Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

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_Res Ipsa
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:
Res Ipsa wrote:You mean as an explanation for climate change?


Sure. This guy, Dan Flores, said something to the effect that 5,000 years ago it was 6-8 degrees warmer than it is now.

- Doc


Not even close. Are you sure he said 5k years ago? The terms pluvial and interpluvial appear to be used in conjunction with the ice age cycles, which occur over much longer periods of time. At any rate, the term is just a description of climate — it doesn’t explain why the climate is that way.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

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_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Sure. This guy, Dan Flores, said something to the effect that 5,000 years ago it was 6-8 degrees warmer than it is now.

- Doc


Not even close. Are you sure he said 5k years ago? The terms pluvial and interpluvial appear to be used in conjunction with the ice age cycles, which occur over much longer periods of time. At any rate, the term is just a description of climate — it doesn’t explain why the climate is that way.


He was talking about Milankovitch Cycles:

https://www.universetoday.com/39012/milankovitch-cycle/

And his suggested time frame and degree variance was stated at this timestamp on the video:

https://youtu.be/HlQhFCUS1mg?t=224

eta: You can back the video up where he talks about MCs.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Doctor Steuss »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:pluvial

Thank you for introducing me to a new word!

Now I'm going to be itching for an opportunity to bust it out.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:pluvial

Thank you for introducing me to a new word!

Now I'm going to be itching for an opportunity to bust it out.


I feel like there's a good joke or come on in there somewhere, but you'd have to find a bunch of drunk climate scientists gathered in one spot to make it work.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Res Ipsa
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:He was talking about Milankovitch Cycles:

https://www.universetoday.com/39012/milankovitch-cycle/

And his suggested time frame and degree variance was stated at this timestamp on the video:

https://youtu.be/HlQhFCUS1mg?t=224

eta: You can back the video up where he talks about MCs.

- Doc


Yep, Milankovich cycles are what causes the ice age cycles. Here's a graph based on ice cores::

Image

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warmin ... ure-change

The cycles are lots longer than 5000 years, and many times more longer than the warming experienced over the last 100 years. Not only that, but if our climate were being driven primarily by the Milankovich cycles, we'd be slowly cooling, not rapidly heating.

I think what Dan may have been thinking of is what's called the Mid-Holocene Warm period. Here's what the NOAA web page has to say about it:

Paleoclimatologists have long suspected that the "middle Holocene," a period roughly from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, was warmer than the present day. Terms like the Altithermal or Hypsithermal or Climatic Optimum have all been used to refer to this warm period that marked the middle of the current interglacial period. Today, however, we know that these terms are obsolete and that the truth of the Holocene is more complicated than originally believed.

What is most remarkable about the mid-Holocene is that we now have a good understanding of both the global patterns of temperature change during that period and what caused them. It appears clear that changes in Earth's orbit have operated slowly over thousands and millions of years to change the amount of solar radiation reaching each latitudinal band of Earth during each month. These orbital changes can be easily calculated and predict that the Northern Hemisphere should have been warmer than today during the mid-Holocene in the summer and colder in the winter. The combination of warmer summers and colder winters is apparent for some regions in the proxy records and model simulations. There are some important exceptions to this pattern, however, including colder summers in the monsoon regions of Africa and Asia due to stronger monsoons with associated increased cloud cover during the mid-Holocene, and warmer winters at high latitudes due to reduction of winter sea ice cover caused by more summer melting.

In summary, the mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years ago, was generally warmer than today during summer in the Northern Hemisphere. In some locations, this could be true for winter as well. Moreover, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and we know without doubt that this proven "astronomical" climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years.


https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warmin ... arm-period

And here's a graph from data published in the leading article that used proxies to estimate global temperatures over the last 11,000 years:

Image

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... -holocene/

Data from: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198

The blue line is the reconstructed temperature. The red line is the measured temperature. Note that the anomaly in that graph is .4. Today it's about 1.0.

So, it's doubtful that global temperatures during the Mid-Holocene warming period exceeded those of today. But even if they did, the margins were talking about are tenths of a degree -- not five or six degrees. And on top of that, the Milankovich cycles cannot explain the current global warming.
Last edited by Guest on Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:04 am, edited 2 times in total.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

A good point .
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

subgenius wrote:If it is everywhere.....


Intelligent life may be rare, but simple life isn't. We humans may have won the cosmic jackpot, but for every jackpot winner there are thousands of smaller prize winners. It is a very simple concept to understand. Simple life is probably everywhere.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Nov 14, 2018 10:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.
_DoubtingThomas
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _DoubtingThomas »

Res Ipsa wrote:So, it's doubtful that global temperatures during the Mid-Holocene warming period exceeded those of today. But even if they did, the margins were talking about are tenths of a degree -- not five or six degrees. And on top of that, the Milankovich cycles cannot explain the current global warming.


Exactly!
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Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Hrm. I wonder where that guy gets the 6-8 degree variance. I'll probably have to google-fu something. I will state on record that if we were entering into a cooling period that I'm kind of glad we're warming. This is some serious BS:

Image

The site where I got that image stated we've probably delayed the next ice age by 100,000 years, so I'm fairly certain I'll be dead by then.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
Posts: 10274
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: Is Climate Change a Fermi Paradox Great Filter?

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Hrm. I wonder where that guy gets the 6-8 degree variance. I'll probably have to google-fu something. I will state on record that if we were entering into a cooling period that I'm kind of glad we're warming. This is some serious ____:

Image

The site where I got that image stated we've probably delayed the next ice age by 100,000 years, so I'm fairly certain I'll be dead by then.

- Doc


I googled around and looked at some of his stuff. I don't see any signs of him promoting nonsense about climate change, so I'd put it down to a goof. I don't recall ever seeing something saying 6-8 degrees warmer in that time period. Now, if you go wayyyyy back...

If I recall correctly, we were expected to be around 20,000 years or so out from an ice age. A little warming to counteract that would be fine. But we're going way beyond that.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
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