Neapolitan

The Earth has went through extreme climatic changes, one time it was entirely frozen, another time it had hyperactive volcano activity. It is only recently in Earth's history that it acheived somewhat (stable) climate. What is causing the mean temperature of the Earth to rise isn't known, I heard it is a phenomena that's not restricted to entirely to Earth but other planets are also warming as well. There are many factors and I don't think people take everything into consideration. There is a lot of junk science tied into "Global Warming," and it's all tied into politics and politcal control. I think the global warming alarmist forget about the Sun and it's potential to warm the Earth. I just have to remind them about the Sun, the Earth revolves around it and it's pretty darn hot.

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Guybrush

So you're saying that climate was less stable on pangea? You make some claims here that you could back up with some sources I think. Climate is never stable, it's either warming or cooling and it's always been like that. If you look at a graph of temperature through geological times, you'll see it's varying around the mean meaning it goes up and down.



It's a dumb graph but it illustrates a point.

Back in the middle ages when the vikings were here, it was quite nice and warm actually. Between that time and now, there was the little ice age where the sea ice came quite far down the coast of Norway making travel in those waters more difficult than before.



The point is - climate isn't really stable. It may on the whole be getting more and more stable because on a geological time-scale, our planet is cooling and colder means less energy in the atmosphere and less overall action, but then you have other factors. The landmasses are more fragmented with sea between them and living on the coast might on the whole mean less stable weather conditions than living in the inlands. You could use that as an argument to say that climate would be more stable on a super-continent like Pangea was.

You say it's only recently we've reached a somewhat stable climate. Really? What do you base that on? What's recent?

I think what you have to realize is that this trend does not look normal in that it doesn't look like it's part of the usual fluctuations. People are not really disputing the numbers, the measured temperatures. People differ in trying to explain them.

Regardless of what causes it, there's been a rapid warming trend and there could be cause for alarm because such a trend may cause changes in natural resources, changes in ecology, areas may dry up, other areas may flood, it can have a direct negative impact on society. Behind the computer in your room, it may be hard to understand the effects of global warming, but they are out there.

In essence, we're seeing a trend and we should all hope that it stops or turns around because if it continues, we're headed for a disaster which our modern human societies are not at all equipped to deal with at the moment. Of course that causes concern with a lot of people.

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Neapolitan

That is why I said 'somewhat (stable) climate.' I put stable in paranthesis - for a want of a better word. But your graph proves my point between 1870 and 2005 the mean temperature hovers around 29 C if you look at the graph after 450 kya it changes more drasticly. I know that is comparing the last century to thousands of years, but when you see that there were dramatic change in the past and and the fluctuation of the Earth's temperate around the average temperature seems is less dramatic, you should understand a little what I was trying to mean by (stable).

Your chart also shows that the Earth climate had dramatic changes in the past without modern industrial age and it's greenhouse gases. So if the Earth climate change in the past wouldn't some of those same factors change Earth climate now? I can't put the whole blame on mankind throwing the Earth climate out of whack and raising the mean temperate of the planet.

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Guybrush

I said I didn't like the graph and the reason is you have to pay close attention to the values on the X axis. As you noticed, it compares hundreds of thousands of year data to a little more than a hundred. That's a bit silly so you should be a little careful with how you interpret that graph. What I mean is that if all the graph was in the same span, more recent times wouldn't look significantly more stable than others.

For looking at modern times, the other graph is better.

Well, I wrote that the climate change now doesn't look like it's part of the normal fluctuations. If you look at graph number 2, it illustrates what I mean. Of course you find many such incidents throughout earth's history, for example they could be caused by massive volcanic eruptions .. But so what if disasters can also happen naturally? Does that make it better for us?

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Neapolitan

I understand the problem about how information is represted by the X axis, the problem of the graph showing the temperate in two different rates for x, thousands of years and then 135 years. But are the values of the Y axis wrong? Are you saying the average temperature isn't accurrrately represented by the graph? Then the graph has some purpose to it. There has always been warming and cooling periods.

Is the average temperate of the Earth rising? That isn't in dispute. Will it continue exponentially until the oceans boil away if people don't stop using petrol? No. Not all scientist are on board with the whole causes of Global Warming, anyway. There are scientist that believe the current trend could trigger an Ice Age. Then they're the likes of Al Gore, who want people to believe the warming trend is due to planes, trains, automobiles and cow farts. That is junk pseudo-science.

We agree on the datum basically you provided, but I think we are drawing two different conclusions. I am skeptical on the whole matter of man-made global warming. I see that the climate in Earth's history changed and varied drastically, & I see it done by natural causes, and natural causes are causing the present trend.

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Scarlett O'Hara

The thing is, there is significant evidence that the Earth is warming beyond temperatures its ever experienced during warming periods. Scientists have used past reconstruction of glaciers, looked a tree rings, pollen records and used radiocarbon dating which shows that the temperatures of the past are far surpassed by the temperatures we experience today. Therefore, to simply pin the cause as natural is unrealistic. How much of it is man's contribution and to what true cause is causing this temperature rise is the subjective issue.

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Guybrush

Well, now you're exaggerating. Noone's written anything about oceans boiling Global warming is already causing trouble at the temperatures we're at today.

I'm also a sceptic. You think I'm a blind follower of some believed Al Gore agenda? I'm not. What's different perhaps between you and me is that I'm not blind to the possibility that when humans pollute the planet for more than 150 years, it might cause a warming trend. The trend is there and it doesn't look like the kind of normal fluctuations, so what else caused it? You say natural causes, but you have to understand that it doesn't look natural.

I accept that warming, if it continues, will lead to problems for many nations. Loss of land to the oceans, starvation due to droughts, more violent storms. When there's a good chance it was caused by us, of course I think we should reduce emissions.

I'm not pretending to know anything for certain. Although it seems highly unlikely, maybe the trend will stop within the next decade. The difference between you and me is that I believe when we're damaging the environment and possibly screwing up things for ourselves, we should try to change. You seem to think we shouldn't.

The dumb thing in general about such a passive attitude is that it causes so much problems. We can't protect ourselves from trouble until it's too late and we're swamped in it. Acting on that kind of thinking only leads to hindsight .. "Whoops, we did something we shouldn't have but now it's too late. Darn, we should have listened to those who told us not to."

edit :

Cleaned the thread up a bit, 3 posts were deleted.

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The Monkey

Holy ****, are there actually people still out there who doubt that global warming is real? I thought they disappeared years ago.

Axiomatic Wiki

Global warming is a fact, however the effect that carbon emissions are having on it right now are immensely exaggerated.

The only part about global warming that the majority of the scientific community agrees with is that it is happening. The **** that Al Gore was saying is complete garbage and there are lawsuits currently in the process of being filed against him for making that fraudulent crap.


I am not trying to say that we are having no effect at all on our environment, just that we will not all be dead in the next 30 years, or 100 years, or whatever it was that Al Gore claimed(Cant remember and too lazy to look up)

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Neapolitan

It's been a fact ever since the Last Glacial Maximum.

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