When glacier ice melts and reveals tree stumps, is that proof that global warming is cyclic?

Question

The tree stumps are about 7000 years old, how is mankind's use of fossil fuels and power plants responsible for weather warm enough for these trees to grow in the first place?
Doesn't that pretty well convince you that Al Gore is an idiot?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/meltingglacierrevealsancienttreestumps

Good Grief, Charlie Brown! If trees grew there 7000 years ago, when mankind was a hunter gather pretty much like the other life forms on earth and NOT burning coal, driving SUVs, and barbequeing in the back yard, then we are still in the cold part of the cycle and mankind cannot be responsible for the melting ice!!!!

Answer 1

Most assuredly. Also strongly indicative of a cyclic polar shifting. And regarding Al Gore... his is a ploy to institute a 'Carbon Tax'. So now let's see... they have found ways to charge us a tax on time, water, roads that already paid for... and now a Carbon Tax ... for what? Being a CARBON BASED LIFE FORM?

Answer 2

Global Warming has two components.

One is natural forces over which we have no control.

The second is caused by human activity.

Unfortunately Global Warming has become a topic for the popular media.

The popular media is designed to make money and entertain the public, not convery scientifically accurate information.


The popular media has an enormous amount of hype and misinformation on the topic of Global Warming.

Al Gore's movie, although better than many of the accounts in the popular media, still has a substantial amount of inaccuracy and misinformation in it.

Global Warming is a scientific issue that does not belong in the popular media.

The reason that there is so much misinformation about Global Warming is because it has become a topic for the popular media.

The result of a topic becoming entrenched is bad policymaking at the State and Federal Level.

It is time that we got the topic of Global Warming out of the popular media if the popular media is unable or unwilling to give accurate information on Global Warming.


With respect to the tree stumps. It is clear that the Glacier advanced 7,000 years ago indepent of any human activity.

The retreat today is probably due to a combination of factors that include natural forces over which we have no control and warming which is caused by human activity.


I can see by the responses that the misinformation spread by the popular media is fueling many of the responses rather than scientifically accurate information.

This is to be expected because most people do not have access to University Libraries where the scientifically accurate material is kept.


It is also sad that so few people have access to accurate and reliable information on a topic as important as the topic of Global Warming.



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Answer 3

The fact that the stumps were not scoured off indicates this is a very recent and non moving glacier, that would indicate that the ice there was only 7000 years old, not that all glaciers and ice were no more than that.

The fact that very much older glaciers are also melting puts the reality to your very faulty thinking, you find a dark pebble on a white beach and decide the beach is really black?

We know that things were a bit warmer and then colder, and that we might even be headed for another ice age if man had not showed up and changed that.

We also know that when the coal was laid down the whole earth was hot and steamy, most probably due to to the CO2 that it was made from. We know as well that with a bit more sun and CO2 Venus never had a chance, and was hellish from the start.

The real open question is if we go to the situation like the coal age or has enough Carbon been added from other sources to kick us into hell on Earth. It is already going to be bad, how bad is up to us.

Answer 4

I don't think anyone is disputing that there are cycles. Even when I was a child I studied ice ages and was aware that there were warmer periods between the ice ages.

The questions are 1) how steep is this cycle going to be? 2) Is human activity contributing to the severity or speed of this cycle, and 3) If human activity is to blame for the severity, what changes should we make in our behavior and technology?

There is tremendous evidence that CO2 levels are at mind-bogglingly high levels when compared to ANY time in history, whether you look at ice cores or mud cores or what-have you.

There is a great deal of evidence that the CO2 levels will continue to rise. When the ice in glaciers melts, as is happening all across the world, more sunlight is absorbed, warming the earth. IF the icecaps melt as appears to be happening, we'll see the warming of more water. If the icecaps melt, the tundra will not be far behind. When the tundra melts, it will give up much of the CO2 that has lain buried and frozen for ages, heating the earth more. Deep oceans will give up the green-house gases that have lain dormant...and so on.

Yes, these are natural phenomena, but the trigger for a possible cataclysm may well be human activity. Where is the harm in slowing down our use of fossil fuels? Even if it is a natural process, how does conservation hurt anyone?

No, the fact that cycles occur naturally does not convince me that Al Gore is an idiot.

Your apparent lack of knowledge of the implications of the increasing green-house gas emissions doesn't make me want to nominate you for MENSA, either.

Answer 5

There has never been a doubt that global warming is cyclical. There has been at least 4 ice ages with corresponding 'warm ages' long before man was even on the earth. As to whether man has 'caused' the recent climatic changes I think obviously we have not caused it. However, could the actions of man be accelerating or intensifying the effects of climate change? That is a very distinct possibility.

Answer 6

It's hard to believe there are so many stupid people on one web site.

If you live in a coastal city or town and nothing is done about carbon emissions, you might want to think about moving to higher ground. And good luck with the cost for moving every coastal city inland. You think the Iraq war set you back??? HA HA HA! Don't forget about the insurance claims!!!

I can tell by all the denial being spewed by head-in-the-sand retards here that we are doomed. Good luck young people. Thankfully I will be dead or in the old-age home (at least 100 feet above sea level) while you jerks are dealing with the mess. Have fun!

Answer 7

Glaciers are slow moving sheets of ice that scrape the surface. There will be no tree stumps. Gore won the Nobel prize, who is the idiot?

Gore has made some alarmist statements that may or not be provable. This is better than total disregard of a very real threat. The planet will do what the planet will do. People are living in places that they should not be living in, and doing things they should not be doing. Nature will not bend to human will. Man must learn to live with nature, not the other way around,

After reading your link, I see you are totally missing the point. Why did " tens to hundreds of meters of ice." all of a sudden melt?

Don't try to link human political ideas to natural science.

Answer 8

No. Scientists know that global warming can occur naturally.

What the so-called "skeptics" fail to grasp--because they are actually ignorant of science--is that that has nothing to do with the current global warming.

That is like saying that because some forest fires occur naturally, arsonists never start forest fires. In short--its completely ridiculous. The mechanism--the cause--of the current global warming has been proven to be a rise in atmospheric CO2. That's not debatable--it is a proven fact.

Finally, the sorce of the increased CO2 levels is known--it has been proved to be human activity.

The "skeptics" further revveal their ignorance by continuing to attack Al Gore. They don't even know enough to realize that Gore simply presents what scientists have discovered--he is not "inventing" or producing anyting.

There isn't any "debate." Just some noisy crackpots who are not taken seriously by anyone with any intelligence--nor do they deserve to be taken seriously.

Answer 9

Pollution and particles from civilization is throwing of the climate cycles.

The rate of the rate of change can only be described by human activity. So while the rate is natural, the acceleration is not. Without society, nothing short of a massive astroid or TMOA volcanos can cause such a rapid acceleration. And the jerk (change in acceleration with respect to time) is also unparalleled save the gravest of global catastrophies.

Answer 10

I believe the earth's atmospheres climate is on a cycle much larger than we can record and measure at the moment. Since things that are around can tell us some information about what life was like thousands of years ago, they can't tell us, to my knowledge, the exact tempurature of any given year. But the climate average changing a couple of degrees throughout the decades isn't going to send me into a panic, at this moment
Even people responding aren't consider the larger scale of a cycle. Referring to the last few years as if, they may have more importance than any other years in history. Without evidence to support that, because nobody can say what the exact tempuratures were at any given year thousands of years ago. The last few years could be the dark before the dawn. And it may have nothing at all to do with global warming.
You have to admit, the greenhouse folks only believe scientific evidence if it supports their 'theory'. Thats not being very scientific about it really.

Answer 11

From your link....

[ The radiocarbon dates seem to be the same around the world, according to Koch. There have been many advances and retreats of these glaciers over the past 7,000 years, but no retreats that have pushed them back so far upstream as to expose these trees.

The age of the tree stumps gives new emphasis to the well-documented before-and-after photographs of retreating glaciers during the past 100 years.

"It seems like an unprecedented change in a short amount of time," Koch said. "From this work and many other studies looking at forcings of the climate system, one has to turn away from natural ones alone to explain this dramatic change of the past 150 years." ]

How does this make Al Gore look bad rather than yourself? Do you global warming deniers think you will always get away with misrepresenting everything?