[off topic] Balmy North Pole
| October 9, 2006 | Posted by Dave S. under Intelligent Design, Off Topic, Science |
A news brief in Scientific American (subscriber only, no link) alerted me to the following article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060601091313.htm
Summarized:
Core sediments retrieved by three icebreakers recently analyzed reveal the following:
-North Pole’s temperature 55 million years ago: 23C/73F (today it is -20C/-4F)
-Concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 55mya was 2000 ppm (today it is 380 ppm)
-Global average temperature 55mya under above conditions was 5C/9F degrees C higher than today (in Sciam News Brief only, Science Daily says tropics remained liveable).
Obviously, the earth recovered, if it was even “harmed”. I post this because so-called global warming is blamed on human activities by the worst kind of consensus pseudoscience (Darwinian evolution is consensus pseudoscience as well) and is projected to be catastrophic. But look at this recent data. With carbon dioxide concentration 5 times higher than today the global average temperature rise is within normal year-to-year variation we all experience right now. The earth doesn’t turn into a runaway greenhouse. We don’t have enough fossil fuel on the planet to quintuple the CO2 in the atmosphere. It happens WITHOUT human activity. It’s NORMAL. Sea levels will rise. Ocean salinity will decrease. Life will go on thriving like it always has. Just like forest fires give certain species their turn at bat in the cyclically changing environment so too does global warming. These are the facts.
66 Responses to [off topic] Balmy North Pole
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Dave,
I just noticed your post about the ocean crust. It is certainly moving and might move faster than the plates. Just how fast it moves I am not sure. But as new crust is created at the oceanic ridges, mainly in the Atlantic Ocean, it forces previous crust to move away and then extra is destroyed when it is forced under the continental plates in the suduction zones.
Currently the Pacific Ocean is getting smaller and the Atlantic expanding. The Andes were formed by the crust moving under the west side of South America, as the Pacific is getting smaller.
So the crust does move and the wikipedia article you pointed to indicates this because new crust is created at a fixed point and then moves away when new crust is created.
So what is under the North Pole now was probably some place else 55 mya.
Egbooth,
There was no world flooding during the last global warming in the period 950-1250 which also saw one of the greatest economic expansions in world history. This was the time when the great cathedrals of Europe were built and trade expanded all over Europe and apparently they were growing wine in Scotland. New farming techniques led to expanded supplies of food and wealth. Global cooling came near the end of the 13th century and along with the outbreaks of the plague slowed the economic expanision in Europe.
jerry
The North Atlantic oceanic crust moves 1 cm/year. In 55 million years that works out to 550 kilometers. If the scientists running the drilling expedition knew what they were doing they would have taken this into account but even if they hadn’t the Arctic Circle is about 5000 kilometers in diameter so 550 km is not much of a move.
Nice try though.
The tactics being used to silence global warming skeptics are similar to the tactics used to silence skeptics of Darwinism–and they are maybe even worse:
One group of authoritarians uses the phrase “Evolution (i.e. Darwinism) is a fact” to make debate about Darwinism illegitimate; another group (composed of many of the same people, probably) uses “climate change is a fact” to stifle debate about global warming. Regardless of the merits of the clmate change claims, the use of tactics to shame and deligitimatize opponents is unscientific in both cases–unless the “science” being pursued is really the science of thought control.
After all, “we have always been at war with Eastasia.”
DaveScot:
“Someone is feeding you a line of BS about 120 degree temperatures in Brownsville. The record for 2005 year was 104 and it never got over 100 in 2006.”
2005 was last summer. So my neighbors exaggerated. What are you going to do when Texas does have Bagdad temperatures?
I really don’t understand your attitude. Let’s assume that all the warming we’re seeing really is caused by non-human influenced climatic variations. So is that a reason to make things worse?
Houdin
What are you going to do when Texas does have Bagdad temperatures?
Drink more water, stay out of the sun more, wear lighter clothes. You know, like the same things they do in Bagdad [sic].
So is that a reason to make things worse?
We don’t know we’re making things worse. If we are making things worse we don’t know how much worse we’re making it nor do we know by what measure things will improve if we try to make it better. The act of trying to make it better may in fact have worse side effects as it slows the global economy and decreases the amount of food that can be grown, the amount of water that c an be transported, the amount of energy available to warm the cold and cool the hot.
You either didn’t read any of the things I referenced or you ignored them.