If you are going to discuss complicated things like Snowball Earth then it is necessary to give them a name that everyone understands and uses. The snappier the better!

If you are going to discuss complicated things like Snowball Earth then it is necessary to give them a name that everyone understands and uses. The snappier the better!

This is a fantastic question. While snappy names can often lead to misunderstandings and simplifications, it is probably a major factor in popularizing topics that would go unnoticed by the general public otherwise. The clever terms are what draws in readers, both inside and outside the scientific community. It is the job however of the person coining these phrases to make sure they are clearly defined and not misleading.

I agree with the comments above that we need to keep these snappy terms to make the subject popular and provoke search and debate.

Other terms would be the "Permian Death", "Killer asteroids" and the "out of Africa humans".

Dear colleagues,

I refrain from sparking a lengthy philosophical discussion on sciences, in general, and geosciences, in particular, but look at this issue from a different angle. When I started as a freshman it was a bit out of the ordinary to find an outlet for scientific data others than the oral presentation at a conference or a submission to a scientific journal. The pyramid was still a geometric body tapering off towards the top. Times are changing and human beings with them (Ovid: "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis").

Two slogans are known to each of us:

"There is no business like show business"

"Publish or perish"

I see a close link between these terms cited and a change in our mindset.

Best regards

H.G.Dill

1, Scientists working in the field will master the complexity - it will not have any effect

2, Scientists not working in the field or well-informed laypersons will notice the catchy phrase and may read more to understand it, and probably at least get the basic concepts involved

3. Most of the population are fairly scientifically illiterate. They will get it only partly right, catchy phrase or not, but may at least notice it. However the young may find it interesting enough to become scientists, it may encourage some support for science, and in technologically advanced nations where most people still think the earth is only 6500 years old and was created in 7 days, I am happy to think that they will at least be aware that most scientists think otherwise and that science offers some interesting ideas, and it may cause them to be a little more analytical and open to alternatives. Viewed as entertainment, it does not have to be understood and beats much else offering, for at least some of the time.

Who exactly are we afraid of impacting on negatively?

Yes, politicians can be a problem, even those who run universities :-) - it can be an issue (remember cold fusion and America's mega-mission for a manned landing on Mars). However most pollies are motivated by more mundane issues, and really silly stuff usually dies out fairly quickly.  Which person are you referring to, the one who coins the phrase (e.g. media not scientists)? I'm not sure that the inaccuracies really matter hugely in most cases in the longer term, and often they are only discovered in the normal way through the research funded, So it wasn't all a snowball, so the extinction of the dinosaurs wasn't inmstantaneous, was already underway, continued for a bit longer (naming a few things I thought a bit oversimplified from the beginning). More that it is frustrating for those of us who don't get a slice for our work when we need it because of support for a concept pollies misunderstand - but in the longer term...perhaps not much damage (amazes me how good science often comes out in the end after throwing money at mediochre concepts, scientists are pretty good at changing emphasis along the way while not changing the catchy title). Did we used to monitor asteroids closely, did we try landing on a comet to examine it - so maybe the extinction events are not so simple, but look at what else we did? So commonly the long-term benefits out weigh the short-term issue,,,,

"Expanding Earth" - Warren Carey (and perhaps Belousov) would be pleased to know that anyone remembers....

Note that I steered clear of "Great Oxidation Event" :-)

Good question, as I'm actually mulling over something similar at the moment - I'm trying to decide on a name for a new module that I'll be teaching next year. The 'boring' name will be 'Igneous & Metamorphic Petrology' as that is what the course is; one other idea that I'm tossing around is 'Magmas & mountains' (gives a bit of the story, but not everything!). Again, a 'catchy' title (I'll leave it for you to judge!) isn't really telling the truth, but it might spark students' interest - I don't know.

Sadhbh - Cooking Pot Earth :-)

Looked at the cooling Earth figure - so we did all of those things by simply burning coal? Go for the cheap solution.....

Palaeontology knows many more of these snappy terms: "Trophic Escalation" ended peaceful coexistence in the "Garden of Ediacara" and provoked an "Agronomic Revolution" (aka "Cambrian Substrate Evolution"). The Cambrian events were followed, among others, by the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event", Number One of the "Big Five", and the "Devonian Nekton Revolution"... As long as the concepts behind these terms can be reasonably substantiated their use in the right context appears to be unproblematic. Perhaps the problem is that some of the snappy terms are still in use due to their salability even though the respective concept is regarded as disproven or empty.

Say what? (I was driving my 4x4 around the Garden of Ediacara recently looking at Precambrian ejectamenta, but I suspect  I just lost something in translation). But I  think your last sentence makes an important point Michael....

Just come from an EGU session on the Anthropocene, and when it started. Not possible if the Anthropocene had not been named.

What about the methane belch hypothesis? http://www.britannica.com/science/methane-burp-hypothesis

But pretty unlikely since methane clathrates would only have formed after the ice sheets started at the end of the Miocene.

Apologies, entirely tongue in cheek - your figure gave possible engineering solutions to prevent global cooling. Creating surface temperature anomalies, eliminating Arctic Sea ice pack, modifying typhoons, transporting blocks of Antarctic ice, modifying hurricanes, cutting down tropical forests. All achieved and mostly at no more cost than doing things like burning fossil fuels and wood etc - the cheap solution, and now we are warm and still not satisfied :-)  More seriously though, simplistic or incorrect models can nevertheless have positive outcomes when they attract the attention of poloticians. Global cooling increasing interest in long-term climate, global warming making politicians aware that climate is not steady-state (anthropogenic or not) and that cities cannot be built and major engineering feats undertaken without allowing for this (I doubt if 1% of politicians realised this previously, and it suddenly made them aware of mundane and incredibly expensive future requirements like re-jigging sewage outfalls)....It may skew research funding in the short term, but such things adjust in the longer term (law of diminishing returns).

Do you have a reference on the latest views on the "ozone hole" - no-one seems to have informed the climate scientists much less the pollies (and it is not my area of expertise)? I still think one can undestimate the huge advances in related areas of science whenever a lot of money is thrown at it, making faulty models not too momentous (it is not a case of "damn, we wasted billions for absolutely nothing", but that we discovered all sorts of things in both science and technology while often proving the fundamental premise incorrect (and aren't we supposed to be testing, not proving one side or the other of an argument - as a group anyway, if not as individuals)? However as a grumpy old man, I would prefer a little more focus by the pollies on simply preventing us blowing ourselves or our brethren out of the water this year or next, while we ponder these decadenal or even millenial mysteries that are perhaps relevant to keeping our species (or its descendant species) alive until the inevitable climax in a few billion years. Boy, will the media have fun when that gets close.......

"The Solar Swan Song" or perhaps "Gaia's Last Gulp"

Thanks Kenneth