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Major Climate Change 5,200 Years Ago Could Repeat
An anonymous reader writes "The climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts. Famouse glaciologist professor Lonnie Thompson have found clues that show history repeating itself. Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe. He outlined his fears today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. 'The evidence clearly points back to this point in history and to some event that occurred. It also points to similar changes occurring in today's climate as well,' he said."
New York City will be flooded by seawater, the temperature will plunge at a rate of 10 degrees per second, and people will be transformed into ice statues where they stand. Tokyo will be bombarded with killer hailstones! The polar ice caps will MELT. This sounds like the perfect storyline for a really shitty mov-- oh, right..
from the article
"The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway."
President George W. Bush disagrees with this. Therefore more study is needed.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
here...http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/quelpla nt.htm
This story is a dupe from 3196 B.C.
i see how it is. i finally get a girlfriend and now the planet's going to freeze over.
thanks a fucking bunch, environment.
We know that in the past the earth has gone through many (often cataclysmic) climate changes. We also know that this will happen again.
Since the 70's every now and again someone predicts that such a climate change is just around the corner. The truth is that these predictions are very inaccurate. I'm talking thousands of years uncertainty. I see nothing in this article that makes this prediction any different.
So relax, the chances of anything like this happening in your lifetime is vanishingly small.
siener's youtube channel
Uhmm.. G.W Bush claims that "Global Warming" (henceforth referred to as "G.W") will melt the poles and ....
Whitehouse later retracted the claims when they realized NYC will be under 20 feet of sea water. The Gaia theory has been proposed along with Alaskan ice to fix the issue in concern.God shall call forth another great flood to cleanse the world.
Of course he blames the entire problem on Iraq and the fact that they set fire to oil wells in Kuwait in 1991 leading to a rise in temperature of the Free World. Also Canadians contribute to this problem in no small amount as a comparitive study of houses with central heating in Miami and Tornoto showed.
Mmm... twisted newsQuidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
I think it's a bit much to claim that we're headed for an ice age or that our own emissions are the cause for it. However I do think we should take better care of our enviroment. Regardless of ice ages and such we're fucking up our enviroment and it is disgusting. Driving towards LA is revolting and it's not much better in other major cities. We need to replace our road systems with effecient electric train systems and more people need to go back to walking and biking. It'd certainly not hurt if people would stop throwing their garbage on the ground wherever they go. People, and especially us Americans, are slobs. We need to change our lifestyle before we live in total filth.
I live in Las Vegas right now and most days you can't see across the valley even. Driving through town is a horrible experience. The Strip is especially bad. That area at least should be blocked to non-commercial and non-emergency traffic (ie firetrucks, FedEx, and taxis should be able to go through). I'd not get rid of roads entirely but I'd cut them down to one or two lanes and I'd encourage non-commercial traffic to come by train or taxi rather than driving.
Most places I've lived it's been all but taboo to walk or bicycle. Tell a job that you're going to walk or bicycle or even take the bus to work and they're a lot less likely to hire you. Often there aren't bike lanes or sidewalks. Bicyclists and even walkers get hid by careless drivers all the time. Small effecient vehicles like the recently popular scooters are often against the law to use on either street or sidewalk. Not exactly encouraging to those that'd like a cheaper and more enviromentally friendly way of getting around.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
i do not think climate change is junk science.
that aside i would like to see a more balanced view in mainstream research. all to many simply view human society as the culprit and leave it at that. this paper says it happend 5200 years ago and now its happening again. well human outlet of green house gases were not responsible then, are they now? i reasonly watched a television program on the subject and the most interesting thing was that several of the researchers cliamed that when looking at temperature raise in atmosphere (as opposed to ground level) only a 1/3 of the projected raise was seen! they further claimed the reason for this discrepancy was the fact that many of the early temperature measuring stations was set up in or around citys dos measuring not global warming but local warming as a result of city expansion. now this is not to say the green house thing is wrong just that it may be more complex then "green house gases did it!!".
just my 2 cent (euro cent!)
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot.
I hate so-called scientists who can predict global warming but not predict the weather tomorrow
That is because there is a difference between weather and climate. Can I predict that it will be warmer in summer? Yes. Can I predict which days will be sunny and which cloudy next summer? No. That a system is too chaotic to predict on a microlevel does not mean we can't understand or predict it on a macrolevel. Though we know the exact half life of a substance, we can't tell which atoms will be affected. Do you hate "so called physicists" too?
In the same way, we can predict that the globe is getting hotter, and approximately how many degrees. The question is why, and if we can do anything about it.
Some researchers notes that the earth were four degrees warmer around 1000 BC (my memory may be wrong with the year) and that the climate also were significantly warmer 800-1200 AD which let to prosperity up until the colder middle age. So let us look forward to a bit of warming!
Doubtful. Most climate models predict an increasingly chaotic weather as temperature increases - floods, tornados, draughts, increasing desertification. Any economic benefits we get from higher crops or less energy going to heating is quickly going to be eaten up.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Some references to further information. Google can supply nonsensical 'sceptic' links if you really want to see what the oil lobby and AM radio types want you to think. Personally I'll take the likes of Science and Nature journals, thirty years of research by peer-reviewed scientists over Rush Limbaugh any day.
- RealClimate.org/a>
- http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
- Global Warming FAQ
- http://ebulletin.le.ac.uk/features/2000-2009/2004
/ 12/nparticle-vkt-hgf-t4c
What really frightens me is that since I started following the science of this stuff in the mid 80s, evidence has consistently emerged that shows the IPCC-type predictions are actually rather conservative. Real climatologists are now very, very worried.Oh and by the way: the world's fastest moving glacier, in Greenland, doubled it's speed according to NASA research. If the Greenland ice-shelf slides into the sea you'd better be living in the Rockies with a large stash of tinned goods.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The Maya's an Aztechs are announcing this with their calendar that includes 'new suns' every 5200 years and with the new sun comes an enormous climate change. Guess what according to the maya's the new sun is coming in the year 2012.l l2/silburyhill2004b.html
More information about this can be found at a site about cropcircles, a certain crop which one the title 'cropcircle of the year' which is a doomsday calender which is warning for the new sun. The site explains the maya calender which fits exactly over the 5200 years of the old sun which according to the calendar will be replaced by the new sun and climate in 2012. http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2004/silburyhi
Actually there was once a 'total' ice age. Well it's a hypothesis, but gaining in credibility. It was a doozy, but a long time ago. Check it out : Snowball Earth. The global ice age was ended by volcanism producing CO2, as normal, but this built up because the rocks that would remove the CO2 through weathering were under the ice, so a warming period began which brought the world back ... one almighty feedback. Long long time ago Precambrian, still it probably did happen once ... could happen again if the CO2 and methane was low enough I guess.
Bitter and proud of it.
To raise a question, and put my Fatalistic hat on:
If Act of G-d similar to Jacob and the famine in Egypt is definitely going to occur, why not make Hay while the sun shines, in preparation for the famine??
So the scientists would have to show that any Kyoto-agreement like cut would be beneficial overall, not just putting your finger in a dyke. If we concentrate on trying to avoid it, and fail to make preparations, it could end up worse. This is not to deny that some companies and countries are evil and irresponsible muthafukkas. All this impending doom stuff is still unsubstantiated beyond this guy.
The scientists need more funds to conduct studies.
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It "was altered"? By who? The cavemen? Or was it the vast civilization of the woolly mammoth whose massive industrialized society spewed greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?
I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Hey, fella, guess what? You're in luck!The consensus on human CO2 emissions causing climate change is about as solid as you can get - despite what the oil-lobby, uninformed trolls and assorted net.kooks would have you believe.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
"I'll believe in global warming the minute 'scientists' find something to agree on."
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You hit on the operative word--"believe."
Environmentalism (as opposed to conservation) has deteriorated into a religion, which by definition mandates belief from followers. If you doubt this, witness two of the topics that generate the most comments and flaming "Flamebait" moderations on
Post something questioning religion (mainstream), global warming, or man's impact on the environment, then sit back and watch the zealot fireworks show.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
it was clear that the oceans would die by the turn of the century, the ozone hole would be so large it would cover parts of Africa, people would be dieing of radiation poisoning from the sun... etc etc etc.
Weren't the ice caps supposed to be all gone soon?
Why should even the public take notice anymore? The boy who cried wolf syndrome has worn done the public's acceptance.
Proof has been constantly cited since the 70s and yet all the dire predictions have come to naught. I am not saying they are all wrong, I am saying that their proof leaves a lot to be desired and the only cause they are hurting is their own. I still laugh at all the predictions of doom from Kuwati and Iraqi oil fields being set ablaze if America acted (back in GulfWar1 and now 2)
Face it, a cosmic mishap (solar/meteor), will do more to us than we can do short of a nuclear war. A few good volcanoes provide visible effect that the public can see and in some cases experience. The same effects are blamed on Global Warming by one group and El Nino by the next.
Global Scientist are sure of one thing, that the weather is constantly changing. What they haven't proven beyond reasonable doubt is that mankind is the primary mover behind it, nor that America is the primary mover either.
You want to see real pollution, travel to former Soviet states. You will see stuff that will make you cry. You want to see new and greater abuses of the environment just jog over to China - but don't expect anyone to care.
In 20 years some then current environmentalist when confronted by dire predictions 20 years ago will dismiss those people as not having had the full picture whereas they do now. The same this is being said when opponents to the current pc point of view point out the fallacies of 20 years ago.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This is the same line of crap that I heard back in the 60's. That is all the DDT that we were spraying could not impact nature. Companies everywhere were saying that they could not possibly impact nature and while there might be some minor local issues it would never travel.
To put forward totally false assertions (volcanos dump more CO2 than all of mankind does) is the same tripe that is being spewed by the oil companies. Mankind dumps a lot more CO2 than all but the very large super-volcanos (think Yellowstone).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I know the idea that our environment is a static entity that will only be changed should someone like the evil corporations or the Bush administration do something to it is a commonly accepted idea, but that is just scientifically inaccurate.
That's also a straw man argument, since no one is making that claiming. Everyone knows that the environment can be affected by things beyond man's control. But that doesn't mean that we should just ignore those things we can control. "Well, a meteor strike could wipe out life on Earth, so let's not worry about dioxyn, PCBs, air pollution, or greenhouse gas emissions. And what's with those whiners in Bhopal, India? So what if Union Carbide killed thousands. Earthquakes kill thousands of people, so why should Union Carbide have to be concerned with safety?" That's Republican logic (to use an oxymoron) for you.
What I get from this is that we'd better stand very still, because we don't know what changes will do what. For now, the safest course of action is to change NOTHING, i.e., maintain current levels without significant decrease until the science is better understood.
It's entirely conceivable that, as nature has tried to correct for the changes (via algal blooms in the ocean, for example), significant *decreases* could have a recoil effect. It's entirely possible that blindly trying to undo things can get us into more trouble. There are plenty of phenomena (most?) that can't run backwards the same way they ran forwards (you can't pull a nail out of a board and have the board return to where it had been pre-nail; a girl in a skirt jumping man-show style on a trampoline exhibits completely different behavior on the way up than coming down).
Second, why are we so self-centered that we believe that the status quo at the time of our grandfathers is the CORRECT natural balance? Earth doesn't care. She's equally happy with ocean levels a foot higher. Why do we feel that one set of temperatures/precipitations/set of species is inherently better than another?
(and, to completely stray from the topic, why do we feel so rooted to the current environment but not the same way to the Constitution?)
show me a solution to the problem and will back it
The problems are:
1) Convention. We have infrastructure in place to burn fossil fuels, and inertia being what it is, we continue along that course. Maintaining the status quo is bad for the environment. It also results in an unfavorable balance of trade for the US. I was amused by the public service announcements equating drug use with funding terrorists. The US is addicted to oil from the Middle East, and that addiction is the real source of funding for Middle Eastern terrorists.
2) Subsidies. There are pseudo-subsidies which make it difficult for alternative energy to compete with fossil fuels. These aren't direct government subsidies to the oil industry, although some amount of that wouldn't surprise me. Many of the costs of burning fossil fuels are not paid by the fuel infrastructure. Pollution is paid for in a number of other places, including everything from the EPA budget, to the increased cost of insurance and health care relating to environmentally related illnesses, to the increased maintenance costs we all pay for tasks such as repainting because smog damages almost everything it touches. And who pays for medical care of coal miners with black lung? How much of our taxes does the US government contribute to cleaning up oil spills? If fossil fuels paid for all the problems they cause our society, solar and wind power would be more than cost effective in a fair comparison.
3) Fuelish Government Policies. As one example, the US government offers a substantial tax break to businesses who buy trucks of a certain size. The idea was ostensibly to encourage small businesses to buy delivery trucks and farmers to buy farm related vehicles. But the policy was almost instantly exploited. It encouraged automakers to produce the land barge sized SUVs. Almost every auto maker has a model large enough to qualify, and they're sold to businesses that provide them as company cars. So the government is encouraging auto makers to build 12 mpg SUVs, by offering tax incentives for businesses to buy them.
GM created the EV1 electric car. They leased them to many customers, and the customers loved them. They were very low maintenance, requiring no oil changes and even reduced brake wear because they employed regenerative braking. Best of all, there was never a need to stop for gas. It charges automatically while parked in the garage at night when the off peak electric rates are low. It's easy to imagine solar charging for the EV1. But GM decided to focus 30+ years down the road on the hope of hydrogen cars. Despite angry protests from their customers, they pulled the EV1 off lease. Some of their customers wanted to absolve GM of all liability and support for the EV1 and purchase it outright, after essentially already buying it during the lease period. GM refused. It sure looks like an attempt to suppress technology.
So, here are the solutions to the problem. Start backing them.
We could have electric cars today that pollute much less than internal combustion engine cars, even when they're ultimately powered by coal powered plants as an interim solution. Solar power is available almost everywhere and even though Moore's Law does not apply to solar cells, a similar effect seems likely. Once we converted our energy system to mostly solar, huge economies of scale apply and the price drops enormously. Solar panels have proven to be low maintenance with long term reliability. If we get the initial cost down, the payback period will be shorter and this technology will appeal even to short sighted American businesses.
We need less expensive solar cells, more efficient energy storage devices, and a change in our infrastructure to support alternative energy solutions.
Finally, one obviously simple technique that would have the single largest impact in our energy policy would be to drastically reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burned for space heating and water heating.
>> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
Sure, and in WW2, recruits were doused with DDT powder to get rid of body lice, with no ill effect, as is agreed by anyone who knows anything about the subject.
The key is that the form in which a substance is delivered determines if it can be absorbed into the body and delivered to the right places to do damage. This is the same reason that the idea of spiking a water supply with plutonium to kill millions of people is not going to work.
DDT is not all that acutely toxic. But it can be delivered to animals, particularly predator birds, in a very harmful way.
The key is that DDT persists in the environment. It is not broken down by organisms ingesting it, it is mainly stored in their tissues. Thus it disappears from the environment very, very slowly. Exotic organic chemicals that behave this way, or that break down into other chemicals that behave this way, are a problem even if they don't necessarily have immediate impact on the environment. If critter A ingests the rather low concentrations in the general environment, no particular harm occurs. What people immediately missed is that if critter B eats critter A, he'll get a somewhat bigger dose of the material than critter A did, because terrestrial animals need to consume something like ten pounds of food to create a pound of body mass. Critter C gets an even bigger dose, all the way down to critter Z which gets a huge dose.
This process of amplification of the background concentration of a non-biodegradable substance is called bioaccumulation. Birds are particularly vulnerable because their energy requirements are so high, especially raptors like eagles.
Yet, even so, the effect of DDT on birds is not very acutely toxic. It has a subtle effect. Unfortunately that subtle effect happens to be that they lay eggs with extremely brittle shells.
Personally, I don't think DDT should have necessarily been banned, however, it was overused. It could have been used in emergency situations for a limited time at a rate close to the rate at which it would eventually disappear (if that rate could be determined). However it was used in typical 50s fashion as a miracle quick fix agent. The spirit is not completely lost -- we use antibacterial agents in soap, even matresses, for absolutely no good reason.
In any case, materials now in use, such as permethrin (targetting adult insects) do break down in the environment. This means that they don't bioaccumulate. The disadvantage is that you have to use them more frequently. The advantage is that you use them in response to an actual problem. Other materials such as BT that target larval stage insects not only biodegrade, but target smaller habitats. Rather than saturate broad swathsw environment with an agent that kills adult insects (including beneficials), you target the specific habitat where insects develop in their early larval stages. Furthermore with integrated pest management, a combination of strategies are used such as targetting and reducing specific habitats important to precise life stages of specific insects.
The bottom line is that properly and wisely applied, the world probably could make use DDT. But we were wrong to use it the way we did, and probably right to ban it so we'd be forced to develop effective and environmentally responsible strategies and materials. And we have. If we hadd DDT in our armamentarium, it'd only make a marginal difference.
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That's known as a truism. It's the warm periods that delineate the ice ages (and vice versa). If you had two ice ages in a row, we'd just call it one long ice age. Similarly for warm periods.
Saying things like "we have less effect than one major Eruption", may be true while the eruption is going on, but few major eruptions continue for more than a few days. Our society is having an effect in the range of a major eruption, but 24/7, 365 days a year.It's like the difference to your electric bill between baking a cake, and leaving the oven on -- door open -- for an entire month.
Especially in the early days of global warming research, there was a lot of controversy over whether it was happening, and whether human activity was a (or the) prime contributor. In the last few years, however, it's become more a question of how fast and how far.
The north pole, which has survived for millenia has thinned by 30% in the last couple of decades -- at that rate it could be gone in my lifetime -- and in the meantime, it's eating a lot of the excess energy that we've been pumping into the ecosystem and capturing with the greenhouse effect.
A similar effect is occurring in antarctica. Ice shelves that have survived 3 or 4 ice-age cycles are breaking off wholesale. Right now, there's a massive 80 mile long iceberg that is threatening to starve one of the major penguin colonies (as well as possibly preventing this year's supplies from being delivered to three antarctic research station)
Consider now, an entirely different analogy:
Let's say you're driving down the road one night, and 5 people try to warn you (over the CB radio) that the bridge ahead seems to be washed out. You're in a rush (late for a hot date), and none of these people has actally seen the washed out bridge. Furthermore, one person is telling you that the road ahead is fine (your rival for the date you're going to meet). Do you keep going pedal-to-the-metal, or do you slow down enough so that you can stop if the bridge is really out?
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"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Parent post is revealing Cheney's undisclosed location! Mod parent down unless you hate America!
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