On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Scott Stroz <[email protected]> wrote: > You are wrong. I would say that b is the appropriate response, but to be > honest, it is a poor analogy. > > And if you look at the data from the ice cores, it shows what I (and others) > have been saying...the climate is cyclical. The earth warms up and cools > down on a cycle. All I am trying to say is that based on that information > it seems as if we are currently in the warming side of that cycle, so, it is > difficult to ascertain if the warming we have encountered is from that > natural upswing or from humans.
The temperature of the earth is without a doubt cyclical, no one is going to argue there (I hope). But I think you are incorrect when you say that it is difficult to ascertain whether the warming we've encountered is anthropogenic or not. In the past warming and cooling cycles we have evidence of major inputs that substantially altered the climate. Things which dump a large quantity of material into the atmosphere, like comet impacts and volcanoes, have definite impacts. What we are seeing now is a continuously increasing input of material we know changes the behavior of our atmosphere (CO2 and Methane for instance) from human activity and we are seeing noticeable changes in the climate outside of mitigating non-human factors. Its entirely possible that we would see a rise in average temperature even if carbon emissions were cut back to 1990 levels and held constant. In fact I believe that most of the models in the IPCC report predict that. But it wouldn't increase as fast and it would help temperatures stay within a range that is most beneficial for humanity as we are currently set up. It might be the case that even then it would continue going up enough to get to the point where the situation is bad for us. But we can pretty reasonably say that we're pushing that sooner, harder and more reliably if we do not tackle anthropogenic causes. Cheers, Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:283470 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
