As I’ve always said, the cause isnt the big issue, it what are we going to do to stop it, or if it cannot be stopped, to deal with it. I beleive that even if we stopped every gasoline motor on the planet, theres still so much CO2 in the air that it will be decades before any drop occurs, that means a greater greenhouse effect, higher temps overall, and wierder weather patterns as a result.
Now I’ve also said we can more than likely figure out ways to deal with most of these changes, except one big one, and thats if we start losing the ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica. As has been pointed out already the melting artic ice sheets has not resulted in any noticatblesea level rise, thats because most all the artic ice is sea ice, floating on the ocean like ice cubes in a soda, the ice is already displaced in the liquid, it melting leaves no change in sea level.
The Ice sheets in greenland and antarctica are land ice, like the glaciers that are slowely receding all over the world. When that ice melts, its not already displaced in the ocean, their WILL be a noticable rise in sea level if they start to melt. If we see the same effects in antarctica as in the arctic, namely large areas becoming ice free during the summer, A: it will mean global temps everywhere else will be much higher than today and the wiorld will be a much unpleasanter place in many locations, and B: many lowlying areas of the world and almost EVERY major and minor seaport will be in serious danger of being flooded out every year when the ice melts.
This could mean MAJOR infrasturcture projects will be not recommended, buy absolute requirements, with many parts of the world being either abandoded or facing major dike and sea wall projects just ike the Netherlands.
Its THIS scenario that no one in power wants to make contingency plans for, at the very least risk assessment and mitigation plans should be being done, but no one wants to accused of crying “the sky is falling” and “wasting taxpayer money” on “pork barrel pie in the sky” projects like a sea dike to keep downtown Manhattan from going under 5 feet of water each winter.
Time will tell, we dont know what the long term effects will be, we may just end up with much more extremes each summer and winter, more hot and arid during the summers and much colder and snowier during the winters. We just dont know what going to happen, every year is a new experiment.
PS… its 82 degrees here today @ 8:30 am, sorry Chicago.