Comments on: Record heat sweeps Arctic Sea, ice in 2007

Blame the feedback loops: In 2007, Arctic ice hit a new low, Greenland ice melted for longer, and the Arctic Sea temperature was 'off the charts.'

[jimvsmij]

Is Global Warming Good or Bad?

I have been trying to do my part to reduce my "carbon footprint". I bought a small 4 cylinder car (instead of my SUV) to commute and I replace all my lights with those new energy efficient bulbs.
But I have been doing a lot of reading this week about global climate change. I read a lot how the scientist have linked human activity to global warming. That seems clear. But what is not so clear is if the effects of global warming are good or bad. Coastal flooding seems bad. Polar bears and some other special becoming endangered seems bad too. Is there anything else that could be bad?
Some other effects that will happen do not seem that bad such as the Sahara dessert becoming a new rain forest, more plants and animals will thrive since plants love CO2, increase sun energy, and the added amount of rainfall and, of course animals love plants and forests. Countries closer to the arctic such as Greenland are now producing more crop and cattle/sheep output with shorter winters and more land to grow on. More energy will be entering our planet which will be converted into more biofuels production. We will be able to both power our vehicles, feed the hungry, and save endangered animals.
So what am I missing? There must be more bad effect because otherwise the good outweighs the bad and we should be increasing climate change not reducing it.
Can someone please help me??

[jimvsmij]

Jurassic Park

Maybe it could get bad if the warming trend continues and 100 years from now the earth is as warm as it was during the Jurassic age. Perhaps plant life will be so plentiful that animal species grow to Dino proportions and humans become lower on the food chain.
That could be very bad. Think bus sized meat eating rabbits! Rabbits already freak me out. Why do they constantly twitch their nose??

[arutam]

Mass extinction

Does mass extinction seem like a bad enough effect to you?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24732-2005Jan20.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1018_051018_fossils.html

http://www.livescience.com/environment/050120_great_dying.html

[bjrubble]

It's the speed of the change, not the change itself

The notion that Global Warming is no problem because "it's happened before" fundamentally misunderstands the problem. Just as stopping from 60 mph can be comfortable (with a calm foot on the brakes) or devastating (by running into a concrete wall), it's the pace of climate change that is going to cause the problems.

Through pretty much all of history, climatic changes have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years, giving organisms plenty of time to evolve to new conditions. The exceptions -- whether from asteroid impact, volcanic activity, or whatever cause -- have been marked by massive waves of extinction, which generally have taken millions of years for life to recover. It's worth noting that apex predators (which means us) are the first to get wiped out in these events.

Technology can mitigate some of these problems -- we can move crops and livestock to any habitable locations -- but while we can nudge natural phenomena in one direction or another, we are far from being able to stand up to them directly. If the Amazon basin burns, or there is a massive die-off of photoplankton in the oceans, there's precious little we'll be able to do to recover.

[superman227]

Ice Truckers will have a much shorter season

1/2 the ice over a 27 year period. That's nuts. Come back in 30 years, those diamonds in Canada will stay there until they build tunnels through the lakes.

[suyts]

Very strange

that the warming trends are now being publicized yet the cooling trends aren't anymore. I remember a time when we were all going to freeze to death. (Because of man and his impact on nature.) I live in Alaska for 4 yrs. (88-92) The first winter I lived there, we set records for the coldest winter in the history of the state. I don't know if that has been surpassed or not. The other 3 winters also set cold weather records. For example, coldest November, most snow.... ect. At the time, I wasn't sure about mans influence on the weather, (I surely was wondering) but I was sure that this man had no place there. Today, I'm sure man didn't have anything to do with the cooling, just as I am sure man doesn't have anything to do with the warming. It's just cycles and nothing to get alarmed about.
BTW, has anyone noticed that most climate articles here are impossible to comment on?

[todd_sheets]

Wow

I didn't know that President Bush lived in Alaska during his father's
presidency. "The More You Know."

[sanjong thapa]

Magma may be melting Greenland ice

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22246005/

Magma may be melting Greenland ice