ping -- heavy science
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't he simply confirming the thesis that CO2 leads to warmer temperatures?
If that is the case, then the burning of fossils fuels, which clearly lead to the release of large amounts of CO2 would be raising temperatures and therefore support theories of anthropgenic climate change.
Obviusly it has occurred for natural reasons in the past, but there is nothing in the article judgmental one way or the other about the cause of the increase in CO2. Or am I missing something?
I saw nothing about causation or whether CO2 leads or lags temperature
I seem to remember reading about a report a year or so ago, and maybe you can help me track it down, about the Himalayan limestones evolving enormous amounts of CO2 due to increased rainfall. It's neither here nor there, just something from flash memory.
Unless, of course, the opposite is true - that an average global increase of 3 degress Celcius triggers a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.
I don't see why not. I doubt anybody rewrote the laws of physics during all that time.
How an Open Market Might Save the Planet
Chilling Intolerance for Free Speech on Global Warming
Global Warming on FreeRepublic
Latest from Global Warming News Site
Healthy Coastal Wetlands Would Adapt To Rising Oceans
Thinning Of West Antarctic Ice Sheet Needs Improved Monitoring To Reduce Uncertainty
So if any of you can figure out how these scientists took the yellow orange line and decided historical temperatures match up with it pretty close, I'll give you a million bucks
Berner's CO2 estimate is 2000 ppm 140 million years ago (versus today of 384 ppm). Was temperature 5 times higher 140 million years ago? NO. Was it slightly warmer (and quite comfortable for a naked ape)? YES. Does it match up with global warming theory which says we should get a 3.5C warming for every doubling of C02? NO.
Berner's estimate of CO2 500 million years ago is 6,000 ppm. The earth would have been fried if global warming theory was correct.
Perhaps Berner would prefer you reference his actual article in Nature rather than the staff writers' "Cliff's Note's" proxy.
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
Rothman reports that the CO2 history he derived "exhibits no systematic correspondence with the geologic record of climatic variations at tectonic time scales." In another place he writes that "comparison with the geologic record of climatic variations reveals no obvious correspondence." And in yet another place he says that although the most recent cool period corresponds to the relatively low CO2 levels of the present, "no correspondence between atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate is evident in the remainder of the record."
If the truth be told, however, a simple visual examination of the author's plot of CO2 and climate vs. time clearly indicates that the three most striking peaks in the atmospheric CO2 record occur either totally or partially within periods of time when earth's climate was relatively cool. Hence, not only is there no proof for the climate-alarmist contention that higher CO2 concentrations tend to warm the planet, there is evidence in this study to suggest that just the opposite may be true.
Reference
Fischer, H., Wahlen, M., Smith, J., Mastroianni, D. and Deck B. 1999. Ice core records of atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations. Science 283: 1712-1714.
What was done
The authors examined contemporaneous records of atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature derived from Antarctic ice cores that extended back in time through the last three glacial-interglacial transitions.
What was learned
In all three of the most recent glacial terminations, the earth warmed well before there was any increase in the air's CO2 content. In the words of the authors, "the time lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect to temperature change is on the order of 400 to 1000 years during all three glacial-interglacial transitions." During the penultimate (next to last) warm period, there is also a 15,000-year time interval where distinct cooling does not elicit any change in atmospheric CO2; and when the air's CO2 content gradually drops over the next 20,000 years, air temperatures either rise or remain fairly constant.
What it means
One of the reasons for conducting studies of this type is to see what can be learned about the ability of increases in atmospheric CO2 to enhance earth's natural greenhouse effect and induce global warming. As is readily evident from the work described here, however, the relationship between temperature and CO2 appears to be just the reverse of what is assumed in all of the climate model studies that warn of dramatic warming in response to the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content: temperature rises first, and then comes an increase in atmospheric CO2. Or, CO2 remains essentially unchanged while temperatures drop. Or, CO2 drops while air temperature remains unchanged or actually rises. Nothing even comes close to resembling what we are continually being warned about by state-of-the-art global climate models.
So what is one to believe? Theoretical predictions or historical fact? The choice of wisdom would appear to us to be history. It has an uncanny way of repeating itself.