Global Warming?

Question

I came across this article while trolling for news on cnn.com.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/06/22/global.warming.ap/

It says that the Earth is the hottest it's been in 2000 years. While doubtless many people would claim this to be undeniable proof of Global Warming, I want to know why the earth was so hot 2000 years ago. It's not as if Jesus and his disciples were driving from town to town spreading the Word of God in their Chevy Suburbans. Isn't this really just proof of cyclical shifts in the Earth's climate?

Answer 1

The article actually states that this is the warmest in over 2000 years or more. The article talks about volcanoes erupting and other phenomenons from 1 AD to about 1850. This did cause some green house gas because of the release of the different greenhouse gases,but they aren't really comparing what it is happening now to what was going on then. They talk about glaciers melting and the earth heating up. They also talked about humans pumping CO2 into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. There has also been evidence seen that this is the warmest since about 420,000 years ago. This was proven through ice cores drilled in the poles and they were able to measure the CO2 concentration and compare it to today. Maybe next time you should read the entire article.

Answer 2

Actually Earth is warming at a faster rate than it has for several million years, and although the Earth does go through natural cycles of warming and cooling, it is our burning of fossil fuels that is causing the warming that we are seeing now. If you were to graph the average global temperature over the last several million years then you would see natural ups and downs on this graph BUT when we include the last few 100 years, since the industrial revolution began, then you would see a very sharp spike that shoots upward at an alarming rate. So, over the past several million years, never has our planet heated up this quickly. And there is no end in sight as long as we burn fossil fuels at the alarming rate that we are doing now. Over the next century we will see very dramatic increases in global temperature and if we do nothing to slow down or to stop this trend then our planet could very well be headed for a catastrophe and possible fall into a "runaway greenhouse effect" similar to what we see on the planet Venus. There is the very real potential that mankind could wipe himself right of the face of this planet.

Answer 3

The Earth's climate changes. It is not static and does not stay the same. After all, there are Ice Ages and then the planet warms up...and then it gets cold again. That's just the way things are in nature. It's not like the Earth should be an exact temperature and never, ever change.

Answer 4

Many scientists beleive that the Earth goes to this process every millions of years. The weather changing is just the earths's process of rebooting,

Answer 5

And they know this how? Schlomo the Weather Guy in downtown Jerusalem in 15 AD is not a reliable source of meterological phenomena.

Answer 6

HOW SHOULD I KNOW???