Gene: Wow! It seems you -- sorry, I mean Dr. Scotese, has a very dark vision of the future.
You say: "This is Scotese’s data and his interpretation." I hope you're not putting words in Dr Scotese mouth. Could you please point out where he claims the current warming trend is due to plate tectonics. I don't see any published works from him making any such postulation - peer reviewed or otherwise. BTW. His publications are found here: http://www.uta.edu/ra/real/editprofile.php?pid=145#7. Your drawing shows the temperature flipping about 8 times in half a billion years. It seems a cosmic coincidence that we hit another such flip just as humanity's GHG footprint soars. Theory should be predictive. Take these two points for example: In 1937 Guy Stewart Callendar published an early quantitative analysis of AGW [1]. He wrote: “It is well known that the gas carbon dioxide has certain strong absorption bands in the infra-red region of the spectrum, and when this fact was discovered some 70 years ago it soon led to speculation on the effect which changes in the amount of the gas in the air could have on the temperature of the earth’s surface.” Then in 1965 the Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Committee [2] “By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate. [AGW] could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.” 1. The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature, Callendar 1938. 2. Restoring the Quality of our Environment, President’s Science Advisory Committee, 1965 Glyn On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Eugene I. Gordon <[email protected]> wrote: > > Glyn: > > > > Here is another earlier version of Scotese’s data going back several hundred > million years to which I had added time on the horizontal axis. He has made > corrections to this graph which is what is shown on his current website. > > > > > > Several points to note. Once the temperature started to increase from an ice > age low of actually about 10 C after -520 MA it continued to increase to > actually 25 C. (there are two blips to higher temperature at about -250 MA > and one about -60 MA These caused major die outs.) It always did the steady > increase; sometimes taking millions of years to increase through the full > temperature range but it never stopped increasing until it asymptoted at 25 > C. It is currently at almost 16 C and rising; having risen from about 12 C in > the last 10,000 years. I am interpreting nothing. This is Scotese’s data and > his interpretation. If one reads Scotese's website one can conclude that the > changes are triggered by motion of land masses, which of course influence > ocean currents. The GHG independent component of warming is happening now and > heading toward 25 C. I am not claiming that current warming has no GHG > component. I did not say but will say it here that the AGHG dependent > component of the warming is not nailed down, except to say that some of the > warming since late 1700s is no doubt geological. > > > > I suspect we will wait another 20,000 years at least before the temperature > asymptotes at 25C. Long before that life as we know it will end. Perhaps only > Antarctica will have a viable ‘conventional’ life style. The rest of humanity > will live in domed cities, using thermonuclear power generation or > equivalent. One major asteroid hit such as occurred at -250 MA near the > Antarctic will end it for virtually all life on earth. Over 95% of species > disappeared at -250 MA. As you may know that 10 to 15 km asteroid cracked the > earth’s crust and triggered a million years of volcanic eruptions throughout > Siberia. > > > > Hope this helps a little. I have not read his book but that might help: > > Palaeozoic Palaeogeography and Biogeography > > by Christopher R. Scotese, W. Stuart McKerrow > > -gene > > > > > > From: Glyn Roberts [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:12 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: [email protected]; Geoengineering > Subject: Re: [geo] On what research I would suggest > > > > Gene: > > > > You say the paleoclimate record tells us that the Earth will flip into a warm > state - increasing its average temperature by almost 10 degrees C from > current values? - without GHGs no less! Please connect the dots for me/us on > how you arrived at this bold interpretation of the data. Dr. Scotese's > website doesn't seem to offer this projection. I would have thought the > paleoclimate record suggests a return to another glacial epoch - if we were > to ignore the effect of GHGs. So when is your GHG independent warming going > to happen? Within the next few decades I presume - clearly this is what you > suggest if we need a geoengineering society established now to deal with it. > > > > Glyn > > On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 6:11 AM, Eugene I. Gordon <[email protected]> > wrote: > > If the documented history of the Earth's climate for the past 450 million > years (see www.scotese.com) has any relevance, the global average > temperature is headed for 25 C, up almost 10 degrees C from current values, > even without the benefit of anthropogenic CO2. Needless to say, but worth > emphasizing, even if we stopped producing CO2 tomorrow and could remove > current excess atmospheric values we are headed for serious climate warming > problems. The social implications are enormous and there is little doubt > that techniques for minimizing the temperature rise will become essential if > they are not now extremely important. Hence I argue for formalizing the > study of geoengineering techniques/technology before leaping in to do > something about current concerns with a particular approach. Having a formal > geoengineering society would have immense value. Plant some of the seed. > Don't simply eat it all now. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike MacCracken > Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 12:00 AM > To: Geoengineering > Subject: [geo] On what research I would suggest > > Ken et al.--Note that I am going to focus on SRM approaches here. A word, > however, on CDR, which, it seems to me, is just not at all likely to make an > important contribution to limiting climate change until global emissions are > brought down a good bit through efficiency, essentially giving up coal, etc. > With global C emissions nearing 10 GtC/yr and rising, working on approaches > that at maximum might make it up to sequestering 1-2 GtC/yr is just > premature--we need to take other steps first. The one exception here, it > seems to me, is to see if we can figure out how to deal with ocean > acidification such as through Greg Rau's approach--I'm not sure if that is > more mitigation or not. > > On SRM approaches, as I have been saying for a couple of years, it seems to > me that the highest priority for early research should be on determining if > it is possible to use various of the proposed SRM techniques in very focused > ways to limit worsening impacts in the near-term (in places like the Arctic, > the loss of sea ice, ice sheet mass, and permafrost is an emergency now, or > nearly so, and so waiting to move toward implementation seems too hesitant > to me. With this perspective, I would set up a very mission-focused program > goal of coming up with a tested approach for dealing with one or more of the > most severe impacts, aiming for making a decision to move forward with > implementation starting in of order of five years (so a 5-year research > program to get to the implementation stage, and then ongoing research as > implementation is in progress). > > The types of impacts that I would choose to focus on would include some > combination of the following (and there are of course interlinkages): > generally reducing Arctic warming (which would also lead to some likely > beneficial cooling in mid-latitudes); slowing the loss of ice from the major > ice sheets; keeping permafrost frozen; redirecting or intensifying seasonal > storm tracks into increasingly arid regions like southwestern North America > and/or Australia; cooling the waters where hurricanes/tropical cyclones > intensify; and similar steps. There are those who argue that nothing can be > done primarily regionally--that everything leads to global responses; > determining whether such global connections are statistically significant or > not (and whether varying details of the implementation could be done to > reduce them) would be a clear issue to research--including whether what > long-distant linkages there are are beneficial or harmful. > > With focused objectives such as these, I would think that there could be > much more focused environmental and social science research as well--much > more clearly presenting the issue as a risk-risk evaluation than arises in > discussions of future global geoengineering. On the benefit side there would > at least be a clear beneficial change being sought, which can get much more > confused in the global case. I should also note that I think focusing on > moderating regional-scale impacts, there would hopefully be less of a > tendency to reduce effort on mitigation (if that really is a problem), > because, of course, there are a whole host of impacts not being addressed. > > Not only would success in coming up with an approach for dealing with severe > impacts such as mentioned above, but it would also help to build > understanding about the various approaches and the basis for ongoing, but > lower priority research on potential global implementation, which I think > should also be considering what I think would be more realistic > implementation scenarios (e.g., implementing incrementally to stop and > slowly reduce radiative forcing starting in the near-term) than imagining > we'd figure out and agree on when some threshold has been passed and do a > large and sudden emergency implementation (not even being clear that when so > far along everything can be reversed). > > I've written up some of these ideas over the past year or too for various > studies, but had not passed them around, so will attach to this message. The > first memo offers some thoughts on how I would organize a US program, and an > accompanying table suggest some specific research efforts. Note that this > memo envisions not just the very focused applied effort, but also an > independent research and evaluation effort to keep make sure questions get > raised and considered--again relating to moving toward the specific proposed > objective, but in this effort on real and potential shortcomings, and not > just a general research effort (we need more money for that). The second > memo was prepared as a more detailed example of how one might structure the > component of the program aimed at moving rapidly to limit Arctic warming. It > is posed as a letter dated a few years hence seeking approval for moving > ahead with a major field program to test approaches that have already been > tested in computer simulations, etc. Clearly an optimistic timetable, but > really the type of one that is needed given what seem to be irreversible > changes (like loss of mass from Greenland, loss of biodiversity, etc.) that > we seem headed toward. > > Note that the ideas written up are over a year old, so a bit dated. And > these are just ideas--they would greatly benefit from some intense > discussion about how to do even better, etc. I just think we are moving far > too slowly right now. > > Best, Mike MacCracken > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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