"So then, are you asserting without a doubt that GW has nothing to do with Man.."
Not without any doubt, but there has been reliable conclusions from geopaleontology that Earth did have multiple warmings and coolings, but the temperature swings never exceeded the 12C-22C range no matter what, even if CO2 concentrations were 6000 ppm and above. I treat the data as reliable because they are based on continuous traces of remains on certain temperature-sensitive organisms. In some sense they were "living thermometers", and they did not disappear, proving the continuity and margins of living conditions, see:
scotese.com
For your reference, our today's "global average temperature" is
between 14C and 15C, or still near the bottom of those historical cycles, so it has a substantial room to go up, man on no man, if the paleogeology is right.
".. and is simply another example of a change in the heating/cooling cycles that earth periodically goes through?"
Not so simply. Contrary to general misconception and under-information, our Earth does not go through heating/cooling cycles. Even between most extremes of Earth's orbital conditions (Milankovitch cycles), the change in total average yearly solar radiation does not exceed 0.1%. Yes, you hear this right, the solar flux is nearly constant, and cannot explain the magnitude of glaciation/deglaciation swings under a simple "solar forcing" linear response model.
The Earth goes through cycles due to poorly understood interplay of ice cups, their interaction with the ocean conveyors via atmosphere, and availability and shape of dry land for ice advances. There have been few simplified models of this interaction, and they show that the whole system can generate self-sustaining quasi-periodical oscillations on its own, without any assumption of changes in external solarization. However, current people of climatology prefer to disregard this idea, assume some "simple equilibrium", and continue to play with vastly elaborate models that are stripped off those instability features by design. So, they got what they wanted, and no more, whole natural cycles are outside the scope of their model. I think it is not right.
- Ali |
