So now that the thread on a movie has expanded to politics and global warming, I have a question about global warming models. Has anyone seen one which explains the warming 10,000 years ago? It cannot be from human affects on climate (not that there are none). I am just curious what caused that warming.

I am not sure I can other then a show I watched on it, global warming has a cycle, it gets warm then it gets cold, this has gone on for ever. The thing that makes this one different is the carbon signature, you see they can measure the ice cores going back several hundred thousand years, and the carbon foot print is constant until now. Today the carbon is many times what would be considered normal and there is only one way for the carbon to get into the air, that is the burning of fuel, fossil fuel. It is not caused by volcano's I know I asked, or any other source, so the question is what causes this high carbon output.

Answer, MAN.

River

Put enough human bodies in a room, and the room gets hot.

Seven billion people must radiate a lot of heat.

And at about 8 gallons of water per person, a lot of water is taken out of the environment and bundled up into human bodies.

Well, maybe 56 billion gallons of water isn't that much, compared to an ocean. But it is still a lot of water.

And seven billion people exhaling, that must have some effect.

We have found the enemy, and it is us.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:58 pm So now that the thread on a movie has expanded to politics and global warming, I have a question about global warming models. Has anyone seen one which explains the warming 10,000 years ago? It cannot be from human affects on climate (not that there are none). I am just curious what caused that warming.

There wasn't warming about 10,000 years ago. The warming trend began about 18,000 years ago when the earth entered the Terminal Pleistocene Era. That warming trend was interrupted three times by the Oldest Older, and younger Dryas Periods when arctic conditions returned. The specific cause of these coolings (which mostly affected Europe and Asia) was paradoxically warming in North America. As the Laurentide Ice Sheet melted it created a huge freshwater lake, Lake Agassiz, over much of North America. About 15,000 years ago, the lake burst out through what is now Hudson's Bay and dumped huge amounts of fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean. Salt water holds more heat than fresh water (that's one reason to add salt to boiling water-- to make it hotter) and the subsequent cooling of the ocean shut off the Gulf Stream and froze Europe until about 14,650 BP (before the present, which is defined as 1950 CE). The last of these transient cooling periods, the Younger Dryas ended about 11,500 years ago. That event marks the end of the Pleistocene (or Ice Age) and the beginning of the Holocene, which is technically an interglacial period, not a restoration of the balmy times of the Jurassic. From 11,500 to 9,300 BP, we entered the pre-Boreal period in which the arctic conditions of the Younger Dryas were relieved by a warm, continental climate. The Boreal (9300 to 8900 BP) was a warmer continental climate (warm/hot summers cold, snowy winters), then warm moist weather from the Atlantic ushered in the Atlantic climatic optimum from 8900 to 5700 BP which was the warmest post-Ice Age climate with a warmer marine climate (mild rainy winters, warm, mild wet summers). From 5700 to 2600 BP there was a return to Continental conditions of the Sub-Boreal. After 2600 BP (or 650 BCE) the Continental climate cooled off a couple of degrees and we entered until recently the Sub-Atlantic Era.

The changes in world temperature and thus climate are complex and varied. In addition to the salinity of the ocean water (which is a minor factor) there are two major factors. One is the configuration of land masses. When most of the land is concentrated around the equator, the climate is warm because warm water travels all the way up to the poles and the oceans are ice free. When land is at the poles, snow accumulates. Warm water stays around the equator and cold water circulates around the polar land masses and cools the higher latitudes. Because Antarctica is sitting on the south pole and Greenland is awfully close,we will never return to the era of the Carboniferous when Pennsylvania and West Virginia were one huge swamp.

Continental Drift is a slow but inevitable process. Eventually the continents shift position enough though to divert ocean currents and change climate patterns.

The other major factor is the wobble of the earth's rotation. This is a very complex cycle but the earth doesn't travel in a perfect circle and in fact in summer the northern hemisphere is farther away from the sun than it is in the winter, but then it is pointing away from sun. Consequently summers in the northern hemisphere are cooler than those in the southern hemisphere. Part of the wobble (there are three types of wobble, eccentricity or the elliptical orbit around the sun, obliquity or the slight change in the tilt of the earth's axis, and the precession which affects where the North Pole points) means that the earth goes through a 27,000 year cycle that alters the amount of solar radiation that we receive.

The really frightening thing about global warming is that Greenland is ever so slightly moving northward, and that should be increasing the amount of arctic land and so cool the earth. By Milankovitch's calculations we should be experiencing a cooling trend with reduced solar radiation (and in fact fall colors and other indicators show that we are receiving slightly reduced solar radiation each year as Milankovitch predicted. Yet the global temperature keeps rising.

May we assume you are, in some way, professionally connected to this field? Wow...Interesting...Thanks, Gareth...Jackie

butterflyjack (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2012 2:21 am May we assume you are, in some way, professionally connected to this field? Wow...Interesting...Thanks, Gareth...Jackie

Agree, I knew someone with a science background would chime in on this and I thank you for that.

River

PS - you should take this diatribe with a huge grain of salt. Global warming is real. Get used to it.

I've explained this "global warming" thing before and after an explanation (which takes quite a few words) only got scorn and dismissal.

I actually saw the temperature and data on CO2 emissions and saw the real models and understand the strengths and weaknesses of both and "global warming" is a fact. HOWEVER, the way that the thread on the movie "DAY AFTER TOMORROW" got sidetracked was on my post of Texas outlawing "critical thinking"

The opponents of "global warming" lack the ability to see the science behind it (Sorry if that sounds harsh but I spent 30 years in the energy business and have a degree in chemical engineering from a very good school) and when people who can't balance their checkbook rag me out in the vilest language (not on this board) or simply dismiss me as a fool. I grow tired of even explaining.

As Jimmy Breslin once said -- I know how tired y'all get from moving your lips while reading.

That's the way I feel at this point.

The Keystone Pipeline is a mistake of gargantuan proportions.

Do I sound bitter and pissed off this morning? Yes. Blame it on hemorrhoids and a summer cold if you want. I got both.

Blame it on everything else but mankind.

But first, stop listening to the deniers.

I started these discussions in real life back 1995 (not the EA). I worked on "clean coals" from 1985. I Was one of the original scientists on "coal to oil" demonstration plants in 1975 to 79 (yes that's 1979 when Jimmy Carter was in office) and I'm tired of explaining the same thing over and over when the a "perfect fool" in opposition spouts some psuedo-science and destroys all of that explanation in their mind because they lack critical thinking skills.

That's the dangerous lie spread by the right wing yakking about "liberal education" ...

I heard back in the late 1990's that global warming was due to sunspots. --- my ass is affected by sunspots, too. Poo flies out of it.

I heard for too many years now that it "normal" we've had ice ages 10,000 years ago. (But never with 6 billion humans trying to survive on the planet)

It's a cycle, it's happened before. ?? Seriously ? Mankind had another time on earth or 6 million population and lost and lots of cars. That's cyclical. And I"m the queen of England.

Another canard - WE will always find replacement petroleum. This is true but only for those who want to pay hundreds of dollars a barrel (we've already hit $100 and nearly crashed the economy again on talk of war)...

YES, that's the ultimate gasoline problem -- real wars and economic recessions.

"I want it and I want it now!" is the cry of the denier.

So I'm going to take my rant and some chicken soup and treat my cold.

PS - you should take this diatribe with a huge grain of salt. Global warming is real. Get used to it.

nullorchis (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:56 pm Put enough human bodies in a room, and the room gets hot.

Seven billion people must radiate a lot of heat.

And at about 8 gallons of water per person, a lot of water is taken out of the environment and bundled up into human bodies.

Well, maybe 56 billion gallons of water isn't that much, compared to an ocean. But it is still a lot of water.

And seven billion people exhaling, that must have some effect.

We have found the enemy, and it is us.

It is my understanding that, as a "greenhouse gas," water vapor is more potent than carbon dioxide. However, I am also unaware of anyone who has figured out how to regulate atmospheric humidity effectively or efficiently or economically.

In my view, as a biological scientist, we are not the enemy, but rather, our ignorance would be the enemy, if any enemy were actually possible. Alas, I sadly note that ignorance merely signifies unrealized learning possibilities, and it is actually impossible to have an actual enemy that actually does not actually exist. That which is yet to be learned is not part of that which has already actually been learned.

Methinks that humanity may be learning that attempting to rule the biophysical world with sincerely adamant ignorance and relentlessly intransigent stupidity may be fraught with perils not yet well anticipated.

janekane (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:09 am It is my understanding that, as a "greenhouse gas," water vapor is more potent than carbon dioxide. However, I am also unaware of anyone who has figured out how to regulate atmospheric humidity effectively or efficiently or economically.

In my view, as a biological scientist, we are not the enemy, but rather, our ignorance would be the enemy, if any enemy were actually possible. Alas, I sadly note that ignorance merely signifies unrealized learning possibilities, and it is actually impossible to have an actual enemy that actually does not actually exist. That which is yet to be learned is not part of that which has already actually been learned.

Methinks that humanity may be learning that attempting to rule the biophysical world with sincerely adamant ignorance and relentlessly intransigent stupidity may be fraught with perils not yet well anticipated.

AMEN!, Mr. janekane.

...now please pass the potatoes and the motor oil...

janekane (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 04, 2012 6:09 am Methinks that humanity may be learning that attempting to rule the biophysical world with sincerely adamant ignorance and relentlessly intransigent stupidity may be fraught with perils not yet well anticipated.

On the other hand, you might be over-rating us, janekane.

Thanks for the explanation, gareth. I rarely deal in stuff younger than 20 million years, so that is a time frame that I am unclear about.