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Global Temperatures Are Close To 11,000-Year Peak

ananyo writes "Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years, a study published in Science suggests. Researchers have reconstructed global climate trends all the way back to when the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from the most recent ice age. They looked at 73 overlapping temperature records including sediment cores drilled from lake bottoms and sea floors around the world, and ice cores collected in Antarctica and Greenland. For some records, the researchers inferred past temperatures from the ratio of magnesium and calcium ions in the shells of microscopic creatures that had died and dropped to the ocean floor; for others, they measured the lengths of long-chain organic molecules called alkenones that were trapped in the sediments. From the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest, they report (abstract)."

4 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. If only we could figure out.. by helobugz · · Score: 5, Funny

    If only we could figure out how the cave men managed to make the earth cool off for the last ten millenia...

    1. Re:If only we could figure out.. by OakDragon · · Score: 3, Funny

      Maybe he's a Creationist, you insensitive clod!

  2. Clear bias against the oil industry by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 4, Funny

    These studies only show what they do because most of the world's scientists are funded by the anti-oil lobby, who have so much money that the oil industry find it difficult to compete. Imagine if you were on an environmental archaeologist's research salary - that's got to be in the tens of thousands of dollars a year, why on earth would you accept the measly hundreds of thousands of dollars that the oil industry can afford to pay their researchers?

    (That's sarcasm, by the way.)

    --
    Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
  3. Very Encouraging! by scarboni888 · · Score: 4, Funny

    As a Canadian I completely support the global warming movement and am always glad to see reports like this showing its' progress.

    GO WARMING GO WARMING IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, GO WARMING!!