During the Older Peron Transgression, from about 5,000 to 4,100 BC, the Sahara was going through one of its verdant stages, and the sea levels were three to four meters higher than they've ever been since, outside of the occasional Kevin Costner movie.
It must have been due to all that human industry, lining up rocks in France, digging circular ditches in Germany, and smelting copper in Serbia. (Only Euro imperialists cause pollution. People were being industrious elsewhere in the world at the time, but they were being charmingly ethnic about it, which pleases Gaia like nothing this side of a Shanghai solar panel factory powered by the Three Gorges Dam.)
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29 comments:
We need to be back on the copper standard.
Occupy Serbia.
Sonvabitch! You mean to tell me this stuff is cyclical?
I like to point to the remnants of Viking vineyards found under Greenland's ice cap.
Damn those SUV drivin' Swedes!
Damn, that opening clause had me pumped for some Argentinian snark. Bummer.
Anon. 8:05,
Some punchlines are so good that they can stand without the rest of the joke. "Older Peron Transgression" is practically one of those. ;)
(cf. "Rectum? Hell! Killed his ass!")
Personally, I have realised that I am concerned about the possibility of Global Warming and the rise of the sea levels.
I mean, think about where New York City is.
If the sea levels rise, the city might be flooded. All those people would have to move somewhere else. They might come here! I don't want that. Ew.
perlhaqr,
John Carpenter had the solution for that.
I figure fairly soon we will be informed that the actual conditions of the Sahara were the same as today the fossil record will be "adjusted" accordingly.
The narrative must not be challenged.
Of course, you all know it was Bush's Fault, right?
DanH,
"The fossil record" is not like the files at the DMV. You can't just "adjust" it, because there's no one thing to adjust.
Records of the fossil record, then?
"Records of the fossil record, then?"
Those would be LP.
Recorded by William Shatner.
That's a lotta records to adjust.
It's interesting that the Wiki article on the Older Peron links the various Holocene transgressions with "times of plenty" from folk lore.
The logical conclusion would be that if the climate warms again, and the seas rise, we'll see better crop yields. Of course that was the logical conclusion of warmer temperatures and more CO2 anyway....
Bumper crops and the UN building flooded to the third floor? What's not to like about this scenario?
"Bumper crops and the UN building flooded to the third floor? What's not to like about this scenario?"
Not seeing a downside from here.
I'd defer to Farmer Frank on the Crop Yields, but as to water rising to the UN's 3rd Floor? Anyone know how far above Sea Level is Washington, D.C? Got that big old Potomac River just sitting right there.
Then there's Boston, San Francisco, the L.A. Basin, Seattle......
The Older Peron Transgression a.k.a. The Hyborian Age. Sheesh, don't these "climatologist" read Howard?
Cool! I'm gonna go pick out a neato big sword and fur loincloth right now.
Dibs on Sandahl Bergman, and I'll work on the proper pronunciation of "Hear de lamentation of deir vimmen."
Your well into the slash and burn agricultural era, and people are well established globaly. Even most biblical literasts will conceede that the earth existed by then.
However, the older peron seems to be recovery cycle of an earlier freezing event.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.2_kiloyear_event
Most arguments have seen in reference to global weather pattern changes do not make us the primary culpret. They simply note that if you max out your population to its extreme carrying capacity, and then the weather changes, your results are unlikely to be good.
"However, the older peron seems to be recovery cycle of an earlier freezing event."
Yes.
Further, however, Post-Mesozoic temps on Earth were at their highest in the early Eocene and have trended downwards ever since, into the current series of Ice-Age oscillations. Relatively speaking, permanent ice caps are an unusual thing on this planet...
San Fran itself wouldn't see a major hit, but silicon valley would disappear, since a good percentage of the bay area is built on fill. 150 years ago, the bay surface was twice as large, approx. Lots of people would be relocating. Property values on the peninsula would climb, again.
Then there's Boston, San Francisco, the L.A. Basin, Seattle......
Seattle, like Rome, was built on seven hills. The business district, and the various and sundry sports arenae we have yet to pay off (including the one they demolished!) would be submerged, but much of the city would survive. Here, a few milae south of the Soviet of Seattle's frontier, I am sitting at about 350 feet above sea level. I'd need a boat or a plane to get anywhere, but there's this major international airport about 10 miles north of me...
The final parenthetical statement is pure win, and exemplifies why we read you.
I don't think John Carpenter's solution of turning New York City into a prison would work. (Kudos on the gratuitous film reference, however.)
I predict that climate will change. Since it always has. And it is colder than normal. (If your criteria for "normal" encompasses more than the last 700 years.) Hell the chimney was only invented about 600 years ago. You didn't need central heating before that - or even a fireplace in every room.
"permanent ice caps are an unusual thing on this planet"
Very true.
However, from a modern mamilian perspective, what is interesting is the ocilation back and forth of the recent (last 2 million years or so) ice sheets: particularly in Africa. Each pulse brings a completely different collection of animals into the dominant large animal niches. Human domination is closely linked are the results of the last pulse.
These large pulses will overide the smaller pulses. But the little pulses have killed an awful lot of people in the past.
Isn't New York already a prison?
We're above 12-feet so we're good to go but Google will be underwater, SGI was smart to sell that building - and Google Reader and gMail with the new suck-ass interface will die, yay!
russell1200,
"But the little pulses have killed an awful lot of people in the past."
Dude, shit happens. Gaia has been resetting her thermostat regularly for billions of years. It takes a real conservative to stand athwart history and yell "Stop!" ;)
As Gavin Schmidt would say, just because there were forest fires in the past, doesn't mean there is no arson now. That, plus the fairly large statistical uncertainty in temperature reconstructions of the distant past leaves enough breathing room for the alarmists to not look obviously insane.
They went from the reasonable hypothesis that humans might be affecting climate, via some fake hockey stick graphs and imaginary computer models, to Dogma. They lost me somewhere along the way.
Tim,
"As Gavin Schmidt would say, just because there were forest fires in the past, doesn't mean there is no arson now."
Some people, however, are telling me that if we stamp out arson, it will end forest fires.
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