Somehow, I can't believe I've taken so long to get around to making this point. Al Gore is, apparently, really fond of inconvenient truths. The Keynote (NOT Powerpoint by the way) presentation he made is atrocious. Don't blame Apple. The software's good but the content's rubbish. It shows what a lack of good scientific training does for a man. The rest of the show is self-publicity !
Well here's one for him. 50 years ago I had to learn the basics of the Geological Ages. Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian etc. I spent ages learning an acronym "Poor Cuthbert Ordered Six Devon Cream Puffs Though John Couldn't Even Order Mince Pies Properly - Hopeless ! That gave me everything up to the Holocene - although, now that we know the Ice Age (Pleistocene) may not have finished, the Holocene may be redundant - for the next few million years at least.
However, we then learned the main features of each Epoch. What do we know about the Cretaceous ? It was probably the hottest period ever on Earth. No ice anywhere. Not even at the Poles. If anything, the world had its most even temperature gradient of all time. Fossils of tropical plants were found within a few degrees the of the (then) Poles. Ocean temperatures were so much hotter.
Best estimates from sediment cores suggest that tropical sea surface temperatures were between 9-12°C warmer than today, whilst the deep ocean temperatures were anything up to 15-20° C higher than today's.
Any 4x4s ? Any massive burning of fossil fuels ? Evidence of human activity ? As usual, bearing in mind the Cretaceous Epoch was 144 to 65 Million Years ago, answers on a postcard please ...................
Well, Al Gore, c/o Apple Inc, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA - where's your response to this ?
1 comment:
Please explain to me how we can pump that much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere and NOT cause global warming far beyond whatever level of warming may be happening from non-anthropogenic causes.
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