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Posted on 06/22/2006 8:28:41 AM PDT by Semus Dynnen
Study Says Earth's Temp at 400-Year High Jun 22 11:10 AM US/Eastern
By JOHN HEILPRIN Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
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."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.
The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.
Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.
The Bush administration also has maintained that the threat is not severe enough to warrant new pollution controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.
Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the "hockey-stick" graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.
The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was "likely" to be true, said John "Mike" Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the '90s research "are very close to being right" and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.
The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth's temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.
For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on "proxy" evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.
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 academy said.
Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a "Little Ice Age" from about 1500 to 1850.
The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600. But they considered it 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 were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes "were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas" levels by pollution since the mid-19th century, it said.
The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government of scientific matters.
Let's cap all volcanos worldwide and see if that reverses the trend. Just a thought.
Those who would seek to depopulate the earth might just find they are barking up the wrong tree.
Thanks for posting this and not excerpting.
You asked: And what exactly caused the lack of heat from sunlight for the entire period of the Little Ice Age?
And I answered: Reduced solar activity, indicated by lack of sunspots.
Increased solar radiation and increasing temperature occurred near the end of the LIA, which, (unfortunately for figuring out exactly how much warming has been caused by what), occurred about the same time as the dawn of the Industrial Age. The key point is that increased solar radiation, i.e., an establishment of the average "modern" solar activity level, occurred in the first half of the 20th century.
I read all your posts on this thread. Usually, I try to offer some constructive input and information when I notice that someone is providing erroneous or fraudulent information in the guise of "facts", but when someone works so hard through so many posts to exhibit their abysmal stupidity and complete obtuseness to any contrary information, it becomes a waste of time for anyone to try to offer facts and guidance to "educate" said asshat. You have shown that, while professing to be so literate and educated, you are in fact so completely stupid about the subject which you profess to "enlighten" others. Almost all of your fraudulent Krap™ that you are spewing here comes from realclimate.org, whose main contributors are Schmidt and Mann, et. al. Obviously, they would have all kinds of technically couched "explanations" and rationalizations for why their work isn't the false premised junk science it has been proven to be. It is obvious that you've fallen for their line, and parrot what you've read on their website so everyone will think you are an educated climate scientist or similar. The only thing you do is show your abysmal stupidity and gullibility. Remember, ignorance can be cured with education, stupidity is forever. You are the worst- terminally stupid play acting like you're educated.
Oh, and any website that is cited by the Daily Kos as experts on global warming and to "discuss that disturbing reality free of political spin. This is real data, these are real researchers: This is REALCLIMATE", will probably not get a lot of traction on a website like FR. Most here aren't as easily duped and gullible as you.
Now if you really want some factual information on climate and global warming, let the people here on this thread know and they will be happy to provide you with dozens of links that provide not only factual information, but show realclimate.org for what it is - propaganda for the DNC, human caused global warming, and the leftist agenda. But I'm sure you will prefer to drink the left's kool-aid and won't look any further than your holy realclimate.org apologists.
Like I said, what a maroon.
Further discussion with you is clearly impossible.
Who knew we had SUVs 400 years ago?
Not in the slightest. But I think that our economy will benefit from increased use of alternate fuels, and the climate will too, so for that reason I have an economic interest. But no investments in related corporations or business prospects or anything like that.
I believe that human activities are implicated in the current global warming trend because I think that's what the scientific data and analyses indicate.
Jeez, sounds like Druid science: "they relied on proxy evidence such as Goat entrails, celestial alignment, dried leaf distribution..." whatever happened to hard science?
A very good point. This prejudice has not been brought up in any public global climate discussions.
"Mr. Gore, would you feel the same way if the earth were cooling in recent years? Or is it true that you only worry about the warmer, more sweaty, more SPICY, more "ethnic" temperatures??"
It appears that Karl Turekian has performed outstanding research on minute aspects of our environment (such as The 222Rn and radium isotopes measured in groundwaters, cosmic dust flux to Earth, salinity of coastal waters, planetary degassing and Oxygen isotope signatures preserved in seawater)of our complex environment. He has also taught global environmental change; I would be curious to see his curriculum for that course.
However, my comment stands if he supported the questionable report. People at his level sometimes are too busy to pay attention to the essence of a document or report that they have trusted their associates to produce.
IMO there has yet to be a comprehensive systems analysis of the effects of climate change. To be complete the anaylsis would include the assumptions, methodology, and data used, stated in plain English for readers to judge for themselves.
Considering that the period encompassing 1600 to 1850 (250 years) was called the "Little Ice Age" it might be true.
Of course to take one small segment of temperatures and compare it against the whole average for a longer period of time that doesn't contain the small segment may be statistical sophistry.
UPdate!!!
Earth Hottest It's Been in 2,000 Years
Jun 22 9:14 PM US/Eastern
Email this story
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON
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."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/22/D8IDK16G0.html
If true, it means that it's been this hot before. How in the heck do they STILL come to the conclusion that it is caused by humans?
It's a rhetorical question -- I already know the answer, believe me. The headline alone destroys the argument they have been putting forth.
They still sell heaters here in So cal. Not used most of year though.
There was such a report covering the United States; it's been quashed for political reasons.
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