Where to take this one

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
Let's see, there's the fact that global warming isn't due to cars & manufacturing. There's the thing about things "could be" worse. That means they "could be" better or they "could be" the same. Then there's the part about unprecedented followed by precedence.

Journalism certainly isn't what it used to be.

07 Oct 2004 20:39:28 GMT Source: Reuters
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. West, already suffering from a long drought, could be in for worse if past patterns hold up, experts said on Thursday.

A study of tree rings showed that a 400-year-long drought dating back 1,000 years ago occurred during a time when the planet was warmer than usual -- like today.

If the pattern holds up, it could mean a cruel drought, the researchers write in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"The western United States is experiencing a severe multiyear drought that is unprecedented in some hydroclimatic records," the researchers, led by Edward Cook of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, wrote.

"Using gridded drought reconstructions that cover most of the western United States over the past 1,200 years, we show that this drought pales in comparison to an earlier period of elevated aridity and epic drought in AD 900-1300, an interval broadly consistent with the 'Medieval Warm Period'," they added.

"If elevated aridity in the western United States is a natural response to climate warming, then any trend toward warmer temperatures in the future could lead to a serious long-term increase in aridity over western North America."

Cook, an expert in tree rings and climate, said the culprit seems to be a weather pattern called La Nina.

It is marked by upwelling of cold water from the bottom of the Pacific in eastern tropical waters. Climate models show this reduces rainfall in the U.S. West.

"Modeling results now suggest the same thing may have happened during the so-called Medieval Warm Period 800 to 1,000 years ago," Cook said in a telephone interview.

During that time the world was a little warmer than average.

"It looks like the long period of elevated aridity in the Western United States that has been reconstructed from my tree rings could very well be associated with prolonged La Nina-like conditions," Cook said.

Cook said he did not know how long it would last.

"This says nothing about what the future is going to be. But if warming increases in the future we ought to at least consider the possibility that we are going into a more drought-prone period than we have seen over the last few hundred years," he said.

"It's a bit of a cautionary tale. We ought to at least think about the likelihood of this happening in the future. How one prepares for this is anyone's guess."
Click to expand...
 
Gonz said:
Let's see, there's the fact that global warming isn't due to cars & manufacturing. There's the thing about things "could be" worse. That means they "could be" better or they "could be" the same. Then there's the part about unprecedented followed by precedence.

Journalism certainly isn't what it used to be.
Click to expand...
How do you get the bit about cars&manufacturing having nothing to do with global warming out of this article?

There seems to be a cycle of warming and cooling for our lovely planet. From ice age to heat-waves... practically everything on here is cyclical providing that its left alone. It's natural.

Pollution adding to the problem isn't helping. It's not the only cause for global warming...but it is a cause.
 
Gonz said:
How can it be a cause when it happened before these items?
Click to expand...

Like I said... it's not the only cause, but it IS a cause. Next time that you drive through a large city, take a good hard look at the smog around it. Take a look at the ozone layer (which isn't holey because of anythign cyclical), the polluted water, etc... and tell me that cars and manufacturing has no impact. Puh-lease.

This report is not a license to buy a new suburban and go back to coal-burning energy. It's one report against several thousand. Please don't jump to comclusions like that.

I'm just thankful that we don't have to wear masks in North America like they do in Japan.
 
Yes, automobiles & manufacturing plants create a nuisance. They make for stinky air. As California has shown, it can be cleaned up.

As this and thousands of other reports have shown, man and his inventions is not the bane to Mother Earth. She is cyclical whether we nuke ourselves out of existance or overpopulate until we can't feed ourselves.
 
Gonz said:
Yes, automobiles & manufacturing plants create a nuisance. They make for stinky air. As California has shown, it can be cleaned up.

As this and thousands of other reports have shown, man and his inventions is not the bane to Mother Earth. She is cyclical whether we nuke ourselves out of existance or overpopulate until we can't feed ourselves.
Click to expand...

Granted...but we are our own bane. Mother earth can continue past our own existance...but WE can't exist forever unless WE do something about it.

Without live...the earth is just another hunk of rock in an eliptical orbit around a M-class star.

Risking forming an ego <---- human beings is what makes the earth 'special'...and not in a short-bus kinda way.
 
Remember a couple of years ago yellowstone had this HUGE forest fire, they was caused naturally, so they didn't fight it, and scientific evidence showed later on that every long while those forests did burn down, btu the ash was great fertilizer, and now fresh new growth is going up real fast.

but light a fire in that new growth now, and well chances are that area will take much longer to regrow.

the lesson:

Mother nature rocks, and has her own timetable, anything we do to interupt it (adding to greenhouse affect) is BAD!!
 
Actually, Paul, many trees survive forest fires. The bark is designed to char, and protect the sapwood. Provided it's a fast burn and not a furnace. Some plants even need the fire to open their seeds. I think it's the savahna grasses. But without a burn, the seeds won't open.

A side note: It's been found that when the co2/o2 balance shifts towards o2, forest fires are more prevelant, and harder to fight. That shoves up the co2 levels, which make it harder to start fires. Studies have shown that a 1% increase in atmospheric o2 levels would cause spontaneous forestfires worldwide. And paleobotanists have found events in the past of that happening.
 
Professur said:
Actually, Paul, many trees survive forest fires. The bark is designed to char, and protect the sapwood. Provided it's a fast burn and not a furnace. Some plants even need the fire to open their seeds. I think it's the savahna grasses. But without a burn, the seeds won't open.
Click to expand...


I was refering in particular to the Yellowstone fire of the 90's where, since it was naturally started the let it burn, it was huge and a furnace, very little survived. but the scientists came in a realized it was alomost stagment that area of the forest, to many big trees to close together, and now it's is beautiful and green new growth.

basically the forest needed to burn to survive
 
Gonz said:
If we can't adapt we die. Survival of the fittest. ;)
Click to expand...


*rakes through drawer*

It's in here somewhere


*pulls out a DB9/DB25 connector and sticks it behind his ear*

OK, I've adapted. Can I go now?
 
paul_valaru said:
I was refering in particular to the Yellowstone fire of the 90's where, since it was naturally started the let it burn, it was huge and a furnace, very little survived. but the scientists came in a realized it was alomost stagment that area of the forest, to many big trees to close together, and now it's is beautiful and green new growth.

basically the forest needed to burn to survive
Click to expand...


Yeah, exactly.
 
Professur said:
Yeah, exactly.
Click to expand...


thank god, I thought I was gonna have to go to my moms, into her locker, and find all my old national geographics....yes I was one of those kids
 
Professur said:
*rakes through drawer*

It's in here somewhere


*pulls out a DB9/DB25 connector and sticks it behind his ear*

OK, I've adapted. Can I go now?
Click to expand...
How big a geek does it make me that I laughed out loud at that? :lloyd:
 
paul_valaru said:
thank god, I thought I was gonna have to go to my moms, into her locker, and find all my old national geographics....yes I was one of those kids
Click to expand...

Coulda just waited till I got home and looked at my bookshelf. Did you get the annual dust covers for yours? Makes them look like a row of encyclopedias.
 
chcr said:
How big a geek does it make me that I laughed out loud at that? :lloyd:
Click to expand...


very

If we can't adapt we die. Survival of the fittest.
Click to expand...

adapting is a damn long process, (almost as long as teh movie adaptation seemed to be...;))

so if we contribute to the global warming and speed it up, we won't have time to adapt, and we will die out as a species :D
 
Professur said:
Coulda just waited till I got home and looked at my bookshelf. Did you get the annual dust covers for yours? Makes them look like a row of encyclopedias.
Click to expand...


no I read them all, and they are in a basement garage thingy in my moms building (unless she tossed them)

I sorta miss them, but no room to store em.

I remember the year I stopped getting them, I was 17, and it was them or playboy
 
Car usuage and factory manufacturing doesn't have anything to do with the current damage to the planet? Really? Tell that to the ruddy big ozone hole that sits over New Zealand then. :shrug: We've always known that weather patterns were cyclical. This ain't new. :shrug: We swing between glacial maximums, minimums, and inter-glacials periodically, and we don't need dendrochronology to do it. Deep sea, and ice cores already told us this. :shrug:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top