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Discrepancies in climate risk models raise concerns 1

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“The impacts could be potentially severe,” said NSF NCAR scientist Isla Simpson, lead author of the study. “This is a global problem, and it’s something that is completely unexpected given our climate model results.”

The unfortunate thing is that we treat the biosphere as a zero cost dumping ground, even dumping (well, deorbiting) space stations (plans for the ISS).

We, mankind, impact the environment in a multitude of ways. Isolating one single impact is IMHO facile. Unfortunately tackling the whole problem head on is way too complicated and too nebulous for our simple minds and politics. The answer is I guess market forces and government intervention (which will change with every new government, sigh) and an increased awareness of our environmental impact. We can move from one energy source (coal) to others (wind, solar, nuke) if we plan carefully. yeah, right. We'll run around like chickens ! I'm completely convinced that social unrest will do for us long before the environment starts cashing some of the cheques we've written.

"Hoffen wir mal, dass alles gut geht !"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.
 
What if the Grand Canyon formed only 8000-14000 years ago, during Meltwater Pulse 1a? It only makes sense. Sea levels were rising at 0.2 of a foot per year, 100x times faster than predicted today. The water draining into the Gulf from glacial melt must have been tremendois. The walls are very steep which means they haven't been exposed to much erosion. The north eastern US used to be under 2 miles of ice. The Great Lakes formed within the same time period. All of this is within modern human history, too. We even have ancient stories that describe it such as Noah's Ark or the Lost City of Atlantis. Settlers literally crossed land bridges to occupy new regions.

Were humans burning significant amounts of fossil fuels in that time period?

Maybe we need to focus on understanding our last a little better before we start taking our predictions of the future so seriously.
 
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