If gloabal warming does occur do you think the earth could possibly adapt?

Question

also if the earth heats up and melts ice caps wouldn't the water evaperate alot faster?

Answer 1

i think we would adapt but who knows?!

Answer 2

Global warming is already here! Glaciers are already melting down. Massive ice chunks from Antartica are crumbling down. The sea level is rising and sea fauna and flora are disapearing faster than you can imagine! The climate change is very obvious in certain parts of the world. Inadvertently we cannot even do anything about it. The climate changes will become very obvious soon. The weather will change, hurricanes will become wilder, floods heavier, forests will die as well as animals while we sit back watching destruction hoping that black gold had never been been discovered by our predecessors.

Answer 3

Of course the Earth will adapt, it has in the past warming cycles, and it will in this one as well.  I would suggest that we need to adapt as well.

Answer 4

The planet could care less.  It's mankind and the flora and fauna that will adapt or die, just like it's always been.

If the water evaporates faster, it forms clouds.  The clouds that form over the oceans have more of a cooling effect than a warming one, so that would cycle things back down, just like it has countless times in the past.  It's not like the Earth has had a nice steady climate forever.  It's always changed, and always will.  That's why species that can't adapt go extinct and new ones evolve.

Answer 5

Yes the earth can adapt to any global average temperature it decides to have, just like it's done in the past. It's the flora and fauna that need to learn how to adapt and it appears they have done that ever since life began on this planet, since they have made through many changes in our planets many climate changes. True some creatures have become extinct. (But how do we know that Woolly Mammoths and Saber tooth tigers actually became extinct? Or did they just evolve into the Elephants and Tigers we know and love today? I can't remember what I read about these cool creatures. But it's easier for me to believe they adapted and changed than them going extinct.)

Answer 6

it has for over a million years, so what will stop it now? If you believe in 'God' then he is in charge and life will carry on

Answer 7

The earth will be just fine.  The problem is that adaptation of this nature occurs through extinction.

Life on earth adapted when the dinosaurs went extinct as well, but the dinosaurs went extinct in the process.

And to answer your second question:  Yes and there is already correlative data to show that it is the case that higher temperatures increase evaporation and this increases average humidity.  If the implication you're making is that this will counteract a rise in sea level, sadly it won't.

Answer 8

The Earth adapts to anything thrown at it. Humans, and our civilization may not.

Answer 9

Phoebiz

global warming

We definitely didn't start global warming, but we definitely do contribute to it now.

Natural gas (or Methane along with other thanes) for example, is completely a natural contributer to global warming and is derived pretty much the same way as oil. ie. Matter (animal, plant etc) decomposes over time resulting in a anaerobic (hope I spelled that right) decay of non-fossil organic material / gas (natural gas or methane).

One problem with global warming is that the concept is so vague in the minds of the people. The critical interpretation is basically how it’s explained in school and the news. However most of the public see global warming connected with the ozone and pollutants which cause harmful greenhouse gasses, etc. therefore investigating and fighting for things like alternative energy (ie. Solar, wind, hydrogen, ethanol, biodiesel, etc)

Greenhouse gases are real and do contribute to global warming. Think of the different gas layers like ozone (o3) that circumference the globe as the clear plastic on a greenhouse. Longer rays of light from the Sun go in and reflect off different thermal masses bouncing back and creating shorter lengths of energy that cannot exist the plastic barrier. These beams then just continue to bounce around inside the green house until they’re finally absorbed completely (some do escape but very few), thereby warming the greenhouse greatly even in cold temperatures.

Basically there are 2 ways that this reaction (or lack of) affects the planet. Global warming and global cooling.

1. as we add to the gases in the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is (Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc), we add to the plastic of the greenhouse, trapping more short wave length energy and heating the earth more.

2. as we deplete the ozone (with chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs), we allow more long wave length energy, which bounces back out to space without heating any thermal masses on earth, thereby cooling the planet.

It’s pretty easy to see the results..

Melting ice sheets & glaciers

Floods & droughts

Great hurricanes & cyclones

Seasonal extremes

Seasonal phenomena’s

Species extinction

New & resurgent diseases

There are many ways to stop both global warming and cooling from accruing or at least slow them down until we can discover a way to reverse it, but Stop burning fossil fuels is the biggest.

I currently own 2 converted h2 vehicles which run on 100% hydrogen and 1 EV (electric vehicle), not to mention our home is completely off the grid, using alternative energy (solar, wind, etc)

If you interested I offer several DIY alternative guides to walk you step by step threw Greener living, how to run your car on alternative fuels and being self-sufficient, at agua-luna com or

http://www.agua-luna.com/guides.html

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at http://www.agua-luna.com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

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Retired Boeing Engineer now living 100% Off-the-Grid with my family, using Alternative Energy & loving every minute.

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Answer 10

don't think so..coz we've all been so meany making it becomes like this...If we could not even protect and change it to a better situation today, for wotelse we gonna be able to adapt 4 tomorrow??

Answer 11

it could be possible but do u really want to find out?

Answer 12

The earth will adapt but the question is will we be able to and at what price? If there is a major shift in food and water resources, expect there to be conflict between the new haves and have-nots.

Answer 13

not nearly fast enough.  while some groups will work out ways of living with it, hundreds of millions of people are going to die first.

look at america: yeah florida will be wiped out when the sea level rises, there'll be massive migration to higher more stable places, but it's not like you havent got space.  sure, a couple of people will die (thousands) but your society will probably adapt to a new life down in denver.

now, take a look at bangladesh.  have you ever been there? the place is practically underwater already.  it's hugely densley populated (much more so than the US).  when the sea level rises, there will be nowhere for them to go.  neighouring countries won't take them (India has it's own problems and historicaly hates pakistan and bangladesh), i cant see the US or Europe giving them sanctuary in these troubled times: there's nowhere for them to go, there's no way they have the money, resoruces, organisation or time to make better flood defences.  there will be no chance for bangladesh to adapt and we will, within our life times see a country with a population of 150 m (so about half the us i blieve) wiped off the map.

in africa people are already trying to adapt to the changing climatic conditions.  farmers who have had their livelihoods wiped out by drought and the spreading sands of the sahara are trying to adapt by moving north out of the life less and barren sand.   it's only a matter of time before there is armed conflict in the mediterranean with envrionmental refugees trying to come into europe and the EU trying to stop them (seriously, the powers that be in the EU talk about this)

so yeah, mebbe we can adapt so that the human race survives, but millions are going to die first.