Home » Posts tagged 'warming temperatures'

Tag Archives: warming temperatures

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Long-term climate variability ‘could fall’ as the world warms

Long-term climate variability is the range of temperatures and weather patterns experienced by the Earth over a scale of thousands of years. New research suggests it could fall as the world warms.

A study using data taken from fossils and ice cores finds that long-term temperature variability decreased four-fold from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 21,000 years ago to the start of the Holocene around 11,500 years ago. Within this period, natural processes caused the planet to warm by around 3-8C.

If future global emissions are not curbed, human-driven global warming could cause further large declines in long-term temperature variability, the lead author tells Carbon Brief, which may have far-reaching effects on the world’s seasons and weather.

However, it is still unclear how a decline in long-term variability could affect the frequency of extreme weather events, she adds. This is because the chances of an extreme event happening could be influenced by both short- and long-term climate variability, as well as global temperature rise.

Digging up the past

The new study, published in Nature, is the first to make a global assessment of how long-term temperature variability changed from the LGM to the Holocene.

During the LGM, the world’s last major ice age, snow covered much of Asia, Europe and North America. Yet, within a few thousand years, global temperatures rose by around 3-8C, causing the ice to thaw and the world to enter its current geological period, the Holocene.

The cause of this temperature rise is still disputed by scientists, but research suggests the natural release of large stores of CO2 from the world’s oceans may have played a role.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A 12-Year-Old Bet on Global Warming Is About to Pay Out

A 12-Year-Old Bet on Global Warming Is About to Pay Out

Map from 2005 showing global warming

British scientist James Annan says he is “confident” that he has won his bet with the Russian pair Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev.

Agreed 12 years ago, Annan bet the Russians that the six years between 2012 and 2017 would be warmer than the six years between 1998 and 2003.

Both sides of the bet agreed to use temperature data from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, which has since been renamed the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Annan was sure that human emissions of carbon dioxide, mainly from fossil fuel burning, would see temperatures climb.

The two Russian scientists looked at forecasts of a drop in the amount of energy coming from the sun, and put their money on this keeping temperatures down.

Annan told the Guardian: “Yes, I am confident of winning the bet, even the threatened eruption of Agung [a volcano in Bali] couldn’t matter … even if it had happened earlier this year.

With only a few weeks to go, there is no chance of sufficient cooling for me to lose.”

Annan last looked in detail at the progress of the bet in 2015, and even then he appeared to be well in front.

Between 1998 and 2003, temperatures across the six-year period were about 0.54°C above the 20th century average. In the five years between 2012 and 2016, that number is 0.78 °C.

With only two weeks of data to come, scientists have already predicted that 2017 will either be the second or third hottest yearon record.

British climate science denier Piers Corbyn, brother of UK opposition leader Jeremy, told Nature in 2005 that he would have been willing to also take a similar $10,000 bet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress