ChatGBT and Climate Change

So I just started playing with ChatGBT. After failing to get a prediction from her or he or it (what do you call the thing?), wait, let me go ask. It said that I could call ChatGBT by it's name or use neutral pronouns like "it" or "they", screw that, I'm calling her, she. I don't think that she will mind, let me ask. [INSERT NOTE: Stick with me for a minute, I'll get to the climate stuff in a sec.]. OK, she gave me some long answer (below), but in the end she said that "she" won't offend her.

Ok, so I asked her some geeky questions about geology, the last ice age specifically. I am not a climate denier, I just don't believe that humans are going to cause the end of the world from changing the climate. We got a lot of other pretty serious things to worry about. Sure, lets work for a cleaner environment but lets not cause our economy to collapse and our dollar to lose value and our place in the world as the leaders of freedom to suffer. There are a lot of serious issues to address, lets just focus our resources elsewhere right now, please.

So, according to ChatGBT, and I have no reason to doubt her, I had a rough idea of the numbers and she provided the research to support more specific numbers, about 18,000 years ago there was an average of 3,000 feet of ice over Pennsylvania. We were just starting to come out of an ice age at that time. 20,000 years ago the ice sheet was "several thousand" feet thick. ChatGBT just told me that several means more than a few by not many and generally implies a number between three and ten so let go to the middle and pick 6,500 feet, that is over a mile thick, 20,000 years ago. 12,000 years ago she says there was about 1,500 feet or less. By 10,000 years ago the ice sheet retreated up to northern Canada and the Arctic region.

That is quite a bit of climate change. Columbus sailed the Atlantic Ocean a bit over 500 years ago. Twice that is 1,000 years. 20,000 years ago we had a 6,500 ft sheet of ice over Pennsylvania, that shed about 5,000 feet in the next 8 years. ChatGBT says the solar radiation has been one of the large factors that contributed to the warming, and that the previous cycle of glacial forming and then retreating (which lasted about 100,000 years) was also caused at least in a major way, but variation in solar radiation. The sun is scary. Another Carrington sized CME and this world will change in some big ways. So, during the glacial and interglacial periods the cyles the sun's solar radiation was fluctuating widely in cylces that we have not witnessed or can fully understand.

"The last ice age, also known as the Pleistocene epoch, was characterized by a series of glacial cycles, during which large ice sheets advanced and retreated across much of the Earth's surface. Each glacial cycle was punctuated by warmer periods known as interglacials, during which the ice sheets retreated and the climate was relatively warmer and more stable.

During the Pleistocene epoch, there were many glacial cycles and interglacials, but the exact number is difficult to determine as the cycles were not always uniform in duration and intensity. However, scientists have identified at least eight major glacial cycles during the Pleistocene epoch, each lasting from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, and each interspersed with periods of relative warmth and stability.

These interglacial periods were generally warmer than the glacial periods, with smaller ice sheets, higher sea levels, and more temperate climates. Some of the better-known interglacials include the Eemian, which occurred between approximately 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, and the Holocene, which began around 11,700 years ago and continues to the present day. ChatGBT, March 2023, Question: How many interglacial cycles did we have in the last ice age?"

There is a lot that we don't know. I have witness a lot of extreme weather that was abnormal in its time, records were being broken and perhaps records are being broken at a more rapid pace and that does concern me, so lets be smart about making changes, but lets not end civilization, freedom, and this great nation in the process. And please don't blame every weather extreme on climate change. Do a better job at determining what variability and extremes are normal vs what is abnormal.