Elsa Sc S looks at the boiling planet
Though the torrential rains have gripped the planet but they have followed a harrowing spate of blistering unprecedented hot weather in recent history. The unified scientific opinion is that it is not just the temperatures themselves that are so unusual but that they are rising all over the world in a phenomenon that is rated as unique in at least the past 2,000 years. Up to now climate change definitions have often relied on a favourite argument involving the planet’s natural climate cycles.
It stated that Earth experienced plenty of natural warming and cooling phases long before humans ever began pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere so the present-day warming is not necessarily dangerous or even that unusual. However, scientists have debunked this argument by demonstrating that carbon dioxide concentrations are currently higher than ever and global temperatures are rising at unprecedented rates resultantly the warming is poised to surpass anything the planet has experienced in millions of years.
The cause in change in understanding of climatic conditions is a groundbreaking study that investigated the scope of natural warming and cooling events experienced by the planet since the start of the Common Era two millennia ago. These include various ice ages moving into warm ages spanning centuries into warm periods and finally into the Common Era.
These periods were first identified in specific regions of the world as some of them were originally used to describe a pattern of expanding glaciers in parts of Asian/African regions, western United States and the European Alps. Gradually, though, they have come to describe the hypothesis that these periods were not just limited to narrow geographic locations but may have actually occurred uniformly on a global scale.
Unprecedented Hot Weather And Climate Change
In a surprising deduction the new study finds that this was not actually the case. The new study used a database of ancient climate records drawn from all over the world, from ancient tree rings to fossilized corals to long-frozen ice cores drawn from the hearts of glaciers & in its light the study has determined that the Earth’s previous warm and cold periods were actually mainly regional events. In other words, the entire globe did not cool down or heat up at the same rate or at the same time as different regions changed at their own pace.
However there is just one exception: today’s climate change. The warming that has been occurring since the industrial era is a global phenomenon, affecting the entire Earth at once in a way that previous warming and cooling periods did not. It is a finding that “stands in stark contrast” to previous periods of natural climate change. It is pointed out this is a globally warm period that is very different than what was experienced in the past and its coherence cannot be explained by the natural variability of the climate system.
Using a combination of ancient climate records and model simulations, the study finds that variations in solar radiation have had very little to do with global temperatures, debunking another argument by those who reject climate science. Instead, changes in global average temperatures through the preindustrial years have been largely driven by volcanic activity.
Major volcanic eruptions can cause temporary cooling events—as the first paper demonstrates, these cooling events may differ from place to place, but the effects overall do tend to be strong enough to make a dent in global average temperatures.
Unprecedented Hot Weather And Global Warming
After enough time has passed and the planet begins to recover from these volcanic events, global average temperatures might begin to rise again. The current trends are to be examined in the light of the new findings. The greatest warming trends in 2,000 years have occurred since the second half of the 20th century that undeniably underlines the unusual character of the warming in recent decades. It is quite obvious that present-day warming is both more severe and more globally unified than any period of climate change that has occurred in at least two millennia.
It is mentioned that though the Little Ice Age was the coldest epoch of the past millennium, the timing of the lowest temperatures varied from place to place. Two-fifths of the planet was subjected to the coldest weather during the mid-nineteenth century but the deepest chill occurred several centuries earlier in other regions.
Global warming today is unparalleled because 98% of the planet’s surface, the warmest period of the Common Era occurred in the late twentieth century. It is emerging that the 21st century is proving much hotter than the 20th century so far. In fact, the world is on track to increased warming as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.
The past 2000 years show that short-lived volcanic events were the main drivers of climate fluctuations and human activities were a very minor secondary factor over that period. The current global warming has a lot to with human activities and this is precisely the motive of the climate change activists to campaign for putting pressure on governments to change harmful policies. The Weekender
Unprecedented Hot Weather
ByElsa Sc S
Doing her graduation from LUMS & a keen researcher
Dated
October 2, 2022
Elsa Sc S looks at the boiling planet
Though the torrential rains have gripped the planet but they have followed a harrowing spate of blistering unprecedented hot weather in recent history. The unified scientific opinion is that it is not just the temperatures themselves that are so unusual but that they are rising all over the world in a phenomenon that is rated as unique in at least the past 2,000 years. Up to now climate change definitions have often relied on a favourite argument involving the planet’s natural climate cycles.
It stated that Earth experienced plenty of natural warming and cooling phases long before humans ever began pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere so the present-day warming is not necessarily dangerous or even that unusual. However, scientists have debunked this argument by demonstrating that carbon dioxide concentrations are currently higher than ever and global temperatures are rising at unprecedented rates resultantly the warming is poised to surpass anything the planet has experienced in millions of years.
The cause in change in understanding of climatic conditions is a groundbreaking study that investigated the scope of natural warming and cooling events experienced by the planet since the start of the Common Era two millennia ago. These include various ice ages moving into warm ages spanning centuries into warm periods and finally into the Common Era.
These periods were first identified in specific regions of the world as some of them were originally used to describe a pattern of expanding glaciers in parts of Asian/African regions, western United States and the European Alps. Gradually, though, they have come to describe the hypothesis that these periods were not just limited to narrow geographic locations but may have actually occurred uniformly on a global scale.
Unprecedented Hot Weather And Climate Change
In a surprising deduction the new study finds that this was not actually the case. The new study used a database of ancient climate records drawn from all over the world, from ancient tree rings to fossilized corals to long-frozen ice cores drawn from the hearts of glaciers & in its light the study has determined that the Earth’s previous warm and cold periods were actually mainly regional events. In other words, the entire globe did not cool down or heat up at the same rate or at the same time as different regions changed at their own pace.
However there is just one exception: today’s climate change. The warming that has been occurring since the industrial era is a global phenomenon, affecting the entire Earth at once in a way that previous warming and cooling periods did not. It is a finding that “stands in stark contrast” to previous periods of natural climate change. It is pointed out this is a globally warm period that is very different than what was experienced in the past and its coherence cannot be explained by the natural variability of the climate system.
Using a combination of ancient climate records and model simulations, the study finds that variations in solar radiation have had very little to do with global temperatures, debunking another argument by those who reject climate science. Instead, changes in global average temperatures through the preindustrial years have been largely driven by volcanic activity.
Major volcanic eruptions can cause temporary cooling events—as the first paper demonstrates, these cooling events may differ from place to place, but the effects overall do tend to be strong enough to make a dent in global average temperatures.
Unprecedented Hot Weather And Global Warming
After enough time has passed and the planet begins to recover from these volcanic events, global average temperatures might begin to rise again. The current trends are to be examined in the light of the new findings. The greatest warming trends in 2,000 years have occurred since the second half of the 20th century that undeniably underlines the unusual character of the warming in recent decades. It is quite obvious that present-day warming is both more severe and more globally unified than any period of climate change that has occurred in at least two millennia.
It is mentioned that though the Little Ice Age was the coldest epoch of the past millennium, the timing of the lowest temperatures varied from place to place. Two-fifths of the planet was subjected to the coldest weather during the mid-nineteenth century but the deepest chill occurred several centuries earlier in other regions.
Global warming today is unparalleled because 98% of the planet’s surface, the warmest period of the Common Era occurred in the late twentieth century. It is emerging that the 21st century is proving much hotter than the 20th century so far. In fact, the world is on track to increased warming as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.
The past 2000 years show that short-lived volcanic events were the main drivers of climate fluctuations and human activities were a very minor secondary factor over that period. The current global warming has a lot to with human activities and this is precisely the motive of the climate change activists to campaign for putting pressure on governments to change harmful policies. The Weekender
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