Way back, from around the mid 700’s into the 1100’s, there was a period of time called the Medieval Climate Optimum. This was followed by a much colder period, known as the Little Ice Age, followed by our current age. The MCO was characterized by warmer temperatures.
How about a few quick facts from the Medieval Climate Optimum?
- 874: Settlement of Iceland began; Viking immigration from Norway, England, Ireland, Faeroes, etc. Glaciers of Iceland much smaller than today.
- 880-1140: Radiocarbon dates on trees that grew in Canada far north of modern timberline.
- 910: final collapse phase of Mayan civilization caused by mulit-year drought (Peterson and Haug 2005).
- 1000s: Low radiocarbon levels in tree rings indicate high solar output and presumably warmer temperatures.
Now, if you want to run around the ‘net, you will be slammed with lots of "evidence" which attempts to show that this period of time was only a tad bit warmer then the following Little Ice Age, but never really explains the difference in opinions, and tries to debunk any sort of similarity from the MCO and today. Hey, they grew much better grapes for wine in England then then they could today.
Earth is a dynamic system which is constantly in flux.
And yet you still have publications like National Geographic pushing pop science as if it was proven fact and the end of the world.
Is it any wonder that global warming which will cause anything from a total melting of the Alpine Galciers and a rise in worlds oceans, there by drowning the entire media and hollywood elite, to a total cooling of the planet and another ice age can’t be proven?
Although I’m voting for the former.
I believe that we are in an age of warmer temps at the moment based on what the weather charts tell us. Probably will be, unless something happens like lots of volcanos going off or the Sun decreasing in output, for awhile.
The Global Warming hysterics want to blame this soley on Man. Without pure proof. All they have is computer models and conjecture. If they give me real proof, I will believe them.
Maybe Man does have some influence on GW, but, if so, it is probably very slight.
The biggest danger is not CO2, but ocean pollution, which could cause a drastic change in the ocean circulatory patterns, bringing about something similar to the Little Ice Age, and approching (but not quite making) what happened in “The Day After Tommorrow.” Wouldn’t happen in a manner of weeks, though. More like years to decades.
So you’re saying that the Vikings are the ones who started this whole Global Warming thing, huh? 😉
Well that’s the thing – we are in a stage of global warming (says my geologist friend) and it will produce some drastic changes, but mankind has apparently exacerbated the problem.
If we make changes it will help a great deal, but it won’t stop the rising oceans or major climate changes – increase in desert areas, etc.
We’re good at technology, we just need to focus on the greenhouse gases issue, and then on the problem of what to do about food/water supply as the climate changes – mostly people just move to where they can live. At the moment I’m not too worried about the value of my real estate… 😉
Now, Ogre know what my opinion of GW used to be, but I have seen too much conflicting evidence of late. Does man really have an influence on rising temps, or is it null? That is the problem.
Climate naturally fluctuates. This is one of those facts that is so obvious, you would have to be a liberal to ignore it.
True. I think that there does need to be actual scientific research into whether Man does cause some of GW, just to make sure. What we have been given so far has been weak, and I would rather be sure.
So here’s the skinny. There are two cycles, one very long and one much shorter, embedded in the longer cycle. The very long cycle is the one that expands and contracts the continental glaciers. The Greenland Ice Sheet is the remnent and that fact suggests that we are, right now, at the “as good as it gets” point within that overall mega cycle. Then, within this current relatively-ice-free interglacial, we have shorter wavelength oscillations going on, such as the Medieval Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age. We are clearly a ways past the Little Ice Age. The only question would be, is the recovery from that event going to end up being something like the Medieval Climate Optimimum, or will it be less pronounced?
If it is less pronounced (or, God forbid, we reach the end of the interglacial) then there may actually be global cooling in our future.
The bottom line is, no one really knows, and can only theorize, what the climate will be doing in 100 years.