I hear people say, “But, back in the time of the dinosaurs, the world was much warmer, but obviously full of life.”
To which I always answer, “Well, that’s an experiment we can run if we want to – but what we do know is that in those times there was no ice on the planet, and oceans were 200 feet higher.”
Usually gets a frown.
No one expects that any time soon, and frankly if things get that warm we will have had much greater worries much, much sooner. But for the sake of making an example, this video is worth bookmarking.
It’s just part of God’s plan to redeem the Electoral College.
I’d like to know if the sea level was just based on the volume of melted ice (cold water) or if some amount of thermal expansion was calculated.
(Jeez, I’m such a nerd.)
That’s a good question. Not sure how to calculate it but a good one
Peter, I admire your patience. This kind of crap really gets up my nose. People don’t realize that the dinosaurs’ world had nothing in common with ‘our world’ except the laws of physics.
As I understand it, some 35m years ago, India ceased cluttering up the Ocean when it crunched into southern Asia, causing a vast ripple which was to become the Himalaya. 15m years later, Australia, in the course of its northward drift away from Antarctica, had opened up enough of a gap for the great ocean currents to start up.
Australia continued on its merry way, those currents strengthened, distributing heat across the whole planet, and eventually continental drift produced the configuration that we recognise today as ‘our’ world. A stable state ensued and that – to all intents and purposes – was the beginning of ‘modern’ meteorology. It turned out that the natural equilibrium of that configuration corresponded to what we call an Ice Age. Every 100,000 years or so the ice was forced back by a temporary warming when the Milankovitch cycles lined up, but after a brief interglacial period (ten to fifteen thousand years) the ice returned.
This dual-climate, semi-stable system held good for at least 800,000 years if not two or three million. It’s essential to note that at all points on the climatic pendulum swing the total amount of CO2 within the whole system remained constant. For most of the time it was absorbed by the cold ocean; during the more clement interglacials some of it migrated to the atmosphere; but the total quantity did not vary. That is to say, atmospheric CO2 was driven by planetary heat.
Then we came along and started injecting new CO2 into the atmosphere. More precisely, Thomas Newcome invented the steam engine and we started burning coal. More and more of it. We didn’t realize what we were doing – how could we? – but, imperceptibly, the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere began to rise. Technology moved on and by the mid-nineteenth century oil and petroleum were contributing to the insatiable thirst for energy of a world whose population was exploding. The beginning of the 20th century marks a distinct upturn in the rate of accumulation of atmospheric CO2. This continued unabated till, by the end of the 20th century, we had wrought a fundamental change so drastic, so horrendous in its implications that even the scientific community was reluctant to shout it from the roof tops: we’d knocked System Earth out of kilter. Planetary temperature was now driven by atmospheric CO2.
Logically, then, nothing will ever be the same again.