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Last Time CO2 Levels Were This High, There Were Trees at the South Pole (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Trees growing near the South Pole, sea levels 20 metres higher than now, and global temperatures 3C-4C warmer. That is the world scientists are uncovering as they look back in time to when the planet last had as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it does today. Using sedimentary records and plant fossils, researchers have found that temperatures near the South Pole were about 20C higher than now in the Pliocene epoch, from 5.3m to 2.6m years ago.
Many scientists use sophisticated computer models to predict the impacts of human-caused climate change, but looking back in time for real-world examples can give new insights. The Pliocene was a "proper analogy" and offered important lessons about the road ahead, said Martin Siegert, a geophysicist and climate-change scientist at Imperial College London. "The headline news is the temperatures are 3-4C higher and sea levels are 15-20 metres higher than they are today. The indication is that there is no Greenland ice sheet any more, no West Antarctic ice sheet and big chunks of East Antarctic [ice sheet] taken," he said.
I disagree. Sea level rise is the threat that we can't mitigate. Farms can shift to different crops. We can tweak the DNA of existing crops to adjust as needed, potentially protecting them from new pests. Yes, we have a public health threat looming, but we can manage it. It will be a disaster for the fishing industry, but we've been overfishing for years, so that's not unexpected even without climate change.
But there's not much we can do about sea level rise except move, and we've put massive infrastructure on the coasts, and that will be lost. It's not like we have empty cities waiting for us to relocate our coastal populations to. Well, there's Detroit. Do you want to have to move to Detroit in the next decade or two?
One foot of sea level rise is probably the limit of what we could tolerate before we start pulling out of coastal areas. One meter and we're losing many towns and building walls around others. Ten meters and it's goodbye to most of the coast.
No, it's not a demonstration that CO2 by itself is not causing much warming. The Pliocene warming occurred over a time span of 2.7 million years, and our CO2 has only had a century to do its work.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
So you think the safest thing to do is just let CO2 levels rise, because, you know, what exactly? This is an argument based on little more than short term stupidity. We know in general terms that increasing CO2 levels raises surface temperatures, and we know a helluva lot of things like ocean currents and rain belts are influenced mightily by those temperatures. Once again, pleading to ignorance doesn't make thermodynamics go away.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Actually, 5 million years ago, the continents were in about the same place. Even when the last of the dinosaurs were around, the land masses were very similar.
One of many sources
Trump trying to fix the climate? Good god are you dishonest. He's taken numerous steps to dismantle environmental protections. Heck boosting coal use is explicitly a major part of his platform. He's appointed numerous climate change denying energy industry cronies to the EPA and they've suppressed information and dismissed staff that won't play ball, or just because they're scientists who've pushed research and policies that contradict the pro-coal and CO2-is-good agenda. Some conservative leaders in the past indeed promoted policies that strengthened environment protections, but Trump is absolutely not one of them, and you're continuing your non-stop propaganda where you confuse what the right is saying they're doing with what they're actually doing. You have to be totally brainwashed to read the article you linked and conclude it portrays someone supporting environmental protections and not gutting them, especially considering what's omitted.
I'm right there with you about the left's ridiculous opposition to nuclear... but this seems to be an ongoing trend with the right, you're great at pointing out the problems with the left, but supremely intellectually dishonest about how much worse the right's alternative is. Sometimes I think SuperKendall is Kellyanne Conway or Sarah Huckabee-Sanders with all the double-talk and lying about conservative policy outcomes like "well conservatives said policy x will help y too, therefore it does" in spite of overwhelming evidence it will hurt, not help y. Trump is weakening environmental protections and you damn well know it. If you think that's fine because the dangers of AGW are exaggerated and pollution isn't all that bad, that's one thing, it's stupid sure, but to outright deny what he's doing is just dishonest.
Satellite pictures clearly show a greener Sahara.
This is complete bullcrap. Satellite photos show the exact opposite: The Sahara is expanding southwards into the Sahel, and the Sahel is expanding into the grasslands further south.
Google for "Sahara expansion" and you will see dozens of articles and satellite photos documenting it.
Google for "Sahara greening" and you will see a handful of small projects to grow crops in the desert by draining non-renewable aquifers, along with a few denialist websites that refer to "doomsday-obsessed media, activists and ruling politicians" but are devoid of any actual evidence.
BTW, what part of a Warm Earth makes this "not a nice planet to live on". More plant life, more arable land, basically the current tropics as year-round weather everywhere. Seems quite nice to me.
One of the predicted outcomes of the global warming are non-survivable areas. Right now a healthy human with access to shade and sufficient water can survive natural heat anywhere on the Earth. If the climate warms some more, there'll be regions where humans can't phsyicaly survive without air conditioning.
The predicted locations will be in India and Asia - the opposite of what you'd call "Western countries". See: https://insideclimatenews.org/... or http://climateguide.nl/2018/12...
Oh, and Texas is predicted to be affected too.