Antarctica once covered in palm trees, scientists discover

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Marine1, Aug 2, 2012.

  1. Marine1

    Marine1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How does this effect our outlook on global warming?



    Today the frozen Antarctic ice sheet borders the Southern Ocean. But tropical palm trees once flourished there.

    An intense warming phase occurred 52 million years ago, leading tropical vegetation, including palms and relatives of today's tropical Baobab trees, to grow on the continent’s now frozen coasts.

    The surprising discovery came from a study of drill cores obtained from the seafloor near Antarctica. The results, published in the journal Nature, show that warm ocean currents and high carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the air boosted temperatures, allowing tropical vegetation to grow where visitors today meet only icebergs and freezing cold.

    "The CO2 content of the atmosphere as assumed for that time interval is not enough on its own to explain the almost tropical conditions in the Antarctic," said Jörg Pross, a paleoclimatologist at the Goethe University and member of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt, Germany.


    'The CO2 content of the atmosphere ... is not enough on its own to explain the almost tropical conditions in the Antarctic.'
    - Jörg Pross


    "Another important factor was the transfer of heat via warm ocean currents that reached Antarctica."


    Read more

    Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012...palm-trees-scientists-discover/#ixzz22PWQ00Lx
     
    waltky and (deleted member) like this.
  2. jackdog

    jackdog Well-Known Member

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    inersting, I read that study a bit back

    yes weather does change, sometimes drastically and quickly. Not to go off topic too far but by a few hundred years back but the were ice skating on the Thames in London in July. If you are interested such things look into the millennium project

    http://geogr.muni.cz/millennium-eng
     
  3. AceFrehley

    AceFrehley New Member

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    It doesn't affect mine one bit. On second thought, it reinforces it. We all know Earth's climate has been changing since the beginning of time. Earth has been through various climate changes, with Mother Nature adjusting every single time.

    To think that somehow, this time, we need to spend $7,500 for welfare subsidies to buy a hybrid, draconian regulations to stifle business, to change an outcome is absolutely silly. I don't even deny man is contributing to the changing climate. But to think we're a game-changer is just silliness. It's quite frankly a tool of leftists to give the federal government more power to control and tax the people.
     
  4. mdrobster

    mdrobster Well-Known Member

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    And the Sahara desert was once a thriving body of water.
     
  5. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Granny thinkin' `bout bookin' a vacation to the sunny shores o' Antarctica...
    :razz:
    Antarctic Peninsula Now Almost As Warm As 12,000 Years Ago
    August 22, 2012 - Rapid warming of the Antarctic Peninsula is bringing temperatures close to the warmth that followed the end of the last ice age, says lead researcher Richard Mulvaney, a paleoclimatologist with the British Antarctic Survey.
     
  6. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Uncle Ferd says, "Yea, gonna get so warm all Hell gonna freeze over...
    :dohtwo:
    Experts: Global warming means more Antarctic ice
    10 Oct.`12 - WASHINGTON (AP) — The ice goes on seemingly forever in a white pancake-flat landscape, stretching farther than ever before. And yet in this confounding region of the world, that spreading ice may be a cockeyed signal of man-made climate change, scientists say.
     
  7. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    :lol:

    And did an industrialized human civilization of 7 BILLIONS SURVIVE this "intense warming trend"?

    Nope!

    And at LEAST 99%, if ANY, of humanity won't survive the new one we are creating , either.
     
  8. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    I don't see how this has anything to do with global warming.

    Sure Antarctica used to have palm trees. It also used to not be at the South Pole.
     
  9. logical1

    logical1 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I guess we really dont have to worry about the .9 degree of warming that the global warming loons are going nuts over do we???
     
  10. Naruto

    Naruto Well-Known Member

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    What is means is no matter what we as humans do, mother earth will still beat us to it.
     
  11. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    No it doesn't mean that.

    The Earth has never had to contend with a race of billions that dump more pollutants into the air in a day than the Earth generates on its own in a year.
     
  12. Bluespade

    Bluespade Banned

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    Dream on guy. We are insignificant to what goes on this rock in the grand scheme. Weather has shifted from one extreme to another, as it will continue to do. Mother nature can wipe us on in a blink of an eye, and it would be as if we weren't even here.:rolleyes:
     
  13. Leffe

    Leffe New Member

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    Not at all. Our entire way of life, socially and economically is built on the state of the world today. Pretending that we'd be just fine in a world where Antactica had palm trees is stupid!
     
  14. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    Polar shifts are pretty dramatic wouldnt you think?
     
  15. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    'Weather' is not climate.
     
  16. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Not when they occur over millions of years, no. I wouldn't call plate tectonics dramatic in any sense of the word.
     
  17. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    And we dont have any data that proves how much of an effect that man is having on the current warming trend....
     
  18. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    Exactly.

    Do libs ever wonder how Mother Earth managed to affect climate without our help?

    Climate change is natural and normal.
     
  19. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    Then perhaps you can explain the CFC ban and the Montreal Protocol?
    http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/sc_fact.html
    http://laboratoryequipment.tumblr.com/post/18382194595/cfc-ban-may-accelerate-climate-change
    http://www.theozonehole.com/montreal.htm
    Or was it a Communist plot to seperate you from your dollars in some mysterious and sneaky way?
     
  20. Stagnant

    Stagnant Banned

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    Ah, a mainstream media article about global warming. There's no way that could go wrong. Like, misrepresenting key facts in the study, ignoring certain elements of it, or outright sensationalizing the results of the study. Oh, and it's Fox News of all places!

    ...Oh, and fox news doesn't say the name of the article, nor provide a link.

    Really? -.-

    Okay, it seems I'm being too harsh. This particular fox article doesn't seem to be too bad, all things considered. However, it fails to mention continental drift as a potential factor (like how Antarctica had quite a bit of its landmass further north 52 million years ago - not too far north, but far enough to matter) and it doesn't bring up the fact that in the same samples, the reported amount of CO2 was around 1000 PPM (very, very high).

    In principle though, I would not look to the mainstream media for climatological news. I try hard not to feed into the "media is biased" hype, but science reporting, in particular climatology, is one issue that the mainstream media consistently cocks up. Time and time again, we've seen them overhype a story on climate change by distorting the facts and creating a story far more dramatic and less nuanced than the actual paper creates, and then turn around a few years later to "debunk" the myth that they themselves created. This isn't likely some conspiracy, IMO, but it's simply how the media reacts - it needs sensational headlines, and "Gulf stream showing minor slowdown which is liable to by chalked up to natural variation, follow-up studies planned" is not sensational. It's a yawner.

    /soapbox

    Yes, like nuclear radiation. :roll: This idea is just so careless and senseless, and ignores the vast amount of research done on the subject. CFCs is a perfect case study of just how wrong this "we can't majorly impact the environment" idea is.

    Except that this is wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
     
  21. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    Please provide it then. When asked for it on this forum all i get is insults from the over zealous crowd. Please link the exact effect man is having over the normal warming/cooling trends this planet has gone through for billions of years.
     
  22. Stagnant

    Stagnant Banned

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    Please predict the weather on July 5th of 2020. :roll: Science isn't that exact. However, there's a lot of data that strongly indicates human activity once you understand the fact that, yes, carbon dioxide and methane are greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect is real.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/what-happened-to-the-evidence-for-man-made-global-warming.html
    http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

    And if that's not good enough, I welcome you to, you know, actually research the field, rather than expecting people like me to spoon-feed you information that you should already have before offering your opinion on the subject. I mean, what you're doing is akin to asking an evolutionary biologist "How do we know evolution is true" - there's simply so much data and so many facts involved that listing more than the most obvious ones would take days.
     
  23. snakestretcher

    snakestretcher Banned

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    I'll simply refer you to the Montreal Protocol, the CFC ban and the very real concern that the anthropogenic effect of increased UV radiation to dangerous levels, through ozone depletion, on plant life and, by extension, to our climate was enough to initiate a ban on the production of hydrofluorocarbons.
     
  24. BroncoBilly

    BroncoBilly Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This is the problem I have with you GW alarmists, please post anything that says man is the main cause of any climate change? Even most climate loons don't say that
     
  25. RP12

    RP12 Well-Known Member

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    Co2 levels have been higher long before the industrial age. I am not asking you for absolute proof i am asking for something showing what mans effect on the climate if over normal warming/cooling trends. Drop the (*)(*)(*)(*) insults it does you no good and shows all you want to do is insult and not debate.
     

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