Climate Change in the Northeast
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Bob said:
The cause of termination of Cenozoic ice age cycles (there have been 18 to 20 of them over the past two million years) has been well known since the mid-1970s. These glacial terminations are caused by an increase in the amount of solar radiation received on Earth, which follows well documented astronomical cycles calculated by Milutin Milankovitch in the 1930s, which were later confirmed by detailed analyses of deep-sea sediment and polar ice core records of temperature change. The reason that the warming over the past century is such a concern is that Milankovitch cycles suggest that the Earth should be in the cooling phase of a 100,000-year cycle, not warming, which peaked about 9000 years ago. The glacial phases of the 100,000-year Milankovitch cycles account for about 90% of time over the past two million years; interglacial phases about 10%. So, we are due for the next glacial phase of a 100,000-cycle to begin, which in the past have ramped up very slowly. Humans probably could have adapted to a slow transition into the next glacial cycle (mammals are adapted to relatively cool climate, whereas dinosaurs were not), but many of us feel that humans will not be able to adapt to an interglacial warmer than any previous in the past two million years, given the possible collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, which would cause sea level to rise by about 12 to 15 meters, among other calamities.
Puck said:
Sorry, in fact, rates are incorporated into Milankovitch cycles and confirmed by hundreds of paleoclimate studies that support Milankovitch. We are now observers to a human-caused global experiment where fast rates of climate change are occurring, unprecedented in the past 10,000 years.
Changes in rates of change can also be natural
Well, the magnetic pole has quickly changed its rate of movement during the last hundred years, and is moving lots faster than it has during the previous several centuries. See http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/ap_051209_pole_shift.html
At the same time humans have done many things. Did human activity cause the change in the rate of pole movement? No.
Even the fact that there are more of what are called greenhouse gases that are measured in particular places in the atmosphere doesn't necessarily mean that those have influenced the rate of change in the earth's temperature. There's no evidence that they do, only observations that they're there, and that the rate of warming may be increasing.
If you want to do something about it, make changes in your own life that you feel may help. I'm not saying that I don't believe that we should be good stewards, in fact I believe that we should. Reuse, recycle, use fewer resources where possible, as in not buying 1500 more square feet than you need for a house, not driving a larger vehicle than you need, and doing you best to minimize your own impact.
Gris said:
Well, the magnetic pole has quickly changed its rate of movement during the last hundred years, and is moving lots faster than it has during the previous several centuries. See http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/ap_051209_pole_shift.html
At the same time humans have done many things. Did human activity cause the change in the rate of pole movement? No.
Even the fact that there are more of what are called greenhouse gases that are measured in particular places in the atmosphere doesn't necessarily mean that those have influenced the rate of change in the earth's temperature. There's no evidence that they do, only observations that they're there, and that the rate of warming may be increasing.
If you want to do something about it, make changes in your own life that you feel may help. I'm not saying that I don't believe that we should be good stewards, in fact I believe that we should. Reuse, recycle, use fewer resources where possible, as in not buying 1500 more square feet than you need for a house, not driving a larger vehicle than you need, and doing you best to minimize your own impact.
Gris
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Puck
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Dr. Dasypodidae said:
I think there is slight misunderstanding, symantic, syntax, whatever. I am saying that these other theories have been investigated in the current models. These alternative theories alone do not explain the current trend. sorry for the confusion.
Gris
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Hmmm, not a very scientific argument ExPat. Your source actually says it is a "mystery" why the drift has accelerated. Since when does a mystery = no?
JohnL
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Seeing that pole reversals have been going on for over 100 million years and there wasn't a whole lot of human activity going on back then, I think No would be a safe answer.
JohnL
JohnL
Gris
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My logic doen't follow yours. The gist of the article linked by ExPat was that the shift had "mysteriously" increased in dramatic fashion in the last 100 years. Thus, I fail to see how that REBUTTS a human cause. Of course, it doesn't prove anything. But, to my way of looking at things, a dramatic increase in the last 100 years certainly doesn't prove no human cause.
Puck
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Pherhpas Bob you do not understand scientific theory. It is not synonymous with myth. Under closer inspection you will find much of what we call fact i s actualy theory. Most drugs do not have in vitro or in vivo experimentation to proove thier mechanism of action. So the way they work is aT-H-E-O-R-Y. However, the theory is strong enough, backed by enough empirical evidence that predictions can be made. Use any PDR as a reference.Bob said:
A good theory organizes past observations, both experimental and empirical into a model that can be used to predict future events. A thoery needs to be in statements that are falsifiable.
beverly
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I hate repeating myself......
If you are using "theory" in that sense, ok. If you are saying that it's just amounts to conjecture or speculation, well.....
Bob said:
and from Wikipedia:beverly said:
If you are using "theory" in that sense, ok. If you are saying that it's just amounts to conjecture or speculation, well.....
JohnL
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Gris said:My logic doen't follow yours. The gist of the article linked by ExPat was that the shift had "mysteriously" increased in dramatic fashion in the last 100 years. Thus, I fail to see how that REBUTTS a human cause. Of course, it doesn't prove anything. But, to my way of looking at things, a dramatic increase in the last 100 years certainly doesn't prove no human cause.
I should have added that the recent PBS show Nova included at least one instance where the rate of change was so great at one time in the very distant past (I don’t remember how far back) that the rate of change in the direction of the pole actually shifted 6 degrees in one day. This was measured in the angle of iron particles of ancient lava flows. So rapid (or for that matter slow) rates of change have nothing to do with human interaction. The magnetic changes are a result in the shifting of the magma layers in the earth’s crust. These sort of magnetic reversals were going on long before humans came along.
JohnL
Gris
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Now that makes sense, unless the shifts were caused by irresponsible Korean underground nuclear testing...
While this debate has been truly fascinating, one undeniable, free, and currently available source of energy is the energy we do not use. So, read this:
http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/globalwarming10.htm
and put some (not all!) of the energy from this debate into making your own little 0.0000000001% of the earth better.
Tim
http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/globalwarming10.htm
and put some (not all!) of the energy from this debate into making your own little 0.0000000001% of the earth better.
Tim
forestgnome
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Dr. Dasypodidae said:
While your credentials are certainly impressive, 'cuz I say so', doesn't cut it. Either there is something tricky about "peer-reviewed" or you haven't availed yourself of dissenting voices, something hard to believe for such a learned scientist. To state that there are three scientists in the entire world that disagree with global warming is impossible to believe. There are more scientists than that who believe the Earth is flat. It must be that "peer-reviewed" or "I know of" is a disclaimer.
Here is an article
describing the dissent from many more than three scientists.
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dms
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Here's an article about the dissenter Mr. Jaworoski http://www.someareboojums.org/blog/?p=7
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forestgnome
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dms said:
One strawman down...
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Some lay research
Doing some quick Googling, I was able to find that the concept of global cooling was indeed presented as a popular theory in the mid-70’s. I also found another credible climate scientist who has doubts about human influence in global climate.
http://www.meteohistory.org/2004polling_preprints/docs/abstracts/reeves&etal_abstract.pdf describes the beginnings of the US Climate Analysis Center of the NOAA. In there, the report provides information about report from a working conference at Brown University titled “The Present Interglacial, How and When Will it End?”. The organizers were geologists George Kukla of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences and Robert Matthews of Brown. The result was that they wrote a letter to President Nixon with their views, “…a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experienced by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon. The cooling has natural cause and falls within the rank of processes which produced the last ice age. This is a surprising result based largely on recent studies of deep sea sediments.”
Kukla is also cited in the journal Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v280/n5724/abs/280668a0.html Saying that increased carbon dioxide would likely lead to cooling, not warming.
Dr. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin said, “"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialisation, mechanisation, urbanisation and exploding population."
- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", 1971”
Here’s an article that describes another climatologist who currently questions human influence on climate: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/46875.html. See this web page for more information about him: http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/people/PChylek/PChylek.html
Certainly there seems to be room for disagreement among climate professionals, and the possibility that the causes and effects are not completely known.
Since it appears that Mars may also be undergoing a global warming period (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html) there could be other forces at play in our own climate.
Doing some quick Googling, I was able to find that the concept of global cooling was indeed presented as a popular theory in the mid-70’s. I also found another credible climate scientist who has doubts about human influence in global climate.
http://www.meteohistory.org/2004polling_preprints/docs/abstracts/reeves&etal_abstract.pdf describes the beginnings of the US Climate Analysis Center of the NOAA. In there, the report provides information about report from a working conference at Brown University titled “The Present Interglacial, How and When Will it End?”. The organizers were geologists George Kukla of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences and Robert Matthews of Brown. The result was that they wrote a letter to President Nixon with their views, “…a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experienced by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon. The cooling has natural cause and falls within the rank of processes which produced the last ice age. This is a surprising result based largely on recent studies of deep sea sediments.”
Kukla is also cited in the journal Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v280/n5724/abs/280668a0.html Saying that increased carbon dioxide would likely lead to cooling, not warming.
Dr. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin said, “"The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialisation, mechanisation, urbanisation and exploding population."
- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", 1971”
Here’s an article that describes another climatologist who currently questions human influence on climate: http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/46875.html. See this web page for more information about him: http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/people/PChylek/PChylek.html
Certainly there seems to be room for disagreement among climate professionals, and the possibility that the causes and effects are not completely known.
Since it appears that Mars may also be undergoing a global warming period (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age_031208.html) there could be other forces at play in our own climate.
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