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"Scientists have determined that the rate at which carbon emissions heated up the planet during the late Paleocene is much more similar to modern human-caused warming than many experts previously thought, a new report published Monday in Nature Geoscience shows." from that article but read it yourself for full context.
Go on, quote some more. You didn't get to the scary parts...
Quote:
New data from the Earth's last big warmup, some 56 million years ago, may offer a sneak peek into what today's climate change may eventually look like.
Scientists have determined that the rate at which carbon emissions heated up the planet during the late Paleocene is much more similar to modern human-caused warming than many experts previously thought, a new report published Monday in Nature Geoscience shows.
The good news, the researchers say, is that most of the species around at the time survived the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, although many had to migrate. The bad news: It took nearly 200,000 years for the Earth to recover from that warming, in which temperatures rose by 9 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (5 to 8 Celsius).
This is what the UN IPCC Report talks about, that once we pass a certain point it can become impossible to reverse.
Quote:
And the scientists found evidence of two carbon releases, with a bigger one following the first, a possible sign of a triggering mechanism.
"If you're looking for an ancient analogue to what is happening now to see how bad it's likely to be, this is the whole thing," said Richard Norris, a professor of paleobiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, who is unaffiliated with the new report. "You can see how the event played out. So, in that respect, showing that this ancient event occurred rapidly is an important finding."
And therefore a man made "small" event can trigger a much larger and more severe event from the natural world once the normal equilibrium of the planet becomes unbalanced. This is the real danger.
Quote:
"We are doing some crazy things with the carbon cycle," Bowen says. "Carbon naturally moves back and forth between rocks and the atmosphere at a steady slow rate. What we are doing by burning fossil fuels is accelerating the pace by about 30 times over the natural rate."
This is what deniers are overlooking... the scale of the effect that using our atmosphere as a garbage dump for carbon pollution is having.
Quote:
The effects during the PETM weren't limited to temperature. "There were big changes in the water cycle," Bowen says. "For some regions there were really severe extreme precipitation events, and in some, like Wyoming, there was aridification."
Oh, like the multi-year drought in the US Southwest and all the weird weather in 2014?
Quote:
Intriguingly, Bowen and his colleagues determined that there were actually two releases of carbon into the atmosphere, one before the PETM and one shortly after it started.
And that may be a sign of scary things to come.
"One possible explanation is that the first, the smaller one, caused some climate change that triggered a second one," Bowen said. "So it's possible that the current pulse we are adding to the atmosphere may trigger unanticipated feedbacks that might lead to warming that could last hundreds of thousands of years."
That first release of carbon could have been the result of volcanism, Bowen says. And that might have caused the oceans to warm, which could have led to the melting of methane that lies in frozen deposits on the sea floor. And that could have accounted for the second pulse.
"We don't need a ton of warming for that to happen," Bowen said. "That's a little scary."
A little scary? I'd say that's a lot scary. Because once we get into that regime, there's no way for us to reverse it. People who don't think its a big deal that the polar ice caps are melting need to look at the permafrost melting once the ice cover is gone, because of all the methane which is currently trapped in the permafrost. We are literally looking at the possibility of setting off a biological chain reaction which cannot be stopped.
Definitely the business model of Earth sciences. Welcome these researchers to the world of private jet tours, actor portrayal and endless funding as long as they keep up the good work.
Hard sciences always felt unrewarding to me. Who wants to spend years of their life developing zeolite catalysts or ceramic nuclear components while getting blamed for being part of the problem. I did spend 4 months in a ESS grad program concurrent with the chemistry program when I saw how they combine my two favorite things: analytical chemistry and story telling. I stayed in chemistry though, because funding doesn't have to come from a single finicky source (ESS grants almost entirely NASA at the time, though one wise lab found a biological use for their atmospheric gas testing equipment and earned lots from medical device companies).
No matter what the science or what the consequences of global warming it must be acknowledged that there are many people who do not care. The present is all that matters to these sorts and they would rather sacrifice future generations to suffer with our failure so long as they can keep a few more pennies in their pockets. Truly pathetic.
No matter what the science or what the consequences of global warming it must be acknowledged that there are many people who do not care. The present is all that matters to these sorts and they would rather sacrifice future generations to suffer with our failure so long as they can keep a few more pennies in their pockets. Truly pathetic.
Possibly worse, there are many more who might care if they only understood what's really going on. ... which they don't.
This article pointed out that events from the distant past can give us an eery preview of what can happen when a relatively small change, such as the human generated increase in greenhouse gasses which is currently causing the global temperature to rise, the ice caps to melt, the seas to rise, etc. can trigger an even bigger, and irreversible change in our environment, with drastic impact on life as we know it.
I care deeply about the legacy we are creating for my grandchildren's grandchildren, and yours, so it really matters to me that we get the truth out to people.
Possibly worse, there are many more who might care if they only understood what's really going on. ... which they don't.
This article pointed out that events from the distant past can give us an eery preview of what can happen when a relatively small change, such as the human generated increase in greenhouse gasses which is currently causing the global temperature to rise, the ice caps to melt, the seas to rise, etc. can trigger an even bigger, and irreversible change in our environment, with drastic impact on life as we know it.
I care deeply about the legacy we are creating for my grandchildren's grandchildren, and yours, so it really matters to me that we get the truth out to people.
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LOL, instead of contributing in line with the 2nd paragraph the usual dribble ensued, starting with your first post on the thread.
Then, all you did afterward was bash everything you could. In such a typical fashion. Instead of taking the topic and discussing the article which presents some very interesting comparison, you complain, also in typical fashion. Maybe you can reset and lose the chip and discuss the topic instead of complaining all the time.
Here we are again, with you talking about me, and me talking about the topic.
I think any reasonable person reading what I said would conclude that I wasn't bashing at all, I was correctly analyzing the article.
Once again, you do, then feign injury. So routine now.
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. I did spend 4 months in a ESS grad program concurrent with the chemistry program when I saw how they combine my two favorite things: analytical chemistry and story telling. I stayed in chemistry though, because funding doesn't have to come from a single finicky source (ESS grants almost entirely NASA at the time, though one wise lab found a biological use for their atmospheric gas testing equipment and earned lots from medical device companies).
