Natural changes in the Earth's climate

Natural changes in the Earth's climate

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Discussion

plunker

542 posts

125 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
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The ice-age state we're in should probably be considered normal for earth now due to continental drift changing the layout of the land masses/ocean basins etc restricting pole-ward heat transport - which of course is a very slow process so isn't going to change anytime soon. Reductions in the levels of greenhous gases in the atmosphere are also thought to be a factor and man is reversing that process at a much higher rate of knots than the continents move about, but our GHG emissions alone probably aren't enough to return the planet to an icecap-free state I wouldn't have thought.

Toaster

2,938 posts

192 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
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ALT F4 said:
I am sure that the history of computer modelling of the globe's climate is wrong - I'm sure because they been proven to be wrong time after time.
Possibly, it depends on what you are Modelling, but the thing about a Model it is just that a Model it is not the real thing and an acceptance of what is missing would in any credible research paper would do this, along with Peer reviews that help to spot gaps if it was easy it would have been done I read recently about research that was including the effects at ground and upper atmosphere, therefore a critique could be that unless the model includes Dust they are invalid which can also be argued that even that could be flawed in that the net effect is minimal over a millennia when considering natural climate change.


Hooli

32,278 posts

199 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
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benjj said:
I nearly posted this in one of the many climate change threads but thought better of it... wonder if anyone scientifically minded can set me straight on this.

As a boy I remember 'learning' that the Earth had natural cycles including ice age / non ice age. This was explained to me as a natural phenomena and perfectly normal.

I was also taught that the fact that the poles were frozen was indicative of the fact that we're 'in' an ice age, whether starting or ending. Thus the fact we have slowly melting ice caps signifies that we're coming to the end of an ice age, geologically speaking.

Firstly, is this right?

Secondly, if so why is it never mentioned when anyone discusses climate change?
Rings a bell with how I think too.

We know climate changes naturally, the way they say it is changing currently (I've never seen stats that prove it anymore than they disprove it) so why isn't that ever mentioned in MMGW arguments?

Seems to me that taxing for MMGW is akin to taxing sunlight.

annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
The Glaciation periods are determined by a number of factors, but the main one (or so I am told) is the relative position of Earth's tilt relative to the orbital position of the Earth.

The Earth wobbles for one, and there is a procession of the Tilt relative to the orbital position, in that the Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle and the position of the Earth's Tilt relative to the Apogee and Perigee of the orbit. This has a big impact on which areas of the Earth's surface receive peak sunlight.

The argument that is currently being put is that with the current Tilt to Orbit, we should be entering a Glaciation period, but the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will postpone this activity.

Moonhawk

10,730 posts

218 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
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Eric Mc said:
There have been vast periods of the earth's history where there was no ice at the poles at all. Indeed, it seems that for MOST of its history, having ice caps at the poles is rare. Therefore, you could argue that the fact that they still exist at all indicates we are still in the middle of an ice age. What we don't know for sure is whether the ice caps are melting to the point where they will disappear i.e. the more "normal" state - or whether we are in the middle of an inter-glacial period and at some point over the next few tens of thousands of year the ice caps will start expanding again.
Yep this. Short of being an environmental disaster - the loss of the ice caps (if it happens) may simply be the result of the earth returning to it's normal state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_iceho...

Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 26th January 15:15

Moonhawk

10,730 posts

218 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
annodomini2 said:
The argument that is currently being put is that with the current Tilt to Orbit, we should be entering a Glaciation period, but the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will postpone this activity.
The last ice age was hugely destructive - scouring almost all of northern Europe down to bedrock.

I often wonder - if we were sliding into another ice age - would we be trying to prevent that too.......or would we simply accept it as 'natural'

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
benjj said:
I'm of the opinion that humans probably are having an impact on global warming but just can't quantify it in any way.
If you're pondering this, a good thought for starters is that there's been no significant increase in global atmospheric temperature for 19 years. We were told 400ppm of CO2 would bring Armageddon.

We've passed that...and nothing happened.

vetrof

2,468 posts

172 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ

plunker

542 posts

125 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
vetrof said:
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
I wouldn't bother.


mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Tuesday 26th January 2016
quotequote all
plunker found a new thread. Heads down....

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
plunker said:
vetrof said:
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
I wouldn't bother.
I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't bother.

plunker

542 posts

125 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
mybrainhurts said:
plunker said:
vetrof said:
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
I wouldn't bother.
I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't bother.
Had no major complaints for the first 30 mins or so where he was discussing the evidence of climate changes over the last thousands of years in the Greenland ice cores. Then at the 40min mark the smell of burning rubber starts - he portrays CO2 levels as having (paraphrasing) ...held steady at 280ppm for 100s of thousands of years before the industrial revolution ....that's what Al Gore and many others have stated ....because CO2 can't increase without man burning fossil fuels ...that's the consensus view.....it's an incovenient truth, chuckle chuckle.

He's surely well enough acquainted with climate science stuff to know that CO2 varies with temperature in the ice core proxies so that's clearly a big lie he's made up just so he can dismiss any role from CO2 variation in the climate changes he was discussing beforehand.

I stopped watching there.


plunker

542 posts

125 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
ash73 said:
He also asserts mankind constructed a moonbase prior to the last ice age biggrin
Really, lol, I figured more fantastic stuff would ensue but...

ATG

20,485 posts

271 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
ALT F4 said:
"A greater leap of faith" ?
Just to pin you down on a couple of points, I mentioned "a leap of faith", not a greater one. And usually in my field of working no 'leap of faith' is necessary.
With respect, you're not succeeding in pinning me down; you're just demonstrating you didn't understand what I was saying.

annodomini2

6,860 posts

250 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
Moonhawk said:
annodomini2 said:
The argument that is currently being put is that with the current Tilt to Orbit, we should be entering a Glaciation period, but the CO2 levels in the atmosphere will postpone this activity.
The last ice age was hugely destructive - scouring almost all of northern Europe down to bedrock.

I often wonder - if we were sliding into another ice age - would we be trying to prevent that too.......or would we simply accept it as 'natural'
The rich would try, whether they will succeed is a different question.

The paranoia surrounds assets, basically "How much is this going to affect my power and wealth?", which is all they care about.

See current UK government.

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
plunker said:
mybrainhurts said:
plunker said:
vetrof said:
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
I wouldn't bother.
I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't bother.
Had no major complaints for the first 30 mins or so where he was discussing the evidence of climate changes over the last thousands of years in the Greenland ice cores. Then at the 40min mark the smell of burning rubber starts - he portrays CO2 levels as having (paraphrasing) ...held steady at 280ppm for 100s of thousands of years before the industrial revolution ....that's what Al Gore and many others have stated ....because CO2 can't increase without man burning fossil fuels ...that's the consensus view.....it's an incovenient truth, chuckle chuckle.

He's surely well enough acquainted with climate science stuff to know that CO2 varies with temperature in the ice core proxies so that's clearly a big lie he's made up just so he can dismiss any role from CO2 variation in the climate changes he was discussing beforehand.

I stopped watching there.
I ran out of time at 1 hour, so watched no more.

If you had no major complaints for the first 30 mins with the Greenland ice cores, why do you keep banging on that AGW is in any way significant?


mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
I will, but it's 3 hours.

plunker

542 posts

125 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
mybrainhurts said:
plunker said:
mybrainhurts said:
plunker said:
vetrof said:
Have a watch of Joe Rogan talking to Randall Carlson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ
I wouldn't bother.
I'd be interested to know why I shouldn't bother.
Had no major complaints for the first 30 mins or so where he was discussing the evidence of climate changes over the last thousands of years in the Greenland ice cores. Then at the 40min mark the smell of burning rubber starts - he portrays CO2 levels as having (paraphrasing) ...held steady at 280ppm for 100s of thousands of years before the industrial revolution ....that's what Al Gore and many others have stated ....because CO2 can't increase without man burning fossil fuels ...that's the consensus view.....it's an incovenient truth, chuckle chuckle.

He's surely well enough acquainted with climate science stuff to know that CO2 varies with temperature in the ice core proxies so that's clearly a big lie he's made up just so he can dismiss any role from CO2 variation in the climate changes he was discussing beforehand.

I stopped watching there.
I ran out of time at 1 hour, so watched no more.

If you had no major complaints for the first 30 mins with the Greenland ice cores, why do you keep banging on that AGW is in any way significant?
Another complaint would be that he equates the greenland ice core proxy temperature variations with global temps too much - it's probably better to think of the ice cores as a regional sea surface temperature proxy, and regional temps vary more than global.

Why should I think AGW is not significant based on the greenland ice cores?



Edited by plunker on Wednesday 27th January 14:14

mybrainhurts

90,809 posts

254 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Pssst....we've passed the heralded catastrophic 400ppm level of CO2 and nothing's happened to the temperature for 19 years.

Derek Smith

45,514 posts

247 months

Wednesday 27th January 2016
quotequote all
benjj said:
I nearly posted this in one of the many climate change threads but thought better of it... wonder if anyone scientifically minded can set me straight on this.

As a boy I remember 'learning' that the Earth had natural cycles including ice age / non ice age. This was explained to me as a natural phenomena and perfectly normal.

I was also taught that the fact that the poles were frozen was indicative of the fact that we're 'in' an ice age, whether starting or ending. Thus the fact we have slowly melting ice caps signifies that we're coming to the end of an ice age, geologically speaking.

Firstly, is this right?

Secondly, if so why is it never mentioned when anyone discusses climate change?
Sorry to go off topic:

I too was taught that there were cycles in the climate and that we were in an interglacial at the moment. It was mentioned by my physics teacher that there was what was dubbed as a mini ice age in Victorian times, and that the Scottish isles, from whence he hailed, were balmy less than 500 years ago. A minor change in climate had made the islands uninhabitable even by Scottish island standards.

This was around 1960 and he had produced a graph showing the changes in temperature in, I think, Edinburgh for about two centuries or so, and then via tree rings for the preceding n years. He was of the opinion that we had been heading towards another glaciation - of concern to him considering where he was born - but that something had delayed it.

He produced a few scientific articles, one of which suggested that the balance was acute: a push one way or the other could be critical. He said that volcanic eruptions could alter the climate, and did so after various volcanoes blew much into the air. There was a correlation between temperatures and volcanoes he believed.

There was no mention of greenhouse gasses, at least from what I remember, but industrialisation was suggested as a reason the Victorian weather had turned to the pleasant weather of the 60s.

We were told of the reflective power of the ice caps, so that if they increased, less heat stayed in the atmosphere, and vice versa, so giving rise to the switch.