Fossil gap could be a preview of our future destruction
- added July 18, 2008
- 8 responses
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- rwylie
- added this
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A massive die-off of pants, recorded in the fossil record, could indicate what would happen to our planet if global warming reaces its currently predicted conclusion.
A gap in the fossil record (pictured), thought to represent a reduced abundance of plant life in the Eocene period, around 55-34 million years ago, has been interpreted by paleo-climatologists to reflect significant heating of the tropics, to an average of some 41 degrees centigrade, well above that of today.
This conclusion is important however, because it was previously assumed that the Earth's atmosphere would always act so that there is a roughly uniform, small temperature gradient from poles to tropics: But if the tropics could have become so oveheated in the past, then it bodes badly for us, in the future.
In other words, WHEN we start to feel the effects of global warming, we can't rely on some "benevolent thermostat" which will magically reequilibrate the atmosphere: we would just fry in our ignorance.
A gap in the fossil record (pictured), thought to represent a reduced abundance of plant life in the Eocene period, around 55-34 million years ago, has been interpreted by paleo-climatologists to reflect significant heating of the tropics, to an average of some 41 degrees centigrade, well above that of today.
This conclusion is important however, because it was previously assumed that the Earth's atmosphere would always act so that there is a roughly uniform, small temperature gradient from poles to tropics: But if the tropics could have become so oveheated in the past, then it bodes badly for us, in the future.
In other words, WHEN we start to feel the effects of global warming, we can't rely on some "benevolent thermostat" which will magically reequilibrate the atmosphere: we would just fry in our ignorance.
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ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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I hope this helps show how dangerous global warming is, and that its not all our fault. Its impossible to deny Humans are effecting the climate, but this kind of climate change does happen naturally. The only question is how much of an effect we are making.
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Get ready for the bottleneck!
Ride on! -
ugh, looks like those crazy movies like The Day After Tomorrow have could be a glimpse into the future...
on a sidenote, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I really like the typo in the first sentence "a massive die-off of pants..." NOT MY PANTS!!! -
We just don't deserve this place.
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- everydayxangels
- 2 months ago
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It will be a quick massive death if plants lose it and vacate. So there is that. Speedy, and maybe we'll all hallucinate great things at our famished end.
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"A massive die-off of pants?" hahaha TYPO
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