http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
A new study is out, which appears to be claiming that the Earth is drying up due to climate change. There are all kinds of problems with it, but right now I’m going to focus on one particularly clueless section.
Most climate models have suggested that evapotranspiration would increase with global warming, because of increased evaporation of water from the ocean and more precipitation overall (water that can evaporate). … One possibility, though, is that on a global level, a limit to the acceleration of the hydrological cycle (the transfer of water between land, air and sea) on land has already been reached. If that’s the case, the consequences could be serious. They could include reduced terrestrial vegetation growth, less carbon absorption,
Most of the Earth’s coal deposits formed during the Carboniferous Period, when temperatures were as much as 10C higher than today. The lushest places on Earth are jungles, where the temperature is high. The driest place on Earth is Antarctica, where the temperature is very low.
The coal which drives climochondriacs nuts, was mainly deposited from lush vegetation when the Earth was hot – and CO2 concentrations were much higher than today.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F).
Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm
People need to step outside their computer models and observe the real world. They might be able to regain their grasp on reality.
The folks with the computer models aren’t interested in reality. The only “reality” they know is what they create in the torrent of bits and bites screaming around in a machine.
And if I remember correctly, large parts of NA were covered by shallow inland seas ….. i.e. we are all going to drown type scenario. Soooooo……. large areas are going to dry up……. ignoring that they would also be under water at the same time. Reallllllly, can’t `they’ even get on the same page with the `we are all going to die’ crap. Doesn’t help when the warmers start running around contradicting each other.
There will hav eto be new classifications of warmers made up. Lets see, some suggestions:
the drowners
the freezers
the parched earthers
the starvers
the warriors
the pressure cookers
the big blows, AKA the stormers
Come on….. add more to the list, change mine …they are pretty lame.
Read the new peer reviewed Scafetti paper on the 60 year cycles, see WUWT.
All the IPCC climate models are wrong and therefore all the policies decided upon these models. Our SUV’s are no longer weather machines.
That will save us a lot of money.
Great to have coal even if some zealots think it can’t exist.
I lived for years in Southeastern Utah….Carbon County. In my early years at a local college I worked full time in the warehouse of several coal mines in the area, all owned by AEP. It’s quite fascinating to see coal sandwiched under hundreds or even thousands of feet of sedimentary rock. But one of the coolest things were the Dinosaur “Footprints” made of sediment cast in the layers of vegetation that later became a seam of coal. They are found stuck to the roof of the mine after the coal seam is removed. The prints were often herbivorous species. But there were a lot of carnivores as well.
That area is loaded with Dino stuff. Our High School football team called themselves “The Dinos” Don Burge is still (I believe) the Curator of the local museum and credited with discovering the Utah Raptor, one wicked looking critter.
http://blog.webosaurs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/utahraptor_skeleton_namal.jpg
A number of years ago I took my family to Vernal, Utah to see the Dinosaur National Museum. We enjoyed that. I take my kids (adults now) to see dino stuff all over the U.S. Last spot was Thermopolis, Wy. and out to Red Gulch to see the tracks left in a river bottom.
This study is the typical “let’s pick a period and distort the record.” They cite Australia drying out which is currently drowning in rain and all-time records are being broken due to the La Nina.
Generally, the theory predicts that rainfall should increase by 2% for every 1C increase in temperature so this study is rather ridiculous.
As Steve started to do, let’s go back and look at the historical climate and the amount of precipitation that resulted for periods that we know about.
The Holocene Optimum – temperatures about 1.5C higher than today. The Saharra was savanna due to the increased rainfall.
Last glacial maximum – temperatures about -5C from today. The planet was mostly grassland and desert due to the low levels of precipitation and CO2.
8 million years ago – temperatures about 3C higher than today – CO2 280 ppm. Almost the entire planet was forested. The C4 grasses which thrive in low CO2 and low precipitation levels do not have a niche/location where they can dominate indicating there was much more rainfall than the Holocene for example.
24 million years ago – temperatures about 2C higher than today. C4 grasses evolve for the first time since CO2 falls to 280 ppm. C4 grasses can out-compete most other C3 plants in dry conditions (or hot conditions without adequate rainfall) when CO2 levels are low – indicating this is the first time CO2 and/or rainfall was low enough.
Pangea – 265 million years ago. The hottest period in Earth’s climate at 9.0C above today. All the continents locked together, primarily over the equator. Huge deserts in the mid-latitudes (where the deserts always form in the atmospheric circulation pattern that Earth has always had). Massive tropical forests at the equator (8000 kms long) and large forests in the higher latitude areas (just like the atmospheric circulation pattern today).
325 million years ago – the Carboniferous period – temperatures about the same as today (not warmer). Large vegetation growth in North America , Europe and Asia which are at the equator. Mostly glaciers over the rest of the continents as they are locked together over the south pole. Oxygen level are extremely high at almost 35% (versus 20% today). Forest fires are thus, unstoppable without days and days of rain. The glaciers on Gondwana at the south pole repeatedly melt and then re-build as glacial ice suppresses the landmass below sea level and the glaciers break-up. As a consequence, sea level repeatedly rises and falls by large amounts and all the burned forests in North America, Europe and Asia are continuously buried in ocean sediment – ie. lots of coal available 325 million years later.
The Carboniferous was a very long period of time. The first 50 million years was much hotter than present.
How rapid/slow was the transition Steve? 100 years? More? Less? And what extinctions are associated with the transition?
“The coal which drives climochondriacs nuts, was mainly deposited from lush vegetation when the Earth was hot – and CO2 concentrations were much higher than today.”
How many people were living in those conditions?
If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it – does it still turn into coal?
I know you have trouble answering questions Steve so here’s another one.
How many of the species alive today existed back then?
Cockroaches and trolls
Just having fun Steve, but it seems you’re wrong about that.
Oh so now we are going to prove the climate crisis hypothesis
by running time backwards and supposing pre-extinction of species yet to have evolved.
Tactically amusing but completely irrelevant.
Oxygen was high enough to make you feel good. CO2 low enough not to bother you. Plenty of water ( POINT). Probably very nice for a few days, in the right period.
In any case your point about there not being anyone there because we had not evolved yet is silly.
We will know the moment we have the technology to travel in time.
We will collect all the extinct species and reintroduce them again in our time.
Does that make you happy?
Brendon, if plant life is luxuriant would that imply good times for plant eaters? Or maybe the eaters of plant eaters? Maybe a man could survive.
That depends on the rest of the ecosystem.
http://blog.algore.com/2010/10/i_need_your_help.html
Why does Al Gore need 3 computer screens and a big Plasma TV to his right? Does he have extra eyes?
Brendon, sounds like you have some education in this area. Really asking, wouldn’t healthy plant life mean good times for everyone? If plants are doing well that implies at least acceptable temps and moisture.
“If plants are doing well that implies at least acceptable temps and moisture.”
Only for the plant and animals that had adapted or were already better suited to that envirnoment than others.
Animals/Plants that are not able to adapt to a different climate will die out. The ability to adapt may sometimes simply not be possible, or the timeframe of change too quick.
Large extinctions are well aligned with large climate changes.
Many of the plants found in Carboniferous age coal are similar to modern plants, particularly ferns. Ferns require lots of water.
If you are trying to make a case that the lush growth of the Carboniferous happened under dry conditions, you are really just being ridiculous.
Agree, the tropics are warmer. Warmer = more water. It’s better for the ice caps to melt, as this means more free water in the water cycle. We need more free water because our population is increasing. Everything is just falling in place. Mankind will proper and eventually have enough technology to start colonization outside earth. This is our destiny.
But anyway, this won’t happen yet, since we heading to a cooling phase till 2030-2050.
Remember not long ago, the Sahara was a lush area. There is evidence of crocodiles, human camps all sorts of animals. The oasises we see today in the Sahara are remnants of this forest. This forest was there not very long ago, the reason it disapeared was cooling, cooling takes free water into the ice caps and creates more deserts around the world.
At the end of the last Ice Age, the Sahara Desert was just as dry and uninviting as it is today. But sandwiched between two periods of extreme dryness were a few millennia of plentiful rainfall and lush vegetation.During these few thousand years, prehistoric humans left the congested Nile Valley and established settlements around rain pools, green valleys, and rivers.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13957717
“Many of the plants found in Carboniferous age coal are similar to modern plants, particularly ferns. Ferns require lots of water. ”
I haven’t eaten fern. What’s it like?
I’m more of a wheat, corn and rice kind of guy. How did they fare in the warmer climate?
Fiddle head ferns are very tasty. Ate them when I lived in Maine. Folks there stop and pick them beside the road. Some salt and pepper and butter. MMMM.
More CO2 eventually means more O2!
Giant Dragonflies with wings 75cm wide. Life will explode!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meganeura
Haven’t really got a good grasp of evolutionary timelines have you.
Or indeed chemistry, the C in the extra CO2 is from fossil fuels, the O2 bit is from oxygen in the atmosphere, so more CO2 doesn’t mean more O2, it means less O2 (only by a barely detectable amount, but it has been detected).
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