Re: THE James Lovelock Thread (merged)
Posted: Wed 25 Apr 2012, 20:33:11
I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that when an extremely influential figures writes a polemic-worst case scenario, he influences the probability that that event will happen. In this case, many political and youth figures paid attention, and are working to create social tipping points. Personally I suspect his campaign was part of something bigger, to break belief systems and get society to mobilize against climate change. What Lovelock did, was paint a picture of where we are headed...so as to make us change direction.
There is another possibility. With the Arctic sea ice going away, and the oceans boiling methane, he may figure that there is no point alarming anyone anymore and that our remaining hope is with geoengineering and land-management. As well, he wants to prevent a flood of refugees or terrorism based on his remarks. The fact is there is more carbon as methane locked up in the Arctic, than in all the atmosphere. It is also true that many of the subtropical regions already exist at the edge of famine.
Note he says we should still "cut emissions and adapt to coming changes".
I recall the Oxford 4 degree conference, which posits 3-4 degrees by 2060 as realistic, based on slow methane feedbacks. It certainly seems to me, that the methane feedbacks are much faster than expected.
But here is a questions..with the Arctic sea ice gone within a few years, what will happen to the global climate? Hasn't all that ice been acting to keep the planet cool, much like an iced-drink keeps the temperature near 0 until the ice is gone, at which point it abruptly rises (because it takes 80x as much energy to phase change ice than it does to raise it 1 degree)? What will happen to the methane hydrates? What will happen to the onland permafrost? What will happen to the subtropics? What will happen to food production?
There is another possibility. With the Arctic sea ice going away, and the oceans boiling methane, he may figure that there is no point alarming anyone anymore and that our remaining hope is with geoengineering and land-management. As well, he wants to prevent a flood of refugees or terrorism based on his remarks. The fact is there is more carbon as methane locked up in the Arctic, than in all the atmosphere. It is also true that many of the subtropical regions already exist at the edge of famine.
Note he says we should still "cut emissions and adapt to coming changes".
I recall the Oxford 4 degree conference, which posits 3-4 degrees by 2060 as realistic, based on slow methane feedbacks. It certainly seems to me, that the methane feedbacks are much faster than expected.
But here is a questions..with the Arctic sea ice gone within a few years, what will happen to the global climate? Hasn't all that ice been acting to keep the planet cool, much like an iced-drink keeps the temperature near 0 until the ice is gone, at which point it abruptly rises (because it takes 80x as much energy to phase change ice than it does to raise it 1 degree)? What will happen to the methane hydrates? What will happen to the onland permafrost? What will happen to the subtropics? What will happen to food production?