CO2 - Have we passed the tipping point?
- Thread starter GT WT
- Start date
Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12° C (54° F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!
Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm -- comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Earth's atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
The Link
Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm -- comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Earth's atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth's history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
The Link
Hi General,
The interpretation you linked to was authored (as far as I can tell) by Monte Hieb. Monte is the chief engineer for the West Virginia Office of Miners Safety. He's also a notorious climate change denier. A group of real climate scientists (Rosemarie Came, et al.) looked at the same data as Hieb and concluded:
"Our results indicate that tropical sea surface temperatures were significantly higher than today during the Early Silurian period (443–423 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been relatively high, and were broadly similar to today during the Late Carboniferous period (314–300 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been similar to the present-day value. Our results are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures,"
This is nicely summarized in:
The Link
The interpretation you linked to was authored (as far as I can tell) by Monte Hieb. Monte is the chief engineer for the West Virginia Office of Miners Safety. He's also a notorious climate change denier. A group of real climate scientists (Rosemarie Came, et al.) looked at the same data as Hieb and concluded:
"Our results indicate that tropical sea surface temperatures were significantly higher than today during the Early Silurian period (443–423 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been relatively high, and were broadly similar to today during the Late Carboniferous period (314–300 Myr ago), when carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to have been similar to the present-day value. Our results are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures,"
This is nicely summarized in:
The Link
Brisketexan
1,000+ Posts
Wait . . . it's over? We lost? So does this mean I can quit holding my breath?
Whewww!
Whewww!
Bob in Houston
2,500+ Posts
Sorry BT... when I was exercising I was breathing twice as fast.
Knoxville-Horn
1,000+ Posts
Maybe I'm reading a research article from the wrong source, but...
I recently came across something that said that CO2 only makes up about 3.62% of greenhouse gases with water vapor as 95%. Out of the 3.62%, man is only responsibe for a small fraction of that -- something like 3.2% of the 3.62% figure.
I recently came across something that said that CO2 only makes up about 3.62% of greenhouse gases with water vapor as 95%. Out of the 3.62%, man is only responsibe for a small fraction of that -- something like 3.2% of the 3.62% figure.
Newsweek, April 28, 1975
Time Magazine
Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Another Ice Age?
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa's drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest's recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.
Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
Climatic Balance. Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth's climate. Indeed, it is to gain such knowledge that 38 ships and 13 aircraft, carrying scientists from almost 70 nations, are now assembling in the Atlantic and elsewhere for a massive 100-day study of the effects of the tropical seas and atmosphere on worldwide weather. The study itself is only part of an international scientific effort known acronymically as GARP (for Global Atmospheric Research Program).
Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.
The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time. But there is a peril more immediate than the prospect of another ice age. Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced. University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row."
Time Magazine
Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Another Ice Age?
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa's drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest's recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.
Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
Climatic Balance. Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth's climate. Indeed, it is to gain such knowledge that 38 ships and 13 aircraft, carrying scientists from almost 70 nations, are now assembling in the Atlantic and elsewhere for a massive 100-day study of the effects of the tropical seas and atmosphere on worldwide weather. The study itself is only part of an international scientific effort known acronymically as GARP (for Global Atmospheric Research Program).
Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.
The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time. But there is a peril more immediate than the prospect of another ice age. Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced. University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row."
7-iron,
You do know that over the last 30 years a great deal of new information has been gathered on climate change? You do know that the analysis of those data has matured? You do know that the scientific concensus in 2008 is that climate change (involving warming over much of the world) is real and due at least in part to man's activities?
The Link
The Link
The Link
Opposing the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences is an engineer with the West Virginia Department of Miners Safety and the chief meteorologist with KPAY AM radio in Butte County California. You decide who has the better grasp on climate change.
You do know that over the last 30 years a great deal of new information has been gathered on climate change? You do know that the analysis of those data has matured? You do know that the scientific concensus in 2008 is that climate change (involving warming over much of the world) is real and due at least in part to man's activities?
The Link
The Link
The Link
Opposing the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences is an engineer with the West Virginia Department of Miners Safety and the chief meteorologist with KPAY AM radio in Butte County California. You decide who has the better grasp on climate change.
There's nothing you, me, or anyone else can do to stop whatever it is that is happening. The thought that man can control or prevent what has been set in course makes me laugh. So in that, I agree with that premise of the article.
I mock any fool that proports to avert the inevitable with something as ridiculous as carbon credits. That is all.
I mock any fool that proports to avert the inevitable with something as ridiculous as carbon credits. That is all.
PMG (and Steinbeck): I do actually appreciate reading your posts about global warming, when you choose to be informative. But there's really no reason to be haughty or sarcastic. What I get out of the old global cooling news is not that it was true, but that many people at the time took debatable data and rode the wave to hysteria. In my life, I have seen it on many, many issues. While the current GW crowd has a consensus of lots of scientists in the world, the current popular conclusions are based on lots of assumptions that could very well be far off base. Plus, of course, there's a lot we just may not know. The GW projections are far, far shakier than a bet on the Patriots or Big Brown would have been, so just don't be so insulting to people who "doubt" this enormous set of assumptions stacked on top of each other. Again, I appreciate your continuous effort to provide information, even though I suppose you would call me an ignorant doubter.
Bob in Houston
2,500+ Posts
Hey, it's okay. I personally only come through these posts once in a while, so I only see what I see. I got some very useful exchange from PMG some time ago, and probably you have done the same, too. You're angry about this issue, as you say. Anyway, hope you have a good weekend.
I got from the Time article's publish date that what GW evangelists say today may be laughed at and ridiculed 30 years from now for being wrong.
For those of you putting the weight and prestige of a whole community into the balance against one or two scientists I quote a learned Polish everyman:
"Omnes orbes ambire Solem, tanquam in medio omnium existentem, ideoque circa Solem esse centrum mundi"
Note bene 'mundi'!
Global warming has been good for life. But too much of a good thing is bad. And how much is too much? Who get's to decide?
The best thing GW evangelists can do right now is alternate each sentence of gloom and doom with a sentence of science and technology that will provide unfettered free market alternatives to carbon. And if they can't, they need to STFU and get back in the lab or research center until they do have acceptable answers.
For those of you putting the weight and prestige of a whole community into the balance against one or two scientists I quote a learned Polish everyman:
"Omnes orbes ambire Solem, tanquam in medio omnium existentem, ideoque circa Solem esse centrum mundi"
Note bene 'mundi'!
Global warming has been good for life. But too much of a good thing is bad. And how much is too much? Who get's to decide?
The best thing GW evangelists can do right now is alternate each sentence of gloom and doom with a sentence of science and technology that will provide unfettered free market alternatives to carbon. And if they can't, they need to STFU and get back in the lab or research center until they do have acceptable answers.
UT Spring Branch
500+ Posts
1975 - Scientists have very little idea what causes climate change. They don't have emough evidence to even ask the right questions in many cases (per the article).
2005 - Al Gore (a marginal student) has all of the answers to climate change.
Can anyone tell me what has changed since 1975?
2005 - Al Gore (a marginal student) has all of the answers to climate change.
Can anyone tell me what has changed since 1975?
UT Spring Branch
500+ Posts
As you can see, we've had this cooling trend back in the 70's, but as pressure rose and people populated, we saw a rise in the weather heating refractory known as the outer atmosphere. Currently the forecast is much hotter due to a rise in pollution and large clouds of self satisfaction that will destroy the balance of our planet and kill us all.
God save the queen.
God save the queen.
10 miles.
95% of the atmosphere occurs within 10 miles of the Earth's surface.
So the next time you're flying in a jet just realize you're only about 3 to 4 miles from the ceiling of our climate.
How anyone can think that 200 years of releasing latent greenhouse gases into that 10 mile atmosphere will have no effect, I find befuddling.
95% of the atmosphere occurs within 10 miles of the Earth's surface.
So the next time you're flying in a jet just realize you're only about 3 to 4 miles from the ceiling of our climate.
How anyone can think that 200 years of releasing latent greenhouse gases into that 10 mile atmosphere will have no effect, I find befuddling.
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