On the brink: Sixth mass extinction

[Von Bismarck]

Humans have a lot of impact, to climate change. But so does the sun. Its wrong to conclude with 100& that humans are only to blame for climate change.

But in only 10-15 years time, we will know who really has the biggest impact on our climate. The Sun or Humans.

[lp21why]

i am not saying that climate change isnt happening. i am just saying it isnt man made. man may be helping it along, but we are not causing the climate to change. this planet goes through climate change ever 300,000 years. we are currently at the peak of that time period. so in about 150,000 years we will be in another ice age.

Those numbers are completely off, we actually go through climate change on a regular basis - it's only been roughly 14kyrs since the last glacial maximum, after that there was rapid warming called the Windermere Interstadial followed by rapid cooling in the Loch Lomond readvance. Before the last glacial period we had another interglacial (around 115kyrs ago), and another glacial before that, etc. This goes back about 2.6 million years.

The difference between the rapid warming 14k and 11kyrs ago and today is we aren't coming out of glacial conditions - ergo something is likely different.

[danielost]

Those numbers are completely off, we actually go through climate change on a regular basis - it's only been roughly 14kyrs since the last glacial maximum, after that there was rapid warming called the Windermere Interstadial followed by rapid cooling in the Loch Lomond readvance. Before the last glacial period we had another interglacial (around 115kyrs ago), and another glacial before that, etc. This goes back about 2.6 million years.

The difference between the rapid warming 14k and 11kyrs ago and today is we aren't coming out of glacial conditions - ergo something is likely different.

This article is about a generic geological period of temperature reduction. For the prehistoric era commonly referred to as the Ice Age, see Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2.588 million to 12,000 years BP covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

(geology) or PaleolithicPaleolithicThe Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools, and covers roughly 99% of human technological history...

(archaeology).

An "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperatureTemperatureTemperature is a physical property that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot....

of the EarthEarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheetIce sheetAn ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km² , thus also known as continental glacier...

s, polar ice sheets and alpine glacierGlacierA glacier is a large persistent body of ice. Originating on land, a glacier flows slowly due to stresses induced by its weight. The crevasses and other distinguishing features of a glacier are due to its flow. Another consequence of glacier flow is the transport of rock and debris abraded from its...

s.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Ice_age

(last time i checked there were still ice sheets on antarctica, greenland and parts of north america. i am sure there are some on asia and europe. lets not count the mountain ones. in the lower 48 or in the alps or in india.

http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/132/13241.png.htm

this is a table dont know how to get it here so go look.

you will see that we are at the peak of the current warm period. nore is the co2 lvls any higher today than they have been in the past at those peaks. well higher than some and the same with others.

[danielost]

looking at that chart it seems that it is the amount of dust in the air that affects cooling and heating. when the dust lvls were up the temp was down and when the dust lvls were down temp was up. so if we go by what you "man made climate change" people keep saying we need to throw a lot of dust in the air to get the temp down. co2 and temp lvls follow the same pattern.

i was wrong the peaks are about 150,000 years apart not 300,000. sorry

Edited March 10, 2011 by danielost

[lp21why]

I am well versed with Quaternary climatic history, and much of your post was irrelevant.

Note that in the Vostok Ice core data, the peaks of CO2 concentration are at termination events. Compare that to the data for the Holocene period, we see a peak around 14kyrs after the termination. The concentrations in the core data reach no higher than around 290ppm, however current concentrations are at least 380ppm so CO2 levels are a lot higher today than in the past. Just see this link for current CO2 levels Current CO2

Your posts seem a tad contradictory, you imply that CO2 is in fact a factor in climate change - yet you imply that our output of CO2 is doing nothing to the climate.

[danielost]

I am well versed with Quaternary climatic history, and much of your post was irrelevant.

Note that in the Vostok Ice core data, the peaks of CO2 concentration are at termination events. Compare that to the data for the Holocene period, we see a peak around 14kyrs after the termination. The concentrations in the core data reach no higher than around 290ppm, however current concentrations are at least 380ppm so CO2 levels are a lot higher today than in the past. Just see this link for current CO2 levels Current CO2

Your posts seem a tad contradictory, you imply that CO2 is in fact a factor in climate change - yet you imply that our output of CO2 is doing nothing to the climate.

where did i say we were not having an affect. i said we are not causing it. if you had bothered actually looking at the whole chart you would have noticed that about 330,000 years ago co2 was at least as high as it is today and maybe a little higher. so tell me how in the world did we get that much co2 in the atmo at that time.

and you are like all of the other "man made climate change" people if the facts dont fit what your trying to sell then those facts arent important.

also looking at that chart again, the last peak. the temps were higher than today and the co2 was lower. so if co2 is what causes global warming tell me how can this fact be.

Edited March 10, 2011 by danielost

[Guest]

looking at that chart it seems that it is the amount of dust in the air that affects cooling and heating. when the dust lvls were up the temp was down and when the dust lvls were down temp was up. so if we go by what you "man made climate change" people keep saying we need to throw a lot of dust in the air to get the temp down. co2 and temp lvls follow the same pattern.

i was wrong the peaks are about 150,000 years apart not 300,000. sorry

Most climate scientists who have a handle on aerosol and dust effects conclude that that is exactly what has been happening. The rates of global warming due to GHG have been severly attenuated by the dust and aerosols we have thrown up into the atmosphere.

The issue they point out is that temperature is linearly proportional to dust (ie increase dust by X and temperature will increase by the same proportion).

However GHG have a logarithmic impact which means that they start off with a slow impact, and then rapidly increase (increase GHG by X and temperature increases by a proportional amount of X*X).

Those who understand this mechanism have observed this relationship and have concluded that the cooling effect is now been swamped by the warming effects of GHG's.

The overall conclusion is that throwing more dust/aersols into the atmosphere cannot keep pace with the rise in GHG and is a dangerous and futile endeavour.

And on a side note - what do you attribute the current 100yr upward temperature trend to, and can you provide a proof of your likely candidate. It isn't enough to believe that something else is causing it, you need to prove it.

Br Cornelius

[danielost]

Most climate scientists who have a handle on aerosol and dust effects conclude that that is exactly what has been happening. The rates of global warming due to GHG have been severly attenuated by the dust and aerosols we have thrown up into the atmosphere.

The issue they point out is that temperature is linearly proportional to dust (ie increase dust by X and temperature will increase by the same proportion).

However GHG have a logarithmic impact which means that they start off with a slow impact, and then rapidly increase (increase GHG by X and temperature increases by a proportional amount of X*X).

Those who understand this mechanism have observed this relationship and have concluded that the cooling effect is now been swamped by the warming effects of GHG's.

The overall conclusion is that throwing more dust/aersols into the atmosphere cannot keep pace with the rise in GHG and is a dangerous and futile endeavour.

And on a side note - what do you attribute the current 100yr upward temperature trend to, and can you provide a proof of your likely candidate. It isn't enough to believe that something else is causing it, you need to prove it.

Br Cornelius

that isnt what the chart says. the chart shows the opposite in fact, the higher the dust the lower the temp. now why would that be, maybe because the dust reflects the radiation away from the earth.

another point i would like to make, i dont know if i can find this info to link to or not. but the last 10,000 years has been the earths most stable climate ever.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clihis10k.html

Edited March 10, 2011 by danielost

[lp21why]

where did i say we were not having an affect. i said we are not causing it. if you had bothered actually looking at the whole chart you would have noticed that about 330,000 years ago co2 was at least as high as it is today and maybe a little higher. so tell me how in the world did we get that much co2 in the atmo at that time.

and you are like all of the other "man made climate change" people if the facts dont fit what your trying to sell then those facts arent important.

also looking at that chart again, the last peak. the temps were higher than today and the co2 was lower. so if co2 is what causes global warming tell me how can this fact be.

If you had bothered to look at your own chart you will see 300kyrs ago the levels were around 250ppm. The highest on the chart appears to be during the Hoxnian interglacial and it reaches around 300ppm or thereabouts.

In answer to your question where did get all the CO2, it is possible that warming temperatures released vast amounts from permafrost on the seabed. Similar to the Clathrate Gun hypothesis.

[Guest]

that isnt what the chart says. the chart shows the opposite in fact, the higher the dust the lower the temp. now why would that be, maybe because the dust reflects the radiation away from the earth.

another point i would like to make, i dont know if i can find this info to link to or not. but the last 10,000 years has been the earths most stable climate ever.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/clihis10k.html

Charts are only as good as the understanding you have of what created the trends.

Br Cornelius

[Doug1029]

i am not saying that climate change isnt happening. i am just saying it isnt man made. man may be helping it along, but we are not causing the climate to change. this planet goes through climate change ever 300,000 years. we are currently at the peak of that time period. so in about 150,000 years we will be in another ice age.

There have been about 30 natural climate shifts since the end of the Younger Dryas (about 10,660 BP). This one is different.

Why do I think humans are involved? CO2 levels are climbing exponentially. We're the only known source of extra CO2. The climate is measurably warmer. Coincidence?

The clincher is WHERE climate is warming. If atmospheric carbon is the cause, then temperature rise should be greatest in places where CO2 absorbs the most solar energy, reradiating it as heat. Moisture interferes with the absorption process, so if carbon is involved, heating should be greatest in the dryest areas. What areas have warmed the most? The edges of deserts and the Continental Arctic in winter (when water is frozen out of the atmosphere). That's why Fort Smith showed the warming: it's on the edge of the Great Plains, a dry area.

Conversely, Wilmington, NC and Meridian, MS were also tested and showed no warming. Why? They're in wet areas, near large bodies of water, which, if global warming theory is right, will be the last places to show warming.

Human involvement in global warming is also supported by large amounts of scientific evidence. If you want to argue about something, argue about the EXTENT of man-caused warming. That's still up in the air.

We are reaching the point in climate technology that within the next decade we should be able to forecast the exact amount of warming that will occur in any given locality. Then you will have something you can test in the field.

Doug

[Doug1029]

man may be helping it along, but we are not causing the climate to change.

Nit picking. If because of human-caused activities, the temperature is 2 degrees warmer than it would otherwise have been, that's still man-caused warming.

BTW: those climate models predict that without human involvement, we would now be in a cooling period, the mean global temperature having peaked about 2006.

Doug

[Eldorado]

Can't you all just agree that climate changes happen naturally but man has made these changes more drastic with his continued pollution of his environment?

[ripperking]

Can't you all just agree that climate changes happen naturally but man has made these changes more drastic with his continued pollution of his environment?

100 cement eldorado!

[stevewinn]

Can't you all just agree that climate changes happen naturally but man has made these changes more drastic with his continued pollution of his environment?

No... i refuse to agree man has made things worse. i blame women.

[Doug1029]

Can't you all just agree that climate changes happen naturally but man has made these changes more drastic with his continued pollution of his environment?

You have probably hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what I think. Now lets see if we can prove it.

Doug

[Guest]

Can't you all just agree that climate changes happen naturally but man has made these changes more drastic with his continued pollution of his environment?

Nothing to disagree with there, and I don't think many climate scientists would either.

Br Cornelius

[nelvrina]

Humans are already down that road and sadly taking the animals with us. I wonder what will come first, Aliens or an unexplained asteroid? From afar, I'm watching the human race demolish itself. Not very interesting to watch but it suits me. I think we deserve it a little. Humans caused it.