Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

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Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change

“Milankovic climate oscillations help define climate sensitivity and assess potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene and that goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster. Polar warmth in prior interglacials and the Pliocene does not imply that a significant cushion remains between today’s climate and dangerous warming, rather that Earth today is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate additional warming. Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Gravity satellite data, although too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. The emerging shift to accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth’s temperature has returned to at least the Holocene maximum. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.”
Columbia University in the City of New York ~jeh1/ mailings/ 2011/ 20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf

I think that the base of the major ice age was abut 6 to 8c below today. That is when the glaciers where a mile high across the northern United states.
 
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Posted for discussion of Hansen 2011. Interesting, but goes against most of what I used to think about climate. I have believed that the Holocene maximum was far hotter then today, but Hansen disagrees with that. I still believe that it was.
 

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