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John Ryden
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Showing entries for Category: Pine-Beetle
The World Might Suddenly Start Warming Faster
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There is a lot of disagreement on how fast we are warming up. The rate that the world is warming is important to understand because is affects the economics of how fast we should take action to control Greenhouse Gas emissions. The present value of the future damage needs to be greater than the current cost of controlling Greenhouse Gas emissions. The basic economics is that the longer the warming takes, the less we should do now to be economically efficient.
The problem is that no one really knows how fast we are warming up over the next 10, 20, or even 50 years. This introduces an element of risk that needs to be factored into any program to control GHGs.
Some of the scary scenarios (links highlighted) are that global warming itself will increase the rate that heat to be absorbed by the planet:
- The Melting of Arctic Ice will reduce the amount of light reflected back into space. This will cause more solar energy to be absorbed by the ocean.
- Permafrost melting will cause the release of large amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane gas (CH4) is 20 times more potent than Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in trapping radiated heat.
- Pine Beetle outbreaks are killing huge numbers of trees in the Western US and
Topics: Climate Change , Carbon Dioxide , Greenhouse , Arctic , Pine Beetle , Methane
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