Re: Global Warming and Global Drought?


"Billy" <stasgold@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1135426073.918653.74630@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> // Is it possible that the atmosphere could become dense with moisture,
> full
> of clouds, perhaps, and yet that it would never rain?//
>
> The use of the term runaway greenhouse effect to describe the effect as
> it occurs on Venus emphasises the interaction of the greenhouse effect
> with other processes in feedback cycles. Venus is sufficiently strongly
> heated by the Sun that water is vaporised and so carbon dioxide is not
> reabsorbed by the planetary crust. As a result, the greenhouse effect
> has been progressively intensified by positive feedback. On Earth there
> is a substantial hydrosphere and biosphere which respond to higher
> temperatures by recycling atmospheric carbon more quickly (in geologic
> terms; the timescale for the ocean/biosphere to remove a CO2
> perturbation is on the order of several hundred years). The presence of
> liquid water thus limits the increase in the greenhouse effect through
> negative feedback. \\

OK. I'm trying to absorb all this, like a sponge. What I'm thinking is
that, on Venus, unless there are numerous volcanos, there is not CO2 being
emitted into the atmosphere. But on Earth CO2 is being emitted by some
volcanos, but also by factories and autmobibles. So could the C02, and
perhaps other kinds of pollutants, rapidly build up so that the
ocean/biosphere would be overwhelmed, positive feedback would accelerate?
Possibly to a critical point where things change suddenly?

This state of affairs is expected to persist for at
> least hundreds of millions of years, but, ultimately, the warming of an
> aging Sun will overwhelm this regulatory effect.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
>
> //The reason I am asking is that there are certain bible prophecies
> (perhaps contradicted by others) that suggest a world-wide drought,
> and yet
> this seems to be inconsistent with global warming. //
>
> bible prophecies , as it looks to me, have nothing to do with the
> global warming, they are mentioned just to emphasize the worst case
> scenario for bible (middle eastern) climate: the drought

That may be true; the prophets were probably very regio-centric, and
when they talk about events affecting the whole world, possibly it was just
the Mediterranean area. Still, they would seem to put a hard brake on any
universal or world-wide significance to their prophecies. Often, though, it
is hard to determine whether they are talking about theland of Israel or the
whole world.
>
> If the bible was written in Alaska climate, the prophecies would
> certainly be about the great snowfall :D

That's very good! South of the Equator, the prophecies might be about
the end-of-the-world rain. However, why, in the Middle East, did Noah
prepare for a rain, rather than a drought?

Which is more likely on a global scale: too much rain, or too much heat?
I don't know at all.


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