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Another 150,000 Years of CO2 Data
An anonymous reader writes, "We've known since 2004 that the past 440,000 years have shown atmospheric carbon dioxide levels varying between about 200 and 300 ppmv, the difference in extremes being the difference between advancing ice sheets and our current clime. In 2005 the data were analyzed back to 650,000 years and were found to be much the same — Al Gore was proud to be able to show that then-new analysis in his 2006 movie An Inconvenient Truth. Now all 800,000 years of the ice column have been analyzed, and the data show much the same pattern, according to the researcher: 'When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural range' — to 380 ppmv."
O'Reilly points out that if igorants in a 3rd-world country like Brazil can wean it off oil and onto ethanol, there is no reason why people in the supposedly most technologically advanced country (i.e., the USA) cannot do the same. O'Reilly claims that the reason for America's still being dependent on foreign oil is that Washington is in the pockets of Big Oil: ExxonMobile, Chevron, and Shell.
I really liked the move, I've got just one complaint. There are way too many shots of Gore being driven around in a big car or being flowin around in a jet. The whole movie, he talks about reducing our carbon footprint, but he doesn't use public transit once in the movie. I can't believe the filmmakers didn't see this jumping right out at them.
If you'd like to use some of the data these articles discuss, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 or turn the sun down by a few percent all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Space and Computers.
It's funny that you were marked insightful when, in fact, you were anything but.
Going to Mars and working on terraforming there will help us learn many skills that we will need to unfuck Terra, not least because the effort itself will drive technology.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't worry the dimwits are on both sides.
Want to see how many of them pointed to the last two years of above normal Atlantic hurricanes as "proof" of global warming? Most experts stated that the Atlantic was in a natural peak hurricane cycle.
So far this year is running below normal. I guess global warming is over.
In this case both sides seem equally willing to abuse science to prove their point.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Sure we can, just fire off all our nukes at once and you'll see our temprature change. the big point is, is that after all that is said and done, the 1 and only major contributor to the average global temprature is the amount of energry radiated by the sun, by about 99.999999%.
Actually, studies of just this have indicated that changes in the sun's output account for about 30% of the changes in global temperature. That's significant to be sure, but still leaves 60% to be accounted for from other sources.
And even at the most basic, think-about-it-for-five-seconds common sense level, there are clearly at least two major contributors to global temperature: 1) the amount of energy received by the sun and 2) the amount of energy retained. Or does it drop to a few degrees K where you live at night when you're only receiving energy from the stars? Do you not believe in greenhouses?
The enemies of Democracy are