The climate experts tell us that CO2 levels correlate with temperature, and that this is consistent throughout the Earth’s geologic history. Yet, recognizing that correlation is not causation, how does one conclude that higher levels of CO2 induce higher temperatures, rather than higher temperatures inducing higher CO2 levels. After all, CO2 moves from the oceans into the atmosphere as temperatures rise.

We are told that temperatures in earlier geologic epochs are based on sea levels in those eras, estimates of which are based on geological evidence. So are they telling us that higher temperatures cause sea levels to rise, as deduced by sea level rises used to estimate temperatures?

If one goes to the site of ancient Troy, on the coast of Turkey, one is told that sea levels are much lower now than they were in Agamemnon’s day (about 2,400 years ago), by 30 feet or more. Likewise, the narrow pass at Thermopylae no longer has the sea lapping at the sides of the pass, but there is a considerable amount of dry land that the entire Persian army could have easily traversed, before you get to the sea, and we would have no movie of The Three Hundred, and no legend of Leonidas. We are told that pre-industrial CO2 levels have been as low as 180 ppm compared to today’s 410 ppm. So why are the sea levels lower now than then, if rising CO2 levels begat higher temperatures which begat rising sea levels?  I see articles claiming that CO2 levels at different geological times have been as high as 28,000 ppm, though those appear to be speculation. There are other estimates that CO2 levels may have been as high as 2800 ppm as late as the Pliocene or Myocene, times when homo habilis and homo erectus were roaming the planet. Other estimates are 600 to 1000 ppm. These seem like massive discrepancies.

The experts tell us that the effects of CO2 rises take time to be observed, so we should be patient. How patient?  A hundred years? A thousand years? Ten thousand years?  A Hundred Thousand years?  More? They seem to have no idea. But then they tell us that the CO2 rise, from possibly below 200 ppm to over 400 ppm is unprecedented in geological history, that this rapid rise portends catastrophe, that by the time we hit over 600 ppm (another 200 years?) we will be steaming and dead from global warming, er, climate change.  Should not such a rapid rise in CO2 levels cause a similarly rapid change in global temperature and sea levels?  If the rise is so rapid and dramatic, should not the climate consequences appear rapidly? If not, why not?

The experts tell us that they have measured CO2 levels back about 800,000 years. Most of that time, the earth experienced the great ice ages. Why did the earth warm up so much before the Industrial period of the last 200 years? At a time when the sun was dimming, we are told? At a time when CO2 levels were much lower than they are now?  WE are told there were 17 cycles between glacial periods and warming periods over the last 2.5 million years (homo habilis and homo erectus were present on earth and beginning to harness fire somewhere around 2.5 million years ago, but certainly not producing the vast quantities of CO2 from fossil fuels that we are producing now. If dramatic glaciation and warming occurred, on average, every 150,000 years, how did that possibly occur?  And if we went from massive glaciation to almost no glaciation in 150,000 years, wouldn’t we be seeing more rapid temperature changes than we are seeing now?  We are supposedly in an interglacial period now, which started somewhere between 25000 and 11000 years ago. The last 11,000 years have included the arrival of human history. How did the warming occur that allowed the human species to thrive so greatly?

And how is it that we are supposed to believe that a gas that comprises 0.04%  of the atmosphere is the primary driver of climate?  Or that a gas that comprises 0.00017% of the atmosphere (methane) is another major driver of temperature? To me, that stretches credibility considerably.

It seems to me that none of these questions are well explained by climate scientists.

Perhaps someone at Ricochet could explain some of these questions for me. Anyone?  Bueller?

Thanks in advance.