You’ll have to look at the charts in Wikipedia’s “Ice Ages” doc.

I recently received an email message from one of my brothers It contained a reference to a document that poses as a test of ones understanding of “Global Warming”.

I tend to get drawn into expositions of this “Global Warming” matter which, while in the forefront of popular interest, has become badly politicized in the US and has been infected with the same “junk science” that has infected so many other issues here. There is a lot of serious well-informed research, much off the cuff commentary, and a great deal of disinformation on the subject floating about, and I tend to view all of it with varying degrees of interest and caution.

I connected to the Geocraft site of the “test” and took a look at the first statement/question. I didn’t go beyond number 1. I decided after reading the answer, that what would follow would be more cleverly phrased questions followed by more misleading answers. But I thought that the subject was so well cloaked in the guises of a “test” that I felt compelled to annotate the first question and answer with the observations that effected my decision not to proceed to the next ones and to pass those observations I made on to you. If you’re interested, open the site in your browser, try the first question, check your answer against the answer page, and then follow through my comments below. If you’re in any way gratified by having answered the first question “correctly”, feel free to continue. Again, look at the first “question” at WVFossils/GlobWarmTest.

The first “Question/Statement”

The “Geocraft” site from which the test comes was new to me and a Google search didn’t provide a great deal of information about it. The presentation looks reasonably serious, and I walked through the first statement, ” ‘Global warming’ is a real phenomenon: Earth’s temperature is increasing”. Actually there are two statements in what is presented as a question that is to be answered with “True” of “False”.

The first statement is true only if the expression is described as a political phenomenon. If the expression is to be interpreted within a scientific context, then it represents an aggregate of hypotheses and experimentally demonstrated facts encompassing geology, paleoclimatology, paleontology, planetary physics, chemistry, archeology, etc, and all of these represent a multitude of natural phenomena and not just a single phenomenon. The second statement, “Earth’s temperature is increasing”, says both much and very little. It could also be stated, “Earth’s temperature is decreasing”, or “at various times the temperature of the earth is increasing and decreasing in different parts”. Those statements are beyond facts - they are simply common sense. The temperature of the earth varies at any one point in time throughout the solid mass of the planet itself, throughout the liquid and gaseous masses that the planets gravity holds on to it, and throughout the electro-magnetic fields surrounding and interacting with all of those. In fact, there is no “True” or “False” that can be associated with this set of two statements.

The first “Answer”

I wondered at the moment of submitting the choice and being presented with the answer whether the note “I aced it” that my brother included in his email indicated that he got all of the answers “correct”. Whatever the case, he seemed quite satisfied with his overall performance. I wondered also what the author(s) of the “test” intended with this combination of a politically charged phrase and a tenuously related, oversimplified truism. Assuming that my brother got the first answer correct, they had cleaverly set him up to move contentedly into their contrived “answer” to a deceptively contrived “question”.

My response to the eight point item list in the answer to question # 1 draws on some reading into human history and prehistory and into more general areas of the evolution of the earth and of the primates from which human beings evolved. I highlighted the comment on each answer item with my opinion of it. The source of the included charts and a solid reference to most everything I discuss here can be found in this Wikipedia document on “Ice Ages”, and I recommend the document to anyone interested in reading up on the subject.

* The first item on the list states, “the temperature of the earth has been increasing more or less continuously since the time of the cave man”.

The statement is false. Members of the species homo sapiens, if they are to be differentiated from their ancestor, Homo erectus, have lived and died on earth for 200,000 years or more. Neanderthals, close relatives from the same line, first appeared at least 400,000 years ago, if not more. Up until about 50,000 years ago and even more recently, humans and near humans, when seeking out protected environments in which to dwell, usually selected caves. If Neanderthals can be considered cave men along with humans, the time of cave men goes back at least 400,000 years. Temperatures have been both increasing more or less (averaged out over periods of tens of thousands of years) and falling more or less during four glacial cycles over the last 400,000 years.

Temperature variations during those glacial cycles are graphically presented in the chart below of data that were derived from the examination of ice core samples drilled at the Vostok Polar Station on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Temperature readings are the only ones of interest to this discussion, although the chart’s CO2 and particle readings also contain a great deal of information. The mean line of 0º C is a relative level of reference. These ice core data have been correlated with ice core data and geological sedimentation data from other parts of the world. The chart represents the most recent 450K year segment of a major glaciation period that started about 3 million years ago. The second chart further down describes the entire period major glaciation. Each cycle of the most recent four is delimited by a temperature differential of from 11-12º C between the lowest and highest temperature.

The temperature of the earth has gone through generally increasing and decreasing periods, ice age cycles, during the last 400K years of cave peoples existence.

Chart 1

Chart 1
120K Year cycles over 450K Years

* The second statement is “Approximately 18,000 years ago the earth began a gradual process of warming up after more than 100,000 years of Ice Ages. Much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice”.

This statement is partially true. The core sample data appear in close agreement with the statement as are data derived from geological indicators. It could be argued, however, that the temperature increase during the last 18K years, or 1/6 of the complete cycle, was a lot less gradual than the first 100K years of cooling during the cooling part of the glacial cycle. It should also be pointed out that the glaciers started advancing again after the last high temperature spike. Is “spike” a valid descriptor? The warming interval certainly looks like a spike to me in comparison to the more gradual and longer cooling interval of 100K years. Northern Europe, Asia, and America were only covered with sheets of ice during the latter part of the cooling period of each cycle.

* The statements 3, 4, and 5 refer to recent human and climate history and of the settlement period of North America.

These statements are all true. Humans started having an impact on the environment about 6-8K years ago with population expansion and the beginning of large scale deforestation, primarily in Eastern Asia with the clearing of rain forests for rice cultivation. I would recommend reading Jared Diamond’s book Collapse to really understand the significance of deforestation.

* Statement 6 reads: “From a geological perspective, global warming is the normal state of our accustomed natural world. Technically, we are in an “interglacial phase,” or between ice ages. The question is not really if an ice age will return, but when.”

This statement is not only false, it’s nonsense. Notice that, except for one offhanded mention of a 100K year time interval, the answers list of statements has set the frame of reference to 20K years. In addition to the meaningless timeframe, the expression “Global Warming” has been deceptively convoluted with “Ice Age” in these first statements.

There is no normal state of the natural world; there are only stable and unstable states. The state of the natural world, this natural world, our planet, is at any time determined by many interacting forces. Some forces, like plate movement, act gradually. Others occur sporadically, and at times are cataclysmic, as for example the eruption of super volcanoes or a strike by a large comet or meteor. Sporadic volcanic events are individual phenomena; continental drift is ongoing and for the most part gradual. The “Ice Ages” of the last 3 million years consist of a gradual progression of many recurring cycles of cooling and warming of the earth’s surface caused by a number planetary and extra-planetary forces, including plate movement and Milankovitch cycles . They started with fluctuations of 2-4º C and have increased to a spread of about 12º C. Before this major glaciation began, the fluctuation was a fairly constant 2º C. The chart below developed from geological (sedimentary) data provides a graph of this cyclical progression of the current major glaciations.

Chart 2
Chart 2

What is happening at this time, today, appears to be the beginning of a potential disruption of the glacial cycles on geological time scale. Look at the first chart of the 400K Year ice core samples. Notice the high temperature spike on the four of previous glacial cycles at about 1-2º C above reference. There is no spike in our current warming cycle. There’s that squiggly string up in the left corner. It appears that the question really is “if”. It could be that, if the temperature stays constant now, we will be where the world was over 3 million years ago, with a general oscillation of 2º in geological time.

That in itself may not be too bad, but the temperature could also continue to rise and that could be very bad.

* The seventh statement, “Don’t Panic”.

This sounds like crap from Exxon. This test sponsor, “Geocraft”, has the fingerprint of a Big Oil on it. Call it “Global Warming” or call it “the end to the Major Ice Age”. Whatever you call it, I would be a little worried about its consequences. Look at a contour map of Florida, or Long Island for that matter. You probably won’t see too many areas that are 300 feet above sea level, but I bet you’ll see quite a few under 10 feet above sea level.

* The eighth statement, “another Ice Age”.

More crap piled on. While it is not likely that temperatures will start a long term falling trend any time soon if at all, even if the temperature begins to fall as in all the previous recent glacial cycles, it will take 10’s of thousands of years before you’ll need to start putting your parkers on more regularly. I think that the only ones who still think there is no problem with the continuing temperature rise within the earth’s atmosphere are Big Oil, Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn (what voters elect these troglodytes), 20 people living in a cave in northern Minnesota, the staff of the new Creation Museum in Petersburg Kentucky, and the Kansas State Board of Education.

What do you think?

http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/is-there-anything-less-scientific-than-science/

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_pet_food_crisis
Melamine production in China has also been reported as using coal as raw material.[10] This production has been described as also producing “melamine scrap” which is not “pure melamine but impure melamine scrap that is sold more cheaply as the waste product after melamine is produced by chemical and fertilizer factories here.”[70] Shandong Mingshui Great Chemical Group, the company reported by the New York Times as producing melamine from coal, produces and sells both urea and melamine but does not list melamine resin as a product.[82] Melamine production in China has increased greatly in recent years and was described as in “serious surplus” in 2006.[83] In the United States Geological Survey 2004 Minerals Survey Yearbook, in a report on worldwide nitrogen production, the author stated that “China continued to plan and construct new ammonia and urea plants using coal gasification technology.”[84]

Up till there, I more or less could appreciate your arguments/comments. I don’t see what “party lines” has to do with it, I for one, have voted R and D depending on the issues, and you can hardly call Ah-nold a bleeding heart “liberal Democrat” so let’s drop that crap. Even Rupert Murdoch now announced he wants to go carbon neutral, and Shell and BP have been working on solar projects for quite a while now. The change is coming.

I think it could be said that more CO2 in the atmosphere is BOTH a result and cause of global warming. As far as doubling venetian blinds - well, it depends on how dark your original ones are - if you have the pale white mini blinds (lets in a lot of light) or the old fashioned metal wide ones (lets less light in, but not ‘none’ by a longshot!) adding more will definitely make your room/house darker, no doubt about that. I know, we have both in our house. They aren’t that dark.

HOWEVER… don’t tell ME burning coal doesn’t produce pollution. I work in an environmental agency and we know jolly well what those plants produce, including mercury and sulfur emissions that contribute to acid rain and mercury fallout that reaches fish in “pristine” areas (e.g., trout in Maine streams) that are no longer safe to eat regularly, and not safe for pregnant women to eat at all. Give that a break! Coal has definitely helped us modernize the world, but anyone who’s ever been to China (and yes, I have) has only to look up in the sky to see how bad the air is there. Any time you try to get coal plants to “clean up their act” they whine and cry about “expenses”. And that’s not even counting the heat from the cooling water that has destroyed quite a number of aquatic habitats (14 mile “dead” zone in southeastern Mass for ex.).
Additionally, manufactured coal gas wastes are some of the dirtiest, nastiest hardest to clean up wastes around. Please, do yourself a favor, and don’t lie about how benign coal is. Furthermore, getting to the stuff is ALSO a problem. Mountaintop removal mining is a ecological disaster. I don’t have the reference handy, but a couple months back there was an author on NPR who had written a book about what it’s done in the Appalachian Mt., and how fully two-thirds of 2300 song bird species that spend some part of their life there are now threatened or endangered b/c of habitat loss and the contamination of the environment there. Not to mention the polluting of streams and other water bodies. Let’s get real, coal and oil are both dirty and polluting.
I don’t have a problem with creating energy, I just think we need to find a way to do it that is CLEAN and doesn’t destroy miles and miles of land in the process of accessing the “fuel”. On the other hand, good, thought-provoking movie on Sundance recently (A Crude Awakening) said, the end of cheap oil is going to be the end of society as we know it now, and the estimate was… on a sustainable planet, the earth is NOT going to support 6 (much less 9, or 12) billion people… it MIGHT support 1 to 1.5 billion tops. I for one, who would like to live more in harmony with nature, don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing.

I love the tactic of citing the IPCC where it suits ones needs.

Anyway, I have to say, I agree one of his largest points here: “The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself.”

This is undeniably true.

As much as I am an environmentalist and worried about what is happening with global warming, I will agree w/ Dr. Mann on this. I have never once thought to myself that the planet was somehow going to not survive this.

Now, we, as humans — the virus that is causing the disease — that’s a whole different matter. We’ve only been on this planet for a brief fraction of thost 4.5 billion years, and the Earth will be more than happy to return back to a time when we don’t exist again.

So Dr. Mann is correct. Mother Earth will survive this. She will self correct.

If anyone’s ultimate concern is for the safety of the rock we call Earth, you can rest assured that no matter how badly we screw up, the only think that is going to take out the Earth would be if the Sun went supernova and turned into a black hole. And even there, you probably don’t have to worry; my vague recollection from astrophysics class is that our Sun isn’t even large enough to do that.

So, even after the Sun flames out, the planet itself will be a mighty cold place, but it will still exist.

So, don’t shed a tear for Mother Earth.

However, if your concern is for humanity, well, that’s a whole different ball of wax.

BTW, for any who are interested, you can google Dr. Mann and see that he has posted pretty much the same comments multiple other places. I particularly liked this thread on a different blog:

http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/002576.html

I have to say I am a little bit jealous that that blog says that Dr. Mann was the “third such PR hack to try this same kind of stupid stunt here in a month” whereas he is my first. Well there’s always got to be a first for everything.

One final note to all my readers: Please keep the discourse civil. We know this guy is a skeptic, but there is no need to get rude. If you have any intent in debating him please keep it just to the facts. But, it is probably just better to ignore him altogether since there really is no point in debating someone who has no intent of actually engaging in a real scientific dialog. Ultimately, he’s got 2,000 scientists disagreeing with his point, so what’s the point in debating him?

The planet has evolved mechanisms over geological time (4.5 billion years of trial and error) to protect itself. Earth’s climate varies for a lot of extraterrestrial reasons. The shortest periodicity has to do with the interplay of solar activity and cosmic radiation from the Milky Way. During quiet periods of solar activity, like now, cosmic radiation penetrates the atmosphere and creates clouds where conditions permit. Over long periods this cools the earth. Most of the time however, sun’s magnetic activity induces earth’s geomagnetic field. The geomagnetic shields are up during most of the 11 year sun spot cycle. Earth’s cooling (1940-1965) and earth’s heating (balance of the 20th century) is 95% correlated to sunspot peak frequency. Short cycles induce cooling and long cycles induce warming. This is a magnificently balanced system because the total solar irradiance varies very little. The subtlety is the correlation with sunspot peak frequency. During the Maunder Minimum there were no sunspots and the world suffered through the Little Ice Age.

CO2 has come out of the planet during 4.5 billion years of volcanic activity. Plants use CO2 to produce carbohydrates, oxygen and water vapour. Free oxygen is not produced by volcanoes. CO2 has the property of inverse solubility. Global warming from the sun forces CO2 out of the ocean in increasing quantities like warming beer. CO2 is the effect, not the cause of the warming. Moreover, the absorption wavelength for CO2 in the spectrum is filled. CO2 will not contribute any more heating. The analogy is adding a second Venetian blind to your window may not make the room any darker.

Sea level is said to be rising (ICPP) at 2 – 3 mm a year. Since the Pleistocene it has risen 125 metres (6 mm a year) and most of the coastal tribes of the earth have a Noah. The coral reefs of the oceans have kept pace because of a symbiotic relationship with algae that keep them thriving in the sunlit surface of the sea no matter how fast sea level rises. Barrier bars like the Atlantic longshore bar are dynamic features that are fed sand by Piedmont rivers and maintain themselves in the surf zone. A summer beach is wide and fine and a winter beach is coarse and steep. Common sense needs to be applied.

By the way modern coal-fired power plants produce electricity, water vapour and CO2; plant food not pollution. The US has enough coal and oil shale to support itself for 1,000 years. This AGW piece is political, not scientific, and is coming out on party lines.

Looks like a very nice summary of a lot of different issues out there:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/seminars/980217DD.html

http://www.aeenewengland.org/2%2007%20How%20Earth%20Warms.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

The Little Ice Age (Basic Books, 2000), by anthropology professor Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara, tells of the plight of European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 chill: famines, hypothermia, bread riots, and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, writes Fagan, agriculture had dropped off so dramatically that “Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour.” Finland lost perhaps a third of its population to starvation and disease
….
Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age [23].

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455
This last link takes you to a whole bunch of Woods Hole articles which all sound interesting.

Meanwhile, the idea that the food thing hasn’t been studied much may largely be because we in the west figure we can bulk up the nutrition with vitamins, etc., but as one article said - what about wildlife, birds, etc. that need all the nutrition they can get? And now that big pharma and others seem to be releasing all these studies on the dangers of vitamins suddenly (probably in support of an attempt to make it mandatory for doctors to prescribe them and bring them under the umbrella of the “health” care industry…), there may be even more to worry about.

I agree, that easily disputed points are not always helpful, however, I wasn’t intending to dispute every point for a scientific debate, just point out some of the abuse of information by the coal industry’s web site to make global warming look benign. CO2, climate change or not, the mountaintop removal mining and the mercury emissions alone are enough reason in my mind to argue for cleaner energy sources, and get off our dependence on coal.
Thanks for making this an even more interesting discussion.
Lisa