Scientists don't know what would warm the Earth

As hard as they try the Harvard Gazette just could not get a convincing case that there is human caused global "climate change".

"A key element of our mission is to present current science on issues of importance," said HMNH Executive Director Elizabeth Werby in introducing [Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Daniel] Schrag. "It [the exhibit] is incredibly timely and incredibly urgent."

Schrag drew on the lessons offered by Venus' hot atmosphere, Mars' cold one, and Earth's own past of fire and ice to illustrate how atmospheric carbon dioxide has affected planetary temperatures.

And the Gazette goes on for soooooo long about CO2 creating an inevitible warming.

The problem with their portrayal is they ignore the very example they used to claim man-made global warming. They point to millions of years ago to help prove the case that man is creating climate change, but ignore the fact that many warming & cooling epochs occurred without the existance of SUVs, flourocarbons and humans. They fail to ever explain the difference between those times so long ago (when heat waves lasted 60-million years) and the past 50 years.

They claim mankind is actually accelerating the heat wave which implies that somehow over the past 50-60 years we have the power to do something that took 60-million years at a time all while being 100% powerless to reverse the trend.

Whatever the cause, Schrag said the event is similar to what's going on now, except that now we are increasing greenhouse gases more rapidly with the burning of fossil fuels.

"We're doing it more quickly by burning coal, oil, and gas, but it's really the same thing," Schrag said.

Same as what?

Scientists are particularly interested in a dramatic warming period at the beginning of the Eocene [heat wave era that lasted 60-million years], when global temperatures shot up 8 to 10 degrees Celsius in the geologically short period of 10,000 years. Some researchers believe the temperature spike resulted from a bubble of greenhouse gas - perhaps methane - bursting from the ocean floor or from the relatively sudden drying of what had been an ocean after India collided with the Asian continent, releasing greenhouse gases as organic material on the sea floor dried and decomposed.

Again, how did we get so powerful to warm so quickly yet powerless to cool?

Scientists believe that the global average temperature will increase between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius by century's end. That may not sound like a lot, Schrag said, but global temperature was just 4 to 5 degrees Celsius lower during the last glacial maximum, when the Boston area was buried in ice.

That means the coming temperature change is potentially dramatic. Sea levels could rise by one-and-a-half meters owing to expansion of warming seas. Should either the glacier covering Greenland or part of Antarctica collapse and slide into the sea, sea levels could rise far more, six to seven meters.

Two things. They forgot to mention that the Antarctican ice shelves are expanding and I have yet to have this concern addressed: if the ice in the oceans is 99% underwater (only about 1% of icebergs/ice shelves are above surface) and water contracts when melted from ice to water then how will the water levels rise?

And the true cause of the Global Warming crusade comes out. It is all about the poor vs the rich.

Schrag said that the greatest impact will likely be on the poor, who have fewer resources with which to adapt to changes, but that doesn't mean the wealthy will be unaffected.

"In general, people will be worst affected by climate change when they are too poor to adapt to climate change," Schrag said. "But rich people will be affected by climate change too, in ways that will cost a lot."

The final thought on this vacuous article is that the Global Warming nuts present as evidence of the Greenhouse-gases-are-causing-global-warming-climate-change drivel the case of Venus and Mars.

Venus, with surface temperatures of 460 degrees Celsius, is an example of a planet where the greenhouse effect has run out of control. Though Venus is closer to the sun than Earth is, its high temperature is largely the result of its atmosphere trapping and holding the sun's energy. The atmosphere is about 100 times denser than the Earth's and is made up almost entirely of carbon dioxide.

At the other extreme is Mars, with surface temperatures of minus 50 degrees Celsius. Though Mars' atmosphere is also largely made up of carbon dioxide, it is 100 times thinner than the Earth's, making it unable to retain enough heat to warm it up.

Again, don't let the facts get in the way of a good Chicken Little story. If the Venus-warm/Mars-cold example holds water then why is it the case that the polar caps on Mars are melting?

Hello, Global Warming believers...when does the sky fall?

Something else they ignore is the Solar System itself.