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Comment by 6d6b73 | Hacker News Reader

=> more snow in winter => mini ice age

Are some predicting a mini ice age as opposed to warming? A mini ice age worries me more than warming.

I think humans are pretty good at warming things up. So I would take a mini-ice age over global warming.

Yeah, heating is usually more efficient than cooling, because energy is usually produced with some kind of heat output. All though agriculture is a serious concern; you might starve several million people in africa.

Surprisingly this is not true. A watt of energy can only produce a watt of heat, but can remove several watts of heat from a space.

That said, we're much better setup to increase total entropy in the atmosphere than decrease it (via heat sinks eg)

Those displaced Joules are just moved somewhere nearby and are joined by the energy spent moving them.

Yes, hence my second statement and use of "space" in the first.

From a purely scientific view, yes, you can move energy easier than you can cool it. However, people in hot climates usually prefer cold air blowing, which takes more energy to chill.

Not just Africa. Probably every continent, because yields would tank and growing seasons would shrink.

Yeah - https://www.iflscience.com/environment/we-could-be-heading-m...

It's weird that they call it "mini ice age" then follow up with - we had one in 17th century, London got temperature below 0 in winter. Not what I imagine from the name.

Humans are bad at distinguishing small but close from large but far away for abstract ideas like climate.

No, more rain in winter ;)

=> more water in the air => increased greenhouse effect => rising temperatures => even more water in the air

Yes. And the greenhouse effect overall is mostly due to water in the air. But water content is very sensitive to temperature. And when CO2 level increases, that also increases water content. So water is like an amplifier for CO2 changes.

Edit: Maybe someone thinks that this is a GCC-denial argument. It's not. Water vapor is in fact the major greenhouse gas: 36% (in dry areas) to 72% (in humid areas) of total greenhouse forcing.[0]

0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Greenhouse_gase...

I think that's what I read. Water vapor amplifies the green house effect of increased CO4 and CH4. And figuring out the exact forcing constant is complicated by weather patterns and cloud cover.

One of the other things that scares me is weather is chaotic. Patterns repeat year over year. But global warming could cause those patterns to change. Possibly permanently as far as human civilization goes.

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