Re: Global Warning @ National Geographic Magazine
From: Roger Bagula (tftn_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 09/29/04
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Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:42:09 GMT
The four huricannes hitting Florida
announce that global warming is here
with some power behind it!
Flat world people will just have to learn to live with a sphere...
and it getting hotter all the time.
Climate is a fractal/chaotic based system.
Per Bak gave the global temperature from 1865
to the 1990's as an example of 1/f fractal noise
in his book.
See the graphs at Understanding Climate change.
http://understandingclimatechange.org/charts.htm
Roger L. Bagula wrote:
>
> http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature1/
>
>
> Signs from Earth
> By Tim Appenzeller and Dennis R. Dimick
> Photographs by Peter Essick
>
>
>
> There's no question that the Earth is getting hotterand fast. The
> real questions are: How much of the warming is our fault, and are we
> willing to slow the meltdown by curbing our insatiable appetite for
> fossil fuels?
>
>
>
>
> Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.
>
> Global warming can seem too remote to worry about, or too
> uncertainsomething projected by the same computer techniques that
> often can't get next week's weather right. On a raw winter day you
> might think that a few degrees of warming wouldn't be such a bad thing
> anyway. And no doubt about it: Warnings about climate change can sound
> like an environmentalist scare tactic, meant to force us out of our
> cars and cramp our lifestyles.
>
> Comforting thoughts, perhaps. But turn to "GeoSigns
> <http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature2/index.html>,"
> the first chapter in our report on the changing planet. The Earth has
> some unsettling news.
>
> From Alaska to the snowy peaks of the Andes the world is heating up
> right now, and fast. Globally, the temperature is up 1°F (.5°C) over
> the past century, but some of the coldest, most remote spots have
> warmed much more. The results aren't pretty. Ice is melting, rivers
> are running dry, and coasts are eroding, threatening communities.
> Flora and fauna are feeling the heat too, as you'll read in "EcoSigns
> <http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature3/index.html>."
> These aren't projections; they are facts on the ground.
>
> The changes are happening largely out of sight. But they shouldn't be
> out of mind, because they are omens of what's in store for the rest of
> the planet.
>
> Wait a minute, some doubters say. Climate is notoriously fickle. A
> thousand years ago Europe was balmy and wine grapes grew in England;
> by 400 years ago the climate had turned chilly and the Thames froze
> repeatedly. Maybe the current warming is another natural vagary, just
> a passing thing?
>
> Don't bet on it, say climate experts. Sure, the natural rhythms of
> climate might explain a few of the warming signs you'll read about in
> the following pages. But something else is driving the planet-wide fever.
> For centuries we've been clearing forests and burning coal, oil, and
> gas, pouring carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the
> atmosphere faster than plants and oceans can soak them up (see "The
> Case of the Missing Carbon
> <http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0402/feature5/index.html>,"
> February 2004). The atmosphere's level of carbon dioxide now is higher
> than it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. "We're now
> geological agents, capable of affecting the processes that determine
> climate," says George Philander, a climate expert at Princeton
> University. In effect, we're piling extra blankets on our planet.
>
> Human activity almost certainly drove most of the past century's
> warming, a landmark report from the United Nations Intergovernmental
> Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared in 2001. Global temperatures
> are shooting up faster than at any other time in the past thousand
> years. And climate models show that natural forces, such as volcanic
> eruptions and the slow flickers of the sun, can't explain all that
> warming.
>
> As carbon dioxide continues to rise, so will the mercuryanother 3°F
> to 10°F (1.6°C to 5.5°C) by the end of the century, the IPCC projects.
> But the warming may not be gradual. The records of ancient climate
> described in "TimeSigns
> <http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature4/index.html>"
> suggest that the planet has a sticky thermostat. Some experts fear
> today's temperature rise could accelerate into a devastating climate
> lurch. Continuing to fiddle with the global thermostat, says
> Philander, "is just not a wise thing to do."
>
-- Respectfully, Roger L. Bagula tftn@earthlink.net, 11759Waterhill Road, Lakeside,Ca 92040-2905,tel: 619-5610814 : URL : http://home.earthlink.net/~tftn URL : http://victorian.fortunecity.com/carmelita/435/
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