The last glacial period where earth was about 7C colder than today was about 15,000 years back. The warming took a few thousand years to reach round about present day temperatures. Dunno what the cause for that was. Some sort of orbital change perhaps, or tilt of the earth. I think summer advances/declines an extra day every 58 years or somethign due to axle tilt of the earth. Over a long period of time this could add up. There are similar long term cycles in orbit as well. But that explains a gradual warming but not a sudden "quick" few-thousand year warming after so long being cold. It may have been due to a tipping point being reached which flipped the climate into a new state.

One possible positive feedback that could explain such a tipping point is snow and ice. Ice being white reflects more sunlight rather than absorbing it and warming up. So as ice melts there is less sunlight being reflected, which causes more warming, which melts more ice, etc. So a positive feedback like that could explain why warming accelerated and temp rose ~7C in a few thousand years after being cooler for so long.

Then there is increased co2 (which likely started rising after, and because of, the temp rise) acting as a positive feedback too.

The question is really unknown, there are enough possibilities but I don't know exactly where the science is on each one at this time.

I do more to fight global warming than Al Gore does.

Most people do - which is why so few of us pay much attention to his blather.

By the way, I picked up a copy of his book "An Inconvenient Truth" the other day at Barnes & Noble. I read enough of it to see that it...
1. Appears to be have been put together by a 5th Grader - and not a very smart one at that.
2. Is literally FILLED with absolute lies and half-truths. I was particularly amused by some of the things he claims about agricultural practices.


The single best thing about that book is that it'd work well to start fires in my fireplace.

What a weak argument. I doubt this observation was based off of anything more than your pure contempt for anything Democrat.

If it is so teeming with full and half lies, then it shouldn't be difficult for you to directly refute them. Something that the top climatologists couldn't do: ABC News: Scientists OK Gore's Movie for Accuracy. If it was so erroneous, the top climatologists would have an easy time pointing it out, and I doubt it would be described by Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of scientists, as "I sat there and I'm amazed at how thorough and accurate...After the presentation I said, `Al, I'm absolutely blown away. There's a lot of details you could get wrong.' … I could find no error." But of coarse, Jefferson the all-mighty, source and expert of all knowledge on climatology, deems An Inconvenient Truth as erroneous, it must therefore be so!

Something about the image of Jefferson and burning books doesn't seem to be too surprising.

I didn't waste my money buying the book, you little cry-baby. I might pay a dollar for it - which is what I will probably be able to do in about a year when it's on the "Clearance of Clearance Table".

But if you'd like to help me out, you can buy the book and send it to me. I'll be glad to use it to start fires with.

Or... you can just continue to cry me a river.

FOXNews.com - Gore's Global Warming Film Gets Rave Reviews From Climate Scientists - Science News | Current Articles

Ridin', I don't think anyone is disputing the fact that our planet goes through natural warming and cooling processes. Of course we all agree that the last ice age ended through natural processes. Indicators of this time period show that this process took hundreds of years to occur.
The current trend is taking a lot less time! The evidence of our contibuting to the current warmng process is staggering. Just considering this fact alone should indicate some human influence to you:
If our current habits are speeding the effects of our warming trend and we can do something about it, to not would be irresponsible and not very smart and even maybe systematic suicide...... why would we do anything else but change this?

I stumbled on a couple of familiar names while checking out the list of people that recieved money from Exxon.
The Hoover foundation (part of Guidestar) was paid $95,000 by Exxon to write a ' Climate Change Support report."
Guess who works for Hoover!


How about the gentleman who wrote your Gore Link!
Hoover Institution - Schweizer, Peter F.
Peter Schweizer

ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Tech Central Science Foundation or Tech Central Station
ExxonMobil gave the Foundation $95,000 in 2003 for "Climate Change Support." According to Guidestar.org, a nonprofit research tool, the Foundation had 2003 income of $150,000 and $110,903 in assets.



TCS Daily : Technology - Commerce - Society
And also a member, the honorable Professor Robert Carter!!
Hilariously he first claims:
"The first thing to be clear about is that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant."
He writes what the people willing to pay him want to hear at the time.

think you are confusing carbon monoxide with carbon dioxide there though..

Good point. I guess I screwed that one up!

I get e-mails every weeks concerning this film. They are playing this at Umass-Lowell just about every week.