https://ncar.ucar.edu/press/evaluating-t...
http://research.fit.edu/sealevelriselibr...
Note that there are different carbon uptake techniques used by plants. some are warm season while others are cool season. Some plants will see increased CO2 and warming as detrimental while others do not.
http://www.usmarc.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/...
And if you and Tomcat are interested in what you posted regarding a more intensified water cycle and the biosphere might I suggest looking at the FLUXnet data?
http://www.ouce.ox.ac.uk/~ymalhi/publica...
http://fluxnet.ornl.gov/
It depends on where you live. Here in the southwestern part of Arizona we'd best move rapidly on to solar power and begin massive insulation programs because it's going to get a lot hotter earlier and even dryer than it already is. We're having our first 100 degree days earlier every year and every year we get less rain. If you buy an air conditioner these days they have to be twice as husky as even a decade ago. Keeping the house at 80 degrees get harder and harder and more and more expensive as the power company keeps raising rates.
The asphalt on the streets evaporates away in far less time then it used to making re-paving an ever more expensive proposition. Landscaping is rapidly going the way of the buffalo. Tires, hoses and batteries last half as long as they did because of heat damage. Technology can probably cover us to some extent for hotter and longer summers, but we're rapidly running low on water as the climate changes from very dry to almost totally dry. Anyone who says this isn't happening, or that it's a 'natural cycle' must work for an oil or coal company. Tell 'em I said so!
Assuming I believe in catastrophic climate change, our society is already set up to adapt to problems. When a hurricane hit, do we rebuild or just lay down and die?
Take the supposed farming problems. How long does it take to build a farm and move the farm equipment. The Amish to build a house and a farm in days, I think we can figure out how to keep up with any cliamte changes. The major question is if a wamer climate with more CO2 and more H2O in the atmosphere is overall better for plants, and it is.
Sure we can look at problems caused on the coastlines, but with an ocean rise of 3 mm/year, its not like we have to rush.
Noah,
I don't believe that you can tell the 0.8 degree difference in the sligthest bit. If you are complaining about the energy costs, then you might want to look at a mirror. Otherwise, you are just spewing BS here.
I have relatives who have lived in Arizona for quite some time. They don't work for the oil company and they don't believe the BS you are trying to sell.
Humans (in wealthy countries) won't be directly affected all that much. A few hundred million people sneaking into our country might affect us a bit, but it will be worth it to be able to continue letting our vehicles idle in the parking lot to keep them warm/cool as we shop.
Food prices might skyrocket due to mites/zombie bee infections killing off many of the crop pollinators, but who cares? As long as you have more money (and guns) than the next person wanting to eat you'll be ok.
"should we be considering the best ways of adapting to the change? "
Interesting. What addaptions might we consider?
Remember the 1930s dust bowl, and the wind and hot weather? And food shortages? Maybe our first adaption would be to learn to live without eating.
Suppose you're in Bangladesh, and you going to get flooded out of your town. Maybe they ought to learn to live on the water, and grow their food with salt water irrigation.
You know all that stuff you buy that's made in China? If there's significant sea level rise, then the shipping ports will all be flooded.
MAYBE the first order of business should be to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Neither adaptation nor geoengineering ever be considered as alternatives to switching to zero emission energy sources. Nevertheless, it seems as though there is little chance that we will curb our emissions on time to avoid having any consequences, especially when envionmentals are against nuclear power, and when the Americans would rather have their president step in to stop a pipeline rather than reducing consumption to stop the pipeline.
Corporations, which -if they are to stay in business- have every incentive to NOT waste time lying about science like the 4th rate copy cat dupes on this page, aren't waiting for head-in-sand politicians. They are adapting their plans and strategies apace. The denier bozos here are pretending to not know what scientists have known for decades. A few degrees increase in average temperature is trivial. It is the side effects on ice caps, sea levels, ocean acidification, extreme weather, massive disruptions to ecosystems, disease carriers, etc. that are the issue (for the honest and non-ignorant). By the time such adaptation becomes widespread, the anti-science Wattsup mouthpieces here (who despite their mental aptitude, will not risk taking a mere .004% trace of the nutrient cyanide), will be well into denying their past denial.
The facts are becoming clear that the climate is not sensitive to CO2 and increasing CO2 concentrations to 600 PPM will result in only minor warming. In fact crops such as wheat, rice, barley, oats, rye, triticale etc), all legumes (dry bean, soybean, peanut, mung bean, faba bean, cowpea, common pea, chickpea, pigeon pea, lentil etc), nearly all fruits (including banana, coconut etc), roots and tubers (potato, taro, yams, sweet potato, cassava etc). And also for sugar beets, for fibre crops (cotton, jute, sisal etc) and oil crops (sesame, sunflower, rapeseed, safflower etc), and for trees all will continue to grow at a faster rate all the way up to 1000 PPM. However plants such as corn and sugarcane and weeds in particular will not see any increased photosynthesis beyond 400 PPM.
So in a world of 600 PPM the climate will be a little warmer and most food crops will grow faster than weeds, sounds easily adaptable to me.
Edit Noah:
Its a good thing you didn't live there in the 1930's and 40's, during the prior global warming episode :)
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistem...
Edit: Thank you Jeff, that is very interesting.
0.87 degree rise in 353 years?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/30/ho...
Buddy, if you can't adapt to that you need a psychiatrist.
Not sure that half a degree bothers me all that much.
As we push on past 400 ppm CO2 with no sign of slowing down, should we be considering the best ways of adapting to the change?
Examples. Should people living in areas that have had 100yr events be better prepared? Will demographic preparedness become an essential? How about the migration of diseases like dengue and malaria? Can California maintain its title as fruit basket of America?
We can talk about it but so far there hasn't been that much warming.
