Rapid melt of Antarctic Ice happened 8000yrs ago

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: beezzer

Yet, you have made an assumption.

It's long been thought that AGW should not be affecting the Antarctic for a long, long time.

Assumption.

Climate science has never stated that the ice melt in Antarctica is due to AGW, if they had... the OP wouldn't exist.

Assumption.

When ice melts or droughts happen or any other climate related uh-oh happens... it's not just assumed that it's because of AGW.

Assumption.

The exact cause is always sought. Many sensationalist blogs, sites or news outlets may make lazy assumptions about climate and AGW, science doesn't.

Assumption.

The earth has been warming for the last 13,000 years since then last max ice age ended.
It has not been a steady rise but has been rise and hang, rise and hang.

Add the low number of climate cooling VEI 5+ Volcanic eruptions have caused some of the warming.

All it would take is one VEI 7 or 8 Volcanic eruption to put us back into a new ice age.

a reply to: beezzer

I'm not sure you understand what assumption means.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: beezzer

I'm not sure you understand what assumption means.

You asserted that I was making assumptions, yet isn't that what you were doing?

Not that it matters. If I don't bow down to the Church of Climate Change, I'm branded a heretic regardless.

a reply to: beezzer

No, I wasn't making assumptions. I'm no where near a scientist but I do a lot of reading on the subject of climate.

Don't put ridiculous terminology in my mouth and don't insult my faith by comparing climate science to it.

a reply to: beezzer

None of what she just said is an assumption

If any of it actually is an assumption, maybe you could go through point by point and articulate exactly how and why? I'd be very interested in understanding your take on all this

Thanks - in advance

:-)

Edit to add: Beeze - how about some facts - you Doubting Thomas

self-edit

never mind

a reply to: beezzer

Temper temper - just having a laugh beeze

As more facts develop, then more concrete definitive statements can be made.

You mean facts that you agree with?

There's a 97% consensus among scientists - what on earth are you looking for?

:-)

So basicaly the Ice caps are going to melt one way or the other. Its happened before and will happen again. Why then does it matter what mans role is in all this?, surely it is totaly incidental if its a given fact that no matter what action we take the results will be the same?.

To me there is too much of politicised agenda concerning this and as far as im concerned much like everything else in the world stupid people are following it blindly, because thats what dum dums do. Be it a politician, celebrity or the latest trend they have found on twitter, it matters not people seem to need this sort of thing in their life I guess, more so than ever I suppose now that technology is replacing religion.

Im far more concerned about man made Acid rain and Air pollution. To me thats the real problem about what mans doing to this planet.

But then its probably not in any ones business interest to raise those sort issues in the press very often. Especialy not when "climate change" affords us so much more control over the third world.

Interesting info. I still think we should be taking care of this planet better though, even if we are not causing the main part of the ice melt. We can't be polluting everything. We are screwing up the fresh water reserves, something we need to survive in the future. We are destroying our fisheries. We are dumping chemicals on the lands that winds up hurting the food chains. Most of these chemical changes hurt the ability of the earth to repair itself. Now, these conditions did not exist the last time, there is a difference. There is nothing to compare this destruction we are causing to the earth in any recorded history. Just because there is no evidence saying we are destroying our ecosystem recorded in earths history does not mean it is safe to continue.

I think we are also changing the way energy flows through the earth, that is possibly causing a lot of the weird weather.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Great thread Wrabbit2000 absolutely fascinating. I suspect anyone with common sense that knows global warming has happened in the past before man toddled onto the scene, knows that this is a natural phenomena of our planet.

True, however man made global warming has stopped the natural reset button.

The Earth naturally goes through warming and cooling periods, what's different this time around is we've pumped out billions of tonnes of additional greenhouse gases and raided all the natural sinks that reset the climate to stable levels. So instead of it balancing out we're faced with runaway climate change.

originally posted by: Bedlam
Maybe 8000 years ago, the previous technical civilization did the same things we're doing now.

(ducks and runs)

No need to duck and run - well maybe on ATS - as mainstream science agrees with you, the shift from stone age man does correlate with an unnatural spike in warming with another greater one present when agriculture became established.

I love how any evidence that the earth has its own cooling and heating cycles, equals "Great Lets burn this mother down"

Just because man may have a minimal effect on environment , does not mean we should all be lighting tire fires, etc.


Look at China's air pollution, L.A. in the 80's

The fact is we have 2 large post industrial civilization growing, that if not regulated could do massive damage to the environment.

The emergence of China and India, NEEDS to be mitigated environmentally.

The funny thing is, EVEN THE FEAR mongering of the left on the issue barely get movement in that direction...

The sad fact is, people will continue to do something, until the negative effects are too late.

WE don't know enough, to keep burning fossil fuels and polluting at the rate we are, its just reckless and stupid.

originally posted by: Kali74
a reply to: lonegurkha

Actually, the Milankovitch Cycle is and always has been part of the discussion on causes of our current global warming. It was the 1st thing to be discussed... it's when scientists realized that based on our current obliquity, eccentricity, and precession, Earth shouldn't be warming that other causes started being looked at.

Care to offer some proof of that? I would enjoy seeing it.I've done alot of reading on the topic as well and have never seen any part of the cycles mentioned except for the solar max and minimum cycle.The other two cycles I have never seen mentioned in relation to climate science.

By the way the op is about what happened 8000 years ago when mankind was not industrialized.This happening, so long ago may very well have had the cycles as it's source.Especially since Ice Ages and the following thaws seem to go in cycles.That much is proven fact.

Seems clear to me we should be focusing on what we can do -as a global society- to deal with observed and predictable swings. The earth will warm and the ice melt, then there'll be a glaciation period, then the pendulum will swing back again. ...Past civilizations were unprepared because they were uninformed. We ARE informed - so we have no excuse.

a reply to: lonegurkha

Most of the papers are paywalled but here's an abstract from 1979. The process he describes is exactly how we got to climatology today. It's a great disservice to many intelligent, diligent, hardworking scientists to claim that the most major drivers of climate weren't considered first and that the enormity of complexity of Earths climate was just shrugged at.

If you want more than this try google scholar 1976-1980 greenhouse warming, obliquity

Abstract

This paper surveys the history of the Earth's climate and deals with facts, techniques, and causes. A review of climatic history since the origin of the Earth demonstrates the changes and variability of our climate along different scales. These variations can probably be fully understood only when taking into account both external forcing and non-linear interactions between the components of the climatic system: atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. At least, as far as boundary conditions and forcing are concerned for the 108 to 109 yr time scale, atmospheric composition, solar evolution, and tectonism have to be considered, while variations of the Earth's orbital elements, and subsequently of the insolation, best explain the glacial-interglacial occurrences during the Quaternary Period. For shorter time scales, volcanic dust, solar activity, sea surface temperatures, and atmosphere-ocean autovariations have to be taken into account. Furthermore, the man-made effects have now to be considered: atmospheric loading of dust and air pollution particles, changes in surface albedo, and mainly the increasing rise of atmospheric CO2 and other trace gases adding to a greenhouse effect.

This man-made warming effect of future CO2 increase will probably emerge as a clearly recognizable trend against the background of natural climatic fluctuations by the end of this century. This carbon dioxide induced super-interglacial will be superimposed on the expected natural long-term cooling trend of the ice age chronology.

Not to mention how much of this was just a given to climate scientists, especially paleoclimate scientists. It's like a maths professor not knowing 1+1=2. I don't think people looking to disprove equations ask if the mathematician knows that 1+1=2

Instead of arguingg about the whys of climate change, or standing up for the petro industry that really doesn't need anyone's help, maybe it's wise to recognize it's happening, for whatever group of reasons, and get behind cleaning the environment and moving away from power generation that burns stuff.

Cleaning up our closed system environment and planning for higher oceans doesn't seem too unreasonable.

I don't understand something.

What exactly has made "Humans" into the culprits with this issue?

Humans are all "Natural Born Citizens" of Earth right?

And all natural fossil matter used as fuel are all products of Earth's natural resources.

So maybe this is all part of the natural evolution of Earth ?

What happened to make Humans be the "bad guys" ? Outer Space Aliens ?

How does anybody know this climate change isn't natural regardless of how it's happening ?

originally posted by: lonegurkha
Since the sun is the real climate driver in the solar system,it seems that any climate change would have to do with the relationship between the sun and the earth.There are three cycles that exist,which change over time, the relationship of the sun and earth.These cycles were discovered quite a while ago and are conviently left out of discussions of climate change.I wonder why? link provided by Zantimisfit

There's also sudden volcanic activity which could cool down the Earth for a couple of years. Then there are all those ocean oscillation patterns which can last tens of years if not more. There's also the slow moving ocean currents where warm water travels north while cold water travels south. Those act to "remember" how warm the equator became.

None of these are convenient to the climate-changeologists because it upsets their theory that man-made hydrocarbons cause pollution. All that has happened so far is that coal plants in the USA and Europe have been closed down and moved to China.

originally posted by: lonegurkha
Care to offer some proof of that? I would enjoy seeing it.I've done alot of reading on the topic as well and have never seen any part of the cycles mentioned except for the solar max and minimum cycle.The other two cycles I have never seen mentioned in relation to climate science.

I imagine that's because you've been reading the wrong sources - probably partisan websites that completely shield the facts and make up all sorts of strawmen about the science. All you have to do is look up 'Milankovitch Cycles' on the IPCC website itself, and you will be taken here:

What Caused the Ice Ages and Other Important Climate Changes Before the Industrial Era?

There is plenty of good information in that FAQ. They explain how these cycles work and how other natural processes have altered climate in the past. Nobody has ever tried to hide or run from the fact that the climate's been a 'changin naturally for millions of years (I really wish skeptics could wrap their heads around what an incredibly silly and pointless strawman this is).

But the FAQ also explains how such natural events helped solidify our understanding on the behaviour of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in regulating climate, past and present.

It is this fundamental knowledge of the underlying physics - which, contrary to ATS popular belief, are extremely well understood - that form the basis of man made climate change. Talking exclusively about past changes, and pointing out that there's still plenty we don't know about them is totally irrelevant, because it does nothing to undermine everything we do know about modern day mechanisms.

It's like saying "well we can't be sure that a giant comet hitting the Earth would lead to mass extinctions, because we're still not 100% certain what killed the dinosaurs."

I recommend reading that FAQ and then following the link at the bottom to FAQ 2.1 - which explains what we know about man made influences.

Read what the scientists actually say, straight from the source, instead of what certain manipulative websites want you to think they're saying (or not saying).

To add some thoughts to this... The sources I posted here were actually MINORITY OPINIONS for the science published down the same lists. I posted direct sources off those lists to be specific but I figured I'd end up with a problem, if anywhere, with folks noting the fact this is suggested by research just recently done for physical ability to do it.

It's still, in many circles, thought to be the result of deep ocean convection slowing and causing ocean temperature differences beneath the ice sheet, thus melting it, then making room or opening a path for more to flow from the land mass beyond. Ultimately, in that scenario, man made global warming, having caused the current changes. I read a few that ran along those lines.

Also, my intent with the thread (to address another concern raised) isn't to change minds or force opinion. Simply to share the very fascinating (to me) information that the ice sheet was rapidly thawing 8,000 years ago, as it is today.

What I really found most interesting tho wasn't the side debate about cause, or the general debate over man made global climate change. It is the fact the last time this happened, it ran for several decades. Several...as the science of the new research and on-site work shows. A few more than we've had thus far, in fact.

If it continues (or picks back up after what seems a brief pause), the multiple glaciers feeding that area of ice shelf would raise sea levels by meters. Standing tide norms....up by meters. I don't care as a Missouri resident, across the state from the Mississippi.

However, I do think it may be worth thinking about ..and considering history shows we may HAVE to deal with this, no matter what anyone tries or does in any human efforts.

Maybe..it's time to think about moving off the shorelines with what we're NOW learning has been submerged low tide land within this epoch and by natural process. That's a pretty important thing, IMO.

It's no reason not to fight pollution, because that will kill us by toxic exposure, whether temperature change ever even enters the picture. We may just have this natural issue that comes either way...or is well into coming already.