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Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels

Posted by samzenpus on from the how-deeps-the-water-momma? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As temperatures rise, scientists continue to worry about the effects of melting Antarctic ice, which threatens to raise sea levels and swamp coastal communities. This event, though, isn't unprecedented. Researchers have uncovered evidence that reveals global warming five million years ago may have caused parts of Antarctica's ice sheets to melt, causing sea levels to rise by about 20 meters."

71 of 437 comments (clear)

  1. More to the point... by Extremus · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is well known that sea levels have been going up and down throughout the ages. The question now is whether or not we are acelerating these variations and whether life can adapt to them fast enough.

    1. Re:More to the point... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is the point most deniers seem to miss when they bring up past periods of climate change. Scientists have never said it didn't happen in the past. What they say is the rate of change is faster than they have seen and may be faster than species can adapt and humans are most likely the cause of the current change.

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    2. Re:More to the point... by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More than life, civilization, most of mankind and big cities are near sea level, and at coasts. And the crops that feeds most of them are not so far. Maybe if sea rises 20 meters in a century or two we could cope with that, but if time is much shorter it will be pretty bad. Also not sure how it would impact ocean's salinity and life that much water if happens fast, but if is affected you are cutting also sea food to that people.

    3. Re:More to the point... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, it's not the rate of change, it's the rate of change of the rate of change that's scary.

    4. Re:More to the point... by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 3, Insightful

      whether life can adapt to them fast enough.

      Depends on the life which is trying to adapt. Sealife, in the instance of rising sea levels, probably has a better chance at adapting than air sucking land dwellers.

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    5. Re:More to the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      what a jerk

    6. Re:More to the point... by Princeofcups · · Score: 2

      More than life, civilization, most of mankind and big cities are near sea level, and at coasts. And the crops that feeds most of them are not so far.

      How wrong can you be grasshopper. Crops are grown along rivers, generally in flood plains. Now the rivers may rise, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for farmers.

      --
      The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
    7. Re:More to the point... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Let's see....

      According to Google, Antarctica is ~14 million square km, and has an average of about 1.6 km of ice on top of it.

      So, call it 22.4 million cubic km of ice. With a density of about 0.92 g/cm^3. So ~20.6 million cubic km of water tied up in that ice sheet.

      Surface area of the planet is ~510 milllion square km.

      Which gives us ~40 meters of sea level rise as a MINIMUM if the entire ice sheet melts.

      Of course, it's not all expected to melt, but hey....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    8. Re:More to the point... by danbob999 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is well known that sea levels have been going up and down throughout the ages. The question now is whether or not we are acelerating these variations and whether life can adapt to them fast enough.

      Life isn't threatened by anthropogenic global warming. Even the human specie, as a whole, isn't threatened. There is also a scientific consensus on the fact that global warming is happening and that we are responsible for it.

      The real question is whether the costs of reducing greenhouse gases emissions outweigh the costs of global warming. The answer is that it's globally cheaper to reduce greenhouse gases, however every single country or individual, by being selfish, has interest to let the others pay the bill.

    9. Re:More to the point... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Of course life can adapt. Even humans can adapt. The question is how much will it cost to adapt, and how many will die who cannot.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:More to the point... by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hmmm, almost every climatologist out there says AGW is real, but an AC on /. who thinks that plastic pollution is a-okay because the source material was in the ground says it's a complete joke. Further, he then makes some claim about "libtards", as if science that he doesn't like can be neatly categorized as being "leftist".

      Who will I pick?

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    11. Re:More to the point... by catchblue22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A couple of important points: Firstly, 5 million years ago, there weren't 7 billion people living on Earth, people whose food supply was dependent on an agricultural system tightly adapted to today's particular climatic conditons. I will always remember a lecture given by one of my geology professors. He drew a graph on the board, initially without a scale. On the left, the graph fluctuated wildly up and down, going from extreme highs to extreme lows. Then suddenly, the graph settled down to mild up and down variations, and became basically horizontal, continuing to the right. Then he labelled the axes. The vertical axis was local temperature for an area where most humans lived. The horizontal axis was time. The time when the temperature settled down to a relatively constant pattern was about 10 000 years ago, the time when the last ice age ended. Then he asked us what other important event occurred around 8000 to 10000 years ago. Of course, the answer was the dawn of human civilization. Human civilization appeared about 8000 years ago. Civilization can only exist because of agriculture. People begin to plant crops in one area. They grow more food than they can eat, so they can have more children. Not all members of society have to spend time farming; individuals can afford to spend time doing other things like making pottery to store extra food, building better houses, or posting on Slashdot.

      The problem for cities comes when the conditions that allowed successful agriculture change. Three or four years of failed crops caused by drought or heat or cold or surplus precipitation will exhaust all stored food. The residents of the cities will have to abandon their cities to begin hunting and gathering again, thus largely shattering any nascent civilization. The lesson from this is that human civilization was not simply the result of the triumph of human intelligence over nature. Civilization appeared 8000 years ago because the climate conditions favored it. During the last ice age, the conditions did not favor the development of cities. Even in areas that were not covered in ice, the climate conditions would have been highly variable thanks to the huge persistent ice sheets to the north. One day the air would come from the warm south, another day, the air would come from the cold northern ice sheets. These unstable conditions would have made sustained agriculture impossible.

      My second point is that the well known fact that the climate in the past has shifted from warm to cold to warm should not be comforting to us. In fact, it should be the opposite. The fact that the Earth's climate has shifted in the past indicates that our climate is highly sensitive to relatively small forcings. Tiny changes in the Earth's orbit that cause periodically the Northern hemisphere to get more sunlight, and then tens of thousands of years later less sunlight are thought to have forced the Earth into and then out of ice ages (Milankovic Cycles). The slow collision of the Indian sub-continent with Asia, and its resulting volcanism is thought to have caused a large spike in carbon dioxide concentrations, resulting in a climate where the conditions in the north were near tropical.

      The fact that the climate has shifted in the past due to relatively small changes indicates that "relatively small" changes wrought by humans, such as the removal of carbon from under the ground and the dumping of it into the atmosphere are capable of pushing our climate into a very different state, one that is likely to reduce human agricultural output by enough to make our current large scale civilization a dubious proposition.

      --
      This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
    12. Re:More to the point... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      I see someone completely missed the point. First of all, what you are saying about the cause of climate change is as asinine as saying that since we have a 6000 yr old skeleton of a man that died of natural causes, no person could have murdered in the last 6000 years; all deaths are by natural causes. Second there are approximately 7 billion people on this planet. You are suggesting they all move to a tiny land mass as a solution to climate change. There is a reason why land might be cheap in Greenland; that land is unsuitable for things like farming.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    13. Re:More to the point... by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Funny

      Fine, let's call them "people who deny AGW based upon misinformation, ignorance and lies".

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    14. Re:More to the point... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      So ignore Al Gore and read what the actual scientists are saying.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    15. Re:More to the point... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Informative

      I call them deniers because despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, they still hold onto ideas based not on science. Same thing with the anti-evolutionists, birthers, and truthers. At some point you have to realize it doesn't matter what proof, what reasoned arguments you have, some people will believe what they want to believe.

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    16. Re:More to the point... by kedmison · · Score: 3, Informative
      Think in 3D, not 2D.
      This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423 According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)

      Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 million cubic _kilometers_ of ice. while we're at it: surface area of the planet: 510,072,000 sq km (wikipedia).

      So. simple math from there: 26,540,000/510,072,000 = 0.052km... or about 52m (170ft) for the planet if all ice in Antarctica melts. The article actually says potential equivalent of 58m, so an exercise to the reader to determine where the extra 6m comes from.. and how many cities that would affect.

      BTW: Highly recommend seeing the movie Chasing Ice http://www.chasingice.com/ for a view of how fast the glaciers are changing. Netflix carries it.

    17. Re:More to the point... by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      All we alarmists? I have never even seen that movie much less referenced to it. The more likely scenario for human extinction is mass death due to famine as it becomes harder for agriculture. Also hundreds of millions of people will be displaced due to rising sea levels. [sarcasm]But those two factors shouldn't affect the people of this planet.[/sarcasm]

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    18. Re:More to the point... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Not really? Temperature change fits pretty well to a quadratic right now, I thought.

    19. Re:More to the point... by agenaud · · Score: 2

      The denier label is dismissive. Those who suck up nonsense are neither sceptical nor deniers, they are brainwashed. Those that manufacture doubt and confusion are well funded propagandising deniers.

      --
      3E51A207
    20. Re:More to the point... by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Funny

      I find your humor quite derivative.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    21. Re:More to the point... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      That comment is certainly integral to this discussion.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    22. Re:More to the point... by goltzc · · Score: 2

      Think in 3D, not 2D. This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423 According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)

      Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 million cubic _kilometers_ of ice. while we're at it: surface area of the planet: 510,072,000 sq km (wikipedia).

      So. simple math from there: 26,540,000/510,072,000 = 0.052km... or about 52m (170ft) for the planet if all ice in Antarctica melts. The article actually says potential equivalent of 58m, so an exercise to the reader to determine where the extra 6m comes from.. and how many cities that would affect.

      BTW: Highly recommend seeing the movie Chasing Ice http://www.chasingice.com/ for a view of how fast the glaciers are changing. Netflix carries it.

      Your not thinking fourth dimensionally!

      --
      Our bugs are smarter than your test scripts.
    23. Re:More to the point... by gtall · · Score: 3, Informative

      Errr... the dino's farted out about 65 million years ago. My guess is their farts would have dissipated by 5 millions years ago seeing as methane has about a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere.

      Don't let science blind you, just continue to use whatever you are using.

    24. Re:More to the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      So what is so fucking wrong with the rate of change. I for one will be glad when I can finally grow oranges in Antarctica. Seriously world is a harsh inhospitable place. This planet has been giving us earth quakes, and hurricanes for a long time. I am glad humanity is finally striking back. Fuck the planet earth.

      I want to see the bitch in pain. Lets burn the land and boil the sea. Every last inch of the planet should be raped and plundered. Why is it when some alleged middle eastern terrorist kill a few new yorkers, the USA wants to go to war with the middle east and kill every single arab. Yet when mother earth sends Katrina our way we do nothing. I say it is about time we started holding the planet accountable for all the suffering it has given us.

    25. Re:More to the point... by Time_Ngler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Heaven forfend" (forfend? wtf?) we stop using tricks and misleading data to try and justify our stance: http://www.skepticalscience.com/cherrypicking-deny-continued-ocean-global-warming.html

    26. Re:More to the point... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Ordinarily I wouldn't differentiate those two comments, but in this case I'll make an equation.

    27. Re:More to the point... by Tharkkun · · Score: 2

      I forgot about the loss of so much taxable income. Scratch that plan. Bomb the true blood factories. Force more vampires...they are cold blooded.

    28. Re:More to the point... by cusco · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that "facts" and "science" generally support the liberal and progressive points of view. Pollution was a liberal hippy issue, until the Cuyahoga River caught fire. The link between smoking and cancer was just a liberal conspiracy to bankrupt tobacco companies. Overuse of antibiotics was a liberal attack on upstanding pharmaceutical companies, until MRSA appeared. And of course conservatives said that all of our financial woes in the 1980s could be solved by simply deregulating everything, while liberals pointed at every single prior case of financial deregulation leading to chaos in a desperate attempt to prevent today's economy.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    29. Re:More to the point... by hey! · · Score: 2

      Oh, there's no question *life* can adapt to these changes. The question is whether certain economies with enormous assets located in coastal regions can survive. 39% of Americans, for example, live in coastal counties. Although for political reasons that figure includes counties bordering the Great Lakes (America's "North Coast"), nonetheless the assets the US economy has enormous assets on the coast.

      Of course *rate* makes a big difference. The extreme upper level IPCC estimate for sea level rise by 2100 is 2m; that would be an economic disaster. We'd probably abandon much of the Gulf Coast, and most East Coast cities would require massive flood control projects. The same rise over two hundred years would have the same results, but it would happen over many more generations and would probably feel a lot less like a disaster.

      Life is adaptable, and humanity is among the most adaptable species on the planet. There is no prospect of human extinction under any conceivable climate change scenario, what we are looking at is human misery and economic dislocation. The Great Depression and WW2 combined weren't even a blip on the species survival radar, but they packed an enormous load of human suffering. The difference between 75cm and 2m sea level rise over a century is the difference between a serious ongoing economic concern and a long-running disaster.

      It's not the magnitude of change we have to worry about, it's the *rate*.

      --
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    30. Re:More to the point... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      I'll pick the overwhelming majority of climatologists state. Just like how I accept what the majority of biologists say about evolution.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    31. Re:More to the point... by agenaud · · Score: 2

      As a resident, I can tell you that land is not cheap in Greenland.

      --
      3E51A207
    32. Re:More to the point... by Will.Woodhull · · Score: 2

      Agreed, life is not threatened by this. And humanity will almost certainly survive.

      What would be lost is much of the Internet, many airports, most seaports, lots of railways, roads, pipelines, electric grids. Basically much of the infrastructure that supports what we call "civilization". As frail as that is, it is our species crowning achievement, and I for one do not want to see it damaged, let alone broken.

      Yeah, what we have done could probably be rebuilt. But I'd rather we tried not to go that way.

      --
      Will
    33. Re:More to the point... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      Scientists have never said it didn't happen in the past.

      Not only that, but they have for a very long time said that it did happen

      But there is a time table for the deniers:

      Stage 1: Global warming is hogwash and liberal claptrap

      Stage 2: Look! There is one data point that doesn't correspond. Proof that Global warming is not real

      Stage 3: Well, there is such a thing as global warming, but humans don't cause it!

      Stage 4: Well, maybe humans had something to do with it. Butn not enough to mean anything

      Terminal Stage: Humans have caused Global warming, but we didn't know any better at the time, and those liberals kept saying there was global warming, but since we didn't know, we had to fight them at every step of the way. Global warming is liberal's fault.

      Ever notice that AGW deniers use the same tactics as creationists and tobacco industry lawyers?

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    34. Re:More to the point... by blindseer · · Score: 2

      Lets burn the land and boil the sea.

      Go ahead, but you still won't take the sky from me.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    35. Re:More to the point... by tbannist · · Score: 2

      I think the big assumption is that warming is likely to reduce agricultural output.

      Actually, the warming is already causing a small reduction in agricultural output. Technology, however, is increasing agricultural output at a faster rate than the reductions are slowing it, so we're net positive for now.

      More heat allows for longer growing seasons and longer growing seasons allow us to boost production per acre.

      It can potentially do that, if your crops are adpated to a longer growing season. However, more heat also increases the incidence rate of floods and droughts, neither of which are good for crops. It can also trigger changes to local climates which may render some previously fertile areas unsuitable for crop production. For example, if the glacier that used to provide fresh water all summer melts, and you now only receive a month or two of fresh water in the spring when this year's ice pack melts, that would have a severely negative impact on your crop production.

      Plants adore higher levels of CO2.

      Not so much. Some plants produce less food when exposed to higher levels of CO2, and for most plants CO2 access is not really a limiting factor. Your essentially trying to optomize withough actually identifying any of the bottlenecks first. Sometimes you get lucky and it works, but more often you end up wasting a lot of time for no results.

      Given the price of food as it exists today we need cheap fresh water, but higher price of food allows for a higher price of water.

      What happens to those people who can't afford this new higher price of food? There is a line of thought that says the revolutions and civil wars in Arab countries are because the previously tolerated dictatorships were no longer able to adequately feed their populations. Where will the violence spread is food prices continue to rise?

      But these things are expense over the next few centuries they are going to cause extinction or anything like it.

      That's true, I think the only realistic scenario for a man-made extinction of humanity is still global thermonuclear war. There is some danger, of course, that the underlying causes of climate change and a large scale famine could trigger the wars that eventually lead to nuclear war. For the most part the climate change debate is about whether we should pay to clean up our own mess or force our descendants to clean up after us.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    36. Re:More to the point... by raeljds · · Score: 2

      I ran across a professor's web page years ago-- can't find it now, but he advised that when these topics (global warming, evolution, politics, religion, etc.) come up in conversation, ask this question: "What would it take for me to change your mind?" If the other people in the conversation can't or won't tell you what kind of proof or evidence it would take to change their minds, don't bother.

      This advice has saved me untold hours of frustration and bad feelings with friends and family. 8-)

    37. Re:More to the point... by symbolset · · Score: 2

      No it is not impossible. The raft is made of basalt mostly and is somewhat less dense than the upper mantle, and is up to 35 KM thick. Although the bottom of the raft is quite hot - to the point of considerable plasticity - it conducts the heat from the Earth's deeper mantle through it well enough that it mostly maintains its integrity - and even where it is liquid it does not sink because it is of less density than the mantle it floats on and the heat is nowhere near enough to dissolve it in solution. Once upon a time of course Antarctica was part of a much larger raft. Offloading ice from the top of this raft not only increases the depth of the ocean - by eliminating the raft's displacement in the mantle the effect is actually doubled. In addition to the obvious ocean level effects this can have effects on plate tectonics, earthquakes and vulcanism all over the planet.

      I know, it's normal to think of terra firma as some immutable rock dozens of miles thick but on this scale that's not the best way to think of it. It's more helpful to think of it as a very thin skin - relatively speaking far less than the thickness of an apple skin - made of lumpy rubbery stuff floating on a sticky gooey ball. The lumps are continents. The gooey inside has convection driven by heat - mostly nuclear fission - that moves the lumps around on the skin away from upwells and toward downsinks, eventually recycling almost the whole skin. This is why the oldest ocean floor material we can find is only 200Myrs old. The edges of the convection define tectonic plates. But the lumps are made of lighter stuff than the gooey center (mostly silica, the lumps) so the convection doesn't eat it all and when it does, can't keep it down for long. In the process the lighter elements bubble back up again eventually, and the captured iron and such from asteroid impacts settles into the core. Vulcanism, steam and air combine to make more lumps by making pockets of foamed rock that will float until they come to a downsink again.

      It takes a long time but the processes are pretty well understood. When talking about a continent as large as Antarctica you have to think a lot bigger, use a wider scope of time. The raft that is Antarctica is moving in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean at a rate of 10 km/My so in the span of time discussed here (5My) it has moved 50km. It moving into its current position has had dramatic climatic effects. If it moves far enough off the south pole then that will disrupt the circumpolar oceanic currents and the global climate will have a dramatic change again. It may not ever move off of the pole because of Coriolis forces before the question becomes irrelevant.

      Now let's talk about that ice. Though we've plumbed the deepest ice we can find in Antarctica the oldest ice we can find is known to be less than 500Ky old. We know the snow has been falling and sticking there for many millions of years, so where did it go? The reason for this is obvious: the ice in Antarctica doesn't melt from the top down. It is never warm enough there to do that and hasn't been for 50 million years, climate notwithstanding. It melts from the bottom up, as the geothermal energy discussed above interacts with the ice layer from below. The ice is a grand insulator, so the energy from below melts the bottom of the ice. The water becomes a very thin layer around the edges of an extremely large bathtub completely overfilled with ice miles high, so it is expressed out on the edges even though it must travel uphill to do so. Like putting too much ice in an already filled cup. This is why atmospheric greenhouse gases are not ever, ever going to have an effect on Antarctic ice even if the average air temps at the pole soar 12C - and certainly not in the span of a few million years. The top of the ice doesn't melt and hasn't for many, many millions of years - since the time when Antarctica was in a more temperate latitude.

      Now please be a bit more careful with that word "impossible".

      --
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  2. FUD title by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Or, we COULD say "Middle Miocene ice age 15 million years ago drastically lowered temperatures, lowered sea level 20m" as well, couldn't we?

    Then it warmed, and melted, and sea levels rose. (The subject of the OP.)

    Then it froze again, and sea levels dropped, since the last ice age ended only about 11,000 yrs ago.

    It's almost like this shit is cyclic.

    --
    -Styopa
    1. Re:FUD title by Antipater · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's almost like this shit is cyclic.

      Fortunately, this time we've invented magazines and toilet paper to cope with the problem.

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    2. Re:FUD title by Nemyst · · Score: 2

      Oh it most certainly is cyclic. The question is whether what we're seeing right now is part of that cycle or not. Many think that it's too fast to be part of it, or at the very least that it's a combination of a cycle and something else (ie. humans).

      Plus, regardless of the cause, if things do indeed heat up so much so that water levels raise dramatically, we're in deep shit. Just look at how much of the population of the world lives on a coast.

    3. Re:FUD title by gsgriffin · · Score: 2

      There is great evidence that shows shifts in the centuries, too. I like to challenge people to go to California and look at a cross-section of a redwood or sequoia tree. Most of the state and national parks have a huge section (8-10' diameter) of an old tree. In some cases, it shows almost 2,000 of rings. If you ponder and consider what the ring sizes mean, you will see a hundred years (or so) of thick rings meaning good growth, certain climate, plenty of rain, etc... Then you will see a section of another hundred years of small, tight rings...meaning less rain, climate not as good for growing (colder/hotter or whatever). Tell me, if the world doesn't go through this and then adjust, why is this happening.

      Perhaps the biologists can help me understand one thing. What do plant 'inhale'? I was taught that it was CO2 and they 'exhale' O2. If this is true, with an increase in CO2, shouldn't nature naturally begin to grow more abundantly and plants produce more O2, or is there something missing? I keep seeing in nature that when something goes out-of-balance, there is a natural response to bring it back? Seems to me that plants have gone through something like this before and will be able to adapt....as we and oth3er animals can, too.

      --
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    4. Re:FUD title by bonehead · · Score: 2

      If it's the economics you're worried about, relocating people inland will still likely be far less costly than the radical lifestyle/infrastructure changes the tree huggers are advocating.

    5. Re:FUD title by agenaud · · Score: 2

      We are coming out of a glaciation period (a little ice age if you will) on the order of 100 000 years. Given a fairly predictable periodic pattern we would expect to peak and cool in the next 1500 years leading to another several thousand year glaciation. But due to fossil fuel burning we are likely to skip that glaciation and enter acyclical warming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807

      --
      3E51A207
  3. Who was burning fossil fuels then? by bobbied · · Score: 3, Informative

    That was a long time before the bronze age.. Nobody was burning fossil fuels and dumping CO2 into the air. SO.... How does something like this happen? Can you believe there is some kind of natural process that we don't yet understand going on?

    Problem with all of this is that if the process cycles are in the millions of years, it's going to be impossible to really know if your models are accurate because you only have a few thousand years of recorded history to validate your models with. Plus, you don't know if the system has been disturbed by some outside forces, say a meteor strike (think meteor crater) or volcanic eruption.

    Interesting evidence guys, please keep looking into this..

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by Robear · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because there can't be both natural and man-made causes for warming and cooling? Really? That seems arbitrary, especially if it's just the argument from disbelief.

      We've got very good evidence that there are climate cycles, and very good evidence that we should be cooling right now, but we're not. We have very good evidence that we're warming specifically because of our own actions, and that's overwhelming the natural cycles, both in speed of change and intensity.

      If you are comfortable with natural cycles, then the physics of artificial change should not faze you, because the physics behind them is the same. If something can be changed by natural forces, then it can be affected by artificial ones of sufficient scale and intensity. Excluding the latter is simply ignoring evidence.

      --
      French - The lingua franca of Europe!
    2. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's still surprising to me that no one has ever heard of Milankovitch cycles. There are three cycles that all work to change the overall climate. There are meters of ice in various spots around the world, and they all have layers of trapped gas bubbles that are used as indicators for what the atmosphere must have been like during that time period. The problem is that as things get older, the ice is thinner and thinner, so the further back you look the less certainty you have. Overall though, it's still pretty good, and certainly not impossible.

      • Axial Precession - ~26k years. The earth is like a top spinning about it's axis, and this is the tilt of that north pole toward/away from the sun as it spins.
      • Axial Tilt - ~40k years. This is the no-kidding tilt of the axis.
      • Orbital shape - ~100k years. This is the eccentricity of the earths orbit.

      With all these things there are changes in CO2 levels in the geologic record (i.e. layers of ice in greenland) that serve as indicators to overall global temperature. Looking back, we can see that the world got much warmer, waters much higher, greenhouse gasses much higher. Then the earth was not able to support the high temperature, more gasses got trapped in the ocean, then froze, and we went into another ice age.

      Any paleoclimatologists out there can feel free to correct/add, I'm just going from memory of a couple classes I had as an undergrad...

    3. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by fustakrakich · · Score: 3

      There are no 'artificial' causes of anything. We are all just as natural as any other life form.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by agenaud · · Score: 2

      You read one article from your armchair and think, "hey good going, look into this"? There's been active research in climate cycles and mass extinction events since the 1800's.

      Some causes are the precession, solar output, and meteors as you mention. CO2 and temperature are co-dependent feedback variables. Raise CO2, temperature rises. Raise temperature, CO2 rises. (same in reverse and hense we see a very cyclical 100 000 year pattern). It doesn't matter what triggers it. By all evidence we are on the up slope of the 100 000 year cycle, with or without human interference. But humans are certainly exacerbating the warming through burning.

      The article says that when the oceans were 20 meters higher five million years ago the CO2 levels were similar, but in fact CO2 levels were less than the 400 ppm we have today, and levels are sky rocketing (in geologic and human time).

      CO2 levels were over 400 ppm 15 million years ago at a time when no humans were alive nor could have survived. Temperatures were 5 C warmer and oceans were 40 meters higher than today. That's the course we are headed toward.

      --
      3E51A207
    5. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

      So what? Do you propose we retire the word because of your extravagant reductionism?

      Any time a sentient, tool-using organism decides to create or build something, whether it be for survival or amusement or any other purpose, that is an act of an artificier and the result is artificial. The word just means "man-made." We are distinct from the rest of the world because we have skill in manipulating it; that is the meaning of the word. More importantly, however, and not entirely implied by the word itself, we are capable of massively affecting it. Take responsibility for yourself and your actions; there is no cosmic master plan that absolves you of complacency.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    6. Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

      Correction; I've done a bit more research and I'm now inclined to count beaver behaviour as more instinctual and less learned. They don't appear to have the mental capacity for many of their activities to be much more. Still, without more research I don't think I can say for certain either way.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
  4. And what most folks are missing... by whitroth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How many thousands of years did it take for that warming... the equivalent of *one* century? But no, zillions of barrels of oil and coal, burned, can't *possibly* affect the whole world's climate, no, no....

                  mark

    1. Re:And what most folks are missing... by matfud · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The interglacial periods coincide with variations in the earths orbit.
      eccentricity, tilt and precession all interacting. So yes it is pretty well understood why glaciation occurs. Yes it has been taken into account. No it does no account for the current changes being seen.

  5. Climates change, then and now by sqrt(2) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Before anyone smugly proclaims that this proves humans aren't responsible for climate change, remember that it's possible for some phenomenon to have multiple causes. It's entirely possible for there to be both natural and man-made causes for variations in climate. Giving examples of natural causes doesn't do anything to weaken the argument against anthropogenic climate change in this epoch.

    If climate change is currently man-made, or partially man-made, or being made worse by human activity, then it's still worth bending every effort to slow or reverse it.

    --
    If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    1. Re:Climates change, then and now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "If climate change is currently man-made, or partially man-made, or being made worse by human activity, then it's still worth bending every effort to slow or reverse it."

      No, it isnt.

  6. Re:Right, so... by Art+Challenor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's idiocy like this that causes software to suck so badly. Faced with a bug report that has the same symptoms as a previous solved bug, the issue is marked as "resolved".

    It is possible to have events with broadly the same symptoms that actually have different underlying causes. (Although as others point out the timescale of the symptoms is massively different).

  7. Jesus. Get a grip. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to IPCC's WORST-CASE estimates (from which they have recently backed off), sea levels were not projected to rise by more than about a meter over the next 100 years.

    I daresay we can adapt fast enough to that.

    1. Re:Jesus. Get a grip. by bonehead · · Score: 2

      Cesspools? Okay, I'll remember to wave as I fly over your boring little burg.

      Boring? You're kidding, right?

      Wide areas of open land. Countless opportunities for recreation. Fresh, clean air to breath. Peaceful sleep under dark skies, uninterrupted by sirens. And all while still having the conveniences of a city available in less driving time than a typical commute in the coastal shitholes.

      Enjoy your endless ocean of concrete. There's no way I could.

      I'll stay right where I am and have a life worth living.

  8. Not so sure by stabiesoft · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A quick review of cities in the US at or around sea level where 20M rise would be a disaster include...
    LA, SF, SD, SJ, Portland, Seattle, Honolulu, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, DC, Baltimore, Phili, Newark, Boston. That is probably about 1/2 the US population. Insurance even if you have it will not be useful, the companies will default. Insurance is for sharing risk. If 50% of your policy owners experience disaster, the company will not have the resources to pay it out. Life will certainly adapt, but probably in a Mad Max kind of way. Although I am not sure I buy the 20M number by 2100. That implies close to 6in/year and we are running closer to 1in/year. Obviously the faster the rise the more difficult to adapt. Although faster might cause us to abandon places like New Orleans instead of moating it like the netherlands does.

  9. As temperatures rise, scientists continue to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    As temperatures rise

    Temperature isn't rising.

    scientists continue to worry about the effects of melting Antarctic ice

    Scientists are presently worried about the credibility of their models, because reality has failed to comply.

    1. Re:As temperatures rise, scientists continue to... by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Scientists aren't cherry picking data to make absurd claims like "temperature isn't rising". They are not dishonest cretins posting pre-canned bullshit anonymously on Internet forums.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  10. Re:Must have been dinosaur-made global warming! by flyneye · · Score: 3, Funny

    See what happens when dinosaurs industrialize and drive cars!

    --
    *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
  11. Re:debunked by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

    Denial isn't a river in Egypt. :)

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  12. Good by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    There are no socioeconomic problems that can't be solved by a good 20 meter rise in the sea level.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  13. Re:Causation or Correlation? by crunchygranola · · Score: 2

    Please explain why you are sure that the cessation of the ice age, with an accompanying moderation in temperature, is not what permitted human agriculture -- and not the reverse. Please describe an experiment to falsify your premise.

    The experiments have already been run many times by nature.

    Take a look. The release of carbon dioxide brings the end of great ice ages happens at intervals of about 75,000 during the last 800,000 (it has happened 11 times). The development of agriculture clearly post-dates this most recent natural CO2 and temperature surge.

    Now agriculture has almost certainly helped maintaining this inter-glacial period by gradually clearing land that stored carbon as forest.

    In fact we had a recent episode when pandemic disasters reversed this process of land clearing, causing a dip in atmospheric CO2, and precipitating the event know as the "Little Ice Age". First the Black Death and Central Asian population by a third starting in 1346, then the greatest pandemic even in world history (a series of them actually) depopulated the New World starting in 1492. This second collapse of agricultural civilization was much larger than the Black Death, but followed before recovery from same.

    Humans have been manipulating global climate for 10,000 years.

    --
    Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
  14. Its a conspiracy by vilanye · · Score: 2

    "I tell you what it is. It's your quote un-quote pollution control. I heard on talk radio you don't even need 'em. It's just the latest nazi government plot. Open your eyes, man, they're trying to control Global Warming. Get it Global. That's U.N. Commissars code for telling us what the temperature is gonna be in our outdoors. Let it warm up I say. See what Butchros Butchros Ghali Ghali thinks of that. We'll grow oranges in Alaska." - Dale Gribble

  15. Re:Causation or Correlation? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 2

    Unfortunately your link has nothing to do with glacial periods or ice ages. It only shows an graph of the temperature at antarctica.
    Also: is it a mean temperature? What is the graph supposed to mean? As it is slightly above zero degrees most of the time, the graphbmakes no sense at all anyway.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  16. Re:Must have been dinosaur-made global warming! by P-niiice · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Funny that I knew that the most simplistic, mindless interpretation of the info in this article would be put forth by deniers. But it moves into the realm of sadness that it would be comment 1 & 2.

  17. Re:Causation or Correlation? by SleazyRidr · · Score: 2

    We are sure of it because of the options presented it is the only one that makes sense. If the development of agriculture could moderate temperature, then the high levels of agriculture we see today would be moderating temperature.

    Also, archaeologists have found tools and whatnot indicating that humans were cultivating crops long before it became widespread. The theory that a fluctuation climate prevented them from flourishing fits with the fact that they did not flourish until the climate stabilized.

    Not everything can be subject to experiment. Talk to some astrophysicists, you'll learn about how you can make observations of things that have already happened, and then infer some deeper meaning. Of course an idiot will make the wrong inferences, but with enough observations to control for other factors you can still get a pretty good answer.

    --
    Is 1563649 a prime number?
  18. Re:So Republicans existed five million years ago? by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    It mainly was due to the carbon emissions of the Giant Ground Sloth's V-8 SUVs and homes. More precisely, not the vehicles and dwellings themselves but owning to their furriness the sloths would always crank up the AC to absurd cooling levels thus burning obscene amounts of fossil fuels, The global warming and the Sloth's thermostats thus played out a vicious cycle of positive feedback.

  19. Re:Life will adapt by hattig · · Score: 2

    Thought I would research the London case - http://flood.firetree.net?ll=51.4438,-359.6106&zoom=9&m=20

    Yeah, the way to save London in this scenario is to dredge (a vast amount) from Southend southwards to the spit of 20m+ land from Sheerness.

    The far more reasonable 5m sea level rise would have you damming between Shoeburyness and the Isle Of Sheppey and then probably to the east of Faversham. http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=51.5020,0.6225&zoom=11&m=5

    The fens might need the same doing, despite a lack of a vast city to save: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=53.0000,0.4526&zoom=10&m=20

    Sorry Holland: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=52.2405,6.0700&zoom=8&m=20 ... oh dear, 5m isn't much better: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=52.2405,6.0700&zoom=8&m=5 and 1m is devastating: http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=52.5422,6.2568&zoom=8&m=1