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Syfer2x t1_jb5d0sr wrote

Reply to comment by CDNEmpire in During the last ice age, how long would it have taken for the ice sheets to form? by CDNEmpire

I think it’s actually fairly easy to do when you correlate the rise in temperature to a rise in human industrial activity. As a previous comment mentioned, these processes are slooooow, like reeeeaally slow. The insane spike in global temperatures since the beginning of the industrial age is far too sharp to be attributed to normal interglacial activity, which I believe technically we should be exiting anyways. We’re becoming overdue for another glacial period but are staving it off and then some just with our own activities.

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CDNEmpire OP t1_jb5m1p5 wrote

That’s fair. I mean we definitely can be helping things by speeding up, or even completely changing the natural process.

The natural balance will eventually be restored. Just a question if we’re still around to witness it

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Jewnadian t1_jb5mw2b wrote

That's not really a guarantee, it's entirely possible to push a planet into runaway greenhouse mode and it never recover to where carbon/DNA based life is possible again.

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GumboDiplomacy t1_jb5s6gl wrote

This is a good visual representation of climate throughout earth’s geological history. Notice how slow most of these changes are, a matter of a couple of Celsius change over millions of years. Then look at the change over the last 200 years.

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SgtExo t1_jb5yz1d wrote

Check out this helpful xkcd timeline, it is a bit old by now and we should be on the optimistic path, if not even a bit better depending on if green tech keeps getting adopted faster. But it is a good way of seeing how stable temperatures have been for the last 20 000 years.

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