Global Climate Change: Does It Occur Abruptly or Gradually?

Many of us are blissfully unaware that almost the whole of human history -from the hunters and gatherers to the rise of towns and cities, the development of science and medicine -the whole of our great human pageant- has taken place within an atypical period of fair weather.

For most of our 4.5-billion year history, the typical pattern was for the earth to be hot, sans ice anywhere. The current ice epoch started about 40 million years ago, with at least 17 serious glacial episodes in the last 2.5 million years, which coincides with the rise of homo sapiens, the rise of the Himalayas and the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, disrupting the flows of warming currents between the Atlantic and Pacific.

Before 50 million years ago the planet had no cyclical ice ages. What it did have was a pair of glacial whoppers: one about two billion years ago, followed by a billion years of warmth and another mega ice age called the Cryogenian (you get the picture!) when temperatures plunged 80 degrees Fahrenheit, creating a global Antarctica, dubbed by pundits as "Snowball Earth."

Recent analysis of ice cores from Greenland show that climate change occurs abruptly with temperature swings of up to 15 degrees over a 10-year period dramatically altering the climate rather than gradual change over hundreds of thousands of years. One thing is certain, change is on the way.

At the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference, climatologists described an "intensification of droughts, heatwaves, floods, wildfires and severe storms" as "early warning signs of yet more devastating damage to come". In Great Britain, Stephen Hawking and the Government's chief scientist, Professor Sir David King, said that climate change that it posed a greater threat than , in tune with other experts who describe global warming as a "weapon of mass destruction." 

Our period of unusual tranquility known as the Holocene is on the wane. If all our ice sheets melted (and melting they are-in the past 50 years the waters around the West Antarctic ice sheet have warmed 2.5 degrees centigrade) sea levels would rise two hundred feet, drowning the world's coastal cities. Yet another certainty is the complexity of climate change and all its variables from orbit fluctuations known as Milankovitch cycles, to rising carbon dioxide levels, to shifts in tectonic plates, to solar flare cycles. Some believe that global warming might actually trigger the next major ice age.

One thing is certain: it certainly has been nice to come of age in the Holocene. 

Casey Kazan.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-is-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction-440735.html

Image credit: With thanks to ChArLiE 2010(^:*'s Flickr photostream

Comments

[Simon Jackson, BEng.]

Probly a methane cycle, followed by a photochemical hydroxyl or thionate process.

[http://www.divineadvancedhumanbeings.com]

The way the universe works, which is an amazing perpetual self-correcting machine, we go through thru (4) 12,000 year cycles orbiting from low pressure to high pressure with each cycle. When we enter a new cycle, that means the earth being the machine that it is, is too hot in some places; therefore, to cool off, it must shift gears, which can cause catastrophic floods, earthquakes, droughts, etc… during these cycle changes and we are nearing the end of a cycle. This is quite normal and when you look at our history, we know this has happened many times before. It’s also quite normal when some of the catastrophic events happen, that sometimes we are forced to live as primitive people once again!

Mankind has gone from primitive, to modern to advanced many times before but we still have not learned our lessons. Currently, we live in a modern society with quite a bit of technology. However, in the future when scientists learn how to map the inside of a particle, they will discover that we are multi-dimensional beings and we will become an advanced society with advanced technology or other dimensional technology.

[Doug]

Integrate man made global warming with a theory that includes a man induced ice age...LOL.
A thick lush biosphere is the best way to regulate inside and outside influinces on climate. I say Glass Steagel and then NAWAPA to expand the biosphere into arid land. Lets better our lives with productive work while controlling the climate. It seems like a no brainer.

[Zarkov]

>>. waters around the West Antarctic ice sheet have warmed 2.5 degrees centigrade >>>
NOTE: Antarctica mostly rests upon land... it is only the Arctic that will be hot tub seawater melted... and that is happening.

err teacher, How can the whole world's oceans become much warmer, when water loses heat when water is evaporated ??

and doesn't evaporated water form clouds that reduce incoming radiative forcing !!!

and doesn't seawater temperature and atmospheric clouding come to an equilibrium !!! where heat in should equal heat out ????

http://www.omegafour.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=46

[Alex]

The following is a word for word, copy and paste job from my previous comment on the DG article "The Daily Poll - What do you think? "Are we in the midst of a human-induced or natural climate change?""

I believe I said on an article a while before that that "I should just start copying and saving my answers, because the same questions come up over and over," and that is exactly what I've done. I should point out that nobody debated or agreed with me last time, and i'm really sick of being ignored!
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Climate change is nothing new, and it's been going on as far back into earth's history as we can determine. When Earth was formed it was a massive ball of molten rock. It cooled down from that level over a couple billion years, then the biggest part of the planet was tropical. Then that infamous asteroid/volcano came along and wiped out the dinosaurs, also bringing about the most drastic change in climate that Earth has ever seen. We remained in that particular Ice Age for a few thousand years I believe, then the planet started to inexplicably warm up again. You see Earth, like the rest of the universe, is constantly moving towards the state of maximum entropy: the state at which energy is most evenly distributed and freely flowing. We know from archeological studies that Earth's state of maximum entropy is a tropical state, since that's the point it gravitated to over the course of several billion years before that little asteroid came along and messed it up.

This little period of "global cooling" or "global warming" or "Climate Change" or whatever they've changed the name to for this decade (as they do seem to change their story every ten or twelve years) has been progressing semi-steadily since the end of that big ice age, and we have no evidence to indicate that the heating of the planet is accelerating or decelerating on the grand scale of things. Trends over years or decades are inconsequential compared to average trends over centuries.

If you insist on getting stuck on those brief vogues of counter-trends, then I suggest you take a very close look at the climate graphs of the past few decades. Most of the ones I've seen show a 2-3 degree average increase in temperatures over the past sixty years. I must insist that this is nothing to worry about. Perhaps the next sixty years will show a six degree drop, and the sixty after that will show a four degree rise, and so on. Global climate always moves in lurches (think of a pendulum going back and forth. It's net motion is always zero, even though it may trend one direction for an unusually long time (like a breeze hitting it), it will eventually counter that with an equal lurch in the opposite direction.

If your' still not convinced, then I suggest you take a look at my site

https://sites.google.com/site/edocsil6437

and go to the page entitled "Headlines." There you'll find an article from Yahoo news a few years back that compares the CO2 emissions of human technology to the CO2 emissions of natural respiration, specifically the respiration of dogs.

If you truly want to protect the climate, the solution is not to tax pollution and try to outlaw the burning of fossil fuels, the solution is to simply kill your' dog, since it's breathing gives off more annual pollution than the average SUV.
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[Alex]

I mentioned that the climate trends in years and decades are inconsequential. To give you an example of this:

The Dark Ages - Europe - Average temperatures across Europe dropped considerably and remained low for decades, resulting in a deficit of food, which in turn resulted in a limited population and, general feelings of contempt for everybody in better circumstances, and stagnation of foreign trade, technological progress, and the arts, hence the term "Dark Ages." This could be construed as evidence that climate directly affects economy and social order.

1770's - American Revolution - Valley Forge - General Washington's troops endured a blistering winter, killing off a large number of his host with hypothermia.

1780's? - French Revolution - Sudden drops in temperatures across Europe created a shortage of bread, among other crops, which was one of the main factors that spurred France to overthrow it's ancient monarchical government. It is theorized now that the drop in temperatures might have been caused by the eruption of a large volcano in Iceland, which blanketed parts of Europe with clouds of dust briefly.

1970's and 1980's - U.S.A. - Hippie movements began stressing 'global cooling' and an imminent ice age, although they never provided any substantial evidence to support a change in climate.

1990's and early 2000's - U.S.A. - A new political movement, spearheaded by presidential candidate Al Gore, began a subtle campaign of propaganda supporting the idea that "Global Warming" was going to devastate the planet, and that sea levels would rise twenty feet (a ridiculous claim, since there isn't enough ice on the planet to achieve a 20 ft rise in the level of the oceans.)

Approximately 2002 - A climate debate was held, including many prominent scientists, and Al Gore's book, released only a short time afterward, cited that two prominent scientists at the debate had corroborated his global warming claims. The two scientists immediately denied having said any such thing, although media coverage of their denial was scarce.

Approximately 2008 - The global warming movement begun by Al Gore unanimously stopped using the term 'global warming' opting instead for the much more vague term 'climate change.'

2009 - The controversial "Climategate" ordeal exposed a number of E-mails in which the alteration of climatological data was discussed in a roundabout manner. Also this year, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" declared that Global Warming must be real, because some people "Won the Nobel Prize for it and you've got to be very smart to win the Nobel Prize" (slightly paraphrased.)

Also the same year, the Copenhagen Climate summit, a gathering of political leaders from all over the world to discuss the looming threat of global warming, was caught in a blizzard of biblical proportions. Washington DC was covered in snow for several days, and for the first time in recorded history, there was snow in every state in the continental U.S. During this cold snap, a number of non-indigenous iguanas in Florida died of hypothermia.
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Now tell me that climate change is a problem. Climate change is a joke!

[Amber Thompson]

In climate change, the summers get hotter and more humid, the winters get colder and dryer.

[Hartson]

Yes we are going into a man made global warming cycle. The ice will melt, cities will drown, coastlines will change, many people will die, civilization will change, the climate will turn globally tropical but humanity will go on. We will turn back into farmers in small communities of about 60,000 connected with open lines of communications on a global scale. We may turn into a space faring race but only when we become at peace with our selves.

[jimijr]

Your premise is true only if you discount H. Neanderthal and H. Antecessor, etc. These humans lived through the Pleistocene Ice Ages and fluctuating sea levels and all the changes. "Human history" extends a million years back, or more.

In any case, as it stands, humans are the most versatile adaptable species on the planet. We thrive in all terrestrial environments, air land and sea, even in outer space. If anyone or thing can survive, it is us.

[Alex]

Not true, Jimijr.

We dont have any reason to suspect that humans are a resilient race. We can only exist long term in environments of approximately (i think) 1:4 Oxygen:Nitrogen ratios, atmospheric pressure between sea level and a few thousand feet, temperatures ranging between 30 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and little or no radiation or other toxicities.

There are many much more resilient (and older) races than humans. For example, roaches. Remember that old joke that after WWIII (the nuclear holocaust) roaches would rule the planet. That's partially true, but they are not anywhere near the most resilient example. Let's try anaerobic lifeforms.

You may remember the DG article (copied and pasted from a real news site, of course) that announced the discovery of anaerobic life deep in a sulfur pool in Africa. The lifeforms (scarcely more than microbes) had existed in the blistering cold, without sunlight, without water, and without O2, for eons, and yet they where thriving in an environment practically free of competition. Their enemy was their environment, and all their evolutionary efforts had been directed to besting their environment, not another lifeform. I would argue that creatures like this, who are best adapted to survive in a sterile situation, are the ones most likely to endure following a cataclysm. (like a rapid change in global climate)

Also, one must consider the insects (also featured on the DG in a ripped off article) who where found to have 'hibernated' for millennia. These insects (I forget what they where named) where hypothesized to have found themselves in untenable circumstances several thousand years ago, and had 'died.' The 'dead' insects did not decay, however. Some mechanism or another kept their bodies in perfect condition, almost managing to defy aging, until such a time as their environment became more inviting to them, if it ever did. Some scientist dug one up, thinking to have found a fossilized insect, and to his amazement the insect revived right in front of him and started scurrying around as though it had never been dead and buried for thousands of years.

These are the lifeforms that will endure a cataclysm, however it is of little practical use to speculate since we are NOT in any danger from man-made climate change, and there will NOT be any need to test the limits of human endurance in the foreseeable future. Keep in mind, though, that an asteroid could still change that fact at any time.

[Alex]

Humans do NOT thrive in the sea or in outer space. Have you ever seen a human stay under water for more than ten minutes? Have you ever seen a human swim and catch a fleeing fish and eat it raw, underwater? have you ever seen a human flap his gills?

Have you ever seen an astronaut remove his helmet in space? it's not a pretty thing to visualize. How would we sustain ourselves in space? hydroponics and air scrubbers will only get us so far. We would need something as large as a moon in order to maintain any sizable population and an efficiently working ecosystem in space, and there would still be the issue of power. To my knowledge, we are not even close to inventing a perpetual energy machine, and it would simply be impractical to carry large supplies of fissionable (or even fusionable) material in a space colony. Our life spans would be strictly limited by how much we could loot off asteroids and other planets, and how much we could bring with us when we initially evacuated the planet. It would be less than a couple of generations, I think, at best.

[Alex]

like I said before, Climate change is not a serious problem anytime in the next millennium, but if you really want to do something about reducing our CO2 output, force Al Gore (the worlds biggest proponent of global warming) to stop flying around his private 747 (along with all the members of congress, each with a private jet).

You could also take some of the government money that's being thrown away on nothing, and donate some of that to private sector research into fuel efficiency, more sensitive solar panels, lighter weight wind turbines (so they would actually generate some power), or planting trees to scrub the atmosphere of CO2.

Just a thought here, but don't you think we're hurting more than we're helping through all these stupid public programs and climate campaigns that are burning electricity and jet fuel?

[Alex]

Amber Thompson:

Think about that. What could cause the summers to get hotter and the winters to get colder?

The premise of 'global cooling' was that the increased amounts of CO2 in the upper atmosphere was bouncing the suns rays back into space, thus preventing the lower atmosphere and the ground from receiving enough heat.

The premise of 'global warming' was that the increased amounts of CO2 in the upper atmosphere was allowing sunlight to enter, but trapping it below the thermo-sphere, thus causing temperatures to rise on ground level.

The premise of 'climate change' is that the increased amounts of CO2 in the upper atmosphere is doing SOMETHING harmful to the environment, but we're not sure what.

Now, Ms Thompson, which one of these theories would account for a rise in summer temperatures, and a drop in winter temperatures? Allow me to remind you that 'winter' is just the time of the year when a given part of the world is angled away from the sun, not receiving as much direct light as usual.

True, the past two winters have been brutally cold and devoid of snow, and the past three summers have been hot (and also drought conditions, at least where I live.) I do not think, however, that this is any any way related to the content of the upper atmosphere. I think it is simply a dry spell: a period in which there is little moisture in the atmosphere. Keep in mind that weather does not happen overnight. The rain falling on your' head today might have evaporated, at least in part, a hundred years ago under completely different circumstances. It's possible that we have just hit a natural dry spell.

[Robert]

I can almost not survive the length of these posts. If global warming happens I'm not sure what I'll do.