98% of the Earth's Surface is Hotter Now Than at Anytime in the Past 2000 Years

[skepticalmike]

This is a temperature reconstruction plot of the Holocene plus data from the Hadley Climate Research Unit. The general shape of the curve is a function of changing incident solar radiation (insolation)

caused by the Milankovitch cycles. The Holocene Climate Optimum occurred from 7000 to 5000 years ago and was caused by the precessional cycle. The decline in temperature after that period is

related to the axial tilt of the earth becoming more upright and the polar regions receiving less insolation. Less insolation at the poles during the summer causes less melting of ice and a cooler planet.

The cooling trend should have continued to the present day if not for humans modifying the earth's radiation balance. Some very small increase in greenhouse gases ,enough to counteract the cooling

trend, is beneficial. This natural cooling trend has about another 8000 years left in its cycle when the earth's axial tilt will be at a minimum. So the earth was on the course for a possible ice age in

about 8000 years but we can prevent that from happening by managing the earth' radiation balance through the addition of greenhouse gases. The figure was taken from Realclimate.org and notice

the very large error bars on the temperature reconstruction in light blue.





Figure 1 Blue curve: Global temperature reconstruction from proxy data of Marcott et al, Science 2013. Shown here is the RegEM version – significant differences between the variants with different averaging methods arise only towards the end, where the number of proxy series decreases. This does not matter since the recent temperature evolution is well known from instrumental measurements, shown in red (global temperature from the instrumental HadCRU data). Graph: Klaus Bitterman.

[countryboy]

Can anyone tell me why the 2000 year mark was chosen for this propaganda piece? Anyone? Anyone? Buhler?

[Peter1469]

There won't be any more ice ages as long as humans are around. We can easily prevent ice ages by modifying the atmosphere. Ice ages are caused by tiny reductions in solar radiation

incident on the earth that occurs over very long periods of time plus climate system feedbacks .

lol

The height of human arrogance.

[Peter1469]

Solar and wind energy are becoming price competitive with fossil fuels. As the earth continues to warm more people will be convinced of the need for renewable energy or nuclear energy.

Carbon dioxide emissions were once rising exponentially and now they are beginning to level off. The emissions peak may occur in about 5 years with a gradual decline into the future.

I predict a slow decline in carbon dioxide emissions after around 2025 and the possibility of a steep decline if the climate continues to warm in the coming decades. It will probably take

a significantly warmer planet to motivate governments around the world to take more serious action.

Several months ago I linked to an article from a prominent science publication predicting that by 2100 80% of global energy needs will be met by renewables. CO2 levels should come down. Hopefully not too much or we will die.