World is at its hottest since prehistory, say scientists

[Thom Little]

The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as Nasa reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded.

Dr Michael Coughlan, head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology, said: "One probably has to go back into prehistoric times - and way back in them - to be seeing these sorts of temperatures."

.......

Dr Coughlan is supported by research that shows carbon dioxide levels in the air - the main cause of global warming - are higher now than at any time in the past hundreds of thousands of years.

Scientists in Bern, Switzerland, and Oregon in the United States analysed levels of the gas in tiny air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice during the past 650,000 years. They found current levels were 27 per cent greater than the highest level over that period.



http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article333840.ece

[ixion]

1. silly climatologists

global warming is a myth.

I guess you haven't been listening to little lord chimpenator.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. I wonder how many scientists bushies was spying on??

[ananda]

4. How many NSA or HS agents does it take..

.. to squash a scientist?

None.

It's the silence of good Americans....

[philb]

13. 15 of top bio-terrorism researchers were murdered in year following 9/11

remember Anthrax and such?

[bonito]

3. Yea, well I had a feeling something was going on

With hair growing out of my nose and out of my ears and up my butt crack, I've been wondering lately, oh oh, sorry I've got to catch this squirrel..

[Olney Blue]

5. Fighting global warming does not serve the interests of the U.S.

or so says the chimp.

[nashville_brook]

6. polar bears are drowning

that, from another thread. freaking cartoonish armageddon we're having. wonder when shit is going to *really* get bad. how will we know?

when i was kid growing up in florida my mother said you know you're in trouble when the animals leave. pertaining to hurricanes.

i think this is why i LOVE those WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK videos -- i just feel like, YEAH for once the deer gets a few good shots off on the gun-totin bastard! FUCK YEAH! more of that.

[Peter Frank]

7. What do scientists know?

This situation was intelligently designed (for mysterious reasons).

[POAS]

8. Ha! Hottest in 100's of thousands of years? Impossible.

The bible proves that the Earth is no more than 10,000 years old. This theory of the Earth being millions of years old must be sountered in the classrooms of America.

Teach intelligent design in geology class.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. The last time there was a CO2 spike ---

-- the temperature in the Arctic rose by 59F. That was around 12,000 BCE.

There is, of course, a certain amount of time lag to consider. I think in the case of that spike, it was about ten years.

And they say the CO2 level today is 27% higher than that?

--p!

[blindpig]

15. Hmmm, about the time we invented agriculture.

Wonder what kind of wrong-headed response we'll have this time?

[gulfcoastliberal]

10. Well, at least Europe will cool down once the gulf strem stops.

They say it'll be like Siberia there.

[Dr.Phool]

11. Oh goody!!!

If the sea levels rise, I'll have Ocean front property in a few years. Right now, the Gulf Of Mexico is about 3 miles away!

Cha-ching!

[DallasTim]

12. Domino Effect?

What scares me is what other domino effects we might be setting in motion that we will be unable to stop once sufficiently started. For example, one of the proposed explanations for Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction event is something called 'Methane hydrate gasification'. Basically, there are large pockets of a substance called methane hydrate which are frozen in the seabeds. If the ocean temperature rises above a certain temperature, this substance turns from a frozen solid into a gas and escapes into the atmosphere. The resulting methane is an excellent greenhouse gas, 21 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The Wikipedia article on the Permian-Triassic extinction event states:

"Experiments to assess how large a rise in deep sea temperature would be required to gasify solid methane hydrate suggested that a rise of 5°C would be sufficient. Released from the pressures of the ocean depths, methane hydrate expands to create huge volumes of methane gas, one of the most powerful of the greenhouse gases. The resulting additional 5°C rise in average temperatures would have been sufficient to kill off most of the life on earth."

It may be that the ocean temperatures before this event were higher than they are today which would mean we'd have more 'wiggle-room' than the 5°C. Most people would never think of this as a threat - how many more are out there that we haven't thought of yet?


Related Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_hydrate

[JohnWxy]

14. Michael Chrichton says Global Warming is a myth.

...yeah, totally, Michael.