Global Warming

[globesurfer]

Okay, so global warming is a major problem, and i think i heard that some rees are going to be dying as soon as 2020. But will the rise in sea levels and the frying of reefs affect waves like Teahupoo, Pipe, or any other shallow wave? Or will they affect heaps of waves?

Like, if the sea levels rise, will pipe and chopes still be the great waves? And if the reef dies at chopes, will it be a great ride but more safe?

Even pointbreaks, beachbreaks.. theyre all going to be affected?

[libby]

I think that'll be the least of our worries....

[k mac]

I think that'll be the least of our worries....

Well said libby!!!

But in answer to the question, simply yes But i doubt any of us will be still able to surf (unless hanging ten with a zimoframe is your thing) to see it in an extreme affect ,at the moment sea levels rise around 2 mm a year ...which has been predicted to go to 5 mm a year in the next 80 years...an example of what it takes to 'kill' a break is mundaka (altough it is a sand break and the banks were washed away by the rivers rising levels ) still kinda gives you an idea of how much it will take . But if the sea levels do rise to an extreme ...one reef break could lose we could gain in another by the levels rising ....as i said i doubt we will be able to see extreme effects in our life time. Also nature has a way of balancing thing out over time

[drowningbitbybit]

Also nature has a way of balancing thing out over time

Sometimes takes an ice-age to do it though.....

[k mac]

drowningbitybybit said :

Sometimes takes an ice-age to do it though.....

k mac said before that (trying to imply it takes a looong time):

....as i said i doubt we will be able to see extreme effects in our life time

[drowningbitbybit]

My point was that while we may not see any effects in our lifetime (incidentally, I think we might - hurricanes, for instance, are dependent on warmth from the sea and its only going to take a small increase in temperature to start generating hurricanes more often, and more powerful. But I digress...) 'nature' cant simply restore itself - once a species is gone, for instance, its gone, no going back

And while humans may be top of the intellectual tree in evolutionary terms, we are not a priviliged species. We havent been around that long as a species and theres no reason why we should think of ourselves as 'special' or 'supposed to be here' so if (when) we f*ck the planet up enough we may well get wiped out entirely, or more likely, go back to a hand-to-mouth existence of just surviving. Hence the ice-age comment.

Not really arguing a point here, just getting my thoughts in.

I sound like a crazed hippy... must be spending too much time in my camper van...

[drowningbitbybit]

I came across a bit strong and ranting there!

We're all on the same side!!

[k mac]

I came across a bit strong and ranting there!

yes you scared me *holds back tears*


ithink my 2nd post may have came across to strong ! im sorry lets all hug !.....hang on im starting to sound like a crazed (gay) hippy

[tomcat360]

hurricanes, for instance, are dependent on warmth from the sea and its only going to take a small increase in temperature to start generating hurricanes more often, and more powerful.

i heard this week that the US is considering tryin to get basically giant pumps and stir up the ocean water to cool it down, suposively takin down the strength of hurrcianes....sounds like a BS idea to me. have yall heard anything of this kind?

[Brent]

No, it’s not such a dumb idea. Nor is it too far-fetched.
I think as the ignorant masses realise the true scale of the problem and whole countries get together on a global scale with science & money the things that will be attempted & mitigation measures will be seen on a currently unknown scale. Our societies do face inland migration or altering their whole lives otherwise, political pressure will mount & military budgets like the current U.S. one of 63 billion p/a will become second tier expenditure.

Think about it, rising sea levels will threaten the viability of most of the worlds major cities from New York to London to Sydney….all of them are under threat from a sea level rise of even a meter or two over a timeframe of a couple of hundred years. All existing coastal city infrastructure will fail, sewer systems, storm water systems being gravity operated & designed around current sea level will become useless. And the most valuable land on the planet (think of downtown Manhattan & London) will start to disappear.
The currently proposed rebuilding & levy protection of New-Orleans is a small scale example of what almost every coastal city on the planet will potentially face in the next 1-200 years.

I am sure desperate scientists & world leaders will actually try things like replicating & speeding up the natural water movement from the southern polar region that drives & manages our global climate. Sounds quite valid to me.

[surferdude_scarborough]

sounds like a quick fix to me. What will power theses huge pumps? renewbale energy? i doubt it. pumps on that scale would surely need their own power station thus pumping more crap into the atmosphere and making global warming worse without us knowing.

[tomcat360]

i have no idea what their exact plans were...ill look for the article.

[tomcat360]

just read brents post- it seems like it would so tough becuase of the size of all of the oceans- there is so much water out there, it just seems impossible to stir it up enough to make a difference. how much would need to be done?

[drowningbitbybit]

I think mixing the oceans IS far-fetched.
The scale of anything that we can build is so utterly tiny compared to the volume of the oceans, that we wouldnt make the slightest difference

And even if we could - it would just be mucking about with another system. Who can predict what 'mixing' the oceans would achieve? We cant even work out whether global warming is going to cause the planet to get hotter or throw us into another ice-age.

Just as a random example off the top of my head - what would happen to the algae which lives at a given depth and is critically important for the O2/CO2 balance of the atmosphere?

Im not saying we should sit on our @rses doing nothing about a problem we've created, but there's a touch of arrogance in the suggestion that humans could intentionally, and beneficially, alter ocean flows.

Sadly, we've turned out to be very good at altering things we didnt mean to, or dont seem to care enough about

[Phil]

i dont think global warming can be stoped we can slow it down learn to cope with it but if you look back in the earths history its not the first time its warmed up and sertanly wont be the last, global warming was going to happen from the start all we have done is speed it up, theres no real defanate answer to the cause of it, some scientists are saying its to do with the large amount of solar flares over the past few years, were as your ecowarrior types will say its all man made

the incress in hurrianes can also be put down to the atlantic ocislation

no matter how advanced we are as a race we are nothing in the history of this planet, its gonna do what it wants regardless and when the tempreture rises to much there will be another ice age, theres nothing we can do about it, you only need to look at the planets history to see its happend in the past more than once and seems to go in cycles

we have screwed things up we have fished species to extinction we have polulted water supplies we have millions of tons of nucluler waste we cant get rid off but at the end of the day no matter how much we screw things up the planet will go on life will go on but not as it is now

[Brent]

Yea, agreed on the above points; but I still think governments will attempt large-scale science to mitigate problems rather than change human behaviour. As Libby said once...humans only change their behaviour when it's forced on them...or they see a dramatic personal consequence...the problem with global warming is it's just outside the timeframe of a human life. We can't see the changes personally. Perhaps however the rising cost of fossil fuel (gone up 40% in this country in less than 1 year) will dramatically reduce hydrocarbon emission (SUV's only accounted for about 16% of vehicle sales in the last quarter)...compared to the usual...about half.
But ironically, the greatest cause of hydrocarbon emissions here in NZ is not humans or industry...it's livestock....sheep & cattle. Yep, sheep are the greatest kyoto offenders. It's not just is humans....it's out large scale animal farming as well.
So many sheep & so little time *smirk*

[tomcat360]

reminds me of a small mouth bass river i used to go fly fishin on. its surrounded by cow farms and the recent higher temperatures and low amount of rain (the area has gotten in a weird pattern recently) has caused a huge fish kill...absolutely sucks.

[Dopey]

[Brent]

Governments are not concerned with scientists nor are most interested in science itself, unless it results in greater political power (think Iran & it's nuclear programme). Governments are only concerned with gaining and then maintaining power & control of their respective citizens and "exerting" their place in the world.
In order to achieve this (in most democratic countries) they have to get themselves elected first. In order to achieve this they have to do things (or promise to do things) the citizens want. The current favourites are- increase their standard of living, pay them more money, offer cheap petrol, reduce their taxes or whatever. The environment comes second place to these things.

I agree with your comments about nature will always win and we'll adapt & change our societies to survive...we've all read James Lovelock's "Gaia" and similar books, we know also that environmental groups manipulate the media with doom & gloom as much as governments do with politik.

But in accepting this obvious point one has to accept also that governments by their very nature will attempt to hang onto the very last vestages of the old & established ways... a good current example of this is the re-building of New Orleans....it's really bad science, really bad economically, and it'll fail again come the next cat 5 storm.....yet their still gonna do it.

Good thread...

[Dopey]