What could the outcome of global warming be for the US?

[Jamison]

Meterology/climatology buffs please chime in:

I was discussing this with something I know who's currently going for their masters degree in atmospheric science. I asked him this same question and this is what he basically said:

"The increase in global temperatures will cause polar ice melting as you know. This will cause an increase in the liquid water volume of the oceans which some believe could shut down the world's ocean currents. Many of these currents help keep the globe and especially the higher lattitudes a bit warmer than what they would be without these currents. This effect might cause any areas that are above 30* lattitude in both hemispheres to become uninhabitable arctic wastelands. This is turn could cause an enormous human and animal migration to areas near the equator."

Wow, kinda sounds like the movie The Day After Tomorrow huh? I guess if this happened and cities like Minneapolis & Chicago were below zero in July and August, that just might cause people to just pick up and abandon them for warmer climates.

Thoughts on this?

[mainegreen]

1. I'd finally be able to afford a house up here

as all the flatlanders sell off their summer homes up here. :D

[phantom power]

2. The movie Day After Tomorrow was based (loosely) on real climatology.

The convection "towers" in the north atlantic have already dropped to 1/6 of their number 50 years ago. Greenland is now losing more water than it accumulates via snow. Currently that amounts to a release of several cubic miles of fresh water into the atlantic each year.

The current has shut down before, and yielded an ice-age. Several times in the past. It's happening again. One thing that is different this time around is that we have been dumping enormous amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere. Some speculate that we've driven the GHG concentration so high that it might prevent a glaciation. That would be very very bad news: continued warming. Only the poles cool enough to be habitable. Worst case, Venus 2.0.

[Richard D]

3. Thoughts

Another problem being is that the tropical and semi-tropical areas that depend on mountain snowpack for water for rivers - India, the Amazon, etc. will be in difficulty because of lack of snow pack and melted glaciers. So no steady supply of water. Already seeing this in the Amazon where last year was the lowest water levels ever recorded. No water, no transportation. No water, no fish. No water, forest fires.

Damn. Damn. Damn. All for a cheap ride to wally world.

[phantom power]

4. Don't forget the American southwest. Same dynamics hold.

High country snowpack provides water to the dry southwest. This year in AZ, we've had hardly any snowpack. Until last weekend, literally a few inches.

[FlaGranny]

5. Don't forget the loss of

most coastal cities and land.

[APPLE314]

6. Better learn to swim

It amazes me how many people will be living underwater. They should be paying attention to New Orleans
and learning how to cope with life under water.

For instance raising the water level 50 feet will reduce the Island of Manhattan from about 1800 sq/miles to just over 600 sq/miles. If you were to melt all the ice in glaciers, mountaintops, etc. it would raise the sea level 1280 feet, inundating habitable land all over earth. Just in the United States over half the population lives within 50 miles of the ocean. Be advised, 99% of these people will be completely flooded out. Those living on houseboats will do OK.

The point that most people are not aware of is an anomaly of water called the heat of fusion. It takes the same amount of energy to heat water from 32F to 176F as it does to change ice at 32F to water at 32F. What this leads to is that as the ice disappears the water heats up at a faster rate because heat is being used up more by heating the water that it was by melting the ice.

The last effect will be the most unique. When you relocate mass from one point on a sphere to another it sets up a dias-trophic mechanism which tends to realign the rotation of the earth seeking a new equilibrium. This will be done by relocating ice from the polar regions as water toward the equator. This is happening today, as you read.

Hallelujah, MIS AMIGOS, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE!

All we have to do is find some other source for energy. If we don't then I'll make one prediction, and that is "1000 years after mankind is gone, the earth will be a pleasant place for it's next inhabitants to live."

[Virginia Dare]

7. Believe it or not....

some climatologists believe that we are headed for another ice age. I guess the polar caps melting has the same effect as dropping ice cubes in a drink.