Today's Antarctic region once as hot as California, Florida

[n2doc]

Parts of ancient Antarctica were as warm as today's California coast, and polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered 21st-century Florida heat, according to scientists using a new way to measure past temperatures.

But it wasn't always that way, and the new measurements can help improve climate models used for predicting future climate, according to co-author Hagit Affek of Yale, associate professor of geology & geophysics.

"Quantifying past temperatures helps us understand ancient Antarctica were as warm as today's California coast, and polar regions of the southern Pacific Ocean registered 21st-century Florida heat, according to scientists using a new way to measure past temperatures.

The findings, published the week of April 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscore the potential for increased warmth at Earth's poles and the associated risk of melting polar ice and rising sea levels, the researchers said.

Led by scientists at Yale, the study focused on Antarctica during the Eocene epoch, 40-50 million years ago, a period with high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and consequently a greenhouse climate.

more

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140421164359.htm

Our Past, Our future....

[2naSalit]

1. Seems like there's some important factors missing here?

Like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea

Some things aren't as simple as some make them out to be.

[n2doc]

2. Seems like there's some lack of reading comprehension here?

Led by scientists at Yale, the study focused on Antarctica during the Eocene epoch, 40-50 million years ago, a period with high concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and consequently a greenhouse climate.

[2naSalit]

3. Not necessarily

but I get your point. There have been many hypotheses about the location of continents during the period. I also know that fossils of palm trees and tropical ferns have been found under glacial mass in Alaska.

I am somewhat reluctant to think that there is only one accepted idea on where the continents were at any given time and I wonder if polar shift has a role in the mix too. I just think there are more factors to consider in this. I don't dispute that the atmosphere was warmer in earlier times, took a long time for the outer layers of the planet to cool down, the "wobble" has never been static, volcanic activity spewing clouds of stuff into the atmosphere, etc..

What our species has been doing the past two centuries have undoubtedly contributed to our current situation, more so than natural processes, but the theories on all these topics change over time as well.

Nice image.