5 ms·
Its nice picking your time scales and models to convey a message as this image shows when CO2 was in the thousands parts per million. https://upload.wikimedia.o
by tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
Its nice picking your time scales and models to convey a message as this image shows when CO2 was in the thousands parts per million.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Phaneroz...
Now whilst its true the sun is heating up before it goes super nova millions of years in the future, which is what alot of the global warming fear is based on, and yes man has contributed a small % of CO2 by releasing CO2 from fossil fuels and cut down trees, the biggest threat facing mankind in the next 30 years is the Grand Solar Minimum.
A Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) is where the sunspots in the 11 year solar cycle reduce in frequency and strength and extreme weather becomes common place.
Sun spots reduce extreme weather events.
The last GSM was seen during the Dalton Minimum and Maunder Minimum, which are now classed as mini ice ages. When this occurred we had things like increased volcanic activity which lead to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer but extreme cold weather with temperatures seen in the UK of -37 Degrees C, sea ports and the English channel freezing over, extreme winds which did things like blow copious amounts of sand inland, leading to houses being buried in places like Santon Downham, massive inland sand dunes which is what Thetford Forest is planeted on in a bid to return the soil back to some use, but most importantly estimates suggest around 25% of the global population died due to cold and famine due to crop failures.
Today we have increased crop yields so whilst more land has been turned over to agriculture with modern farming practices, the risk is still very much a major threat in the next few decades as a hectare will feed more mouths today than it did during the medieval ice age and the global population has ballooned since the introduction of oil.
There are steps you can take yourself though to reduce your risk, like buying suitable farm land whilst also investing in solar which can power air source heat pumps in case energy supplies & communication become disrupted due to extreme weather events.
1 Watt of solar power can provide upto 3 Watts of heat energy from air source heat pumps. These are just like air con units working in reverse.
Now whilst no one wants to create a panic, looking at the facts in context is important and these points we need to bear in mind.
Firstly there were no meteorological offices during the medieval ice ages, so the evidence amassed by Professor Brian Fagan which you can read about in his book
"The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850" explains how man was affected and were very likely the drivers of political events that led to the French Revolution, the Irish Potatoe famine and more.
Its also worth pointing out that differences in the scientific community means no one really knows whether our manmade CO2 is going to benefit us or not when considering plants grow better with more CO2.
So there you go, a brief introduction of what TPTB are currently capitalizing on, if you fancy capitalizing on it yourself in innovative ways yourself.
- gjm11 10y ago> Its nice picking your time scales and models to convey a message Yeah, they're totally cherry-picking by only looking at the last four million years. Shocking. You're right that if we go back, say, 100 million years, we find CO2 levels somewhat higher than today. Other things we find: temperatures 20-40 degrees C higher at the poles than today; something like half of Europe and the US under water. (See http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/cliscibeyond.html http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/cliscibeyond.html for a bit more information, though it's not very detailed.) > the sun is heating up before it goes super nova [...] whch is what alot of the global warming fear is based on What? > the biggest threat facing mankind in the next 30 years is the Grand Solar Minimum Take a look at the graph at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum#Grand_solar_minima_and_maxima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum#Grand_solar_mini... and tell us again, if you can with a straight face, that anything like the Dalton minimum (let alone the Maunder minimum) is coming in the next 30 years. > When this occurred we had things like increased volcanic activity So far as I know, there is no reason to think that solar minima cause volcanic activity. It is true that there was a big eruption during the Dalton minimum, which is probably the main actual reason for the "year without a summer". > estimates suggest around 25% of the global population died Whose estimates? > whilst no one wants to create a panic It looks very much as if you do. > no one really knows whether our manmade CO2 is going to benefit us or not No one really knows anything about anything. But you can look in the IPCC reports to see what a bunch of smart well-informed people think are the likely impacts. Or you can throw up your hands and say "no one really knows". Your call.
- _red 10y agoFor the vast majority of the earths history there has been no ice at the poles. We are coming out of an ice-age currently which is why there are still some remnants left.
- gjm11 10y ago> the vast majority of the earth's history For the great majority of the earth's history there were no humans either, but I personally would be upset at the prospect of that situation recurring. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet seems to indicate that there has been a south polar ice cap for tens of millions of years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_ecology_and_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_ecology_and_his... suggests that there's less consensus about the north pole but the corresponding figure seems to be probably at least 700,000 years. I'm sure the earth is in no danger from the melting of the ice caps, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be bad news for us.