Past global temperatures substantially warmer than today. Article by Michael J. Oard in Journal of Creation Vol 40, Issue 3.
Present-day global warming is said to be so high that alarmists postulate that a global catastrophe looms. This worry is fed by a barrage of exaggerated statements by scientists, politicians, and the media.1 Some advocates even say that the ‘unprecedented’ global warming is the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced. They make comparisons with the extremely hot global climate of the Paleogene as an analogue. People are increasingly being pressured to act now to ‘save the planet’. Many alarmists have little regard for the economic or political consequences of this war against global warming.
We need to first examine the facts.2 First, global warming is real; the warming is around 1° to 1.5°C in the last 150 years. The polar areas have warmed significantly more than this because of reinforcing feedbacks. Second, about half of this global warming is likely due to natural processes involving the sun, differences in volcanism, oceanic heat cycles, and other climate effects on Earth.3 Third, the computer models that predict the temperature in the future with a doubling of carbon dioxide are seriously flawed. Alarmists especially rely on these models to come to outrageous conclusions, indicating little understanding of how models work. These models predict that a doubling of carbon dioxide will cause anywhere from 1.5 to about 5˚ C warming of the planet. However, models have too many unknown variables that need to be estimated and hence add error. For instance, modellers have difficulty estimating the effects of clouds, solar and infrared radiation, ocean processes, snow and ice aging, among others. If all the greenhouse gases are included, we have come close to doubling ‘carbon dioxide’ already. And if half the global warming is due to natural processes, then even the lowest estimate from a doubling of carbon dioxide is too warm.
Even the claim that the present-day warming is unprecedented except in the Cenozoic, especially the Paleogene, has been shown to be false. A report recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the earth was once substantially warmer than today only several thousand years ago in the uniformitarian dating scheme. Such a warmer period can have nothing to do with increased carbon dioxide due to man’s activities.
A patch of ice in the Beartooth Mountains of south-central Montana and north-central Wyoming, USA (fig. 1), has been melting from present-day global warming. Interestingly, the top of the Beartooth Mountains represents the planation surface of the Great Unconformity, which is found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. As the ice patch melted, 30 downed/fallen whitebark pine trees became exposed. These trees are found 180 m higher than the current tree line! The trees were tall-standing and not the type of scruffy trees usually found near the tree line. This would indicate that the tree line was once significantly higher than 180 m above the tree line of today.
The trees were carbon-14 dated to 5,950 to 5,440 years old within the uniformitarian dating system. This would place them just after the early Holocene warm period, between about 10,000 and 7,000 years ago. Carbon-14 dates are good to about 3,000 years ago within the biblical timescale. Dates of 3,000 to the maximum practical limit of 50,000 years can be telescoped from 3,000 to 4,500 years after the Flood. Thus, the warmth occurred in the post-Flood period, and the present-day warmth is not unprecedented.
It is possible that there was more than one warm period in the post-Flood era. Glacier fluctuation in the mountains of coastal British Columbia has revealed about a half dozen short periods of warmth greater than today. One of these warm periods was carbon-14 dated at 7,300 to 5,300 years ago, bracketing the time for the warmth in the Beartooth Mountains.
Obviously, the earth survived. There is no reason to overreact to current global warming. And there is plenty of time for unbiased research to learn more about the possible trajectory of global warming and to determine a realistic course of action. Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg recently advocated that, whatever global warming throws at us, we can mitigate the effects much cheaper than any war to stop and reverse global warming. Although Lomborg believes in the results of the flawed global climate models and that we will not be able to stop or decrease global warming no matter what we do, he has spent considerable time developing thoughtful strategies worth considering.
We are fast approaching the time of Jesus return to set up His Millennial Kingdom when the whole topography of the Earth will be changed during the time God pours out His wrath upon an unrepentant world. Jerusalem will be on the highest mountain in the world. We won’t be worried about climate change but nations will need to be concerned about giving Jesus honour and due otherwise there will no rain on their land and the possibility of plagues as well. Go to http://www.millennialkingdom.net for more on Jesus coming Millennial Kingdom.
SEVENTH BOWL JUDGEMENT:
“And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.” Revelation 16:18-21
