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global warming has (temporary) benefits
2012-Jan-19, Thursday 07:35 amIt's -24C (-11F) today with windchill about 10C (20F) degrees colder. That's what winter in Minnesota is supposed to be like. It conjures ideas of the next ice age, which the planet is supposed to be entering now based on planetary cycles. That was the prediction 30 years ago. I know, because I was reading the articles and wondering how we would adapt to the cold.
Then we noticed that the ice age wasn't coming. Our atmosphere's high carbon dioxide concentration has interrupted the cycle.
Minnesota has experienced record or near-record high temperatures for many months now. The last half of 2011 was outmatched only by the year of the dust bowl for high temperatures. Some winter festivals here have already had to cancel their annual plans for ice fishing in favor of other cool-weather activities.
Here are photos of the snow pile in the back yard from some previous years by this time of the winter.
And here's what it looked like on 2012 January 10. Notice the profound lack of snow.
Global warming will be good to Minnesota. Not so good elsewhere, though. The president of Maldives is buying up land in foreign countries and warning their governments to prepare for an influx of refugees.
Eighty per cent of the Maldivian land mass - a string of more than 1200 islands, 200 inhabited, running 750 kilometres north-south in the Indian Ocean - is less than a metre above sea level. The highest point in the entire country is 2.4 metres above sea level, and already, 14 islands have had to be abandoned because of massive erosion by the sea.
- http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-castaways-consider-move-to-australia-20120106-1pobf.html
Meanwhile, starving arctic polar bears are cannibalizing their young, the Doomsday Clock has moved one minute closer to midnight, and some people are beginning their back-of-the-napkin calculations for worst case scenarios that include temperature rise of 20C (40F) degrees that ends human life on Earth.
But winters in Minnesota will be sweet for the remainder of my lifetime. And, really, does anybody ever care what happens to the rest of the world after their own death?
Then we noticed that the ice age wasn't coming. Our atmosphere's high carbon dioxide concentration has interrupted the cycle.
The temperate stretch in between global freezes can be longer or shorter depending on a number of factors, but with the last ice age having ended 11,600 years ago the arrival of another already appears overdue. ... Separate research has shown that even if we cut our carbon emissions instantly, concentrations in our atmosphere would remain artificially high for the next 1,000 years.
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9002131/Carbon-emissions-to-block-next-ice-age.html
- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9002131/Carbon-emissions-to-block-next-ice-age.html
Minnesota has experienced record or near-record high temperatures for many months now. The last half of 2011 was outmatched only by the year of the dust bowl for high temperatures. Some winter festivals here have already had to cancel their annual plans for ice fishing in favor of other cool-weather activities.
Here are photos of the snow pile in the back yard from some previous years by this time of the winter.
And here's what it looked like on 2012 January 10. Notice the profound lack of snow.
Global warming will be good to Minnesota. Not so good elsewhere, though. The president of Maldives is buying up land in foreign countries and warning their governments to prepare for an influx of refugees.
Eighty per cent of the Maldivian land mass - a string of more than 1200 islands, 200 inhabited, running 750 kilometres north-south in the Indian Ocean - is less than a metre above sea level. The highest point in the entire country is 2.4 metres above sea level, and already, 14 islands have had to be abandoned because of massive erosion by the sea.
- http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/climate-change-castaways-consider-move-to-australia-20120106-1pobf.html
Meanwhile, starving arctic polar bears are cannibalizing their young, the Doomsday Clock has moved one minute closer to midnight, and some people are beginning their back-of-the-napkin calculations for worst case scenarios that include temperature rise of 20C (40F) degrees that ends human life on Earth.
But winters in Minnesota will be sweet for the remainder of my lifetime. And, really, does anybody ever care what happens to the rest of the world after their own death?