Scientists are too much times blind or afraid to discard their own old time theories
Uniformatorism is one such example.

By assuming the century-old (!!!!) theory that natural phenomena is the past are the same that in the present, scientists assume that the Earth or the Solar sytem does not change.

Well, what if the pole shifts sometimes once in a while and antarctida was located offset from the south pole 14 millions year ago?

What if there was a variation in solar output and the weather was too hot then?

What if there was a massive release of CO2 combined with other things and then the weather just got too warm?

There are many possibilities and we should be open to all of them! Scientists sometimes stick like children to theories, as if nothing else could exist.

The same happens today. The climate may vbe changing due to man, due to natural cycles, or both. But whatever holds to be true, stopping our pollution and the human impact is one logical solution, since at least eliminates other ecological problems.

It�s easy the solution: check what other fossils existed in other locations in the world exactly 14 millions years ago, and trace, without preconceived ideas, what was the climate in different parts of the world. Assuming of course no nother phenomena changes the readings of carbon dating!

I think I saw an oil platform in the photo...

I guess those dinosaurs where as smart as us!

Today, summer temperatures at the site average between 5 to -4 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 20 degrees Celsius).

There are so many things wrong with this sentence, it is difficult to know where to start analyzing it. Typical National Geographic reporting, apparently written by high school science dropouts.

Last month's issue was titled "Why The West Is Burning" - in a year when most of the west (outside of California) has had an exceptionally quiet year. That is why 80% of the country's firefighters have been able to go to California.

I used to love National Geographic, but they have recently become little more than a global warming propaganda outlet.

This is interesting, but I am confused.
Was there any doubt that the earth was a lot warmer millions of years ago? Reply: No, but this is about Antarctica.
Does it have any bearing on the debate about the cause of the 20th century's climate optimum cycle?
How does it relate? Reply: According to the report, this finding will help scientists better understand the effects of global warming. Also, I thought it was interesting.
Just asking, not arguing.

Hi Brett, Katie,

Discuss Energy Environment Issues :
Energy Environment Forum
It will be great to have you there !

So how much CO2 and other greenhouse gases were present and why when these little buggers lived?

A green Antarctica? That painting of Antarctica almost looks like a vacation destination in the South Pacific.

And this has no bearing on any minute climate fluctuations we see today? Is it that hard to put 2 and 2 together?

This would appear to be somewhat damning.

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/DavidEvansmissingsignature.pdf

Excerpt:
So an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of the recent global warming. So we
now know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global
warming.

Patrick,

I work at NSF which, as I'm sure you know, runs the Antarctic program. I can guarantee that Antarctica is not at 15-20 degrees C. ROFL.

I don't know what pollution has to do with global warming. Most greenhouse gases aren't pollutants, unless we want to say natural emissions are well, natural, but the same emissions from man-made sources are pollutants.

I do know we should be focusing our efforts on reducing pollution instead of worrying about those misnamed greenhouse gases. The cost of not emitting greenhouse gases is high and it's not been shown that those emissions are causing us any harm.

Darren:
Your last post shows your ignorance of the AGW issues. Part of the reason we have such a gross quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere is that our land abuse, the killing of forests, leaves carbon less sinks, to be sequestered in. Eighty percent is usually diffused into the oceans, but the oceans are turning around CO2 at a faster rate, as their absorption isn't infinite. Is it me, or do all you skeptics jump on AGWers like a bunch of tics. Why don't you guys take a page from PH's playbook and make a statemnt yourself on an issue for this board. It's 90 degrees here today so why don't you Darren write something I can jump on.Give a fellow scientist a break.
KIPP

Normally I refrain from unloading on a post but Paulo's is bad or wrong in so many ways I can't help. The geographic poles don't shift ( the magnetic pole reverses ) and it is the plates that are drifting about. Antarctica was on it's way south 60 - 80 million years ago & has been more or less in it's current location since that trip. Regarding uniformitarianism ( not uniformatorism which I believe is the study of uniforms on terrorist dinosaurs ) processes are the key ( as in water running downhill in the past as it does in the present ) from Wikipedia ...Uniformitarianism, in the philosophy of science, is the assumption that the natural processes operating in the past are the same as those that can be observed operating in the present. Its methodological significance is frequently summarized in the statement: "The present is the key to the past."

The concept of uniformity in geological processes can be traced back to the Persian geologist, Avicenna (Ibn Sina), in The Book of Healing (1027).[1][2] Uniformitarianism was later formulated by Scottish naturalists in the late 18th century, starting with the work of the geologist, James Hutton, which was refined by John Playfair and popularised by Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology of 1830. The term uniformitarianism was coined in 1832 by William Whewell, who also coined the term catastrophism for the preceding idea that the Earth had been created through supernatural means and had then been shaped by a series of catastrophic events caused by forces which no longer prevailed.
I would finish by stating my amazement that Paulo mocks something that is " century old " ... as Stephen Hawking says in his book on Newton, Einstein etc ... he stood on the shoulders of giants, and Paulo he wasn't refering to their physical height!

One of the biggest reasons for the warming of Antarctica at that time was the fact that the Drake passage was closed off, therefore blocking off the current Circumpolar Ocean Current:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Passage

"There is no significant land anywhere around the world at the latitudes of the Drake Passage, which is important to the unimpeded flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current which carries a huge volume of water (about 600 times the flow of the Amazon River) through the Passage and around Antarctica."

"The passage is known to have been closed until around 41 million years ago according to a chemical study of fish teeth found in oceanic sedimentary rock. Before the passage opened, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were separated entirely with Antarctica being much warmer and having no ice cap. The joining of the two great oceans started the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and cooled the continent significantly."

From the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum

"The Paleocene/Eocene boundary, 55.8 million years ago, was marked by the most rapid and significant climatic disturbance of the Cenozoic Era."

Called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), "The event saw global temperatures rise by around 6C over 20,000 years, with a corresponding rise in sea level as the whole of the oceans warmed. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations rose, causing a shallowing of the lysocline."

Definition of the lysocline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysocline

The most likely cause of the PETM warming event past it's initial perturbation phase was the methane clathrate destabilization that dramatically increased atmospheric methane concentrations.

I believe that the only dinosaurs smart enough to build and drive SUVs 70 million years ago were Velociraptor and Ovaraptor. The drawing is on the coast, so they must have liked to drive them in the Antarctic jungle.

Patrick, don't you get the feeling that you are slowly being abandoned by all the big science groups...like NG.

Maybe its not all propaganda....

Why is it that heat waves always seem to propagate from regions (eg texas) with high AGW CO2?

Could there be a link....looks like even the weather is now being affected by climate change!

This also looks bad for AGW.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3361#comments

citation: D. KOUTSOYIANNIS, A. EFSTRATIADIS, N. MAMASSIS & A. CHRISTOFIDES �On the credibility of climate predictions� Hydrological Sciences�Journal�des Sciences Hydrologiques, 53 (2008).

Abstract �Geographically distributed predictions of future climate, obtained through climate models, are widely used in hydrology and many other disciplines, typically without assessing their reliability. Here we compare the output of various models to temperature and precipitation observations from eight stations with long (over 100 years) records from around the globe. The results show that models perform poorly, even at a climatic (30-year) scale. Thus local model projections cannot be credible, whereas a common argument that models can perform better at larger spatial scales is unsupported.�

Par Frank observes: �In essence, they found that climate models have no predictive value.�

And this is just plane delicious.

By Steve McIntyre
Hansen Update.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3354#comments

I think this find is fascinating, but all it tells me is that Antarctica was maybe much warmer supporting a different ecosystem, and then got much colder and who is to say which temperature range and thus ecosystem is considered to be in balance for the planet. When was the planet in balance?

paulm,

Texas, and most of the south, has cooled substantially over the last 70 years. Almost all of the warming in the US has been west of the Rockies.

Not sure what you mean about "big science" groups. APS just re-opened the debate. The Met just got a new chief scientist. A few more years of cool weather, and perhaps even some of our best and brightest scientists will start to get a clue.

Bill,

That's great that you work for NSF. Can you get me a grant? ;^)

Ummm, there are fossil flora and fuana on the antarctic continent. Thus for what ever reason, the place was warmer at one time. The planet can be affected by large extra solar system objects causing such things as planetary collisions, perturbations to orbiits and orientation of rotation to the ecliptic plane and magnetic as well as physical pole shifts and reversals. Heat waves generally start in the tropics.AGW has little relavence as far as that goes...the current heat wave ah normal stuff...FYI the north east region has been generally cooler than average and here in the Catskills the nights have been very pleasant to chilly. Just a few hot steamy days, nothing to get excited about. Whats more I have already spotted some maple trees starting to turn toward autum colors. This in late July! This is an indicator of a hard perhaps early winter on the way! Brrrrrrrrrrrr :) Reply: No, it is usually an indication of trees under stress.

Rick:Thanks for saving the meaning of those realities and fundamental laws that we understand from.
Paulo: here is an online site which has the laws and physics and the history of physical Geography.
KIPP

http://www.physicalgeography.net/home.html is a sight

Gary: You would bet your marbles on this inane reflection of some science gathered by who, to prove what. That you have proved that CO2 causes warming-NOT and that more would make no difference. That's not even talked about.If CO2 was not a greenhouse gas the world would be a snowball. Because you saw no gain in a certain area, and the IPCC was wrong in their models proves only that. It does not prove that AGW does not exist. What about methane,flourocarbons, and the point that the sinks that our earth used to have don't exist in any proportion to pre-industrial times. The CO2 may react in the long wavelengths doesnt mean that those wavelengths that the IR absorb in aren't sufficient to keep the warmth in. Try Again!
KIPP

Nancy Pelosi imagines herself to be savior of the earth, and will smite the evil ones who stand in her way.

after promising fairness and open debate, Pelosi has resorted to hard-nosed parliamentary devices that effectively bar any chance for Republicans to offer policy alternatives.

I'm trying to save the planet; I'm trying to save the planet, she says impatiently when questioned.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/12122.html

This warmer period started to end when the first continent-sized ice sheets began appearing on Antarctica around 34 million years ago, around the end of the Eocene epoch. These ice sheets expanded and contracted until around 14 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch, when a dramatic cooling took place and transformed the tundra into an environment "that today looks like Mars," co-author David Marchant told LiveScience.

REPLY: Really? Gee, I thought it was because future President of the World, Mr. Obama raised his arms on high and screamed: "ICE SHEETS, EXPAND," or parted the Red Sea. No wait, that was Moses, sorry I forgot.

paulm:
your links don't match up. Are you equating a heat wave in NC and SC to carbon emissions in TX? At least thats what I see when I click both your links.

Why is it that heat waves always seem to propagate from regions (eg texas) with high AGW CO2?

Now that's AGW thinking at it's finest! Before the industrial revolution, Texas had the same climate as the Yukon. Just like it up at RealClimate.org.