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)."

Comments

If only we could figure out..

[helobugz]

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

Re:If only we could figure out..

[GodInHell]

By introducing great government controls (economy doesn't care why) you will slow down technological development. How stupid would ancestors of 100-300 years ago have been to put clamps on industrialization? Would we be better off with, maybe, year 1900-level tech today?

You mean like the hundreds and thousands of laws we put in place to control and limit the abuses of industrialization - from labor rights, to tarriff controls to bar dumping, to environmental controls to prevent pouring spent lubricants into our lakes and rivers, etc. I think it seems to have worked out pretty well when we've, say, stopped industry from hiring 8 year olds - even though it is absolutely provably true that their little hands ARE better at fitting into tight spaces between trapped gears to release them -- and other dangerous tasks in tight spaces.

Title vs summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Title: Global Temperatures Are Close To 11,000-Year Peak

Actual first line: Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years

Some peak - it's barely in the first quartile.

Re:Scary and scarier

[Anonymous Coward]

The US is highest per capita, yes, but China holds the majority in total emissions. And those are 2011 numbers, they've had a whole year to up the ante(note from 2010-2011, the US went down a little bit, China went up 17%). Think where the world will be when China surpasses us per capita.

captcha: equality

Re:Yay

[GameboyRMH]

Here's why you should care:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm