Global Temperatures Are Close To 11,000-Year Peak 416
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)."
Re:Oh No! (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, why not, at least the roads would be a better place.
Re:Most recent? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it's an 11,000 year cycle that follows Earth's perigee and apogee. We're already at the warm spot, which makes AGW worse. We're not due for another ice age for another 9,000 years or so.
Scary and scarier (Score:2, Insightful)
Second reaction: We are so screwed
After spending a significant amount of time studying the data and politics surrounding this issue, I concluded that global warming is a baked cake at this point (no pun intended) The US contains a little over 4.5% of the worlds population says Google [google.com] yet we are responsible for the majority of world emissions. Now consider that we are trying to cut back, meanwhile China is rapidly industrializing, increasing its footprint with every passing day. When you think of the footprint China will have when it is as industrialized as the USA, any hope of avoiding serious global damage is tiny at this point.
Re:Clear bias against the oil industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Articles like this can be scaremongering with misleading titles for headline purposes. "Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years" means that is has been cooler than about 2700 of the last 11,000 years. This of course can turn around and bit you when your trying to do something for political gain instead of scientific gain. After all it's all too easy to point to something like this as proof that things aren't as bad as they have been in the past pre-industrial era.
I'm not taking sides on this issue, what I'm arguing is that people need to let science do the talking and leave politics on the wayside. The result of failing to do so is that otherwise perfectly sound science research gets tainted by politics. More science and less politics please, that is all.
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They had a very limited ability to burn hydrocarbons.
Re:Scary and scarier (Score:3, Insightful)
Now consider that we are trying to cut back, meanwhile China is rapidly industrializing, increasing its footprint with every passing day. When you think of the footprint China will have when it is as industrialized as the USA, any hope of avoiding serious global damage is tiny at this point.
With any luck they do not have a strong "green" movement that opposes nuclear.
When the hippies start saying that we must go nuclear to avoid global warming I will know that they at least believe in it themselves, until then they just look at it as a political argument.
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yay (Score:5, Insightful)
ok, this stinks of troll, but I'll take it:
"So calm the fuck down about religion, deniers, AGW, man made causes, SUVs, smug ass Californians, and Al Gore. Just realize accordingly, spend less money on ski equipment and more money on boats."
I dig your cool complacency, and actually I kind of agree. Global climate change probably won't make much of difference to your life during your lifetime, and maybe not even to your kids. Because you're rich. You can afford to pay 50% more for food (as agriculture is disrupted): the worst that will happen is you might move house, accept a slightly lower standard of living and bitch about the price of things. Oh, and 'buy more boats'.
It's the poor who will pay. I don't mean the middle class, I mean the 1 billion+ people who live on less than $1 a day. They will starve in greater numbers and die in greater numbers - they can't move, or "buy less ski equipment". I get that you don't care about that, but I hope that as a society we can bring ourselves to give a shit.
Re:The rate of change is problematic (Score:1, Insightful)
Except for this fact [thegwpf.org].
The *rate* at which temps have gone up over the last 17 years is 0. Which I assume makes your entire claim worthless. If it was caused by humans it would have contineud to accelerate, so your premise is wrong and the only "logical" conclusion is that it can't be human caused by the reasons given. Either Gore's hockey stick is right and temps kept climing, or its a lie and temps haven't increased. Now we have the facts of his prediction and they were wrong.
Hypothesis->Observation->Theory overturned. Its called science.
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Scary and scarier (Score:4, Insightful)
First reaction: How are people still denying this???
If I had to guess, it's probably a reaction to the ridiculous alarmist end-times rhetoric from the less competent believers.
For example, one user posted:
Second reaction: We are so screwed
Followed by some thinly-veiled xenophobia.
Can you blame them for wanting to distance themselves from that kind of crazy?
Meaningless fear mongering. (Score:0, Insightful)
dnrffma. Did Not Read Full Fear Mongering Article.
1. title of slashdot post: "global temperatures are close to 11,000 year peak".
2. first paragraph of post: "Global average temperatures are now higher than they have been for about 75% of the past 11,300 years."
thus,
A. higher than 50% of past 11,300 years means higher than the middle. doesn't say much.
B. higher than 100% of past 11,300 years means peak is right now. says a lot, only with respect to last 11,300 years and not last 500,000 years.
C. higher than 75% of past 11,300 years means right smack dab middle between A. and B.
in conclusion:
BIG FUCKING DEAL. nature.com needs to be shot in the head and put out of my misery.
Re:Clear bias against the oil industry (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem is the loudest climatologists and the loudest politicians got too buddy-buddy, and you got into a situation where they were feeding off each other.
I'll listen to the particle physicist, because he's telling me about facts, science. Information.
That climatologist? Here's the problem, they got too conflated with the politicians, and I don't want to hear fucking policy talk coming from a scientist's mouth -- least of all the fearmongers who said bullshit like NYC would be underwater by 2015, that the midwest would be a barren desert by 2020, that the best beach weather would be Canadian.
I'm not an AGW denier, but I can't tolerate the scare tactics. And I'm still pretty mad at East Anglia -- you just don't do science by gathering data, adjusting that data, and then throwing the original data out and not allowing (or even recording) the methods by which you adjusted that data. They could have just fucking made it all up, it's non-verifiable UNLESS someone else was keeping track of those weather stations that oh, no, all the records were kept at one place and then thrown out 20 years ago. Bad science. Heck, it could be accidentally bad science, but FUCKING OWN UP TO IT! Cannot stand people who talk their way around unsubstantiated data and try to pass it off as fucking immutable gospel.
Re:Warmer than 75% of the last 11,000 years (Score:5, Insightful)
The science is well understood
And part of the science is that temperature measurements go back to the mid 19th century and actual direct measurement of global average temperature since the 1980s. With such a pausity of observation, one should be very careful about claiming that the science is "well understood". Or at least comfortable with being outrageously wrong.
Re:As an anti-science, pro-ignorance republican... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the article didn't note the alarming part of that so well. The issue isn't the temperature at the moment so much as the really alarming rate of change. Here's [climatedesk.org] a chart that documents the history and recent changes. Notice anything odd about the recent record relative to the entire temperature record going back to the dawn of agriculture?
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it seems to have worked out pretty well when we've, say, stopped industry from hiring 8 year olds
Well, it's worth noting here that we in the developed world have created a few generations of rather incompetent workers as a result. I've run into people in their early twenties who have never held a job before. In such situations, an employer takes on a big risk by hiring such people.
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Where do you get your information from? Child labor was extremely common and still is today in other countries without such strict labor laws.
For my grandfather it wasn't an option, he stopped going to school when both of his parents died during the flu pandemic of the late 20s. He dropped out after third grade and spent the rest of his years working. When he turned 18 the war was brewing, he signed up and then toiled in the same paper mill when he got back. He probably spent 50 years of his life working at that mill.
The whole labor movement was a movement for a reason, it wasn't just children being taken advantage of, that's why you saw the formation of unions at the same time. Lassez Faire capitalism only works to an extent, then you end up with rivers literally on fire and the public good is no longer being served. This isn't a liberal or conservative approach, Republicans created the EPA afterall.
Re:If only we could figure out.. (Score:3, Insightful)