11 ms·

The key point is how fast the temperature changes. Over several thousands of years that change can be tolerated by the ecosystem (animals and plants evolve over

The key point is how fast the temperature changes. Over several thousands of years that change can be tolerated by the ecosystem (animals and plants evolve over several hundreds of generations and can survive). We already increased the temperature of 1. something degrees Celsius in perhaps a 100 of years and the trend in accelerating. That's way too fast for natural selection to make a difference. So, yeah, Eocene was super warm, but the flora and fauna was well adapted to survive in those conditions. Also, if you don't believe me, look better in the article you linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File:All_palaeotemps.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... (pay attention to the non uniform time axis...)

Mikeb85 7y ago
Not saying there won't be ill effects. But the alarmist idea that the world will be 80% desert isn't based on any science.
- goerz 7y ago
  How a map at +4 or +6 degrees may or may not look is pretty far from "grade school", and definitely requires sources. I agree that the map in the parent comment doesn't meet my standards for scientific accuracy, due to lack of sources, but that doesn't mean I'd discount it. It's not exactly implausible, extrapolating from current desertification. Seems like the map is from a book (https://www.paragkhanna.com/home/2016/3/9/the-world-4-degrees-warmer?rq=warmer https://www.paragkhanna.com/home/2016/3/9/the-world-4-degree...), so presumably that book would contain explanations. Your Smithsonian map is quite bad, too: It contains no legend, an no explanations at all, although based on the coloring it would seem that there's less desertification than in the parent comment map. But then, it also looks like due to continental drift, the majority of landmass was on the Southern hemisphere. I think it's pretty silly to draw too many conclusions about desertification in the next century from a picture of the earth 170 million years ago, with a completely different distribution of land mass and weather patterns.

Mikeb85 7y ago

Not saying there won't be ill effects. But the alarmist idea that the world will be 80% desert isn't based on any science.

goerz 7y ago
How a map at +4 or +6 degrees may or may not look is pretty far from "grade school", and definitely requires sources. I agree that the map in the parent comment doesn't meet my standards for scientific accuracy, due to lack of sources, but that doesn't mean I'd discount it. It's not exactly implausible, extrapolating from current desertification. Seems like the map is from a book (https://www.paragkhanna.com/home/2016/3/9/the-world-4-degrees-warmer?rq=warmer https://www.paragkhanna.com/home/2016/3/9/the-world-4-degree...), so presumably that book would contain explanations. Your Smithsonian map is quite bad, too: It contains no legend, an no explanations at all, although based on the coloring it would seem that there's less desertification than in the parent comment map. But then, it also looks like due to continental drift, the majority of landmass was on the Southern hemisphere. I think it's pretty silly to draw too many conclusions about desertification in the next century from a picture of the earth 170 million years ago, with a completely different distribution of land mass and weather patterns.