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No, of course not. But nature has no mechanism to handle extremely rapid change in climate.
by Scarblac 3y ago
No, of course not. But nature has no mechanism to handle extremely rapid change in climate.
- ilyt 3y agoNow I don't agree with attitude of person above but we had ice ages
- NineStarPoint 3y agoConsider how slowly we were coming out of the last ice age before fossil fuels sped things up. The best geological evidence we have of previous rapid changes are extinction events. As others have said it’s not the change itself but the rate of change that is concerning.
- pjc50 3y agoThe ice age transitions were over a much longer period of time. And of course had very transformative effects on the landscape.
- DoughnutHole 3y agoThe onset of ice ages is relatively slow - the last ice age took about 10,000 years from its onset to reach the peak of of the ice sheets, and another 10,000 years or so for the ice age to end. At the glacial maximum average global temperatures were about 6°C colder than today, and we've managed to raise temperatures by 1°C in only 100 years. Changes at the speed of man-made global warming (or faster) do happen, but they are uncommon and tend to be associated with catastrophic events and mass extinctions.
- tiahura 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File:All_palaeotemps.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m...
- ilyt 3y agoSyre but it also caused many extinction events, yet biosphere survived just fine.
- Timon3 3y agoAnd that somehow means it's good to start the next extinction?
- ethagknight 3y agoI mean, this sort of absolute statement is bullshit, summer and winter is extremely rapid and far more dramatic than the few degrees "forecasted" over the next century. Plants and animals adapt every year, some die, many thrive, things change. I am not questioning that humans are making things worse, but "has no mechanism"?? Simply false. Migration is one obvious mechanism. Storing more heat in the ocean is another.
- pjc50 3y ago> Migration is one obvious mechanism. Something humans are famously tolerant of each other doing? No, the other thing. > Storing more heat in the ocean is another. This is also part of the problem; storing CO2 in the ocean has adverse side effects too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
- Scarblac 3y agoBut organisms are adapted to summer and winter cycles, they don't suddenly appear, they have been the same for ages. But change the timing a little, and you have eggs hatching weeks before the caterpillars that the chicks eat appear, and lots of them die. They co-evolved for a fixed time at which spring appeared, now that timing is off and evolution isn't quick enough to move along with climate change.
- ethagknight 3y agoThey have NOT been the same for ages. They have varied wildly with mild and harsh summers and winters. Lots of confidence in thinly observed theories. Caterpillars and chicks having a rough Spring is part of nature.
- Timon3 3y agoBut there have been mild and harsh summers and winters for ages. They don't have to be the same every year for animals to adapt. But if winters suddenly were twice as long and twice as cold, you can bet that the prior adaptions don't suffice anymore. That is what we're talking about.