Andrew Glikson, a paleoclimatologist is a visiting fellow at ANU. He graduated at the University of Western Australia in 1968, conducted extensive geological research in Australia and overseas, studied mass extinction events and the effects of extreme events on climate and human evolution.
his words below are the conclusion of a short essay “Under a greenhouse atmosphere” published April 8, 2019, in John Menadue weekly “Pearls and Irritations.”
Glikson makes some observations about how the future on Earth might play out under a greenhouse atmosphere.
it’s a disturbing scenario that could attract the irrational ire of the fringe echo chamber climate change deniers.
given his background, Glikson’s projections are of way higher value than say the ideologically driven woo confected by the editorial team at The Australian newspaper, perhaps the equivalent of the buybull for climate change deniers.
GLIKSON:
“Life on Earth is controlled by the presence of water, insolation, the composition of the atmosphere and oceans, asteroid impacts and large volcanic eruptions. Cyclic and abrupt changes in these factors have affected the climate over billions of years. Sharp rises in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, such as occurred about 66 and 56 million years ago and at present, have and are leading to major crises in nature. The current rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, combining the effects of CO2, methane and nitric oxide, is now tracking toward 500 ppm CO2 equivalent, the stability threshold of the large ice sheets. The consequent rise in mean global temperature by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius over a period as short as a century represents the highest recorded in geological history, posing an existential threat for most species and for civilization. Current manifestations include a growing spate of extreme cyclones, floods, droughts and fires killing large number of people. Inexplicably business as usual persists among the political classes, chief executives and the media, expressing a plethora of half-truths and lies, defying the original definition of the species as “sapiens.”
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