play nice with the US? Why aren't other countries more forceful, and willing to lay down the law?

Everyone else has less money, and doesn't want to throw money away on charity if they can instead spend it on themselves.

And one of the reporters for the Weather Channel is kinda pissed at Breibart for cherry picking facts on climate change.

edited 6th Dec '16 1:11:13 PM by tclittle

Why, oh, why did I bother reading the comments section. I should know better than to go anywhere near YouTube comments.

Honestly, it seems more and more like conservatives are actually trying to bring about the end of human civilization these days.

One of the posters in the US Politics thread has taken to calling them a "death cult".

I find that appropriate mostly because they seem to have a fanatical devotion to things that are just false, or don't work, and they don't care about either of those as long as they're in power and get to live out their fantasies, which tend to vary from living out Atlas Shrugged to installing a christian theocracy.

Also the fact that someone on a video Breitbart cited made the point to create an entirely new video to object to their use of the initial footage is pretty funny.

edited 6th Dec '16 6:29:08 PM by Draghinazzo

I wouldn't be surprised if high-ranking members of the GOP gather in secret wearing elaborate robes and masks to make sacrifices to Mammon. At least when they're not wearing their white bedsheets and hoods while burning effigies of the Clintons and the Obamas.

...I really hope this joke doesn't end up being proven true.

edited 6th Dec '16 7:05:26 PM by M84

It's not like they don't have precedent with the Thule Society.

A study conducted by the University of California, Irvine, has found that cement used in building construction actually can trap carbon dioxide over time

That's.. not news. There are even concrete variants that are net CO 2 negative.

This suggestion can sound really silly but... someone knows any means to put ozone artificially in the ozone layer? This can give us more time.

Ozone is toxic so probably more efficient to simply remove what's removing the ozone.

Also, it's not clear what effect if any the ozone hole has on climate change.

The ozone layer mainly protects surface life from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. I'm not aware of any direct effect it has on warming.

Ozone can act as a greenhouse gas. There is a theory out there that the Antarctic ozone hole is causing the ice pack around the Antarctic to expand by changing the Antarctic polar vortex.

So, one way to curb global warming would be to destroy more of our ozone? Let's do it!

Not so fast. That's one possible effect of the ozone hole, but there are others:

• Increased UV radiation reduces photosynthesis, favouring the onset of famines and accumulation of carbon dioxide.
• Dramatically increased incidence of skin cancer.
• Other atmospheric effects from the changed polar vortex.
• Earth's thermal equator is shifted farther north by a cooler southern hemisphere, increasing the warming in the northern one.

... You know I was joking, right?

Why is there a hole in the north, but not in the south?

Are you kidding? South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina have regular ozone warnings and ozone forecasts for a reason... and that started when I was a kid.

Heck, Antarctic and Southern Ocean life is being impacted by the effects of increased UV.

The southern hole is actually bigger, thanks to geographic factors like the Southern Ocean and its impact on the Antarctic climate.

edited 12th Dec '16 10:43:39 PM by Euodiachloris

The reason why the hole exists mostly in the south is because of the northern continents. They tend to break up the polar vortex in the northern hemisphere so that it ends up out of position with respect to the arctic circle. This prevents the formation of a dark high altitude cold air pool that is necessary for ozone degradation.

Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump

So, something I wanted to talk about. Do folks here know what a "wet bulb temperature" is?

I do believe I've heard the term before and from what little I remember (I could be wrong) but it has do with adjusting temperature for factors like ambient humidity.

Yep. Basically, it's the temperature that is reached if you evaporate water in a parcel of air. For humidity-saturated air it's the same as the regular temperature. For dry air it's always below the regular temperature.

The wet bulb temperature is important in biology because it's the lowest temperature that can be reached by sweating. So if the air's wet bulb temperature approaches body temperature, it becomes difficult for the body to keep its normal temperature. If it exceeds the normal body temperature of ~37 degrees, heatstroke and hyperthermia are inevitable after a while.

Some heatwaves can reach temperatures close to 30 degrees wet bulb. If a future, climate change influenced heatwave were to exceed 37 degrees wet bulb (or a close approach) all unprotected people in the affected area would die from hyperthermia. That could render parts of the Earth uninhabitable for humans.