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Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
Thanks bluesdave, yes, the more I read the less I know for sure.
Watching Nova's show on Supervolcanos last night, they were throwing our numbers like 75k years ago, one went off in the South Pacific. The magma blown out into the air was the equivalent of the water flowing down the Mississippi in two years time. The sulfuric acid cloud killed forests and critters all over and lowered the temperature of the oceans by 10 degrees. And we have two of those suckers in the USA. Damn, that makes our pollution look like a pee hole in a snowbank.  |
Bruce, you are absolutely correct - we don't know it all. No one says that we do. It is what makes science research interesting - we are constantly being surprised (and frustrated too).
There are numerous factors that actually work against global warming, such as huge volcanic eruptions (as you mentioned), dust (a good article in last week's Nature), and reflection (that's where pollutants line the top of clouds and actually reflect some of the Sun's heat), to name just a few. That is why climate scientists talk in terms of "trends". It is impossible to accurately predict what next year's weather will be like, when we can't account for unforeseen events, but we can warn of trends, and likelihood. The trouble is that when climate predictions get it wrong, the anti greenhouse lobby then jump on this, and use it as an excuse to throw out all of the research. Understandably, the public wants straight forward, simple to understand, and accurate information, but climate change is an incredibly complex area of research, and we are still learning. Maybe one day we will have quantum computers that can do the job (use some ESP), but that day is still some time off.