Comments by "Psiberzerker" (@Psiberzerker) on "The Last Time the Globe Warmed" video.

  1. "...So far." A good microclimate that you can see today is the Maritime Climate around the Humbolt Current, and Puget Sound of the Pacific NW. There, we have Cloud Forest, and Temperate Rainforest at latitudes, and altitudes associated with, well. Canada. Ferns are everywhere, and the rich volcanic soil looks like a Dunkan Hines chocolate cake commercial. (I've actually picked up soil with the tines of a fork, to demonstrate on Vancouver Island.)
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  2. Feedback Loop: It's hard to assign Positive, or Negative to what's essentially Neutral. Both glaciation, and Greenhouse Heating reinforce their feedback loops through Albedo. For example, Ice/Snow is a lot more reflective than Water. So, as the ice caps melt, and the ocean levels rise, there's more open water, and less snow to absorb sunlight, and re-emit it as Infrared. (The frequencies that CO2, and Methane absorb) Conversely, during ice-ages, sea levels drop, and glaciers expand, reflecting more light, and absorbing less. "Positive," and "Negative" have positive, and negative associations, to popular science audiences. Of course, they also mean something scientifically, for example in Thermodynamics, where Entropy tends to reinforce in a cascade failure. Our current runaway greenhouse effects (Plural) could be described as either Positive (Thermal) reinforcement, or a cascade failure.
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  3. Methane, and Water Vapor are tricky, as Greenhouse Gasses. Water Vapor basically has 2 Alotropes in our atmosphere. One is a greenhouse gas, and then it condenses into Clouds, which reflect, and disperse light about as efficiently as fresh fallen snow. (Another alotrope of Water) Methane for several reasons: First of all, there's various sources, as diverse as ruminants (Cattle) to rotting vegetation. So, you have swamps being cleared for farmland (And drained) but then you have cattle turning crops into meat, manure, and Methane. Also, Methane isn't stable in an oxygen rich atmosphere, so it tends to break down. Into Carbon Dioxide, and Water Vapor.
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