Possible Ice Age coming

[Jerk]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352241,00.html

Sunspot activity has not resumed after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that - far from warming - the globe is about to return to an Ice Age.

Astronaut and geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory showed no spots on the sun.

He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C. "This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Dr. Chapman writes in The Australian (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html) today.

"If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."



---------------------------------------------------------



Now this would be very bad if true. I'd rather have global warming.

"No sun-spots" - is this why I never hear "skip" on my CB radio anymore?

[Harry Beanbag]

Is it a consensus?

[sooner n houston]

HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.


It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.

When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

[SoonerTerry]

You mean that global warmifying thing aint gonna happen now? Thats OK I could use me some coolification. thats gonna affect Texas right?

;)

[dw17]

So are we happy, sad, or indifferent? I like lake activities but the slopes are super fun, too.

[JohnnyMack]

HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.


It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.

When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

Why do you hate the book of Genesis?

[Animal Mother]

Eye sage?
Is that the crap on the outside of your eyelids and all crusty on your eyelashes in the morning during allergy season(ing)?

[OUDoc]

See, I knew it was definitely either getting cooler or getting warmer, and may or may not continue to do so.

DAMN SUN! :mad:

[soonerbrat]

wow, the earth is cooler now? all of Algore's work must be paying off.

[Stoop Dawg]

Does this mean oil prices are going to go back down?

[yermom]

HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.


It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.

When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

i don't think anyone cares about the next form of life on earth ;)

[TUSooner]

Who's Skip, and is he any good on the radio?

[Stoop Dawg]

HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.


It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.

When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

That's what Mars thought. :mad:

[TUSooner]

Forget the sunspots, just wait 'til Yellowstone blows and blocks out the Sun altogether. We'll have a few years without summer, and not much in the way of a crop growing season neither.

[JohnnyMack]

Forget the sunspots, just wait 'til Yellowstone blows and blocks out the Sun altogether. We'll have a few years without summer, and not much in the way of a crop growing season neither.

We should have a The Postman watch party. You know, to figure out the best way to handle it. Maybe we could watch that Discovery channel special too. Oohh! And that one with Tommy Lee Jones and the lesbian with the volcano.

[LosAngelesSooner]

Yeah. Let's listen to two or three guys who get their grants from oil companies when 99.99% of the world's scientists say otherwise.

Have you guys also found the proof that the world is actually flat and that all those pesky scientists with their facts and figures are still lying to us??

:rolleyes:

[LosAngelesSooner]

HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.


It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.

When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
What this condescending IDIOT seems to MISS is that we're not talking about being concerned about humans destroying LIFE on this planet...we're concerned about humans destroying HUMAN LIFE on this planet.

He completely misses the threat of global warming and why it is a concern.

Moron. (referring to the guy who wrote the article)

[Mjcpr]

While you were gone they instituted a no name-calling policy.

Just FYI

[silverwheels]

While you were gone they instituted a no name-calling policy.

Just FYI

Also, the "Vin Diesel facts" thing ceased being funny 3 years ago.

[LosAngelesSooner]

While you were gone they instituted a no name-calling policy.

Just FYI
I can't call the guy who wrote that article a moron?

Really?

[Mjcpr]

Nope, it's against the rules, sorry. Moose out front should've toldya.

[LosAngelesSooner]

Also, the "Vin Diesel facts" thing ceased being funny 3 years ago.

Not to me. *shrug*

[LosAngelesSooner]

Nope, it's against the rules, sorry. Moose out front should've toldya.
Wait...wait...wait...

I always knew it was "illegal" to call a poster on the board a name, but now you can't call politicians, scientists, celebrities, former OU coaches of the '90's names?!?! REALLY?!?!!?

[Mjcpr]

Now you're getting into the whole thing of how famous they are and/or how fat they may be. It's a gray area that only a few understand.

[LosAngelesSooner]

Do you understand?

[colleyvillesooner]

yes

[yermom]

Not to me. *shrug*

we are moving on to Deebo facts now

[swardboy]

Only a maroon would debate the facts...

Global Cooling?
by Dennis Avery
http://acuf.org/images/photos/igloo2.jpgThe official thermometers at the U.S. National Climate Data Center show a slight global cooling trend over the last seven years, from 1998 to 2005.
Actually, global warming is likely to continue—but the interruption of the recent strong warming trend sharply undercuts the argument that our global warming is an urgent, man-made emergency. The seven-year decline makes our warming look much more like the moderate, erratic warming to be expected when the planet naturally shifts from a Little Ice Age (1300–1850 AD) to a centuries-long warm phase like the Medieval Warming (950–1300 AD) or the Roman Warming (200 BC– 600 AD).
The stutter in the temperature rise should rein in some of the more apoplectic cries of panic over man-made greenhouse emissions. The strong 28-year upward trend of 1970–1998 has apparently ended.
Fred Singer, a well-known skeptic on man-made warming, points out that the latest cooling trend is dictated primarily by a very warm El Nino year in 1998. “When you start your graph with 1998,” he says, “you will necessarily get a cooling trend.”
Bob Carter, a paleoclimatologist from Australia, notes that the earth also had strong global warming between 1918 and 1940. Then there was a long cooling period from 1940 to 1965. He points out that the current warming started 50 years before cars and industries began spewing consequential amounts of CO2. Then the planet cooled for 35 years just after the CO2 levels really began to surge. In fact, says Carter, there doesn’t seem to be much correlation between temperatures and man-made CO2.
For context, Carter offers a quick review of earth’s last 6 million years. The planet began that period with 3 million years in which the climate was several degrees warmer than today. Then came 3 million years in which the planet was basically cooling, accompanied by an increase in the magnitude and regularity of the earth’s 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger climate cycles.
Speaking of the 1500-year climate cycles, grab an Internet peek at the earth’s official temperatures since 1850. They describe a long, gentle S-curve, with the below-mean temperatures of the Little Ice Age gradually giving way to the above-the-mean temperatures we should expect during a Modern Warming.
Carter points out that since the early 1990s, the First World’s media have featured “an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as ‘if’, ‘might,’ ‘could,’ ‘probably,’ ‘perhaps,’ ‘expected,’ ‘projected’ or ‘modeled’—and many . . . are akin to nonsense.”
Carter also warns that global cooling—not likely for some centuries yet—is likely to be far harsher for humans than the Modern Warming. He says, “our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 percent of the last 2 million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.”
Since the earth is always warming or cooling, let’s applaud the Modern Warming, and hope that the next ice age is a long time coming.
Dennis Avery is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and the Director for Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org (http://www.cgfi.org/)). He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421.

[JohnnyMack]

Nope, it's against the rules, sorry. Moose out front should've toldya.

You've already used that movie.

[Turd_Ferguson]

Eye sage?
Is that the crap on the outside of your eyelids and all crusty on your eyelashes in the morning during allergy season(ing)?:mack:That's Cat ****!

[LosAngelesSooner]

Only a maroon would debate the facts...

Global Cooling?
by Dennis Avery
http://acuf.org/images/photos/igloo2.jpgThe official thermometers at the U.S. National Climate Data Center show a slight global cooling trend over the last seven years, from 1998 to 2005.
Actually, global warming is likely to continue—but the interruption of the recent strong warming trend sharply undercuts the argument that our global warming is an urgent, man-made emergency. The seven-year decline makes our warming look much more like the moderate, erratic warming to be expected when the planet naturally shifts from a Little Ice Age (1300–1850 AD) to a centuries-long warm phase like the Medieval Warming (950–1300 AD) or the Roman Warming (200 BC– 600 AD).
The stutter in the temperature rise should rein in some of the more apoplectic cries of panic over man-made greenhouse emissions. The strong 28-year upward trend of 1970–1998 has apparently ended.
Fred Singer, a well-known skeptic on man-made warming, points out that the latest cooling trend is dictated primarily by a very warm El Nino year in 1998. “When you start your graph with 1998,” he says, “you will necessarily get a cooling trend.”
Bob Carter, a paleoclimatologist from Australia, notes that the earth also had strong global warming between 1918 and 1940. Then there was a long cooling period from 1940 to 1965. He points out that the current warming started 50 years before cars and industries began spewing consequential amounts of CO2. Then the planet cooled for 35 years just after the CO2 levels really began to surge. In fact, says Carter, there doesn’t seem to be much correlation between temperatures and man-made CO2.
For context, Carter offers a quick review of earth’s last 6 million years. The planet began that period with 3 million years in which the climate was several degrees warmer than today. Then came 3 million years in which the planet was basically cooling, accompanied by an increase in the magnitude and regularity of the earth’s 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger climate cycles.
Speaking of the 1500-year climate cycles, grab an Internet peek at the earth’s official temperatures since 1850. They describe a long, gentle S-curve, with the below-mean temperatures of the Little Ice Age gradually giving way to the above-the-mean temperatures we should expect during a Modern Warming.
Carter points out that since the early 1990s, the First World’s media have featured “an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as ‘if’, ‘might,’ ‘could,’ ‘probably,’ ‘perhaps,’ ‘expected,’ ‘projected’ or ‘modeled’—and many . . . are akin to nonsense.”
Carter also warns that global cooling—not likely for some centuries yet—is likely to be far harsher for humans than the Modern Warming. He says, “our modern societies have developed during the last 10,000 years of benignly warm, interglacial climate. But for more than 90 percent of the last 2 million years, the climate has been colder, and generally much colder, than today. The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.”
Since the earth is always warming or cooling, let’s applaud the Modern Warming, and hope that the next ice age is a long time coming.
Dennis Avery is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and the Director for Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org (http://www.cgfi.org/)). He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421.
Ahem...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dennis_Avery


He is the originator of a misleading claim that organic foods are more dangerous than foods sprayed with chemical pesticides (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Trashing_organic_foods).
He's already been busted in ONE lie...

and, for more thoughts on this "proof" see... http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2281287&postcount=16

[NormanPride]

Ice Age? **** yes, football is awesome in snow. :D

[Jerk]

Yeah. Let's listen to two or three guys who get their grants from oil companies when 99.99% of the world's scientists say otherwise.

Have you guys also found the proof that the world is actually flat and that all those pesky scientists with their facts and figures are still lying to us??

:rolleyes:

"Ohhh boo hoo! Someone questioned one of my core beliefs!! I can't be wrong! Impossible! It's those evil oil companies warming the earth, not the Sun!"

I'm sure anyone and everyone who questions you is a liar, or they're crazy!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooli ng/article10866.htm

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/02/15/arctic-ice.html

[Jerk]

For the record, LAS, if the choice is between global warming or an ice age, then I hope you're right. Humans don't do very well during ice ages, or even mini-ice ages.

[WILBURJIM]

The sun is at solar minimum right now, so the sunspots are few and far between. The sun is still quite active with some great coronal mass ejections of late. Here is a cool time lapse of a comet getting caught up in the ejecta.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7348207.stm

[LosAngelesSooner]

"Ohhh boo hoo! Someone questioned one of my core beliefs!! I can't be wrong! Impossible! It's not those benevolent oil companies warming the earth, it's all the hot air spewing from those dirty lib scientists' mouths!" - Jerk, April 23, 2008.

I'm sure anyone and everyone who questions me is a liar, or they're crazy!
Fixed. ;)

[goingoneight]

I got to "foxnews" and belched.

[OUWxGuesser]

As a meteorologist I laugh at all of these threads...

This site does a decent job of debunking the anti warming myths out there...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Before anyone jumps on me for being one of dem' crazy tree huggers, keep in mind that while I KNOW (in my opinion) global warming is occurring and we are defintely playing a part, I am EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS about what it means for the future. Our knowledge is absolutely craptastic with regards to the oceanic circulation and how it influences climate. Parts of the ocean have recycle times of over a century... We also have big holes to fill in feedback processes from clouds, etc. Throw in poor understanding of how oceans/trees deal with more CO2 in the atmosphere, and we have a difficult task on our hand.

The other issue is land-use change (deforestation, 1232132 walmarts, etc.)... this could be just as important as greenhouses gas emissions.

[Blue]

It don't matter. WE ALL GONNA DIE SOONER!

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

[NormanPride]

As a meteorologist I laugh at all of these threads...

This site does a decent job of debunking the anti warming myths out there...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/

Before anyone jumps on me for being one of dem' crazy tree huggers, keep in mind that while I KNOW (in my opinion) global warming is occurring and we are defintely playing a part, I am EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS about what it means for the future. Our knowledge is absolutely craptastic with regards to the oceanic circulation and how it influences climate. Parts of the ocean have recycle times of over a century... We also have big holes to fill in feedback processes from clouds, etc. Throw in poor understanding of how oceans/trees deal with more CO2 in the atmosphere, and we have a difficult task on our hand.

The other issue is land-use change (deforestation, 1232132 walmarts, etc.)... this could be just as important as greenhouses gas emissions.

Believe not in this man! For I know his study habits!

;)