/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8776582
>why havent they caused a feedback loop previously? as in why havent the greenhouse gasses fucked with the temperature, which released more, etc.? why is it suddenly humans deal, and what is the solution if there is already a bunch of shit floating around

Each greenhouse gases except water vapor has an associated atmospheric lifetime. CO2 in the atmosphere equilibrates and dissolves into ocean as bicarbonate, then further get deposited into calcite in the bottom of the ocean through the biological pump. CH4 react with OH radical in the atmosphere fairly quickly, yielding an atmospheric lifetime of 10 years.

These greenhouse gases have fucked with Earth's temperature in the past. Ice core records have shown that Antarctic temperature actually leads rise in CO2 very slightly, and this is reasonable because past warming/cooling cycle is driven by change in Earth's insolation (total energy coming from the sun) due to combination of change in earth's axis angle, and orbit diameter. However change in energy due to these change in earth's spin axis and ellipticity of the orbit alone is not enough to drive the observed temperature changes, you need CO2 and other greenhouse gases as positive feedback to boost and amplify the temperature change.

In the past though, as soon as insolation changes and favor the Earth back into cooling method, the positive feedbacks weakens the GHG with finite atmospheric lifetime slowly got scrubbed off the atmosphere allowing the earth to enter glacial periods and the cycle repeats