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It’s Party Time: Learn How The Natural Causes Global Warming

August 12th, 2010 Posted in Green Living & News

Happy 35th Birthday Global Warming!

Thirty five years ago on August 8, 1975, the now politically charged and controversial phrase global warming was born in Wally Broecker’s paper, “Are We On The Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?”, published in Science.

These days the majority assumption of the exponential rise in the climate can be attributed to atmospheric carbon dioxide content pumped out by us — humans.

However can opposing science indicate natural causes of global warming?

Explore:

• Climate Change Throughout the Cenozoic Era: Where We Are Today
• Possible Natural Culprits
• Global Warming? How About Global Freeze?

Climate Change Throughout the Cenozoic Era: Where We Are Today

Meaning “new life,” the Cenozoic Era is the most recent of the 3 classical geological eras that covers the period from 65.5 million years ago to the present.

The 3 periods that make up this era are the:

• Paleocene
• Neogene
• Quaternary

Learning about the climate in each of these most recent periods could help unlock why the natural causes global warming.

1. Paleocene Period Climate

Lasting from 65.5 – 56 million years ago, the Paleocene period followed the mass extinction event at the end of the cretaceous period.

During this time, the worldwide climate was warm and humid.

In some places tropical conditions took place causing:

• Palm trees to grow in Northern Wyoming
• Crocodiles to swim off the coast of Greenland
• Warm seas that gave rise to abundant marine life including coral reefs

2. Neogene Period Climate

Consisting of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, the Neogene period covers roughly 23 million years.

During this time, climate cooled somewhat causing:

• A culmination in continental glaciations
• Animals and birds to evolve considerably

3. Quaternary Period Climate

Often considered the “Age of Humans,” this period marks the 2.6 million most recent years of Earth’s history, and entails extraordinary changes like the significant evolution of humans to our modern form.

Unfortunately for the cast of Ice Age, besides the flourishing of some species, others became extinct including:

• Sabber-toothed cats
• Mammoths
• Mastodons
• Glypotodonts

The climate in this period caused:

• Glaciers to advance and retreat from the poles carving and molding the land
• Sea levels to fall and rise with periods of freezing and thawing
• Ice ages that came and went (lasting about 100,000 years followed by warmer interglacial of 10,000 – 15,000 years)

Based on natural causes including the sun, volcanic eruptions, shifts, global winds and currents, the climate was constantly changing.

And although some scientist believe we are now causing the planet to warm, others think there are natural causes of global warming.

Possible Natural Culprits

The average temperature on the earth is rising.

Over the past century, the Earth’s average temperature has increased approximately 0.6 degrees C.

However this warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is the cause.

Check out some other researched possibilities.

1. Solar Variability: The Sun

Powering almost everything on Earth since the dawn of life, the sun packs seasonal impact change on the character of each hemisphere.

According to results published by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, researcher David Rind discovered that solar heating accounts for about 0.15 C, or 25% of climate change.

Happening on a rough 11-year cycle, the sun goes from stormy to quiet.

Stormy when there is a lot of activity near sunspots (dark regions on the sun caused by concentrated magnetic fields).

Quiet when there are no sunspots.

“That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation—which has a cooling effect. … We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly… solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle,” Ian Clark, a hydrogeologist and professor at the Department of Earth Science at the University of Ottawa said.

2. Earth’s Orbital Cycle

Every 100,000 years the Earth’s orbit around the sun changes.

By studying orbit shape (known as eccentricity) in relation to glacial cycles in ocean sediment cores, UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered an interesting pattern.

Lisiecki found the:

• Timing of changes in climate and eccentricity coincided
• Largest glacial cycles occurred during the weakest changes in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit

“The clear correlation between the timing of the change in orbit and the change in the Earth’s climate is strong evidence of a link between the two,” said Lisiecki. “It is unlikely that these events would not be related to one another.”

3. Ocean Salinity Variations

Professor Emeritus William M. Gray, who is the head of The Tropical Meteorology Project in the Department of Atomospheric Science at the Colorado State University, believes that global warming can be attributed to something natural in the oceans.

“This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential.”

These are just a few theories contributing climate rise to natural causes.

But besides drastic warming, some geologists say the real natural risk is a global freeze.

Global Warming? How About Global Freeze?

Do you remember the recent Iceland volcano Eyja Fjoell eruption?

Putting Europe and travelers at a standstill, it may be surprising to know that this eruption was quite small.

With the Earth’s temperatures rising, many vulcanologists predict larger and more frequent eruptions are due to take place as glacial ice melts, exposing more volcanoes and increasing magma production.

With that said, these volcanoes aren’t on the top of the threat list for many scientists, because many claim that under the earth are much larger volcanic problems — supervolcanic problems.

In a BBC Two report, experts argued the threat of human activity caused climate change is minor compared to an eruption of a supervolcano.

Supervolcanoes are:

• Not mountains, but huge depressions of collapsed craters called calderas
• Found around the world in subduction zones, where the Earth’s plates are dipping below one another

These zones include: the Pacific Rim, southeast Asia and Yellowstone.

The explosion of a supervolcano would:

• Produce energy equivalent to an impact with a comet or an asteroid
• Throw cubic kilometers of rock, ash, dust, sulphur dioxide and so on into the upper atmosphere
• Create a huge tent blocking out solar radiation
• Send temperatures plunging on a hemispheric global scale
• Be similar to a nuclear winter lasting 4 or 5 years

But before you start stacking your shelves with nonperishable items, although studies prove that these supervolcanoes are still active, many vulcanologists agree that they won’t give for decades (even centuries) without obvious warning sings.

The 7 signs would be:

1. Earthquakes
2. A massive bulging of the land
3. An increase of small eruptions
4. “Swarms” of earthquakes in specific areas
5. Changes in the chemical composition of lavas from small eruptions
6. Changes in gasses escaping the ground
7. Large-scale cracking of the land

No eruptions of a supervolcano magnitude have happened since the dawn of civilization, about 10,000 years ago.

This is the reason our civilization has been able to develop so significantly.

Climate change is a natural occurrence, that may or may not be heavily influenced by humans.

This however doesn’t mean you should feel free to abuse the earth.

Because maintaining a sustainable and green lifestyle should still be major priority to conserve and celebrate the Earth.

What do you think about global warming?