Disturbing Temperature Trends

Disturbing Temperature Trends

Noah Diffenbaugh provides a link to the original paper and a short summary of the study cited in this post.

Originally shared by Noah Diffenbaugh

New Research Shows Arctic Now Warmer Than During Any Century in the Past 44,000 Years

Gifford Miller and co-authors have a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters reporting that “average summer temperatures of the last ~100 years [are] now higher than during any century in more than 44,000 years”.

Miller et al. gathered samples of rooted plants that are being uncovered by receding ice on Baffin Island. They then measured the the amount of radioactive carbon in the materials, which revealed that the plant material had been covered by ice for at least 44,000 years. The authors’ also report that their reconstructions of temperature on Baffin Island show that summers had been cooling for the 5,000 years prior to the recent warming. 

The news story from the American Geophysical Union (including the photo) is here:

http://news.agu.org/press-release/new-study-finds-unprecedented-warmth-in-arctic/

The peer-reviewed paper is available here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL057188/abstract

#climatechange   #globalwarming   #science   #sciencecommunication