How We Know Today's Climate Change Is Not Natural

How We Know Today's Climate Change Is Not Natural
Last week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, chaired by climate contrarian Lamar Smith, R-Texas, held a hearing on climate science. The hearing featured three scientists who are dubious about the conclusions of the majority of climate scientists, and climate scientist Michael Mann, best known for his “hockey stick graph” of temperatures over the last thousand years illustrating the impact of humans on global warming.
This week, Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency administrator, who had said that human activity was not the primary contributor to global warming, acknowledged that it plays a role—but stressed the need to figure out exactly how much of one.
Despite the many climate “skeptics” in key positions of power today, 97 percent of working climate scientists agree that the warming of Earth’s climate over the last 100 years is mainly due to human activity that has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Why are they so sure?
Earth’s climate has changed naturally over the past 650,000 years, moving in and out of ice ages and warm periods. Changes in climate occur because of alterations in Earth’s energy balance, which result from some kind of external factor or “forcing”—an environmental factor that influences the climate. The ice ages and shifting climate were caused by a combination of changes in solar output, Earth’s orbit, ocean circulation, albedo (the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface) and makeup of the atmosphere (the amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases such as water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone that are present).
Ice core from West Antarctic Photo: Oregon State University
Scientists can track these earlier natural changes in climate by examining ice cores drilled from Greenland and Antarctica, which provide evidence about conditions as far back as 800,000 years ago. The ice cores have shown that rising CO2 levels and rising temperatures are closely linked.
Scientists also study tree rings, glaciers, pollen remains, ocean sediments, and changes in the Earth’s orbit around the sun to get a picture of Earth’s climate going back hundreds of thousands of years or more.
Today, CO2 levels are 40 percent higher than they were before the Industrial Revolution began; they have risen from 280 parts per million in the 18th century to over 400 ppm in 2015 and are on track to reach 410 ppm this spring.
In addition, there is much more methane (a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than CO2 in the short term) in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 800,000 years—two and a half times as much as before the Industrial Revolution. While some methane is emitted naturally from wetlands, sediments, volcanoes and wildfires, the majority of methane emissions come from oil and gas production, livestock farming and landfills.
Warming of the North Pole and thinning ice Photo: WasifMalik
Global temperatures have risen an average of 1.4˚ F since 1880. Sea ice in the Arctic has thinned and decreased in the last few decades; the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are decreasing in mass. The North and South Poles are warming faster than anywhere else on Earth. Glaciers are retreating on mountains all over the world. Spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the last 50 years.
Southern California heat wave. Photo: Ann Frye
The number of record-breaking hot temperatures in the U.S. is on the rise. Oceans are the warmest they have been in a half-century; the top layer is warming about 0.2˚F per decade. The oceans are also 30 percent more acidic than they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution because they are absorbing more CO2. Global sea levels rose an average of 6.7 inches in the last century, and in the last 10 years, have risen almost twice as fast.
Here is how scientists know that the climate change we are experiencing is mainly due to human activity and not a result of natural phenomenon.
“We have a very, very clear understanding that the amount of heat in the ocean is increasing—the ocean heat content is going up by a lot,” said Schmidt. “That implies that there must be an external change in the radiation budget of the earth—more energy has to be going in than leaving.
“There are a number of ways that can happen, but each of them has a different fingerprint. If the sun were brighter, we would see warming all the way up through the atmosphere from the surface to the stratosphere to the mesosphere. We don’t see this. We see instead warming at the surface, cooling in the stratosphere, cooling in the mesosphere. And that’s a signature of greenhouse gas forcing, it’s not a signature of solar forcing. So we know it’s not solar.”
Moreover, according to the World Radiation Center, the sun’s radiation has not increased since at least 1978 (when satellite monitoring began) though global temperatures over the last 30 years have continued to rise.
In addition, the lower atmosphere (troposphere), which is absorbing the CO2 and expanding as it gets warmer, is pushing the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere upwards. If the sun’s radiation were the main factor responsible for Earth’s warming, both atmosphere layers would likely be warming and this would not occur.
Scientists also can distinguish between CO2 molecules that are emitted naturally by plants and animals and those that result from the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon molecules from different sources have different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei; these different versions of molecules are called isotopes. Carbon isotopes derived from burning fossil fuels and deforestation are lighter than those from other sources. Scientists measuring carbon in the atmosphere can see that lighter carbon molecules are increasing, corresponding to the rise in fossil fuel emissions.
Peter de Menocal, dean of science at Columbia University and founding director of Columbia’s Center for Climate and Life, studies deep-sea sediments to understand past climate change.
Ocean sediment cores from the West Atlantic
“Ocean sediments provide a longer term baseline [tens of millions of years] that allows you to compare the past with the present, giving you an idea of how variable ocean temperatures have been before we had thermometers,” said de Menocal. “Over the last 2,000 years, there have been natural climate variations, but they were not especially large…the Medieval Warm period around 1,000 years ago, and the little ice age which was three separate cooling periods lasting a few decades each, beginning around 1300 to around the 1850s. It’s the warming after the 1850s that’s been really remarkable and unique over the last couple of millennia—you can see that in the sediment cores.”
Photo: unlu1
Evidence from ocean sediments, ice cores, tree rings, sedimentary rocks and coral reefs show that the current warming is occurring 10 times faster than it did in the past when Earth emerged from the ice ages, at a rate unprecedented in the last 1,300 years.
To understand this rapid change in climate, scientists look at data sets and climate models to try to reproduce the changes that have already been observed. When scientists input only natural phenomena such as the sun’s intensity, changes in the Earth’s orbit and ocean circulation, the models cannot reproduce the changes that have occurred so far.
“We have independent evidence that says when you put in greenhouse gases, you get the changes that we see,” said Schmidt. “If you don’t put in greenhouse gases, you don’t. And if you put in all the other things people think about—the changes in the earth’s orbit, the ocean circulation changes, El Niño, land use changes, air pollution, smog, ozone depletion—all of those things, none of them actually produce the changes that we see in multiple data sets across multiple areas of the system, all of which have been independently replicated.” In other words, only when the emissions from human activity are included, are the models and data sets able to accurately reproduce the warming in the ocean and the atmosphere that is occurring.
“Today, almost 100 percent [plus or minus 20 percent] of the unusual warmth that we’ve experienced in the last decade is due to greenhouse gas emissions,” said de Menocal.
Record shattering heat in 2015 Photo: NASA
Findings from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies show clearly how much natural and manmade factors contribute to global warming.
Climate deniers offer a variety of bases for their skepticism without providing scientific evidence. The most effective thing that the climate denier community has done, however, is to spread the notion of uncertainty about climate change, and use it as an excuse not to take any action.
“It’s been a very effective tactic,” said de Menocal, “in part because the scientific community spends a tremendous amount of effort quantifying that uncertainty. And so we make it plain as day that there are things we’re certain about, and things we’re uncertain about. There are places of debate that exist in the community. That’s the scientific process. … The deniers are not selling a new way of looking at the problem, they’re selling doubt, and it’s very easy to manufacture doubt.”
“They are in total denial of the evidence that there is,” said Schmidt. “When I challenge them to produce evidence for their attributions, all I get is crickets. There’s no actual quantitative evidence that demonstrates anything. … Show me the data, show me your analysis.”
“There are lot of things that we’re absolutely certain about,” said de Menocal. “We’re absolutely certain carbon dioxide is rising in the atmosphere. We’re absolutely certain it’s warming the planet and we’re absolutely certain that it’s acidifying the oceans.”
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John Barltrop
6 years ago
I am quite surprised that members of “the flat earth society” have not made any comment on this article……..as yet.
Thank you for the informative article, that clearly shows, that Climate Change, which our “spaceship” earth is undergoing is not natural………in fact far from it. As pointed out the proof is a scientific fact………and is certainly backed up, for example, by NASA’s “Operation Ice Bridge” and other scientific bodies and scientists involved in their specific areas of expertise.
This is an old post now but the findings were current then. Firstly the figures in this article are correct and climate change is accelerating unnaturally, I do not deny this as possibly now more than ever human intervention is changing natural circumstances. This said there have been massive swings in tempretature in the planets history which is evidenced in the core samples mentioned in this article and many more since also.
This means that swings will come and go in the planets future, we may survive and other animals to but we can’t save it all, the earths biosphere has and always will be in a state of flux, surviving the knock on effects of this change should be our main focus not trying to recreate a moment in the earths history which is arrogant and short sited.
To stand still is to lose inertia. It’s not nice and probably not even humane but China understand this. Some can be saved, others pave the way that is the only truth in existence. If we look to deeply at carbon emissions we will lose focus in other more important survival projects as public perception breeds state spending in the West. We as 1st world citizens need to lobby for many solutions for many problems not get stuck dogmatically chasing a goal of futility.
I hope this helps anyone reading to gain a little perspective on the issue, change is needed but protection is better than prevention when dealing with the inevitability of change on this amazing very rare extremely valuable planet that is our home.
Yes, this is an old post…But, as always, they forget to mention the fact that a single volcanic eruption produces more CO2 than man has produced since the start of the industrial age. When they can figure out how to stop them from happening, well, I rest my case.
Michelle, you are missing the point. Assuming the amount of CO2 is increasing, the question is whether that is the cause of “global warming.” This article, like all discussion on this issue, fails to explain this. And if what Darren is saying is correct, then it seems to go against such a conclusion without explaining why the CO2 from fossil fuels is more prone to cause “global warming” than CO2 from other sources.
If you look at historical CO2 levels over millions of years our CO2 levels are 100’s times less, they decreased naturally through two processes, lessening volcanic activity and forests, we are too focused on blame and human CO2 production alone than the fact that FORESTs are our savior, we need a more balanced approach, promotion of increasing Earths forests, decreasing human CO2 creation and monitoring of natural processes. The evidence does not support Man is 100% responsible for global warming but it does support a theory that it PREVENTED a cycle of extreme cooling, an ice age.
Agree with you. The island I live on has had 30 percent of its old growth cut down in 25 years yet the government is ok with this because much of the land is replanted with seedlings. Seriously how long does it take for the ecosystems to came back that were previously established in the old growth forests? I witness the trees being cut down on the island I live on while the permafrost melts.
Well the data since late 2016 shows a decrease in global temperature so there’s that pesky fact. And this article completely disregards climate forcing, specifically particle forcing which is the canary in the coal mine. Nothing man has done has prevented an ice age, indeed it appears to be right on track as evidenced by our current low activity solar cycle 25. I believe it’s still snowing in Brazil as I type this in August 2021. Next two decades will show us how fast the cosmos can send us back to the dark ages. With our extremely weak end magnetic field it’s now a matter of when the CME hits and not if, then all that green energy nonsense will be mere yard art.
2016-Hottest year on record
2020-2nd hottest year on record
2019-3rd hottest year on record
Exactly what data are you referring to since all of that data was available in August 2021. Clearly your pesky fact is pesky fiction. Also winter-time in Brazil is June thru Sept because they are in the Southern Hemisphere, so snow would likely occur in August, their winter. But I’m sure you already knew that since you seem to have all the answers even if they are FALSE and MISLEADING.
We are a major factor in the destruction of our forest.. Maybe it is not 100% us but the vast majority. Fighting and blaming isn’t the point here though as much as finding good alternatives and solutions
A molecule of CO2 does what a molecule of CO2 does regardless of from where it came. The article above explains that the increase comes from our activity.
The physics of how radiant energy interacts with gas molecules is a large branch of research well beyond the scope of this article. Starting with Foote and Tyndall back in the 1850s, we have come to understand pretty well how this works. The same science that makes heat seeking missiles possible can be used to calculate the greenhouse effect of CO2. There really isn’t any doubt that more CO2 causes the planet to warm, but explaining why is too large for one article.
Michelle, if you read that part, the claim is that the man-made CO2 is lighter, which means that on a per-particle/molecule basis, man-made C02 contributes LESS to the green house effect than a heavier natural particle.
Aharon, you seem to be conflating “lighter” with “less IR absorption.” I cannot find any articles expressing that carbon molecules of different density (higher or lower number of isotopes) absorb and re-emit infrared radiation differently. If you can find evidence of this, I’d sincerely love to see it. If not, then you cannot correctly assume that the lighter, man-made CO2 contributes less to the greenhouse gas effect.
Isotopic effects related to CO2 are miniscule. Unless one uses high-resolution IR equipment, the absorption of radiation and subsequent emission are non-issues. Whether CO2 is man-made or natural makes no difference on the warming effects. Note also that carbon dioxide is only one greenhouse gas. Other gases, such as CFCs, nitrous oxide, and methane have substantially more profound impacts on warming. These gases are related to synthetic fertilizers and refrigerants, as well as fossil fuels.
How they do they conclude that co2 and climate is linked when the graph of oxygen isotopes in greenland actually shows that 99% of the climate was at 280ppm co2 and yet the climate fluctuated more during low co2. This does not make any sense to an objective onlooker. The co2 being 280ppm during massively fluctuating times actually concludes that co2 and climate are not linked.
Simply not true, According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide.with all do respect you should check your knowledge before you spread rumors. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/
Dear Ben,
Apart from the fact – agreed by IPCC – that humankind and all its accoutriments, industry, livestock and transport etc.etc. amounts to only 3% of global CO2 Emmissions, there is something more serious about the science that people should understand. They don’t because the information has not been permitted to be told to you.
First remember that the Man-made Global Warming theory depends upon it being the case that the Greenhouse Effect (GE) is a thermally powerful phenomenon which is being increased in that thermal power by the addition of Human CO2 emmissions. One problem that we have to know about first is that there is no empirical evidence for the thermal power of the GE, but whilst it is not normal to accept a theory as truth without empirical verification there are mitigating circumstances here according to IPCC.
Both sides of the argument agree that in the absence of our atmosphere the temperature of the Earth would be 33C lower than it is today, which difference is known as the Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement (ATE).
Concerning this, IPCC say that since there can be no other explanation for the ATE it proves the potency of the GE and if it was indeed fair to say that there could be no other cause then there should be every support for the IPCC position.
The trouble is that there is a definite empirically verifiable – not guesswork based – cause for the ATE.
When a gas – any gas – comes under pressure it warms. We know this, oddly enough, because we used to go “ouch~” as children after a bit when we pumped our bike tyres up – this is your unsuspecting knowledge of this characteristic of gas being heated by compression.
Our Atmosphere is under a pressure of 1 ton per sq ft so the warming effect is comfortably able to account for the ATE which meanstonishingly – that there is nothing for the GE to account for. Accordingly the there is no thermal consequence to the GE so neither is there for our contribution to it. Hold your breath and count to ten.
In my discussion with him a scientist from the Scott Polar Institute conceded that compression does indeed warm gas, but proved unable to advise me of any calculation for it that allowed for any remaining potency in the GE.
It means that all temperature variation that we experience is indeed as a result of the constantly changing net insolation.
Barley was harvested in Greenland 1000 years ago.
The pottiness of this anthropogenic theory; thus revealed: has nevertheless take over global opinion to an extreme extent by spooking us and leaving us to believe what seems safest.
I realise that this will come as a shock, so please remember to be strictly scientific in your rebuttal if you think lone exists. If not; as I suspect you will discover: then its time to stand up against bullies who take advantage of our fear and trust to get personal power over us.
The real problem is the assumption that increases in the Earth’s temperature and the effects caused are a bad thing.
Rising sea levels will mean millions of people will be forced to move inland. This is always claimed to be a bad thing. Yet people will adapt by building roads, bridges and new homes. New places to work and shop.
It will mean a boom in jobs such as the world has not seen since after WWII.
Longer growing seasons, perhaps enough to get 2 crops in per year where now only one is possible. We alwats seem to focus on the bad that might happen, never the good.
tell that to the species going extinct or the poor people homeless and hungry. Wow, must be nice to be privileged and protected by affluence, for now. Eventually, of course, this will affect you too and then your position and opinion will change as our climate has and will continue to do so. Denial on the part of so many is our real problem and it is what keeps us from acting in time.
Interesting, I never heard this theory and it make a lot of sense to me. Did I understand correctly: you mean that compression creates temperature, so irradiation and type of gas has nothing to do with GE. I have a question. If this is true, why is that global temperature does change? It changes in the thousand of years scale and in the decades scale. If it was just the pressure, how we explain these changes. We use other factors like cloud coverage, irradiation, albedo and those things. But, then, also infrared capture (that is GE) can have a role. So aren’t we at square one again?
You don’t have a case. If the effect of the total amount of CO2 continuing to rise means extinction for many species, possibly including humans, and volcanoes can’t be stopped; logic has it that it’s that much more crucial that the humans stop contributing to the total amount in any way they can.
You seem to be suggesting, quite logically, that humanity, like all other dominant life-forms of previous eras, is doomed to eventual extinction. I agree it is irrational hubris to think otherwise. If that is indeed the case, perhaps we should put more effort into making human lives less miserable, while we’re still here. The idea that the way to do this is to simply help humans make more money is demonstrably false. The most effective way to do this is to improve health and wellbeing. The latter has more to do with how we treat each other and how we educate people to cope emotionally with adversity and pain.
Just curious. What is your data source? How do you know climate change is accelerating yet your average meteorologist can’t predict the weather beyond 5 days? Climate is a bit more complex than core samples. Man landed on the moon 52 years ago, yet we are masters of the universe? Hardly. The Earth is 95% uninhabited and has had cycles of both extreme heat and cold far in excess of what you’re discussing. Palms at the pole? Iceball Earth? Both happened. I disagree that we know what Earth’s climate is or will be, and I see a lot of hysteria from people parroting the latest on climate change without citing sources or defining “normal.”
A kindred spirit. Good for you. I’m receptive to anything that has a coherent rationale supported by sound argument from reliable data. The Hockey Stick has none of that. In the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, the null hypothesis tells us to expect things to continue much as they have. The world will gently warm. Sea levels will slowly rise. Carbon will continue on its upward trajectory. The earth will continue to get greener and more hospitable to life. Biomass will increase. The past three decades have been just about what you would expect from our experience over the last few centuries, with the exception of CO2 concentration. The last three decades have unfolded as I expected they would. They have very much not unfolded as predicted by the Hockey Stick. Extrapolating that curve forward gives a ridiculous value for the present day. Unbelievably, despite the fact that empirical data everybody can see flatly contradicts it, people raising the climate alarm swear the Hockey Stick is still true. This sorry episode in the history of science can’t end quick enough for me.
How can you look at the constant forest fires in the pacific north west and Australia and rising ocean temps contributing to the death of the coral reefs the shrinking of glaciers all over the world and think were entering an age that is more hospitable to life? It may be natural for temperatures to rise but it is happening at an unnatural rate and that is clearly linked to man made CO2 emissions
The Hockey Stick doesn’t predict anything. It’s a graph of the past indicating trend lines in temperature. What that means in actual consequences we won’t know for sure until we are in the middle of it. But there is a 10 – 20yr lag from cause to effect, meaning the next decade is already cooked in based on what already occurred the prior 10 years. Could this be why it’s not as it seems to you? It seems to me that by 2050 it will be undeniable. Now since the earth is a dynamic system, and living organisms are opportunistic, those that utilize C02 could somehow thrive and snap us back into a cooling period or massive volcanic activity could do that as well. But those seem highly unlikely. We’ll have to wait and see, but by then it could be too late.
It’s true what you say, but issues have to be dealt with in some order and climate is the first thing and it’s a unifying issue. Planet /people before profit must be included on the list and that together with Climate Change will start to solve most issues and good first steps. What else really matters?
At one time in history the best available knowledge was that the Earth was flat so please do not attempt to ridicule people with that term.The 97 % consensus is meaningless. Only 100 % agreement becomes best available knowledge.
There will never be 100% agreement because there are inevitably people that are greedy enough to lie about the science bc some thinktank tied to the oil industry is paying them the big bucks to say what keeps them making the greatest amount of profit. We know this to be true because you’ll see such and such climate denier and sometimes you can follow the money trail to politicians or oil industrialists that benefit from climate denial.
That’s the problem with wanting it to be unanimous. If there is an expectation of all scientists being rational and reasonable, when an industry that makes tons of money is involved, it is naive as anything, because human greed will always factor in. Anytime $$$ is involved in a situation, you will find a soulless shill that only cares about their thirty pieces of silver.
Therefore, you have to expect hold outs and need to judge by the /majority/. Were the majority response to be 60/50 or 50/50 it is far less of a sure thing. Even 70%, we would need to work more just to make sure it wasn’t founded on bad science. 97% more than accounts for the truth, and the 3% reasonably accounts for both the incompetents and those who only care about their self-interest.
To ignore human greed, to expect everyone in a situation to be noble and truthful and purely rationable, is to be completely naive about human nature. It’s a /child’s/ view of the world to think you won’t find some people in every situation that care only about self-interest.
97% is also a much higher threshold than many things we hold to be concrete enough to act on in science and medicine.
For instance, in medicine, with psych meds, they barely know why some of them even work. Our knowledge of neuroscience is still a work in progress. But enough people agree on working theories, and have tested meds enough to know that withholding them from people who they can benefit until there is 100% understanding and consensus is impractical. If you have /most/ of the picture and a large majority agree on it, and some of it is testable, it’s worth taking action on.
In the case of climate change, there’s also just the general practicality of moving to renewable sources of energy when we know even more unequivocally that fossil fuels are finite resources because of the way they were created, and that we’re better off moving to new energy sources for other reasons anyway. The resistance to renewables when 97% of climate scientists agree, but /also/ we’re going to eventually run out of fossil fuels (it’s more practical to transition many decades ahead of shortages to avoid strain on infrastructure), /and/ renewables lead to cheaper energy bills for the average consumer? Is ridiculous.
In a situation where there are /many/ reasons it’d be practical to make the change sooner rather than later, even if climate change /was/ a hoax or bad science, we need to think about WHO benefits from stalling it?
The fossil fuel industry and the politicians whose election funds they donate to. Full stop.
A 97% consensus would be phenomenal, statistically speaking. Anything over 95% confidence in statistics is gold standard. Achieving 100% would be futile and a waste of time to convince the other 3%. But it could be fun.
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Bernard J.
6 years ago
Bloomberg has a series of global temperature graphics that nicely illustrates the relative contributions of the various forcings:
It’s not been updated to cover the last two years, unfortunately, but the human component is clear to see.
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Kurlis
6 years ago
“Earth’s climate has changed naturally over the past 650,000 years, moving in and out of ice ages and warm periods. Changes in climate occur because of alterations in Earth’s energy balance, which result from some kind of external factor or “forcing”—an environmental factor that influences the climate.”
Some kind of external factor? This doesn’t sound definitive.
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Macro
5 years ago
@Kurlis I don’t think this article is trying to be definitive about natural causes of climate change in the past. The rest of that paragraph does go on to list them, but they’re not the main focus. The author is just making the point that we know quite a lot about them now, so we understand that their role in the present climate change is fairly small. By far the greatest part of what we are experiencing now is human-induced.
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Suyeon
5 years ago
Thank you for your amazing article 🙂
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Peccatori
4 years ago
I just can’t bring myself to trust people this much. Science is always right…until they discover something new and realize they were wrong the whole time. It took 200 years to graduate from Newton’s Law to Einstein. Everyone used to believe that the world was flat…. and they were wrong. Just one or two incorrect interpretations, lead the whole theory off course. I do not know.
I guess the science community better hurry up and figure out how to create affordable sustainable energy and figure out how to create animals that won’t poop or we’ll all be dead in a few years. Funny though, such a push to ‘civilize’ the uncivilized. Only to figure out that civilization kills us all. Crap, wrong…again.
In the 1960’s, ALL scientific experts claimed the hole in the ozone layer was going to destroy the earth and make it inhabitable for humans due to increased temperatures and higher UV ratings making the earth into a hot house. For years it was sprouted as fact and people were encouraged to stop using spray cans and they stopped using CFC’s. It was front page news for a few years and FACT until they discovered the hole in the ozone layer can never increase. All of a sudden, all was quiet! But, the hysteria was real and scientific experts convinced EVERYONE it was fact because they were the experts. I’m not saying scientists are wrong but the exact same thing happened in the 60’s as is happening now except now we have the internet and kids who have a louder voice.
The amount of ozone loss was testable. You realize you can measure ozone, right?
They were wrong about it being as dire as all that, but they were right about the heightened risk of cancer and cataracts and the hole was capable of shrinking, and general ozone levels were able to be increased by ceasing CFC.
Ceasing CFC use didn’t harm the world at all, it was just an inconvenience and it was worth it for a lower skin cancer and cataract risk.
I see people citing “Well no one talks about that anymore!” The reason people stopped talking about it was also that it was pretty much fixed through worldwide effort.
Except now we have glaciers melting at accelerating rates; species migrating to new latitudes to get away from unsurvivable temperatures; plants blooming in January – February, and uncoordinated timing of food supply for birds and insects; and mangroves endangered by encroaching salt water.
No one talks about it now because the problem was solved. It was a real danger; unless you want to live indoors your whole life. Well, we got a taste of it during Covid so we know how that went. But this shows when humanity is united and agrees to changing behavior, we can solve our problems.
True! Science can always be wrong. But it gets less and less wrong all the time, and, even if it can be wrong, it’s still the most reliable source we have. We can never have fully, definitely correct answers, so we can only cling to our best estimations. It’s reasonable to be untrusting of science, but there’s nothing we can trust more.
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Tommy
4 years ago
Newton’s law is not incorrect, it just cannot cover things Newton cannot observer at his times, or simply beyond his comprehension. It does not mean it’s wrong under his model. In other word, Newton’s theory explain how the stuff(gravity) is working. Einstein’s theory helps to understand, why the stuff (gravity again).. is working.
The article stated that created models that simulate the current earth climate, and find that man-made, or man emissioned carbon contribute to the current warmer climate, and the result can be duplicated. It means in the current model is correct under these conditions, and that green house gas is the main contributor to the global warming.
Except if you actually look at the models and their history do realize how dubious they are. The models constantly have to be reduced lower because they overestimate the amount of warming that will occur. Plus, these same models often don’t reproduce the correct historical data and have to be manipulated in order to get them to produce the correct historical data.
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Chris Knorr
4 years ago
“Today, almost 100 percent [plus or minus 20 percent] of the unusual warmth that we’ve experienced in the last decade is due to greenhouse gas emissions,” said de Menocal.
…smh
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Timmy
4 years ago
I’m still waiting to read the part that proves it’s not natural. Aren’t these the same climate scientists that were warning me that we were headed for an ice age when I was 12?
Sarah, None of the charts you attached show that it was not warmer 8,000 years ago and 3800 years ago. So maybe the Wikipedia chart is correct about the temperatures back then? So if it was warmer 3800 years ago why is it a bad thing for temperatures to rise today. Insurance rates demonstrate that some people will need to move away from the coast, but perhaps more land will be available further North for agriculture and living. Why is that a bad thing? I’m not sure many people deny global warming, I think that what I’ve heard to suggest that global warming is a bad thing has not been convincing.
It’s a bad thing because the rate of change that is occurring. If this gradually increased over 1000 – 2000yrs as is natural, then most living systems could easily adapt. But this will occur in a matter of 100 – 200yrs. The change on paper is black and white. But the living consequences will be pain,suffering, frustration, and grief. It will be really difficult from keeping the world from plunging into chaos. On thing to keep in mind is that there is a 10-20yr lag from cause to effect. Meaning the previous 10yr actual determines the next 10yr effects. By 2050 it should be undeniable the direction this is going.
Did you know the impact of unnatural climate change do and will differ in both magnitude and rate of change depending on the continent, country, and region. Hence the impact and affects does not only mean global warming,but severe and more frequent hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, droughts, floods, rain and snow, increase in ocean levels and acidification, melting of the poles, changes in ecosystems,desertification, extinction of non-human animals species, increase in disease,starvation and even death for humans.
Hi Timmy!
I understand that, when looking at this picture, it’s easy to feel sceptical. However, the picture of the magazine issue from 1977 is actually fake – the cover is actually from a 2007 issue, and the title has been photoshopped – it was actually “The Global Warming Survival Guide”, NOT “how to survive the coming ice age”.
This meme is very misleading and it can influence whether people have trust in the facts provided by climate scientists, so it’s unfortunate that it’s been falsely spread on social media. The information is here: https://www.apnews.com/afs:Content:5755221200
There might have been a few scientists predicting global cooling but most were predicting global warming. Here is an excerpt from an article at the link that follows.
“A survey of peer reviewed scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 show that few papers predicted global cooling (7 in total). Significantly more papers (42 in total) predicted global warming (Peterson 2008). The large majority of climate research in the 1970s predicted the Earth would warm as a consequence of CO2.”
The most curious fact about these volte faces – perhaps – is that they leave us wondering why we haven’t learned – as a matter of intellectual discipline at the very least – to use a multi-millennial term for the basis of our evidence collection, being the scale appropriate to the judgement of climatic trends bearing in mind that in the end we need to fairly establish what become most likely behaviours in the manner and progression of glacial and interglacial trends. The reason for this is that it’s the only way to cope with short term excursions. Without this longer more balanced term to go by any opportunist can extrapolate from his most helpful short term trend to put the fear of God (so to speak) into an unknowing public so to manufacture fear and so dependence and then conformity. IPCC take the period 1750 to now – 270 years – as if it were the proof ne plus ultra of where we must be going given CO2 inputs. The other side take a thousand years pointing to a Mediaeval Warm period that was warmer than today without our CO2 and an argument then develops about whether there really was such a period whereas if we look at epoch level we see this
which shows cooling since the Holocene 7.500 years ago which is the interglacial peak so far. If we then look at the previous inter glacial periods we should see something not unlike this each time. The temperature rockets up from the glacial depths to reach a maximum after which it wriggles along in a series of warming and cooling peaks and troughs with each warm period failing to surpass the previous peak and each cooling getting lower than the previous one. It means we are cooling when you take such a climatically meaningful span as the basis for evaluation. When we do plummet – something which always happened before – what is going to happen to farmland and crops for instance. I won’t go any further than that, not wishing to provoke fear, but thought.
The clincher is – though – that the argument that we are stuck in a man-made warming crisis depends firstly upon it being the case that the Greenhouse Effect (GE) accounts for the Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement (ATE) of 33C, which IPCC claim in itself as proof as they say there can be no other explanation for the way the atmosphere adds warmth to the planet than the GE.
Right there before us we see the biggest banana skin in modern scientific history – or I would argue ever – being stepped upon by the bearers of our finest scientific minds because there is indeed another explanation; an obvious one and one which overthrows that claim (for which there has never been a scintilla of empirical evidence incidentally) and that is gravity.
Any and every body of gas warms when compressed – because there are then fewer cubic metres to accommodate the heat energy, meaning more heat energy per cubic metre leading to the ATE bearing in mind that gravity leads to a pressure of 1 ton per square foot. That this fact – requiring only pre-college physics – has been missed is catastrophic for the reputation of science and scientists all over the world and something serious must be done to stop its hijacking by politicians. It means the variation in temperature – as ever before – is entirely due to the cycles and alterations in continuous progress leading to fluctuations in net insolation and therefore temperature etc.. We need scientists to release the public mind from the psychological bondage of myth which is its purpose.
Penelope, isn’t it crazy how people just believe anything with out looking into weather it’s real or not, I feel this one the big reason so many people deny this because they see something with no scientific backing and run with it
According to the natural climate cycle we are suppose to be in a mini-ice age right about now; but that didn’t happen and has scientists alarmed. That is why climate scientists are studying global warming and its causes. So far the evidence is that it’s the result of human activity because nothing else accounts for it. The article discusses parts of this.
We are suppose to be in a mini-ice age, but unexpectedly global temperatures are increasing. So climate scientists studied the causes. Of course this included studying natural causes as they needed to understand what was happening. Did you read the part about how sun activity was ruled out of consideration?
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Charles Jack
4 years ago
The average lay person like myself can only listen to both sides and rightly conclude that one side is wrong. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the wise choice would be with those whos business is scientifically studying and analizing climatology. Seems that if they have it all wrong, we’re still OK. If the deniers are proven to be off base (wrong), we’ll only be left with the small comfort of saying “I told you so.”
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Scott Simpson
4 years ago
The question I have always had is how accurate are the measurements. Just during my lifetime I have seen tremendous advancements in technology. Then I read how data has to be adjusted to account for these changes. So my big concern is the margin of error in these estimates because we are not taking about huge variations. 1.4 degrees increase since 1880. If the margin of error is .5 degrees then the fluctuation could be 1 degree and we are only talking about 1.4 degrees. Same with sea level rises. How is that measured and does it take into account erosion and shifting sands and shifting tectonic plates. What if fhe earths core is warming and that is causing the oceans to warm thereby emitting more CO2. Just alot of questions. No doubt we need to limit all pollution to try to protect the environment but this doom and gloom scare tactics dont work on me.
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Randomer47
4 years ago
Ok i get that it is accelerated 10x by human factors but surely all this is confirms thats it is natural???
The real question is why does nobody seem to be planning for the consequences of this climate change especially as the deadline to respond has been shortened by 10x
This includes planning evacuations of low lying countries or building giant flood walls, attempting to combat desertification in any way possible and other areas of possible future disasters
Instead all the focus is on slowing down something that as far as i can tell is inevitable
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Leon
4 years ago
“97 percent of working climate scientists ” Hahaha…
Did you find out how they get this number ??? If you take the time to find out how they get this number you will not use it anymore…If you are a serious person .
The ad hominem references to “deniers” likewise contribute to the credibility of the article.
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Climate change IS normal.
4 years ago
I’m still waiting for the human forced ice age we were supposedly going to go through… guess what? Climate change IS natural. No scientist in the world can deny that. That must have forgotten history and the age of the first mammals. Guess what? They adapted and evolved. Which is NORMAL. Anyone who believes this garbage is misinformed.
Yes we all read the article. What the article said is that the scientist forced the outcome in their models by inserting what they deemed to be the cause. Not that it was the cause but that it made the model react to show it was the cause. Now riddle me this: why is nothing being done to preserve our forests which keep the earth’s atmosphere in balance? Why is everyone concentrating on fossil fuels like oil and gas?
It’s natural, yes. The article phrased this incorrectly. The unnatural part is the speed at which human influence is causing it to happen. You could still call this natural, since humans are themselves a part of nature, but it could still cause an extinction event, and even a natural extinction event is a bad thing.
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Robert
3 years ago
Very simple answer. You dont. And you cant, because you can not set up the required controlled experiment. The rebuttal to this simple fact is usually centered around “but the models”. But models are just that and ade subject to gigo.
Now, that said, I personally believe that human activity IS a significant factor is our planet’s warming trend. But this hypothesis can not be proven. And concensus just means that the vast majority agree, not that they are correct.
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Randy
3 years ago
Why do all of your studies not show the past 100yr human interference in global warming, that is as long as there’s been fossil fuels all your science evidence has been before, no proof for the past 100yrs. There is no science that proves it’s from fossil fuel, so scientists of the world better be more convincing or the world of humans will not get involved.
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Randy
3 years ago
Something else that isn’t making Spence is the glaciers melting is uncovering artifacts from humans before fossil fuels, so that is telling us that before fossil fuels we were going into an ice age………the wooly mammoth found was before the last ice age……the ice cores show 15 ice ages 10,000yrs apart, 100yrs ago we were Suppost to go into an ice age, what stopped it??? Al Gore showed the CO2 gragh of the ice ages, the CO2 is higher now than ever before and there is no ice age……..?
CO2 traps heat and warms the earth’s atmosphere, this forces global warming. Plants that use CO2 help cool the earth. If enough plants utilize CO2 faster than it being produced, the earth will stay moderately cool.
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randal
3 years ago
my questions out of interest as I have an enquiring mind
what if the earth was moving closer to the sun?
or what if the earth is tilting on its axis
or what if the universe is expanding
or what if the Sun is getting stronger
Very interesting & most telling as to why, no one has answered these relevant Questions, involving Climate concerns beyond CO2 Hype.
What if the Earth is moving closer to the Sun?
Technically we are moving away (fractionally on semimajor elliptical) plus it has begun to move cycle from a warm to a cooling cycle. What if the Earth is tilting on its axis?
Planet Earth is certainly tilting on its axis,, it also is changing its position at the Poles more shift recent decades., effects; Climate Vortex Winds. .. What if the Universe is Expanding?
It has been expanding since the Big Bang as they say. Orbit of Planets around the Sun is elliptical causing long cycles of Heating & Cooling. What if the Sun is getting stronger?
Whilst over the long term ; the Sun becomes hotter & brighter. The Sun also goes through short term phases of activity ; we are entering a low.
Alignment of Planets is another factor. Earth is moving away from the Sun in its elliptical Cycle plus the Sun is entering a Cooling Phase.
If everyone died today what would happen? China, India etc. are the highest polluters in the world who will never enact policies to lower emissions and will probably attract even more businesses who want lower running costs, hence increase their pollution output. Considering these countries will most likely increase their pollution levels, why is NOTHING being done to rectify this problem and drastically address the worst perpetrators which would be the most effective step when the situation is so dire and immediate! It’s like plugging a small hole while it’s gushing water up the pipe and drowning us and everything in its path.
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Travis Thams
3 years ago
The ice core samples did not prove that CO2 caused warming. The Ice core samples simply demonstrated that when temperatures were warmer there was higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2. The data does not conclude a casual relationship between CO2 and temperatures. In fact, there is much stronger evidence that higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2 is an effect of higher atmospheric temperatures.
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Bov
3 years ago
Half fill a bucket with ice and top up with water to top. When the ice melts the bucket does not overflow. They quote NASA but if you go to NASA’S own web page and look you will see that the article is decreasing but the Antarctic ice cap is increasing by more than the artic is decreasing.
Excuse me. But how can you account for all “natural” factors in any model if you don’t start from the assumption that you already know what the anthropogenic factors are? How can you scientifically justify calculating the anthropogenic influence on climate change by subtracting the natural influence on climate change from the total measured climate change, when the natural influence in itself is derived from subtracting the anthropogenic influence on climate change from the total measured climate change in the first place?
Isn’t this a) circular logic and b) horrible science, since the outcome of the research is already taken for granted as an essential part of the foundation of the same research?
Not to poke fun at this logical inconsistency, but how is this different from me making up an arbitrary number concerning a solar factor to climate change, then calculating the non-solar factors to climate change by subtracting my made up solar influence value from the total, and then claiming that I can measurably prove solar climate change by subtracting my natural factor value from the total measured climate change value?
How is this even a remotely credible methodology?
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Paolelladj@gmail.com
3 years ago
How is shallow ocean data collected? Mainly temperatures
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Ben
3 years ago
We don’t second guess experts in other fields of science yet, somehow people have the arrogance to question the vast majority of scientists who give us this important information.
Maybe if I bet all my money that a stranger can beat Lebron James one-on-one I’ll get a jackpot, but who would do that even though it’s technically possible? Scott Pruitt proves that regardless of politics he can’t agree to the truth.
Sir Karl Popper used the concept of “falsifiability” in science. So for example it’s possible to measure the mass of a proton accurately and to continue to repeat the experiment to verify the result.It is not possible however to falsify a prediction using a computer model than the temperature of the earth will increase by 1.5 or 2 degrees by the year 2100. So climate science which relies heavily on computer models doesn’t have the same rigour as say particle physics. It doesn’t mean the predictions are wrong just that there is greater uncertainty in their validity.
Say they are wrong? What’s the problem with changing our general consumption of resources to be less wasteful (when we’re burning through other resources), to make a change to renewables sooner rather than later when fossil fuels are a finite resource we’ll eventually come into conflict over worldwide, when we need to reserve fossil fuels for plastics until we can find replacements for all the variations in plastics as well, and to have cheaper energy sources?
Say we’re overcautious and move to renewables. Silica sand for fiberglass or carbon for carbon fiber turbines are hugely plentiful resources even if the mining process fucks up the land. (Fracking also fucks up the land so we may as well do it for cheaper energy resources).
People forget it’s not JUST about climate, it’s also about consumption and population, and many of the choices done in an abundance of caution for climate change also help mitigate problems from those as well. So we may as well do them.
There are many benefits to warmer climate. 4000 years ago when the temperature was warmer than it is today, areas that are now desert had plenty of water and could be used for agriculture. My biggest problem is the government using deceit to collect taxes on global warming fears.
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Jon
2 years ago
I am curious. If greenhouse gases truly warm the Earth, why is Mars, with a thinner, mostly CO2 atmosphere, warmer than Earth’s poles or parts of the US on many days? Can any of you describe how Earth will never be like Venus? I noticed that “the Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Celsius in recent history. Why use 1880 or later? Why not cite temperature averages during the age of the dinosaurs, or prior? Earth was far hotter and more humid with palms at the poles or completely ice-covered at various times in its past. NOAA uses 120 years of data to prove climate change, I saw a reference to 650,000 years of climate data on this site, but the Earth is 4 billion years old. We need more data and understanding to prove the climate change hypothesis. If we can’t predict the local weather in 5-10 days, then how could we expect to predict climate change on an infinitely grander scale going back billions of years? That strikes me as overly ambitious. Please, someone, tell me what normal temperatures are, Don’t just tell me, show me the entire climate history of Earth and prove that changes aren’t consistent with past variations of temperatures during Earth’s history. I am not a Flat Earther, but I do question.
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steven clarkson
2 years ago
This article states that ice cores over the last 800,000 years show a link between co2 and temperature. 99.9% of the ice core actually shows the earth at 280ppm at massively fluctuating climates. How do they conclude that?
If a person believes that climate change is bad, why would they promote electric cars. Electric cars use electricity made from coal and batteries are an environmental concern.
. If climate change is bad why not promote the use of hydrogen as a fuel for cars. Hydrogen is safe, cheaper than gasoline and non polluting.
If a person believes that climate change is bad why promote wind energy and solar energy which cannot replace coal. Why not promote nuclear energy which is safe, does not create carbon, is abundant and can replace coal?
I question the motives of those who promote electric cars, solar energy and wind energy without promoting the use of hydrogen and nuclear power.
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dan
2 years ago
The Hawaiians used to sacrifice a virgin to make the volcano god happy. The aztec priests used to say we need to sacrifice someone to make the rain come. Today they say we need spend billions in grants and federal spending that could be used elsewhere so that we can research climate change. Im not saying climate change doesnt exist, because it has been changing since the beginning of earth. But I am still not convinced that humans have any serious impact on climate change that we should worry about. I am more concerned about plastic in the ocean than climate change or maybe in a 100 years If climate change increased the temperature 1 degree maybe I could grow some bannana trees in my southern californian backyard. Or maybe in 1000 years the temperature will increase 10 degrees but by that time elon musks great great great great great great great grandson invents the magical farting zero emission zero footprint flying car. My point being here is that why should we care? From the perspective of the human existence on earth in a 1000 years plus we will probably have to find new settlements in space anyways like the lack of food and resources on earth and new improvements in technology anything is possible. From a perspective of the next few decades, I think we have bigger problems.
I can’t tell you why you should care about climate change, but I can tell you why plenty of people do: Because climate change is already costing us hundreds of billions of dollars in damages from natural disasters, and because human lives are at stake. We can dream about escaping to other planets, but the reality is that fixing those planets to fit our needs would be harder than fixing the planet we already have. We know what the problems are, we know what the solutions are, and now all we need is to be brave enough to implement them.
I think it is true that the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster if the US occured in Galveston in 1900. It is estimated 12000 people were killed. I would not speculate on the cause of the hurricane.
And how do we know that climate change is causing the natural disasters? And where would I find verification for hundreds of Billions. What about the money saved from decreased heating bills? Since 1990 the amount of foliage has greatly increased. I would be interested in seeing a study examining the beneficial affects to the rain forests. Food production has dramatically increased since 1990 because of the warmer growing season. If the adverse affects are so extensive why aren’t politicians clamoring for increased nuclear and hydrogen power? The politicians like to collect carbon taxes, but why do they do something that causes real benefits?
repairing billions of dollars worth of damage keeps people busy that would otherwise just do other useless stuff instead of creating wealth furthermore 9While I am at it) we have many problems on this earth at least as large as Climate Change and none of them are on the big list of Mitigation ie rising Rates of Suicides rising rates from Drug overdoses many Nations spending trillions preparing for more Wars many Nations at War when are we going to deal with alml that?
It’s been said that only fools believe that changing the climate is possible by giving money to the government!
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charlene
2 years ago
Well I’m no scientist but why is the southern hemisphere on their map cold while the rest of the world is hot? Doesn’t our atmosphere encircle the whole earth???
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Kym Stewart
2 years ago
Measure the increase in carbon emitted from undersea and above-ground-level volcanoes. Volcanic activity is increasing due to changes in the universal activity that has always driven the changes to our environment. Mankind’s impact is minuscule compared to the volcanic release of carbon that is often not calculated honestly and can skew any report in favour of the organisation funding the research. Do the volume comparisons. Scientists would not ever work again if they failed to deliver the result their financiers required. They can always find another desperate scientist with a mortgage to corrupt. By the way, it is not that we don’t want any action as you falsely claim it is an action that improves life and, not an action that helps the Globalist banker control commodities prices that we aspire to take. The alternative industry creates more pollution and toxic waste from short term batteries and panels, carbon blades and other filthy short life overpriced materials pushed by your ridiculous ideology. Be honest and think it thru without your bias. Short life throw away toxic battery car
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don cameron
2 years ago
My first question is, if we keep having year after year heat records, how come the last record minimum artic ice was almost 10 years ago? Like Ice in your drink the warmer it gets the less ice we have.
My second question is if this is the warmest temperatures in thousands of years, why are the retreating glaciers exposing human remains, roman coins and “Viking highways”? These artifacts suggest it was warmer in recent times and a colder recent climate covered them over.
We are told that we will all be driving electric vehicles soon……I think this is utter rubbish, where will all the chargers be, people in high rise blocks, terrace housing.What happens when a 4 hour tailback occurs in winter and the 6 mile of traffic begin to run out of juice.
Electric Cars are a Money Spinner in my opinion.
We are told that we all will be using a new type of Heating in our houses, how will people afford this?
I think we should get our priorities right and tackle things we can solve, such as ridding of plastic.
In the UK/world banning fireworks(no mention of this in UK, but surely it would be part of “Our Bit”).
any problem ever can only be cured by fixing the Root Cause the Root Cause of the p roblem is the Planet is over populated with half of the present population on earth we would not have a worry at all but nobody wants to even discuss that for fear of beeing stoned because we need more consumers and nobody has an idea how our world could be without more of everything tomorrow and more of everything willonly bring more troubles
fossil fuels Plastics clothing food and on and on and yes your point is well taken but I said the root cause ( not Having Babies) just too many is the problem in my humble opinion Fossi fuels have been burn by Humans since Day one but now we have Billions doing it and I have to admit I like burning Fossill Fuels Campfires Woodstoves and Fast Cars too look at all the wars and the Fossil fuels consumed there too many people rubbing each other the wrong way
Referring to those who are skeptical about the cause of climate change as “Climate deniers” reveals your confirmation bias. Demonizing those who have a different opinion than yours does not give your opinion much credence.
Dave , that is true ; the denigrating attitude by labeling “Climate Deniers” questions the credibility of those saying it and exposes those, that can’t logically argue or prove CO2 Warming. The next form of propaganda tactics is that Climate Change is “decided” & that 97% of ALL Scientists
say it is man made..? Even if that were true,, that does NOT indicate they are referencing CO2 as the causation driver for any such change.!
The Scientific Method, apparently does not apply to the CO2 hypothesis as most jump the steps and contrive model conclusions for outcomes.
Not only is CO2 a fractional gas, its radiant absorption is so minuscule that it is UNPROVEN beyond the Lab.! CO2 is unlikely to produce sufficient heat differential in the atmosphere, to be a key driver in the green house effect among the many factors. CC maybe anthropogenic ; but unlikely CO2. No one in Science should be absolute, either way.!
Today , we need CO2 to be above 400 ppm because “plant growth” is very dependent upon photosynthesis whereby CO2 is a prerequisite.
Fortunately , CO2 has increased with the population and Farmers have been able to produce “greater yields” on rate of growth. It is also a fact that many regions of the world, would fail to harvest within Season, if we were back to 280 ppm today. “Life on Earth” ; depends on enough CO2.
Almost all Predictions from Professors to the IPCC, involving Warming “doom & gloom” have “failed spectacularly” to materialize only to see excuses, postponements & change of focus. The Oceans have not risen and the harbors are not flooding. Corrupted models and misinformation is standard ; whereby any disaster is a Climate Change event.Cooling is also happening globally, ( yet ignored by the IPCC ) there’s two sides to this blind sided faith. CC no longer represents the Scientific Method.
“Oceans have not risen”? Miami and Charleston flood from the tide on sunny days for a while now. Mangroves are endangered by salt water encroaching for a while now. A Virginia military base mentioned needing to re-build, because flooding airstrips wouldn’t be usable, about twenty years ago.
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CHRISTOPHER ANTHONY BRYSON
11 months ago
What about the historical timeline of the Earth. CO2 levels have been as high as 7000ppm with no human presence at all.
Why do climate scientists NEVER show the entire timeline of CO2 records?
Only showing the last 1000 or 2000 years and zooming in on the chart looks really scary, but when you zoom out to hundreds of millions of years, why is it that global temps and co2 is much much higher, but never shown or mentioned?
You’re right there were warmer periods in the far geologic past. It’s the climate stability that supports a species survival. Why did the dinosaurs collapse? A change occurred so fast they couldn’t adapt. And any life depending on their survival went with them. And now, it’s the rapid change of avg temperature that is alarming (not the temperature itself). These changes will cause disruption, lead to chaos, and potentially civilization as we know it may be in jeopardy. If you don’t mind a Mad max world, then maybe none of this will matter. Or we can prepare in some way so that we don’t resort to panic when havoc ensues.
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Garry Bradley
8 months ago
Excuse my ignorance, if this is the warmest the oceans have been for half a century, what caused them to start cooling 49 years ago?
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Trish Sample
8 months ago
I’m not a scientist by any means. From what I understand we are pretty much screwed. One reason is we for some reason can’t get our heads out of our asses and see what is right in front of us…our planet is dying. We messed up. Too selfish to stop and actually fix our mistakes we just keep taking and taking. It’s a pathetic and frankly unknown legacy we leave our children.
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