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Earth's Temperature at Highest Levels in 400 Years
thatguywhoiam writes "Congress asked, and the scientists have answered: 'The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The
National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the 'recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia.'"
Gringos, sign the Kioto Protocol!
Omar
Only nut jobs think we're really driving ourselves to extinction. Like I said, nutty viewpoints like that cheapen the debate and really discredit your whole side of the argument. The world, and its species, have been more than able to adapt and survive climate changes in the past. We're a little bit above average, I'm sure we'll cope.
Yes, but if you notice the CO2 increases tend to lag the temperature increases. One theory is that whatever causes the temperature jump causes increased evaporation from the oceans, which increases cloud cover and the reduced sunlight causes a die-off of plants which causes the CO2 levels to jump (but not by enough to offset the reduced insolation heating, so after the temperature spikes we drop into a snowball). You can see the lag clearly in the chart on the next page you reference. There's a major temperature jump starting around 12,500 years back and peaking just before 11,000 years back, but the CO2 level doesn't start to jump until around 11,500 years back (a thousand years after the temperature increase starts) and peaks about 11,000 years back (just after temperatures start to drop a bit).
Also note the differences in variance for temperatures on the various charts. We only have accurate temperature readings back about 42 years, so temperatures after that point show intra-year variation while temperatures before that are annual averages. Comparing chart 2 to charts 3 and 4, the entire increase the authors are worried about fits well within the 200-year normal variations present in the data for the last 11 millenia. I'm sorry, but there's no discernable "signal" in the temperature chart.
That said, I'd be concerned not about the CO2 levels themselves but about rising CO2 emissions coupled with the erosion of carbon-fixing plant life (eg. rain forests). Ignoring temperature data completely, that still can't possibly be good. The problem is that the majority of the CO2 emissions are in the developing world, which doesn't have the resources to do anything about it. And it's going to get worse as they go through the same progression the developed world went through. None of the "solutions" I've seen proposed do a thing about that.
actually, global warming was a topic one year on my college debate circuit, and in prepareing i had to read hundreds if not thousands of papers books and articles on virtually every aspect of the subject. So Im certainly not ignorant, I must just be deeply stupid. BTW, before doing the research I was scared of it too, now I think its probably just about the biggest scam out there.
Dang, I'm glad we didn't believe the scientists in the 1970's who said the Earth was cooling off. We'd have thrown another log on the fire to warm things up, and, next thing you know, 90% of Slashdotters would be wearing shorts to work!
How can you conclude that? "It is the hottest temp. then it has been in 400 years". This means that 400 years ago, or whatever number you want to come up with, it was this hot or hotter. The enviro. wackos what you to think that we are killing the Earth. It is simply not the case. The Earth has gone through cooling periods (Ice Age) and warming periods (the melting of the ice). The so called scientist that clam we have 'x' number of years left are wrong. No one knows how long this Earth has left. From a religon stand point, when the second coming of Jesus happens, then we will know. From a science stand point, you can guess and hypothosize all you want, but you will never be right. Al Gore had some pretty slides and all that, but the amount of jet fuel he has used in going to his "engagements" makes him a hypocrite. If he was so worried about the enviroment, then he would either walk, run, or use a bike to get where he is going.