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The Arctic's Tropical Past
140Mandak262Jamuna writes "The BBC reports on findings that the arctic/polar region was tropical some 55 Million years ago." From the article: "Although the data tells us how the world changed from one with green house conditions to one with ice house conditions millions of years ago, it may also help scientists to predict what will result from the present changes in climate. Appy Sluijs points out that the data reveals that some of the climate models used to detail the Arctic's history got things wrong, and as they are the same models that predict our future climate they may need adjusting. " The reader pointed out that this may have had as much to do with continental drift as it did climate change.
The blast door map Locke discovered in the episode "Lockdown" explains why the polar bear was there.
...that if anybody questions the Global Warming model, it's some kind of heresy, yet any kind of study, evidence or experimental result which could possibly be construed as contradicting at least some aspects of the Global Warming model is always instantly dismissed by GW fans as a mere...model?
I don't know if GW is really occurring or whether humanity is contributing to it if it is happening, and I recognise the obvious fact that outfits such as Bush Inc will lie and cheat to deny at all costs that it's happening, but I also note that GW-proponents are some of the least fucking tolerant of alternative possibilities.
Continental drift occurs much too slowly to have the effects indicated by the core samples in this study. Over the last 55 million years, the arctic has been about where it is now.
Probably very true, but: until about 55—40 million years ago Australia and Antarctica were joined together as the last piece of the supercontinent Gondwana (itself a piece of the former Pangea, which slowly broke up over the course of the Mesozoic). When Australia rifted off, the first Antarctic ice sheet started forming. Australia-Antarctica together had formed a longish, north-south oriented continent that deflected east-west ocean currents, forcing warm and cold water from the various latitudes to mix. (This is similar to how North America today deflects the Gulf Stream—a warm current—north, until it ends up wrapping around a little and points at Europe from the north-west, which contributes a lot of the moisture that the British Isles are so famous for.) As the two were separated, the currents were no longer deflected, and a cold current was allowed to form around Antarctica.
Of course, that means that Australia's moved as far as it has in 40—55 million years, but I vaguelly remember reading somewhere that that particular plate is a world-record holder as far as speed of drift goes.
The U.S. Constitution needs to be ammended with a "separation of business and state" clause.