A Hot Mess: Climate of Confusion

 

Our betters had better get a grip on their narrative. We have been assured that the science is settled. Wicked men have offended Mother Earth and she is getting hot under the collar. To deny this is heresy. Heretics must be cast out, silenced, deplatformed, unpersoned. We must unite to denounce and deny the deniers…at Newsweek!

Newsweek is certainly a member in good standing of the church of correct thinking. So how could it possibly be that they would blaspheme Anthropogenic Global Warming? Yet here is the evidence that they have transgressed [emphasis added]:

TECH & SCIENCE
ICE AGES ARE CAUSED BY MASSIVE COLLISIONS OF EARTH’S CONTINENTS, STUDY SAYS
BY HANNAH OSBORNE ON 3/14/19 AT 2:00 PM EDT

A team of U.S. researchers has found that the last three major ice ages—which took place over 540 million years—were all preceded by massive tectonic pile-ups around the equator. Their findings, published in the journal Science, provide new insight into the causes of ice ages, which up until now were thought to relate to volcanic eruptions.

[…]

We are currently living in an ice age that began just over 2.5 million years ago. At present, we are in an interglacial period—where Earth goes through a warm period within an ice age.

At the moment, there is a zone in Indonesia where two tectonic plates are colliding. This could potentially be what was responsible for the current ice age—and why we have a cool climate and ice caps today.

The science is settled, so how dare Science publish such wrongthink? Was the editor asleep at Newsweek? Did Mark Steyn hack their server? Surely real scientists could never write such things! There must be a hoax or some conspiracy afoot! We must look to our high priestess AOC for protection and guidance in the Green New Way, lest civilization whither and blow away in the hot air.

Indeed, the Pope has apparently blessed the doctrinal soundness of Anthropogenic Global Warming. He has even pronounced a system of penances, or are they indulgences? @DonG asks “Is the Pope Catholic? Or is he a Gaiaist?” Perhaps the answer is “yes.” It would hardly be the first time religious authorities sprinkled holy water or waved incense over the pronouncements of secular powers.

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  1. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Now they’re going to want to crash North and South America into each other to save us from the global warming.

    • #1
  2. ctlaw Coolidge
    ctlaw
    @ctlaw

    I think the whole point is to give them an excuse to ignore cooling periods.

    Thus, any time observed temperatures fall below the CO2-based prediction the left  can say it’s due to a temporary tectonic phenomenon, not an invalid CO2 model.

    • #2
  3. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    ctlaw (View Comment):

    I think the whole point is to give them an excuse to ignore cooling periods.

    Thus, any time observed temperatures fall below the CO2-based prediction the left can say it’s due to a temporary tectonic phenomenon, not an invalid CO2 model.

    If I read it right, the claim, which even came through in the Newsweek article, is that we are in the middle of a millions of years long ice age (with a relative warming period making most of human history possible.) In this view, once Earth has another period of relative tectonic stability, the Earth will really warm again, losing its ice caps at the poles. This would be many millions of years from now.

    • #3
  4. Gossamer Cat Coolidge
    Gossamer Cat
    @GossamerCat

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):
    In this view, once Earth has another period of relative tectonic stability, the Earth will really warm again, losing its ice caps at the poles. This would be many millions of years from now.

    Unless man made global warming beats them to it 12 years from now

    • #4
  5. DonG Coolidge
    DonG
    @DonG

    Nope.  The article doubles down on CO2 hoax.  Here’s the money quote:

    They believe the heat and humidity in the tropics helped spur a chemical reaction between the calcium and magnesium found in the rocks and atmospheric carbon dioxide—resulting in the gas being sucked out of the atmosphere. Atmospheric carbon dioxide has a warming effect on the planet—it creates a barrier around Earth that prevents heat from escaping back into space—so its removal led to Earth’s temperature dropping.

    The big freeze theory is called “snowball earth”.  Here is a quote from an article from 2015 that speculates that the snowball was caused by CO2.

    It was probably caused by rapid weathering of Earth’s continents, which sucked carbon dioxide – a planet-warming greenhouse gas – out of the atmosphere and caused temperatures to plummet.

    Note, we are not in a “snowball earth” period.  When the glaciers return, they won’t reach far into the temperate zone. 

    • #5
  6. RPD Inactive
    RPD
    @RPD

    It’s interesting to read geologists on things like ice ages and warming. They tend to look at a thousand years as a data point rather than as a trend itself.

    • #6
  7. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    That article is just bad science. 

    What is generally accepted is that there are various factors like the Milakovitch cycles of the Earth’s slightly elliptical orbit around the Sun, it’s axial tilt, the Earth’s eccentricity plus variations in the Sun’s sun spots that have caused Ice Ages at roughly (very roughly) 100,000 year cycles, with only about 20% of each cycle  an interglacial period  between Ice Ages of which we are in now.

     These cycles and effects are poorly understood and the time periods which they last are heatedly argued about. According to some these Ice Ages started roughly 50 million years ago and then others prefer a significantly different time frame. All these time frames and effects are enormously complex and subject to a heated debate even among the so-called Global Warming deniers. 

    There are also sub cycles , like an 11 year solar cycle and longer cycles such as those of solar minimums where there is lesser solar heat. Some are arguing we just entered a solar minimum.  The latest solar minimum was predicted due to a dearth of sun spots  the last  few years. The relationship between solar minimums and sun spots was first noticed in the seventeenth century and coincided with the “Maunder Minium” of 1645- 1715, when the Thames froze regularly as did the Canals of Venice. 

    The big question is how long is the interglacial period we are in now going to last. The interglacials of the last few hundred thousand years varied widely  and in depth.  The Solar Minimums seem to be increasing over time with the first of this interglacial happening around 1150 BC, the next at the time of collapse of the Greek Empire, the next around 400 AD, the next around 1300 AD that lasted on and off till 1850.  The Warming Periods between these solar minimums also appear to be shorter and cooler.  And yes, previous Warming Periods were warmer than today, contrary to Al Gore. Greenland was actually green at the time of Vikings and citrus grew in Scandinavia. 

    • #7
  8. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    BTW, some scientists believe there is a correlation between Solar Minimums and geologic activity. The Magnetic North Pole has been moving very rapidly recently and historically, solar minimums according ancient accounts are times of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and meteor showers. 

    All these ideas are subject to heated debate. 

    • #8
  9. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Unsk (View Comment):

    BTW, some scientists believe there is a correlation between Solar Minimums and geologic activity. The Magnetic North Pole has been moving very rapidly recently and historically, solar minimums according ancient accounts are times of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and meteor showers.

    All these ideas are subject to heated debate.

    1. I see what you did there.

    2. Yes. And. It may be that there is yet another very long geological component causing significant variation in the atmospheric composition.  

    3. All of which does not change the fundamental point of the post. A totally establishment, leftist mouth piece is stating, as uncontroversial, that we are in tbe middle of a multimillion year long ice age! My sarcastic take stands, it seems.

     

    • #9
  10. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Now they’re going to want to crash North and South America into each other to save us from the global warming.

    As I was reading it, I was thinking, we need to widen the Panama Canal by forcing the two continents apart.

    • #10
  11. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    Now they’re going to want to crash North and South America into each other to save us from the global warming.

    As I was reading it, I was thinking, we need to widen the Panama Canal by forcing the two continents apart.

    Perhaps we could do that if we don’t have bigger fish to fry, or don’t get stung, eaten, frozen, or fried first. As you point out:

    How Many Times Have You Died, and Of What Causes?

    • #11
  12. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):
    This would be many millions of years from now.

    I guess I’d better start making plans! Or maybe not . . .

    • #12
  13. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    See how easy it is to play off the monthly theme? If disco won’t motivate more Ricochetti to chip in, maybe my hot takes on politics and sports will drive participation in this month’s theme series: “Hot Stuff!” We have plenty of open days as the summer season starts. Please stop by and sign up to share your own angle on the topic, however loosely construed.

    • #13
  14. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Interesting scientific find, Clifford. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

    The last two years has been a period of ever increasing vulcanization. The particulate matter tossed up into the atmosphere by volcanoes  has allowed for much more rain than usual. Even here in California, our last rain storm was some ten days ago. (Usually rain storms end in first week of April if not earlier.)

    And if more people were aware of the science that 1PacificRedwood brings to this discussion with his you tube reviews of what is really happening with regards to weather,  a great many more people in the public would become educated as to how the last thing we need is a carbon tax. Nor do we need any further discussions of “how to save the planet by such noble efforts as eliminating plastic straws and banning Hummers.” Rather we need to free up the tremendous amounts of tax monies involved in the activities that 1Pacificredwood deplores, by stopping those activities.

    • #14
  15. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    “All of which does not change the fundamental point of the post. A totally establishment, leftist mouth piece is stating, as uncontroversial, that we are in tbe middle of a multimillion year long ice age! My sarcastic take stands, it seems.”

    Clifford, I agree with you.  That is why I said at the beginning that the article was just bad science.

    Whether or not there are geologic forces at work due to some magnetic pull from the Sun that causes increased seismic , volcanic activity, or the movement of the magnetic north pole, I don’t anyone reasonable is suggesting that those forces are anywhere near the strength ( by a few thousand percent) to force the tectonic plates into each other to cause Ice Ages.  As far as being in multimillion year long ice age, the  earth apparently did turn colder something like 50 million years ago give or take a few million years, but there have a 100,000  year cycle of Ice Ages since, where roughly 80%  of the time there is an Ice Age and 20% there is not in what are called the interglacial periods. The last Ice Age ended roughly 10,000 years ago  and we are in an warmer interglacial period now. Just how long that will last is anybody’s guess.  The Ice Core evidence I think varies a lot between each of past few Ice Ages so predicting the future or even agreeing on what exactly happened on this stuff is all over the place.

    • #15
  16. EtCarter Member
    EtCarter
    @

    Sure is a good thing no one could make money, access grants, power, work as activist, etc… off of claiming we need to save the world.  I wonder if all the variable (known,unknown, never conceived of)have really been brought to account and all the unintended consequences considered? I mean, we know it will cost every nation on earth a fortune, and create lots of busy work, but would it be easier to just ask the whole world to reverse the industrial revolution and go back to a hunter-gatherer society? Yknow, like collect rainwater to drink and let sunshine and windmills do the rest? What could possibly go wrong?

    My yet unanswered question remains: what is the correct level of what ideal “climate” is .

    For a planet spinning on its axis, orbiting a star, in a galaxy hurling through space at incalculable speeds…I’m curious who is in charge of making all the cock-sure pronouncements of near 100 percent certitude mankind can even make a change in the “climate” and it be a change that “helps” the entire planet instead of some(thing) really regrettable?

    • #16
  17. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    That article is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in a main stream news source, and that’s saying a lot.  Newly exposed rocks cause a chemical reaction that makes an ice age?  Just how fast are these continents colliding?

    I put this into the “mashed potatoes” are poisonous category.  My dad always told us that mashed potatoes are poisonous because everyone who eats mashed potatoes dies.  It’s a 100% correlation.

    • #17
  18. CarolJoy, Above Top Secret Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret
    @CarolJoy

    Skyler (View Comment):

    That article is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in a main stream news source, and that’s saying a lot. Newly exposed rocks cause a chemical reaction that makes an ice age? Just how fast are these continents colliding?

    I put this into the “mashed potatoes” are poisonous category. My dad always told us that mashed potatoes are poisonous because everyone who eats mashed potatoes dies. It’s a 100% correlation.

    You would mention this “Mashed Potatoes Will Kill Us All” theory right after I ate my Sunday dinner.

    Thanks a lot!!

    • #18
  19. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    CarolJoy, Above Top Secret (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    That article is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in a main stream news source, and that’s saying a lot. Newly exposed rocks cause a chemical reaction that makes an ice age? Just how fast are these continents colliding?

    I put this into the “mashed potatoes” are poisonous category. My dad always told us that mashed potatoes are poisonous because everyone who eats mashed potatoes dies. It’s a 100% correlation.

    You would mention this “Mashed Potatoes Will Kill Us All” theory right after I ate my Sunday dinner.

    Thanks a lot!!

    Stick to baked or fried potatoes, no poison in those.

    • #19
  20. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Skyler (View Comment):

    That article is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in a main stream news source, and that’s saying a lot. Newly exposed rocks cause a chemical reaction that makes an ice age? Just how fast are these continents colliding?

    I put this into the “mashed potatoes” are poisonous category. My dad always told us that mashed potatoes are poisonous because everyone who eats mashed potatoes dies. It’s a 100% correlation.

    The time frame claimed is millions of years, and “ice age” appears to be something much longer that the last time glaciers significantly advanced.

    I make no claim as to this or vulcanism being actual proximate causes of Earth’s climate changing.

    What I note, again, is the claim that we are in a temporary warming period, of some thousands of years, within an ice age that has already lasted millions of years. This fundamentally contradicts all variations of climate alarmism.

    • #20
  21. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    Skyler (View Comment):

    That article is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever read in a main stream news source, and that’s saying a lot. Newly exposed rocks cause a chemical reaction that makes an ice age? Just how fast are these continents colliding?

    I put this into the “mashed potatoes” are poisonous category. My dad always told us that mashed potatoes are poisonous because everyone who eats mashed potatoes dies. It’s a 100% correlation.

    The time frame claimed is millions of years, and “ice age” appears to be something much longer that the last time glaciers significantly advanced.

    I make no claim as to this or vulcanism being actual proximate causes of Earth’s climate changing.

    What I note, again, is the claim that we are in a temporary warming period, of some thousands of years, within an ice age that has already lasted millions of years. This fundamentally contradicts all variations of climate alarmism.

    Yes, I had no intent to ascribe their idiocy to neither you nor anyone else here.

    • #21
  22. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Good discussion June 10 on Econ Talk.  Even though  there are low cost ways to deal with it, it’s best to relax.  We can’t know until it happens and it’s not particularly difficult to deal with.  What he doesn’t discuss is the insanity of those who would socialize the US under the false premise that the super powerful new government would deal with it.  That anyone would believe such nonsense says more about their ignorance of human nature than their ignorance of climate which, like all of us, is significant.

    • #22
  23. EtCarter Member
    EtCarter
    @

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Good discussion June 10 on Econ Talk. Even though there are low cost ways to deal with it, it’s best to relax. We can’t know until it happens and it’s not particularly difficult to deal with. What he doesn’t discuss is the insanity of those who would socialize the US under the false premise that the super powerful new government would deal with it. That anyone would believe such nonsense says more about their ignorance of human nature than their ignorance of climate which, like all of us, is significant.

    Thank you, @iwalton, I was trying to make the same basic point earlier, but, yknow what happens to gremlins when you feed them after midnight: yes, they write posts responding to anything related to climate-alarmism, loaded with irony that does not fully-communicate to those who read online-posts.

    My science is pretty up-to-date and the current book I’m checking out is on Einsteins theories of general /special “relativity” (apparently, he thought the more accurate word was “invariance”, and I agree with the late genius) by Astrophysicist Jason Lisle, and though seemingly for a popular market, I would say college kids can understand it, but persons who have insatiable cross-disciplinary hunger and make logical connection to other areas of expertise will benefit most. Why am I telling you this?  Because you seem pretty laid back in a way people do that know enough about first principles and human nature to appreciate why climate-alarm smells like an encyclopedia salesman the year before the internet popped-out.

     

    • #23
  24. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    EtCarter (View Comment):

    climate-alarm smells like an encyclopedia salesman the year before the internet popped-out.

     

    Well put.

    • #24
  25. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Clifford A. Brown (View Comment):

    ctlaw (View Comment):

    I think the whole point is to give them an excuse to ignore cooling periods.

    Thus, any time observed temperatures fall below the CO2-based prediction the left can say it’s due to a temporary tectonic phenomenon, not an invalid CO2 model.

    If I read it right, the claim, which even came through in the Newsweek article, is that we are in the middle of a millions of years long ice age (with a relative warming period making most of human history possible.) In this view, once Earth has another period of relative tectonic stability, the Earth will really warm again, losing its ice caps at the poles. This would be many millions of years from now.

    Yet still, somehow, our fault. 

    • #25
  26. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    TBA (View Comment):
    Yet still, somehow, our fault. 

    Always.

    • #26
  27. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Data Indicate There’s No Need To Panic About Rising Seas

    • #27
  28. Skyler Coolidge
    Skyler
    @Skyler

    Columbo (View Comment):

    Data Indicate There’s No Need To Panic About Rising Seas

    So does common sense and the eyeball.

    I have an old acquaintance who recently corresponded with me that the ocean has risen ten inches at Virginia Beach.  Ten inches.  He couldn’t be dissuaded.  Insanity is a hallmark of the new left.

    • #28
  29. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Skyler (View Comment):

    Columbo (View Comment):

    Data Indicate There’s No Need To Panic About Rising Seas

    So does common sense and the eyeball.

    I have an old acquaintance who recently corresponded with me that the ocean has risen ten inches at Virginia Beach. Ten inches. He couldn’t be dissuaded. Insanity is a hallmark of the new left.

    Oh, I checked.  It was at least 11 inches!  That’s how fast global warming works.

    Then it went down like 13 inches by nightfall.  That’s how fast climate change works!

    And it was back up the next day!  That’s how fast global warming works.

    We’d better act now because this is all happening so fast.  AOC for President!  Socialism will save us!

    • #29
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    And it was back up the next day! That’s how fast global warming works.

    Changes about every six hours, eh?

    • #30
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