Note to reader: click on the links in the text for the real data. This is not a work of fiction.
About a month ago, I was driving my son to school on a sunny day. So he started asking me lots of questions about the Sun. "How old is it? How long will it live? What will happen to Earth when the Sun dies?" I started explaining, and in the middle of it he shut me down with this one: "Daddy, how long is a billion years?" It's why I wrote this post.
It's actually such an important question, and I thought about it all the way home. It's at the heart of a key recurring problem in science education in that the vast majority of humans truly don't understand lengths of time that are far longer than our lifetimes. No wonder that folks don't understand global warming as due to human intervention, and think it reasonable to interpret the data as explained by natural variation in the environment over long timescales. No wonder that folks don't understand the timescales for evolution of species.
So here now is a novel way to look at it.
Humans and Time
We humans now live on average about 75 years (in the developed world; in Africa the life expectancy is frighteningly low at 32 to 55). I'll assume that 75 years is the life expectancy of a human in the absence of devastating diseases like AIDS, and with availability to modern medicine.
We humans also like to perceive the passage of time in units of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. We've created these units because they are comfortable, connected to the rhythms in the sky and in our bodies, and each is used to make sense of events both short and long.
Now here's the critical point for the rest of the story:
One of our average humans sees 75 years x 365.25 days/year =
27,394 days in their life
That's amazing. That's 27,394 days of getting up in the morning, eating, working, playing, relaxing, and going to bed. Put this way, the length of a single day is absolutely inconsequential relative to a human lifetime. Agreed?
A Really Cool Diary
So let's say I had this really cool diary with one page for every day of our average human's life. It's a single book with 27,394 pages. I could give it to you at birth and ask you to record your life one page -- one day -- at a time (with some help from a friend in your early and possibly later years). Like I said, one cool diary.
A Day in the Life of the Earth
Let's say planet Earth was this large cosmic creature. She's got a life expectancy of about 10 billion years, from her birth with the Sun nearly 5 billion years ago, to her ultimate fate when the Sun is in its waning years some 5 billion years from now.
Earth obviously has a lot to say, and she's been keeping a diary since she was born. But she's got it in far too many volumes, since each didn't come with many pages, and they're all old and worn out. Hey, I think a new diary is a perfect gift for her! I'll give her one of my really cool diaries with 27,394 pages. I'll help her move all her old diary entries into the new one so it will truly record her 10 billion year life. Why don't we call each page .... a Geologic Day. And every Geologic Day is absolutely inconsequential relative to Earth's lifetime. After all, Earth has 27,394 of them.
Every Geologic Day, Earth will write in her diary the comings and goings for that day. Here's the next important point:
Every one of the 27,394 pages in Earth's diary -- each Geologic Day -- is 365,000 years long enough time for 14,600 human generations.
How come? Easy: 10 billion years divided by 27,394.
Take a minute to process that.
This might give you a new perspective for spans of time for Earth -- called geologic time -- relative to the time span for our fleeting lives.
So I give my friend the Earth one of my cool diaries. She likes it -- her life all in one book. I also happen to be very close with Earth, and she's letting me look at her diary. So here we are in the middle of her life and she just now finished her entry for day 13,697. She's already written the first 13,696 pages (I helped her transfer the entries from her old diary with Apple Time Capsule.) Here now is her page 13,697.
Dear diary-
Today, as always, I'm going to keep a watchful eye across my surface. It's an important responsibility being an oasis of life in a vast space. I'm painfully aware that all the countless forms of life that live on me depend on a very delicate balance of surface conditions. Every Geologic Day, I try to avoid those asteroids and comets and super volcanoes that have wreaked havoc with my sphere of life -- my biosphere.
Today started out as always, pretty routine with lots of new things to see. I'm still watching those bipedal creatures I first noticed about 6 Geologic Days ago. Over the last few days, it looked like there were a few different species of them. But by the middle of the day today, I'm pretty sure there's only one dominant species left. I'm fascinated with them. They're intelligent. They make tools.
Well, time to stop writing it's just about the next Geologic Day. There's only 35 Geologic Seconds left in this one (150 years to us humans). Wait ... did you see that?! Carbon dioxide levels in my atmosphere just spiked! This just can't be right! All of a sudden carbon dioxide is at the highest level it's been in at least 2 Geologic Days ... maybe even 50 Geologic Days (800,000 to 20 million years)!
This is serious. Carbon dioxide might seem innocent enough -- my diversity of life creates and uses it. But my neighbor Venus has an atmosphere that is 96% carbon dioxide, and while her surface should be about 125 deg F (50 deg C) at her distance from the Sun, the actual temperature is 880 deg F (470 deg C) -- hot enough to melt lead. Carbon dioxide is a gas that helps induce a greenhouse effect on a planet, causing elevated surface temperatures, and in the case of Venus the effect is absolutely extreme. In my case, my biosphere is in a delicate balance, and even though carbon dioxide is a trace gas, a substantial percentage increase can cause dramatic imbalance.
So all of a sudden -- in almost an imperceptibly small amount of time -- carbon dioxide in my atmosphere has skyrocketed. It's increase is nothing short of -- stunning. This is not due to natural cycles. No natural variation would happen this fast. This is the definition of cataclysmic. Some global scale, very short event that should be obvious. But I see no obvious crater, no super volcano ... let me keep looking.
Wait. What's happening now?! The temperature just spiked! Temperature variation over the recent past shows "little ice ages" and warming trends, but what I'm seeing now is a spike -- a very quick change -- and to a far higher temperature than seen in the recent past. And it spiked at the same time as did the carbon dioxide.
This is very bad. Warnings are now coming in from everywhere -- rapidly decreasing sea ice, rapid glacial melt. There has to be a cause. Something's happened. Something's different. This looks like the start of a planet-wide catastrophic event -- an irreversible change in the global environment. I've got to find out what's happening before it's too late for countless species on my surface. Let me keep looking and see if I can find something big that's happened in this instant in time ... a trigger ... something obvious.
Wait .... it's ... it's the bipeds! Oh no ... they're everywhere! Their technology is everywhere -- just in the last 35 Geologic Seconds! It's ... it's an infestation!
They have got to be stopped. They're supposed to be intelligent -- maybe not. But I've got to try reasoning with them.
Hey you!! Look at the data!! Look at the data!! Quick! Quick!
What are you doing!! Stop!! Are you crazy? Do you think you can load my atmosphere with those levels of emissions from your technology -- in a blinding instant of time -- and not impact me? Do you think my systems are capable of scrubbing the atmosphere that fast? My systems don't work on timescales of 35 geologic seconds!!
...Not enough of them are listening..
They're too busy, too pre-occupied ... with themselves.
They don't seem to care if they are committing suicide. Fine. Their choice. But they do not have the right to take countless other life forms with them. I've got to put in an emergency call to Interplanetary Pest Control, or ... tomorrow will be a very bad day.
A note from Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Public understanding of climate change depends on an understanding of time scales. Goldstein does a brilliant job of making clear the rapidity of the human-made intervention in the climate system, and the correlation of global warming with the appearance of technology powered by fossil fuels.
Teachers and parents:
This is cross-posted at Blog on the Universe, which includes how to make this a visual lesson in the classroom and at home.
Follow Jeff Goldstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/doctorjeff
Are you aware that there are four different online versions of your article A Day in the Life of Earth?
There is the one that appeared in the Huffington Post; there is another which appears on your website; there is a different version that, surprisingly enough, appears when one performs a 'Copy and Paste' of the on-screen text from your website; and, finally, there is the version that appears when one clicks on the Printer Friendly button at the bottom of the version on your web site. In the latter two of these versions there is at least one numerical mistake, wherein reference is mistakenly made to the 18,260th Geologic Day. It should be the 13,260th Day. (See paragraph four of the Dear Diary section in the Copy and Paste or paragraph three in the Printer Friendly version.)
I'm guessing that the HuffPo version is the definitive version. Perhaps you should replace the version on your website with the HuffPo version, and ask your web master to make sure that when one clicks on Printer Friendly or performs a Copy and Paste of the text on-screen that one is in fact capturing the same version that one sees in the on-screen text.
Nice work, by the way, in defending your position. I think we can do better than simply adapt like cavemen, don't you?
Best,
Ben
omg!!! more anecdotal evidence confirming CO2 rules the climate!
could it be that as oceans warm they give off CO2? they do you know..
oceans are like that yeah they are! and the earth was much warmer once without our help..
no really.. and at a guess we're hapless and helpless witnesses to it warming again.
adapt.. it's so easy that cavemen have done it!
A problem with the Global Warming debate (it's still not settled apparently) is who to believe. Personally, I don't know, so where to go for the truth, or at least objectivity?
I watched "The Great Global Warming Swindle." Certainly seemed to raise some good points. Then I read some challenges to it. I'll stick with what I've chosen to believe is most likely, and what I want to hear.
I offer this as a topic for an article: Where to go for the truth? And perhaps a look at the contradictory information that's floating around.
As to your technique for making large amounts of time understandable, I don't know that it worked.
I suggest that such lengths of time (or great distances) are beyond human comprehension, even if you scale them to understandable size.
The universe is 13.5 billion years old. I haven't the glimmer of a clue what that means.
CO2 is at cataclismic levels? Going from 280 ppm to 380 ppm, or comprising an additional .01% of the atmosphere, is a catastrophe? Concentrations are at their highest level in the past 800,000-20 million years? Those are some WIDE error bars - they sure inspire a lot of confidence!
A massive temperature spike? Perhaps according to Michael Mann's temperature reconstruction, which heavily weights bristlecone pine trees as a temperature proxy. Those trees are directly sensitive to CO2 concentrations themselves, which poses an omitted variable problem. In those trees, more CO2 -> faster growth. It's not necessarily the case that CO2 -> higher temperatures -> faster growth. For a temperature reconstruction with these problematic proxies removed, see http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/2000-years-of-global-temperatures-small.gif
Lastly, sea ice is basically stable globally, with reduced sea ice area in the NH balanced by a growth in sea ice in the SH. Your argument reeks of advocacy-statistic methodology.
You want to provide temp data? If you want to engage me, provide a citation in a refereed Journal for the graph. I didn't see it. See my comment below.
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
As you know, there is no temperature or CO2 data before we bi-peds starting measuring them. All we have are reconstructions that extrapolate known data into the past using proxies. To use your analogy, we only "know" how the last 35 seconds went - everything prior is simply a best guess.
Is a .6 degree/century rise in temperatures an alarming trend? That depends on your perspective. If you construct the past to seem flat by comparison, it does. But that construction could just as easily be an artifact of bad statistical data massaging.
If you want to talk temperature spikes, I would point to the El Nino year of 1998. 1998 saw global temperatures rise almost an entire degree Celcius (according to UAH Satellite measurements), only to fall by same amount in 1999. In your example, that spike lasted .3 seconds. That demonstrates how chaotic the climate system is: the spike dwarfed the century-long trend. That's a pretty weak signal-to-noise ratio. Further, the spike weakens the case for tipping points in the climate system, as temperatures rebounded instead of running away.
Perhaps writing pretend diary entries is your true calling - you've got quite an imagination!
will soon be discovered to be the hoax of the century. This molecule, CO2 is vital to all life on earth. It is exhaled by all living
things and even comes from nocturnal emissions by plants. It forms the bubbles in your soda, wine and beer.
The Associated Press claims that the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since Bill Clinton's second inaugural.
But after it was discovered that NASA's James Hansen, Gore's chief scientific ally, had been fudging the numbers,
the agency was forced to correct its data. The 10 warmest years turn out to be, in descending order:
1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939.
RomeoMD25 is putting forth two points:
1. CO2 is needed for life, and is benign. Read my post concerning the atmosphere of Venus and the impact of benign CO2. Here is an analogy. WATER is benign, and important for life as we know it. But if you drink too much of it, you DIE. It is called hyper-hydration. RomeoMD25's point is an attempt at junk science meant to wrap the real data in a cloak of invisibility. How can you not like mom and apple pie and CO2? is the argument. Readers - dismiss any arguments you hear that CO2 is benign, and therefore not relevant to global warming.
2. Let's look at the temperature data. RomeoMD25 wants to spit back and forth on temperature. But his data is useless without a citation to data in a peer-reviewed journal. Provide the citation.
Here is mine:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html
Readers, for someone to even enter the room regarding a debate on science, demand they provide citations to refereed journals. Then and only then should the debate begin. That's the required ticket at the door. Without it dismiss the messenger.
RomeoMD25 has provided nothing debatable except recycled jargon and a framework spun from his faith in AGW being nonsense.
You'll note I am not responding to RomeoMD25. It's not warranted. I am addressing those that might otherwise be swayed by his comment.
so close your mind to anything except accepted doctrine.. hmm.. who knew?
had orville told wilbur that they could have just quit their stupid aerodynamic research and gone back to getting those bicycles fixed for waiting customers.. langley had the phd's.
No one disagrees with that!!!!!
It's irrelevant to the global warming issue!!!!!!
Greenhouse gas. Argue about CO2's effects as a greenhouse gas if you like, but saying CO2 is nontoxic, therefore it can do no harm, is just nonsense.
Actually there is a fair amount of agreement in this debate. No one disagrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas or that more CO2 in the atmophere will increase the temperature.
The argument comes in the area of feedback. The IPCC and the models used by them calls for a strong positive feedback from the rise in temperature from CO2. These models call for this feedback to increase the warming from 3 to 10 times.
Skeptics look at actual data (the original estimates are just that estimates) and feel that the feedback is much less and might even be slightly negative.
I will continue this in the next comment.
The IPCC tells us that the fingerprint of CO2 warming is a hot spot approximately 10 km up over the tropics. Despite the fact that we have been launching weather balloons and measuring the temperature there for over 50 years we have never detected such a hot spot. This certainly does not support the AGW theory.
Next, Hansen told us that besides the atmospheric temperature, the oceans are the main heat sink for earth. He published a paper in which he showed how the temperature in the ocean had increased from 1993 to 2003 which he told us was a sign of global warming.
The problem is that for the last 10 years there has been no atmospheric warming and in 2003 we launched the Argo system which measures the ocean to depths where we should see at least 85% of the heating in AGW occurring. Argo has shown us no increase in temperature since 2003. If you believe in AGW due to CO2 you have to ask the question, "where's the heat?"
Great piece, and yes, we are headed for trouble.
I just became a 'fan' of your work (signed up above), so I can read your writings on a regular basis.
Thank you for reading and posting a comment on my blog. Here is my link (for others :)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janice-taylor/planet-earth-difficult-ti_b_233031.html
Green together,
Janice
last 35 seconds of the day, that puts it into perspective...
Please read Charles' recent post below. It provides a deep sense of what we're up against.
-Jeff
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-alexander/heads-still-in-the-sand-o_b_232352.html
http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12794&SnID=2075327496
Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
Unknown processes account for much of warming in ancient hot spell
No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect.
The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past. The study, which was published online today, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."
Great! Our current models can only account for HALF of the warming that occurred at that time. Son of a #$%*)!!! Can't catch a break.
I was hoping that the study would reveal that we're over-estimating the problem with your Exxon paying off Rice U comment.
Guess I'll still be looking at further reducing my carbon footprint after all.
"In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record," said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. "There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models."
Since we all know that there are no "skeptics" that aren't bought and paid for by Exxon, this research is astounding.
It's peer-reviewed, it's not from some blog.
Do you have a reading comprehension problem perhaps?
Thanks, I guess.
Amazing stuff. Thank you for it.