All those damned peasants driving around in their fossil fueled carts, ya know
(The Register) Americans sweltering in the recent record-breaking heatwave may not believe it – but it seems that our ancestors suffered through much hotter summers in times gone by, several of them within the last 2,000 years.
A new study measuring temperatures over the past two millennia has concluded that in fact the temperatures seen in the last decade are far from being the hottest in history.
A large team of scientists making a comprehensive study of data from tree rings say that in fact global temperatures have been on a falling trend for the past 2,000 years and they have often been noticeably higher than they are today – despite the absence of any significant amounts of human-released carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back then.
“We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low,” says Professor-Doktor Jan Esper of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, one of the scientists leading the study. “Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy.”
What does it look like?
Even if it was warmer today, there is nothing except conjecture and hysteria that would prove anthropogenic causation.
According to the scientists’ new paper, published in hefty climate journal Nature Climate Change, the cooling effect of orbital shifting on the climate has been up to four times as powerful as anthropogenic (human-caused) warming pressures.
The people who published this aren’t exactly “skeptics”, and posit many anthropogenic causes for today’s temps. But, what caused the higher temps in the past? Fossil fueled mules and horses?
[…] Previous warm periods were warmer than now. Still, we could use some rain here in SE Wisconsin, like, a week ago. I think most of the corn crop is a goner, already. […]