tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13073631.post724537448919367975..comments2024-01-04T07:21:18.243-05:00Comments on John In Carolina: No snow in New York butUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13073631.post-90647511148488863602008-01-31T15:37:00.000-05:002008-01-31T15:37:00.000-05:00Instead of "Global warming" you should say "climat...Instead of "Global warming" you should say "climate change". The problem isn't that the climate has already changed, but that we are creating a situation where the climate will change rapidly in the near future. To take an example from chemistry, if you have a buffered solution then the pH of the solution changes slowly with the addition of acid or base. However, as more and more acid or base is added to the solution the buffering capacity of the solution diminishes and the pH will begin to change more quickly with the addition of acid or base. If something in the solution, such as an indicator dye, is dependent upon the pH of the solution, then at first the addition of the acid or base will not affect the color substantially because the buffer mitigates the pH change. As more is added the color will begin to change at an increasing rate because the buffering capacity is eroded, until it changes dramatically even with a small addition of acid or base. Currently our environment is buffered, but forests, the ocean, etc, but these buffers are not able to keep up with the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere. While changes have been minimal so far, as time goes by the changes will become increasingly severe. This is the true danger of cimate change. It is not that the weather tomorrow or even next year will be dramatically different, but unless we do something now the small changes that are currently underway will spiral out of control.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com