Earth's atmosphere is traveling back in time, and that's a very bad thing

Interesting read here concerning Globsl warming. Appareantly, we've just passed the dreaded 400 parts per million for Carbon Dioxide this past May 23. Humanity hasn't seen this level of CO2 in the atmosphere since the Pliocene Era; a period when the Arctic was covered in forests and the oceans were 16 to 131 feet higher than present times.

Among the climate-based records we've shattered so far? The warmest spring ever recorded at the Greenland ice sheet; the 13 hottest months ever recorded in a row; a remarkably severe El Niño; and the extinction of the first mammal due to human-caused climate change. The newest terrifying milestone is a doozy: carbon dioxide levels that Antarctica (and the Earth) hasn't seen in 4 million years were just recorded, making it the last place on the planet to register the astounding concentration of the greenhouse gas. The South Pole Observatory recorded a carbon dioxide concentration of 400 parts per million on May 23. The last time carbon dioxide was at those levels, modern humans were but a wink in our ancestors' eyes. "The increase of carbon dioxide is everywhere, even as far away as you can get from civilization," climatologist Pieter Tans told Scientific American.

Back in the Pliocene, the climate was warmer and wetter. Both poles were about 18 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than they are today, and the Arctic was covered in forests instead of barren tundra. The rest of the world was 5 degrees or hotter on average, and sea levels were 16 to 131 feet higher than at present.
Reaching those levels by 2100, or even 2200, would be catastrophic for the roughly 44% of humanity that live in coastal communities.
Even more disturbing, NASA predicts that while carbon dioxide levels will see short-lived fluctuations, the concentration is expected to rise even higher, to 450 ppm, by 2040.
In this case, returning to humanity's roots is going to be a deadly prospect.

Should we worry? What says ATS?

www.businessinsider.com...

The question is "is it really a bad thing?" Sure we may loose some ocean front property, that is already over priced, but what happens if there is millions of acres of new useable land and we can have shorter shipping lanes? Humans will adapt.

a reply to: lostbook

What did polar bears do during the Pliocene?

Sounds like someone is going to press reset soon.
I hope we make it in time... to Mars

Why aren't the oceans 16 to 130 feet higher right now?

Why isn't the Arctic (hee hee) covered in forests right now?

I think it was because: fear mongering

Somebody took something scientific sounding and scared people. That is all.

Hi Snarl, glad to see that avatar again.

I think it was because: fear mongering

Who's scared of fitty or a hunnerd years from now, we'll all be dead.

Imo, this is distraction from the real issue before us right now, environmental pollution.

Not worried

a reply to: lostbook

To be snide, most of the long term politicians live on the coasts, or spend most of their time there...could be a good thing

The world is full of fools totally divorced from reality, I think this is more cyclical with human societal modifiers than we speak about. Is it frightening? Sure, if you subscribe to the divorced from nature roll we all subscribe too.

It has happened throughout our and other like planets forever. You and I will never change the inevitable, but we can change ourselves and grow.

Everyone wants to blame (not you OP), but the truth is available through the empirical faculty we all possess, but do not exercise.

God will not save us from ourselves, and mother nature tends to devour those who don't respect and take note of her.

originally posted by: intrptr
Who's scared of fitty or a hunnerd years from now, we'll all be dead.

In a hundred years, more than 7 billion people will die. And ... it won't be from global warming.

-Cheers

a reply to: Snarl

Damn control freaks.

Luckily CO2 forcing isn't real else it would cause a problem no.

a reply to: Spacespider

The Mars remark made me chuckle as we might have already done that migration, except from Mars to here, Earth!

I know it's weird, derided and slightly off topic, but the facts are there are signatures of (very likely) artificial nuclear explosions on Mars from a quarter million years ago and it used to be Earth like... do the math.

As far as our carbon emissions, the bad ol' climate scientists say we should've been worried back in the mid 20th century... and now should be post panicked and resigned to a hellscape.

It will be worse than losing ocean front property... much, much worse.

More CO2 means more plant life--larger bracken ferns, a bountiful yield for vegans. It may be inconvenient for humans, but it won't "harm" the Earth, which has been there before.

originally posted by: schuyler
More CO2 means more plant life--larger bracken ferns, a bountiful yield for vegans. It may be inconvenient for humans, but it won't "harm" the Earth, which has been there before.

There will also be more water and puddles of sitting water.Mosquitoes breed around sitting water, correct? More sitting water=more breeding among mosquitoes. Mosquitoes spread disease, right? See where I'm going with this?

a reply to: lostbook

No, I don't think we should worry. We know that the planet does this and it's gonna do it with it without our consent. It does this in cycles so like other mammals on this planet, we will adapt or die. Not to mention all the acreage that will lose its permafrost and become useful land again like it has done in the past. So fire up your SUVs and diesel engines and do your part in defrosting the planet.

originally posted by: DonVoigt
a reply to: lostbook

No, I don't think we should worry. We know that the planet does this and it's gonna do it with it without our consent. It does this in cycles so like other mammals on this planet, we will adapt or die. Not to mention all the acreage that will lose its permafrost and become useful land again like it has done in the past. So fire up your SUVs and diesel engines and do your part in defrosting the planet.

I am very interested in the things which will be made "visible" as a result of the melting, I'll admit that. However, I also think there will be a monumental loss of human life. It won't be pretty...prepare for a wild ride!

a reply to: lostbook

The Medieval Warming period was a time on earth when civilization thrived. It was warm enough for grapes to grow in Britain and for Viking settlers to land on Greenland and mine what is now under ice.

The Little Ice Age gave us the Black Death and Dark Ages.

Note that this was all before modern medicine.

I'll take the warmer over the colder... and I'm a winter person.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
a reply to: lostbook

The Medieval Warming period was a time on earth when civilization thrived. It was warm enough for grapes to grow in Britain and for Viking settlers to land on Greenland and mine what is now under ice.

The Little Ice Age gave us the Black Death and Dark Ages.

Note that this was all before modern medicine.

I'll take the warmer over the colder... and I'm a winter person.

Don't get me wrong, I love warm weather. I was born in Phoenix, AZ and boy does it get hot; especially, in summer!

originally posted by: Orionx2
The question is "is it really a bad thing?" Sure we may loose some ocean front property, that is already over priced, but what happens if there is millions of acres of new useable land and we can have shorter shipping lanes? Humans will adapt.

My God you people are so mind bogglingly ignorant, yet so smug.

You have no idea how little you know.

~20 years.

It will most likely all be over by then.

Ill give you a relative time-line:

-Perpetually increasing CO2 levels (occurring now).
-Year over year ice decline in Arctic (occurring now).
-Ice free end of summer Arctic (happening soon).
-Massive increase in thermal absorbtion in Arctic ocean.
-Gigatons of frozen CH4 hydrates already in a precarious position upon the Arctic sea bed destabilize due to seemingly minor heat changes.
-Global average temperatures increase 5 - 10C in a matter of several years due to the incredible thermally insulative properties of CH4.
-Earth rapidly restabilizes into its most stable heat zone (~+10C from here), and never returns within time spans relative to the human experience.
-Most plants on Earth die due to the rapidity of the temperature shift. This includes most, or all, of large scale harvested plants. Moving them is impossible because it would require the moving of all the soil as well down to 6, or more, feet, for millions upon millions of acres.
-With nothing to eat, all livestock dies.
-With most plants and all livestock dead, with nothing to eat, most humans die.
-Civilization collapses with few survivors.
-Oceans become hot. Very hot. Ancient HS2 producing bacteria return to the warm waters that have been acidified, warmed, and decreased in oxygen; their ideal environment.
-HS2 becomes a common atmospheric component as billions of tons of it is rapidly produced.
-All complex ocean life dies.
-All complex terrestrial life dies.
-The Earth is left mostly lifeless, save for HS2 resistant/tolerant simple lifeforms.

You all think youll be around forever... that your children will proceed you, and their children them, and so on, and humanity will go out to the stars to consume more worlds and replicate more of itself until the end of time, because those are the stories you have been told, and tell yourself.

But they are nothing but stories.

The reality is that 99.9% of you reading this are young enough to live naturally to see the end of your world, and the extinction of, perhaps, the most diverse, amazing living ecosystem in the galaxy, and for all we know, the universe. You will all live to see its destruction, and your own ends.

The question is not some dullards debate about whats good or bad in the context of heinous ignorance of the facts.

The question is one of defining yourself in the face of your own impending demise, and the knowledge that you will have no physical legacy that you leave behind, except for humanities collective legacy - one of heavy metals, toxic inorganic compounds, concentrated radioactive waste, plastics, and death.

How will you act? How will you proceed? Its almost time to go. Who do you choose to be at the end, when there are no more consequences?

The game is ending. Your character is about to die. 20 years I tell you, will seem to pass in the blink of an eye.

The question is an existential one. Time is running out, faster than almost all of you can comprehend.

In the presence of Death, in the face of Truth, with Eternity itself as witness, when asked "Who are you?", when asked "What are you?", how will you respond?

The most important day of your life is the day you die. Prepare for it, because itll be here sooner than you think.

a reply to: CaticusMaximus

You know, you really should submit that script to a movie studio. It would make an awesome movie.

It's not very scientific, however:

The Arctic is melting, primarily due to warm water and air moving northward through the Bering Straits. It's the same mechanism that has caused three bitter cold winters in a row in Alabama, and may have a source in volcanic activity around the South Pacific (still researching on that). Al Roker is calling it the "polar vortex."

The CH4 hydrates you mention are not all at the point of unfreezing. If they were, those unusually warm spells that have been around since recorded history would have already thawed them out.

That kills the rest of your scenario. But even if it didn't...

No one talking about increasing area for crops is talking about trucking topsoil. Here's a news flash: there's already dirt there!

You have a great future in entertainment. Let us know when you get published?

TheRedneck