Tipping Point
Jan. 27th, 2008 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stickmakerOne reason scientists just a few decades ago thought the Earth might be moving into an ice age is that the difference between moving into an ice age and moving into a warm period is very subtle. Climate - at least as it currently functions on the Earth - is a mathematically chaotic system. Tiny changes of input can result in major changes in output.
We now have more and better data, much of it from sources not known a few decades ago. The evidence shows that the Earth is moving into a warm period. This agrees with one of the shorter climate cycles, which runs about 750 years. The trough was towards the end of the Eighteenth Century, a period known as the Little Ice Age. We are now moving towards the peak.
Note that climate is a matter of averages, of trends. You can have an overall cold period in the warm part of the cycle, and vice versa. You can also have areas which run counter to the global trend.
The warming climate most parts of the world are currently experiencing is almost certainly not being caused by human release of carbon dioxide. However, that could make the peak warmer and wider. Even if it doesn't, there are many reasons besides that to reduce the human generated influx of CO2. And even besides _that_ there are many reasons to stop burning fossil fuel.
Of course, all it would take is a few major volcanic eruptions to drop global temperatures and start an ice age after all...
We now have more and better data, much of it from sources not known a few decades ago. The evidence shows that the Earth is moving into a warm period. This agrees with one of the shorter climate cycles, which runs about 750 years. The trough was towards the end of the Eighteenth Century, a period known as the Little Ice Age. We are now moving towards the peak.
Note that climate is a matter of averages, of trends. You can have an overall cold period in the warm part of the cycle, and vice versa. You can also have areas which run counter to the global trend.
The warming climate most parts of the world are currently experiencing is almost certainly not being caused by human release of carbon dioxide. However, that could make the peak warmer and wider. Even if it doesn't, there are many reasons besides that to reduce the human generated influx of CO2. And even besides _that_ there are many reasons to stop burning fossil fuel.
Of course, all it would take is a few major volcanic eruptions to drop global temperatures and start an ice age after all...
