Is climate change exponential?

[Anonymous]

I mean, when you boil water, the first little bit takes forever but when it starts getting warmer, it gets hot quickly. Is that the same with the climate? It took a long time to increase 1 degree but now that it's increasing, will it just get worse much faster?

[Anonymous]

No. Too many variables.
Also, the planet is still in the Quaternary Period and unusually cooler than normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, when you boil water, the first little bit takes forever but when it starts getting warmer, it gets hot quickly. Is that the same with the climate? It took a long time to increase 1 degree but now that it's increasing, will it just get worse much faster?

Yes it is exponential change. Greenhouse gas emissions and temperature are not linear. Ever notice how snow melts? It is pretty linear till dirty/dust gets in the snow which increases the melting. Once the a patch of ground is exposed the melting jumps again.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Next year it will be 600 degrees in the summer. And the year after that, it will be almost 4,000 degrees.

[Anonymous]

Yes Google positive feedback effects climate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes Google positive feedback effects climate

affects

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Too many variables.
Also, the planet is still in the Quaternary Period and unusually cooler than normal.

What is "normal"? The first 4 billion years or so the surface of the earth was molten lava. "Normal" in terms of averages is probably several hundred degrees. What is more significant is the temperature since human civilization began some 10,000 years ago and it's the hottest it's been in that time period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Too many variables.
Also, the planet is still in the Quaternary Period and unusually cooler than normal.

What is "normal"? The first 4 billion years or so the surface of the earth was molten lava. "Normal" in terms of averages is probably several hundred degrees. What is more significant is the temperature since human civilization began some 10,000 years ago and it's the hottest it's been in that time period.

Read more about the bolded part. Way off.

Also, civilization has nothing to do with the conversation or topic. Modern humans have been around for over 100,000 to 180,000 years depending on when you define the term human to have first started to exist.

And you are correct, it is hotter now than 10,000+ years ago during the last of the ice ages. It is the Holocene. The warm period between "Ice Ages". What humans should be concerned about, as a species as a whole, not individuals, is there will likely be another "Ice Age" in a few thousand years.

Cold periods are very hard for life. If humans are still around for the next one, it will decimate what's left of our petroleum and so-called "fossil fuel" reserves trying to stay alive and warm. More than likely we'd have to resort to nuclear power to survive another "Ice Age" and nuclear has a whole other host of problems much worse than we can imagine if we took it to that level/scale of production.

Quaternary Period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary

[Anonymous]

Is boiling water exponential? I don’t think it is. The heat applied is constant, the heat capacity of the pot and the water is a constant…. I suspect it’s very much linear.