Missile Defense update...(being prepared, & how far?)

Thanks, ROX, I really appreciate the info, and will use it. I can tell you that reading that novel opened my eyes. I've read a great deal of science fiction (a vast understatement!), but the abrupt climate change was mentioned in the novel as something that had actually occured, and appeared to be something we could be on the verge of experiencing. (so I did a little digging around on the internet) That doesn't make me happy when I consider what kind of world that would mean for my kids and grandkids, but it is a very real possibilty. Do a google search using "abrupt climate change," "sudden climate change," or "Younger Dryas," and the results are rather extensive and astonishing.

We quite possibly will see this in our lifetime (some of you will be around longer than some of the rest of us, obviously!), and our current government is actually going backwards in dealing with the possibility... ignoring science pointing to it, or actually removing mention of it from government reports. The person in charge of doing that is a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. The Administration, sadly, seems more concerned with their (the oil and gas industry) quarterly profit reports, than our national security, as it relates to this issue. I know that's not something some of you like to hear, but it is a sad truth.

There is evidence that the Gulf Stream is slowing. From the BBC, a couple of years ago:


Thursday, 13 November, 2003, 11:31 GMT

Warming could bring colder UK winters

By Penny Palmer
BBC Horizon

Britain could be heading for a "big freeze" if global warming switches off an important ocean current in the Atlantic, some scientists say.

Britain is kept relatively mild in the winter by the warm air blanket brought to us from the tropics by a branch of the Gulf Stream.

But if global warming continues to melt major ice sheets, that supply of warm air could come to an abrupt end, according to a number of experts.

The Gulf Stream relies on a sensitive "conveyer belt" action, which could be "switched off" - quite suddenly - if it becomes diluted by fresh water from the melting ice-sheets, they claim.

Dr Terry Joyce, an oceanographer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, US, believes there is a 50% chance of a sudden climate change happening in the next 100 years.

"It will be quick," he says. "Suddenly one decade we're warm, and the next decade we're in the coldest winter we've experienced in the last 100 years, but we're in it for a 100 years."

The possibility of much harsher winters in the UK is reported in the Horizon programme on BBC Two.

Ice melt

It is the Gulf Stream that allows us to live the way we do. But now scientists have found evidence that the current that carries the protective Gulf Stream is slowing down - and may even stop.

Dr Bill Turrell, from the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, has measured a drop in the salinity, the first warning sign that the current might collapse.

"These changes are fundamental. They are substantial. They are going to impact our climate and the climate our children have to live in," he tells Horizon.

The US space agency (Nasa) has measured big increases in the speed of some of Greenland's largest glaciers, and melt water on the Greenland ice sheet in 2001 was twice that recorded 10 years ago.

Scientists also predict that with an increase in global temperatures will come an increase in rain at northern latitudes.

Huge Siberian rivers are discharging more water into the North Atlantic than ever before, and are predicted to increase their discharge by up to 50% in the next 100 years.

These factors combined could lead to a large amount of fresh water making its way into the North Atlantic.

Climate switch

This particular geographical region of the North Atlantic is vital because it is the point at which the Gulf Stream current sinks and overturns to join the Atlantic Conveyer, a vast rotating belt that takes cold water back to the tropics on the floor of the ocean.

Sinking - the process vital for powering the conveyer - relies on a change in the density of water. As sea-ice forms at high northern latitudes, it leads to an increase in the salinity of the cold, dense salty water underneath, which sinks down into the depths.

The one thing that can stop the sinking is fresh water.

Fresh water effectively dilutes the salty seawater to the point at which it cannot sink - and the conveyer shuts down. With no conveyer, there is no Gulf Stream, and our benign winters come to an end.

Most ocean scientists believe the conveyer has a crucial freshwater threshold level, at which it will shut off - like a light bulb.

The trouble is no one really knows where that threshold level is.

Past precedent

Dr Joyce says: "The likelihood of having an abrupt change is increasing - global warming is moving us closer and closer to the brink.

"We don't know where it is, but we know one thing: we're moving closer to the edge."

And once the light bulb is turned off, no one is sure how to turn it back on.

The conveyer remained switched off for over 1,000 years during the Younger Dryas period, the most significant shutdown since the last ice age.

Professor Richard Alley, a climate scientist from Pennsylvania State University, tells Horizon: "I don't think that an abrupt, sudden trip and fall down the stairs is the most likely outcome. But I think that the probability of that is high enough that we should really think about it."




Keep D&D Civil.

 

It's not suprising that glynch once again trumpets a false hypocrisy. The US Senate rejected ratification of the CTBT. I guess living in Canada he forgot that to become binding a Treaty has to be ratified by the Senate.

 

20-25 years is more conservative, but it's still realistic from 10-15 because the petroleum peak hasn't surfaced and it'll take that long or more (10-25) to wean to another energy economy (fossil based or not). Sure, technology can eliminate some emissions, such as shooting carbon deep into the ground, but once the caps melt, it'd get hotter and more temperate around the poles, which makes future predictions even more confounding....

At the core, I believe that our world is facing a standard of living/population crunch with developing nations reaching industrial world standards.

The world's emission rate for greenhouse gasses is growing and will continue to grow at a steady rate. Productivity is almost synonymous with greenhouse emissions in nearly every world economy. It's not a critique on greed, but rather on the failure to find alternate methods that would survive in economies of scale.

Also, our natural land-based carbon sinks are being destroyed either from urban land development or from pollution/climate change (which in itself would cause regional climate change patterns). There is some optimism for trapping carbon into the seas, but that argument of prediction (optimism in technology) is used to counter current status quo projections (global warming)....

I've read predictions that regional niches will start to fall independently during the next 50 years. Eventually new systems will emerge in many many many years (the cold regions in Russia could be the next great plains) but a lot of money and productivity, let alone lives and sanitation, will be lost in the shuffle to sustain the number of people we already have on earth.

The size of the US gives us a lot of breathing room, but water will become an un-subsidizable and crucial commodity. Turf battles over river diversions and dam construction will be very common in the near future. That's a consequence of population and industrial growth, but global warming will definitely make it worse.