Publications
Partners
The end of the last ice age was only 11 thousand years ago. So for 3000 years before that the Earth experienced tremendous climatic changes during the melting period.
As the ice retreated and melted, billions of tones of fresh water also went into our seas. One example is Lake Agassiz in North America where the water was trapped for hundreds of years until eventually, about 13000 years ago, it broke its barriers and hundreds of billions of tones of fresh water fell into the sea in a very short time. They estimate that the sea level rose between 3 and 9 feet and disrupted currents in the Arctic Ocean that caused a cold period of hundreds of years with temperature variations of over 8 degrees centigrade.
Volcanic eruptions that have been investigated in the past have caused the death of over 70% of all life on land and in the sea. The dust that is emitted forms an acid atmosphere puts our planet into a cold period with variations of over 5°C. When this clears the planet gets much warmer and this geologically short period affects the methane hydrate in the bottom of our oceans and on its release again our planet suffers more temperature changes.
Only about 8000 years ago a large part of Norway plunged into the sea again releasing methane and causing a massive tsunami. There was a change both in temperature and atmospheric gas proportions and a rise in sea level.
The Zanclean flood that filled the Mediterranean basin around 5 million years ago was geologically speaking a very quick change affecting our climate in all sorts of ways.
Very recently in 1815 Mount Tambora in Indonesia blew itself to bits emitting hundreds of millions of tons of ash and gasses into our atmosphere this affected the whole planet and for many months you could not even see the sun the atmospheric proportions of both oxygen and carbon dioxide in our atmosphere were very seriously affected.
Every 25,000 years the axis of the earth changes and tilts and the Sahara desert becomes a tropical forest with lakes. This has a major effect on oxygen and carbon dioxide. Also our orbit around the sun is not consistent sometimes we get closer. This also affects the solar radiation that reaches the earth.
It is well known how shortwave radiation for example ultraviolet light can impair photosynthesis in plants and it can actually reach 20 m below the surface of the ocean affecting our life-giving oxygen producing plankton.
Now they estimate that 75% of our oxygen is produced by this sea plankton that actually grows annually all over the Earth's seas and even in Antarctica. Satellite pictures can show clearly the variation of growth and oxygen production.
At the same time these plankton absorb carbon dioxide, as their food, in what is estimated in billions of tones.
There are many dozens of other natural causes of climate change that affect sea levels, global temperatures and percentages of the gases in our atmosphere including meteors.
So to say that man's contribution in burning fossil fuels to climate change is like saying one can raise the sea level by pouring buckets of water in it.
But something far more important than whether burning fossil fuels can create sustained climate change is the fact that after every one of the above-mentioned catastrophes, or changes, our climate has always reverted to one that is suitable for human survival.
Even if billions of tones of impurities have been thrown into our atmosphere the oxygen level has been 21% for millions of years and carbon dioxide at about 0.04%. The massive sea level changes and temperature variations that have been shown above most have actually been during man's evolution and he is growing.
Nature is immensely powerful and it has managed to clear our atmosphere and keep the temperature of the Earth such that it will sustain humanity.
The top scientists in the word know that for millions of years the magical oxygen producing, carbon dioxide reducing, plankton have maintained 21% oxygen to give man life breathing air. What they cannot explain is how this balance has been kept the same.
Scientists have found variations in both atmospheric proportions and temperature rise but in comparison to what the Earth has experienced during man's existence the proportion of these variations made by man compared to what Earth had to endure, surely are very very small and our Earth as before will correct them.
