Talk:1379: 4.5 Degrees

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Scary thoughts there... Kynde (talk) 05:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I imagine the Earth's axial tilt wouldn't change even if the temperature changed by +2 IAU. So, would palm trees survive the extreme day/night lengths at the poles? 103.22.201.239 05:31, 9 June 2014 (UTC) P.S. Also, wouldn't the North Pole be underwater, so incapable of supporting palm trees? Also, regarding the IAU, is it a reference to the IAU that named an asteroid after Randall?

"While it says it's "probably no big deal," this is probably a joke, because even half of an Ice Age would be a lot of ice." The article has it wrong. It's a 2 degree increase, not decrease. Ice would melt. 108.162.238.134 07:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

-- Fixed 173.245.54.77 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

To prevent global warming, act yesterday! ... or, well, since we already failed to do it, maybe ... just maybe ... we should invest some resources to ADAPTING to the change. Because the USSR communist party wanted to command “wind and rain” and how it worked? ... of course, we SHOULD be trying to lower the CO2 emissions ... not like Germany, which replaced it's nuclear power plants with coal ones ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 10:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

While it is true that we have build more coal plants, the majority part that replace the nuclear power is from renewable energy, see diagram on wikipedia. --141.101.75.89 15:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, this seems like a topic that could generate heated comments. 108.162.208.9 10:09, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Would anyone care to comment on the +200 meter sea rise? I googled "how much would sea level rise" a bit, and I seem to bump into 60 to 70 meters repeatedly for all glaciers melting. I found nothing direct from IPCC. I wonder if Randall really has another view on this.

I hope the explanation isn't that he made a meter/feet mistake. 103.22.201.239 13:04, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
I would assert that he rounded for a clean read for a relative scale. Also, the '+' denotes the likelihood of a larger actual amount. 108.162.217.41 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
60 meters is indeed the amount the sea would rise if all the glacial ice melted. However, that figure presumably does not take into account have much the sea would rise by expansion due to the increased heat. That is, after all, the main reason for rising sea levels today. So I would guess that the +200 figure is the 60 meters of added water from glacial ice plus the amount it would rise due to warming and expanding. Calebxy (talk)
While that's possible, and desalination of water can also cause it to expand (sea water is more dense than fresh), we shouldn't try to justify the numbers if they are incorrect. If we can find some reliable data to suggest the rise would be 200 ft instead of 200m, we should include that. Or at least include a range of estimates from reliable sources. 108.162.238.134 15:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Having just re-read the explanation after posting my comment, I can see that the article attempts to do just that. But the link provided says 110 to 770 mm. Isn't the millimeters? 108.162.238.134 15:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
But the sea level would rise more than 60m if the expansion of the sea is taken into account. If the earth became as hot as the graph indicates, then logically the seas would expand considerably. Calebxy (talk) 16:04, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Cretaceous sea levels seem to have been that high, but this tends to be attributed to the shape of the ocean basins, in particular the mid-ocean ridges, rather than to the temperature. 108.162.219.35 17:01, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

So sad that Randall is pushing the carbon tax agenda long after the AGW myth has been debunked. IGnatius T Foobar (talk) 16:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Waitwhat? a) I saw no mention of tax. b) AGW==Anthropogenic Global Warming==debunked? This may not be the place for this whole discussion (despite the relevence), but it's far from debunked. And even if "there was going to be some Global Warming anyway", you can't dismiss the probability that we're adding something to this effect and making it more extreme. If not pushing it over the edge in some way. (I'm actually more optimistic than that, but I do find "it's a myth!" to be annoyingly naive, so excuse me if I try to balance that out. It's really not worth tying this discussion box up in this debate, however.) 141.101.98.232 18:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Randall is a scientist. He follows scientific consensus. 108.162.238.134 20:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
There is nothing scientific about following consensus. 108.162.215.86 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
Of course there is... When 99% of climatologists are reasonably certain (which means "very very sure" for non-scientists) that there is Global Warning and that the primary cause is us (humanity greenhouse gas emissions), I wouldn't say that AGW has been "debunked" and that there is nothing scientific in following this consensus (after having made sure of its existence by reading diverse peer-reviewed studies of the field) ! You may have an agenda to defend but could you at least try to make some sense, please. Note that this doesn't mean that the current political propositions are the right way to go about it and that this comic doesn't say anything about that. Jedaï (talk) 21:47, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

I *think* (haven't confirmed) that the 200 m figure is the difference between the peak of the last ice age (sea level low—"-1 IAU" in the strip) and if everything melted. We've already come up 140 m, so we can't go up 200 m from here. 108.162.215.86 20:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

There are several troubling things with this comic (including the sea level figure), but the most basic is the opening statement: "Without prompt, aggressive limits on CO2 emissions, the Earth will likely warm by an average of 4°-5°C by the century’s end." This is probably from the latest IPCC report, but it takes the worst of several proposed scenarios, and claims it to be the likely one. RCP8.5 projects 2.6C-4.8C, and I suppose that's what getting averaged *up* to "4.5C" for the temperature line in the comic. The second most troubling thing is that mouse-over text, regarding the 2C lid if we "enact aggressive emissions limits now"—this is an entirely arbitrary (unscientific) number based on largely unspecified changes to what the world is doing now. It gives me the sense that Randall didn't look too deep... 108.162.215.86 20:43, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, the polar forests during the Ceretaceous period were temperate, not tropical. Thus Firs in the North and Evergreens in Antartica, not Palm trees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_forests_of_the_Cretaceous Seebert (talk) 21:17, 9 June 2014 (UTC)