Economy
In reply to the discussion: STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, December 15, 2011 [View all]Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)... Hansen and his colleague Makiko Sato compared the climate of today, the Holocene, with previous similar interglacial epochs. By studying cores from both ice sheets and deep ocean sediments, they found that global mean temperatures during the Eemian period, which began about 130,000 years ago and lasted about 15,000 years, were less than one degree Celsius warmer than today...
... Two degrees Celsius of warming would make Earth much warmer than during the Eemian - indeed, similar to Pliocene-like conditions, when sea level was about 25 meters higher than today, says Hansen...
... "We dont have a substantial cushion between today's climate and dangerous warming. Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying feedbacks in response to moderate additional global warming," says Hansen.
"Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales."
/... http://www.tgdaily.com/sustainability-features/60111-big-climate-change-could-happen-fast-and-soon