so, where do we start! It is fair to say that in the approx. 4.6 billion years that this planet, Earth, has existed the climate has varied greatly driven by many different cycles. Planetary orbits, plate tectonics, volcanic activity, earthquakes, solar cycles, the Ocean conveyor and Gyres, Changing Electromagnetic fields, Meteorites and Cosmic particle bombardments etc. All of these effects interrelate and due to the sheer variety of these interrelations predictions for the future changes are at best difficult and at worst nearly impossible.

We have, however, an ever growing knowledge and understanding of previous climatic changes by interpreting proxies such as tree rings, ice cores, the rock and sediment records, composition of the planet, historical records to name a few. Obviously, one of the key concerns today is the changing atmospheric temperature and interpreting what that means not only for the planet but us Humans as well.

This site isn’t for the scientists amongst you as I paint with too broad a brush. This site is for anyone interested in the subject matter but maybe does not have the time to do the research and doesn’t necessarily have a scientific background.

I will attempt to describe some of the variables, previously mentioned, how they interlink and finally how Human’s may have to adapt to our changing world. The name, of this site, for me says it all. This planets climate will always inevitable change. We may think that we have a certain amount of control on how Earth behaves and indeed we might do so. However, mother Earth will continue change and evolve whilst our Sun keeps supplying energy. Estimated to be for another 4.5 billion years. I think the question is one of how we adapt and how far will we have to adapt to survive these inevitable changes.

CLIMATE AND WEATHER
It might be the right time to discuss the difference
between weather and climate. Weather is what you see
when you look out the window and decide whether you need to turn up the heating or will need a coat or umbrella if you go out. Whereas climate describes weather trends over time ie: 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 or even 1,000,000 years. The study of weather, meteorology, is a science in itself and would appear to be quite difficult to state, with any certainty, what will happen over a few days let alone a few years. So, climate prediction is even harder and even resorting to using massive computing power does not instil much confidence in the future predictions of the climate.

The Past
What is the past? Well,really it is everything that has happened up to this minute. It seems a good place to start by looking at what we know about previous climate trends.

The chart below provides an illustration of the global temperature, going back 4600 million years ago. The red line represents the relative temperature change as compared with the present temperature. Whilst it covers too big a time span to give precise measurements it does clearly show how global temperature has gone up and down over time. You can see clearly that temperatures have rarely been lower but have frequently been higher.

The chart below narrows the global temperature to the past 800,000 years and by contrast over this time period temperatures have rarely been higher but have frequently been lower. So if you were only shown this chart you would be led to believe that the global temperature is unusually warm. However, over much longer time spans the temperature is unusually colder. This is important to remember when you are shown ‘chosen’ data that you also look at the bigger picture.

The third chart below narrows the the global temperature to the last 10,000 years and indicates periods warmer temperatures (Red) as compared to colder temperatures (Blue).

So what can we glean from this data? Certainly that global temperatures, for one reason or another go up and down. Currently we are in an ‘Inter-glacial’. A period of warmer climate than the planet was experiencing prior to 10,000 years ago when the planet was exiting the last ice age. The climate, since then has been relatively stable but has still experienced periods of warmer/colder temperatures. I intend to delve deeper into the many variables, that affect our climate, and provide some perspective into the complexity and variability of our climate.

Copyright M. Taylor 2020