What are the Causes and/or effects of Climate changes over long periods of time?

Question

What are the Causes and/or effects of Climate changes over long periods of time?

Answer 1

The earth temperatures rise to a maximum, stay there for a couple hundred years, then plunge to a low, as in an ice age. Then the warming starts again. That couple hundred years is needed to allow the oceans to warm up enough to support creation of an ice age despite deep cloud cover.

(It takes a lot of cloud cover to deliver those glaciers, and a lot of warm water to provide the cloud cover... remember that to create snow we need energy.

Now melting that globe-encircling mountain of ice does take a lot of heat, so even though the world is getting a lot of heat, it stays cold until a large part of the ice is gone. Even the occasional  rapid outflow of melt water can make the earth's climate shiver.

When we are a long time after an ice age, we start to have earth and seas warming up, and then finally we see more water vapour in the air,

More water vapour can result in more cloud cover, which cools the earth, but if we  get precipitation   the effect of increased water vapour is an increase in heat retention. With heat retention we get higher temperatures, and that leads to more water vapour, but also it leads to more emissions of CO2 and methane, all regardless of human activity.  But it is the increase in water vapour that contributes most to warming.

Changes in solar output undoubtedly do have an influence, triggering temperature increases that reduce cloud cover. Only in this particular cycle can we say that man made CO2 output may have contributed meaningfully. In every previous cycle we acknowledge that earth has gone from ice age through a maximum temperature, and back to an ice age without human assistance.

We might be raising our temperatures, we may be bringing on our temperature maximum earlier, may be leading to an earlier ice age.

We have no documentation going back to the previous ice age, so we can not say we will all survive an ice age. But delaying an ice age will not assure us of being able to survive it either.

Heck folks, we do not even know that all of us will get through world wide food shortages that are in progress. Why be concerned about centuries later?

Answer 2

Effects are TAX TAX TAX

  Al Gore “Climate” Tax Coming Soon

Grassfire.org Alliance

April 20, 2008

From the Desk of:

Steve Elliott, President, Grassfire.org Alliance

You and I are about to get hit with a $1.2 trillion tax increase all in the name of Al Gore’s radical Climate Alarmist agenda.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are being pushed into this massive effort to create the largest expansion of government power in our nation’s history. This new legislation — called Lieberman-Warner — is expected to be voted on in the next 60 days.

Today, Grassfire is launching a National Petition opposing this new Al Gore/Carbon Tax Scheme and the Climate Alarmist agenda. Please go here to sign:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?u=6053&RI...

If you need more information on the Climate Alarmist agenda, please go here:

http://www.grassfire.net/r.asp?U=6048&RI...







Please do not misunderstand what I’m saying. I fully support the very "conservative" concept of being good stewards of the earth. But I cannot sit by silently as Al Gore and the Climate Alarmists push a massive taxing scheme on us that will have little or no real effect on the alleged problem of rising CO2 emissions.

Especially when there is a growing body of scientific evidence that brings the Al Gore theory into question. In fact, it is becoming clear that the entire Al Gore Climate Alarmism is nothing more than a Hoax!

Why?

Because even if Al Gore’s catastrophic predictions were true, all the so-called "solutions" of the Climate Alarmists wouldn’t even put a dent in the "problem" of rising CO2 levels!

+ + Just 60 days to stop this new, oppressive tax

I just took part in an important strategy meeting on Capitol Hill with key leaders who are working to stop this new tax scheme. The problem is, the Climate Alarmists are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into their crusade and they have just about every political and Hollywood elite on their side.

And now the President is caving in!

You and I are the final barrier to Al Gore’s massive, oppressive tax scheme. Please sign the petition today, and thanks so much for the stand you are taking.

Steve Elliott, President

Grassfire.org

Answer 3

The weather people said that global Warming was a HOAX!

Answer 4

The dinosaurs all died last time we had a climate change.

Answer 5

The most likely cause of global warming is the sun- there is a direct correlation between high sunspot activity and warmer temperatures, while the Little Ice Age that ended in the 19th century corresponded to an extended period of very few sunspots.  Although nobody is certain of the cause, it is believed to be due to the interplay between solar wind, cosmic rays and cloud formation.

As for the effect, history has shown that global warming has been very positive- the Medieval Warm Period was a time of vast improvement in the human condition when increased food production generated enough wealth to fuel the Renaissance.

Answer 6

I am 77 and I don't think the climate is very bad. Many years ago the dust-bowl when the dirt blow-ed for weeks. I think it is fine now.

Answer 7

Over geologic time scales, say 100,000 years and longer, Milankovitch cycles play a critical role in climate.  Solar output is also a factor, and can amplify changes due to the precession of the wobble and orbital eccentricities.  On longer timescales, 100,000,000 years or so, continental alignments are theorized to have very large effects on climate, perhaps leading to total glaciation of the planet.  All of these mechanisms can be affected by aperiodic phenomena such as massive volcanic output of sulfate aerosol and carbon dioxide.

Answer 8

THERE ARE SO MANY IT IS HARD TO COUNT! Climate changes are the effect of global warming. Global Warming is the planets natural way of protecting Earth from an ice age. It protects by only letting about 30% of the sun's rays bounce off of Earth. This may seem great, but It is getting to be too much of the warmth kept in, and it is our fault. We are letting to much CO2, ( Carbon Dioxide) escape into our atmosphere! The reason  is from all of the transportation. Doing little things like buying rechargable batteries is not enough anymore. Well, anyway, now we are only letting about 15% of the sun's heat escape from Earth's atmosphere, and this is causing the Earth to get too hot, too quickly. Almost 1/2 of Greenland has melted and fallen into the ocean. If all of it melts (which is expected in the next ten years if we keep at this pace) 20 feet will bw added to the shores of water. If more melts after that of of Antarctica, that's another 20 feet, which adds up to 40 feet. If 40 feet of water is added, many large cities will be under water, including London. Almost all of China will be under water. Florida will be under water. That's not all. With all the warmth, animals will die. The food chain will be virtually distroyed. Humans will fight over food. Shipping of food will be stopped. We will die. It is so scary to think about! water will be in a severe shortage, and again, it leads to our death. Scientists think that if we keep the way we are going, the Earth will be destroyed within the next 30 years. You may think, "Oh, I'll be gone by then, so it doesn't matter." What about your children?