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Originally Posted by Anoop C
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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Past and CURRENT studies of gases trapped in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores have shown that Earth's temperature can sometimes change amazingly fast, warming as much as 15 degrees in some regions within a couple of decades. At the same time, there are concerns about the change of major ocean currents, such as those in the North Atlantic Ocean, that are responsible for the comparatively mild climate of much of Europe. If that thermohaline circulation pattern were to abruptly shut down, as has happened at times in the past, it could plunge much of the European continent into a climate more closely resembling that of central Canada.
At the time this data was gathered the ice cores under study were from present back apx. 650,000 years, the current thinking is they are going to get ice cores as far back as 1.2 million years from the Dome C, EPICA. During the last 400,000 years, warm periods have had a temperature similar to and far GREATER than that of today. Before that time they were less warm, but lasted longer (<-- global cooling then or now?). In the last 400,000 years our grenhouse gas levels are at the highest for the last 400,000 years, but we are not at the highest levels recorded thus far.. what caused them to be higherprior to 400,000 years ago? comparing the pattern of this past climate with global environmental conditions today we could expect the present warm period to last at least another 15,000 years.
This information was gathered by Dr Eric Wolff EPICA,and Ed Brook, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State Univesrity, is part of the 10 nation team who does deep core studies.
Your Prefessor friend is only partly right, but mostly wrong, water vapor IS the heat trapping agent, without water vapor Earth would be a ball of ice in space, it is also a green house agent that will perpetuate itself to a measured level of saturation, then it will cause the a reverse action due to excessive cloud cover, the higher level ice crystals and lower level clouding will cool the atmosphere due to reduced sunlight reaching the ground, the massive amounts of water vapor (ice and water) trapped in the atmosphere will distribute it world wide, all mountain ranges, and now cooler lower areas (due to cooling) will now hold far higher levels of snow and water than previously seen in recorded history..
>IF< global warming is true, and there is NO evidence that it is, measured temps. from around the world by NOAA show a world wide change of -1 degree on average world wide for the last 103 years, global weather patterns run in 30 to 33 year cycles, those of us old enough to remember the WARNINGS OF THE COMING ICE AGE IN THE 70's, lol.. they too said this was caused by mankind.. caused by all the particulate air pollution in the atmosphere was blocking the sun, thus THRUSTING OUR PLANET INTO A COMING GLOBAL KILLING ICE AGE. The odd part of this whole story is the simple FACT, that if you do the reseach, you will find a vast majority of the global warming "experts" were once the global Ice Age "experts".
Why the switch from the "experts"?.. it's all about money.. GRANT FUNDING is really cool when you dont have or dont want a job where you actually have to perform! take a broke, need more money liberal, tree hugging, we are all going to die and its mankinds fault "experts", add that to a TV news camera or reporter, and YOU HAVE A STUNNING STORY, one that you can get a lot of mileage out of, when you are a reporter, and there is no news.. YOU MAKE IT!