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We're Creating a Perfect Storm of Unprecedented Global Warming (popsci.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: If we do nothing to reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by the end of this century the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, according to a new study out today in the journal Nature Communications. This period -- roughly 15 million years after dinosaurs went extinct and 49.8 million years before modern humans appeared on the scene -- was 16F to 25F warmer than the modern norm. [...] During the Eocene, it took more atmospheric CO2 to influence temperatures than it does today. In fact, if we don't change our behavior, 2100 will be as hot as the Eocene with much less atmospheric CO2 than was present at the time. A hotter sun means we get more bang for our CO2 buck. "Climate change denialists often mention that CO2 was high in the past, that it was warm in the past, so this means there's nothing to worry about," said lead study author Gavin Foster, a researcher in isotope geochemistry and paleoceanography at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton. "It's certainly true, that the CO2 was high in the past and that it was warm in the past. But because the sun was dimmer, the climate wasn't being forced as much [as it will be] in the future if we carry on as we are."

18 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I also performed a study. by Gaxx · · Score: 2, Informative

    At a guess?

    The one backed by considerably more than 90% of the academic experts in the field.

    But who knows. Maybe unqualified Anonymous Coward #7687123 is correct...

    --
    -- Gaxx
  2. Re:Here we go again by sjames · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, they said the INCREASE in average temperature had nothing to do with increased output from the sun. (Smacks AC with sandal).

  3. Re:Sky is Falling! by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Really. Isn't this getting old and tired.

    Yes the climate is changing. Yes it's caused by Humans. No it can't be fixed.

    It is impossible to change or reverse. Sorry - we can't stop murdering each other as it is. How can we stop global warming? Answer. We can't.

    Just plan for the inevitable and stop screaming the sky is falling. O.L.D. F.*.C.K.I.N.G. N.E.W.S.

    Ughh

    There is a difference between "It can't be fixed" and "The #rightwingnuts refuse to fix it".

  4. Re:An Industrial Revolution 50 million years ago?! by mean+pun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, yeah. Red herring 4, straight out of the deniers handbook. Ok, my turn to debunk.

    Nobody disputes that nature could cause this kind of global warming or the later cooling. What science rejects is that for this particular global warming there is any other plausible explanation than human activity. Especially because of the remarkable speed with which it happens, the synchronicity with the industrial revolution, and just plain simple physics.

  5. Re:Hotter sun by religionofpeas · · Score: 3, Informative

    You mean to say the sun is hotter and, as a result, is having an effect?

    The sun is slowly getting hotter, over millions of years, due to hydrogen slowly turning into helium, with greater density, following a standard progression for stars of this type.

    This means that for the same CO2 levels, the Earth is getting hotter now than it did before.

  6. The relativity of wrong by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Informative
    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  7. Re:Your plan? by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Informative

    No business can survive a tax of $300/tonne. Which is what Trudeau wants to push here in Canada, it would crash our economy overnight.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  8. Re: Not our problem. We'll be dead by then. by Layzej · · Score: 3, Informative

    YOLO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    But 9-14C is way outside of the consensus view. They need to have strong evidence of this fantastic claim.

  9. Re:Hotter sun by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Over the few hundred years of industrialisation, solar impact is negligible. Over the 50 million years since the Eocene, obviously less so.

    Edit: diatribe, how appropriate

  10. Re:Hotter sun by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Informative

    The AGW experts(and media, and talking heads) have been telling us for decades, that the sun(aka solar changes) have no impact. None

    You seem to have problems understanding the difference of "decades" vs "millions of years".

  11. Re:Here we go again by WaffleMonster · · Score: 3, Informative

    A few years back they were saying the average temperature has nothing to do with the output of the sun. I found that strange. Now they are saying that things will be hotter than predicted because the sun is hotter?

    Suns output increases by about 10% per billion years while it remains close to the main sequence.

    50,000,000 years ago is 5% of 1 billion

    Industrial revolution started about 300 years ago.
    300 is 0.000003% of 1 billion.

    Change in solar output since 50 million years ago is a small but substantial 0.5% percent. Change during the period of concerted human meddling is less than a rounding error at 0.0000003%

    To put all of this into perspective an increased solar output of only 10% of todays output is sufficient to trigger irreversible moist earth runaway leading to surface temperatures measured in thousands of degrees.

  12. Sunrise: east or west? Comparing prediction by XXongo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Forget the real world. >Because real-world results don't matter. What did your MODEL that hasn't successfully predicted sunrise direction for the last 15 years say?

    If you are snarking about climate models, in fact the climate models have been remarkably accurate over the last fifty years. Here's the Berkeley Earth comparison between models and measurements: http://static.berkeleyearth.or... (See also: https://www.skepticalscience.c... https://www.theguardian.com/en... )

    And why have you been ignoring more accurate satellite-based measurements of the sunrise and selectively using only ground-based measurements that have been, errr, corrected from the original data?

    You ARE aware that satellite measurements are heavily corrected, right? The satellites see a line-of-sight average of microwave emissions, and there is a rather long and controversial process to turn microwave emission intensity into middle troposphere temperatures. One researcher (John Christy) has a correction method that produces an output that says that global warming is real, but it's on the low end of the predicted values. http://www.realclimate.org/ind... Other researchers using the same data, however, come up with other answers.

    The ground measurements, on the other hand, have had relatively minor corrections to account for changes of the type of thermometer, the corrections being well-documented, and (an important thing to note) the change due to corrections making no significant difference to the final conclusion.

  13. Acid rain by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you don't remember acid rain it's because of the very successful cap and trade treaty that won international agreement in the 1980's. Oddly the treaty was the brainchild of the conservative heros Thatcher and Reagan. (Thatcher read chemistry at Oxford and was also the first "world leader" to accept AGW was a serious problem). If mankind is convinced it is a common threat, it will be fixed, but not before we lose some nice stuff like; the Arctic ice cap, coral reefs, Bangladesh, Miami, Seychelle Islands, ... (ok, Miami is not really a "nice thing" but some people like it)

    I do however agree it's "old news".

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  14. Re:and that would be a bad thing... because? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is nothing "sudden" about it; the view that government is incapable of having meaningful, long-term positive impact on the economy has been the primary message of free market economists since Adam Smith.

    Have you read Adam Smith, because that's not what he says...

  15. Re: I also performed a study. by Muros · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hitler was backed by over 90% of the people

    To which election do you refer? The 1932 Presidential one, where he got 30.1% and 36.8% in the first and second rounds respectively, or the 1933 Federal election, where NSDAP (the NAZI party) got 43.91%?

  16. Re:and that would be a bad thing... because? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is nothing "sudden" about it; the view that government is incapable of having meaningful, long-term positive impact on the economy has been the primary message of free market economists since Adam Smith.

    What is sudden is this belief. Adam Smith, all modern economists and all economists in between those two see an absolutely massive long-term meaningful positive impact of government on the free market....they're kind of the only entity out there that is capable of freeing markets and creating a playing field that a market can thrive on. Without a solid governmental foundation, all markets become non-free or in best case massively shrink. Adam Smith spends huge chunks of his page counts about the need for a government in order to create free markets....he just then cautions that too much meddling in the economy is very bad. But he sees a major role of governments in allowing and encouraging accumulation, and investment in capital, as well as enforcing contracts, providing for safety of markets and goods, weeding out counterfeit goods, and in general setting the rules of the economic game. Without proper government intervention in the economy, he explicitly states that the markets would fail. He was liberal-democratic for the time, and definitely not libertarian or laissez-faire.

  17. Re:Your plan? by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 5, Informative

    The US and many western countries have been curbing CO2 emissions. China, India, Russia, and others have been increasing

    At the moment it is actually Europe, China and India who are seeing the need for climate control and pushing for renewable energy sources, whereas it's the US trump administration who is singing the praises of fossil fuels and degrading environmental policy to a footnote.

  18. Re:Hmmm by vittal · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then unfortunately, you thought wrong.

    http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_o... does describe solar irradiance and even puts a figure on the estimated amount it provides to the total radiative forcing. So solar (and other natural forcings) do have something to do with climate change, its just that they are swamped by our activity.

    Feel free to use hyperbole, but because this is a site for nerds, when you do, it just makes you sound like a bit of a pillock.