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Knight of Honor

Registered: 11-2005
Posts: 1883
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Re: Climate Change


I know I said I wouldn't respond to this thread anymore, but I finally stumbled across the last image I'd been wanting to show (but couldn't initially find).

As yet another indicator that the primary (but not sole) climate changer today is humans, take a look at this plot of CO2 levels:

Image

I like this plot for three reasons:

1.) It shows both how very much we've deviated away from the mean. We're more than twice as far from the 400 kyr minimum as we've been! Yikes!

2.) It also shows the relative scale of that change compared to the natural variability during the last 400 kyrs. The scale of the ice ages is on there. This is proof that the climate is always naturally changing. It is also evidence that humans are changing the pattern of at least one natural cycle. And since everything in climate is related, changing one thing means we have an impact on many.

3.) Finally, it shows the time-scale of the changes, both natural and human-caused. One the scale of this plot, the increase over the last century is a vertical line, only one pixel wide. None of the natural ice-age-related increases or decreases move at this rate. All those changes, even the quickest, are significantly more than one pixel wide.

In short, we are changing things as much as nature does, in a different and non-cyclical direction, at a much faster pace.

Scientists argue about exactly how much of the temperature change is caused by CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gases), but everyone agrees there's some connection. We ARE making shocking changes in CO2 release. And CO2 IS related, directly or indirectly to temperature and every other climate-related variable on the planet. It's one big system, and here's evidence that we're playing with one big input. Does it really shock you that the whole system responds?

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  -- YAR!
2/23/2009, 4:45 pm Link to this post Email Reythia   PM Reythia AIM MSN
 


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