Earth's temperature at 2,000 year high

[Guest Vitamin X]

WASHINGTON - It has been 2,000 years and possibly much longer since the Earth has run such a fever. 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 heating up 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.

 

This is shown in boreholes, retreating glaciers and other evidence found in nature, said Gerald North, a geosciences professor at Texas A&M University who chaired the academy's panel.

 

The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (news, bio, voting record), 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 (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.

 

Boehlert said Thursday the report shows the value of having scientists advise Congress.

 

"There is nothing in this report that should raise any doubts about the broad scientific consensus on global climate change," he said.

 

Other new research Thursday 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. Their study is being published by the American Geophysical Union.

 

The Bush administration 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.

 

'Course, I wouldn't be able to tell because it's always so fucking hot here anyways.

 

Also, in regards to the part I bolded, there are 5 million people with jobs specifically to pollute the environment/cause global warming??

[what 0]

THE SKY IS FALLING!!!

[Gary Floyd 0]

WE DIDN'T LISTEN!

[Ripper 0]

^

 

beat me to it.

 

Bush is an asshole. He knows full well he could cool the earth because he is the President of the United States of America.

 

Asshole.

[Slayer 0]

When did LIM take over Ripper's account?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

When did LIM take over Ripper's account?

 

LessonInRippismo?

 

*kills self*

[Boon 0]

These are lies spewed by the liberal media to get Al Gore's movie more money.

[CBright7831 0]

I hate news like this.

[Slayer 0]

LessonInRippismo?

Leave it to the experts

[SuperJerk 0]

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years.

How could anyone possibly know that?

[dubq 0]

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years.

How could anyone possibly know that?

 

I am not a scientist and I do not know any specifics, but I'd imagine it wouldn't be impossible - especially when things like carbon dating are possible.

 

Anyway, it's an interesting statement. I also saw another statement on the Pulse24.com newsticker that last 25 days in Canada are the warmest it's been since the 1600's.

 

Makes you think, if it was this warm back then (or even 2000 years ago), then maybe global warming is a big crock and the planet does go through climate change cycles. I'm not saying that is the truth or anything. I don't have a position on this entire thing. I shall decide on my deathbed. :nod:

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Makes you think, if it was this warm back then (or even 2000 years ago), then maybe global warming is a big crock and the planet does go through climate change cycles.

 

The earth does go through climate cycles and the scientists who have said that global warming is anthropogenic (caused by humans) acknowledge this.

[Toshiaki Koala 0]

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years.

How could anyone possibly know that?

 

Michael Mann directed Heat, so I assume he knows a thing or two about temperature.

 

KA-CHING!

[Stephen Joseph 0]

We go through changes in climate due to small changes in the earth's position to the sun, which is cycical

[CanadianChris 0]

That's been my question all along. How are scientists able to separate the man-made contribution to climate change from the natural contribution? How can they determine, with any level of certainty, that "natural cycles are a minor factor"? Climate is a chaotic system; I would think there's a lot of room for error in any attempt to model it.

[2GOLD 0]

That's been my question all along. How are scientists able to separate the man-made contribution to climate change from the natural contribution? How can they determine, with any level of certainty, that "natural cycles are a minor factor"? Climate is a chaotic system; I would think there's a lot of room for error in any attempt to model it.

 

Whichever one will get them the higher funding is the answer they will go with at that time.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Way to impugn the character of all climate scientists there smart guy.

[Vampiro69 0]

I thought it felt a little warmer today then yesterday.

[snuffbox 0]

Its hotter'n a bitch outside.

[Guest]

It's been 95+ for the last 3 weeks. It gets hotter in August and September.

[SuperJerk 0]

Its hotter'n a bitch outside.

 

That's hot!

[Special K 0]

Fuck, everyone open your refrigerators and turn on your AC to the max. WE'VE GOT TO BEAT THIS THING.

[Vampiro69 0]

[rising up out of the back seat-nuh 0]

I don't get the big deal about climate change. Life will adapt. We're not gonna die from the temperature increasing a degree every decade, or whatever. By the time it get's to a critical point, something will have occured to counteract that.

[Art Sandusky 0]

That's cool, everyone else seems content to let someone else fix it at some point. I mean, it's not like the problem is yours or mine, it's everybody's!

[Special K 0]

I don't see you openning your fridge and turning on your AC, Kotz JOIN TeH Ecotrrorist!? Zodiac?

IT'S cold BITCH. Open uo your frgeidaires.

 

When they came for me it was a Fucking honky paradise.

 

We just don't do those words.

[k thx 0]

That's cool, everyone else seems content to let someone else fix it at some point. I mean, it's not like the problem is yours or mine, it's everybody's!

That's the thing though, we don't need to fix anything, the climate will adapt, the same way it always has in the past. Some species die out, some others evolve. When humanity/life on Earth is wiped out, it wont be because of fucking climate change.

[Special K 0]

NO CHAVE THe Earhte is shepherd's pie IT"S TOO MOTHERFUCKIN HOT BLOW ON IT FOR THE LOVE GOD!

[dubq 0]

Global warming or not, I hate this fucking heat!! :msnangryface:

 

I hope winter is very snowy and lasts forever this year. I barely got any boarding or skiing in last year.

[Vampiro69 0]

Put on a pair of shorts and a tee shirt and you will be fine.