Read about "The Little Ice Age". There is nothing about our weather today that is especially unusual. I know it is a hot botton topic and that the "green" police are determined that the world will end if we don't give up our SUVs but the truth lies somewhere in less dramatic facts. Yes, the climate is changing---nothing new there. If you look at civilization they have risen and fallen on the vagaries of climatic change. Take a trip to Minnesota and see the glacial till, take a trip to the Guadalupe National Monument (NM) and hike up some of the forested canyons there that are relic forests from the Pleistocene when the climate there was much more moist. These are dying ecosystems that were dying before humankind could have possibly had an impact. Course, we don't need to help them out in that process either /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif.
Fact is, when you get away from the "pupular science", the "Goron" science and urban myth and political hysteria and delve into what real scientists think devoid of politics, the earths distant climatic eventuallity is bleak and sparse, a frozen ice ball, inhospitable to life is most likely our outcome. By act of God or chance, whatever your belief system allows, the earth's paticular mass, position from the sun and a host of increadible circumstances make it the oasis that Mars (cold and desolate desert) failed at and that Venus (gaseous greenhouse with searing temps) failed at as well, could never be. From a climatological/geological view, the break up of Pangea and the migration of the Antartic mass to a near stable polar position has had a destabilizing effect on the global climate. The action of living organisms have locked away tremedous amounts of CO2 and methane as natural gas, carbonate rock, coal and oil (hydrocarbons) as well. This is gas that was once present free in the atmosphere and if you understand the rock cycle will eventually be free again, a continuous process. When we tank up with hydrocarbons in our SUV we are essentially short circuiting the rock cycle but then realistically the total "greenhouse" gas production on a yearly basis is hardly comparable to a few volcanic eruptions --which--in fact--happen all the time on a global basis. Volcanism is no more active or less active now than in the past when taken on an average. Anyway, the current circumstance of the earth is actually one that favors cooling--not heating. By that, I mean the global positions of the landmasses such as Antartica. We are in an interglacial, defined by the melting back of the glaciers at the end of the Pleistocene marking the beginning of the Holocene and the rise of man. Perhaps our technology will stave off another ice age, maybe not, but one is coming--be sure of that and it does not matter if you drive a Yugo or a SUV, you will need to dress warm. The long term planetary forecast is for cold /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif. From our knowledge, which is considerable, it is seen that interglacials are often marked by erratic weather and sporadic cooling trends before warming continues until global temps rise sufficientntly to trigger the earths "thermostat" for lack of a better term, then there is followed a rapid cool down. Rapid in geological terms is centuries or even thousands of years /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif. The processes that drive our global thermostat are the ocean currents and "trade" winds which are driven by temp differences between the poles and the equator--a redistribution of solar energy such as it is. As we see an increase in this range or a decrease, the weather systems change and modify. Yes, I am over simplyfying.
You know, it would change everything, a greenhouse planet, like during the Cretaceous, would be a very different place but nonetheless highly supportive of life. Frankly, I prefer warm and moist to cold and dry and the Cretaceous and Jurrasic were a garden of eden in many ways. I really doubt that our contributions to atmospheric green house gases are that big a deal when compared to the swath of geologic time and the gigantic, almost unimaginable forces that produce climate. Course, it does not hurt to error on the conservative side. Why be waisteful of resources that may one day be needed to keep future generations warm? J
