The Geological Record of Climate Change and Why Today’s Increase in Atmospheric CO2 Is the Result of Global Warming, Not the Cause - Highlighted Article
- Posted On:
- Dec 12, 2024 at 6:00 AM
- Category
- Climate Change
From: Watts Up With That
By: David Shelley
Date: November 14, 2024
The climate is changing, and the geological record of climate change clearly shows that (a) we live in an unusually cold climate, (b) recent warming is neither dangerous or unusual, and (c) the main drivers of climate change are the sun, the oceans, and plate tectonics.
First, I will describe climate change over the last million years, and especially the last 120,000 years, including local (Christchurch, NZ) and other well-known examples. Then I will put this in the context of the last 540,000,000 years, a period known as the Phanerozoic during which most complex life forms developed and evolved. This period was almost always much warmer than today, with this warmer climate being punctuated by three important cold periods, one of which we remain in today.
I will then discuss in section 3 below the roles CO2 and our emissions play in climate. I will argue that almost all our emissions should have dissolved in the oceans to maintain an equilibrium partitioning of ca. 50/1 CO2 between the oceans and the atmosphere, which means that all other things being equal, CO2 levels in the atmosphere should have risen by only 7 ppm. This is not what has happened, and climate scientists have proposed, therefore, that our CO2 emissions must “hang around” in the atmosphere for 300 to 1000 years. However, that idea makes no sense, given that every water droplet in clouds is dissolving CO2 and transporting it via rain into the oceans. No reason to hang around at all. Instead, I propose that the observed ocean warming since 1905 (probably due to the sun, possibly volcanic activity) has resulted in the release of oceanic CO2, which is the main reason why atmospheric CO2 has increased by 140 ppm. I propose, too, that ocean warming is responsible for warming the lower atmosphere. Our emissions play no part whatsoever in the global warming.
I go on to discuss the disgraceful mismatch between facts and the political and activist commentaries on present-day warming. It is remarkable that the UN and climate activists do not correctly report what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes about severe weather events and their frequency. It is a fact that the IPCC finds no clear evidence for attributing most such events to the influence of human emissions.
I provide a section on agriculture and methane emissions. It is significant that a distinguished climate scientist has recently described those emissions as “not a problem”.
Finally, I discuss what comes next, climate-wise. A very cold glaciation in 80,000 years is probable. In the meantime we do need to cut our use of fossil fuels, but there is no rush, and we would do this, not to control emissions or climate, but because fossil fuels are valuable finite resources. (continue reading)