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ROCKMAN wrote:Interesting thought game. But consider this: how did folks view the year 2000 in 1918? The world just witnessed the slaughter of WWI especially from huge tech advances in weapons. And remember it wasn’t called WWI back then. It was “the war to end all wars”. Autos and airplanes were the new big exciting techs. One general speculated countries wouldn’t go to war since their civilians could be killed by enemy aircraft. A funny speculation now for survivors at Hiroshima. And then the tens of millions killed by the Spanish flue pandemic. A tad more serious then Ebola, eh?

Now jump back to 1818 and think about what they might have anticipated for the year 1900. Just finished a new war confirming the existence of a new upstart country called the United States of America. The same “united” states that saw 600,000 of their citizens slaughtered trying to remain united less then 50 years later. Slaughtered by their own citizens no less.

If one has a good knowledge of history they could play this game for hours. Given how no one has ever come up with anything close to correctly speculating what the next 80 to 100 years would bring should we expect any better accuracy doing so today? Especially if one considers the rate of change of societies and tech. Granted it’s somewhat subjective but IMHO that delta has been increasing at least over the last 200 to 300 years.

But no harm in anyone here giving it a try today: you won’t be alive in the next 80+ years to face the ridicule of folks at that time. LOL.

I can't guess what current nations will remain nation in 2100, jeeze if you look as recently as 1939 there were a handful of world empires and just about a dozen independent nations and nobody in 1920 would have guessed that there would be 279 independent nations recognized by the 'world government' just a few decades later. We might be a single global world government in fact as well as form in 2100 or we might be 1000 squabbling little city states that are the survivors of a global war or catastrophe. God only know the future, they best we can do is guess based on some fundamental knowledge.

I think the world of 2100 will be considerably warmer than the world of 2020. I think humans will survive and remain much the same as we have been for all of recorded history being cruel to some of our fellows and kind to some others Beyond those basic starting points almost anything could happen. Maybe we will do the Greer/Kunstler thing and return to 18th century lifestyles and practices, maybe on the other extreme we will have fusion powered starships using hyperdrives to explore the galaxy at many times the speed of light. Either result is within the scope of our imagination but niether is an assured outcome.

I have been thinking a lot about the flipping of the Northern Hemisphere climate into the Hot House setting these last few days as I am pretty sure that is going to happen well before 2100. With that in mind and the idea of moving up slope to where cooler climate prevalent due to altitude effects I have been playing with an online temperature calculating applet here; https://keisan.casio.com/exec/system/1224562962

Basically I set the sea level climate to 22C which is the world average during the hothouse phases of the paleoclimate record. I then set the destination altitude higher and higher until the altitude cooling effect resulted in a 15C climate average which is the current world average temperature.

The results are, if you move from say Los Angeles into the Sierra Nevada mountains at an altitude of 1.82 meters aka 3,550 feet above mean sea level the altitude cooling effect will almost exactly cancel out the hothouse climate warming effects at sea level.

While there are a shortage of such altitudes to grow all the current crops supplying the population there is more than ample room at these altitudes for cities to house even 10 Billion people quite easily. This means so long as we can maintain remote operated farms or do our farming at night when temperatures drop we can still supply the food and other lowland resources to our descendants mountain existence.

It is even likely that cities like Geneva, Switzerland which is already at 370 meters will weather the changes as their climate shifts to be 4.5C warmer as this still puts them in the safe zone on the "wet bulb temperature" concerns. Innsbruck Austria is at 573 meters or 3.28C warmer and Denver at 1,564 meters will remain more pleasant than modern Los Angeles even in a hothouse world climate.

I think these effect will have a predominant impact on life in 2100 AD. The continental average altitude for the USA is 762 meters aka 2,500 ft which means if all Americans just retreat up slope until we hit that altitude which means most of the western half of the continent we will only experience about a 2C rise over current sea level temperatures.

This is the basis for my pooh-pooing the whole wet bulb temperatures are going to kill us all theory of the future.

Tanada,

What crops thrive in that temperature? Yes we can come up with a strategy for farmers, but what about the farmed?

Newfie wrote:Tanada,

What crops thrive in that temperature? Yes we can come up with a strategy for farmers, but what about the farmed?

Probably between GMO's and selecting for warmer temperatures, things like wheat can evolve significantly in 80 years -- IF we take it seriously and push for that vs. say, bug resistance as priority one.

And this is my intuitive opinion as an educated layman, not one as a biologist -- unlike many here, I'll admit it freely when I'm no expert on topic X.

But the fact that we're seriously discussing this as a likely possibility shows how serious AGW has become. Even as a large proportion of the population denies that AGW is even "real".

Seriously -- we have met the enemy, and he is us. IMO.

Outcast,

I suppose the first thing would be locate areas that have a 22°C climate and see what they are growing now.

Now sure how to ho about that.

Current average is 13.9C, including over the oceans.
US average is 8.5 (Alaska?)
France is 10.7

But lots if countries over 22.
Egypt is just over 22.
Burkina Faso is warmest at 28.29
Lots of places I don’t care to live in the 22 and up range.
Columbia is 24.5
India 23.6 - they grow a lot of food,

https://www.biodiversityofindia.org/ind ... griculture

Man is going to have to also develop a new attitude toward nature. He will have to integrate with it. The threat of wildfire alone will be a huge incentive. That is to say, man will have to integrate with nature in such a way that his influence mitigates the threats. Currently, we don't see ourselves as part of nature. We see everything we do as a threat to nature. Along with examining ourselves, to ensure we aren't a threat, we will have to change nature with our presence so that fires either don't start so easily, or don't spread so readily. Then there is the question of what to do about water?

Here is a real world example I have personally experienced back in 2005. Phoenix, AZ and Flagstaff, AZ are only separated by 145 miles north to south which puts them in the same latitude zone just 2 degrees separated. However Phoenix is at 331 Meters aka 1,086 ft altitude while Flagstaff is at 2,106 meters aka 6,910 ft.

As a consequence of this altitude difference the annual average high and low in
Phoenix high 86.6F 30.3C
Flagstaff high 60.9F 16.1C
Phoenix low 63.4F 17.4C
Flagstaff low 31.7F -0.1C
25.7F difference in average annual highs and 31.7F difference in average annual lows.
All time record temperatures each location
Phoenix Record High 122F 50C
Flagstaff Record High 97F 36C
Phoenix Record Low 16F -9C
Flagstaff Record Low -30F -34C
25F difference in record high and 46F difference in record low.

There are any number of cities located close together except for altitude. I just happened to think of this one because I visited both on a vacation in 2005 and had experienced how much more pleasant the climate in Flagstaff was so close to the boiler room experience of Phoenix.

I also recall from my visit to Washington D.C. the tour guide pointing out that while the city center is at sea level with tidal effects taking place in the Potomac at that location the wealthy and powerful in the 19th century built their homes in the hills overlooking the city not for the view but for the modest relief it gave them from the high humidity and temperatures in summer time Washington. Even Arlington House, the former home of Robert E. Lee in Virginia in the middle of Arlington National Cemetery is on the highest convenient hill and overlooks the city from 272 ft aka 83 meters higher up and to windward. This lets the drier breeze blow through Arlington house in summer before they suck up all that sea coast humidity at city level. Before convenient A/C that was the best you could do to find a comfortable climate.

Tanada,

Reminds me of Rockman saying he bought his house in the highest ground a a available.

My strategy was to put down roots further North. Didn’t work so good this year with Covid.

But may make that a good place when the zombies march.

Anyone planning a move out country better get their act together. There is only so much rural land for sale and at any given point it is a hell of a lot less than the dog-boxes and sky-kennels for sale in the cities. Here in Australia there has been a rush to exit the city, and the lockdowns, and rural homes and land are skyrocketing in price. All the "Lifestyle" properties are basically gone and now people are looking at farms.

Oddly enough the homes in the small towns that act as hubs for these outlying properties are not selling all that fast, though the prices have gone up. I'm sure that's due to the mentality of the average cashed up city dweller who thinks that a move rural to 'get away' should naturally be to acreage. I'm sure because I once thought that way myself . A couple of years living on acreage quickly cures you of that conception though. It's not the easy drive in drive out lifestyle of the suburbs.

Years ago I expected to see such a move, brought on by the realization that cities would become unlivable without the cheap energy that supports them.

Here's what's happening down under
https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.a ... s/?cs=4698

"Most of the available homes and lifestyle blocks have already been snapped up in this pandemic-induced rush of thousands to the regions. The new target is any operating farms hitting the market."