Slashdot Mirror
Global Warming May Have Killed the Dinosaurs
The Fun Guy sent in a link to the American Society for Microbiology site, your leading news source for everything between nano and macro. The site is featuring a story about new research into the KT barrier extinction: the period in history where the dinosaurs went extinct, along with a number of other families of species. For a number of years scientists have theorized that an impact on the Yucatan peninsula was responsible for the species crash, but microbiological examination of marine organisms of the time indicate life persisted for another 300,000 years after the 'Chicxulub impact'. The researchers at Princeton who made this discovery theorize that global warming caused by a volcanic eruption in India is a more likely culprit for the world-wide devastation. The article generalizes that there is no 'smoking gun' for this event, and further research is required.
Ironically, the dinosaurs are playing a leading role in our own Global Warming Saga.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
Nothing is safe from being editorialized.
The article generalizes that there is no 'smoking gun' for this event, and further research is required. (my italics for emphasis)
Isn't that better than generalizing that it had to be the volcanoes?
Money is the root of all evil?
"Global Warming May Have Killed the Dinosaurs"
;-)
So Global Warming looks like a comet? Good thing McNaught isn't going to hit us, eh?
It's sad that there's a massive following of climate change deniers online, but such is the nature of the Internet - even the kooks have large communities that can email millions of people.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The most plausible work I've seen on the subject is based on Durda & Kring's recent work on giant impacts and heat of re-entry. Based on the size of the Chixculub (sp?) impact crater, they concluded that the heat of re-entering rock on ballistic trajectories would have heated almost the entire atmosphere to incandescence. This is global warming of a sort, I suppose.
I've seen talks by archaeobiologists who assert that the dinosaurs were simply broiled by the heat coming from the atmosphere. That theory nicely explains why small, burrowing creatures suddenly took off and why the seas weren't as strongly affected by the land: anything small enough to hide in a burrow, or agile enough to swim deep underwater for a few days survived (at least in numbers large enough to propagate); everything else was cooked. It is also consistent with the fossil record, which shows huge amounts of charcoal cinders near the K-T boundary wherever you look, and a drastic change in the types of pollen present.
Disclaimer: I am not a paleontologist, I'm only an astrophysicist.
Now we all wait for Al-Gores SECOND film on global warming. Global warming is going to kill the dinosaurs!
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
Obviously, the government needs to enforce reductions in volcanic emissions. In order to save our planet, we need to progress toward the use of more environmentally-friendly natural disasters.
"The findings suggest that global cooling led to a sea level drop from about 80 m to 30 m that apparently was more detrimental to foraminifera than was the Chicxulub impact, which occurred during the preceding warming." Maybe I'm missing something but I always thought the meteorite caused a lot of dust which obscured the sun and led to global cooling. That's what also happens with a volcano. So the Slashdot article says one thing but the article it cites says another. Hmm.
I wonder what the dinosaurs were driving or what other kinds of industrialization they had back then to cause their global warming because obviously global warming can't be caused by any natural or astronomical event. The majority of our scientists have have agreed on that, so it's got to be true.
Sh*t...I got sarcasm all over my keyboard. It'll take weeks to clean this up now.
WESAYSO, the then military-industrial complex, caused it, just like the series said!
The dinosaurs were responsible for their own extinction. /dnrtfs
I know of at least one paper, published by Prof. Dewey McLean of Virginia Tech in the journal Science in 1978 that suggested that a major warming event was the cause of the K-T extinctions: "A terminal Mesozoic greenhouse: lessons from the past" (Science, 1978). Sometime later, he identified the Deccan Traps volcanism as a likely source of the CO2 that may have induced this warming: "Terminal Cretaceous Extinctions and Volcanism: a Link", in an abstract at the AAAS National Meeting, Toronto, Canada, in January 1981.
How do they explain away the layer of iridium rich clay (around the world) from around the time of the mass extinction. Current theory says it's vaporized impact material.
[Insert pithy quote here]
"For a number of years scientists have theorized that an impact on the Yucatan peninsula was responsible for the species crash, but microbiological examination of marine organisms of the time indicate life persisted for another 300,000 years after the 'Chicxulub impact'."
Wow, I wonder if there's still life on the planet in question...
The Chicxulub event, while large, is not the only large impact suffered in Earth's history. There are quite a number of large craters in the geologic history, and probably more that we have not stumbled upon yet. The Earth Impact Database lists two craters larger than Chicxulub:
S ort2.htm
http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase/CIDiameter
Wikipedia blurbs on the two largest (as usual, do more research to verify if interested:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vredefort_crater
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Basin
There are also questions about a possible crater in Antarctica, but it's too new an announcement to know if the features observed are actually impact related: http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/erthboom.htm
My question is, why would the Chicxulub event have been so uniquely deadly?
I suppose one possible scenario is a double (or more) sucker punch of large impact followed by volcanic activity and/or other factors that happened to hit while the Earth was still recovering from the impact. Of course, that's a bit complex for a spectacular headline.
I hope work continues on this - it's a fascinating insight into our environment and might be useful in knowing how to safeguard ourselves against changes in the future.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
First global warming winnowed down the diversity of species.
Later, global cooling wiped out the ones that were left.
From what they can tell, the Chicxulub impact occured too early to have triggered the global cooling.
If only the Dinos carpooled they would still be around!!!!
Dinosaurs had an evil exploitative capitalistic society? Who would have thunk it...
p.s. I would post more, but I'm recycling ascii characters in an effort to save the planet.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The circular Bushveld Complex is even larger than any of those (50,000 sq km!), but it is so old, that no-one knows whether it was the world's largest volcano, or the world's largest asteroid impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushveld
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
... to about 400 degrees Fahrenheit all across the globe within about an hour of impact. There was an article in Scientific American a couple of years ago that described it in vivid detail.
Nah. Everybody knows the real reason they died out.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
But reptiles tend to do pretty well in heat compared to mammals because their metabolism is slower.
Table-ized A.I.
It really isn't clear from the article how they define the boundry. It seems like a geologically disturbed region and somehow they put the boundry well above the glass. Yet tsunamis were supposed to have passed there so why not just rapidly cover it we easily eroded disturbed sediment? If the boundry is defined by irridum, and they are drilling in the bottom of a former river, again, sedimentation from irridum enriched erosion might expalain their measurement.
s -selling-solar.html
There is quite a lot of evidence that in less disturbed regions the irridum layer marks the dissaperance of megafauna so why is the survival of microorganisms a tracer of these? The KT boundry does not mark the end of flora, insects or microrganisms, just the big stuff.
More detail would be a big help here.
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Halt global warming. Switch to solar power with ease: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Every time one of these simple-minded "scientists" proclaims Chicxulub didn't do it, because of "X", it reminds me how badly science suffers from monomania.
It's really not that difficult: the Earth's climate has demonstrated multiple stable (more than a few million years) and metastable states, ranging from snowball to hothouse, with side trips through conditions like our current glacial/interglacial metastate. The rate at which climate state can change, once change begins, is generally faster than species, particularly those embedded in "eco-web", can follow. When the Chicxulub event happened, the global climate state was moved toward a different one which was not conducive to the major fauna of the time, the dinosaurs. It didn't kill everything overnight (except near ground zero), but may have thrown off the timing of mating, reduced the efficiency of some primary plant's life-cycle, or in some other way moved the birth rate of the dinosaurs to below replacement (less efficient animals have fewer reserves and are more vulnerable to disease, for example). Some species and ecosystems may have required a few hundred thousand years to dwindle away, but the impact triggered that particular extinction event. Other events, such as the Permian-Triassic extinction, are more likely to have been caused by vulcanism.
I'd like to announce the Escape to Mars Fund. Very soon Global Warming will have destroyed our planet. So I am announcing a Escape to Mars Project. However, I am unable to fund it on my own and require some monetary help. If you are interested in funding the project please respond to this post. If you are interested in applying to be a part of this project respond to this post with a essay about how Global Warming will destroy this world.
Volcanos cause short term cooling until the ash falls out. Many volcanos erupting together cause longer term warming owing to the higher CO2 concentration.
c ould-be-paid-for-by.html you may want to closely scutinize what
has influenced your opinion here.
s -selling-solar.html
You seem to want the climate to be entirely free from constraints of cause and effect, it can go wherever it wants for no reason at all. This is, I think, what you mean by instability. Climate feedbacks do occur but this is not the same thing as the butterfly effect which makes weather difficult to predict. Climate follows forcing and both the short term aerosols that you cite and the long term GHG balance have definite effects on climate.
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Because this false equating of weather behavior and climate behavior has been a major part of a well funded attempt to decieve the public http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/your-opinion-
Skeptical about global warming? Who cares, you can still save money by switching to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
I knew it! George W Bush killed the dinosaurs! Global Warming = Dinosaurs dead it seems to be generally agreed upon worldwide that Bush is enemy #1 of Global Warming so therefore, it logically follows that George Bush killed the dinosaurs! Finally, the people have some solid evidence to charge him with a crime!
If I remember correctly during the age of the dinos the earth was MUCH warmer than today. The O2 content of the atmosphere was also MUCH higher. Also believe it or not the whole asteroid/comet thing killing the dinos off is a theory. Not all of the scientific community is convinced that theory is correct.
Well, that's the polite way of phrasing it. Basically they're just arrogant. They don't understand global warming (or evolution) and they really think that their own seat-of-the-pants assessment is more insightful than that of scientists who make their living analyzing the data. The virulent strain of populism that defines American culture encourages this. Evangelical Christianity encourages this. The media plays into it. The media exists to sell toothpaste and beer, and you don't sell as much toothpaste and beer if your message to viewers is "you don't understand things as well as you think you do, because you lack the education." It's a sad, self-perpetuating situation, but you (and all likeminded people) are stuck in a never-ending cycle of refuting the same claims, again and again and again and...
A professor of mine once pointed out something very interesting about the Indian volcano theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Indian subcontinent was, 65 million years ago, more or less on the exact opposite side of the Earth from what would eventually become the Yucatan Peninsula. Remember that the Earth is really like a huge ball of liquid, molten rock (the mantle) with a thin crust of solidified material on the outside. What happens when you flick a water balloon really hard with your finger, but don't break it? The force of the blow causes waves to radiate throughout the water from the point of impact in all directions, and dissipates against the inside of the balloon. The point of strongest force for these waves will be on the direct opposite side of the balloon from the point of impact, which bubbles out briefly before returning to place.
On a global scale, a massive meteor impact would actually cause massive and very sudden volcanic eruptions on the opposite side of the Earth as it causes a wave of magma to concentrate on one very small spot.
His analogy isn't that bad. The planet generates a lot of heat that comes out from the center.
I guess after following this thing for a long time now I am forced to really fall on the heliocentric model, the sun causes most-not all but most-of the large scale climate change.
Now if you want to talk air pollution, different story. Yes, we should dramatically slow down burning dirty fuels and come up with better replacements for them. One only has to go to the artificial heat and pollution islands in cities, then travel a reasonable distance out into the country and take a few whiffs-much cleaner. Just on that basis I think we should restrict oil based fuels and go to clean electrics and cleaner burning biofuels. Let's leave oil for lubrication and a little manufacturing and stop just raw burning it, that and coal, just too dirty. This is ther 21st century, we can do a lot better with just the tech that is out there now and not being used.
Interesting aside, I was just a little while ago doing some online shopping/browsing looking for a new freezer. There's one out there now, 12 VDC, runs off of ONE solar panel. ONE 75 watt panel. Why? Better quality components for the compressor, and a much better than normal insulation structure. That's it , nothing fancy, just built better. And the price only seemed marginally more than a conventional freezer of similar size, at least from what I was seeing when I went to the local appliance store last week. The insulation is so good that even if it is shady or cloudy for a few days, and the panel can't get much power, the stuff will still stay cold inside because it has like triple the normal insulation and the door seals very well. That's it, low tech that works.
You can do the same with houses, just plain old fashioned more insulation,like triple what even new houses usually have, and that's it. Works, save a ton on the utlity bills, but it won't get any sexy government or academic grants because there's nothing much "new" needs to be discovered there, and it doesn't require hydrogen or fuel cells or any of that boondoggle nonsense. Just thicker walls, better triple pane windows, intelligently designed door frames and window frames with no leaks stupid rough cut leaks hidden by moulding. You won't hardly need heating or cooling to run much at all then to stay comfy. Now ask yourself, why isn't this mandated by "building codes" now? Why are mortgagelenders giving house notes for energy hog houses when they could be built much better for roughly only 10% more in construction costs? I got the answer to that one, turn it around, Who WOULDN'T profit from people using much less energy? the big energy companies? Who has the juice to keep forcing government to mandate endless studies and not actually do anything? Why are we still stuck at 1960s level 2x4 stick frame construction, with 3 inches insulation in the walls (not even that thick really, try 2 and 5/8ths from the exterior sheathing to the interior drywall) and six inches in the attic (if you are lucky, a ton of contractors plop down the same thin roll there, too) and leaks all over the house and crappy windows? Even though the houses cost 5 times as much now as they did in the 60s? Why do the energy companies who are in the business of selling you power call that a "good cents seal of industry approval!!1one!" home, when it clearly isn't to anyone with even a modicum of engineering savvy?
Who killed the electric car? Who keeps killing the energy efficient home?
Could it be they just figgered out they make HELLA MORE MONEY off of you doing it the way they keep doing it?
Heh. How is that off topic? I'm pretty sure he's inferring that the dinosaurs drove SUVs and had giant factories and herded a hell of a lot of cows, and politicians that talk a lot of hot air. Thus, the cause for global warming.
Damn wannabes and their junk science. Researcher Gary Larson found the explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs a LONG time ago.
Please slashdot, forget the sensationalism and stick to real science.
Let's address this logically:
1) It took several super volcanos going off at the same time and spewing millions upon millions of tons of contaminants into the air to cause the planet to cool. One volcanic eruption occured in Minnesota and dumped nearly 20 feet of ash in locations several hundred miles away. Keep in mind that this our planet, doing what it does and sending us all into a series of ice ages.
2) Given the recovery capacity of the planet, what makes you think your puny a$$ vespa or even my brontosaur vehicle can spew enough crap to cause climatic change?
3) My behemoth puts off emissions that have to be measured in ppm and ppb - thats parts per million and parts per billon. That means you have to have millions and billions of cars to get any kind of a quantity.
4) If all the volcanic eruptions made the planet cool off, isn't it finally getting back to normal now?
5) If you don't agree with any of the above, kindly submit temprature data from the pertinent geological epoch and explain where your themometer was located.
I'm not saying global warming is complete crock, but I don't think that they've proven their case. Seriously, there's no money in everything being fine. When there's money involved, I'd like to see proof.
HDGary secures my bank
This is the evidence I've been waiting for to prove my hunch!
Sometime in the coming century we invent a time machine, see. And we use it to send all the greenhouse gases back in time to just around the KT period. It's our only chance to keep the planet habitable into the future.
The greenhouse gases, following in the wake of a gigantic asteroid impact, cause a mass extinction event, which creates conditions that lead to the worldwide reserves of petroleum we exploit through the Industrial Revolution and beyond, bringing us full circle.
It's brilliant. Brilliant, I tell you!
Uh, just a sec. There's somebody at the door asking to speak to a "John Connor." Be right back.
"The irony of our modern civilization is how incredibly inhuman it is. Our cities are most notable for being entirely devoid of the things necessary to sustain human life, all of which must be provided from outside."
Just like how a farm-house is devoid of the things necessary to sustain human life, which must be provided by a FIELD OF CROPS and RIVERS, etc. Why, you might ask, would there be a concentration of people in the farm-house, instead of in the corn rows? Because nobody wants to live in a field of crops.
And before someone says "But small towns are good/better-than cities", I'll point out that the small-town is just a city on a smaller scale. People still don't live inside their food. Farm-houses go with farms, and cities go with huge regional breadbaskets.
It's amazing how many quotes express something obvious, trivial, and sensible, yet are somehow intended to expose something as contradictory or problematic. "Modern civilization" is the typical target for many such fallacies. I think you can rest assured that many of the problems of human society have nothing to do with modernity or with any recent advents.
it would seem to me that one can lead to the other. that the culmination of results would effect the outlining out come. I.E. astroid leads to earth quakes, earth quakes lead to volcanic erruptions.
A friend on my psychology degree had a couple of phrases that he always used in every essay he submitted. One was "...and hence is reductionist", the other was "further research is required". Of course further research is required! What else is there for the denizens of our mighty universities to do?
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Good old witch hunting! I remember when the dinosaur kill-off was blamed on radiation (A big uranium meteorite), comets, and everything else.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I hear global warming killed Elvis, Kennedy, and it also knows where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. If you listen carefully to the warm winds blowing in you can hear the answer.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"My behemoth puts off emissions that have to be measured in ppm and ppb - thats parts per million and parts per billon. That means you have to have millions and billions of cars to get any kind of a quantity."
Would that be particles per particles, or volume per volume?
Parts per million is the chemical PROPORTION, and does not directly indicate anything about an actual quantity of noxious material. A separate issue is the particular environmental potency of a certain chemical quantity. Another separate issue is how many particles (or volume units) you emit per unit of time. In principle, depending on these factors, a single car could create some pretty horrible emissions.
It's sort of like saying, "As a gift, somebody promised to give me 1 millionth of their earnings!". Obviously the importance of that for you depends on how big their earnings are. Maybe they're a trillionaire. But maybe inflation has recently devalued the economic POTENCY of the currency. Maybe your car is a travesty. Your explanation of ppm isn't re-assuring.
A proportion is not equal to a quantity is not equal to a measure of the environmental consequences of a quantity.
The kooks are finding 'kooky' reasoning from 'official sources' like the UN, who might ignore the 13th century heat spike in the
mainstream commercial graphs and diagrams.
The kooks might only be saying, "hang on, are humans the 100 cause or perhaps 50% or 5%?"
The kooks are saying that official scientific results are very weak and unprofessional given the bad record keeping of past or perhaps
amaturish recording, temperatures in CBDs and urban areas are not reliable since theres a lot of local heating so they should be taken
lightly and be skeptical.
All kooks are saying is... "oi mr scientist, i though you guys were really skeptical so start being analytical not political"
Everyone knows that if you request a research grant to study alternative causes to global warming youre funding will be zero and your
job status nil. Be it stars or magnetic causes or cosmic rays or gamma ray bursts or suns output changing.
All kooks are saying, is BE MORE OPEN, not CLOSED MINDED.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Just earlier today I heard that Global Warming may cause greater terrorism. Now Global Warming caused the death of the dinosaurs? What next? Global Warming causes acne in young women and may trigger that loud rock 'n' roll that all those children nowadays are listening to?
I'm sorry but I think we're starting to reach a tipping point--and I'm not talking about the CO2 tipping point, either. I'm talking about the 'tipping point' where we've cryed wolf so many times in so many ways that the general public goes "oh, yeah, I guess we're screwed" as they go off and buy even bigger SUVs.
The small town is a city on a smaller scale: the point isn't that they're the same, but that they both stand in a necessary relation to something else which is not a town or city. So in principle, it's just a matter of scale.
That's ok! We're talking about municipal units, not poison.
Besides, the quote said cities were "inhuman" because they were devoid of necessities (even though they're full of people?), not because they were full of X or Y or Z Which Is Bad, which would be a different point entirely.
So in principle, it's just a matter of scale.
The poison is in the dose. Scale matters.
the quote said cities were "inhuman" because they were devoid of necessities (even though they're full of people?), not because they were full of X or Y or Z Which Is Bad
The Sahara is not full of X or Y or Z either; although bits of it are full of people. Scale matters.
I can build you a small bridge out of old refridgerator boxes strong enough to drive a Jeep over. I cannot do the same for a large bridge. Scale matters.
Walking five mintues to find more than you can eat in two weeks is very different from walking two weeks to find a mouthful. Scale matters.
If you're still unsure about this point we can drop you and an ant off a five story building and see what happens, but I warn you, scale might matter.
KFG
Put those 4 things together and the "science" of climate change has a problem. The problem is simple: scientifically, we cannot use the scientific method to predict change because our best models are not yet scientifically predictive. That's an absolute problem, and it can't be fudged by wishful thinking.
We know many facts --- most of the measurements are not in doubt. The trouble is, we can't add those facts together because the underlying model isn't working even to first order. You HAVE to be able to model major effects like the glaciation cycle before you can be confident that your model is valid for smaller effects like a 1 or 2 degrees C of additional contributory greenhouse heating.
The fact that the vast majority of climatologists believe that we are witnessing unprecedented global warming and that man's outpouring of CO2 is the key factor in it really has no bearing on the above. Science is not about beliefs. And it's not about witnessing diverse effects in the world around us and mentally putting 2 and 2 together. That's not science.
The only thing that's really certain is that we're witnessing an unprecedented rise in CO2 levels, and that the extra CO2 is undoubtedly a contributing factor for any climate change. And that's it. That's all we know. The rest is supposition, and the results from our GCM simulations cannot be accepted as gospel because they are quite severely limited, and do not match history, and we know it.
I'm not actually a skeptic on global warming at all (personally), but I absolutely refuse to attribute to science a prediction that the scientific method cannot currently deliver. It's a matter of scientific integrity.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
A large part of the problem is that even if you wanted to, you couldn't get good facts on the subject. It seems that every time the subject comes up, the global warming skeptics will throw out a hypothesis (whether good or bad is irrelevant), and the global warming crowd will respond with arrogance, anger, and often name calling. During every debate, someone in the global warming crowd pops up with the obviously false statement that "There is no debate on global warming. It's a fact."
So, if you are not an expert on a subject, and you are faced with two disagreeing parties, who do you believe... The person who is calmly discussing the subject, or the guy that is trying to brow beat you into agreeing with them. If the global warming supporters want to convince reasonable people who have not done the research themselves, they need to weed out the kooks and bullies from their ranks.
As for the Scientific Communities consensus... I don't know if there is a consensus or not. There are too many people claiming to be experts to tell. Add to that, the fact that research costs money, and you don't get money if you don't get the results your benefactor wants. There are many subject the 'experts' are just plain wrong on. I see it most often in subjects like nutrition, medicine, and child development. I don't think that our understanding of weather prediction is any better refined than any these.
Wait a second. Current global warming is supposed to be caused by humans burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels came from dinosaurs. What the hell did dinosaurs burn?
I'm a skeptic of anything so obviously incorrect, and much of the crud being presented as "research" by both the devotees and naysayers is definitely incorrect. The very little solid work is lost amidst the garbage.
That's why I'm skeptical about most of the claims being made by all the axe-grinders, be they doomsdayers or not.
Sure wish I had some mod points. This has got to be one of the better posts on the subject I've seen. Good job!
When my kids were little I used to explain it to them like it was an animal (shark) attack. Just because some animal attacked someone doesn't mean that every animal around is the one that did it. Yet, that is how science is treating global warming.
Oh look, an animal within 10 miles of the victim...that must be the one! It's got big, sharp, pointy teeth and everything! Oh look, a factory on the same planet, that must be the one! It's got CO2 and everything! Proof?! Of course we have proof! Have you seen the teeth (CO2)?!!? You just don't understand because you're not a scientists being paid/funded to research it. When will these silly laymen learn?!
You may be giving them too much credit for thinking. By and large, these people are PWIFs (People With Imaginary Friends) of one form or another, and once we have established that they are willing to accept internally inconsistent world views on the basis of no proof whatsoever (or, as they say, "on faith")--and often base their life around such world views--is it really fair to expect them to be logically consistent in their treatment of science?
We should probably just be glad when they don't morph into the form that thinks their imaginary friend wants them to blow up bus stops, pubs, or abortion clinics.
--MarkusQ
I remember reading about that about 10 years ago in an article presenting the two possible explanations for this 5th extinction.
You just got troll'd!
This is all misdirection and FUD, generated by the New World Order and the globalists. The truth is, the dinosaurs were all relocated to other planets by aliens. I know, I was there.
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
Some of them have made it to running America and the war.
but microbiological examination of marine organisms of the time indicate life persisted for another 300,000 years after the 'Chicxulub impact'.
Well, life (and I'd venture as far as to say marine life too) obviously persisted after this disaster too.
They're talking like this was some catastrophy that destroyed life??
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
--
make install -not war
Most people have this crazy belief that Columbus was some revolutionary who thought that the earth was round and everyone else still thought the world was flat and were complete dumbasses. Those people are entirely mistaken. The Western world has been fully cognizant of the world being round since Plato figured it out 2000-some-odd years ago. Even during Columbus's time they were pretty sure how big the earth was and how far it was between the India and Europe by sea. The fact that they knew the distance between Europe and India was why everyone thought Columbus was a nutjob. At that time, no ship could carry enough rations to survive that distance. Columbus (not being able to correctly read maps (seriously)) thought that India was only half the distance from Europe as it really was. That's why everyone thought Columbus was a nutjob. In the end, Isabella only let him go because she thought that new route to India would be worth so much money that loosing a few ships was worth it. She didn't think he was right any more than he advisers did.
The only reason we have this impression that they thought thought the world was flat was due to a 18th American historian who couldn't read Latin. He mistranslated a few passages of some historical documents of the Court of Queen Isabella. He thought it spoke of criticism of Columbus's plan because the earth wasn't round. The criticism was really that the earth wasn't that small. (Something about how the object of the sentence was orbis (earth) and he thought is was some other word with orbis describing it's roundness.) Of course he published a book with the lie that this mistranslation brought, and everyone kept repeating it. It's kind of like how people still think there's debate on evolution in the scientific community because some writers still confuse the word theory with hypothesis. ((Peer-reviewed) Theories are accepted as testable fact (though still theoretically disprovable) whereas hypotheses are still being tested and debated. While theories may not be "proven," it is a misconception to think that there is still controversy about their status as fact.)
(directed at either the researchers or the article writer)
Try a *combination* of bad events and watch the devastation all add up. How about a series of volcanic eruptions and other possible solar events were causing a global warming crisis over a few hundred thousand years. Some creatures in the equatorial regions that couldn't adapt to the heat died off, as did those that ate them. You have large ecosystems in a very unstable state by trying to adjust.
The larger pliosaurs might have also died out in this increasing heat, but the sharks survived by being able to migrate to more reasonable water temps more quickly.
Then, just as they might have reached a point of adjustment, a new stasis point, and some non-bird dinosaurs might have survived...THAT's when the first of the *two* possible impacts happened, followed within a few hundred thousand years by the second.
There is evidence for all of these possibilities, so why should we continue to be a slave to the likely inaccurate idea that only one thing did it?
That we now have to figure out which dinosaurs were killed off at which stage of these sequences certainly is a much harder problem, but it'll be the scientifically accurate one over this constant desire to gratify one's ego by having "THE" answer and throwing out the last 100 years of research into this.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
It seems to me that just one thing didn't kill off the dinosaurs.
It was a series of unfortunate events.
Besides, they didn't really die, the just evolved into those giant south American super-birds, then into smaller birds once the habitat couldn't support them.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Of course global warming is responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. Global warming is responsible for everything. It is responsible for obesity and glaucoma and cancer and the Cold War and WWI and WWII and the Civil War and the high price of everything that's expensive and...... /GOREMADNESS
Who said that? I didn't say that, did I?
*******
Every couple of decades a madness descends upon the chattering classes from the press to academia.
Two decades ago it was a hysteria that Reagan would get us into a nuclear war. Result: the end of the Cold War
Before that it was the "Population Bomb" with accompanying global starvation. Result: a global problem with obesity and a Europe with too few babies to sustain their welfare states.
During the Depression it was the end of capitalism and the need for everyone to become a communist or at least a socialist in a centralized economy--a sort of Super New Deal. Result: The end of the Depression and the triumph of free enterprise over state-directed economies.
Before that it was eugenics and the "Menace of the Feeble-minded." Result: The Irish, Italians, and Russian Jews so greatly feared became some of our most productive citizens.
****
There are things to worry about, such as nukes in the hands of nutty dictators, and a Jihad that's got Europeans showing more than their usual cowardice and stupidity. But global warning isn't on any sensible person's list of things to fret about. If the usual pattern holds, I suggest a move south. We're in for a cooling climate.
Are there any now? No
Therefore, global warming exists, AND is responsible for the death of dinosaurs.
Damn you George Bush!
if someone throws out solar fluctuations as the primary reason for current warming one more time, I'm going to be very, very cross
And rightly so, because it would be a copout, and not upheld by the scientific method.
However, stating that the primary reason is anthropogenic CO2 is also a copout, and most definitely not upheld by the scientific method. All we really know is that extra CO2 is a contributory factor, because in the lab we can measure that x% CO2 can lead to y% additional heat retainment.
Everything else is a supposition.
If you think that the personal opinion of 100 gazillion scientists and wannabe commentators affects what the scientific method can deliver at this point in time, then you simply don't understand science and the strict scientific method --- it doesn't work that way.
Our *opinions* and *expectations* don't matter in the slightest, let alone the personal interpretations of those who are saying that science supports their view. It requires predictive capacity in the underlying model, the ability to simulate and predict the climatic excursions of the past, and currently the model cannot do that. If you can't predict the past, what hope have you of predicting the future?
The scientific method has no master. If you think that it currently supports one view or another, you really don't know what's going on in the science of climatology, as opposed to the mass popular movement.
Yes, these models are imperfect. Guess what, the people who wrote them know that. That's why they keep improving them, buying bigger hardware to run them on, and that's why they keep giving wild margins of error to the predictions.
However, while we cannot accurately predict what will happen, the basic scenario is scientifically correct, pretty simple and not in doubt. We know how much CO2 we're contributing to the atmosphere, we know that it is a greenhouse gas, so overall temperature should rise, right? So we look, and guess what? It does!
Discounting the general idea because the understanding of it is less than perfect is like saying there's no point in running away because meteorologists can't predict a hurricane path, even though your barometer just dropped 100mb in an hour.
If only people would accept that pollution is bad for us, and agree that we need to reduce it. Climate Change is only one reason of many to reduce pollution, so if you don't agree there is human caused climate change, FIND ANOTHER REASON to find a way to reduce pollution. I'd have never thought when growing up that so many people could be so stupid as to argue for more pollution, "because money is good" is their primary reasoning.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Discounting the general idea because the understanding of it is less than perfect is like saying there's no point in running away because meteorologists can't predict a hurricane path, even though your barometer just dropped 100mb in an hour.
The difference is that, after the barometer's dropped 100mb in an hour 20 times in the past, each time that it's happened we've been mashed into a bloody pulp by 120mph winds. We learn. We're good at that.
In contrast, we cannot rely on personal experience in the climate debate.
Indeed, past history suggests that CO2 has very little to do with global temperature, because the coldest periods in Earth's history (by far!) coincided with atmospheric CO2 concentrations vastly in excess of our current level (an astounding 3000 ppm or more). Clearly things aren't as simple as portrayed.
But even the above is irrelevant, as it took place in the very distant past. What's relevant is that our models of the science of climatology (the GCMs) are not currently predictive over recent glaciation cycles, which occurred entirely within the context of current climate and biospheric makeup. This is not an issue that can be dodged.
The scientific method does NOT support any particular view at the current time simply because the model does not have adequate historical predictive ability. This applies regardless of how many eminent scientists lend their allegiance to a particular interpretation. You and I may "know" that CO2 is making a small upward contribution to temperature these days, but to claim that the scientific method supports our intuitions is simply incorrect.
We should be honest and say that we want CO2 emissions to be cut back because we're messing around with a system that we don't yet understand. That would be accurate and honest, but to claim that our very responsible desire for public caution is backed by the scientific method is, in contrast, entirely fraudulent.
You don't actually think there'd be any gold there do you? There might still be some today, but if human civilisation fails, the greedy stupid humans who remain will gut the place. No question.
;)
Also, rubbish dumps will be a complete and utter waste of time as far as getting materials goes. The only thing rubbish dumps will provide is lots of interest for archealogists. But in 50 million years from now, plate techtonics will have moved the continents around so much that there will be plenty of raw materials lying around for easy extraction again. Unlike what would happen if human civilisation crashes soon: there's no easy source of raw materials out there now, nor easy sources of oil.
You can't just go out shooting for some food, and out of the ground comes some bubblin' crude. Oil that is. Texas Tea. Black Gold...
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
With all the hogwash about global warming being spewed forth by scientists (mostly those with no background in climatology) and the likes of Algore... they seem to conveniently ignore the little known fact that the sun's output of energy has increased 30% in the last 20+ years... Hmmm.. like turning up the stove a little... But of course you can't blame the evil Americans for global warming then can you?
I just love how we're the ones that get the blame, yet when you look at the pollution index for cities around the globe, US cities are at the bottom of the list, and the least polluted.
Let the flamewar begin now that I threw that little nugget into the ring ROFLMFAO!!
I agree with you that skepticism is essential in science. However, there is a profound difference between skepticism that is motivated by a desire to learn the truth about the world based on physical evidence, and skepticism motivated by narrow self interest (eg. your salary depends on your specific view of reality). If you make your living as a climate skeptic, getting paid by businesses to expound on your views that climate change is a lie, then if you happened to change your views, you would lose that source of income.
No one is infallible. That is why proper scientists present their ideas and observations to their peers for review. Both the submitting scientist, and the peers gain prestige from giving and interpreting truthful observations about world. And in the scientific world, prestige can bring income. If a scientist is shown to submit false evidence, or incorrectly interprets truthful evidence, then they can lose income. Thus, the livelihood of scientists is dependent on their pursuit of truth through physical evidence. Just ask the Korean scientist who lied about cloning a human embryo. I doubt he is getting many research grants now.
My point here is that not all skepticism is created equal. If certain skeptics continually put forth discredited ideas, if they ignore reliable evidence that contradicts them, and if they spend most of their effort putting their ideas into the media, rather than presenting them to other scientists for review, then their positions should not be taken seriously. If however a skeptical scientist is motivated by a genuine desire to understand the physical world, if they base their views on reliable evidence, and above all if they are willing to change their ideas if presented with compelling evidence, then such skeptics should be taken seriously. Climate skeptics such as Tim Ball belong in the former, rather than the latter category.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Do you listen to weather reports? When they say it will snow tomorrow, do you go out in a t-shirt and shorts?
Don't attribute failure to something for a goal it wasn't designed to achieve. Saying that the current climate models are useless because they can't match a 100,000 year cycle is like saying the invention of the car is useless because it can't do inter-stellar travel.
The current crop of models are trying to predict the effects of temperature rise due to changes in atmospheric composition in the SHORT term. And yes, believe it or not, the scientists who develope these models are smart enough to also incorporate events like reduced snow/ice pack, flora growth, seasonal variations, and solar variations. They also model atmospheric composition, oceanic effects, and radiative transfer.
In short, they are fairly complex. They won't tell you the weather for October 3,2076, but taht isn't their aim. Their trying to model the possible changes in overall atmospheric temperatures based on various factors (CO2 being a big one right now).
You should not presume to debunk an entire branch of scientific research just because you happen to think it is not accurate enough for your tastes.
You said:
"The only thing that's really certain is that we're witnessing an unprecedented rise in CO2 levels, and that the extra CO2 is undoubtedly a contributing factor for any climate change. And that's it. That's all we know. The rest is supposition, and the results from our GCM simulations cannot be accepted as gospel because they are quite severely limited, and do not match history, and we know it."
I doubt any atmospheric scientist will tell you their results are "gospel", as they are fully aware that their models are SIMULATIONS and are not 100% ACCURATE. This is why they continue to do RESEARCH and REFINEMENTS and RE-EXAMINE. This is why they continue to SUBMIT PAPERS to their PEERS so that they can VERIFY their RESEARCH.
That is what science is. They have models and data. They make predictions. They observe to see if their predictions match what is happening. Then they do it again, and again, so on and so forth.
Simply handwaving away an entire scientific discipline's research because you don't think their models are good enough is as naive as it is stupid.
Any person who knows basic physics and chemistry can tell you that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the planet warmer just from an intuitive standpoint. Determining the impacts requires a far deeper understanding, well beyond what you or I possess.
I'll side with researchers on this one.
~X~
~X~
Comment removed based on user account deletion
CO2 levels are not the only control on global temperature. To assume such is asinine.
Hey, there's a concept we can both agree with!
However, in similar conditions, we might expect similar results.
Notice in your link that compares the Scotese global temperature scale to the Berner CO2 levels... that the last time that both were at minimal levels was during the Permian.
The Permian ended with a coincidental increase in both global temperature and CO2 levels, according to your data.
Yeah, I also notice that the author points out that ice ages occur whenever a) we have land masses that extend from our north to south pole AND b) a large south polar land mass... Could it be that one such land mass broke up due to continental drift at just about that time?! Hey, don't bother yourself with reading or examining evidence. Just look at one graph, assume it was the CO2, and contradict the first words that came out of your mouth.
THE LAST TIME THE EARTH HAD LOW TEMPERATURES AND LOW CO2, and CO2 LEVELS ROSE, ALMOST EVERYTHING DIED.
Tell me about it when 'runaway' plate techtonics splits up the Isthmus of Panama.
Umm, I actually read one of her papers. Check this quote out: ..."The K-T mass extinction is unique in that at least two short-term events (one impact and
0 29.pdf
one volcanic, or two impacts?) are superimposed upon the long-term late Maastrichtian climate
record. The mass extinction began at the time of maximum global cooling during the late
Maastrichtian which ended with a short-term warm event of 3-4C between 200-400 ky prior to
the K-T boundary and may have been triggered by major volcanism or a pre-KT impact event
(age of oldest of three spherule layers in new NE Mexico sections, Stinnesbeck et al., this vol.).
This warm event was followed by 2-3C cooling during the last 100 ky of the Maastrichtian (Li
and Keller, l998). Species extinctions accelerated during this final phase of cooling and reached a
maximum at the K-T boundary with the extinction of all tropical and subtropical species
coincident with an impact event (Ir anomaly)"....
From http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/impact2000/pdf/3
The issue of global environment is, of course, somewhat heated, but could someone explain to me how, in light of this (and other paragraphs) the article cited in the original posting is anything but outright misrepresentation?
So your scientific answer is that you don't need to do anything because "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, can't prove anything".
That's not what the parent said at all, so you've just made a straw man which undermines your response. In fact, the poster believed herself that our CO2 was causing global warming, and should be reduced.
The only point she was making was that the scientific models that are the basis of the scientific method were not valid models, and before you can use a model to predict the future then it has to able to predict the past. So, saying that we want CO2 reduced is fine, but we shouldn't say that our view is based on Science with a capital 'S' (science done properly), when we know full well that our models are not working predictively even for stuff that we *do* know, ie. the past.
Ie. scientific honesty, that's all, not pretending that our models are a solid Theory of Climate. We should still stop chucking out CO2, but not lie about why.
>> Any person who knows basic physics and chemistry can tell you that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the planet warmer just from an intuitive standpoint. Determining the impacts requires a far deeper understanding, well beyond what you or I possess.
And that's precisely what I said in the parent post. We can with perfect honesty tell the man in the street that we know that our extra CO2 is a contributing factor to warming the planet, that's not in dispute. And that it should be reduced, because affecting the climate is a very bad idea.
What we cannot do with scientific honesty is say is that we have deep understanding of the extremely complex climate system because we have a solid predictive Theory of Climate, based upon scientifically valid predictive modelling in our GCMs.
Our GCMs are NOT validly predictive even for stuff that we DO know, ie. the past, so how can we be using them predictively for stuff that we don't know, ie. the future? Scientifically, it falls apart.
This is about The Scientific Method in action. Scientists create mathematical models, extrapolate (make hypotheses) from them, and match the predicted result against observation. When the match fails, they go back and change the model, and make a new hypothesis, and test it again, and again, as many times as it takes, until theory and observation are in agreement. Then, AND ONLY THEN, can a model be extrapolated in a direction that is not observable (the future), and be used to hopefully predict it.
You either do the above, or you can't claim to be using the scientific method. Well, you can claim it, but you'd be lying.
>> I'll side with researchers on this one.
It's not a matter of siding. I work with GCMs, and they are not validly predictive models, it's that simple.
Pouring CO2 into the atmosphere is extremely dangerous, and should be stopped.
Suggesting that our scientific models are validly predictive is extremely dishonest, and should be stopped too.
I work with GCMs, and they are not validly predictive models, it's that simple.
There are a lot of other people who work with GCMs who disagree with you. It's also worth noting that GCM ensemble means have greater predictive skill than individual models.
Human Action is destroying us. Don't drink the anti-global-warming koolaid from a couple of discredited scientists.
i mate_effects.html
It sounds like you will agree that there is substantial global warming and that this global warming will cause massive economic disasters, at a minimum, in terms of terrible agricultural failures. But you disagree about the causes.
1. These effects are at least additive - and maybe multiplicative. So the sun being in a warming cycle (which I'm not confirming or denying) does NOT mean that there isn't human caused global warming. If human behavior has a large impact - even if it's not the ONLY impact - and if we have a chance to massively improve the future of our race by reducing our greenhouse emissions, our obligation is not diminished by the existance of other causes. It would only be diminished if our part in global warming was insignificant.
2. Volcanos are not a cause of global warming; they cause more COOLING than warming.
"Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons/year, whereas other sources contribute about 10 billion tons/year. The small amount of global warming caused by eruption-generated greenhouse gases is offset by the far greater amount of global cooling caused by eruption-generated particles in the stratosphere (the haze effect). Greenhouse warming of the earth has been particularly evident since 1980. Without the cooling influence of such eruptions as El Chichon (1982) and Mt. Pinatubo (1991), described below, greenhouse warming would have been more pronounced."
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/cl
This is not the only source, but had a nice quotable paragraph.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
There are a lot of other people who work with GCMs who disagree with you.
It doesn't matter whether they disagree with me or not. It doesn't matter whether they *feel* that some interpretation is right. All that matters is that they haven't yet published a peer-reviewed paper describing a formal GCM run that agrees with the paleo record across recent glaciation cycles. When someone does finally achieve that, they'll get a Nobel Prize.
And until they do achieve such a predictive GCM, any other results that pop out of their models are not based on the scientific method, but on wishful thinking.
Science has only one method of advancing, and that is it. Any claims made outside of the scientific method are about as safe as claims made by religious zealots --- they fail the acid test of actually being founded on reality.
It's the scientific method that nails down random theories and makes them worth something beyond mere handwaving. Unless you respect that key foundation of science, all you have is empty air.
All that matters is that they haven't yet published a peer-reviewed paper describing a formal GCM run that agrees with the paleo record across recent glaciation cycles.
Do you really work with GCMs? In what capacity? Because you are quite confused.
Being able to reproduce entire glaciation cycles is a far more difficult task than having predictive skill over the span of a single century, particularly when paleo data are relatively sparse compared to the contemporary instrumental record. Failure at the former does not imply failure at the latter.
The fact is, GCMs do reasonably reproduce historical data in hindcasting, and do have some predictive skill on multi-decadal timescales, especially when taken in an ensemble.
Why don't you shut the fuck up? You're fucking with real science. You probably voted for Bush you faggot.
>> Being able to reproduce entire glaciation cycles is a far more difficult task than having predictive skill over the span of a single century, particularly when paleo data are relatively sparse compared to the contemporary instrumental record. Failure at the former does not imply failure at the latter.
Failure at the former implies uncertainty about the latter; it certainly doesn't imply success at the latter. You seem to want to put large-scale climate variation on hold, to allow you to measure your small-scale CO2-caused temperature deltas. The flaw in that is huge.
There is absolutely no way we can talk meaningfully about small wobbles on a curve when the big curve itself is subject to dramatic transitions as a result of highly non-linear factors like modal changes in cloud formation that occur when you change global average temperatures by just a single degree. And nor can we just crank the GCM engine for a short period of time like you seem to want, because there are many processes with long time constants involved, so to obtain meaningful results you have to run the simulation for several thousand years at least or your system will not be in a valid state. But as soon as you run it for some millennia, you get into the non-linear modal transitions, so you HAVE to have a working long-term model or else your entire simulation is unsafe.
>> GCMs do reasonably reproduce historical data in hindcasting, and do have some predictive skill on multi-decadal timescales
Such short timescale simulations could only be valid if you postulated that there is no climate change, so that you don't need to engage any of the very complex process couplings in the model because you assume that everything remains in steady state. But as soon as any state variable changes (and that's inescapable given the increase in CO2), you can't just assume linearity and expect everything to remain roughly as before. If it were that easy we wouldn't need GCMs, we could just solve the problem analytically.
>> especially when taken in an ensemble.
I'm afraid not. An invalid simulation doesn't become valid by running it multiple times with slight variations. Ensembles merely allow you to explore the partial state space sensitivities, they don't tell you how the climate will evolve once those partials get coupled and propagate within the system, except trivially on the first cycle of simulation. They are powerful tools of analysis, but they can't replace actual long-term simulation.
I don't think I'll continue this discussion further, because what you're saying more or less boils down to not being concerned about whether the climate model is accurate or not, so you're basically shutting the door on the scientific method. The idea that dramatic failure to match recently observed large-scale transitions in current climate somehow doesn't matter is major scientific dishonesty.
Failure at the former implies uncertainty about the latter; it certainly doesn't imply success at the latter.
Of course there is uncertainty in prediction, but that's a far cry from the claim that the predictions are worthless.
There is absolutely no way we can talk meaningfully about small wobbles on a curve when the big curve itself is subject to dramatic transitions as a result of highly non-linear factors like modal changes in cloud formation that occur when you change global average temperatures by just a single degree.
And what is your justification for the claim that dramatic transitions on decadal time scales actually occur for single-degree temperature changes? The paleo record doesn't support it. The closest thing to a dramatic transition you see is shutdown or restart of the thermohaline circulation.
And nor can we just crank the GCM engine for a short period of time like you seem to want, because there are many processes with long time constants involved, so to obtain meaningful results you have to run the simulation for several thousand years at least or your system will not be in a valid state.
Even when you spin up the model over thousands of years, you're still not running into glaciation cycles; the last one ended ~10kya.
Such short timescale simulations could only be valid if you postulated that there is no climate change, so that you don't need to engage any of the very complex process couplings in the model because you assume that everything remains in steady state.
You certainly don't have to postulate that, and GCMs do not in fact postulate that.
But as soon as any state variable changes (and that's inescapable given the increase in CO2), you can't just assume linearity and expect everything to remain roughly as before.
Who is assuming linearity? The GCMs don't.
I'm afraid not. An invalid simulation doesn't become valid by running it multiple times with slight variations.
I'm talking about ensembles of GCMs, not ensembles of GCM runs. And no, considering an ensemble doesn't make any individual GCM more accurate, but the ensemble mean does become more accurate. That doesn't have to be the case (e.g., if systematic errors reinforce instead of cancel), but validation runs indicate that it is the case. Furthermore, individual GCMs themselves still have demonstrable predictive skill.
I don't think I'll continue this discussion further, because what you're saying more or less boils down to not being concerned about whether the climate model is accurate or not
Don't be a jackass. What I'm saying is that climate models are accurate enough to make rough predictions, not that they're perfect or can't be improved.
The idea that dramatic failure to match recently observed large-scale transitions in current climate somehow doesn't matter is major scientific dishonesty.
GCMs do not fail to match recently observed large-scale transitions in current climate, unless by "recently observed current climate" you mean 10,000 years ago.
That's not what the parent said at all, so you've just made a straw man which undermines your response. In fact, the poster believed herself that our CO2 was causing global warming, and should be reduced.
The only point she was making was that the scientific models that are the basis of the scientific method were not valid models, and before you can use a model to predict the future then it has to able to predict the past. So, saying that we want CO2 reduced is fine, but we shouldn't say that our view is based on Science with a capital 'S' (science done properly), when we know full well that our models are not working predictively even for stuff that we *do* know, ie. the past.
Ie. scientific honesty, that's all, not pretending that our models are a solid Theory of Climate. We should still stop chucking out CO2, but not lie about why. Sorry, but science is not about absolute truths and perfect proofs. The climate models are too damn close to rality to justify a "it could be something else"-spiel - so don't hold your breath to wait for under-sea volcanos to absolve you.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Why is it that there are no other possibilities being explored? Perhaps there was a virus of some kind that spread rapidly through the larger dinosaur population. Or perhaps there was a food shortage (perhaps caused by a diseased food source). There are several "biological" probabilities that are hard to determine from the fossil record. This smoking gun approach (a single asteroid/volcano) is far less likely, imho. Animal populations go extinct all the time due to simple factors such as displacement by other animal species, disease, and food shortage. Perhaps the paleontologist should look closer at these possibilities instead of something more dramatic like a mega-ton asteroid or climate change.
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