Study: Earth hottest in at least 400 years

[Annoyedlistner]

From Cnn.com

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer.

The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."

A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

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

But i thought Global Warming didnt exist!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

[pinky]

I just saw this and was about to post it.

Maybe Rep. Boehlert ought to have a talk with Junior about this.

[ConnieB]

I bet Junior had something to do with this. I didn't know Bush was over 400 yrs old....ROFL

By the way, there has been 4 known ice age periods...now I wonder what caused each period to end...maybe global warming. Global warming (interglacial period) is not anything new, it's been around as long as the ice ages. We are now in an interglacial era where the earth is constantly warming.

[Regis Philbin]

What caused the earth to be this "hot" 400 years ago???

[pinky]

I bet Junior had something to do with this. I didn't know Bush was over 400 yrs old....ROFL
That just shows a total misreading of the article.

The earth is believed to be its hottest in at least 400 years; quite possibly in the last 2 milennia.

The report, commissioned by a Republican Congressman, also states that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming."

Whatever the causes were 400, or 2,000 years ago, they weren't human activities. What happens when the next natural warming cycle begins, and the earth is already warmer than usual due to what we're doing?

[Regis Philbin]

What happens when the next natural warming cycle begins, and the earth is already warmer than usual due to what we're doing?


Jesus comes back? Oh, wait, liberals don't believe in that...well, maybe you'll all just burn up then...

[Java]

I bet Junior had something to do with this. I didn't know Bush was over 400 yrs old....ROFL

By the way, there has been 4 known ice age periods...now I wonder what caused each period to end...maybe global warming. Global warming (interglacial period) is not anything new, it's been around as long as the ice ages. We are now in an interglacial era where the earth is constantly warming.Speaking of ice ages and interglacial periods, one thing has been quite puzzling to me. At the end of the last interglacial period, how on earth did the entire region centering around Siberia and eastern Europe suddenly get so cold and so suddenly as to snap freeze all those mammoths and heards of bison (many even had fresh fodder in their mouths and stomaches)? I could understand it if a mammoth was sliced up into steaks where there would be enough surface area for the interior meat to cool quickly so as not to rot, but to snap freeze whole mammoths so that they'll freeze so quickly that the contents of their stomaches are even preserved too, now this I do find to be extremely puzzling! In a nutshell, there's a lot of insufficiently explained stuff out there.

As for global warming, personally I believe that people are paying too much attention to the temperature and not enough attention to BTU's being exchanged. It is claimed that global warming if continued at it's present rate will melt off the glaciers of Greenland within the next century and raise sea levels by at least 20 feet, but what they don't say is how many BTU's it would take to do this, and what becomes of these incoming BTU's once all that ice is gone - if you do the math the answers are quite shocking. Another thing not mentioned is with this kind of rise in global sea level resulting from Greenland's meltoff, it would undoubtably create a huge problem down in Antarctica simply because as everyone knows ice floats, meaning that enormous regions around Antarctica will be losing ice simply because of sea water getting up under it and snapping it free and adding it to the sea also. In a nutshell (again), we might be headed for something much deeper than most had ever imagined.

I could go into talking about what happens to the earth's rotation speed, circumference, tectonic activity, etc when so much mass is transferred from the poles towards the equitorial regions too... but those who followed me so far probably already have a very good idea, but for those who haven't I'd just be wasting bandwidth here...

[pinky]

Jesus comes back? Oh, wait, liberals don't believe in that...well, maybe you'll all just burn up then...
You have no idea what I believe about Jesus. Add it to the list.