Posted on 06/23/2006 6:59:12 AM PDT by presidio9
The Earth is running a slight fever from greenhouse gases, after enjoying relatively stable temperatures for 2,000 years. The National Academy of Sciences, after reconstructing global average surface temperatures for the past two millennia, said Thursday the data are "additional supporting evidence ... that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming."
Other new research showed that global warming produced about half of the extra hurricane-fueled warmth in the North Atlantic in 2005, and natural cycles were a minor factor, according to Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a research lab sponsored by the National Science Foundation and universities.
The academy had been asked to report to Congress on how researchers drew conclusions about the Earth's climate going back thousands of years, before data was available from modern scientific instruments. The academy convened a panel of 12 climate experts, chaired by Gerald North, a geosciences professor at Texas A&M University, to look at the "proxy" evidence before then, such as tree rings, corals, marine and lake sediments, ice cores, boreholes and glaciers.
Combining that information gave the panel "a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years," the panel wrote. It said the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia," though it was relatively warm around the year 1000 followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.
Their conclusions were meant to address, and they lent credibility to, a well-known graphic among climate researchers — a "hockey-stick" chart that climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes created in the late 1990s to show the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years.
It had compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures — a 1 degree rise in global average surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere during the 20th century — and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.
That research is "likely" true and is supported by more recent data, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member.
Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (news, bio, voting record), R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee, had asked the academy for the report last year after the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, launched an investigation of the three climate scientists.
The Bush administration has maintained that the threat from global warming is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.
"This report shows the value of Congress handling scientific disputes by asking scientists to give us guidance," Boehlert said Thursday. "There is nothing in this report that should raise any doubts about the broad scientific consensus on global climate change."
The academy panel said it had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600.
But it considered the evidence reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major "greenhouse" gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.
Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations had the biggest effects on climate. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, the panel said.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.
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Junk science at it's finest. Just where did they get the temp readings from?
Yep, has to be the Christian's fault!
Well, that's it then. Sign the Keyoto Treaty NOW!! before it's too late! We are all doomed!!!! (/sarcasm)
so they forgot about the little ice age (responisble for the deaths of 15-20% of the worlds population of the time. Equivalent to about 1+ billion people today.
Hey maybe Jesus is on his way back and the Earth just wants to be the same temperature it was when he was here last time so He will be comfortable. :)
And Lo...I say to you:
There shall be a time where the internal combustion engine doth wreak much havoc........
Gore-inthians 1:1
Yes, global warming may in fact be true... but scientists still disagree on "what" is causing it.
The Earth warms up, and it cools down. It has done this for billions of years. At many points it was warmer than it is today. By all accounts, the relative stability of the last 2000 years is a freak. Change, and usually rapid change, is quite normal.
Wait a minute. Did they not just report yesterday that the Earth was the hottest it has been in 400 years???
Well, viewed another way...if the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 2000 years then it can't really be traced to human activity because there haven't been factories for the vast majority of that time.
That is what I was thinking too.
"The Sky Is Falling"! The Sky Is Falling"! as per Chicken Little.
I guess the story just wasn't working with 400 years in the headline so they are trying again. The funny thing is that the message that will stick is that there are long-duration climate cycles.
Although Jesus was a humble man who did not like to brag about it, he did his part by driving a Honda:
"For I did not speak of my own accord"
John 12:49
Wake me up when Greenland is green again.
Just wondering if anyone else has the feeling that the actual report may say something quite different from the AP report on the report?
Yes they did. Some hotshot scientist probably forgot the rule about multiplying all Global Warming statistics by five....
Jesus's fault.
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