Re: Global warming sea rises to affect YOU?

Oh No <notI@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

Nonetheless a good thing global warming is only projected to produce
half a metre rise by the best simulations, as distinct from those of
the scaremongers.

I wouldn't be too sure if I were you.

There was a thread, perhaps in sci.ag where we looked crudely at
planetary equilibrium positions. What was very quickly clear was that
there are two stable stated for the earth. One is pretty well snowball,
where all the sunlight is reflected back into space, and the other was
for a rather warm world where its mostly absorbed.

The trigger between the two seems to be associated with vulcanism. A
massive eruption causing global cooling due to high altitude clouds of
typically SO3 starts a strong snow cover that then reflects enough
sunlight to be self-sustaining IF CO2 levels are low enough. However
with a cold earth CO2 is not mopped up very quickly and it slowly rises
and the planet moves towards a no-ice situation.

But removing 1km layers of ice takes time, and also much methane is
locked up in clathrates. At some point it switches over. Remember that
dinosaurs lived at the poles 65MYA, and had done for a long time. There
are billions of tons of clathrates in the deep sea and the arctic soils.
NB Worth bearing in mind that methane evaporates into space relatively
quickly.

IMHO we are far too late to stop global warming switching right over to
an ice-free world. This may happen rather more quickly than people think
because we are increasingly far from the equilibrium level.

By 2100 I suspect the world will be a very different place indeed.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.



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