Korean Job Discussion Forums

[desultude]

[Gopher]

[desultude]

[Gopher]

[rapier]

The consensus among most scientists is that Global warming is happening, it threatens the future of millions, and it is influenced by human activity.

Global Warming Can Trigger Extreme Ocean, Climate Changes, Scripps-led Study Reveals
January 6, 2006
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060106002509.htm

Global warming threatens health of Millions:
CBS news (16 may 2006)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/15/ap/tech/mainD8HJSMBG1.shtml

kyoto is certainly useless, in that it doesn't go far enough to adress the problem.


Unless you're one of the scientists who believes that nothing we do matters anymore anyhow.probably the most realistic assessment.

Global warming: passing the 'tipping point'
Our special investigation reveals that critical rise in world temperatures is now unavoidable

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 11 February 2006
A crucial global warming "tipping point" for the Earth, highlighted only last week by the British Government, has already been passed, with devastating consequences.

Research commissioned by The Independent reveals that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold, set down by scientists from around the world at a conference in Britain last year, beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article344690.ece

[Nowhere Man]

It's still beyond me how issues of our emissions and climate change are not also discussed alongside issues such as soil erosion and pollution.

Our impact on the atmosphere is not really thousands of years old.
See: the industrial revolution.

As for leading scientists, it seems about 60-93 based on articles posted here.

Let's agree on this: Climate change is real.

Disclaimer: I didn't say it's caused by humans or that there is a catastrophe looming.

Just that: Climate change is real.

[Bulsajo]

[Tiger Beer]

[Bulsajo]

That's a good point-
how many of the scientists who are against Kyoto, are against it because of bad science?
And how many are against it because of 'bad politics'?
(I.E. global warming is seen as a problem but Kyoto is not seen as any sort of solution, for a variety of reasons).

[sundubuman]

here's an example of the media's open mendacity on the issue

Meltdown fear as Arctic ice cover falls to record winter low

David Adam, environment correspondent
Monday May 15, 2006
The Guardian

Record amounts of the Arctic ocean failed to freeze during the recent winter, new figures show, spelling disaster for wildlife and strengthening concerns that the region is locked into a destructive cycle of irreversible climate change.

Satellite measurements show the area covered by Arctic winter sea ice reached an all-time low in March, down some 300,000 square kilometres on last year -an area bigger than the UK.

Scientists say the decline highlights an alarming new trend, with recovery of the ice in winter no longer sufficient to compensate for increased melting in the summer. If the cycle continues, the Arctic ocean could lose all of its ice much earlier than expected, possibly by 2030.

Walt Meier, a researcher at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, which collected the figures, said: "It's a pretty stark drop. In the winter the ice tends to be pretty stable, so the last three years, with this steady decline, really stick out."

Experts are worried because a long-term slow decline of ice around the north pole seems to have sharply accelerated since 2003, raising fears that the region may have passed one of the "tipping points" in global warming. In this scenario, warmer weather melts ice and drives temperatures higher because the dark water beneath absorbs more of the sun's radiation. This could make global warming quickly run out of control.

Dr Meier said there was "a good chance" the Arctic tipping point has been reached. "People have tried to think of ways we could get back to where we were. We keep going further and further into the hole, and it's getting harder and harder to get out of it."

The Arctic is rapidly becoming the clearest demonstration of the effects of mankind's impact on the global climate. The temperature is rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet and the region is expected to warm by a further 4C-7C by 2100. The summer and winter ice levels are the lowest since satellite monitoring began in 1979, and almost certainly the lowest since local people began keeping records around 1900. The pace of decline since 2003, if continued, would see the Arctic totally ice-free in summer within 30 years - though few scientists would stake their reputations on a long-term trend drawn from only three years.

Experts at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California think the situation could be even worse. They are about to publish the results of computer simulations that show the current rate of melting, combined with increased access for warmer Pacific water, could make the summertime Arctic ice-free within a decade. Dr Meier said: "For 800,000 to a million years, at least some of the Arctic has been covered by ice throughout the year. That's an indication that, if we are heading for an ice-free Arctic, it's a really dramatic change and something that is unprecedented almost within the entire record of human species."

The winter ice has declined all around the region - bad news for polar bears, which spend summer on land before returning to the ice in spring to catch food.

[sundubuman]

completely disregarding the possibility that it has something to do with natural volcanic cycles.

the guardian makes me sick. what passes for news there is pretty hysterical.

[sundubuman]

Figure 7y-6: The following satellite image shows the distribution of Mount Pinatubo's sulfur dioxide and dust aerosol plume (red and yellow areas) between June 14 and July 26, 1991. Approximately 45 days after the eruption, the aerosol plume completely circled the Earth around the equator forming a band 20 to 50� of latitude wide. Areas outside this band were clear of volcanic aerosols. Within a year, the sulfur dioxide continued to migrate towards the North and South Pole until it covered the entire Earth because of the dominant poleward flow of stratospheric winds (stratospheric winds circulate from the equator to the polar vortices at the North and South Poles). These observed patterns of aerosol movement suggest that tropical explosive volcanic eruptions probably have the greatest effect on the Earth's climate. Diffusion of aerosols by stratospheric winds from a tropical source results in the greatest latitudinal coverage of the sulfur dioxide across both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. (Source: SAGE II Satellite Project - NASA).

[sundubuman]

and the fact that most of the volcanoes on earth are UNDERWATER and largely UNOBSERVED by even our most advanced technology.....

seems not to bother those with a preconceived conviction of what might be happening on Earth.


how can we spell

H U B R I S

[rapier]

[Bulsajo]

N.B. the article does not state (nor even imply) what they believe the cause of the phenomena to be (other than the obvious- high temperatures); Also note the immediate and dramatic commercial/economic and environmental impacts implied in the second to last paragraph.