How is today’s warming different from the past?

Throughout its history, the Earth has gone through climate changes which were not caused by humanity. Scientists use evidence such as tree rings, layers of ice in glaciers, coral reefs, and sedimentary rocks to determine and build the record of Earth’s past climates. The Paleoclimate record combined with global models shows both ice ages and periods where Earth was even warmer than today. 

What the current data also shows is that the current climate is warming much more rapidly than any other past warming event. In the last two million years, whenever the planet has gone through warming events, it has taken about 5,000 years to warm 5 degrees. The predicted rate of current warming is at least 20 times faster.

Glacial ice and air bubbles trapped in it (top) preserve an 800,000-year record of temperature & carbon dioxide. Earth has cycled between ice ages (low points, large negative anomalies) and warm interglacials (peaks). (Photograph courtesy National Snow & Ice Data Center. NASA graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from Jouzel et al., 2007.)

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Featured image by Rob Yelland.