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Old 10-31-2009, 04:41 AM   #24 (permalink)
Guybrush
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Scabb Island
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Good topic

I've been to many lectures about global warming. In biology, global warming is of course extremely important to many and I've lived in the arctic where I've seen the effects of global warming first hand.

It is of course just a warming trend and it's caused by a greenhouse effect. If we put more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we will add to it - simple as that. The real question is whether or not our contribution is what's caused the dramatic changes we see today. The last lecture I saw on this claimed that it wasn't a matter of how much we'd put in - it was more that our contribution had upset a balance in the carbon cycle. Global warming has many positive feedbacks so once it gets started, it runs on it's own accord.

I read a meta-analysis paper some time ago that looked at the timing of spring time events such as plant budding, sex and other life history events that typically take place in spring. Many hundred species from the northern hemisphere were included and the average result was that springtime comes earlier by about ~5 days since the last decade. Almost all species in the study experienced earlier spring.

I think it's hard to grasp what the fuzz is if you're a kid living in your room in some city at an intermediate latitude. If you're up in the arctic, you get to see the warm spells during winter which causes ice lenses to form on the ground making vegetation unavailable as food for reindeer. You get to see the reduction of the glaciers. You get to see the freezing of the fjord which has been an annual event for X number of years suddenly fail to happen several years in a row. You get to see the decreasing trend in the extent of sea ice.
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