The Inconvenient Skeptic: The Comprehensive Guide to the Earth's Climate

by John Kehr

The biggest problem that the Eemian presents to the theory of global warming is that it ended. 120,000 years ago the Earth was warmer than it is today by a degree or so. CO2 levels were ~270 ppm at that point. By 115,000 YBP the temperature of the Earth had dropped 4 °C, but CO2 levels were still ~270ppm. The Earth had shown dramatic cooling in a 5,000 year period while CO2 levels remained almost identical to what they had been. Illustration 34: CO2 levels dropped ~8,000 years AFTER the temperature dropped. The cooling could not have been caused by dropping levels of CO2. In all, the global temperature dropped more than 10 °C, while CO2 levels remained constant at ~270ppm. If the greenhouse effect of CO2 is so strong, why did the CO2 level during the Eemian fail to keep the interglacial from ending? Since the CO2 level did not drop until long after the temperature dropped, some other factor must have caused the Earth to cool. How is it possible to correlate CO2 levels to temperature when the range of temperature for given CO2 levels is so broad? That is the only reason why CO2 is associated with temperature change in the past, but the problem is that it only shows a match to temperature change when the Earth is warming. When the Earth is cooling, CO2 stays at the same level while the temperature drops. It is only after the Earth has cooled that CO2 levels start to drop. This should make scientists wonder just how much influence CO2 has on global temperatures. In addition, ...