Yes, it is hot, but here are a few things to keep in mind as you read the breathless articles about the recent heat waves.
- When they say “hottest on record,” you should be curious what “record” they’re talking about. If it’s the thermometer record, that only goes back a little more than 100 years. There are other records — like ice core data — that tell a different story.
- The planet has been warming for 10,000 years because we’ve been transitioning from a glacial period to an interglacial period. It’s not a straight line trend, but the trend is clear over that time frame.
- Don’t be fooled by graphs that mix proxy records with thermometer records. IOW, they reconstruct / estimate past temperatures using proxies, but then append the thermometer record at the end. That’s a trick. If they start with proxy data, the whole chart should be proxy data.
- We’ve done this before. Ice ages have glacial and interglacial periods. The last interglacial was called the Eemian. It was from about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. It was most likely warmer during the Eemian than it is today.
- Nobody knows whether — when this interglacial is over — we will plunge back into a glacial period or come out of the ice age altogether.
By the way, we are currently in an ice age, which is usually defined as a time when there is ice at both poles. For lots of Earth’s history there has not been ice at the poles. And in other times, the whole Earth seems to have been covered in ice. (“Snowball Earth.”)
QUOTE: It was most likely warmer during the Eemian than it is today.
What is this statement based on, given records, as we have them now, weren’t kept?
QUOTE: Nobody knows whether — when this interglacial is over — we will plunge back into a glacial period or come out of the ice age altogether.
Given this, that’s why I question if this is a part of a continuing cycle…or is this something unique that will lead to a different cycle or impact. The boy who cried wolf may have given many false alarms, but just when people smugly thought that it was merely another false alarm, a wolf actually appeared. They weren’t prepared when it did.
See Eemian
They calculate temperatures in the past based on various sorts of proxies, like ice core data, the extent of forests, what species lived in what areas, etc.
Thanks. I wonder how reliable this information is…given science has been proven to continually change. Ironically, some will put confidence in this type of estimate/theory about the past but completely dismiss future projections based on estimates/theories.
That said, if things are cyclical, wouldn’t there be a concern about temperatures returning to Eemian levels and if things that are being done now might exacerbate or accelerate that?