Posted on 02/17/2006 8:54:21 AM PST by cogitator
The use of fossil fuels as the cause of it, however, is not. The Anasazi Indians left the American Southwest due to an onset of severe drought. It is safe to assume this was not caused by their use of fossil fuels, SUVs, factories, or power plants. I distinctly recall from the third grade, which was a very long time ago for me, we were taught that we'd just come out of an ice age. We were taught to expect it to get warmer, then after many years the cycle would reverse. I can only assume that these new scientists didn't listen to the teacher during the third grade.
Momma Nature is in charge here.
Past time. LOL!
It looks like changing your story to fit the fad is the way. A few years ago this same fellow, James Zachos, said that the earth's orbital "wobble" was the cause of past climate change. Since you can't blame that on capitalism, (well I guess some of Greenies could figure a way to do that) I guess it didn't attract any funding by the leftie foundations, so now he says it was really deep sea methane hydrate releases, changing into carbon dioxide that really did it.
BTW. No mention in the article that methane, molecule for molecule, has 21 times the greenhouse effect as CO2.
I keep returning to the same old question...WHO knows what the temperature of the Earth SHOULD be? No one seems to be able to answer this.
Good point. Let the science stand on it's own. But, keep the politicians from using data as a weapon to force unnecessary changes onto our society.
It's arrogant to think that the sliver of time that man has been 'impacting' the globe can overcome the Sun's, and thus the Earth's natural heating and cooling cycles. I see the hysteria of global warming more akin to religion than science. And we all know about mixing religion and politics.
I've taken a quick look at the sites. These comments capture it nicely:
"Our current 'best guess' is that the global mean changes in temperature (including the 1940-1970 cooling) are actually quite closely related to the forcings."
GUESS!??!?! I guess they are wrong.
"However, in no case has anyone managed to show that the recent warming can be matched without the increases in CO2 "
So, instead of proving that CO2 causes GW, opponents have to prove that it doesn't....BRILLIANT!!
And they can track this...how? None of their "models" is accurate worth a damn!
"Records of past climate change show that change starts slowly and then accelerates," he said. "The system crosses some kind of threshold."
Hmm...and these "past climate changes" were due to ancient SUV's? Or whatever the "Technological advancement du Jour" is?
This tells me that the Climate Change is something BEYOND our control...like maybe the Sun?!?!
But these pinheads wnat more gub'Mint GREEN (their FAVORITE color) to keep their false theology going!
These pinheads are the equivalent of the damn Druids, or techno-Pagans! Their "facts" do not resemble our Earth "facts".
Anyway, this release of methane seems speculative and not a good indicator for what could happen with our current release of CO2.
Spang on! Worth repeating!
Surely, you jest?
Exactly. And the danger is to allow one or the other 'political' party to be the one that wants to 'save the planet'; while the other 'evil' party supports 'big oil'...Pleeese.
I'm sure whatever your degree is in taught you that if you begin with a faulty premise, you will likely reach a faulty conclusion.
Your premise that scientists say that global warming is a fact is simply incorrect. Don't believe me? Go to The Oregon Petition and you will see that "scientists" are not only not in agreement over man made global warming, but in fact the vast majority of scientists who specialize in climate sciences consider the idea to be junk science.
Even a step further. Of those those "scientists" who signed on to the UN ICCP report, few had any expertise in climate studies, and a majority represent the biological or social sciences and on the topic of climate change, their opinion is no more valid than yours.
Just little tid bits that you won't hear from the MSM.
Not really. The artcle you posted is about studies of the Oligocene and Miocene, 20-25.5 million years ago. The article I posted that led off the thread is about the unique Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, which was 55 million years ago. Different times, different climate change mechanisms.
Cool?
Women, children, and minorities hurt worst!
Which sites?
The climate in the Northern Hemisphere has significantly warmed in the last 12,000 years, a mere geological eyeblink. People in Wisconsin would have to say that the warming has been a Very Good Thing.
Let me give it a shot, based again on the Voshtok Ice Core data, which reaches back 420 000 years.
There is not a "normal" temperature, in the sense that there is an average with a lot of small deviations and a few large ones. The temperature distribution is more like a gamma distribution (roughly speaking), for those of you statisticians out there.
The average (mean) temperature over the past 420 000 years is 4.5 degrees C (8.1 degrees F) colder than today. The median temperature (half the time it is warmer, half the time it is colder) is 5.1 degrees C (9.2 degrees F) colder than today. The mode (most likely temperature) is 7.6 degrees C (13.7 degrees F) colder than today. The minimum temperature was 9.4 degrees C (16.9 degrees F) colder than today, and the maximum was 3.2 degrees C (5.8 degrees F) warmer than today.
In other words, almost all of the last 420 000 years have been A LOT colder than it is today.
During that time, there have been five episodes of "Global Warming"; 420 000 years ago, 330 000 years ago, 240 000 years ago, 140 000 years ago, and the current one which began about 10 000 years ago. During each of these periods, the temperature increased (from the low point) somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 - 10 degrees C (14 - 18 degrees F)over a relatively short time (maybe a couple thousand years).
The release of a large amount of methane is the only plausible explanation for the large shift observed in stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios at the PETM. There are references to publications by Katz (et al.) that might provide an explanation for the cause of the release. It seems clear that the ultimate cause of the methane release is unclear, but it is clear that the methane release followed by oxidation to CO2 is what actually happened.
Anyway, this release of methane seems speculative and not a good indicator for what could happen with our current release of CO2.
Both methane and CO2 are greenhouse gases that change the Earth's radiative balance if their atmospheric concentration changes. Provided that a methane release and oxidation to CO2 is what happened at the PETM (and that's what "fits the facts at hand"), then the PETM shows that greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere can drive a warming trend.
What would be the mean global temperature during the interglacials only?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.