Talk:Effects of climate change/Archive 1

message: "The predicted effects of global warming are many and various, both for the environment and for human life. The primary effect (indeed, the primary symptom) of global warming is increasing carbon dioxide and increasing global average temperature. From this flow a variety of secondary effects, including rising sea levels, declining output of global agriculture, increased extreme weather, and the spread of disease. In some cases, the effects may already be being experienced, although it is generally difficult to attribute specific natural phenomena to long-term global warming."
surely the increase in carbon dioxide is the primary cause of climate change? not an effect. if it is a symptom, what is its root cause? while global warming is likely to increase greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere (methane release), this does not contribute directly to carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere.
so I feel that the line "The primary effect (indeed, the primary symptom) of global warming is increasing carbon dioxide and increasing global average temperature." sould be reduced to "The primary effect is an increasing global average temperature."
--Naught101 01:41, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "primary symptom" 

message: the past stats for forest fires for North America cannot be attributed to Global Warming with any credibility.  This source attributes them the fuel buildup, and forest ecology change due to past fire suppression practices, plus the increased population in the western US. --Silverback 10:43, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reviewed the new forest fire text, and while it is less hyperbolic, but it is still appears to be an attempt to start a new fear mongering front, and without much scientific basis, and in fact flies in the face current scientific trends in forest management.  For instance the phrase about more "regular fires", is apparently intended to be a criticism, while it may well be a benefit, since fire suppression is thought to be responsible for larger more intense and destructive fires.  The predictions of impact on forests are more well balanced between benefits and possible negatives than just about any impact that is considered.  The reinsertion of the language on positive feedback is intended I think to suggest some kind of dire reunaway process, when forest fires are naturally self limiting, and the most common impact mentioned for global warming is actually more forest growth. --Silverback 07:31, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  the past forest fire stats since 1970 for North America 

message: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita both rode the warm Loop Current, but Rita crossed more cold water afterwards. Hurricane Camille probably went the length of the Loop Current and crossed virtually no cold water afterward - and made landfall as a Category 5. So a major question would be: is Global Warming increasing the SST (sea surface temperature) of the Loop Current? 
Also, does it seem like hurricane tracks are more northwards than before? The more northward a track, the more likely the hurricane is to ride the Loop Current. 
Simesa 13:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When examining "more", consider the size of your sample.  If you're examining an average, it is nice to have hundreds or thousands of measurements.  How many thousands of hurricanes each year are you measuring?   (SEWilco 13:54, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A paper is coming from Dr. Kevin Trenberth on the topic of Loop Current water temperature and hurricane strength.  Loop Current temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is directly measured by NOAA buoy #42003 . Part of this is in  Simesa 23:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The [[Loop Current]] Effect 

message: Does anyone have any good sources on this? —James S. 08:28, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest browsing the IPCC report, and Roger Pielke's blog http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/. There's lots of good stuff there that you won't like (I often don't). For example this: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/disasters/000653exchange_in_todays_.html William M. Connolley 10:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Great stuff! The citation by Evan Mills of this work and Choi & Fisher in Clim. Change 58, 149 (2003) seems to be the best quantifications. —James S. 22:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Thats all very well, but it says *would* not *has*; nor does it predict such an increase. William M. Connolley 20:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What?  That is their derivation from historical data.  Have you read the article? —James S. 20:41, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proportion of extreme weather costs attributable to global warming 

message: This page needs some work done on the reasons and the extreme weather. It needs better sourcing from scientific papers and rather less from New Scientist and stuff. In my opinion the primary source should still be the IPCC TAR, updated (if you've got it...) by the AR4 drafts, and various papers (e.g. Emanuel) since then. I've made a start. This table  (and the real sources in the other chapters) is useful.
I've removed (sorry) this:
: The radiative forcing which causes global warming also leads to increases of average global wind speed. Because, at higher temperatures more water is evaporated and transpires, leading to increased precipitation, which in turn adds greater amounts of kinetic laminar and turbulent mechanical energy, or wind.
which is simply garbled. If there is evidence for increases in wind speed from observations or future modelling, please show it. The TAR table I ref'd refers to likely future increases in cyclone speeds but not global wind speeds. The atmosphere is complex: more radiative forcing equals more wind speed is simplistic. increased precipitation, which in turn adds greater amounts of Kinetic energy is simply wrong: increased ppn doesn't of itself do much to wind speed at all. http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/zonm-u-ghg3-2030-2070.png, for example, shows zonal mean windspeeds for 2030-2050 avg and 2070-2090 avg - care to guess which is the red line and which the blue?
William M. Connolley 11:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Evaporation happens at the molecular level due to brownian motion, and precipitation occurs in large particles with accumulated potential energy falling.  The drafts in a rainstorm are well understood.  Is there any evidence that the water cycle doesn't convert thermal energy to mechanical wind? —James S. 22:54, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extreme weather and stuff - needs work 

message: The section on the oceans is possibly missing something about methane hydrate release.  As I understand it, these will be destabilised by warmer, less dense waters above them.  I think I'm right in saying that this is believed to be at least partly responsible for the Paleocene-Eocene event.  Shall I add something?  It's not my specialist subject.  --Plumbago 17:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This was just brought up in an environmentalist YAHOO group, but the links there were poor.  I'd like to see something on it.  See Methane clathrate    and passworded . Simesa 23:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methane hydrates? 

message: I made the following changes:
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) third annual assessment report stated "there is no compelling evidence to indicate that the characteristics of tropical and extratropical storms have changed." [1] There is, however, limited evidence from a relatively short time period that storm strength is increasing..."--Smithsmith 20:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Its always nice to see people using IPCC as their authority. Some skeptics even seem to dislike it: how odd! Be aware that the AR4 is nearly due, though, and storm frequency has been an active topic recently. William M. Connolley 20:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also make a humble appeal that the reference to the Time Magazine article be deleted.  This magazine is a popular news and special interest magazine, not a scientic journal.  Also the reference to the The Independent under "Decline of Agriculture" section in my humble opinion should be deleted.--Smithsmith 20:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change to More Extreme Weather 

message: The article says:
: Increasing temperature is likely to lead to increasing precipitation 
And N bumped this up to Increasing temperature is very likely to continue to and I don't know what the evidence is for that. I've added a ref to the SPM which explicitly states the "likely" .
I removed, and N re-inserted:
: Wind produced from differences in barometric pressure has increased as radiative forcing increases the relative amount of daytime thermal expansion of air, and is also expected to continue to increase. 
Curiously, he added the citation-needed bit, which seems to indicate he knows of no source for this. I don't think its true.
Again, N replaced "may" with the bold bit in This has been shown to cause, and is expected to continue to cause heavier rainfall  and I'm not sure that is justified.
William M. Connolley 12:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those changes are completely inconsistent with the rest of the article.  Just search for each instance of "precipit" and see how far those edits are from the rest of the article.  I inserted the "citation needed" tag to remind me to find a source for that.  Is there any question that mean wind speed is increasing?  I've read that from multiple sources.  I hoped that you had one handy. --James S. 19:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well please find the citation *first* and add the text after. I know of no evidence that global mean wind speed is increasing, and since you can't find a citation, I don't think you do either. William M. Connolley 20:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Added. --James S. 08:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I was (a) being too conservative in an abundance of caution, and (b) trying to make all the sections self-consistent.  I believe the certainty is easily such that "very likely" should be preferred. --James S. 23:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Will you please stop making this stuff up. You're now down to using deceptive edit summaries - you have simply reverted, restoring all the wind speed nonsense etc. I've pointed out that your so-called ref is simply irrelevant. Please answer to the point. William M. Connolley 23:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  What are you accusing me of fabrticating now?  What do you have against the first Google hit on "global mean wind speed" ?  --James S. 00:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your ref appears to be a satellite calibration study that discusses neither global warming nor long-term changes in wind speed.  Maybe I'm missing something, but it does not seem to be relevant to the point you are making.  Dragons flight 01:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  When I skimmed it I thought it was comparing two data sets from different time periods.  Are you saying the two data sets are actually from the same time period? --James S. 02:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, it is a comparison of satellite and ground based observations of the same sites and the same time periods as a check on the accuracy of space based reconstructions of wind patterns.  Dragons flight 02:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

text:  I read relevant parts of the reference and, now having read the discussion, concur wth WMC and Dragons Flight.  (And I'm one of the guys arguing that Global Warming is a massive danger.)  Now an increase in Hurricane wind speeds, that's a different matter.  A Google search on GW and increase in wind speeds minus hurricanes turned up nothing useful (but see 2.4.4 in ).  Regarding general wind speeds, I deleted the paragraph. Simesa 06:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  recent reverts 

message: The article has virtually nothing in it.  Would someone knowledgeable want to tackle it, or should we wait for IPCC Fourth Assessment Report? Simesa 19:34, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[IPCC Third Assessment Report]] 

message: This needs expanding also.  There's some on it at the bottom of methane clathrate.  I've written to NCAR for info. Simesa 17:29, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My source at NCAR wrote back; it's not his area, and they're swamped with getting ready for the IPCC.  The NCAR Newsroom now only takes inquiries from professional journalists.  Guess this topic will have to wait for later. Simesa 06:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Clathrate Gun Hypothesis]] 

message: Is the paragraph on increased murder rates in the 'health' section very accurate? I find it hard to beleive that murder and temperature can be so closely linked.   Tkos 12:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, severe heat would tend to make people lethargic. Dogru144 05:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've taken it out. It's a misstatement of a pop-science book interpreting one research paper, with the source given as a review of this book... If someone has the book (Body Heat: Temperature and Life on Earth by Mark S. Blumberg) and can dig out the original reference, I'm ready to take a look at it. I doubt that this relationship has any solid foundation...--Stephan Schulz 06:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More murder 

message: From while
"Whilst is synonymous with while in standard British English, although it sounds slightly old-fashioned, and is rare or archaic in American English."
Let's use "while".  More people will understand it.
--Richard 20:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Going around changing spellings is a Bad Idea. Its pointless and provokes Discontent William M. Connolley 21:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  While / whilst 

message: The Temperature Rise section under Oceans does not state how much on average the oceans have warmed over the last century.  I found almost 1 degree C over the past 100 years in . Simesa 06:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Temperature Rise 

message: I inserted a link, but thought excerpts from the story merited inclusion in Discussion: 
:July 5, 2006 — The same manmade gases that are heating up the planet are also making oceans acidic enough to dissolve the skeletons and shells of many marine organisms, according to a new scientific report released Wednesday.
:....
:Ocean acidity has already increased 30 percent since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century, said Richard Feely, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.  By the end of the 21st century that could go up to 150 percent, he said."
:....
:... many affected organisms are also food sources for many commercially important fish – like salmon.
:....
:The new report is the result of years of work by scientists worldwide and was assembled by top researchers at the US Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and universities.
Simesa 13:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Strictly speaking, ocean acidification is unrelated to global warming (except that they're caused ultimately by the same thing).  It would happen regardless of the climate effects.  Maybe this article is mistitled and "effects of anthropogenic CO2" would allow all of the effects to be in one place?  Cheers, --Plumbago 13:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  True... but maybe too picky? The CO2 fertilisation is another example, but thats mixed up with plants changing under T/ppn changes anyway William M. Connolley 14:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ocean Acidification