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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Earth may be too hot by 2300
2010-05-14
CLIMATE change could make much of the world too hot for human habitation within just three centuries, research released on Tuesday showed.
That does it. I'm leaving.
To where? Mars is also warming ...
Man, it's gonna suck when I'm 345 years old...
Scientists from Australia's University of New South Wales and Purdue University in the United States found that rising temperatures in some places could mean humans would be unable to adapt or survive.

'It would begin to occur with global-mean warming of about seven degrees Celsius (13 Fahrenheit), calling the habitability of some regions into question,' the researchers said in a paper. 'With 11-12 degrees Celsius warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed.'
Because the kind of people who are scientists in Australia and the U.S. are not descended from people who migrated from somewhere else. For goodness sake, the history of Homo sapians is migration! Does no one remember the Out of Africa theory?
Researcher Professor Steven Sherwood said there was no chance of the earth heating up to seven degrees this century, but there was a serious risk that the continued burning of fossil fuels could create the problem by 2300. 'There's something like a 50/50 chance of that over the long term,' he said.
Three hundred fifty years is not the long term in terms of the Earth's climate trends. A million years or several is just getting into the medium term.
The study - which examined climate change over a longer period than most other research - looked at the 'heat stress' produced by combining the impact of rising temperatures and increased humidity.
Hmmmmm...looks like it needs more study.
Mildred, bring me the grant paperwork. No, the federal stuff...
The fools published now using U.N. numbers? Why the overwhelming need to catapult to the status of international laughing stock?
Dr Sherwood said climate change research had been 'short-sighted' not to probe the long-term consequences of the impact of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. 'It needs to be looked at,' he told AFP. 'There's not much we can do about climate change over the next two decades but there's still a lot we can do about the longer term changes.'

In a commentary on the paper, published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Australian National University academics said climate change would not stop in 2100.'And under realistic scenarios out to 2300, we may be faced with temperature increases of 12 degrees (Celsius) or even more,' Professor Tony McMichael said. 'If this happens, our current worries about sea level rise, occasional heatwaves and bushfires, biodiversity loss and agricultural difficulties will pale into insignificance beside a major threat - as much as half the currently inhabited globe may simply become too hot for people to live there.'
...and nobody alive today will know if they're right or wrong.
They'll get a hint if the current cooling trend continues...
Posted by:Fred

#24  If we're all gonna die, we might as well enjoy our barbeques until then I say.

Earth's population will have doubled by then and we'll be colonizing Jupiter

What about gravity? Everybody's going to end up looking like Rosie.
Posted by: gorb   2010-05-14 23:42  

#23  Scripps, here in La Jolla, used to be a celebrated bastion of oceanography. Apparently, the siren call of AGW grants have created lying grant whores and taken away the long-built reputation. Sad.
Posted by: Frank G   2010-05-14 22:39  

#22  Sherwood also peddles the CO2 is poisonous claptrap.

CO2 is poisonous to humans

So is Oxygen for that matter.
Posted by: phil_b   2010-05-14 22:14  

#21  The hottest places on Earth, the humid tropics, never get above 35C, because of the physics of water/water vapour.

Incredibly, Sherwood is supposed to be an expert on the effect of water vapour in the atmosphere.

Prof. Steven Sherwood received his Ph.D. from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1995. He joined UNSW in January of this year, coming off previous positions as a researcher at NASA and professor at Yale University where he taught courses on atmospheric physics and global warming. His expertise is in the behaviour of atmospheric storms, clouds and humidity, and the relationship of these to climate. He has also done extensive work on climate observation. He has authored several dozen peer-reviewed publications, and has served as a co-author and/or reviewer on several government reports including the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and the first report of the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) in 2006.
Posted by: phil_b   2010-05-14 21:52  

#20  Beware, GEICO GECKO!

To wit,

TOPIX > VARIOUS > GLOBAL WARMING THREATENS LIZARD EXTINCTIONS/~ BAKING THE LIZARDS [20% of Lizard Specias].
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2010-05-14 21:46  

#19  IMHO it's been too hot for the last twelve thousand years. Damn interglacials!
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2010-05-14 18:31  

#18  Gaia was not happy freezing her t!ts off. So she invented humans to burn Sh!t.

Now that's a keeper. Thanks Ed.
Posted by: CrazyFool   2010-05-14 16:03  

#17  Thanks, ed. Geology was never my strong suit. I was a EE-major who voluntarily took thermodynamics as a science elective.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats   2010-05-14 15:52  

#16  Close. That would be the Carboniferous period when plants started producing lignin. Bacteria could not digest it and until they evolved to do so, all that plant material did not decompose but got buried to form coal, old, gas, shale oil. You can see the big CO2 drop off 350M years ago.
Posted by: ed   2010-05-14 15:12  

#15  Wasn't the Permian about when a lot of the CO2 started on its way to becoming coal?
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats   2010-05-14 14:28  

#14  With 11-12 degrees Celsius warming

Not gonna happen Charlie.
Geologic timescale: CO2 vs Temp
During the Precambrian, when CO2 concentrations were 20X today, temps were even lower than today, though probably due to volcanism.

During the Cambrian when CO2 was 8X today, it never got over 7°C more than today. In the Permian, when CO2 was even lower than today, temps were about 8°C higher than today.

While there is a correlation between CO2 and temp, it is not absolute. The thing to notice is that CO2 levels and temps have been dropping for the past 50M years and Gaia was not happy freezing her t!ts off. So she invented humans to burn Sh!t.
Posted by: ed   2010-05-14 14:18  

#13  I can finally visit Canada without freezing my ass off.
Posted by: Formerly Dan   2010-05-14 13:00  

#12  I've been trying to convert my youngest son ever since he lectured me on the global warming he learned from his astronomy professor. I think he's part-way there. I sent him the link this morning, and he replied:

In 300 years the burning of fossil fuels will be an obselete method of power. By then we'll be running on cold fusion or Iron Man's arc reactor (just saw I.M. 2) and people will be alarmed about long term effects of that. It won't matter anyway because the Earth's population will have doubled by then and we'll be colonizing Jupiter.
Posted by: Bobby   2010-05-14 12:52  

#11  Move from NY to FLA nd the "Warming" is about ten times the 7 degres they're so panicked over.

Another Bullshit "Scare them" warning.
Do these morons get points on some rating scale for the most unbelievable "Scare" notice?

Posted by: Redneck Jim   2010-05-14 12:08  

#10  So are there no cities in these "some places" and "some regions" in which people live? Urban areas tend to be around 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside already with no effect on habitability.
Posted by: Lowspark   2010-05-14 09:59  

#9  We'll be fine. At the rate civilization is going, everyone will be too in debt and poor to afford anything except some dirt and the very few elite with the power won't have a big enough carbon footprint to effect mother earth.

So don't worry about it and enjoy your coming serfdom!
Posted by: DarthVader   2010-05-14 09:34  

#8  One of those dog man bites man stories? If global warming melts the polar caps, won't the flooding that's supposed to occur in 10, 20, 290 years cool things. Hmmmmnnnn. I wonder if I can get some Obama dollars to study this problem for the next 290 years.
Posted by: JohnQC   2010-05-14 09:26  

#7  I expect the Germans have already reserved their seats with beach towels

:)
Posted by: Oscar   2010-05-14 08:37  

#6  Hopefully by year's end Iran will be too hot for habitation.
Posted by: HammerHead   2010-05-14 08:34  

#5  By the same date a meteor could take out the earth, or maybe a death ray from a dying star or a comet or .... or... or....
Posted by: 3dc   2010-05-14 08:03  

#4  I'm confused. I thought the current proper term was "climate change" instead of "global warming". Or do we switch to "global warming" from Memorial Day to Labor Day....kind of like the old white shoe/straw hat rule?
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie   2010-05-14 06:44  

#3  Good thing we already invented refrigeration.

But wait! Doesn't that contribute to Global Warming? I mean, if you consider things like, you know, thermodynamics?
Posted by: Bobby   2010-05-14 06:07  

#2  You mean to say it might be as warm as the Medieval Warming Period? You know that horrible time that gave rise to the Renaissance, and 'enlightenment' of Europe?

How will mankind EVER survive?
Posted by: CrazyFool   2010-05-14 01:03  

#1  I doubt I'll be around to care.
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2010-05-14 00:43  

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