Scientists Have Uncovered a Disturbing Climate Change Precedent

[NickB79]

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/earths-scorching-hot-history/566762/

But the most striking feature of this early age of mammals is that it was almost unbelievably hot, so hot that around 50 million years ago there were crocodiles, palm trees, and sand tiger sharks in the Arctic Circle. On the other side of the blue-green orb, in waters that today would surround Antarctica, sea-surface temperatures might have topped an unthinkable 86 degrees Fahrenheit, with near-tropical forests on Antarctica itself. There were perhaps even sprawling, febrile dead zones spanning the tropics, too hot even for animal or plant life of any sort.

This is what you get in an ancient atmosphere with around 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. If this number sounds familiar, 1,000 ppm of CO2 is around what humanity is on pace to reach by the end of this century. That should be mildly concerning.

Welcome to the future. Invest in farmland in Siberia and Canada.

[tonyt53]

1. 50 million a yeas ago wasn't the Arctic (what it is now) circle around what is now TN?

[canetoad]

5. It may well have been

The earth's plates have moved around a lot. However the planet had a location we now call the North Pole at 90 degrees North.

[csziggy]

6. The continents moved around some but were not that far off

Here is a view of the continents about 50 million years ago:

http://dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth/#50

At that site you can select what time you want to view - it's interesting.

The Arctic and Antarctic were not that different then than they are now.

[ffr]

2. Because fossil fuel carbon was organic life that once digested Sunlight.

So in a way, humans are releasing millions of years of sequestered Sunlight within a century or two.

Where Does the Energy in Fossil Fuels Come From?


A Solar Power Bank

All the energy in oil, gas, and coal originally came from the sun, captured through photosynthesis. In the same way that we burn wood to release energy that trees capture from the sun, we burn fossil fuels to release the energy that ancient plants captured from the sun. We can think of this energy as having been deposited in a natural solar power bank over millions of years. - MTU.edu

[roamer65]

3. We need to start serious population reduction or our planet will do it for us.

[spinbaby]

4. I'm in Europe now

Switzerland, Germany, now the Alsace region of France. The grass is kind of crunchy, trees are turning brown from prolonged heat and drought. All anyone seems to talk about is climate change. I’ve learned how many days of heat and how hot, how everything blooms a month earlier nowadays, how the vineyards are suffering.