Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Natural Climate Change Ignorance is not Bliss


Knowledge is based on facts and logic, but is overwhelmed by opinions and emotion. The facts of natural climate change are well known: thousands of times climate has been warmer or colder than now naturally. In the 15,000 years since the end of the Ice Age, there have been five warmer periods, each demonstrated by science studies showing tree lines were further north and reached higher elevations than now; isotopes in ice cores showed past levels of atmospheric CO2 compared to corresponding global temperature; analyses of lake and ocean sediments did the same; and geology recorded sea level rise and fall and glacier retreat and advance.

Science establishes one fact clearly: we are living in a moderately warm period, with a historically low level of atmospheric CO2. During the past million years 100,000-year-long ice ages have been interrupted by 20,000-year-long warmer periods. As oceans warmed, CO2 was released into the atmosphere, and as oceans cooled CO2 was reabsorbed. Changes in atmospheric CO2 then, as now, were caused by warming and cooling which preceded the changes, not were caused by CO2 changes. The 400,000-year record of climate change and CO2 levels contained in the Vostok (Antarctic) ice cores clearly demonstrate this pattern.

Those who believe that increased CO2 causes warming, please answer this simple question: what caused past levels of atmospheric CO2 to increase? We know what caused past warming: changes in the Earth’s orbit and its axis. We know the Earth was much warmer 125,000 years ago during the Eemian, when warming increased atmospheric CO2 and melted permafrost, releasing methane from the frozen tundra. Contrary to warmist predictions, there was no runaway warming, and soon we entered another long ice age that only ended 15,000 years ago.

Earth explains natural climate change to the blissfully ignorant.

Ignorance is not bliss.

No comments: