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Changes In Earth's Orbit Were Key To Antarctic Warming That Ended Last Ice Age
vinces99 writes "For more than a century scientists have known that Earth's ice ages are caused by the wobbling of the planet's orbit, which changes its orientation to the sun and affects the amount of sunlight reaching higher latitudes, particularly the polar regions. The Northern Hemisphere's last ice age ended about 20,000 years ago, and most evidence has indicated that the ice age in the Southern Hemisphere ended about 2,000 years later, suggesting that the south was responding to warming in the north. But new research published online Aug. 14 in Nature (abstract) shows that Antarctic warming began at least 2,000, and perhaps 4,000, years earlier than previously thought."
No, it's pretty much just "no". The phrase "global warming" conventionally describes the unprecedentedly rapid rise in temperatures since the industrial revolution. That is entirely "our fault" because of aforementioned unprecedented rate, and that data is quite incontestable without dramatic misrepresentation of what is being compared.
Better my trotting out a headcount of experts than others' trotting out gut feelings. I have a degree in chemistry, I understand the scientific method. I work in programming, I understand logic. Both of those concepts help me to understand that hundreds of scientists from around the world are not making this shit up. Perhaps new data will come to light and prove some or all of the current theories wrong, but it won't come from /. posters making snide remarks.
And it won't come because some people have decided that science is great when it provides computers, internet and porn on DVD but is somehow stacked full of blithering idiots when it comes to climate change.
Or, it was a (partially) successful attempt to deflect the rash of comments about how their research on the previous ice age must invalidate lots of other research on current climate change.
If someone makes a post that seems to be making a false-equivalence between two situations, then they aren't even challenging anyone's "ideals", they're just introducing confusion for no good reason. Anthropogenic climate change and climate change through natural processes (like Earth's orbital wobble) aren't mutually exclusive, and any argument that says that they are is either disingenuous or badly confused about the claims being made. If you take the former to be true (and I do), then "shut up" is the correct response to the trolling attempt.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.