Mastodon Bones Reveal Ancient Warmer Eearth

Read somewhere that 2013 food production was the highest its ever been, I would put that down to more CO2 in the atmosphere, strange thing is, Antarctic sea is is at its greatest extent and thickness 'since records began' and with the average temperature not moving either way for the last 16 years, I just cannot fathom it, perhaps I should stop the daily updates from climate depot? Snow in America, the earliest its ever been, ice on the great lakes, early again.

Antarctic sea is is at its greatest extent and thickness 'since records began'

What about the Antarctic land ice? How about Arctic sea ice?

Snow in America, the earliest its ever been, ice on the great lakes, early again.

Earliest snow in America ever, huh? You sure? You know there is a difference between weather and climate, right? You know that the United States do not cover the entire planet, right?

a reply to: Phage

Were there a lot of coastal cities at the time? How many humans were there?

I'm more prone to thinking that when half of the northern hemisphere is under 2 miles of ice once again when the next full blown ice age kicks in, the displacement of the human populace would be far more devasting by comparison.

a reply to: CranialSponge
I'm more prone to thinking that when half of the northern hemisphere is under 2 miles of ice once again when the next full blown ice age kicks in

Yes, well. We're not too worried about that happening in the next 100 - 200 years. Are we?

a reply to: Phage

Who knows... it could happen at any time at this point.

For all we know, maybe we should be on our knees thanking the CO2 gawds for pushing the next glacial further down the road.

a reply to: CranialSponge

Who knows... it could happen at any time at this point.

We could also get hit by an enormous asteroid. There just isn't much indication that we will in the immediate future. There is, on the other hand, a great deal of indication that the planet is going to get warmer. And warmer.

a reply to: Phage

Perhaps you should consider moving out of the tropics then...?

Because TPTB are not going to clean up their act any time soon, they don't have to... they just pay the ferryman and continue on their merry little ol' way.

a reply to: CranialSponge

Perhaps you should consider moving out of the tropics then...?

I'm not worried too much about the rest of my lifetime. My daughter may well have to live elsewhere though. That saddens me.

a reply to: Phage

Well, she's more than welcome to move up here with my daughter.

It seems where I live will be the new tropical paradise, pineapples and all.

originally posted by: ANNED
My problem is i study palaeoclimatology out where i live and the Eemian period brings out a good point.

I see a lot of AGW BS that claims that warming would be a disaster.

But if you study the Eemian period you find that global warming is not that bad.

The Eemian was a period of the Green Sahara

I agree. If we has an Eemian climate today life would probably be even better.

But we dont

And the problem isnt a warmer climate, its the transition to a warmer climate in a very short period of time, when there are 7,000,000,000 people on the planet, many living near coasts and a majority struggling to feed themselves as it is ....

Has anyone actualy collated data that shows to what extent man is accelerating the warming of the planet? im just curious to know by what factor this is increasing. Im no scientist but that should be fairly rudimentary given the data we have?, maybe a nice graph or something?

a reply to: Dabrazzo

Has anyone actualy collated data that shows to what extent man is accelerating the warming of the planet?

Yes.

Scientists have been doing this on some level for over a hundred years now. For the last 25, the IPCC has released a synthesis of all that collective research every 5 years or so. (Many people mistakenly assume the IPCC does their own research, but all they do is collect what's already out there).

The direct effect of man’s influence is indeed pretty rudimentary – it’s straight up physics, so you can use a simple mathematical model to calculate how much heat a doubling of CO2 would add.

See for example: Idealized greenhouse model

The answer, which is well agreed upon even by most skeptics - the ones who actually studied science in school, not some blog - is about 1.2 °C / 2.16 °F.

But this only tells part of the story. The indirect effect, through various climate feedbacks, like for example melting ice that changes the amount of reflected sunlight, is much more complicated. This is where you have to start using all them fancy computer models - and there is a lot of uncertainty here.

Skeptics love to have a field day with this fact of course, but the general understanding - not just from models but from comparing these models to actual observations - is that these feedbacks will increase, and indeed are increasing the overall amount of warming. The only question is by how much.

There is high confidence that the answer lies somewhere between 1.5 – 4.5 °C. Anything under 1 °C and anything over 6 °C is considered extremely unlikely (although this is assuming we stop at an equivalent of CO2 doubling, which is NOT currently the case). Meanwhile anything over 2 °C is considered significantly “dangerous”.

If you’re looking for a graph you can check the technical summary from the latest assessment report here (pdf):



This is collated data from various lines of evidence. The shaded area represents the most likely range of climate response.

a reply to: EndOfDays77

Volcanoes can spew more output in a day than humans would in a year..the Co2 emission theories are a farce, as any decent researcher should know!

Geez, even a sub-mediocre researcher can spend 3 seconds googling to see how unfathomably wrong you are about that:

Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for a projected 35 billion metric tons (gigatons) of CO2 emissions in 2010 (Friedlingstein et al., 2010), release an amount of CO2 that dwarfs the annual CO2 emissions of all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2011).

USGS: Volcanic Gases and Climate Change Overview


But thanks for the recklessly misinformed and condescending comments anyway.

It doesn't meant the earth was warmer, it means that localised area was warmer.
Have you read the IPCC reports?
If you have, you'd stop clutching at straws. With the lowering of the temperature gradient between the tropics and the North, the slowing of the Jetstream will maybe the wakeup call for North Americans to realise that they are probably going to be some of the most severely affected by climate change.
Stick to the Science and not quote other threads, possibly generated by those who have little understanding of the Science.
a reply to: lostbook

a reply to: Colbomoose

Global temperatures were higher by at least 2 degrees with polar regions being upwards of 5 degrees. This happened globaly. That is a fact. Why do you hate science?

originally posted by: Dabrazzo
Has anyone actualy collated data that shows to what extent man is accelerating the warming of the planet? im just curious to know by what factor this is increasing. Im no scientist but that should be fairly rudimentary given the data we have?, maybe a nice graph or something?

Yes. This has been a fairly significant subject in the field of climatology. The answer is pretty complicated, but well known now. The change in the radiative forcing (the input) is very well established, but the distribution of where the excess heat is going is a much more complex problem.

As of now there appears to have been a climate shift starting around 2000, and more of the extra heat has been going into the oceans and less into the atmosphere. That won't last forever.

originally posted by: Colbomoose
It doesn't meant the earth was warmer, it means that localised area was warmer.
Have you read the IPCC reports?
If you have, you'd stop clutching at straws. With the lowering of the temperature gradient between the tropics and the North,

But the overall energy in the system will be larger. It's not as easy as it seems.

www.theguardian.com...

Overall global warming will affect poles more than tropics, but nevertheless there is still increased energy in the tropics which must be dissipated somehow.

BTW: to focus your attention on actual global warming :
www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: Phage


According to the same science you rely on, that means it will become an ice age, which saddens me.

Which will lead to a warming period, how sad again.