Great Lakes ice coverage falls 71 percent over 40 years

reply to post by soficrow


Part 3

The Interplay between Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict

A recent blog post by Michael Wertz and Laura Conley at thinkprogress.org provides an excellent overview of the inter-connections between climate change, population migration, and conflict. The authors address crisis scenarios in the 21st century, providing a stark picture of the challenges ahead, and reminding governments around the world that the problems are real and require attention.

According to the authors, the UN’s recent Human Development Report states that there are already an estimated 700 million internal migrants—those leaving their homes within their own countries— worldwide, a number that includes people whose migration is related to climate change and environmental factors.

…..In Africa, concerns are widespread, with the Nigerian government in 2010 referring to climate change as the “greatest environmental and humanitarian challenge facing the country this century,” demonstrating that climate change is no longer seen as solely scientific or environmental, but increasingly as a social and political issue, cutting across all aspects of human development.

An article in AlertNet by Jacob Park entitled “Climate Conversations – Syria’s woes paint picture of environmental migration to come” outlines the devastating drought that has gripped Syria since 2006 and reportedly driven more than 1.5 million people from the countryside to cities in search for food and economic normality, a rarely reported issue against the backdrop of ongoing political unrest in Syria.

Population displacement and the environment

Over five million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and international refugees currently live in rural camps, informal settlements and urban slums in Sudan. This represents the largest population of displaced persons in the world today. ….This massive population displacement has been accompanied by major environmental damage in the affected parts of the country. This is not a new phenomenon, but the scale of displacement and the particular vulnerability of the dry northern Sudanese environment may make this the most significant case of its type worldwide. Moreover, environmental degradation is also a contributing cause of displacement in Sudan, so that halting displacement will require concurrent action to halt environmental degradation.

reply to post by soficrow


Well, you have left me wondering if there are millions of displaced individuals already, as to what may have displaced them. Is it a drought, which I am pretty sure happened before man affected his environment to the point of climatic change....

People lived on the edge of the desert thousands of years ago[5] since the last ice age. The Sahara was then a much wetter place than it is today. Over 30,000 petroglyphs of river animals such as crocodiles [6] survive, with half found in the Tassili n'Ajjer in southeast Algeria. Fossils of dinosaurs, including Afrovenator, Jobaria and Ouranosaurus, have also been found here.

Wiki:Sahara

? Or is it a war caused by a lack of food, which may have been caused by political reasons, as in Eastern Africa lately?

Yeah well, me thinks the death of Detroit was caused more by superior products from Asian automakers than the lack of ice on Lake Michigan.

Here, I'll make this easy for you.
The Earth is doomed. Man has changed the climate by burning fossil fuels and releasing chemicals that destroyed the ozone layer. It will never snow again, no one will ever fish through the ice again, all the polar bears will die, and there's not a damn thing that can be done about it! If mankind has brought this about in such a short time, there's no way we can stop it now. It's too late, the end is not near, it's already here!

The inland lakes are being affected as well. I live in Michigan and I remember as a kid ice skating and ice fishing every winter. The past couple of winters I haven't been able to do either. I have a 2 acre pond on my property in the northern lower peninsula and I haven't dared go out onto that these past 2 winters. Behind my house there is a lake and up the road is another and I haven't seen anybody venture out to ice fish this year.

reply to post by butcherguy

Well, you have left me wondering if there are millions of displaced individuals already, as to what may have displaced them. Is it a drought, which I am pretty sure happened before man affected his environment to the point of climatic change....

Nowhere have I said climate change is man-made - in fact, I've posted and argued that there are numerous factors to consider, ranging from the impact of solar cycles to our system's orbit through the galaxy and events beyond the galactic horizon. I have repeatedly stressed that it does not matter why at this point, but rather, that climate change IS happening.

Again - global corporations have positioned to "weather the storm" and "ride the wave" - but governments have not acted to protect human assets.

Why don't you address the issues I've actually raised, instead of trying to create an argument where none exists?

reply to post by soficrow

Why don't you address the issues I've actually raised, instead of trying to create an argument where none exists?

No argument here.


As I said, we're screwed. You have presented the evidence.

Why can't you just sit back and quietly watch it happen like I am happy to do now?

No need to go all panic-stricken, running in circles, flailing your arms about, screaming and such.

Pop some corn, sit in a comfy chair and have some peace while things end.

Originally posted by soficrow
Hopefully, our global corporate government will quit warring between themselves long enough to save humanity - although that's obviously not on the priority list.

Back in the 60's in Toronto we used to go ice sailing on Toronto Harbor The ice was thick enough in the channels between the islands to drive the fuel truck across... then one year in the late 70's it got really warm in January and never froze enough to ice sail again...

Global warming is real... its just that its our fault that is bullcrap...

But fear not... the warming trend ALWAYS precedes the next ice age... and according to the lake Vostok ice core samples we are very close to the next one. And the change is rapid, not gradual. Below is the chart of these warm/cold spells recorded over the last 415,000 years. So my advice is lay in some supplies of non perishable food. blankets and coats and firewood... your gonna need it

Look on the far right to see where we are today The ice cores don't lie

reply to post by zorgon
In any event, we're still going to die.

I would just rather be warm when it happens and not frozen in a block of ice. Fuel prices will stay low while we're dying if it is 'warm' that kills us..... There's something to be said for that too.

Oh yeah Zorgon, I can't see the right side of the graph. What's the current high?

I'm just heading for bed so no time to look into this, but first thing I think of is last winter when everywhere was frozen solid for months, and us agw sceptics highlighted the fact that the place seemed colder.

What did we get, agw scammers coming on telling us that, strange as it may seem, global warming actually causes cold. Hence the explanation for the drop in temperatures.

Please could the same come back and tell us why we have no snow ...... oh I have no doubts they will come up with some bs excuse.

It's laughable.

reply to post by butcherguy

As I said, we're screwed. You have presented the evidence.

Why can't you just sit back and quietly watch it happen like I am happy to do now?

No need to go all panic-stricken, running in circles, flailing your arms about, screaming and such.

You guys are such major woosies. I grew up on the Canadian prairies - still think 10 below Celsius is warm. ...It's perfectly possible to survive in cold climates - but a bit of education and prep time is essential.

Point being - the planet's climate is changing, everywhere. Everyone needs to reposition and prepare - not just the 1% and their chosen lackeys.

It's doable.

reply to post by soficrow


I disagree. We are weak.

The Earth will put us in our place...... Worm food.

What are you talking about, ten below? You are on the ice melter side.... at least that's the way it seemed a bit ago.

I'm thinking Zebra Mussels.
They form on warm water outlets like power plants, however, they also extract gas from the water (CO2).

And we all know that warm water freezes faster than cold water (under certain circumstances), right?

What are those "certain circumstances" you ask?

Hot water can hold less dissolved gas than cold water, and large amounts of gas escape upon boiling.
So the initially warmer water may have less dissolved gas than the initially cooler water.
It has been speculated that this changes the properties of the water in some way, perhaps making it easier to develop convection currents (and thus making it easier to cool), or decreasing the amount of heat required to freeze a unit mass of water, or changing the boiling point.

Link

This lack of CO2 inhibits the growth of aquatic vegetation, which further reduces the amount of dissolved gas in the water, and cycle continues.

With that, we have water with very little dissolve gas, which inevitable falls to the bottom of the lake, forcing warmer water up (convection).

Well, duh, right?

Have you ever wondered why, if heat (and warm water) rises, ice forms on the top of a lake, and not the bottom?

It is the gas in the frozen water expanding which causes the frozen water to rise to the top, therefore, no gas to expand, no ice on top.

Just my opinion.

Ice floats because water expands for the couple of degrees around freezing it doesn't have anything to do with gas

Water reaches its maximum density at 4°C (40°F). As it cools further and freezes into ice, it actually becomes less dense. On the other hand, most substances are most dense in their solid (frozen) state than in their liquid state. Water is different because of hydrogen bonding.

A water molecule is made from one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, strongly joined to each other with covalent bonds. Water molecules are also attracted to each other by weaker chemical bonds (hydrogen bonds) between the positively-charged hydrogen atoms and the negatively-charged oxygen atoms of neighboring water molecules. As water cools below 4°C, the hydrogen bonds adjust to hold the negatively charged oxygen atoms apart. This produces a crystal lattice, which is commonly known as 'ice'.

Ice floats because it is about 9% less dense than liquid water. In other words, ice takes up about 9% more space than water, so a liter of ice weighs less than a liter water. The heavier water displaces the lighter ice, so ice floats to the top. One consequence of this is that lakes and rivers freeze from top to bottom, allowing fish to survive even when the surface of a lake has frozen over. If ice sank, the water would be displaced to the top and exposed to the colder temperature, forcing rivers and lakes to fill with ice and freeze solid.

chemistry.about.com...

reply to post by soficrow


My brother-in-law is a commercial fisherman on Lake Huron, and they have been having a hard time catching enough fish to operate the boat. The water levels in the lakes are LOW LOW LOW. Just across the road from me is a marsh, that 20 years ago was a bay and small boat harbor. Boy, the people that bought million dollar waterfront homes are PISSED!

I'll see if I can get out tomorrow and take some pics.

I am just disappointed that I didn't get to take the kids sledding this year.

Maybe next year

This subject is sure to be crammed down our throats in the next several years. Everybody seems to think that we need to "fix" it. I believe that we did'nt break it to begin with.

The ice is still melting from the last ice age. Why is it that (some) people think that it just stops and everything stays the same?

One thing that history should teach us is that we have to adapt to change, and if we do not we will end up like every other extinct animal that could not adapt to the changes to the biosphere.

I am all for a warmer climate. Winter sucks. The only thing I enjoy about winter is taking the kids sledding.

We are truly ignorant if we think we can fix mother nature's changes.

Learn to adapt and overcome the changes.

I live in Crown Point Indiana and we go to Lake Michigan 5 or 6 times a year to the beach. When I was a kid the ice was built up in big piles until May, now there is nothing. It was 70 here today. Not to mention we have very large dunes there that their ecosystems are falling apart. The dunes are moving at very high speeds too. My company does a lot of work with the Dunes National Lakefront, and we just did a video on the changing ecosystem.

Took my daughter to Snowbird in Utah to see snow... The road up to the lodge, the parking lot... NO SNOW last week of December. Taking the tram to the top we found some, but many of the main runs were closed due to lack of snow.

Here in Vegas where I am in the bowl, the temps never hit freezing this year. Our daffodills were done blooming by the end of February

Not looking forward to this summer

reply to post by liejunkie01

Everybody seems to think that we need to "fix" it. I believe that we did'nt break it to begin with.

....One thing that history should teach us is that we have to adapt to change, and if we do not we will end up like every other extinct animal that could not adapt to the changes to the biosphere.

That's the main point behind everything I've written here - we need to accept the reality of climate change, and position to survive.

As it stands, we're all located to serve (old world) industry and industrial priorities. Meanwhile, the global corporations have read their actuarial reports -and the writing on the wall- and they've all pulled their cash and relocated to safer areas. Leaving us in harm's way without resources.

Fact is, humans can and do adapt to all kinds of climates and circumstances. But we need to know what we're facing to prepare. The climate debate -as it's structured and manipulated- prevents us from even starting.

reply to post by OldCorp


I'd love to see those pics!

Originally posted by soficrow
reply to post by OldCorp

 

I'd love to see those pics!

I'll get out there today. Since I'm not shy I'll go to a few of the "waterfront" homes to see if they have any pics of what it used to look like.

Originally posted by soficrow


Something responsible needs to be done to address the obvious implications and predictable problems.

If it's a natural process, nothing can be done. Humanity will just have to ride it out.

/TOA