Since the little ice age the ended around 150 years ago isn't it likely "global" warming is just part of that?

Question

The middle ages warm period had global temps of 5-8 degrees warmer than today and none of the dire prediction occured then, in fact the people thrived at that time and the problems happened upon the cooling with the mini ice age which lasted untill the middle of the 19th century why do people believe all the doom and gloom predictions put forth by gore? History shows those predictions to be groundless.

Mr taco,
Maybe you need to look into the climate history of the earth before typing. You only show your ignorance when refering to something you know nothing about, and your stupidity for failing to research a subject before making a comment.

Kathy s
Since you believe man made co2 emmisions are the cause of global warming please explain what caused the middle ages warm period when there were no man made co2 emmissions? Or why since the earths climate is a dynamic and ever changing system and if it ever stabilized we would become either a white earth or a red earth, meaning an ice planet devoid of life or a hot dry planet devoid of life. Why we would not want the earth to cycle?

Answer 1

History is NOT geology or climate. And your assessment that the middle ages were 5-8 degrees warmer than today is inaccurate. Maybe you'd best leave the science to the scientists.

Answer 2

Scientists have considered that. But the observed data says that's not the explanation.

Starting about 40 years ago, the data shows that Man's contribution to climate exceeded natures.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The problem with other explanations is that they don't match the observed data nearly as well (or at all, really). The numbers just don't work unless your equations say that greenhouse gases are the main driving force now.

That's the reason the vast majority of climatologists support the fact that global warming is mostly (80-90%) man made.

Here's a telling quote. Note the crucial word "quantitative". Science is all about data and calculation.

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know -
Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

By the way the Medieval Warm Period was not several degrees warmer than today. Ten different studies, using different methodologies. They scatter some, but the fact that we're a bit warmer today is clear.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

Good websites for more data and information:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 3

I don't think saying "it's just part of that" actually explains anything though.
There's no normal baseline that the climate fluctuates around, but always tries to return to. Earth can't have just 'come out of' the Little Ice Age. There had to have been some forcing that made it come out.

If you want your theory to really explain something, you need to figure out what forcings were acting on the climate then that could have caused warming.
If it was a part of a natural cycle, we have to figure out what that natural cycle was.

Now, the forcings that caused the Little Ice Age to end are fairly well understood. They were partly anthropogenic emissions of GHGs, but prior to 1940 the majority of the warming was due to an increase in solar irradiance.

The anthropogenic warming signal didn't really start taking over until about 1970 (it likely would have taken over sooner, but for the large increase in aerosol production during the mid 20th century) .

As for the Medieval Warm Period, I think 8 degrees is far too high. It's true that many areas experienced warmer temperatures during that time frame, but global mean temperatures weren't significantly affected.

That may seem counterintuitive, but I'll try to explain.
You have to average temperature changes over a large number of regions to get a true representation of global or hemispheric temperature, so a global warm period requires that the warm anomalies in different regions be synchronous.

During the MWP, they weren't. So while many regions (such as Greenland) experienced temperatures that were as high, or higher than, today's, they didn't experience them at the same time; thus, global mean temperatures weren't drastically affected.

Answer 4

Because we have been belching CO2 into the air since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 1800's, more and more each year. How can that NOT have an impact on the earth?

Didn't we find out in the 1960's that the chemicals that we were using to kill bugs were killing animals and birds and humans? And then we took steps to correct the damage we had done to the earth and to the animals. Then why is it so hard for some people to believe that we are causing climate change, too? Can we really be so misguided as to believe that our actions have impact on the earth and the water supply but not on climate???

EDIT: I didn't say anywhere that I believed it was the sole cause of the warming. But I do believe that we have escalated the natural course of the warming trend by our actions.

Answer 5

I have a problem accepting that as fact.
My problem is many of the organisms that are being exterminated by such slight climate changes, currently occuring, didn't just recently evolve, and your hypothesis would suggest that they did.

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maybe you would like to explain it?

Answer 6

Actually, I thought I read somewhere recently that we should be in the middle of another small ice-age right now, and the fact that the global temperature is actually rising instead of falling is somewhat frightening to me.
How hot will it be during our next warm period?

Answer 7

People don't look at both sides anymore. They just count on the media to spoon feed them the information. The problem is that most media, television and newspapers both, are owned and run mostly by liberals. Therefore the news has a liberal/socialist bias. The liberals want us to stay ignorant so that we won't know how to vote them out of power. Now, a wise person might listen to the liberal media and a conservative media, like some talk radio shows, and find their own truths somewhere in between. The government schools, run mostly by liberals, is failing to teach kids how to research issues on their own. It is unlikely we will ever get out of this cycle. If you want to read something interesting, that poses an intriguing idea about why they are shoving global warming down our throats, read Michael Crighton's novel, "Fear."

Answer 8

Answer to Kathy S
In the 1960's it was thought that DDT affected the eggs of some birds, especially the Peregrine Falcon. Since then the studies show no such effect and the Environmental Protection Agency has removed the ban on DDT. But it is too late. DDT is no longer manufactured.

The problem is that DDT was effective in killing mosquitoes that carried malaria. Since the ban, millions of people have needlessly died from malaria.

The global warming fanatics will once again impose draconian measures to solve a problem that is a minor one at best and create world wide suffering in the process.

Answer 9

Speaking of History, anybody remember in the 1970's when the "scientists" were telling us that we were headed for a new ice age? Anybody?...

Hmm... anarcho-marxist enviromentalist wacos seem to have very selective memories...

Answer 10

Lies. Why don't you provide sources when presenting such controversial claims? Please show some sources and I will lay rest to those claims.