Maggie's Farm

From recent news reports: 11,700 years ago, at the close of the last ice age, a time when fully modern humans inhabited most of the globe, Greenland experienced a 22-degree temperature spike in a matter of years.  That's the equivalent of changing from New York's climate to Miami's, and on a human timescale. 

Meanwhile, climate alarmists eagerly embraced the news that 55 million years ago, Greenland and barren Arctic islands such as Spitzbergen enjoyed year-round temperatures of 74 F - equivalent to West Palm Beach - pointing to it as evidence of the dangers of high CO2 levels.  There's only one problem: at that time, temperatures in the tropics were the same or even slightly cooler than today, making for a balmy, paradise-like world devoid of freezing or baking temperatures. 

At the time, parts of what is now Colombia had an annual average as low as 78 f or less, meaning that CO2 is unlikely to have been the warming agent at work (at the time, CO2 was at approximately 3,500 ppm, vs. 380 ppm today.  Mammals apparently flourished like never before or since in this climate).

Scientists guess at changing air circulation patterns and ocean currents to explain these phenomena, but the fact is we simply have no idea what was responsible.