Scientists: Global temperatures are warmer now than at any Time in the last 4,000 years
Posted by Yvette
Is it warm in here to you? Scientists would answer yes, since many of them say that our global temperatures are warmer than any time in the last 4,000 years.
Scientists reported Thursday that our past century’s temperature spikes, believed to have been caused by global warming, are unlike anything seen since before the Ice Age.
The New York Timesreports: Even if the temperature increase from human activity that is projected for later this century comes out on the low end of estimates, scientists said, the planet will be at least as warm as it was during the warmest periods of the modern geological era, known as the Holocene, and probably warmer than that.
That epoch began about 12,000 years ago, after changes in incoming sunshine caused vast ice sheets to melt across the Northern Hemisphere. Scientists believe the moderate climate of the Holocene set the stage for the rise of human civilization roughly 8,000 years ago and continues to sustain it by, for example, permitting a high level of food production.
In research scheduled to be published on Friday, earth scientist Shaun Scott and other researchers reconstructed global temperatures over the last 11,300 years and tracked their findings.
The research indicates that changes in the amount of sunlight, caused by the planet’s wobbles, caused the temperature to rise in the early Holocene. About 10,000 years later, the planet stabilized with warm temperatures, and reached its current mid-range temperatures about 5,000 years ago.
