Monday, August 22, 2005

The BIG risk in Global Warming isn't what you think

It's not just a gradually rising ocean and changing temperature and precipitation patterns, it's a wholesale unhinging of the climate as we know it...

"During the last million years or so, glacial periods and interglacials have alternated as a result of variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters. Based on Antarctic ice cores, more detailed information is available now about the four full glacial cycles during the last 500,000 years. In recent years it was discovered that during the last glacial period large and very rapid temperature variations took place over large parts of the globe, in particular in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. These abrupt events saw temperature changes of many degrees within a human lifetime. In contrast, the last 10,000 years appear to have been relatively more stable... "

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/042.htm

The risk of reaching an heretofore unknown tipping point in the climate is quite real and very dangerous. You've been warned.

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