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All Fish Goes Extinct in 150 yrs; What of the Heat Engines ?

lexico

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22 Dec 2004
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I read in the papers today that in 150 yrs, the Sea of Korea-Japan will get so hot that ALL the fish that we are familiar with now will become extinct in that area. According to scientists who examined the sea temperature records, the Sea temp. has been rising at an astounding rate of 0.087 degrees centigrade per yr on average. This, after 150 years, becomes 0.087 x 150 = 8.7 + 4.35 = 13.05, ie. 13.05 degrees centigrade higher than it is now, rendering the Sea inhabitable in today's standards. There must be numerous other consequences directly affected by the temperature rise.

1) More mosquitos: this would bring in tropical malaria, instead of the temperate to sub-tropical varieties we fear today.
2) increased food poisoning
3) rising soft drink prices due to the heavier work load on the coolers
...etc.

What I am most concerned about is the general efficiency of the heat engines that serve our transportation/electricity needs.

With a 13.05 degree centigrade increase, the heat engines that run our automobiles and the conventional power stations generating electricity will be running at a vastly reduced heat-to-electricity (power station) and heat-to-mechanical energy (transmotives) efficiencies. That is because the energy conversion from heat to electricity or mechanical engery is directly governed by the temperature difference between the high temp. reservoir and the low temp. environment. The 13.05 degrees will come as a blow to the engines and generators, raising the price of energy and accelerating fossil fuel consumption to make up for the reduced heat efficiency, resulting in even greater global warming. What a vicious cycle ! Any engineers or physicists out there who can tell what the actual impact will be :?
 
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I have a tendency to treat these stories with a bit of cynicism. These scare stories pop up every now and then, and have been for several decades. Who remembers the 'Next ice age' scares from the 1970s early 80s. The sea is a chaotic system and they are basing their facts on computer models that have not got the power to take in all the varibles. The sae is probally warming, but how much is due to man and how much is natural, they do not know. I reckon in a couple of years time they will say they were wrong, or come up with another scare when it starts to do something that they didn't think it would. Chaotic systems are very difficult to measure
 
Even if the water does warm up by 13 degrees, it doesn't mean that it will become a lifeless sea. On the contrary, there will be more tropical fish and probably also a greater variety then. The other fish won't get extinct. They will just move a bit further up north toward Russia and Hokkaido.
 
Perhaps in 150 years, hopefully they would have come up with some other means for transport, or fuel in which to feed the transport. I am also hoping that in 150 years the world might actually start caring about what is happening, and thus making some effort at preventing further temperature rises. At this rate the ozone layer is severly affected, which is causing ice to melt in the Antarctic, and also causing water levels to rise. All because of the fuel and other such means that so blindly affect the atmosphere. We have caused critical damage unintentionally... and until it is brought to more peoples attention, a little temperature increase isnt going to be the main problem in 150 years.
In conclusion to this however, there are people strongly making an effort, and if they succeed in doing this, then perhaps all problems will have been heavily subsided within the next 150 years.
Who am I to talk though... I have used a lot of aerosols in my time, used my own means of transport when perfectly good public transport is available etc etc.
 
Of course that Sea won't become lifeless unless Russia spills more Nuclear Waste into it, and Japan's Detoxification faxtories in Machuria for biological-chemical spills deadly things into it in addition to the temperature rise !

And of course that Sea won't become lifeless (journalists tend to speak in loose terms like a kindergarten teacher; but they forget the kids are getting smarter ;-) ); what the article means to say is the "current ocean species that are useful to humans" will not be able to sustain themselves in the current habitat. Just as Mac said, they might just move further north for a cooler place. Well. it's already started to happen in the waters southe of the peninsula- near the shallow waters of Jeju Island, Tsushima Island and in the Yellow Sea; an unusual change in the old local ecosystem has been observed.

Certain varieties of the starfish have been replacing ablaones, and kelp have been on the decrease for example, and those delicious sea urchins have been eaten up by the starfish ! It is getting mightly hot here; so much hotter than what it used to be. When alarminist environmentalists have been warning of gobal warming all along (since I was a teen), people just wouldn't listen-- some countries like the US still won't comply with the Tokyo Protocol of lowered CO2 emission. Still, anybody on the heat engines ?
 
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Sorry Lex, I cant help you with the heat engines... my two cents worth didnt make much sense even to myself... Its been a long, full on day!
 
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