450,000 Years of History

kinda confusing that time goes backwards as you move to the right on the x-axis...

Anonymous: well, that's the direction the data came in at the Oak Ridge website. But more interesting, this way it reads like a ticker-tape, e.g. the way a seismograph would. "Time Before Present" might be a better label for the x-axis. Or, a backwards arrow?

How do people feel about the y-axis not starting at zero? I think it makes the natural historic fluctuations look grossly dramatic, which could be mis-used by skeptics of global warming!

interesting graph...seems that things get a bit exaggerated at the Chronicle...
for more sober estimates, check out the IPCC estimates at http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb0... where they estimate "0.2°C per decade" on p12, over the next few decades. This is consistent with NOAA graphs, at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/pa... which show about 1C rise over the last century.
Since diurnal temperatures swing about 30F or 17C every day, an average rise of 1C or even 2C over a century is not the type of thing we'll notice,
and only the cynic in me ponders whether the entire global warming hysteria is a nasty practical joke as retaliation from the nuclear industry as payback for environmentalists raising hysteria with the word "nuclear" back in the '70s. For some odd reason stories about a new boom in uranium prospecting are in play, but maybe we're just planning to sell it to Iran. whatever

correction: the tags are
IPCC - http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb0...
and NOAA -
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/pa...

well, as usual, anyone can interpret numbers as (s)he wants... Having a 1 or 2 °c increase could not be noticed by people because, as you said, during a single day the t° difference is bigger than that. BUT that increase is a global, worldwide, average increase. This has impact for example on the antartica ice smelting. This has impact on the number of floods increasing. The impact of global warning has now, I honestly think, been proven, and only blind people still argue that it is not real. Sure there are hysterical people, but remember that scientists are warning politics since the late 70's-early 80's at least. So you can understand that some people tend now to become hysterical. And, in any case, being (at least a bit) more careful about the environment can only be positive, as it is simply thinking to our kid's future, ins'nt it?

yes, scientists have been warning us since the 70's --- except then they were crowing about an impending ICE AGE!

This is true. The hysteria in 1978 was about the Ice Age that would soon wipe out the planet.

Also, this data looks pretty cyclical. I think it actually supports the notion that the current "global warming" hype is just that--a bunch on nonsense.

It's really just a tool for US politicians to sound holy. Also it's a tool for the rest of the world to get a competitive advantage on the US.

[re TO HEADLOCAL comment, mostly] CLARIFICATION: "...1C or even 2C over a century..." seems to be re-quoted with the "over a century" part deleted, probably considered an (ahem) inconvenient truth.

But every space-borne sensor and vehicle launched to make earth measurements is rigorously tested, with thermal tolerances of PLUS OR MINUS 2°C, since such variations are seen as tolerably insignificant. Same goes for our superb modern weapons, in their qualification phases. Bill Murray's MEATBALLS character puts it best: IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!

Alternately, for a personal experience of "0.2°C per decade", try the following empirical test: visit your local pharmacy and ask for two thermometers, one oral, and one rectal. Take them home and take your temperature, both ways, simultaneously. According to published scholarship, such as http://www.aacn.org/AACN/jr... ...you can expect to get about 0.2°C variation, per reference 12 (12. Raulerson WA. A Comparison of ...), and enjoy the assurance of dealing in facts, not opinions. And no pesky 10-year wait for results. Such a deal. [Extra-credit version: invite your friends over, improve your statistics, post video on YouTube. Be sure to wash instruments with alcohol between tests.]

Al Bore himself says it well: "THE DEBATE IS OVER". There is no debate - real scientists always maintain a sense of contingency, suspended judgment, and self-skepticism. And they never let politicians become their spokesmen. "Debates" occur over silly things like "taste great -- less filling".

For a longer-time perspective, go check http://www.ecotao.com/holis... and ponder some really significant variations of temperature and CO2 over paleobiological time scales.

Still wound up over global warming? - Wed 070328 high temperatures for SF,CA and Portland, OR were 63F and 55F, or about 4.5°C difference. That's between 200 and 400 years worth of "global warming" right there, so move north and avoid the rush.

As always, I am open to new information, preferably of the empirical and reproducible kind, or actual observations, such as Greenland again becoming green on a sustained basis, as in Viking days.

I'll have Bob Dylan, the bard himself, sum it up: No reason to get excited.

I would like to kindly point out, that you have forgotten an important detail: "ice works" - I mean, once frozen, it doesn't stay like that forever and ever e.g. tons of ice create pressure, pressure creates heat, ice is at its densest at 4 degrees Celcius. Also, when you have a hot-cold situation (energy-no energy), heat will move into cold - nature wants to reach equilibrium. This means that over time ice with high CO2 content will mix with ice that has low CO2 content. So in the past there could be much more CO2, but the ice samples would say something comepletly different!

Long live alarmist science (fiction)... not...