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Groundking on 20 January 2016
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Teeqoz said:

Groundking said:

 

Here's my source: http://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-death-toll-from-extreme-weather-events-declining/

Does a warmer climate REALLY lead to a drier climate? Come on, even a primary school kid could tell you that a warmer planet will lead to more evaporation, leading to a WETTER climate. I mean FFS nobody thinks that a warmer planet will be drier. And you know, that even contradicts what you think about the climate change, if the climate is drier, there's less capacity for extreme weather events (outside of if you consider droughts extreme weather events, but with modern technology they really aren't an issue, almost nobody in the developed world dies of drought any more, and people in the developing world, surprisingly, find drought easier to cope with as compared to extreme cold events). And how on earth do you even try and combat the idea of if the temperature is warmer, deserts will spread, as deserts are formed due to warm air which has already lost its moisture at the equator is falling on a land, hense why deserts (by the traditional thinking, as in the Sahara and Khalahari, you do get some deserts simply due to geograpy, such as the Gobi desert, which is due to the Himalayas) allways occur around the tropics. Now once you know this information then surely for the deserts to spread, the wet zones north and south need to decrease? But if we have a warmer, wetter climate isn't it a possibility that these wet zones will widen, reducing the deserts?

 

Yes, an overall warmer globe will lead to more evaporation, so a wetter climate globally, however desert zones are desert zones because rain generally doesn't fall (very often) there. More rainfall in the tropical rainforests (or wherever else really) won't help desert areas, and especially not when what rainwater does fall there evaporates quicker, leading to harsher environments for vegetations, which leads to less vegetation, which makes it even harder for the affected area to "hold on" to what little water it has. This all becomes a snowballing effect, which contributes to deserts spreading. Perhaps I should've specified that when I said drier, I meant in desert areas (and those in close proximity, which are those in danger of becoming deserts).

No climate change isn't a question, never said it was (and IF I did, I appologise as the post was written in spurts between bits of work, and it would have been a faux par for me to write that), the climate always changes, it did so before us, and will do so forever after us, I don't think we even have a debate that we don't contribute to the climate, as we clearly do locally with all our big cities becoming heat islands, the debate is whether or no we are the driving force behind the current warming, and I simply don't beleive we are, then the question is do we contribute, maybe? but the system is so complex we don't know, at all, and if we DO, how much?

We do know 100% that earth's temperature is sustained by greenhouse gases "trapping" some of the thermal radiation. We do know that one of these greenhouse gases is CO2. We may not know exactly how much man-made CO2 emissions contribute to climate change, but to say that we do contribute, on a global level, to climate change is a very very very reasonable assumption. However I don't think we should play lotto on this. if there's a chance we are contributing a lot, then we should take action to prevent it from getting out of hand.

Reducing CO2 emmissions globally will only happen if the developing world agrees to follow suit with the west, if the developing world does this people WILL die as would otherwise, this is inevatable, as without plentiful access to the cheapest forms of energy, which are currently the fossil fuels, which emmit CO2 when burnt, their economies can't develop as much as otherwise, so these countries are more at risk to all extreme events, as they don't have as much economic might to cope with these things. There's a reason that climate related deaths have dramatically fallen since we've started emmitting CO2, as this cheap form of dense energy gives us far more capacity to do work that other wise, and this capacity helps protect people from the effects of disasters

 

Developed countries must take the majority of the burden in the start, while the developing world gets a more "lax" attitude, simply because the developed world is responsible for a lot more of the cumulative CO2 emission than the developing. There is/will be left plenty of room for developing countries to continue expanding their economy, it's not like we're going to cut of all access to fossil fuels. It's just that fossil fuel consumption in the developed world will start to gradually decrease, while fossil fuel consumption in developing countries will increase for a while, before they flatten out and then decrease.

 

Reply in bold

Ugh, I hate the qoute tree system this forum uses. 

Yes, what I'm trying to say is that the 'band' of tropical rainfall that occurs could extend north and south, encroaching onto the deserts. And yes this is true, but something that must be taken into consideration, is that the tropics are warming much much slower than the north pole, which is one of the biggest contributor to the warming data. Unfortunately there are only 6 stations on Antartica, so the date isn't really strong enough to make a conclusion either way for warming or cooling, and there is evidence either way.

Also: http://www.itwire.com/science-news/climate/60575-rising-co2-level-making-earths-deserts-bloom-csiro-study (I can no longer find the primary source, losing access to my uni's library now that I've graduated is annoying) So again, I'm not really convinced that it's no deforestation and slash and burn that's fueling the current desertification, particularily for the Sahara. Also if you feel inclined there are people working on greening the arabian peninsula, with some promising signs for both soft and hard engineered methods, with some hillsides having massive improvements in terms of vegitation cover (which also couple help water retention in the area for the local water cycle). I'll dig up some stuff if you like?

No I know, I was mostly trying to play devils advocate, but it's not all cut and dry with greenhouse gasses, with the most prominant, water vapour, acting as both a greenhouse gass, and the opposite (I can't think of the damn word haha), as clouds reflect heat coming in. And yeah it's a reasonable assumption, but the gass being only 0.04% (I made a mistake earlier, was thinking in PPB, but it's PPM :/) of the atmosphere, and going from that to say 0.05% is really going to do that much? And what do you mean about getting out of hand? Out of hand for what? What's the optimum temperature of the globe for human inhabitance? The dark ages occured inbetween this warmer period and the medieval warm period, so perhaps a warmer climate is better for human inhabitance, also this past century has been the warmest for a few, yet human life has never been richer, healthier or longer? And again, I'll repeat my point, what if doing something is more harmful/damaging to human life than doing nothing?

But then how on earth are we going to do anything about CO2 emissions, with China and India being 1st and 3rd in yearly emissions, and 2nd and 6th in cumulative emissions, or are you including them in the developed world? If so, well that's not very fair, as these countries have GDP's (PPP, Per Capita) less than a third and almost a tenth of the USA's respectively. And say you do include these countries, it's not like there aren't other developing countries with monstrous populations that are starting to catch up in the CO2 game, case in point, Indonesia, who are 14th in yearly CO2 emissions, but has a GDP (PPP, Per Capita) a 5th of the USA's. If you start restricting these coutries route to economic prosperity then then an awful lot of people are going to suffer.