The Snowball Effect of Global Warming

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The Snowball Effect of Global Warming
http://www.livescience.com/environment/ ... hrubs.html

In a twist to the proverbial snowball effect, warmer Arctic temperatures are stimulating plant growth, which darkens the landscape and causes more sunlight to be absorbed rather than reflected.

The result: Winter heating could increase by 70 percent, according to a new study.

The study examined western Alaska during the winters of 2000 through 2002. Shrubs and other vegetation became more abundant, the researchers found. Because the plants are darker than the tundra that typically covers the region, the surface gets darker. The study "presents the first evidence that shrub growth could alter the winter energy balance of the Arctic and subarctic tundra in a substantial way," the scientists announced today.

The study will be detailed Sept. 7 in the first issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, published by the American Geophysical Union.

In areas where shrubs were exposed in mid-winter, melting began several weeks earlier in the spring compared to snow-covered terrain. Yet the shrubs' branches produced shade that slowed the rate of melting, so that the snow melt finished at approximately the same time for all the sites examined.

Matthew Sturm, leader of the study, said warming in the region seems to have stimulated shrub growth, which further
warms the area and creates a feedback effect that can promote higher temperatures and even more growth. This feedback could, in turn, accelerate increases in the shrubs' range and size, he said.

The Alaskan tundra covers some 1.5 million square miles (4 million square kilometers).

"Basically, if tundra is converted to shrubland, more solar energy will be absorbed in the winter than before," Sturm said. And while previous research has shown that warmer temperatures during the Arctic summer enhance shrub growth, "our study is important because it suggests that the winter processes could also contribute to and amplify the rate of the [growth]."

Global warming also melts the ice caps, which in turn covers more of the Earth's surface in water, which absorbs heat, and will eventually check and reverse the rise in temperatures. The Earth has been hotter than it is now without our intervention before and it eventually cooled down and will do so again without our interventinon.

and if the oceans absorb more heat, the surface temperature goes up, and we have more hurricanes.

sure the earth will sort itself out. in the meantime - bye bye low-lying bits of the world - new orleans, bangladesh, norfolk... (ah - well the others would be a shame, anyway )

I know the Earth changes temperature naturally, but what we are concerned about is the RATE at which it is getting warmer. In natural terms, we are looking at 10 million years for a change in a few degrees. Here we are looking at between 10 and 50 years before temperatures rise so much that they adversely affect life on Earth. Meanwhile Bush will not acknowledge the problem.

Bush will be dead by then so why should he care? (HINT: sarcasm)

Sean, check your science. As the Ice caps melt, water will flood many parts of the Earth. Temperatures will continue to rise unless we magically find a way to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Scientists that disregard global warming are often on the payroll of Shell or Exxon or someone like that. Most academics consider it a threat far greater than terrorism.

Plankton takes the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. 99% of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by plankton. If there's more warm, shallow water, there's more room for plankton, which can convert carbon dioxide to oxygen. The climate changes will work themselves out as long as we don't increase toxic waste dumping into the oceans.

and a lot of plankton are zooplankton, and not phtyoplankton, and will respire, causing even more CO2, which means even more greenhouse effect, which means even more global warming.

besides which, it wouldn't take a great rise in ocean temperature to change living conditions.

basically, Bush is an oil man - it's a leeeetle bit obvious why he doesn't want to acknowledge global warming, n'est-ce pas?

Even if he wasn't in the oil industry and acknowledged global warming, that still wouldn't have any impact on the demand for oil. Furthermore, I strongly doubt that we could do anything to stop the rise in temperature that nature could not either override or do better.

i have to disagree, on one level. the ecosystem is a lot more fragile than most people realise, and the balance can be tipped quite easily, comparatively, anyway.

and sure - the earth could sort itself out quite easily. it can adapt. but whether the adapations would be conducive to humans living on the planet is another story.

cockroaches, maybe, but not humans.

makes one think, doesn't it?

Ahhh yes. The wonders of the positive feedback loop.



And then when that plankton dies, it sucks all of the oxygen out of the water causing stress and or killing off other things in the water that need oxygen.

[sarcasm] Bush, his fellow conservatives and religious right think the Anti-Christ will come to power soon and by that time, they'll all be raptured into heaven while "unbelievers" are left here to suffer. Of course they don't want to do anything about global warming. Why would they when they have a more credible prediction? [/sarcasm]

Scientists that believe in (sorry, but there's no better wording) global warming often have government grants, and those who wish to look at the matter without bias have great trouble getting those same grants.

But they are both ad hominem arguments anyway and say nothing of the validity of global warming theories.

Significant global temperature swings can occur in relatively short periods, there is substantial argicultural evidence that the much of the earth was a whole degree celcius warmer around a thousand years ago and a degree cooler than it is now four-hundred years ago.

Check this out, particularly the Younger Dryas reversal:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/booty.weather/climate/11000_4000BC.htm

"...if it were to happen today, it has been argued that civilisation as we know it would cease"

If you go to the bottom of the page you can scroll through climatic information right up to the present date, though mostly it's just anecdotal accounts of extreme weather.

The temperature changes relating to glacial/interglacials have been scientifically established from analysis of a variety of data including oxygen isotope composition of material derived from sediments, as well as ice-cores. They have happened, they occur regularly, and they will happen again.

As for global warming in relation to man's activities, it would take a supreme optimist, or total idiot, to not conclude, after looking at the evidence in the public domain, that there is at least a possibility we are affecting the climate. As for how significant that impact might be, we'll just have to wait and see.

*ASCAN SHIFTS TO THE LEFT SIDE OF THE BOAT*

I am surprised everyday. I never thought that Ascan would support the global warming theories.

I would comment but the link's not working for me, when it works I'll respond.

Why bother waiting to read the link? Global warming rhetoric is global warming rhetoric. If you've seen one article on global warming, you've seen them all.

If you refer to the link in my post, Sean, then if you took the trouble to browse through the content you'd see it could be used to support your case. In fact, I don't believe there's even a mention of "global warming", though I haven't read everything there, it's more something you scan through and pick out the interesting bits.

Oh, Tim_p, the link works for me; try again, perhaps


I look at the facts, RobertN, and come to my own conclusions. Interpret the political ramifications of that as you will. Anyway, you already know I'm a closet-lefty! But don't make the mistake of thinking I agree with general UK left-wing consensus on the solution. There maybe theoretical ones, but not practical ones. You will not stop the US or China, or any other up-and-coming industrialised nations using fossil fuels and emitting huge volumes of carbondioxide into the atmosphere. You're pissing into the wind if you try! It just won't happen.

I think it just has to be accepted, and all we can do is our best to anticipate the changes that will occur; that means things such as not building in low lying coastal areas, and making long term plans for redistribution of populations. Hmmm... perhaps it's about as unrealistic to expect that, as to expect polticians to do anything about carbon dioxide emissions; but the consequences of non-human induced climate change will have to be faced sooner or later, anyway, as well as the local impact of extreme weather — something that is perfectly normal, but because certain events haven't occured in living memory, people believe they just don't occur. What fools!

Recent events in the US and prior to that in the Indian Ocean should be a wake-up call to the political elite who have reneged on their responsibilities to their citizens. They are all collectively responsible for thousands of deaths; and by political elite I mean the whole bloody sytem from the top down the the lowliest local politician. Their lack of planning in respect to a whole host of issues including natural disasters, climate change and future energy needs is on the point of criminal, and all that while extolling the virtues of a political and economic system that relies for it's very existence on increasing population density and energy consumption ad infinitum!

[Edited coz ascan obviously didn't pay attention in school geography lessons.]

Last edited by ascan on 08 Sep 2005, 5:18 am, edited 2 times in total.