Fire and ice

By Mustang Bobby

Via Bloomberg News:

The Earth is warmer now than during 70 to 80 percent of the time stretching back to the last Ice Age, according to researchers from Oregon State and Harvard universities who studied data from more than 73 global sites. 

The findings also show that temperature-change rates are accelerating, Shaun Marcott, a scientist at Oregon State in Corvallis and one of the paper’s authors, said yesterday in an interview. The study was published today by the journal Science. 

The research is the longest global reconstruction of temperature records over the last 11,300 years and mirrors results covering the past 2,000 years. The study may provide additional context in refuting “arguments that what we’re experiencing today is part of some natural climate variability,” Marcott said.

The change coincides with the growth in industrial output and the emissions that come from the use of fossil fuels over the last 100 years. Yes, the earth moves in cycles of warm and cold, but something’s making the change accelerate, and that something is pretty obvious.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)