Arctic sea ice thinner than ever before

[Hillbilly]

When was the last time there wasn't an ice cap?

It's been a few million years, practically yesterday in geologic time.

Yeah, practically yesterday in geologic time but in human time not even on the calender.

Physilogically humans have existed in our present form for about 195,000 years. All of recorded history is less than 10,000 years. For the purpose of discussing the ice cap as it relates to human survival there has always been an arctic ice cap.

I thought that global warming was supposed to destroy all life on the planet, more or less. It's always about how it will cause mass extinctions and such. It is never only about how it will affect man.

 

[code1211]

When was the last time there wasn't an ice cap?

It's been a few million years, practically yesterday in geologic time.

Yeah, practically yesterday in geologic time but in human time not even on the calender.

Physilogically humans have existed in our present form for about 195,000 years. All of recorded history is less than 10,000 years. For the purpose of discussing the ice cap as it relates to human survival there has always been an arctic ice cap.

The relatively recent cycle of Ice Ages alternating with Interglacials began when North and South America collided and changed, very dramatically, the then prevailing ocean currents. This dramatic change in the Global Climate, like every other dramatic change, was caused by something other than a change in the concentration of CO2.

CO2 has always been and indicator of Climate, not a causer.

People live just fine in the tropics. The rise in the average global temperature will be felt most dramatically in the cooler climate areas. Less travel time to make it to your tropical destination.

 

[Old Rocks]

It's been a few million years, practically yesterday in geologic time.

Yeah, practically yesterday in geologic time but in human time not even on the calender.

Physilogically humans have existed in our present form for about 195,000 years. All of recorded history is less than 10,000 years. For the purpose of discussing the ice cap as it relates to human survival there has always been an arctic ice cap.

I thought that global warming was supposed to destroy all life on the planet, more or less. It's always about how it will cause mass extinctions and such. It is never only about how it will affect man.

If you thought that global warming was supposted to destroy all life on the planet, then you are one ignorant fellow. And sudden warming has caused mass extinctions in the past. It is all about how it will affect mankind, particularly with nearly seven billion mouths to feed. Sudden and unpredictable climate change will adversly affect, in a major way, our agriculture. Look at what has happened in Australia in the last five years.

 

[Old Rocks]

It's been a few million years, practically yesterday in geologic time.

Yeah, practically yesterday in geologic time but in human time not even on the calender.

Physilogically humans have existed in our present form for about 195,000 years. All of recorded history is less than 10,000 years. For the purpose of discussing the ice cap as it relates to human survival there has always been an arctic ice cap.

The relatively recent cycle of Ice Ages alternating with Interglacials began when North and South America collided and changed, very dramatically, the then prevailing ocean currents. This dramatic change in the Global Climate, like every other dramatic change, was caused by something other than a change in the concentration of CO2.

CO2 has always been and indicator of Climate, not a causer.

People live just fine in the tropics. The rise in the average global temperature will be felt most dramatically in the cooler climate areas. Less travel time to make it to your tropical destination.

Completely, utterly wrong. Both in the P-T extinction event, and in the PETM, CO2 and CH4 were the drivers.
Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Past greenhouse warming events provide clues to what the future may hold

February 15, 2008

Past greenhouse warming events provide clues to what the future may hold
By Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; stephens@ucsc.edu


James Zachos (foreground) inspects a sediment core drilled from the ocean floor. Photo courtesy of J. Zachos.

If carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels continue on a "business-as-usual" trajectory, humans will have added about 5 trillion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere by the year 2400. A similarly massive release of carbon accompanied an extreme period of global warming 55 million years ago known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

Scientists studying the PETM are piecing together an increasingly detailed picture of its causes and consequences. Their findings describe what may be the best analog in the geologic record for the global changes likely to result from continued carbon dioxide emissions from human activities, according to James Zachos, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"All the evidence points to a massive release of carbon at the PETM, and if you compare it with the projections for anthropogenic carbon emissions, it's roughly the same amount of carbon," Zachos said. "The difference is the rate at which it was released--we're on track to do in a few hundred years what may have taken a few thousand years back then."

Zachos and his collaborators have been studying marine sediments deposited on the deep ocean floor during the PETM and recovered in sediment cores by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. He will discuss their findings, which reveal drastic changes in ocean chemistry during the PETM, in a presentation at the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston on Friday, February 15. His talk is part of a symposium entitled "Ocean Acidification and Carbon-Climate Connections: Lessons from the Geologic Past."