Quote:Pangaea was the most recent mega continent to have existed and the first to be reconstructed by scientists. The size of Pangaea was 148.43 million square kilometers 57.83 million square miles. Nowadays, the area of all the continents of the planet is 148. 33 million square kilometers 57.27 million square miles
From what I’ve read, Pangaea had little or no ice caps and as you can see had a surface area practically the same as exists today. Wouldn’t that mean that sea levels were at maximum, yet there was all that surface area above it? However scientists are estimating that Greenland itself has enough ice that if thawed will raise sea levels 20’. This makes me wonder why, if all the ice melts, a lot of land disappears below sea level when in comparison during the time of Pangaea the sea level had to be at maximum. Anyone explain that? What have I missed?
You don't seem to have missed a thing. Much like how the global CO2 level was once much higher and the climate much more volatile, it's obvious that life on earth and the environment itself have survived much worse than our most dire current predictions.
(Feb 5, 2021 07:01 PM)Syne Wrote: You don't seem to have missed a thing. Much like how the global CO2 level was once much higher and the climate much more volatile, it's obvious that life on earth and the environment itself have survived much worse than our most dire current predictions.
To make the impending moist scenario work the numbers have to be wrong. This is why, although I adore real science, I can't put absolute faith in it. Not yet anyway . Either that or the Earth has shrunk or gained a lot of water from somewhere in the last 300 my. I'd love to hear the reason why it's different today but i need every scientist in the world to agree with it in order for me to be swayed somewhat.
Scientists make declarations all the time that constantly change. How many times have we heard something you ingest is good then bad, not once but repeatedly back & forth. This sea level thing has been in the back of my mind a long time because it doesn't add up. Ok for me, the unwashed, to bring it up because right now the sentiment is definitely against a scientist saying the same thing.
(Feb 5, 2021 07:38 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: To make the impending moist scenario work the numbers have to be wrong. This is why, although I adore real science, I can't put absolute faith in it. Not yet anyway . Either that or the Earth has shrunk or gained a lot of water from somewhere in the last 300 my. I'd love to hear the reason why it's different today but i need every scientist in the world to agree with it in order for me to be swayed somewhat.
Scientists make declarations all the time that constantly change. How many times have we heard something you ingest is good then bad, not once but repeatedly back & forth. This sea level thing has been in the back of my mind a long time because it doesn't add up. Ok for me, the unwashed, to bring it up because right now the sentiment is definitely against a scientist saying the same thing.
Luckily, science was never meant to be a matter of faith. It can't either demonstrate it's claims or it can't. Since models cannot be demonstrated to be accurate or true, they aren't really science unless or until they prove correct. They're just hypotheses (educated guesses), and honest scientists will admit that there are likely many factors unaccounted for in any model of such a complex system as climate.
What they can do, with some accuracy, is measure past sea level rise and project that same rate of rise into the future. But when they start making catastrophic claims about the near-ish future, we have far too many examples of those claims being complete bullshit.
C CFeb 5, 2021 10:02 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 5, 2021 10:07 PM by C C.)
(Feb 5, 2021 07:38 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: To make the impending moist scenario work the numbers have to be wrong. This is why, although I adore real science, I can't put absolute faith in it. Not yet anyway . ... Scientists make declarations all the time that constantly change. How many times have we heard something you ingest is good then bad, not once but repeatedly back & forth...
Every slot that science addresses about the world has to have something filling it as an answer for people asking about the subject. So even the factoid speculations and just-so stories plugged temporarily into the "work-in-progress" slots can erroneously be treated as actual over time if nothing better comes along to replace them. (And the psycho-social or "human sciences" may be perpetually damned to be unreliable no matter what reforms are made.)
I prefer to call such "placeholder information", rather than "just-so stories" or whatever, because the latter carries the precognitive or dogmatic implication that they're wrong, untestable, or fruitless in advance. When some might potentially or remotely turn-out to be the case. (As long as they're not wildly ridiculous, though hopefully they wouldn't be selected as a plug-in to begin with if that was the case.)
Edmond Mathez (geologist): "If all the ice covering Antarctica , Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 70 meters (230 feet). The ocean would cover all the coastal cities. And land area would shrink significantly. But many cities, such as Denver, would survive. However, all the ice is not going to melt. The Antarctic ice cap, where most of the ice exists, has survived much warmer times."
Shows the coastal cities that would supposedly be underwater.
SyneFeb 6, 2021 12:40 AM (This post was last modified: Feb 6, 2021 12:43 AM by Syne.)
Guess what loves CO2? Food crops. And even with soil nitrogen being the other limiting factor, faster growing plants more quickly reach a size where their nitrogen usage decreases.
So would we rather kill economies, condemning the most poor to worse poverty, or simply accept higher food production, easing the hunger of those in poverty?