Click for Glendinning Click for Nordhavn Click for Westport Click for Burger Click for Mulder

Global Warming & rising sea level

Discussion in 'General Yachting Discussion' started by OutMyWindow, Aug 18, 2007.

You need to be registered and signed in to view this content.
  1. OutMyWindow

    OutMyWindow Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2006
    Messages:
    906
    Location:
    ...............
    Well I couldn't find anything through the 'search' engine, so here is a topic
    (if you believe in this) which will affect everyone.
    This site is interesting as it shows the effect rising sea levels have on earth's coastal landmasses.
    Although it's effects may not be apparent in our lifetime, surely the next generations will feel its full force.
    http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=43.3251,-101.6015&z=13&m=7
  2. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2002
    Messages:
    20,350
    Location:
    South Florida
    This is a good topic. I'm moving it over the General Discussion.

    Out of curiosity, I viewed the US map at a 7 meter rise in sea level. It looks like the most expensive real estate in the US would be rendered worthless. At more than 10 meters, the southern half of Florida would become the world's largest artificial reef. Again, good topic. Raises lots of questions... and concerns.
  3. curiouspeter

    curiouspeter Member

    Joined:
    Jul 20, 2007
    Messages:
    60
    Location:
    San Francisco Bay Area
    Hopefully, the world can do enough fast enough to slow the effects down.

    Or perhaps WallyIsland is the answer?

    This topic also brings another question? Should megayacht owners offset their carbon?
  4. RichardLillard1

    RichardLillard1 New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2007
    Messages:
    16
    Location:
    Phoenix, Az
    Its definitely something to take note of. Where did you go to view the US map with a raised sea level?


    Richard
  5. Yacht News

    Yacht News YF News Editor

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2006
    Messages:
    25,300
    Location:
    Caribbean
    Yes this is a good topic, how could anyone not take notice or something that is a threat in reality.
  6. Rene GER

    Rene GER Senior Member

    Joined:
    Sep 4, 2004
    Messages:
    742
    Location:
    Northern Germany, West Coast
    This is a subject which makes me afraid. Does anyone saw the movie "An inconvenient truth" with Al Gore? The computer animations whats going on with south Florida and other countries in the future, if we continue in the same like now is very very terrible.

    I like water, I like yachts and boats, I like the movie "Water World", but I do not want this situation in real :(

    I hope fuel cells will going soon on the market for everything to absolve the environment!
  7. First Pericles

    First Pericles New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2007
    Messages:
    21
    Location:
    London (for now)
    With regard to the pseudoscience of human activity being the cause of global warming , it is important to understand that politics are at the root of all the furore.

    Geography is probably the most important subject that should be studied because it answers more questions about where humanity came from than anything else. For example, Rene, if all the ice on the planet melted the oceans would not increase in depth to render Mt Everest as a island as proposed in the FILM "Waterworld". 100 metres maximum! Simple arithmetic.

    We exist in an interglacial period.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial

    I know it's a long read, but I would urge you all to read the following.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

    Forget that twerp Al Gore. The documentary film The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK on March 8, 2007, brought together skeptical scientists who disagree with the prevailing consensus regarding human-caused global warming. Among other claims, the film states that Gore has misrepresented the data in An Inconvenient Truth, and that the actual relationship between carbon dioxide and the temperature is the other way round (that is, rise in temperature preceded an increase in carbon dioxide in the ice core samples). Several of the film's claims have been disputed by scientists and scientific bodies such as John T. Houghton [63], the British Antarctic Survey [64], Eigil Friis-Christensen [5] and the Royal Society[65]. Global warming skeptic Fred Singer wrote that the documentary is "devastating" to Gore's movie: "...The Great Global Warming Swindle is based on sound science by recording the statements of real climate scientists. An Inconvenient Truth mainly records a politician."[66]


    Here is a scientific statement taken from the article below.

    * Water vapor makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases and has the largest impact on the planet's temperature. Water particles in the form of clouds act to reflect incoming solar heat. The effects of clouds cannot be accurately simulated by scientists attempting to predict future weather patterns and their effects on global warming.

    * The total concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is just 0.054%, a very minuscule amount. Humans contribute much less than 1% of that. The documentary states that volcanoes produce significantly more CO2 per year than humans (Durkin has subsequently admitted that this claim is wrong[8]), while plants and animals produce 150 gigatons of CO2 each year. Dying leaves produce even more CO2, and that the oceans are "the biggest source of CO2 by far." Human activity produces a "mere" 6.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. The film concludes that man-made CO2 emissions therefore cannot be causing global warming.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle

    Yes, I have read all these article and many more besides. I couldn't give a toss about global warming. It's the next volcanic winter that people should worry about.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

    http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Weber-Toba/textr.htm

    First Pericles
  8. OutMyWindow

    OutMyWindow Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2006
    Messages:
    906
    Location:
    ...............
    I would think that for every 100 scientists that agree one can easily find 100 that don't.
    Either way, regardless what the "cause" of global warming is, it seems that all do agree that its a fact and a future concern. As mentioned in one of your links...

    Quote [Climate models referenced by the IPCC project that global surface temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100.[1] The range of values results from the use of differing scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions as well as models with differing climate sensitivity. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a millennium even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized.[1] This reflects the large heat capacity of the oceans.] Quote
  9. First Pericles

    First Pericles New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2007
    Messages:
    21
    Location:
    London (for now)
    Exactly. Global warming does not matter. To put it simply, need it hot, because freezing will terminate the bulk of life. 22,000 years ago, much of Europe and Canada were under almost 2 miles of ice. It only warmed up 12,000 years ago and between 1250 and 1850 AD Europe suffered a mini ice age.

    About 70, million years ago average global temperatures were 15 degrees F higher than now. The planet has another 5 billion years to go before it is destroyed by the sun turning into a red giant. Don't worry about it! Humans, on average live for about 22,000 days. Enjoy your boat.

    Pericles
  10. mr_sunseeker

    mr_sunseeker New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2006
    Messages:
    45
    Location:
    UK & Med
    Recently the UK has seem astounding levels of rainfall in summer, there were dangerous floods and parts of cities evacuated, motroways closed, dams being pumped to shop them caving in and wiping out areas. I don't know if this made much international news, however people lost their lives, cars, business', homes and mobility on a leven never experienced previously in the UK.

    Fortunatley I live in a town which is 1250ft above sea level and was not affected, but where I live it's easy to find fossils of sea life. In fact when I was in Peru in the Andes, the mountain people up there collected salt. Why is salt there, because it's left from times when they were covered in the sea.

    You don't have to be a scientist or gifted to figure out that the sea level and climate of the world has ALWAYS changed and will always continue doing so, even if all humans and human activities cease. If we do have any effect on the climate and sea level, it is nothing compared to the forces of nature.

    Climate change seems to be an excuse for taxation in the UK and used as a distraction from important issues, such as how to DEAL with it, for example stopping housing estates being built on flood plains and planning a society that will be less affected by water levels and climate change. Dealing with and preparing for this inevitable change is something nobody in power seems to do. They prefer to use it to raise money for other uses. Then, when the floods come,they can say they tried to do their part by charging us to go on holiday (air tax has doubled).

    One good thing about owning a yacht is that if tax and operating costs or legislation are excessive in one country, one can easily vote with their boat and move elsewhere.
  11. airship

    airship Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2006
    Messages:
    297
    Location:
    French Riviera...
    First Pericles, rarely have I encountered anyone who appears to lack even an ounce of empathy (see a description of empathy here).

    I dare you to submit any substantial proof that the global-warming we're experiencing currently is not being accelerated by human activities.

    I don't doubt that there have been countless "natural" (even quite drastic) climate changes in the past. But I reckon that most of these were gradual enough to allow life sufficient time to adapt.

    However, you appear to "crow with joy" in announcing:
    As if what we as humans do has no consequence for every other life-form with which we share this planet.

    Yes, in 5 billion years time, life on Earth will probably have become definitely insupportable. In the meantime, and over the next few generations, our children and their children, will likely be witness to one of the greatest disappearances of life on Earth outside of the great catastrophes which have lead to previous mass extinctions.

    I don't doubt there will be human remnants here "up until the very end". You, or one of your descendents would have consummed my mother-in-law long before that, or one of mine yours. We homo-sapiens could have been a blessing, but in fact, we're probably "every other life-form's worst enemy".

    So what, you may ask, if in 30 years time, we're informed "on Fox News" that the last known wild Polar bear's body has been found. "It was a female with 1 cub and had been hibernating. Rangers concluded that it had been attacked by a brown or grizzly bear venturing into new territories..."

    I'm extremely saddenned by people like you. And your apparent total lack of empathy. You would "probably never in a billion years" be able to imagine yourself as a polar bear, a snow leopard, an arctic fox or any other of a 10,000 lesser creatures?!

    You only went back 70 odd million years. "Far better for this planet" if we went back even farther though. To a time when the moon was so close that the tides "were measured in kilometres". And a time when people like you (and why not myself?) were if anything, merely very faint twinklings in the eye/s of some single-cell life-form existing at that time... :mad:
  12. mr_sunseeker

    mr_sunseeker New Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2006
    Messages:
    45
    Location:
    UK & Med
    Nature is not politically correct.

    Fortunatley humans cannot be held responsible for the current natural climate changes any more than they can be blamed for the agonizing death of the last dinasours or wooly mamouth.

    Nature never waits for anyone to adapt, it's always been deadly. Massive floods, volcano eruptions and earthquakes as well as other changes are sudden and not gentle and accomodating and full of love.

    Just because these events can evoke strong emotions and are very sad does not mean the facts can be changed.

    It's fact that a cow produces more carbon that a SUV, on average per day. It's fact that volcanos produce more carbon that all of our aeroplanes. There is a clear agenda by the media and politicians to make us blame ourselves for natural disasters and not have a mature perspective on the subject. We are constatly bombarded with the message that we are somehow to blame. I agree everything we do has consequences, but please consider our small carbon emissions in perspective of natural things like volcanos carbon emissions and the earths brutal constant changes that have gone on since the beginning of time, anhialating humans, dinasours etc. long before we had SUVs. By the way I own a SUV too.

    It costs more carbon to respond to this post than to not do so :)
  13. First Pericles

    First Pericles New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2007
    Messages:
    21
    Location:
    London (for now)
    Airship,

    What a mauldling screed you posted. You are no geographer, that's for sure. The so called acceleration you are carping on about is insignificant. The science speaks for itself, but you have an almost religious belief in the propaganda of the political agencies whose funding depends upon perpetrating such claptrap. You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

    The total concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is just 0.054%, a very minuscule amount. Humans contribute much less than 1% of that. Volcanoes produce significantly more CO2 per year than humans, whilst plants and animals produce 150 gigatons of CO2 each year. Dying leaves produce even more CO2, and that the oceans are "the biggest source of CO2 by far." Human activity produces a "mere" 6.5 gigatons of CO2 each year. Man-made CO2 emissions therefore cannot be causing global warming.

    Too bad you are saddened my unsympathetic stance, but that's your burden, not mine. As for your last paragraph, I have absolutely no idea what you are mumbling on about. It's certain that you did not read any of the links I posted otherwise you would not have posted here. And now, back to boats.

    First Pericles
  14. kayanathera

    kayanathera New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 27, 2006
    Messages:
    3
    Location:
    constanta
    actually your logic is a bit imbecile!its not about how much CO2(by the way its 3% in air!) is delivered but how much the planet can absorbed.if you havent noticed were cutting forests.plus CO2 is only one of the gases that that the human race is dumping .i think the truth is someway in the middle we are poluting but we also have the means and technology to fix things its just about will
  15. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

    Joined:
    Dec 22, 2002
    Messages:
    20,350
    Location:
    South Florida
    Kayanathera,

    Before calling someone's logic "imbecile", you might want to take a good, long look in the mirror. Aren't you the one that posed the question "why not use nuclear energy to power a megayacht"...

    http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/5254-why-not-nuclear.html

    If you have specific expertise, then share it. But don't belittle someone on this forum or I'll promptly remove your membership.
  16. OutMyWindow

    OutMyWindow Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2006
    Messages:
    906
    Location:
    ...............
  17. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

    Joined:
    Jul 26, 2004
    Messages:
    5,375
    Location:
    Sweden
    Well, this topic is about the hottest everywhere today...:)

    I am following it on some dedicated blogs and will not post my opinions here, but I can say that the more I learn, from the blogosphere and all of the IPCC reports, the less I know what to believe.

    Here is a guy turning some stones; http://www.climateaudit.org/
  18. airship

    airship Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2006
    Messages:
    297
    Location:
    French Riviera...
    I stand to be corrected (by First Pericles) or others a little less ignorant than myself obviously, but I believe the reason you might find salt or those fossils up in the mountains mr_sunseeker, has more to do with plate tectonics than global warming (or cooling). Unless of course, that's even more propaganda by other political agencies whose funding depends upon perpetrating such claptrap.
  19. catmando

    catmando Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Messages:
    471
    Location:
    Arlington Tx
    If the science "speaks for itself", why are more than 95% of climate scientists convinced that human production of greenhouse gasses through the internal combustion engine and other sources contribute to global warming? Maybe you should be sending all that material to them rather than us. We can't do anything about it. They can.
  20. goplay

    goplay Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2006
    Messages:
    169
    Location:
    Sausalito, CA
    Purchasing consumer carbon credits is like: beating someone up and giving to the hospital charity... it may absolve your conscience but the person you beat up is still... beat up.

    Don't be a hyprocrite. If you believe in reducing carbon emissions, then start doing it. Anything else and you are fooling yourself.