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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.
This is yet another demonstration that CO2 by itself is not causing much warming. There are other factors involved, including solar output...
That's the worst thing about the whole scare-mongering over global warming, the misleading people into believing such a simplistic picture of a complex system. It lets many believe they are doing something to help, when in fact they are doing nothing or possibly making things worse.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We weren't here the last time CO2 levels were that high. Yes, the Earth survived. Hell, the Earth survived the Dinosaur Killer strike, but a shit ton of species died.
It's hard to assess with statements like that whether the poster is just playing a rhetorical game, or is indeed a complete fucking moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I dont deny the world is warming.
I question why is that a bad thing?
Use of fossil fuels lets developing countries develop much faster so that by the time say Bangladesh needs flood defenses of the type Netherlands has , it can afford them.
Not to mention a warmer world means more rains, a greener Sahara, less drought prone India and a greened Australian desert.
Increased food security- as the world has warmed since the 70s the incidence of famine in Africa has gone down.
Yes there are some losers - Florida gets worse hurricanes, California Drought-Flood cycle gets more extreme, UK freezes as the Gulf stream shuts down but on net balance more countries benefit than lose from Global Warming.
**Life is too short to be serious**
The big issue is that in the past, these changes have taken place over thousands of years. This could happen over decades. We just can't adapt that quickly.
The sea level rise is the big issue. We're talking about flooding many major cities. We'll try to add sea walls and such, but if we're talking 10+ meters, that won't work.
And without the sea level rise, we're fine as a species, but much of nature isn't, and isn't going to adapt fast enough. We're talking about a major extinction event. Yes, in some cases, this will help agriculture, but the benefits will be dwarfed by the problems.
Weird it's almost as if a system as large and complex as the earth's climate can't change on a moment's notice the second a large quantity of greenhouse gas is hastily introduced
You should tell that to the people who were promoting fear around runaway warming (even though as the headline points out, CO2 has been this high before with no runaway warming). Or maybe you should talk to multiple politicians today claiming we have only 10 years to solve this problem...
If as you say the climate in fact changes more slowly the the fear-mongers claim, then why will the natural decrease in CO2 output as alternative energy uptake increases across the world, not take care of the problem long before there is significant warming? Don't forget the planet itself is a natural consumer of CO2, acting to scrub out excesses over time as long as output diminishes.
Unless you wish to change you story that is, and start claiming CO2 has a rapid effect on climate after all. Otherwise why should we fear it?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A warmer world means more rain and the Sahara and Australian desert turning green. What makes you think hotter means dryer?
**Life is too short to be serious**
Or, you know, we, as a species, could stop being pants-on-head stupid about this, get our collective fingers out of our collective ears, uncover our collective eyes, actually acknowledge this shit is happening and it's at least in part our fault, and actually DO something about it.
Just sayin'..
Your all-or-nothing thinking shows you're not smart. We don't have to """dismantle""" society. We have to CHANGE THE WAY WE DO THINGS. Fucking deal with it.
A warmer world means more rain and the Sahara and Australian desert turning green. What makes you think hotter means dryer?
It's a little more complicated than all that though. Some places will see more rain, often too much rain, the kind that causes seasonal flooding; many other places will become much drier.
Less of the rain that falls will be in the form of snow, meaning the summer run-offs from mountains will be less; as a result it will be lots of rain, but over a short period of time. Ironically, this means people will be less able to capture water without extensive reservoir and water retainment systems. As we get more rain, we'll have less water to use.
It means many agricultural economies set up on arable land will collapse as the ideal places to grow crops moves to places that don't have the infrastructure set up to grow and harvest them- and by the time they build those infrastructures, if warming continues, the ideal growing places will move again. Because of our lack of ability to capture the more seasonal and more "all-in-one-go" type rains that accompany global warming, we will have less water to irrigate crops with.
So yes, more rain, but not necessarily more usable water. A tree won't benefit from increased rainfall if it all happens in one month of the year and the tree experiences drought like conditions the rest of the year.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Do you really think your economy is that independent from what happens on the coasts?
I think you have vastly underestimated the impact of rapid climate change. A 20m sea level rise would affect every major city on a coast and as well as flat, low lying areas which are often highly populated. The shutdown of the gulf stream would not just affect the UK but all of Scandinavia as well as France, Benelux, Germany since their climate would all switch to being similar to central Canada and, having lived in both locations, not many European plants will survive a Canadian winter where it freezes in November, hits -30 to -40C in January/February and the snow only fully melts in April (we still have some on the ground now).
Of course, Canada and Russia will be doing great as more land becomes farmable and the permafrost retreats further north but when water supplies start running out in the US and elsewhere governments are going to have to take action to secure the water their citizens need to live. This is going to cause political instability and probably wars.
Climate change is definitely survivable as a species but the death, instability, famine and ecological damage it will cause is going to be terrible.