Ancient Climate Studies Suggest Earth On Fast Track To Global Warming

Terra Daily ^ | February 17, 2006 | Staff Writers

[Ditto]

Cool? If he think rapid climate change was due to periodical orbital anomalies 20 M years ago, why does he need a different mechanism for 55 M years ago? Are those orbital changes periodic or are they not periodic?

And why no mention of the much higher methane levels of the Paleocene and the 21 times stronger greenhouse potential of methane over CO2?

What I smell is a funding deficit. Orbital changes won't draw Ford, Pew or even NASA money. Methane isn't a by-product of industry and not a big field of study unless you want to be laughed at by the general public for studying cow farts.

But if you can have those billions of tons CH4 meet free O2 on their bubble to the surface and convert into that dastardly CO2, then you have something that you can beat industry over the head with to make it worthy of funding.

BTW. I wonder what happens to the 4 leftover hydrogen atoms in his model? Maybe he's come up with the key to a hydrogen economy --- farts in the bathtub, so to speak.

[cogitator]

If he think rapid climate change was due to periodical orbital anomalies 20 M years ago, why does he need a different mechanism for 55 M years ago?

The PETM mechanism is (apparently) not related to orbital cycle forcing.

And why no mention of the much higher methane levels of the Paleocene and the 21 times stronger greenhouse potential of methane over CO2?

Why does that need to be mentioned? I'm not following you here.

The methane release scenario for the PETM has been around awhile. This isn't new. The rate-of-release comparison and the number of ocean cycles that it occurred over, comparing the PETM to the modern era, is what I haven't seen before. The conversion of methane to CO2 goes back to the "Ocean Burps" link I posted higher in the thread -- dated 2003, I think.

If CH4 is oxidized by O2, then the H gets converted to H20. I.e., CH4 + 2 O2 --> C02 + 2 H20.

[katana]

First of all, there is far less scientific consensus than the press, the environmental "movement" (Luddites in my vernacular), and the political left would have you believe. In fact quite a few scientists (climatologists included) disagree with the whole conclusion that human activities are the cause of "global warming".

Dr. Frederick Seitz Past President, National Academy of Sciences and President Emeritus, Rockefeller University for one has set up a petition project to permit the voices of dissenting scientists to be heard. For an overview of the project visit the website: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p41.htm

One of the things about science is that, like the weather and climate, it is always in a state of flux. New theories challenge the old, become accepted, and are in turn replaced with others. Two major reasons to be skeptical of the "global warming" movement in particular are the smugness and intolerance of dissent displayed by its proponents, and the vast amounts of money involved.

[sima_yi]

What would be the mean global temperature during the interglacials only?

Taking the current interglacial period as "today", the mean temperature of the four previous ones is about 1 - 1.5 degrees C warmer.

The current interglacial period is about the same length (so far) as the most previous one (starting about 140 000 years ago). The earlier ones were a lot shorter.

Again, these are based on the Voshtok Ice Core data. Once I get ahold of the Dome C data (goes back about 600 000 years) I will do a comparison.

[Ditto]

Two major reasons to be skeptical of the "global warming" movement in particular are the smugness and intolerance of dissent displayed by its proponents, and the vast amounts of money involved.

I'd add a third. What can be generously considered amateurish errors in interpreting data (more likely intentional fraud) i.e. Mann's famous "Hockey Stick" chart which the entire IPCC and Kyoto is predicated on. If their data were as strong as their propaganda machine, there would be not need to falsify results, but they have been caught doing it over and over again.

[olezip]

Thanks for the link. I did take a look. However such a conclusion is a real, real stretch. Where is the plain English explanation of the methodology, the assumptions, and the data used for such a prediction? I suspect that there will be really large holes in at least two of those areas.

[palmer]

Both methane and CO2 are greenhouse gases that change the Earth's radiative balance if their atmospheric concentration changes.

As other posters pointed out, methane is a much stronger GH gas. They change the radiative balance in different ways, increases in CO2 have less effect as the overall concentration increases while methane has more as well as being 20 times more heat absorbent at current concentrations. In short, rapid rises in methane could cause warming but rapid rises in CO2 would not without the forcing mechanism causing rises in water vapor. We've talked about forcing before and I will say it again, forcing is a figment of a model and a theory, yet to be proven or demonstrated outside of a model.

[worldclass]

"Which sites?"

The site you posted to me on post #10 of this thread.

[GOP_1900AD]

The Hockey Stick may be considered to be an outright criminal act.

[Nova]

"The earlier ones were a lot shorter."

You agree then that we may be soon to freeze our butts off?

[sima_yi]

You agree then that we may be soon to freeze our butts off?

Based on all the data I've seen (and I'm talking about data, not computer models, which can be made to say anything you want), I agree, with the proviso that "soon" might mean a hundred years from now.

[Nova]

That's what I was thinking. Seems as likely that we'll be freezin' as cookin' in AD 2100.