re: #319 austin_blue

Gah! In past glacial cycles, ice sheets covered much of the continents. Plant life significantly decreased. Buried biomass couldn’t rot. Thus, atmospheric CO2 decreased. When the cycle reversed, heat increased first, leading to the melting of the ice sheets, which exposed the buried biomass, which rotted and then CO2 levels increased. So in past cycles, temperature rises preceded CO2 rises.

*Of course* it did. Perfectly logical.

What was the driver of the cycle? Perhaps the theory of Milankovitch cycles, which show a widening of the distance from the earth to the sun on a long wave explain it. Seems logical.

But the point is that human activity has thrown a monkey wrench into what was basically a stable system for several million years. And all of the funding thrown to folks to rebut that simple fact cannot change the reality that things have gone wonky.

Gah! If you have glacial cycles (alternating cold and warm periods), the system isn’t stable.