![Cretaceous_Trail_sign,_South_Table_Mountain[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/cretaceous_trail_sign_south_table_mountain1.jpg?quality=83)
An argument regularly advanced by alarmists is – can we afford to take the chance? This argument is often associated with a claim that a rise in global temperature greater than 2°C would be catastrophic – a theory backed by authoritative sounding computer simulations which suggest dangerous ocean acidification, deadly heat, and extreme weather.
It is all very well to simulate these scary possibilities, but at the end of the day a computer simulation is just an educated guess – it is no substitute for observation.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to actually observe what a warmer world would actually be like? What if it were possible to create a parallel Earth, dial up the CO2 level, and actually see what really happens? Would anyone bother running a computer simulation, if we could observe the reality?
We can’t create a new planet, but there is a way we can observe the effects of elevated levels of CO2, and higher global temperatures, without relying on computer simulations – because these are the conditions which prevailed during the Cretaceous Period, the age of the dinosaurs.
According to Wikipedia,
“The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels and creating numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, while dinosaurs continued to dominate on land. At the same time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a large mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and large marine reptiles, died out. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the K–Pg boundary, a geologic signature associated with the mass extinction which lies between the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.”
According to Wikipedia, the mean global temperature during the Cretaceous was 18c, 4c higher than today’s global temperature. The CO2 level in the Cretaceous was around 1700ppm, over 4x higher than today’s 400ppm.
Was the Cretaceous too warm for Earth’s diverse species? Absolutely not – the Cretaceous hosted a bounty of life and biodiversity, the emergence of the first flowering plants, the first appearance of our mammal ancestors. The Dinosaurs dominated the warm Cretaceous for 80 million years, a long period during which life flourished.
The event which finally brought this golden age of bounty and biodiversity to an end was the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. This event had nothing to do with prevailing CO2 levels, the extinction event was a gigantic meteor impact, the site of which is believed to be a location in the Gulf of Mexico, an impact which produced a crater over 100 miles across, and blotted out the sun, spreading a thin layer of Iridium dust across the entire World.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous–Paleogene_extinction_event
What can we learn from the the Cretaceous? In my opinion, the lesson from the Cretaceous is – we have nothing to fear from CO2. And if our civilisation has any money to spare on preparations for possible disasters, we should be spending that money on building meteor defences, not on trying to curb harmless CO2 emissions.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/15/a-problem-that-is-bigger-than-global-warming/
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Modeling is a [poorly] educated guess. The real conclusion of climate science today sounds like Donald Rumsfeld.: We know that there are so many known and unknown knowns that it’s impossible to know. You know?
PS 4X today’s CO2? Even less reason to worry, since all the CO2 ever spewed by mankind has been unable to produce even half of one doubling from a lower starting point. We have until beyond 2200 to develop energy answers if CO2 is even revealed to be a concern by then.
The arrangement of the continents was a lot different during the cretaceous as well. Which meant different ocean currents, Antarctica wasn’t at the south pole so there was no mile thick ice sheet lowering sea levels.
I had a number of replies to my semi-trolling, so I’m just going post a new comment. My ideas are not fixed, I read this site specifically to get different views on a topic that I think is important. I’ve been interested in AGW since the late 90s, and while far from a scientist, I’ve spent considerable time researching it and the evidence in favour is overwhelming.Every major scientific organization on the planet agrees, as does the Pentagon, the insurance industry, the World Bank, and even major oil companies (if you believe their websites). Cherry-picking denialist chunks of data out of context doesn’t change that.
Claims that warming has stopped is simply untrue. 2010 was the warmest year on record, and it seems likely that 2014 will beat it, even without El Nino. I’ve seen climate change in the city where I live in the last 2 decades, and it has not been beneficial.
I acknowledge that there is much uncertainty around outcomes as the temperature rises, but since changes will be largely irreversible in any time frame that has meaning to humans, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we should be making bets on.
Anyway, you seem like a relatively civilized bunch compared to some sites, and I plan to keep coming here, because I want to believe that everything is going to be fine (I have a young son.) However, I’ll need more compelling evidence than what I’ve seen thus far.
And I believe I will have that beer now….
Rupert Affen, you made a lot of claims without references. Bad teddy!
Agreeing does not make you right! Let’s look at the insurance industry. What are the big, globally spread re-insurers saying? Why would they say the following? Have you sat back to think about it? Reality strikes you between the eyes between what they say about the future and what they observe.
The Pentagon is under orders to fight “climate change”. Whatever its “opinion” is now will change when & if the C-in-C changes.
Rupert Affen
The pleeeeeeeeeeease gather up the courage and tell the following climate scientists. They can be found HERE. Here is small recent sample just covering this year. The link I gave you covers pre-2014.
I’ll see your articles and raise you these:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2014/05/18/rift-widening-between-energy-and-insurance-industries-over-climate-change/
““Climate change is likely to be one of the global mega-trends impacting sovereign creditworthiness, in most cases negatively,” says S&P, in its report. It’s a view generally supported by Lloyd’s of London, which just said that climate-associated risks must be considered when underwriting policies.”
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-the-insurance-industry-is-dealing-with-climate-change-52218/?no-ist
says Robert Muir-Wood, the chief scientist of Risk Management Solutions (RMS), a company that creates software models to allow insurance companies to calculate risk. “In the past, when making these assessments, we looked to history. But in fact, we’ve now realized that that’s no longer a safe assumption—we can see, with certain phenomena in certain parts of the world, that the activity today is not simply the average of history.”
This pronounced shift can be seen in extreme rainfall events, heat waves and wind storms. The underlying reason, he says, is climate change, driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/10/climate-insurance
Rupert Affen, you quoted Forbes business magazine:
It’s based on future speculation! Please read between the lines. What I gave you was what the insurance industry actually evaluated as current.
Here are words to be wary of in the global warming glossary book.
Could, might, may, likely, possible, future, likelihood etc. Put down the Kool Aid my friend. READ BETWEEN THE LINES.
Then you carry on as usual quoting industry instead of the peer reviewed literature.
Really! Where is their data? Why in CERTAIN PARTS OF THE WORLD. You did say we cherry pick!!! Was this conclusion peer reviewed???? Average is where you have been had. You are being lulled by the weather and not climate. Open your eyes, 30 years is climate and not 10 years or 15 years.
Dear Rupert,
First, which city do you live in? It’s all right, I don’t want to know which house you live in :-). But I’d like to know of the bad climatic effects you refer to.
Second, if you think that 2014 will be the warmest year globally, do you wonder why temperature series like HadCRUT3 have been discontinued? It is because they would have refuted that. Likewise, the satellite measurements refute it. But even if 2014 turns out to be an epsilon warmer than 1998 and 2010, it still may not be enough to stop a linear trend from 1997 pointing slightly downwards. All you could say would be “well, it isn’t provably cooling yet”.
Cheers,
Rich.
Toronto.The specific effects I’m talking about are brief but very intense rainstorms that have caused serious flooding a couple of times over the last couple of years. While I’m sure that many on this site wouldn’t attribute these storms to climate change, it’s something that didn’t used to happen (I’ve been here 30 years) and it fits the pattern predicted in an analysis of potential climate change impacts on the city.
Rupert, THERE YOU GO AGAIN. Where is your evidence??? You seem to be obsessed with the weather. Ask the British, they have been obsessed with the weather for 100’s of years.
Yet Rupert accuses us of cherry picking. The climate and weather are not steady and stable. Where are you coming from? Here is stable weather for you. READ and remember.
1935 climate change events???
1936 climate change events???
You decide Rupert. How odd do those CATASTROPHIC weather events sound like. It never happened in the last 30 years they said, but they felt it.
Rupert Affen
Was 2010 warmer than 1998? Please provide at least 3 references from the relevant weather / climate agencies showing the data that shows that “2010 was the warmest year on record”?
Without knowing the city I cannot rebut your claim. Maybe you are suffering from the effects of too much heat via UHI. Take a cool drink and relax. Turn on the air conditioning and enjoy the energy. If its too cold then blame global warming too. It’s win win.
Really? Look back through the geologic record and repeat your claim about “changes will be largely irreversible”. You know you will not get away with such a claim. Find out how the White Cliffs of Dover got there.
As for your AD HOM on cherry pick, it seems you have decided to cherry pick. Look back up this page and call ALL MY REFERENCES as cherry picks. The PETM is not a cherry pick it’s a fact. The Eemian interglacial is a fact. The termination of the last glaciation is a fact. Facts for which I gave you references. Attack those references and don’t attack me.
Rupert Affen,
You talk about the Pentagon. Please read this from the past.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/30/u-s-military-caves-to-endless-global-warming-attack/#comment-1774777
Rupert Affen
November 5, 2014 at 1:08 pm
“Toronto.The specific effects I’m talking about are brief but very intense rainstorms that have caused serious flooding a couple of times over the last couple of years. it’s something that didn’t used to happen (I’ve been here 30 years) and it fits the pattern predicted in an analysis of potential climate change impacts on the city.”
Rupert, the media are trying to program the masses into seeing every anomalous weather event as proof of climate change. Because anomalous weather events are common people can be easily confused by this programming. Weather is not climate.
I live above a flood plain and the first 5 years I lived here we had 3 hundred year floods, leading me to believe the local climate was changing. The last 16 years there has been only mild to no flooding.
Weather and climate are cyclical and unpredictable.That is what makes the subjects so interesting. Individual events are only proof of internal variability.
Dear Rupert Affen —
Claims that warming has stopped is simply untrue.‘
Don’t tell us folks here, honey. Go tell the global warming climate scientists like Phil Jones and Kevin Trenberth — the very same ones whose work gives your “every major scientific organization” and Pentagon et al the idea that there is a warming problem at all — that they are wasting their time trying to explain the, yes, lack of warming. Tell THEM the World Bank understands climate better than they who have built their climatology careers on global warming.
They are actual climatologists, actual warmist climatologists. And THEY are looking for mechanisms that may cause “lag times” (Phil Jones) or the “missing heat” (Trenberth’s phrase, not mine) to maybe be going into the deep ocean instead of the air. Who are you, to tell them they are wasting their time (and funding)?
“The fact is that we cannot account for the lack of warming, and it is a travesty that we cannot.” K. Trenberth, 2009. (emphasis added)
Tell THEM.
“My ideas are not fixed, I read this site specifically to get different views on a topic that I think is important.”
Then, you should decease with perjoratives (“denialist”) until you have made a decision. Given your inflammatory rhetoric, it appears likely you already have, and are concern-trolling.
“…the evidence in favour is overwhelming.”
Isn’t.
“Every major scientific organization on the planet agrees, as does the Pentagon, the insurance industry, the World Bank, and even major oil companies (if you believe their websites).”
I.e., every organization which stands to gain. Cui bono?
“Cherry-picking denialist chunks of data out of context doesn’t change that.”
Cherry-picking cultist chunks of data out of context doesn’t work, either.
“Claims that warming has stopped is simply untrue.”
At negligible levels. Far, far below what was projected by the IPCC, and not at a level to be of concern. Indeed, it is clear that the approximately 60 year cycle is repeating, and we will be in for a lull for perhaps 20 more years. The long term trend of about 0.75 deg C/century is unchanged since the LIA, before CO2 could have initiated it, and it is not a particularly alarming pace.
“…since changes will be largely irreversible in any time frame that has meaning to humans…”
This is an article of faith. But, given that they got the projections so badly wrong, why would anyone have faith that any other part of the narrative is necessarily true?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zLZvFvWqy8Y/U8REucSDlfI/AAAAAAAAASg/-f_VHXdfaQY/s1600/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
“desist” – spell check
Bart, is that really you? You’ve changed msn.
I may not be the Bart you are thinking of. It’s a common name.
Troposphere temperature isn’t the sole measure of warming. Recent evidence suggests that the oceans, which absorb 90% of the excess heat, are heating much faster than previously believed. Your thoughts? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mystery-of-ocean-heat-deepens-as-climate-changes/
The deep oceans, where Kevin imagines the missing heat to be hiding, appear to have cooled instead:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/10/05/evidence-of-deep-ocean-cooling/
An ex-post facto flail. If they really believed it, you would not see 50+ other excuses given for the “pause”.
There is no reason that the heat would have been going into the atmosphere before, and switched to the ocean now. Any way you slice it, their projections were for the atmosphere, and those projections was wrong. Given that, there is no reason to put faith in anything they say now.
As for heat going into the oceans, the rise has been miniscule in temperature, a few hundredths of a degree at most. That stored energy cannot simply leap out all at once and roast the surface. It only flows when the temperature differential is negative. So, it could only influence current land temperatures by… wait for it… a few hundredths of a degree. That is a consequence of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. So, even if all the extra IR energy were being deposited into the oceans, it really would not be something to worry about.
On top of all that, there is really no way that IR gases can be influencing ocean temperatures on such a short timescale. Overturning of the world’s oceans takes hundreds of years. The heating we have observed of the lower oceans is most probably a result of delayed warmth from long ago finally rising back up.
I changed “that prediction was” to “those projections was”. Meant “were” of course. I hate it when that happens.
For some reason, previous innocuous comment is in moderation limbo. Will no doubt appear shortly.
Rupert Affen,
The hot spot is still missing. What went wrong?
“Troposphere temperature isn’t the sole measure of warming. Recent evidence suggests that the oceans, which absorb 90% of the excess heat, are heating much faster than previously believed. Your thoughts?”
The lower troposphere is in contact with the ground where humans live. Only Patrick Duffy (the man from Atlantis) lives in deep ocean. Maybe this is the reason why we measure surface temperature and define warming or cooling based on those measurements. Come to think of it, we can instead measure the temperature of earth’s interior since the surface is just a tiny part of earth. But we’re more interested in places where humans live.
Indeed. Also let’s not forget that NASA have said that if the deep ocean is doing anything it is on a slightly cooling trend.
I have noticed a number of the kidz from SkS have been on this thread and have experienced some fairly intense re-education. I hope it sticks because that little world is suffering buttresses upon buttresses , all the way down, and it is sinking and they need to find some solid ground to stand on. These inconvenient facts might help them further. . .
https://www.flickr.com/photos/125630565@N05/sets/72157645113383959/
Rupert says he want’s to learn but let’s his true intentions slip by using the D word. He takes us for fools. As soon as I saw the D world I knew Rupert wanted anything other than to learn and keep an open mind. Rupert is a concern troll who has no idea what he is talking about. Go back to the shallow end, the adults are swimming. Don’t forget your arm bands. Hey. ad hom for ad hom.
Thats a little disingenuous Bart as those are only the 8.5 models. Lower RCPs did capture the observation trend.
I agree that the models are well out of whack but we wouldnt want to ‘cherry pick’ this one would we or we could be accused of misrepresenting the truth by CAGW fanatics!!!!
You should share this info with a citation and/or link. If there are versions that are closer to the outcome, then do they project catastrophic warming? When were these other models coded? Before, or after, the observational failure of those shown above? After all, post-hoc rationalization is not generally useful as a basis for forecasting the future.
Rupert Affen thinks that Toronto is the canary in the coalmine of global warming. He says he lives there and can feel the changes. There are lots of canaries in coalmines who also say they can feel the changes. It’s really called the weather.
If only there really were that many coal mines!
That phrase is for the birds when applied to consensus “climate science”.
We got the point!!!
2009 No Warning
Asteroid explosion over Indonesia raises fears about Earth’s defences
By Tom Chivers10:23AM GMT 27 Oct 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6444895/Asteroid-explosion-over-Indonesia-raises-fears-about-Earths-defences.html
“An asteroid that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere with the energy of three Hiroshima bombs this month has reignited fears about our planet’s defences against space impacts.
On 8 October, the rock crashed into the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The blast was heard by monitoring stations 10,000 miles away, according to a report by scientists at the University of Western Ontario.
Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster.
The asteroid, estimated to have been around 10 metres (30ft) across, hit the atmosphere at an estimated 45,000mph. The sudden deceleration caused it to heat up rapidly and explode with the force of 50,000 tons of TNT.
Luckily, due to the height of the explosion – estimated at between 15 and 20 km (nine to 12 miles) above sea level – no damage was caused on the ground.
However, if the object had been slightly larger – 20 to 30 metres (60 to 90ft) across – it could easily have caused extensive damage and loss of life, say researchers.
Very few objects smaller than 100 meters (300ft) across have been spotted and catalogued by astronomers.
Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, warned that it was inevitable that minor asteroids would go unnoticed. He said: “If you want to find the smallest objects you have to build more, larger telescopes.
“A survey that finds all of the 20-metre objects will cost probably multiple billions of dollars.”
The fireball was spotted by locals in Indonesia, and a YouTube video taken that day “appears to show a large dust cloud consistent with a bright, daylight fireball”, according to the Ontario researchers.
An asteroid or comet fragment around 60 meters across is believed to have been behind the Tunguska Event, a powerful explosion that took place over Russia in 1908. The blast has been estimated at equivalent to 10-15 million tons of TNT – enough to destroy a large city.”