Are their 'pre-human'** cycles? yes. This is an impact outside those bounds.
How can that be when we're not warmer than during large parts of the Holocene (yet)? If anything, the fact that the coldest period in the whole Holocene was just a few hundred years ago, isn't there more support for saying that the _cold_ was outside pre-human cycles?
If you consider "neutral" to be valid as "do not know" there's no 97% consensus to be had from the study.
(If you're interested in facts. Not many are)
Has it ever changed so rapidly?
Oh yes.
Until a few decades ago it was generally thought that all large-scale global and regional climate changes occurred gradually over a timescale of many centuries or millennia, scarcely perceptible during a human lifetime. The tendency of climate to change relatively suddenly has been one of the most suprising outcomes of the study of earth history, specifically the last 150,000 years (e.g., Taylor et al., 1993). Some and possibly most large climate changes (involving, for example, a regional change in mean annual temperature of several degrees celsius) occurred at most on a timescale of a few centuries, sometimes decades, and perhaps even just a few years. The decadal-timescale transitions would presumably have been quite noticeable to humans living at such times, and may have created difficulties or opportunities (e.g., the possibility of crossing exposed land bridges, before sea level could rise).
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
Don't mistake low proxy resolution (example, ice cores) for lack of actual rapid changes.
That "danger point" is completely reliant upon the value of the so-called "climate sensitivity" factor, our understanding of which changes each year as we increase our knowledge of the climate system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
There have been numerous studies lately (post IPCC AR4) pointing to a low climate sensitivity factor, which would change the value of "the danger point" upwards from 350 ppm as well (450 ppm IIRC, but that's from memory based on the below mean).
http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/gsr_042513_fig1.jpg
(Please see image content, not domain name, for actual references)
"Ethnic homogeneity" (thinly veiled xenophobic rants) has absolutely nothing to do with how well off we are.
http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/nyheter/news-2012/article.2012-12-13.5374023955
As for size, compare Sweden to single US states if you wish.
It's 480 days, not [just] a year.
480, not 280.
I've been home taking care of my son since he was three months old. He'll be 18 months when I get back to work.
That's not a typo - I'm a proud Swedish dad.
#1 Sweden is the most socially advanced country in the world.
Sweden is ranked 1st in Personal Safety, 3rd in Air, Water, and Sanitation, and 4th in Nutrition and Basic Medical Care. However, it ranked 37th in Ecosystem Sustainability. In terms of Opportunity, the Scandinavian country has stellar rankings — 2nd overall, 1st in Personal Freedom and Choice and Personal Rights, and 5th in Access to Higher Education. Its lowest score in this category is Equity and Inclusion, with a ranking of 7th.
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-socially-advanced-countries-2013-4?op=1
Now we are in the information age and people are extrapolating computers implanted in our brains. I don't think it will happen.
http://scienceblogs.com/sciencepunk/2013/02/20/implanted-bionic-eye-allows-the-blind-to-see-again/
http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/two-rats-communicate-brain-to-brain-130227.htm
I see no reason why I wouldn't want more bandwidth between my mind and the Internet. Keyboards and touchscreens are clumsy.
In fact, I would argue that the distribution of intelligence among the popuplation today is the same as (or even skewed in the negative direction) 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 5000 years ago, and 10,000 years ago. The local maxima and minima with respect to time are also unchanged
"The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day."
but insurance records of storm damage are probably a better way to detect any meaningful change in storm damage.
In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900—a significant event, but not close to the top 10. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.
To put things into even starker perspective, consider that from August 1954 through August 1955, the East Coast saw three different storms make landfall—Carol, Hazel and Diane—that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578089413659452702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Here is one thing the industry agrees is true: The cost from hurricane damages is increasing. That's largely because population density and the cost of coastal property increases every year.
[---]
"Are we really seeing more storms, or are we just recording more storms? That's the big question," says longtime expert Karen Clark, who runs her own risk-management consultancy.
Clark says the problem is that hurricane prediction is a very young science. She notes that records documenting hurricanes go back only about a century, a data set far too small to draw big conclusions.
She says after Hurricane Katrina — the most expensive of all documented storms — some predicted a warming cycle would produce more powerful storms. That forecast did not bear out.
"It just shows you that we just are not that smart, you know, when it comes to what's really going on," Clark says.
Bill Keogh, president of Eqecat, one of the major risk-modeling firms in the U.S., says that despite what it may seem, we are now in a statistically low period of hurricane activity. After Katrina, few powerful hurricanes have made landfall in the U.S.
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/04/164185424/insurance-companies-rethink-business-after-sandy
(Observations trump models. Always)
Here's a graph on total cyclone energy over time. The global warming signal should be easily spotted:
There's no scientific data that supports your opinion. The warming of the oceans is miniscule compared to seasonal variations - and corals have existed when the oceans have been much much warmer than today. The same goes for pH-levels - the global variance is an order of magnitude larger than the changes we believe we've seen over the last few hundred years (there's an issue with instrument calibration and number of significant digits far back).
The reefs are in no danger from either cooling or warming. They rebuild quickly, and have done so over many ice age cycles (where the last warm period was much warmer than ours today).
Coral reefs mostly bleach because of cooling and warming - the causes of which are natural changes in ocean circulation. The reefs are also much more resilient than we thought:
New research shows that an isolated reef off the northwest coast of Australia that was severely damaged by a period of warming in 1998 has regenerated in a very short time to become nearly as healthy as it was before. What surprises scientists, though, is that the reef regenerated by itself, found a study published Thursday in the journal Science
What international reseller isn't insuring against currency risks already?
Function reject.
