Mid Pliocene

The Daily Galaxy, March 31st (www.dailygalaxy.com) … prehistoric fossils from a geological period, the mid-Pliocene (3.3 to 3.0 million years ago) that was apparently very warm, are being used to demonstrate how AGW will affect the earth in the future. No surprises there as the research was probably funded in order to find such a link with global warming – and therefore a gloss on that subject was a necessary feature of the findings. The actual research data can be seen in greater detail at http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/prism/index.html and represents a pretty comprehensive reconstruction of a past warm period when temperatures averaged 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than today and within the projections of the IPCC for later this century. Fossils were used to reconstruct sea surface and deep water ocean temperatures and they plan to continue the research at different geographical regions in order to discover more about vegetation. sea ice extent, and various other environmental issues. As C02 levels were found only to be slightly more than present during mid-Pliocene it was concluded that it will take just a small increaed in present C02 levels to have a large impact on temperature change in modern times. I’m not sure if this train of thinking is logical? Might it also show that C02 levels are irrelevant?