About six months ago I started researching for an article on global warming. The National Climate Data Center in conjunction with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Paleoclimatology) had charted world temperature (proxy) data dating back some 800 thousand years. Of particular interest the chart contained 11 global temperature spikes equal to or surpassing the current global temperatures of today. The most recent (prior to current) increase in global temperature was roughly 120 thousand years ago. The increase lasted almost 15 thousand years. The following 90 thousand years were cooler temperatures (-9 degrees C. Cooler at some points).
The earth is again warming (has warmed); and now we are paying attention to it even though this warming and cooling of the earth dates back to its formation as an inhabitable planet. As government funding for global warming research increases (655 million dollars in 2005); the data once available on the NOAA website has since been removed as "Global Warming" issues gain popularity and now have economic impact. I called a colleague who works at NOAA and asked about the removal of the chart. His words were simple; "it defies current goals in research and you can not get such funding researching a cyclic phenomena." (Not sure what that tells you but it tells me a hell of a lot)!
So we will go with the past 425,000 years to make it a bit more comprehendible, and concentrate on what has been suspected to effect climate change; Co2. Co2 is the big thing we are getting all worked up about. We blame ourselves for the greenhouse effect and gases. Throughout most of the time in the past 425,000 years co2 from 180 to 280 ppm. We have managed to spike concentrated Co2 to just over 375 ppm. Of interest here is that the correlation of global temperatures is consistent with natural co2 levels - not with what we have done. If this were the case the current global warming would be +8 to +9.5C. The planet HAS NOT responded in kind to our effects and continues on the trends that it has demonstrated long before us.
Understand this for what it is; Mitochondrial Eve lived in Africa 150,000 years ago. She is the most recent female ancestor common to all mitochondrial linages in humans alive today (yes, we are all of African decent)! The Neolithic period which H. Sapien began farming was only 10,000 years ago. What this means is simple, Global Warming and the green house effect as it is currently defined to the public existed long before we had a chance to be of blame or influence this naturally occurring cycle of events. In fact, in the last 425,000 years there have been five such increases in climate temperature (though the co2 concentrations remained largely unchanged). This being the fifth of such climate phenomenon is not the worst in this period. 405,000 to 425,000 years ago was the most significant occurrence. Each spike in temperature is directly followed by a rapid decrease in temperature with a shift dropping -8C to -9C lasting a minimum of 75,000 years. The cooler climate is interrupted by a warmer climate lasting a maximum of only 20 - 23,000 years.
The question is backwards. It is not if the planet can survive the warm climate change. The question should be "can we survive what follows it?" H. Sapien evolved in this warming. The second episode of warming in this period brought the evolution of H. Heidelbergensis. H. Heidelbergensis is responsible for both the evolution of H. Sapien and H. Neanderthalensis. When you look at the warming and cooling cycles of the earth, you can not help but notice two things; migration patterns and evolutionary changes. In our current warming pattern H. Sapien left Africa and thrived as H. Neanderthalensis and H. Floresiensis both died out.
The big fear with our global warming is not that we are killing the planet, it is what comes next. Cooling of the planet forces evolutionary changes in the Homo lineage! Our arrogance and inability to accept our mortality forces us to think in grand and unrealistic extremes. We think we control the world and its evolution. We do not. Select few see these changes for what they are and accept them as such. It is the world doing what it does in the presence of our insignificance. The warming we are experiencing is a precursor to an "Ice Age". The forth coming ice age will force the consolidation and migration of H. Sapien who will only grow stronger from it as in evolves into what is next for the Homo lineage.
You can believe in the Global Warming hype if you want to, the bottom line is we are not stopping it from happening and we are not stopping what is to follow. The change on the horizon is not fire and brimstone from the sky, it is ice flows from the north.
I am not a scientist, but nor am I an idiot. As Winston Churchill once said; "The farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see." Given the trends in climate, the future is obvious.
The bottom line here is this is a cold planet that is in a warm phase; not a warm planet that has intermittent cold phases as we are lead to believe. What is today simply was not what it was yesterday, nor will it be what it is tomorrow.
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