Ice Core Reveals How Quickly Climate Can Change

by David Biello - JUne 23rd, 2008 - Scientific American

Roughly 14,700 years ago the weather patterns that bring snow to Greenland shifted from one year to the next—a pattern of abrupt change that was repeated 12,900 years ago and 11,700 years ago when the earth’s climate became the one enjoyed today—according to records preserved in an ice core taken from the northern island. These speedy changes—transitions from warming to cooling and back again—in the absence of changes in greenhouse gas could presage abrupt, catastrophic climate change in our future.

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Sediment cores from the ocean show that forests of spruce and even fern grew on Greenland just 125,000 years ago.

However the fact that all of these abrupt changes, totally unaffected by "fossil fuel" use (in quotes because petroleum does not come from fossils . . . most politicians and reporters still use the term because they don't understand the issue) and inconsistent with CO2 gas levels, has not changed the mind of the global warming is caused by man brigade.

Oh no. This does not prove that we need to prepare for climate change by having cheap fuels like petroleum, coal and nuclear. It means we must work even harder to assure that we can control climate change that we are completely in the dark about but ONLY in a politically correct manner. Massive change could be coming so lets do something not likely to help even if we don't have a clue what to do and whether it will help.