There was an article in the Times recently I find worthy of comment. The article has been manipulated to support the nonsense that warming is bad.
Here is the Times slant.
The future of climate change revealed
Fossilised forests the size of small cities provide evidence of how tropical rainforests are destroyed by global warming.
The article. (September 2008. Lewis Smith.)
A series of fossilised forests the size of small cities have provided prehistoric evidence of how tropical rainforests are destroyed by global warming.
The fossil remains represent the first rainforests grown on the planet and their demise more than 300million years ago “points to the future” of the modern-day Amazon.
Six petrified forests, dating from 303.9 million to 309 million years ago, have been discovered in coalmines in the United States. Because they straddle a period of intense global warming researchers have been able to see the effects of climate change on an ancient landscape.
One forest that stretched 10,000 hectares (100 sq km) is the largest fossil forest yet found, dwarfing a 1,000ha forest that was announced last year as the biggest.
Howard Falcon-Lang, of the University of Bristol, said that the forests were frozen in time and show changes in the tree cover before and after the global warming began.
Fossils reveal that the landscape now deep beneath Illinois and Kentucky was covered in huge club moss trees, horsetails and ferns 309 million years ago. Once global warming had taken place 306.5 million years ago, the landscape altered enormously and the trees were replaced with “weedy ferns”.
“These are the remains of the first rainforests to evolve on our planet,” Dr Falcon-Lang said at the British Association yesterday. “They had lush rainforest vegetation, not dissimilar to the Amazonian rainforest. These are the largest fossil forests in the world. It's quite extraordinary to find a forest landscape preserved for miles.”
The forests were buried during earthquakes and the vegetation was swiftly preserved as the sea rushed in and buried it under sediment. Proof of their existence can now be seen in more than 50 mines where the coal seams have been dug out.
Walking along the mine tunnels was an extraordinary experience, Dr Falcon-Lang said: “The coal represents the soil on which this rainforest was growing. The trees are on the roof. You can see roots hanging down.”
He said it appeared that the huge trees suffered enormous stress and died out when faced by global warming. “We are beginning to show there appears to be a threshold in ancient rainforest systems beyond which the whole system begins to unravel quite quickly,” he said.
“The rainforest dramatically collapses during this period of warming. This was very, very extreme global warming. Giant club moss trees vanished overnight to be replaced by rather weedy fern vegetation. All this points to the fate of the Amazon.”
The good Dr. was probably so overcome with the instant fame and recognition of his contribution to science, he lost his sensibility.
The original piece was published in his Uni's news and mentioned in the Telegraph in April 2007.
Here are some observations.
Estimated 309-304 mya, when the size of the planet was unknown , gravity strength was unknown, volume of water present on the Earth was unkown, proximity of the Moon was unknown, length of day and climate was unknown.
The images (one for the left handed from alarmist wiki and one for the right from www.geocraft.com) shows what we think we know of climate at that time. The time frame puts it in a period of declining temperature and low co2. Less than 500ppm.
The location was geologically unstable (read the article) and sinking, near to sea water.A truly magnificent leap in logic worthy of Hansen put the reason for the decline down to increasing temperature. Ferns replacing trees. Here is an alternative theory from a rather low IQ'd moi. Sinking land near sea water= rising salty water table. Trees have deep roots. Ferns have shallow roots. Trees suffer before ferns.
OK. That has disposed of the alarmism supporting notion.
What interests me more is the closed environment of the geologically focussed mind.
Let's look at the Moon.
Moving away at a rate of 3.8 cm per year would give around 11,400 kilometres closer at the time had the rate remained constant. ( Could be more or less for any number of reasons). That would have had a markedly greater tidal effect on land. That the Moon dampens the globe's desire to tilt uncontrollably, as the Moon moves away, the damping effect reduces and tilt increases.
Gravity is anyone's guess too. Dino bones would be incapable of supporting a dino's mass in today's gravity.
Length of day. There is growing support for the old theory that the Earth grew, the oldest sea floor is around 200 my years old. The subduction theory is very weak and evidence poor due to the the buoyancy of sea floor crust. The continents moving across sea floor crust would create crumpling ahead of a mobile continental crust. They don't exist. There are weaknesses in both theories (continents like air football pieces and continents static). That the Earth could rapidly aquire new mass has been supported by the recent theory that most lunar craters developed in a very short time. That also adds weight to the theory that oceans could have been acquired in a short space of time. Rapidly increased mass, increased gravity, deceleration in rotation.
That brings me to length of day. Taking the dino bone assumption as correct, that would possibly mean the planet was rotating much faster than today reducing gravity influence by centrifugal force.
There are also theories about humungous depth of atmosphere and solar flare removal of same.
So there you go. It's proved. Global warming is dangerous because global warming was dangerous three hundred million or so years ago. Or is it, was it?
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