Comments

You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Home Front: Politix

Earth Hottest in 2,000 Years

2006-06-23

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."

Other new research 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.

For more research, see the "Hottest in 400 Years article" to follow.

Posted by:Bobby

#7 Is there anything nicer than a new thermometer?

Posted by: 6 2006-06-23 19:28

#6 Especially since Gallileo didn't invent a crude water thermometer until 1593.

That part's not entirely bull. That's what the whole "proxy measurement" thing's about: we don't have actual temperature measurement back much more than a century, so we have to use "proxy" measurements -- tree rings or summat. The press release does state that it's possible that environmental factors might have changed so that the proxies don't map to temperature the way they do today. Just one of those little caveats Yahoo overlooked.

Posted by: Angie Schultz 2006-06-23 15:45

#5 So what's the trend, Sea? How does it further validate swelling concerns about the irrepairable damage the Anti-Gorebots are continuing to do to our fragile ecosystem?

Posted by: Bobby 2006-06-23 14:42

#4 I just bought a shiny new thermometer and put it on my desk for the first time today. I can say with all confidence this is the hottest day I've recorded at my desk. Also the coldest. If Bush had only signed Kyoto...

Posted by: Seafarious 2006-06-23 13:33

#3 The "2000 years" thing is just bull.
Especially since Gallileo didn't invent a crude water thermometer until 1593. Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer in 1714.

Posted by: ed 2006-06-23 12:35

#2 This is hilarious. If you read the actual press release, you see that it says almost none of this.

The press release says that the last 25 years of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period (i.e., any other 25 years) of the last four centuries. Before then they can't say, because there are not enough "proxy" measurements available.

The Yahoo article says:

Their conclusions were meant to address, and they lent credibility to, a well-known graphic among climate researchers a "hockey-stick" chart that climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes created in the late 1990s to show the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years.

The press release says the "hockey stick" chart is "plausible". That's as enthusiastic as it gets. It goes on to say:

The Research Council committee...had less confidence that the warming was unprecedented prior to 1600...even less confidence can be placed in the Mann team's conclusions about the 1990s, and 1998 in particular.

The NAS didn't ignore the medieval warm period; Yahoo did. The press release is not exactly difficult to understand. The "2000 years" thing is just bull.

Posted by: Angie Schultz 2006-06-23 12:27

#1 ...after enjoying relatively stable temperatures for 2,000 year...

This is just ignores the Little Ice Age around the start of the Dark Ages and the relapse around 1400 to 1850?

Or are they using two data points like in 'if your head is in the refrig and ass in the stove, you're relatively comfortable'?

Posted by: Thomoque Angereque3714 2006-06-23 12:02

00:00