Comments on: New York Under Water, pt 3: Global Warming in Science Fiction

By: Ahrvid Engholm

Ahrvid Engholm — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:19:38 +0000

Fallen Angels (by Niven/Pournelle/Flynn) is a very nice book! And it's available here for download from the Baen Free Library:

http://www.webscription.net/pc-137-1-fallen-angel...

The climate has gotten colder the last decade. And the climate-research scandal named Climategate – with it's manipulation, perversion of peer-review, ousting of non-believers, rigged climate-modelling computer code, lost databases, etc etc – has proven that "global warming" is a bloody fraud.
It's an extra icing on the cake that this good book also makes heroes out of science-fiction fandom. Sf fans have always seen beyond the little bickerings of the day, and believed in Man. Environmentalists just believe Man destroys everything and must be curbed.
GLobal warming is stone cold.

–Ahrvid

By: Teramis

Teramis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:52:12 +0000

I've always loved post-apocalyptic movies. The issue of how remnants of humanity face a primal survival challenge is (morbidly) fascinating. Quintet sounds interesting for that reason as well as the climate change related ones. Thanks for the tip: that one was completely off my radar as well, though I was probably living in Berlin at the time it came out, so that would be why. I notice it is available at Netflix and in used outlets. I'll be checking that out.

Apropos the warming versus Ice Age issue, we could be in for both. This interesting comment from an oceanographer was posted to this New York Under Water post at Open Salon. His comments follow:

I am an oceanographer who works in the arctic. I have seen first hand (as well as collect the data) what climate change is bringing to not only the arctic but the planet. It is real, it is here. Permafrost is melting, the air is warmer, the sea ice freezes later in the year and melts earlier in the year. As the permafrost melts, more methane and CO2 are released creating a positive feedback loop which exacerbates the situation. We are seeing glaciers melting at ever increasing rates be they along the coast, Greenland, Antartica, the Alps, etc. Sea levels will rise as the scientist featured here correctly states. But here is the kicker. With all the melting going on, there is a huge lens of fresh water being introduced to the surface of the ocean – particularly in the GINSEA – the Greenland Icelandic Norwegian Sea. This is where the Gulf Stream travels to, releasing its heat and helps to moderate Europe's climate. This is also where the deep waters that comprise the North Atlantic Deep Water form. After giving up its heat, the water is cold and salty – very dense. It sinks. The NADW then flows back south (at some 1500 meters or so) and starts the great "Conveyor Belt". This conveyor belt is a majorheat distribution mechanism for the planet. By introducing all this fresh water (which is less dense), the NADW cannot form; the water will not sink. In essence, the conveyor belt gets shut down. This can occur within a matter of decades. Researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of Toronto have already measured a slowdown in deep water formation. The end result if the conveyor belt shuts down…the planet goes into an ice age. So, humans are really messing with a very delicate system which will only result in very dire consequences for our civilization.

jimm2.7182
November 10, 2009

If you want to comment to him or in that original thread the link is here.

By: Collin

Collin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:16:26 +0000

Teramis, I cannot recommend more highly the 1979 film "Quintet". In that dark future people are becoming extinct as the next ice age crowds them out. Paul's character is in a tiny enclave in it's last years of habitability. The movie holds up quite well 30 years later, and the science of climatology was in some agreement with the premise. I remember hearing on the news 35 years that we were believed by many scientists to be in an ice age that was in fact held off by our industry and pollution. How far has science turned! haha And you'll LOVE the movie, I swear…

By: Collin

Collin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:05:28 +0000

I think "Fallen Angels" is a spoof. See the movie "Quintet" with Paul Newman (1979). Some scientists in the mid-seventies believed that all that was holding the current ice age at bay was industrial waste heat and heat producing pollutants. Awesome movie too!

By: Teramis

Teramis — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:03:20 +0000

Thanks, Chuck. That sounds like an interesting exploration of the problems I’ve been talking about in this series of posts.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:08:44 +0000

There is a book called Blind Waves by Steven Gould that dealt with climate change as part of its premise. Coatal cities are all underwater, a massive population shift is underway, etc. It’s been a long time since I read it so I don’t remember all the details of the plot but I found a nice synopsis page here:

http://www.rambles.net/gould_waves.html

By: Teramis

Teramis — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:46:04 +0000

Good question, Alex. We’re clearly not prepared for catastrophic change, much less more gradual change, and the collective science conversation and public consciousness is not yet grappling with these more extreme scenarios.

I crossposted the first of the New York Under Water series to Opensalon.com, and this comment from that post might be of interest:

**
I am an oceanographer who works in the arctic. I have seen first hand (as well as collect the data) what climate change is bringing to not only the arctic but the planet. It is real, it is here. Permafrost is melting, the air is warmer, the sea ice freezes later in the year and melts earlier in the year. As the permafrost melts, more methane and CO2 are released creating a positive feedback loop which exacerbates the situation. We are seeing glaciers melting at ever increasing rates be they along the coast, Greenland, Antartica, the Alps, etc. Sea levels will rise as the scientist featured here correctly states. But here is the kicker. With all the melting going on, there is a huge lens of fresh water being introduced to the surface of the ocean – particularly in the GINSEA – the Greenland Icelandic Norwegian Sea. This is where the Gulf Stream travels to, releasing its heat and helps to moderate Europe’s climate. This is also where the deep waters that comprise the North Atlantic Deep Water form. After giving up its heat, the water is cold and salty – very dense. It sinks. The NADW then flows back south (at some 1500 meters or so) and starts the great “Conveyor Belt”. This conveyor belt is a majorheat distribution mechanism for the planet. By introducing all this fresh water (which is less dense), the NADW cannot form; the water will not sink. In essence, the conveyor belt gets shut down. This can occur within a matter of decades. Researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of Toronto have already measured a slowdown in deep water formation. The end result if the conveyor belt shuts down…the planet goes into an ice age. So, humans are really messing with a very delicate system which will only result in very dire consequences for our civilization.

posted by jimm2.7182

**
Things that make you go, ‘hmmm…’

By: Alex Marshall

Alex Marshall — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:28:14 +0000

Thanks for your timely warnings. To me, the big wild-card is what will happen to the weather as a result of long-term warming. Your articles, and the flood maps, imply that sea-level rise will happen smoothly over time. That’s a lot less scary than the possibility of a massive disruption (which I think cd happen quite quickly — in a decade or two rather than a century or two) of the equatorial turbine that drives global weather systems. If the great weather-making flows of oceanic water change course or disappear, what happens to the 40 per cent of us who live at or close to sea-level, not to mention the other 4 bllion?

By: Teramis

Teramis — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:06:08 +0000

Interesting. I completely missed that one.

By: TJM

TJM — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:37:36 +0000

Interesting that you mention Lucifer’s Hammer. Another climate-change-related book by Niven & Pournelle is “Fallen Angels,” though for completely different reasons. In FA, them crazy anti-science enviro-nutbars have succeeded in stopping fossil fuel burning (you know, with the awesome political power that environmentalists wield.) But it turns out burning those fossil fuels was all that was stopping the next ice age! Now science fiction is outlawed, the hordes of ignorant non-SF-readers are called “mundanes” and occupy the ‘Danelaw. And our stalwart heroes are astronauts from the last redoubt of science, the orbital L5 colony, who have crashed on the glaciers of Texas or whatever and have to make their way to safety. All in all, it’s a smug, self-absorbed and (hopefully, by now) utterly embarrassing piece of skeptic propaganda.