Feeling the Heat: Climate Change

I never said anything of the bloody kind. You asked what linked an ecologist to life on Earth 450 million years ago, I provided a definition of what an ecologist does, making it pretty clear that someone who studies the relationship between organisms and their environment would have studied that period and know a thing or two about it, and you magically construe that as my suggesting there was no life on Earth 450 million years ago?!
I'll say it an again; someone with a doctorate in Ecology can be safely relied on to know what the hell they're talking about.

 

I beg your pardon?!? curve ball, bait and switch? It was not I, that falsified statements. But of course, you believe those should remain unchallenged. Nice. Real Friendly-like. So nice to discuss various issues, based on mutual respect.

Do some reading of your own. I've stated, I'm not debating MMGW here. Its a waste of time: I'm not going to even attempt to provide you with all the answers to your questions, most which you are not going to accept anyway.

I've simply stated, we know far too little about the state of the planet 450 million years ago. But yeah, keep nagging at me to solve this issue for you. What a preposterous proposition. What's more, it's obviously done to muddy the waters, as there is far too little known about the period to actually come out and make any claims whatsoever.

1) We do not know, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to any degree of certainty, (was it 5x, was it 10x, was it 15x) prior to the start of the Ice Ages of that period under discussion. So continue handwaving, and you can certainly blame Al Gore, if it makes you all feel happier.
2) We know the sun was significantly dimmer 450 million years ago (an estimated 6% dimmer). (http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~infocom/The%20Website/evolution.html)

But, lo and behold: any attempt to actually explain this, meets with cries of "manipulating data", "corrupt scientist", "falsified evidence". Given the enormous lack of data, it's ludicrous to even bring it into the debate to start with. We simply do not know. Why would I even bother to speculate, in this thread, in this environment which is so hostile? Do the math and legwork yourself. Think you're going to accept any argument I make? How much CO2 is needed to compensate for 10 PW less energy striking the planet? Why do I even bother?


(today: 450 million years ago, it was less. More CO2 means greater absorption in the atmosphere. Were there more clouds? How much water vapour? What was the average temperature in that system? Was the reflectivity of the clouds higher or lower? The questions remaining are far too many.)



Effing wonderful.

You are perfectly free to take the available data (it's provided free by many organisations) and select your own period, and crunch the numbers yourself. http://www.smhi.se/en/Research/Research-departments/climate-research-rossby-centre2-552/climate-scenario-data-from-the-rossby-centre-1.34020 But see, in Sweden, they use the periods 1961-1990, 1991-2020....

Write your own programme. But of course, that data has already been manipulated for you by evil conniving scientists... Not that you couldn't trace it and confirm it's origin, but then you'd also have to do more actual work.

Debating the "prevailing question" with you is pointless, because if you were truly interested in an answer, you would've found the same information I did. IOW, you're not really interested in finding an answer, are you? It was more important to accuse me of baiting and switching, instead of actively contributing yourself from information publicly available.

 

In the above message, you quote me, and then write "There were no organisms on the planet 450 million years ago? I beg to differ-"

What statement of mine are you differing from?

It was you who magically construed.

"There were no organisms on the planet 450 million years ago? I beg to differ-"
was your strawman, as I made no such statement.

 

That's called sarcasm. I didn't say there no organisms on Earth 450 million years ago, I was pointing out that an Ecology Doctor- someone who studies the interaction between organisms and their environment for a living - is going to be a lot more knowledgable on the subject than the rest of us. I doubt very much if he only started studying ecology from the time Man appeared on the planet.

 

Biak-
How's this for an example of "we-don't-know-the-answer-to-your-question-but-trust-us-we're-experts"?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html

 

I don't think I'd go that far. That field has attracted a fair number of the sanity challenged.

 

Well, ok, can be relied on to have read something they didn't actually write themselves then. :evillaugh:

 

Sorry. ..GS rubs me wrong. Just had to say.... Thinking GS is the fired Piers Morgan, who has zero idea of who we are here. Fo Piers and yer like.
Our forefathers fought long and hard. FU GS.

 

Nope.

 

About the core premise mine may have changed a little. About some of the side issues yes.

 

Oh, my mind's definitely been changed. I now know for a fact I don't believe a bloody word the faithful come out with. Pmp40fire:

 

Mine too.

 

Not only that, Ecology being such a broad area of study, and in 1971, was still very new.

Look at modern text books on Ecology, or examine the modern circulum of Universties offering a degree in Ecology.

Often, you'll find "Paleoecology", as a subset of the "Earth sciences", a separate branch of specialisation, and not given much thought during three years of BSc in Ecology.

As a field of science "Paleoecology", is vague, and the inaccuracies pile up rapidly the further back in time you go, as the fossil record is notoriously poor at recording entire ecosystems. Therefore, even within the field of Paleoecology, you'll find most emphasis within the last 2 million years, and furthermore the vast majority of papers covering the latest 11,000 years. It is from these time periods, most, if not all, examples would be taken to cover "Evolutionary Biology", another important chunk of the Ecology Degree.

Automatically assuming that a degree in Ecology (even at PhD level, and especially 43 years ago) would provide any real deeper knowledge about the condition of the planet 450 million years ago, is hazardous. Questioning what specialties or his thesis were, wouldn't actually harm, IMO.

Consider if you will, reading "http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-4983.00080/pdf "Feeding Habits in Trilobites" (publ 2003), where one comes across such delightful comments as
"Yet comparatively little is known about how this morphological variety related to life habits."
"although the implication clearly is that radiations were into a variety of niches, it is unclear what these niches were, nor whether the morphological compass displayed can be related to their life habits."
"...describes how hyperiid amphipods have evolved a close relationship with medusoids and ctenophores, using them as a nursery for young, or in some cases killing them to construct their own floating accommodation. Such habits will forever elude palaeontological evidence."
"Throughout the rest of this paper we accept the commonly held view that the trilobite’s mouth lay at the back of the hypostome, and that the oesophagus lay above it."
"If the mouth were at the posterior end of the hypostome in its usual position it is difficult to see how Ampyx could have fed other than by filter feeding."
"The identification of trilobite feeding habits is of much more than anecdotal interest. An understanding of feeding history is important in sketching the history of ecosystem utilization through time, and is the basis of several palaeoecological generalizations."
"... how did so many trilobites co-exist? The future lies in quantitative studies of whole faunas to see if such an explanation is of general application."

So we can't yet answer these very basic questions regarding Trilobites (there are more than 20,000 species of Trilobites so far), one of the apparently most successful animals ever on the planet, with a comparatively large fossil set (existing for 300 million years), who continued to live 150 million years after the ice ages in question, why do we assume a PhD in Ecology from 1971, has all the answers on the Earth's Ecosystem at this critical time period?

 

Basically I've nothing more to add to my previous posts.

 

1. If I write e.g. 53,78 %, that means exactly that - no more nor less. If I write "every second or so", it doesn't mean exactly 50 % nor even necessarily close to it, but simply "far too many". Since this is not the court room please avoid nit-picking.

2. "Educated opinion" was in quotes only because it was a quote.