Stump the Meteorologist

But yes, if we could get CO2 back to pre-industrial levels, things would largely go back to the same situation. Would take time to rebuild ice sheets, etc, which matters because these affect global circulation and even the amount of solar energy absorbed.

will we get more and more extreme weather until its impossible to live on the surface of the Earth?

hiiiiiiiii punches norc

Mrs Figg wrote:will we get more and more extreme weather until its impossible to live on the surface of the Earth?

There are two feedback cycles that could cause the planet to become uninhabitable.

One is the runway greenhouse effect: the most important greenhouse gas is not CO2 or methane....its water. It's not discussed because human beings don't create extra water. But by warming the earth due to CO2 we get more evaporation, which means more water vapor acting as a greenhouse gas, which means more evaporation....the thing can get out of control. It's a feedback loop just like you hear with microphones. What mitigates this is more cloud cover, but cloud formation is complicated and we don't know if it will contain the feedback loop. We could end up like Venus, which is the result of the greenhouse gas feedback loop.

The other feedback loop is called snowball earth: if we managed to cool the earth too much we get larger ice sheets, which reflect more sun, which cools the earth more....the ice ages exemplify this. It's not entirely clear if there's a mechanism that will always end ice ages. The one 19,000 years ago was supposed to be triggered by changes in the earth's orbit (gravitational effects from the other planets) and eventually came out of it for the same reason, helped by a release of CO2 as ocean circulation picked up. But not an automatic mechanism. And ice core samples have shown that, perhaps due to the runaway feedback effect, ice ages can happen in a matter of decades.

As far as severe weather making the planet uninhabitable, I think the heat would get us before the storms. Storms can wreck the economy, and wipe out large percentages, but not entire populations.

I wonder if we are due another Ice Age? I wonder too if Venus was ever inhabitable or was it always too near the Sun to have life. Also if a super volcano like Yellowstone blew would that be a trigger for either an Ice Age or the Venus effect? personally I think that we are due an eruption from Vesuvius anytime soon. everyone poo poos this but I am convinced we will see it in our lifetimes.

The Earth is ever changing, its a living thing & way out of our control. I dont see any reason for changes NOT to happen. People say how odd winters are this year or whatever,but,if you consider how old our planet must be, & when records began,how can you say things are odd ? How can you say WHAT happened before we took notice & recorded stuff ? Id be more suspicious if NOTHING ever happened, that'l be like the lull before the storm ! Then we'd notice !

yeah, as I said the human race is not in danger anytime in the next few hundred years at least, just our economy because the changes may happen faster than we can adjust. So we should be working to minimize the danger to our economy, which means accepting that we do indeed have an impact and perhaps we can change our ways.

Hurricane bearing down on Dawn Beach near Sydney, Australia

maybe i am a huge disappointment

neurons firing at random never disappoint.

finding the perfect white balance is the trick to beautiful interiors

Ally are you there?

that's ams character

maybe one day she will come back?

We may have to hold a seance.

maybe Yooper knows where she is?

need a seance for both of them. Wonder which one will be easier to contact? Ally's got the sepia tone thing going, bet she'd pop right up.

Whois uper

Who is Yooper?

#teamwork

it worked! Mrs Figg ... Mrs Figg! It worked! Get here before the phantasm disappears...

I knew those dried frog noses and graveyard dust would be good for something.

Ally Ally! are you there???????

Earth to Ally!

Houston we have a problem!

5-4-3-2-1- .........

Alllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!