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This thread is too long for me to read all the posts, so I'll just ask if anyone has heard this before:
One of the problems in assessing the extent and periodicity of global warming has been the (apparent) lack of temperature measurement stretching into the distant past.
I happened to talk to a person doing his Ph.D. in Geochemistry at the U of Chicago. He said that temperature can be quite accurately measured many tens of thousand years into the past by measuring the relative isotopic composition of oxygen in air bubbles trapped inside icebergs. He said that the data so obtained shows that the Earth is hotter now than at any time in the recorded past.
However, he admitted that the debate on global warming was too highly politicised to be much good. Another thing he mentioned is that the higher amount of water vapor in the atmosphere was trapping more heat than the CO2; but of course the higher amount of water vapor was a result of higher vapor pressure of water at higher temperature.
Apparently there is no danger of this cycle spiralling beyond control as had happened on Venus (?).
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My question is: is this common knowledge and has it been factored into the discussion here?
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