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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.
Yes, we must figure out what humanity did 5.3 million years ago to change the course of climate change so that we don't destroy ourselves.
It's almost like CO2 isn't an issue.
Born too late to conquer the Americas.
BTW, what round for dinosaur?
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
Don't let the lumber industry hear about this.
Co2 is plant food. the more Co2 the more plants and a greener world. Just what do climate change opponents have against trees?
**Life is too short to be serious**
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.
more like tragedy of commons.
The debate is over.
"Money is morality" is the only morality you will care to understand.
Right aoc?
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**
Dibs on rice paddies and wheat farming in Patagonia. Easy access to Asia, Europe, NA without Panama canal. yay!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Long before sea levels rise 20 m, annual weeds would have become perennial. Bugs and vermin killed by annual frost will thrive year around. Pesticide and weedkiller usage will skyrocket, and all the farm hands will die of cancer or leave the fields. When the North American break basket is lost, the global famine will wipe out most of the infrastructure and civilization. The surviving Homo sapiens postapocalipsia will simply pitch their thatched huts on higher and higher ground from the seashore.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
When new animal species (including our ancestors) sprang up, existing species diversified and successfully spread across all the continents.
Sounds good, man. I can hardly wait.
Have gnu, will travel.
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
Just like how pots of water boil instantly after being placed on the burner, yes.
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It's funny 'casue it's Chinese doing most of the pollution.
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AFAIK, we're not allowed anything larger than a 50 BMG so I hope that'll do the trick.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Although drowning NYC - I have mixed feelings about that ;-)
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.
And then we have water, which doesn't consume, but absorbs and acidifies.
The only thing water does when absorbing LOTS of CO2, is becomes more neutral - not acidic.
If you want people to take you seriously, stop using the language of fear and get your terminology correct.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Serious question: Why do you think so?
Because with the CO2 levels we have, predicted rise is only around 2C.
The same CO2 levels that once had the atmosphere at a far greater degree of warming.
Thus there must be some other factor involved in warming climate besides CO2 alone.
The rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 in the past ~150 years is essentially an impulse to what is admittedly a complex system.
Correct.
a suggestion of what is possible once the system settles
Serious question for you - why would you assume the earth would settle at CO2 levels we have now? Since the rise is artificial, once the CO2 is absorbed back into the system, and human output decreases over time (inevitable given the uptake in alternative energy), WHY would you, or how could you assume the CO2 levels today are anywhere near a steady state? Indeed a rise of 2C of warming means lots more flourishing plant life around the globe. Guess what plants absorb from the atmosphere...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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
As far as I can tell, all Liberals do is talk about climate change, while either doing nothing at all that actually helps, or actually do great harm (like so-called "environmentalist" over the years have done by stopping nuclear energy projects, or by people like Al Gore flying private jets all over the world).
Meanwhile Trump seems to be the only one actually trying to fix the climate.
Really, it's a matter of historical ignorance to claim conservatives do not want to help the environment, as all of the strongest supporters of the environment to date have been conservative (like Theodore Roosevelt, and now Trump).
Furthermore, from traveling the world a great truth I have seen is that countries that have poor economies do a great deal of harm to the local environment, those that are well off do not. So the absolutely first step of a true environmentalist is to ensure a healthy economy and a prosperous people, who have the kind offer time and resources totally help where it counts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sod the asteroid strike, the earth survived 15 ton, 20 ft tall bipedal walking mouths with teeth as long as steak knives. I'm pretty sure we'll be OK.
Hey dipshit, humans weren't around for either of those two things. That's the whole point.
I don't respond to AC's.
That works much better when change is gradual.
The fact that CO2 levels were as high then as they are now, yet our temperatures are much lower currently provides absolute proof that changes are gradual.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
More climate stories than tech.
Slashdot isn't a tech site, dipshit. It's "News for Nerds". Climate change is news for biology/ecology/sociology nerds.
I don't respond to AC's.
For example, the "Pilocene beech fossils in Antarctica when CO2 was at similar level to today point to planet’s future."
There never was a "Pilocene" epoch.
First time in my life I have been called a right-winger LOL.
I do like poking people's assumptions whther on the right or the left and the climate change industry has become a gravy train for too many and their bubble needs to be poked.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Moving people/stuff further from the oceans won't be an issue either. Food will be plentiful, animal species will flourish. Judging from past warm earth evidence, it won't be so bad....
Last time the CO2 levels where that high, Antarctica, the continent in question, was not at the south pole ... wow, a no brainer. Firth of all the continent had not drifted so far and secondly the earth axis was different. No idea why "climate researchers" don't know basic stuff like this. (There was even a period where Antarctica already was down there, but the earth axis was in a position that half of it was in tempered zones ... one idea why some people think the mythical Atlantis could have been there before the last "ice age")
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Satellite pictures clearly show a greener Sahara.
No they don't moron.
The only single spot that is greener is a Egypt research project west of the River Nil.
The rest of the Sahara is growing by miles every year in every direction where it does not hit the mediterranean sea.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
That article doesn't mention the Sahara Desert at all.
You are probably being sarcastic but humanity has only demonstrated one thing over the past 20 years, we don't fucking deserve to survive. I'm off to do by bit by running the A/C with the window open.
Always the attitude of the statists... The government must do it... Nevermind the fact that the first police departments, fire departments, and road construction were all volunteer or privately funded endeavors... Hell, we had volunteer fire departments still in operation here in California until just a couple of years ago when the State forcibly absorbed them... They did have some limited state funding, but the vast majority of the operations were done sans-payment.
People can/will band together to get things done..
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There never was a "Pilocene" epoch.
There was so, but it ended when Millennials decided they hate being mammals, and started shaving everything.
it's that we know that there were extinction events the last time there was a major change in climate. And we're going through one of those changes now. It takes a scientist to prove that beyond reasonable doubt, but a layman can put two and two together.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
No, that isn't hard. Just toss out your false and baseless assumption that you should choose between the two things that there is evidence of. The more likely answer of course is that they're complete fucking morons playing rhetorical games.
By YouTuber Professor Stick..
TL;DW, plants "breath" through little holes and they lose water when they breath. The close those holes to prevent water loss. They have to balance water loss and CO2 intake. As temperatures rise they'll take in less CO2 to avoid the water loss. Making increased CO2 a bust for plant growth in many if not most cases.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Funny thing about "Freedom", it's not the fluffy-nebulous term people think it is. It's actually quantifiable well defined. "Freedom" is options.
For example: In the desktop computer world, a user largely has three degrees of freedom in regard to operating systems. Linux, Windows, Mac. If the user needs to use Microsoft Office, then their freedoms are limited further.
Similarly, "Religious Freedom" is the number and types of religions and practices allowed. In the US, we generally have a pretty high degree of religious freedom, with limitations only on extremes.
But no, "standard of living" nor "freedom" is equivalent to nor a measurement of morality. But at this point I wouldn't expect you to be able to comprehend what morality even is much less be capable of it.
It's you buying all that cheap crap you don't need that makes the Chinese pollute. Have you ever thought about that?
-- Cheers!
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.
You didn't propose an alternative. You didn't even argue against my statement. You post amounts to "nuh-uh, stupid-head!" Would you care to post an intelligent response?
Do you think morality should be concerned with human happiness and well-being, or something else? If so, do you have some way to quantify that that's better than the well-studied economic approach?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The weather is nuts. That's obvious. What to do about it is not at all obvious. And any "solution" that doesn't have China and India on board isn't a solution.
The world will come to an end in 12 years. It's on the internet, so it must be true. AOC said so, so it must be true. How will people to do their best to make the world a better place if they've already given up?
Personally, I see it as an opportunity. Consider how we could increase agriculture productivity if temperate and northern climates had longer growing seasons.
...laura
The title of the article in your link is "Warming May Turn Africa’s Arid Sahel Green: Researchers." I don't know where or when you learned to speak English, but when I was taught English, I learned that there is a definite difference between "may" and "will."
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Its obvious you still havnt learnt to speak English. Never confuse American with English.
**Life is too short to be serious**
The large map at the top of the article in your link is titled "Change in Leaf Area (1982-2015)" and the bulk of the Sahara is depicted in shades of gray rather than the colors in the legend because there is no leaf area to measure in the Sahara. However, the Sahel, the region on the southern edge of the Sahara, is depicted in reds, oranges, and yellows, which according to the legend correspond to areas of declining leaf area. So according to your source, the Sahara is browning, the exact opposite of what you claimed. I don't know if you are a troll or just an idiot, but in my experience there's very little difference.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Depends on the dino, I suppose. Pretty much any elephant gun should do fine for anything short of the largest plant-eaters.
Though you might want to practice cycling the action quickly before you annoy a T-Rex....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Does not this finding support the notion that there is something else besides CO2 which drives temperature, like that bright thing in the sky visible during daytime? ;-)
Paul B.
If CO2 levels were the same then as now why is the South Pole still a popsicle?
(Not trolling, genuinely asking.)
Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive. In the Republican Party.
That's exactly what Trump is. Trump is the first president (of any party) that publicly supported gay marriage before being elected to office. How is that not progressive?
The real meaning of progressive is that you are for the progress of humanity, moving forward. That is what Trump is doing - on social, and environmental issues alike.
You may be snowed from seeing it now, but over the course of the next six years it will become apparent even for those who do not want to see.
A prosperous country means more freedom to do ANYTHING you like, as long as you are not harming others. That is exactly what Trump supports.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The way things are going, nobody can even start to make plans because the people who are like that guy quash all discussion of it immediately.
Step One has to be "get the roadblock people the hell out of the way"; you're either HELPING or you're HINDERING, there's no middle ground allowed.
Doesn't the same argument apply to the rising temperature? How do you know its caused by Anthropomorphic climate change and not just solar variation, increase in evaporation (water is a much more potent climate change gas than Co2) or a 100 other factors which affect the climate?
But then it's useless to try and debate with an AC.
**Life is too short to be serious**
The climate as it is sucks for a lot of people. Sure it may not suck for Europe or North Am but the rest of the world would be very happy with a warmer wetter world if the cost is Europe and the Northeast freezing over.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Google Space Mirrors
**Life is too short to be serious**
Deserve? We only just managed to walk upright, and tapped cheap abundant energy to get civilization where it is. We're observing gravity waves and detecting the presence of extrasolar planets light years away, are are most likely past annihilating ourselves with nuclear weapons, and we don't deserve to exist because why? We allow ourselves to be ruled by greedy, selfish, and short-sighted people who probably believe some kind of sky-daddy is ensuring our survival?
Hmmmm... well, you might have a point.
Ooookkkaayyyy... "Change the way we do things." Right. How, exactly?
What all the analyses always seem to step over is the fact that fossil fuels bring prosperity, and their lack brings poverty. We have enough people in poverty already, and artificially depriving ourselves of fossil fuels will simply increase the amount of people in poverty.
Also seemingly unknown to the masses is that poverty kills. Smoking will take up to 7 years off your life, but living in poverty can take 10.
So, how many million / billion people do we want to throw into poverty by attempting to cease use of fossil fuels? Ready to be a murderer? That's what you would be if you pass a law that says, "no cars / planes / etc in 10 years."
The solution to this is going to have to come out of a lab, and cannot come out of the halls of any government. People can pass all the laws they want, and the result will only be millions of dead people, killed by poverty.
What we want to do is to ensure the research into the better battery and the better ultra-capacitor. Either or both of these will likely be found in a "practical" electric car. The "practical" electric car will be able to perform better than a 1987 Yugo, that circulated the USA in the 1987 One Lap of America, travelling 9,000 miles in 10 days and carrying 3 people (friends of mine, actually.) But the feat that no electric car can currently match is the range of the vehicle, rapid "recharging" of the vehicle, and the fuel availability for the vehicle being "almost anywhere." Tesla S cannot match the '87 Yugo. Tesla would be found on road, discharged somewhere around the country as the Yugo went over the horizon.
So, lets ensure the continued research of battery tech, ultracapacitor tech, and any other energy storage tech that might work to solve the transportation sector's roadblocks to using electricity. And, OBTW, the current electric cars are getting about 3.5 - 4 miles per KwH, a KwH around here is about 12 1/2 cents, and so at 4 mi / KwH, it will go 100 miles on $3.12. Know any gas cars that will go 100 miles on $3.12? Me either. Current car gets about 25 mpg, at near $3 / gallon for premium (which will _still_ not accelerate as well as an electric car), so 100 miles would be $12. So, the holy grail for the project may be carbonless emissions, but the side-effect of dramatically lower fuel costs would be something not to sneeze at.
So, I think the correct approach is to attempt to make electric cars viable in all respects. We do that, things get CHEAPER in a hurry, and we can then look to a horizon of fossil-fueless existence.
Youâ(TM)re way off with suggesting that Australian Deserts will become greener, itâ(TM)s becoming hotter and much drier here.
The title of the article in your link is "Warming May Turn Africa’s Arid Sahel Green: Researchers." I don't know where or when you learned to speak English, but when I was taught English, I learned that there is a definite difference between "may" and "will."
Also that Sahel and Sahara are two different words.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Sibiria would get warmer, all right, but that's not gonna solve another problem: It's also dry as a fart. To make that arable, you have to put water there somehow. What you might get is a hot desert instead of a cold desert, but arable isn't quite the term I have in mind when thinking of Sibiria, even if you increase the temperature.
Europe should be doing ok, considering that most of its climate is warmth by the gulf stream which is most likely going to fizzle away when the climate changes, so it's gonna be warmer but at the same time the heating is going to be turned off, in total it's gonna be all right.
I'd be wary of places like Florida, though. I guess America's Wang will be dipped into the sea and all the pensioners will have to buy house boats.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Birdshot. Literally.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
That's what climate models are.
So the GOP is to blame for not acting like the opposition by rigging their primary, for not being in the pocket of one of the candidates themselves, and for not relying on superdelegates to shut down populist candidates. I suppose that's true.
That 'incompetent twit' is going to get reelected because the left continues to act like petulant children. They've positioned themselves as being an existential threat towards the very nature of the country, of being bigoted and racist against whites and white males in particular, and condone violence and censorship to shut down political speech while at the same time demanding complete disarmament of lawful citizens.
That's a lot of distraction in keeping the president from leaning towards better environmental policies.
While perhaps factual, there is no causality proven. This is like connecting the twin towers terrorist attack to Chicago weather that day and predicting when the 4 mph wind from the se dies out and the air pressure on the clear day drops to 30, with a morning temperature of 67 and rising, then large symmetric buildings in nyc will be attacked.
When a friend explained tracking hurricanes to me, his job, he said there are 100s of variables correlated to estimate the track. Using just CO2 as a metric is ridiculous. You might as well be casting bones and reading the signs.
And more fun, when Antarctica had trees, and Greenland was forested, the tropics were, well, tropical. If global warming were real, I’d worry more about what to do with a huge expanding agricultural belt, corn growing in the Canadian provinces and the wheat belt expanded to the Yukon. Meanwhile temps in the tropics won’t be rising to much. And since we aren’t geologically primed for equatorial deserts on a widespread basis, no worries there.
However, we’re heading into a grand solar minimum. Much less solar output. Much colder climate headed our way. And we are cycling to where north america’s Summer is when the earth is farther from the sun. So i’m Expecting by 2055 the Thames will freeze over, and London will need snow removal equipment in abundance.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
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>Google for "Sahara expansion"
Why Google? I have a KML loaded into Google Earth right in front of my eyes that shows stations like AGADEX, TAHOUA, TILLAVERY, DORY, BENOUftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/da...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I can't even trust the underlying data so that's a pretty big mountain to climb.
Yeah, and? ...
If Netherlands is below sea level, then Switzerland is too
Oh the Irony :P
Hint: Netherlands is not below sea level, a few small parts of it are ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.