I Believe In Science Of Climate Change
Which way is it getting hotter or is it getting colder there's no such thing as climate change it's a natural give and take of the Earth
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
ArishMell · 70-79, M
The climate is changing and has been doing ever since the planet had anything that can be called a climate - which is far before the dinosaurs appeared. These changes though are slow, with small-scale superimposed oscillations.
We are still in an Ice Age, and the Earth's overall climate is relatively cool in terms of the planet's history. We are either still warming in an interglacial or (and far more worryingly for the future) at the end of the entire Ice Age. I don't know if that has been established, albeit only on probabilities. The "end" of the last glaciation is taken as being 10-12 000 years ago.
To explain that point, an Ice Age such as ours is NOT a single cold snap but a long-term cold/warm oscillation with consequent sea-level rises and geological effects, measured over hundreds of thousands of years.
[b][i]However[/i]...[/b]
The present concern to the extent of orthodoxy is that the present change is all by human activities, but this ignores any natural change.
This being so, I would like to know - from genuine scientists, not ignorant deceitful or corrupt politicians and campaigners - the relative proportion of human to natural change. I do not recall seeing or hearing such figures.
We cannot be complacent, but although we might be able to ameliorate [i]human [/i]effects, we can do nothing to alter [i]natural [/i]changes and their rates of change.
'
Modern Humans evolved well under 1 million years ago, but not so late that individuals in higher latitudes did not occupy glacial or intervening interglacial conditions. The last interglacial was warmer than now, with sea-levels about 10 metres higher than present. The last glaciation covered the land with ice Southwards nearly to the latitude of the English Channel, which was a river-valley due to the low sea-level. How did they cope? Easily.
There were far fewer of them, and like their surrounding wildlife they took their contemporary geography and climate as they found them, so adapted or moved to more equable regions.
How would 21C humanity cope with either case, and especially a warming or cooling rapid enough for human history, let alone geology? (E.g., 2 or 3ºC and sea-level change of a few metres, per century). Anything but easily.
The Earth's modern, far, far larger population and mix of complex, fractious societies living in almost all parts of the world, would find adapting to potential results of such a warming and its consequent "marine transgression", extremely difficult, to say the least. That is whether the changes are entirely natural, entirely anthropogenic, or both.
We are still in an Ice Age, and the Earth's overall climate is relatively cool in terms of the planet's history. We are either still warming in an interglacial or (and far more worryingly for the future) at the end of the entire Ice Age. I don't know if that has been established, albeit only on probabilities. The "end" of the last glaciation is taken as being 10-12 000 years ago.
To explain that point, an Ice Age such as ours is NOT a single cold snap but a long-term cold/warm oscillation with consequent sea-level rises and geological effects, measured over hundreds of thousands of years.
[b][i]However[/i]...[/b]
The present concern to the extent of orthodoxy is that the present change is all by human activities, but this ignores any natural change.
This being so, I would like to know - from genuine scientists, not ignorant deceitful or corrupt politicians and campaigners - the relative proportion of human to natural change. I do not recall seeing or hearing such figures.
We cannot be complacent, but although we might be able to ameliorate [i]human [/i]effects, we can do nothing to alter [i]natural [/i]changes and their rates of change.
'
Modern Humans evolved well under 1 million years ago, but not so late that individuals in higher latitudes did not occupy glacial or intervening interglacial conditions. The last interglacial was warmer than now, with sea-levels about 10 metres higher than present. The last glaciation covered the land with ice Southwards nearly to the latitude of the English Channel, which was a river-valley due to the low sea-level. How did they cope? Easily.
There were far fewer of them, and like their surrounding wildlife they took their contemporary geography and climate as they found them, so adapted or moved to more equable regions.
How would 21C humanity cope with either case, and especially a warming or cooling rapid enough for human history, let alone geology? (E.g., 2 or 3ºC and sea-level change of a few metres, per century). Anything but easily.
The Earth's modern, far, far larger population and mix of complex, fractious societies living in almost all parts of the world, would find adapting to potential results of such a warming and its consequent "marine transgression", extremely difficult, to say the least. That is whether the changes are entirely natural, entirely anthropogenic, or both.