[Cobra_Strike]

What I think is interesting...we already HAVE more then 2 degrees increase. Follow me here,

The energy that correlates to that 2 degrees was used to turn the 0 degree ice to 0 degree water.

Next time there will be a larger temp increase because that 0 degree water will begin heating up.

[KevO]

What I think is interesting...we already HAVE more then 2 degrees increase. Follow me here,

The energy that correlates to that 2 degrees was used to turn the 0 degree ice to 0 degree water.

Next time there will be a larger temp increase because that 0 degree water will begin heating up.

and also breaking news this very day is

The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced, scientists have said.
they say it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions - unable to soak up any more."
He said that would "leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere".
Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, only half of it stays there; the rest goes into carbon sinks.
There are two major natural carbon sinks: the oceans and the land "biosphere". They are equivalent in size, each absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions.

full article at
the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7053903.stm

[zoidberg]

One year does not a pattern make. Still a decline of 22% from 2005, which were record lows in summer arctic ice coverage is quite an outlier, but according to their graphs 2006 had higher summer ice coverage, what will 2008 bring? We'll see.

Secondly what is the danger of missing summer arctic sea ice? Is it in making Greenland's ice sheet more likely to melt? I read some handwaving in that regard, but nothing that firmly substantiates a link between the two. Furthermore....

Ah to hell with playing devil's advocate on this one. Does anyone have a nice world map showing the outlines of today's coastlines against the world with a 1 meter rise in the ocean? Might as well start planning for it.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Emisions will not be reduced significantly because coal will be used as a substitute for oil as well as being used as a source for electricity. Keep an eye on the artic and Greenland. Give it another 10 years at which point the melting should be enough to make it clear that significant impacts will be felt before long then.
g

[americandream]

I reckon any hope of carbon mitigation is wishful thinking if we persist in maintaining the growth paradigm. The two cannot be reconciled.

[Johnvancouver]

This is bad. Even worse is that I don't think most people and the powers that be care about this. Any chance that global warming and resource depletion will become an issue in the upcoming US presidential election? I have heard nothing of substance from the leading candidates of both parties, including Ron Paul. But I have heard several commentators basically laughing at Gore's Nobel peace price. I think MSM by and large are uninformed and ignorant. Oh, America, all eyes are on reality, the shows, not the real reality.

[turmoil]

As well, large areas of the Arctic sea ice are now only one metre deep, which means the thickness of the ice has halved since 2001 (Bjornes, 2007) and down from a thickness of 3.5 metres in the early 1960s, and around about 2.5 metres in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Blakemore and Sandell, 2006). The decrease in both extent and thickness suggests that the summer sea ice has lost more than 80 per cent of its volume in 40 years. When the sea ice thins to around half a metre in thickness, it will be subject to even more rapid disintegration by wave and wind action.

That's pretty amazing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that an ice sheet losing 80 percent of its volume would collapse pretty quickly at a certain point. It seems the IPCC estimates for Arctic ice cover were not based on volume.

Does anyone get the feeling that these guys really have no clue what they are doing? Nobel peace prize for what exactly?

[roccman]

As well, large areas of the Arctic sea ice are now only one metre deep, which means the thickness of the ice has halved since 2001 (Bjornes, 2007) and down from a thickness of 3.5 metres in the early 1960s, and around about 2.5 metres in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Blakemore and Sandell, 2006). The decrease in both extent and thickness suggests that the summer sea ice has lost more than 80 per cent of its volume in 40 years. When the sea ice thins to around half a metre in thickness, it will be subject to even more rapid disintegration by wave and wind action.

That's pretty amazing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that an ice sheet losing 80 percent of its volume would collapse pretty quickly at a certain point. It seems the IPCC estimates for Arctic ice cover were not based on volume.

Does anyone get the feeling that these guys really have no clue what they are doing? Nobel peace prize for what exactly?

Precisely!!

A gaggle of "experts" gonna tell us how it is...

Bwhahhahahhahhahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah...

[turmoil]

I mean for Shit's sake...

How could they assume that the sheet would last for another 10 decades when the volume, given the growth rates of loss, would get to 0 within 1?

[Zardoz]

This is bad...really bad.

And there is not a damn thing that can be done.

The 2°C warming cap was always a political compromise, but with the speed of change now in the climate system and the positive feedbacks that 2°C will trigger, it looms for perhaps billions of people and millions of species as a death sentence.

If, for example, instead we were to apply a 0.5°C (or lower) precautionary warming cap, it would be necessary for the level of target atmospheric greenhouse gases at equilibrium not exceed about 320 ppm CO2e, a point we passed more than half a century ago.

I shouldn't be as stunned by this report as I am, because those of us who hang out around these boards are already aware of the gist of it.

Nevertheless, it's staggering to get such definitive confirmation of our worst fears, and to learn that things may be far worse, and much farther beyond any possible point of retrieval, than even the most pessimistic among us thought possible.

[turmoil]

Nevertheless, it's staggering to get such definitive confirmation of our worst fears, and to learn that things may be far worse, and much farther beyond any possible point of retrieval, than even the most pessimistic among us thought possible.

Yes, David Spratt (the guy who put that report together) deserves the Nobel prize, not the IPCC. I didn't like Gore's movie that much either. Give it to these Carbon Equity guys.

[strider3700]

Secondly what is the danger of missing summer arctic sea ice? Is it in making Greenland's ice sheet more likely to melt? I read some handwaving in that regard, but nothing that firmly substantiates a link between the two. Furthermore....

Ah to hell with playing devil's advocate on this one. Does anyone have a nice world map showing the outlines of today's coastlines against the world with a 1 meter rise in the ocean? Might as well start planning for it.

lack of summer ice should mean that the ocean warms quicker delaying winter ice production which means less should be produced. The next summer the thinner ice melts quicker and the cycle is reenforced. Eventually you get no winter ice.

For a flood map play with this. http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=43.3251,- ... 5&z=13&m=7
I'm not sure why it defaults to 7m but we're really screwed at that point. 14m and a huge chunk of florida is gone. I end up not quite ocean front at that level. The enterance to my road would be underwater though so I suppse I'll be cutting a new back way in.

[aldente]

Back in the end 60's it was no coincident that the mainsteam population celebrated the physical moon landing while the Hippies celebrated the mental moon landing simultaniously through tripping on LSD. Two sides of the same coin!

Nowadays the physical ice is melting and the ocean currents are prone to restructuring their course while the mental version would be that of preparing for something along the lines. But what exactely?

Is life after all a riddle to be solved? Is the underlying purpose of posting here to gather information on matters of live and death?

Can we agree that PO posters have accepted mortality on a broader level than 'mainsteam Joe'?

Even if so, it does not set PeakOilers apart from the rest of the crowd. Information might be valuable in context but comes over as trivia otherwise.

[thor]

I reckon any hope of carbon mitigation is wishful thinking if we persist in maintaining the growth paradigm. The two cannot be reconciled.

It is indeed a total fantasy that we can and will do anything meaningful to curb global warming with the current economic paradigm in place.

Ain't gonna happen.

[KevO]

the original link to the guy is
http://transitionculture.org/

[Kingcoal]

I think that going back to using hemp on a grand scale could help reduce CO2 emissions a lot. Hemp is one of the oldest cash crops. Before the age of “synthetic” fibers (made from hydrocarbons), hemp was the king of fibers, used in the manufacture of just about everything from paper to building materials to clothing. Hemp is a weed; with a short grow cycle, a lot of disease resistance and modest nutritional requirements. When hemp grows, it removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and that carbon gets locked up in the products which are produced, thus it can become a carbon sink especially in light of the fact that the products manufactured from hemp can practically eliminate the harvesting of trees for their fiber content. More trees means less CO2.

Hemp is the world's primary biomass producer, growing ten tons per acre in approximately four months. It can produce four times the amount of paper/acre than 20 year old trees and will grow in all climatic zones of the contiguous 48 states.

Hemp pulp does not require as much (if any) of the acids needed to break down lignin as wood, does not require ozone layer destroying bleach, does not cause dioxin pollution, and has been called the "archivist's perfect paper." Restrictions on hemp have led to the destruction of about 70% of American forests since 1937, which were cut for paper.

The environmental performance of hemp based natural fiber mat thermoplastic (NMT) has been evaluated in this study by quantifying carbon storage potential and CO2 emissions and comparing the results with commercially available glass fiber composites. Non-woven mats of hemp fiber and polypropylene matrix were used to make NMT samples by film-stacking method without using any binder aid. The results showed that hemp based NMT have compatible or even better strength properties as compared to conventional flax based thermoplastics. A value of 63 MPa for flexural strength is achieved at 64% fiber content by weight. Similarly, impact energy values (84-154 J/m) are also promising. The carbon sequestration and storage by hemp crop through photosynthesis is estimated by quantifying dry biomass of fibers based on one metric ton of NMT. A value of 325 kg carbon per metric ton of hemp based composite is estimated which can be stored by the product during its useful life. An extra 22% carbon storage can be achieved by increasing the compression ratio by 13% while maintaining same flexural strength. Further, net carbon sequestration by industrial hemp crop is estimated as 0.67 ton/h/year, which is compatible to all USA urban trees and very close to naturally, regenerated forests. A comparative life cycle analysis focused on non-renewable energy consumption of natural and glass fiber composites shows that a net saving of 50000 MJ (~3 ton CO2 emissions) per ton of thermoplastic can be achieved by replacing 30% glass fiber reinforcement with 65% hemp fiber. It is further estimated that 3.07 million ton CO2 emissions (4.3% of total USA industrial emissions) and 1.19 million m3 crude oil (1.0% of total Canadian oil consumption) can be saved by substituting 50% fiber glass plastics with natural fiber composites in North American auto applications. However, to compete with glass fiber effectively, further research is needed to improve natural fiber processing, interfacial bonding and control moisture sensitivity in longer run.

link
link

[shortonoil]

TreebeardsUncle said:

Emisions will not be reduced significantly because coal will be used as a substitute for oil as well as being used as a source for electricity. Keep an eye on the artic and Greenland. Give it another 10 years at which point the melting should be enough to make it clear that significant impacts will be felt before long then.

The earth’s temperate regions, where 90% of the planet’s population resides, are rapidly transforming into desserts. This is happening 25 years sooner than the 18 of 19 models used by the IPCC predicted. We are now experiencing serious droughts beyond the 30 degree latitude level, both north and south of the equator, and this is happening world wide. Most likely this trend will continue to develop, further impacting our already critically stressed food supplies. If this drought continues its present rate of expansion, it seems unlikely that we will have 10 years.

With this progressing fall of the world’s precipitation in its populated areas, coming on the heals of PO, the future is definitely looking ever more ominous!

[KevO]

The earth’s temperate regions, where 90% of the planet’s population resides, are rapidly transforming into desserts.

Like Strawberry Pavlova for instance?

[Graeme]

Antarctic shelf 'hangs by thread'

A chunk of ice the size of the Isle of Man has started to break away from Antarctica in what scientists say is further evidence of a warming climate.

Satellite images suggest that part of the ice shelf is disintegrating, and will soon crumble away.


He said: "We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage.

"Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble - it's like an explosion."

A 41-by-2.5km (25-by-1.6 mile) berg appears to be breaking away, with much of the Wilkins Ice Shelf protected only by a thin strip of ice spanning two islands.

BBC

msnbc

physorg

[mos6507]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03 ... index.html