Environment

Humans have been heating up the planet for 180 years says new study

A new study suggests that man-made climate change began as early as the 1830s
Pixabay
A new study suggests that man-made climate change began as early as the 1830s
Pixabay

In recent years, there has been an increased focus on the human influence over climate change, with research pointing to our activity as the cause of global warming. Although the data might seem to suggest the human connection to climate change as a relatively recent occurrence – with a global temperature spike of 0.8° C (1.4° F) over the last 100 years – a new study by researchers from the Australian National University reveals that we have been behind the warming of the Earth for 180 years, suggesting that it's not simply a 20th-century phenomenon.

One of the main reasons for the perception of climate change as a 20th-century event is the lack of direct climate measurements prior to the 1900s. In order to fill in this gap, lead researcher Nerilie Abram and her team reconstructed climate patterns over the past 500 years in order to get a better picture of when global warming began.

In order to reconstruct these climate patterns, Abram's team examined temperature reconstructions from natural archives including ice cores, tree rings and corals, and integrated this data with the temperatures they obtained through the analysis of climate-model simulations spanning thousands of years, some of which were used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report.

To remove the effects of year-to-year variability, they used a statistical approach in order to pinpoint the time period when the most recent long-term warming trends began to surface. The results revealed that the many global-warming trends seen today stem, in many places around the world (in particular the Arctic and tropical oceans), from around the 1830s. This time period marks the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when greenhouse gases began to rise.

"It was an extraordinary finding," says Abram. "It was one of those moments where science really surprised us. But the results were clear. The climate warming we are witnessing today started about 180 years ago."

Although it is clear from the data that humans indeed caused increases in greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere during the 1800s, these increases were only minor. Yet the researchers suggest that even these small increases led to a cascade of effects on the Earth's climate, with the carbon emissions essentially marking the onset of the global warming that we are observing today.

Ultimately, understanding how humans have affected global warming over the years and the nature of the Earth's climate shift since the pre-industrial period is important in order to help scientists predict the continued effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate, devise solutions to minimize their damages, and better grasp the Earth's sensitivity to such emissions.

The findings were published in the journal Nature.

Source: Australian National University

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28 comments
Rann Xeroxx
AGW (man made global warming via CO2 emissions) is completely overblown. CO2 is a GH gas, it simply is not a very powerful one and humans have added only a fraction of an already trace gas to the air. And there is nothing unprecedented or unusual about our current climate, even simply looking from a time scale when humans have existed.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/clip_image0044.jpg
https://iceagenow.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Easterbrook-Natural_global_warming.jpg
Adrian Pineda
I do not believe man causes or can do anything to control this planet's temperature. All I see is an industry of people making laws and money, based on a repeated lie.
Gizmowiz
Xeroxx is so wrong. Too bad he won't be around long enough to see how wrong he is times scales being what they are. The combination of higher CO2 and CH4 released by mankind will be it's undoing if continues another 50 years.
J.Hiller
If this summary is accurate, then the study failed to account for changes in energy from the Sun. As Rann Xeroxx commented, the human contribution to climate change is small, more like measurement rounding error compared to the contribution of the Sun. Unfortunately, climate "science" is open to the influence of the organizations that fund the research.
BobbyLZ
If global warming/climate change/etc is true, please explain how the Greenland Lost Squadron occurred?
http://www.conservationwatcher.com/riddleofthelostsquadron.html
bfearn
Wow, there are still guys like Rann out there!! 30 billion tons per year is a pretty large "trace". During the last 500,000 years the CO2 levels ranged between 180 and 300 ppm. They are now over 400 ppm, a large human "fraction". Not to worry. I'm sure deniers like Rann will be happy to pay for the trillions in future climate change costs. PS: Human induced climate change started when the first human lit the first fire which was more than 180 years ago
Lbrewer42
@VincentWolf I note you gave nothing but opinion whereas Xeroxx at least gave some links where can be found researchable data to verify or not verify his position. Also, a 7th grade Science lesson is all we need for actual science and a reality check: CO2 is called a greenhouse gas b/c it is associated with plants - in hot greenhouses. Scientific problem... Heat in the greenhouse is from the plants using up (removing) the CO2 in the greenhouse to make water vapor, O2, and food for themselves in a process called (remember 7th grade science?) PHOTOSYNTHESIS. The scientific FACT is the water vapor is what makes it hot (ever hear of humidity or the nightly news giving a "heat index" rating based on humidity?) CO2 cannot hold in heat - it is not a property is has. Politicians and kowtowing-to-the-almighty-dollar pseudo-scientists are the ones lying for the sake of money. Quit being a puppet. DO some research on the Hockey Stick graph, the farce behind it, and see the corrected version. Also google "Game Over, the IPCC quietly admits defeat." The IPCC is the global warming "go-to" of the UN that has been compiling reports for the last 15 years. But when the reports are all put together, they had to admit there was no global warming. Read it for yourself instead of being a puppet. The link you will find is not someone making false claims - it is the IPCC data itself.
Quit being a puppet of he money-grubbing people who get rich y propagating the biggest farce in history. Get angry they have knowingly robbed people with needed. coerced emissions testings. Get andgry they have stifled American productivity and made prices on goods and services soar by imposing rules and expensive "upgrades" based on the AGW lie.
Or... ignore the above verifiable facts and continue being suckered. After all... its only our money they are stealing.
Grainpaw
It only takes a trace of poison to kill you. We may not be the the only cause of Climate Change, but we are the part of the cause that we can do something about. If we wait for the climate to stabilize itself at a higher CO2 level, all mammals over 20 pounds will be extinct. Including us.
scottpoole
There is no man-made global warming - period. Our contribution to the CO2 in the atmosphere is insignificant. As is said below - even the entire CO2 in the atmosphere is a trace amount. Water vapor has a much greater influence overall. The idiotic lemmings that for some reason want to believe every doomsday prediction, amaze me. Remember according to the warmists, we should have reached Armageddon by now - multiple times. We do need to be good stewards of the earth and our environment. However, CO2 is NOT an issue. Nor is global warming. Destroying our entire way of life to support a totally bogus theory is the madness.
Douglas Bennett Rogers
A 20% reduction in desert irrigation would have the same effect as ceasing all CO2 production! A back-of-the -envelope calculation will verify this.