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Global Warming Started 180 Years Ago Near Beginning of Industrial Revolution, Says Study (smh.com.au)

New research led by scientists at the Australian National University's Research School of Earth suggests that humans first started to significantly change the climate in the 1830s, near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The findings have been published in the journal Nature, and "were based on natural records of climate variation in the world's oceans and continents, including those found in corals, ice cores, tree rings and the changing chemistry of stalagmites in caves." Sydney Morning Herald reports: "Nerilie Abram, another of the lead authors and an associate professor at the Australian National University's Research School of Earth Sciences, said greenhouse gas levels rose from about 280 parts per million in the 1830s to about 295 ppm by the end of that century. They now exceed 400 ppm. Understanding how humans were already altering the composition of the atmosphere through the 19th century means the warming is closer to the 1.5 to 2 degrees target agreed at last year's Paris climate summit than most people realize." "It was one of those moments where science really surprised us," says Abram. "But the results were clear. The climate warming we are witnessing today started about 180 years ago."

15 of 709 comments (clear)

  1. Pierson's Puppeteers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The deniers do not care, they will be dead before the worst hits. As long as they can live high on the hog on their imaginary money until they die, they are happy. There is not one drop of concern for the future of humanity or life on earth in general.

    1. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why the hell should anyone care about abstract "people"? I'mm not wired that way, we care about those we know, not about anyone I don't know .

      I fixed that for you. There ar ea lot of peopel in this world. Some do not care about anyone outside their immediate or extended family - in fact, some have a great fear outside of their "friend zone". Some don't care about anyone at all. And despite your assertions, there are those among us who actually do care about the future and the people in it.

      You shouldn't presume to speak for all of humanity.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re: Pierson's Puppeteers by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      3) I dont have children to enjoy it either

      Show of hands: Who here is surprised by this? Now who here is grateful for this?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    3. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who? BLM & SJWs exhibit just what you are describing in massive amounts, despite being on the left.

    4. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by Barsteward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Those people represent a small fraction of the global population." - but if you asked every parent if they'd want a safer world for their kids and grandkids etc, they would all say "yes" - its just that some of them haven't seen the light about the dangers of global warming yet. so the fraction of the population is potentially greater than you think

      --
      "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
    5. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sure it's passe to say that it's both sides, but it is. Consider that the United States no longer has an anti-war party. At the Democratic National Convention, they tried to drown out and laugh off chants of "No more war" from the delegates. I could go on and on about how now neither major party opposes fracking, the liberals are now further right of George W. Bush on Israel, and so much more. Americans as a whole show even less empathy nowadays.

    6. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by Charcharodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lol, you kids crack me up. The pollution and climate change will get so bad? First off unless you live in the 3rd world shit hole, pollution has gotten lower than it has ever been in my life time and that of my parents and even grandparents. Then again, 3rd world shit holes are not exactly the same as they were when I was a kid either. Back in the day they were truly horrible places to live. Sure they are worse off with pollution compared to say the US or Europe but everything else disease, poverty, crime, famine, etc is much less so. Eventually they will clean up their act as well, and everyone will wonder what the big fuss is about.

    7. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Isn't that what we've been doing for most of human history? Family against family, clan against clan, tribe against tribe, village against village and so on for most of human existence?

      Some time in pre-history human beings realized that it was better to work together than to fight each other. It's proven to be a popular philosophy.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by avandesande · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not to mention that nobody talks about positive effects of global warming... will increased atmospheric moisture turn the southwest or the sahara into arable land? We don't really know.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    9. Re:Pierson's Puppeteers by haruchai · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "pollution has gotten lower than it has ever been in my life time"

      It hasn't "gotten lower" - laws were passed that FORCED individuals & industry to clean up or not a a horrible mess in the 1st place.
      If those laws aren't enforced or if they are repealed as more than a few politicians have been trying to do, you'll be living in your grandparent's mess.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  2. So global warming started... by hsthompson69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...even before humans had any significant CO2 output.

    Good to know. I'm sure someone out there will find some magical particle humans were emitting in the 1800s at a certain level that didn't scale with the massive growth in population of humanity.

    1. Re:So global warming started... by Mr0bvious · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Surely that's a stawman argument.

      "Reducing use of fossil fuels" != "halting all progress"

      You use the phrase "slow this progress" but the remainder of your comment implies almost halting progress.

      Limiting use of fossil fuels has (relatively short in terms of human history) economic consequences which will be overcome. If we drastically reduced the use of fossil fuels today I doubt it will take hundreds of years to find a working cleaner alternative, especially when there is economic motive.

      --
      Never happened. True story.
  3. Re:The anti-science sure is odd. by Namarrgon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    anti-science nutters that cannot understand

    My irony meter just exploded.

    Yes some warming is occurring, but not enough to matter in any way worth even getting excited about - at least that's what the hard facts and careful research tell us.

    Funny how the anti-science nutters are always so highly selective about their "hard facts and careful research", hand-waving away all the rest of the data that doesn't fit their own narrative as "manipulated". Let me guess, the whole of the IPCC Working Group II's collected data is all compromised and ignorable, every bit; none of those described impacts could possibly happen, amirite?

    Heck it's probably

    Ah, another hard fact, with more careful research behind it?

    not even enough to counteract the next global cooling phase which is close at hand

    It started 8000 years ago, temperatures have been dropping since then - up until we changed everything.

    Now the soft facts and panicked revelations made by so called "scientists" who are backed by governments trying to bilk the people into more central control

    Now the baseless allegations of conspiracy and paranoia, with the inevitable government agenda behind it. Did you notice all the Australian climate scientists recently protesting their government's agenda?

    But of course I forgot, they just want to keep their jobs, and they have to keep manipulating their data and falsifying their results even when their government clearly doesn't want to hear it - low-paying research on global warming is all they can do, because the fossil fuel industry certainly doesn't have any money for them.

    isn't it astounding that after literally decades of being utterly wrong about long term climate forecasts, people still listen to them?

    Dammit, my brand new irony meter just exploded as well.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  4. Re: Stop it with the SJW crap!!! by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is not a belief. That is fact.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  5. Re: The anti-science sure is odd. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And yet that's precisely what the original poster was complaining about. Climate scientists have progressively refined their models over the last few decades as more data became available and as computational power increased to the level that they can run simulations on a desktop that would have needed a supercomputer in the '80s (and far more complex ones on modern supercomputers). When they refine their models and obsolete some of their old predictions (or those of other researchers - there's nothing an academic enjoys more than proving another one wrong) then you grumble about the wrong predictions. When the new models predict some of the same things as the old, then you complain that they're not adapting their hypothesis.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News