Global temperature increase in last 150 years is ‘unprecedented’

By Joe Morgan via SWNS

Global temperatures have increased over the last 150 years in an "unprecedented" manner compared to the previous 24,000 years, according to a new study.

Climate researchers have mapped out the temperature of the Earth for each 200-year interval since the last Ice Age and confirmed the world is rapidly warming.

The study verified that Earth has generally warmed over the last 10,000 years, settling a decade-long debate about whether this period trended warmer or cooler among experts.

Greenhouse gas concentrations and the retreat of the ice sheets are to blame as the main drivers of climate change, the research found.

In the study, the team combined two independent data sets - temperate data from marine sediments and computer simulations of climate.

Dr. Jessica Tierney, associate professor at the University of Arizona, said: "This reconstruction suggests that current temperatures are unprecedented in 24,000 years, and also suggests that the speed of human-caused global warming is faster than anything we've seen in that same time.

"To forecast the weather, meteorologists start with a model that reflects current weather, then add in observations such as temperature, pressure, humidity, wind direction, and so on to create an updated forecast."

The team applied this same idea to past climate.

Tierney added: "We're excited to apply this approach to ancient climates that were warmer than today because these times are essentially windows into our future as greenhouse gas emissions rise."

Matthew Osman, a postdoctoral researcher, said: "With this method, we are able to leverage the relative merits of each of these unique datasets to generate observationally constrained, dynamically consistent and spatially complete reconstructions of past climate change."

Now, the team is working on using their method to investigate climate changes even further in the past.

The team created maps of global temperature changes for every 200-year interval going back 24,000 years.

Osman, continued: "The fact that we're today so far out of bounds of what we might consider normal is cause for alarm and should be surprising to everybody.

"These maps are really powerful.

"With them, it's possible for anyone to explore how temperatures have changed across Earth, on a very personal level.

"For me, being able to visualize the 24,000-year evolution of temperatures at the exact location I'm sitting today, or where I grew up, really helped ingrain a sense of just how severe climate change is today."

The study was published in the journal Nature.