Just Released! Order “Waking Up to Climate Change” by George Ropes, and receive 25% Discount. Learn More

HOME          CATEGORIES          OUR TAKE

OUR TAKE: Getting Warmer & Why

This important article starts off arcane — reporting on a study of stalagmites in a Russian cave — and ends with an apocalyptic warning — we’re heating the climate 20 to 50 times faster than ever before. The study helps to resolve a disparity — the article calls it a conundrum — between computer models of past climate change and data analyses for the same period. We tend to trust data and distrust simulations but the study showed that with better data, the analysis supported the simulation. Ice ages happen because the earth’s orbit is elliptical. During ice ages, when the earth is relatively far from the sun, winters are colder, summers cooler. As the earth in its orbit gets closer to the sun, summers get warmer, winters less cold, glaciers melt and retreat, and the ice age ends. This last happened over the period 15-10,000 years ago. About 7,000 years ago, that trend stabilized and earth began a long, slow warming trend. Since then, the earth has warmed about 0.5°C. During that time, humans adopted agriculture, created civilizations, multiplied, and prospered. GISS Global surface temperature Data

However, about 200 years ago, we began the Industrial Revolution, burning large quantities of fossil fuels, and emitting greenhouse gases which accelerated the slow warming trend. It took only 170 years to double the temperature rise of the previous 7000. In the last 40 years, thanks to growing population and prosperity, we are increasing the temperature by 20 times. If we miss the Paris Agreement target of limiting the global rise to 2°C, we could experience a heat rise rate 50 times faster than ever before. Catastrophe looms.

Comment on this article

ClimateYou moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE


More Posts Like This

OUR TAKE

Youth Activists Triumph in Groundbreaking Climate Trial

A landmark legal decision has overwhelmingly justified every human being’s right to a healthy environment. The huge victory by young climate activists in Montana is a win for young people all over the world whose future will undeniably be shaped by the effects of climate change. The case,

OUR TAKE

Losing our Coveted Trees to Floods

In the great aftermath of major flooding last week here in the Hudson Valley 30 miles north of New York City, towns and villages are recovering from torrential rains that dumped six to seven inches in an already saturated region. Roads dissolved under water. Streams, lakes and rivers

CLIMATEYOU

Just Released! Waking Up to Climate Change by George Ropes

Waking Up to Climate Change Five Dimensions of the Crisis and What We Can Do About It A Must Read! Essential to all who seek the universal scope of climate change Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Photographs by Andrew Dillon Bustin CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR COPY Use the