Yes. So the argument is that this will probably happen then.
Because we didn't get it better under control by 2000.
The argument is that these island nations might actually already be lost.
Scientists estimate an around 40 year "climate lag" between cause and effect so if you think this is bad, we're only living out the happy times from the seventies with Pink Floyd and ABBA. And then, once you have it there, CO2 has an atmospheric "half life" counted in centuries. It's why climate change is so damn nasty. :-(
It also really doesn't jive well with our short election periods where after a few years, some new guy with a radically different policy will get in charge if the earlier one wasn't popular because <insert too radical climate policy here>.
If you read the headline carefully, it's the global warming that needs to be reversed before 2000; the disappearance of nations can (and will) happen after.
The reason this is true is that CO2 emissions can't really be reversed; accounting for all forms of "capture" (biomass, sea exchange, calcification) CO2 disappears in a reverse power law way, such that after 10 000 years 10% of it is still there (https://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/pics/1210_ZHfig5.jpg)
The statement isn’t that countries will go by 2000; it’s that we have until 2000 to do something about temperature rises which will eventually lead to countries going.
Then the statement is worthless! If any country is every covered in water at any point in the earth's future then it can be proved "correct".
The negative is not even true -- no one can guarantee that no countries will ever be covered in water at any point in the future, even if we had presumably gotten the rising temperatures "under control" twenty years ago.
You're misunderstanding the quote. It doesn't say "...entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth BY THE YEAR 2000" It says "...if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000."
jug|4 years ago
Because we didn't get it better under control by 2000.
The argument is that these island nations might actually already be lost.
Scientists estimate an around 40 year "climate lag" between cause and effect so if you think this is bad, we're only living out the happy times from the seventies with Pink Floyd and ABBA. And then, once you have it there, CO2 has an atmospheric "half life" counted in centuries. It's why climate change is so damn nasty. :-(
It also really doesn't jive well with our short election periods where after a few years, some new guy with a radically different policy will get in charge if the earlier one wasn't popular because <insert too radical climate policy here>.
rakoo|4 years ago
The reason this is true is that CO2 emissions can't really be reversed; accounting for all forms of "capture" (biomass, sea exchange, calcification) CO2 disappears in a reverse power law way, such that after 10 000 years 10% of it is still there (https://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/pics/1210_ZHfig5.jpg)
NLips|4 years ago
lwb|4 years ago
The negative is not even true -- no one can guarantee that no countries will ever be covered in water at any point in the future, even if we had presumably gotten the rising temperatures "under control" twenty years ago.
Mc_Big_G|4 years ago
soperj|4 years ago
foota|4 years ago