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Could Climate Change Be The Least Of Our Worries Regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming.
I dare suggest that a warmer atmosphere is potentially capable of trapping more heat in the planet's mantle and crust increasing the risk of increased frequency of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. If, after, I admit, watching San Andreas, I assume the scientists have considered this prospect, me having never had a truly original thought in my life.
Has anyone read anything about this. To me the Earth loses heat into space through the atmosphere. Is making the atmosphere more heat retentive going to put that essential heat exchange at risk?
Has anyone read anything about this. To me the Earth loses heat into space through the atmosphere. Is making the atmosphere more heat retentive going to put that essential heat exchange at risk?
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I don't see how a warmer atmosphere would have any effect on activity in the mantle. The transition between ground and air isn't particularly efficient at heat transfer anyway (citation: the ground is usually rather a lot hotter than the air), and even if it were 100% efficient at transferring heat from air to ground then a two-degree rise in the mantle would change things from about 500 to about 502 degrees Celsius at the coolest point. That just won't register.
Adding to Jim's point, part of the problem of understanding climate change is that the data available only goes back 300 years maximum. This was when daily account of temperature, rainfall and weather conditions started to be gathered.
Compared to this tiny amount of data relating to human activity, geologists have been able to identify numerous events in deeper time - pre-dating human activity - when the earth was both much hotter and much colder than it has been over the last 10,000 years.
So recent changes in weather patterns might just be part of the geological cycle that we don't yet understand - or they might be because we've ruined the planet.
Compared to this tiny amount of data relating to human activity, geologists have been able to identify numerous events in deeper time - pre-dating human activity - when the earth was both much hotter and much colder than it has been over the last 10,000 years.
So recent changes in weather patterns might just be part of the geological cycle that we don't yet understand - or they might be because we've ruined the planet.
I was just thinking about the basic analogy of a an air cooled CPU inside a PC when the air entering the PC is getting hotter. The CPU temperature would certainly rise but would probably not fail if the increase in air temperature was modest which as Old Geezer rightly pointed out is what is predicted by global warming science.
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