Are scientists able to predict the weather from about 500million years ago?

Question

im doing a project about global warming etc. i dont believe scientists can gauge he temperature from then. What do you think?

Answer 1

Are scientists able to predict the weather 2 weeks from now?

Answer 2

Yes they can, radioactive isotopes analyzed from coal seems can give a good determination of what the temperature as well as what CO2 was 500 million years ago. The problem with this data is that it is very low resolution, it depends on geologists taking samples from coal mines throughout the world. Atmospheric composition (the amount of Oxygen,Co2, etc..) can also be extracted from air bubbles in amber, remember Jurassic park? Mosquitos are not the only thing found in amber.

http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

Answer 3

First, dont confuse weather and climate. This is the mistake that all the anti-prevent global warming people make.

Ice core data can be used as a proxy for temp....

Answer 4

ice core samples are fairly accurate, but they only go back 800,000 years. The problem with ice cores is that they are found only in certain regions of the planet, however those taken from greenlend only go back a few thousand years, but agree well with those from antartica.

The ice cores use isotopic ratios to estimate temperature and solar activity. Since some isotopes are in higher concentration in the atmsphere when the sun is slightly more active; and there will be a higher fraction of heavy water in the ice during periods of higher temperature. (the heavy water condenses out of the atmosphere faster when it is cooler).

the other methods can show estimates from hundreds of millions of years ago, but they are not as accurate as ice core samples.

Answer 5

They cannot determine the weather back then, but through ice core samples they can tell how warm/cold it was. You are getting weather and climate confused. If you would bother to do a little research on this subject you would know the difference.

Answer 6

They scientifically deduce what the weather conditions were
like by reading and examining clues that are turned up.
Such as insects that were trapped in amber,fossilized
bones and trees.The growth rings on trees can be measured
and the spaces between the rings give clues as what the
weather was like in that year,carbon dating can give the age of the tree.Same with pollen that have been trapped in Amber time capsules many eons ago.Many other clues
have been left like animal fossils trapped and preserved
in rocks just waiting to be found and there secrets unlocked.
UK guy.

Answer 7

You can't predict the past.
Scientists are assessing the climate of the past by their study of ice cores drilled from the polar ice caps. Each and every meteorologicol event in the past has left a fingerprint in the layers upon layers of compacted ice. Mistakes, of course, can be made in their assessments, but peer review and a constant re-appraisal of the work they've done to date, will keep the information as accurate as modern techniques will allow.

Answer 8

Yes. Using 'Proxy' data such as ocean sediments, tree rings, and ice core samples, scientist can determine both the temperatures and co2 content from around 450,000 years ago.

By using this information, we can see that Earth has a natural heat/cool cycle that has occurred long before man.

Link attached:

Answer 9

I think they can find out a lot by looking at the layers of earth,rock and even trees.

Answer 10

These may be of use