Topic: Man made global warming -part XXVII

[germ]

I was doing some research on man made global warming, and decided to write up a little something on it so as for it to make some sense. The following is what I came up with. Call me a nerd if you wish, but I found it an interesting excercise. Your welcome to comment on it if you'd like.

[germ [OP]]

The current accepted age of the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years (plus of minus about 1%-45 million years). Science believes the first evidence of humanoid creatures (“Lucy”) developed approximately 3.6 million years ago. If that is that case, humans have existed on the planet for 0.08% of the planets existence. (Less than 1/10 of 1 percent). In 1709, Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first alcohol thermometer, and in 1714 the mercury thermometer; the modern thermometer. This means that we have been able to fairly accurately measure temperature for 299 years. This is about 0.00000664% of the planets existence. The industrial revolution, which is arguably the beginning of when man was capable of creating the greenhouse gasses that are claimed to be responsible for “man made global warming” occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. Most would agree that it was in full swing by 1830, which means that it occurred about 175 years ago. That means that we have had the capacity to create these gasses for 0.00000389% of the planets existence.

Scientists are capable of looking at evidence found in the natural world, and thru technologies like carbon dating feel that they can fairly accurately measure certain conditions that will give approximate ideas of what the global temperatures were like. According to the EPA’s website on global warming, they believe the accuracy of their estimations is pretty close up to about 900 A.D., and the accuracy deteriorates significantly after that due to lack of reliable data. If we make the assumption that our data and associated estimates are accurate, we can extrapolate that we have a “pretty good idea” of what the climate was like for 1108 years. If we look at this as a percent of the planets existence, we “know” what the earth’s climate has been for 0.00002462% of the planets history.

Now, lets look at it in terms that are a bit easier to grasp. If we break the entire existence of the planet into 1 calendar year, we can get a timeline of when we showed up and when our activities began to influence the planet. Doing the math, there are 31,557,600 seconds in a year. Dividing 4.5 billion by the seconds in a year, we find that 1 second is roughly 142.5962 years. Now, again, assuming we have accurate data and have made accurate estimates, we “know” what the world was like for about 7.7702 seconds, or put another way, since Dec 31st at 11:59:52.230. Humanoid existence would be the equivalent of 25246.08 seconds, or 7.0128 days. The first humanoid essentially showed up on December 24th. Taking it a bit further, we discovered how to measure temperature about 2 seconds before the year ends, which would be Dec 31st at 11:59:58. We have been in the industrial revolution for just over 1 second, which puts us at Dec 31st at 11:59:59.

Based on this model, we have populated the earth for about 7 days, and can probably explain what the earth’s climate was like for just over 7 seconds. We can accurately describe the world’s climate for 2 seconds. We have only been able to influence the global climate for just over 1 second. Does it make any sense that we are capable of completely altering the world’s climate in 1/31557600 of a year? I’d argue that it is pretty presumptuous of us to believe that we have that much power.

Lets not confuse pollution with global warming. We have been absolutely horrible stewards of our natural resources and beauty. There are very few places that do not show evidence of human activity, and as such are to some degree or another are polluted. Pollution does not equal global warming.

[NorCalToy]

dude....good call.
 im gonna print this out for my math teacher to read.

[Hammerhead]

[*** YELLER ***]

 


could you explain it to me in stupid human terms 

to many numbers and to many words do you have any pictures to back up yer claims 



 

[79coyotefrg]

can you present a pie chart perhaps





i like pie

[*** YELLER ***]

UMMMM.......  PIE 

[abnormaltoy]

can you present a pie chart perhaps





i like pie

Pi are square

[abnormaltoy]

The current accepted age of the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years (plus of minus about 1%-45 million years). Science believes the first evidence of humanoid creatures (“Lucy”) developed approximately 3.6 million years ago. If that is that case, humans have existed on the planet for 0.08% of the planets existence. (Less than 1/10 of 1 percent). In 1709, Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first alcohol thermometer, and in 1714 the mercury thermometer; the modern thermometer. This means that we have been able to fairly accurately measure temperature for 299 years. This is about 0.00000664% of the planets existence. The industrial revolution, which is arguably the beginning of when man was capable of creating the greenhouse gasses that are claimed to be responsible for “man made global warming” occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830. Most would agree that it was in full swing by 1830, which means that it occurred about 175 years ago. That means that we have had the capacity to create these gasses for 0.00000389% of the planets existence.

Scientists are capable of looking at evidence found in the natural world, and thru technologies like carbon dating feel that they can fairly accurately measure certain conditions that will give approximate ideas of what the global temperatures were like. According to the EPA’s website on global warming, they believe the accuracy of their estimations is pretty close up to about 900 A.D., and the accuracy deteriorates significantly after that due to lack of reliable data. If we make the assumption that our data and associated estimates are accurate, we can extrapolate that we have a “pretty good idea” of what the climate was like for 1108 years. If we look at this as a percent of the planets existence, we “know” what the earth’s climate has been for 0.00002462% of the planets history.

Now, lets look at it in terms that are a bit easier to grasp. If we break the entire existence of the planet into 1 calendar year, we can get a timeline of when we showed up and when our activities began to influence the planet. Doing the math, there are 31,557,600 seconds in a year. Dividing 4.5 billion by the seconds in a year, we find that 1 second is roughly 142.5962 years. Now, again, assuming we have accurate data and have made accurate estimates, we “know” what the world was like for about 7.7702 seconds, or put another way, since Dec 31st at 11:59:52.230. Humanoid existence would be the equivalent of 25246.08 seconds, or 7.0128 days. The first humanoid essentially showed up on December 24th. Taking it a bit further, we discovered how to measure temperature about 2 seconds before the year ends, which would be Dec 31st at 11:59:58. We have been in the industrial revolution for just over 1 second, which puts us at Dec 31st at 11:59:59.

Based on this model, we have populated the earth for about 7 days, and can probably explain what the earth’s climate was like for just over 7 seconds. We can accurately describe the world’s climate for 2 seconds. We have only been able to influence the global climate for just over 1 second. Does it make any sense that we are capable of completely altering the world’s climate in 1/31557600 of a year? I’d argue that it is pretty presumptuous of us to believe that we have that much power.

Lets not confuse pollution with global warming. We have been absolutely horrible stewards of our natural resources and beauty. There are very few places that do not show evidence of human activity, and as such are to some degree or another are polluted. Pollution does not equal global warming.

Over the eons...the trend overall, is toward cooling. We've gone from a molten surface to the present conditions.

I'm more concerned about the possibility/probability of future ice ages...historically, there has been much more suffering associated with cold climes than during more temperate times (even today, more people die from cold weather exposure than from exposure to heat...not counting deaths in fires).

[Bazzi]

I am kinda just marking this for future reading. even tho I haven´t read it I am gonna comment.
my feeling is that an ice age is coming I think before and ice age can start the global warmin has to go down, I am having a hard time to explain this but I think global warming /cooling is a repeat circle. first it has to become warm for it to become cold again. ....  so to explain my  theory, the temp measurements haven´t been around for more than 50-70 years or so. even tho scientist can read from landscapes and so on that the earth used to be cooler and warmer. I think the temp moves up and down over the years and then we are talking about 2-300 years or so. my theory is that we are witnessing a down slide for the past decades and my hope is that it will hit rock bottom (water will rice, ice will melt and so on) then it will get colder again, and ice will form and so on...

and also just to make notice, these are my thoughts and only based on my feeling. nothing else

[germ [OP]]

I'm more concerned about the possibility/probability of future ice ages...historically, there has been much more suffering associated with cold climes than during more temperate times (even today, more people die from cold weather exposure than from exposure to heat...not counting deaths in fires).

I'm with you! The last 400 thousand years have been the most calm (tempurature wise) than planets previous history (of course this is based on their "best guess") I saw something on discovery channel where they were suggesting that there was an ice sheet almost 100feet deep, and in some places even thicker. I've even seen it estimated that they were up to a mile thick. Doubt we'd be able to wheel in that for very long.

The overall tendincy for the earth is cooling. Although not sure how long it will last. As the tetonic plates shift, it will form cracks that will allow the heat from the earths core to come to the surface.

Erik

[abnormaltoy]

This http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1085359/Global-warning-We-actually-heading-new-Ice-Age-claim-scientists.html came out a few weeks ago...good article.

[Plekto]

Ice ages are counter-intuitive, though.

What happens is that the planet heats up and the ice caps melt.  This causes massive sea rises and dilutes the oceans with all of the fresh water.  At least on the top layers where they circulate the most.  When they stop circulating, so do the major ocean currents that keep the planet's oceans in balance.  Bye-bye gulf stream and similar areas.  Hello very very cold water basically moving nowhere.   The planet gets cold very quickly due to this natural thermostat.  The last time that this happened, the entire process from hot to ice age starting took less than a hundred years.

So, yeah - human civilization is screwed.  Humanity, much less so, though there will be a LOT of people dying off in the distant future, since without our modern technology, we're only able to handle 2-3 billion people on the planet in a stable manner.  The planet?  It couldn't care less about us, really.  We're just the latest biological infection on its skin.

[germ [OP]]

We're just the latest biological infection on its skin.

Yup, once we're gone, the earth will shrug and say "glad to be rid of those parasites"

erik

[BigMike]

http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=64275.0 Hello Al Gore

[junya92toy]

You should also mention that 99% of the warming is caused by water vapor and 95% of the happens naturally.

[brainlessfool]

doing my part