You may be saying “well, yeah, duh, Holocene, inter-glacial period, of course it has been warming”. But….
(UK Daily Mail) Was the Earth in a period of global warming or cooling before the 20th century?
Attempting to answer this question has thrown up a conundrum for scientists, with some studies showing a warming trend, while others suggesting it cooled until humans intervened.
Now a new study hopes to settle the issue by arguing that data points to the fact that Earth’s climate has been warming over the past 10,000 years – long before human activity is thought to have changed the climate.
It argues that previous research that showed a cooling trend was wrong because it used contradictory ice core data.
The research was undertaken by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Professor Zhengyu Liu.
When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change requested a figure to show global temperature trends over the last 10,000 years, Professor Liu knew that was going to be a problem.
What they were considering was whether there has been an overall cooling or warming trend, versus the shorter term warm and cool periods that have been occurring throughout the Holocene. Here’s the money quote
‘We have been building models and there are now robust contradictions’, he said. ‘Data from observation says global cooling. The physical model says it has to be warming.‘
One has to wonder why computer models are more important that actual data. More money quotes
‘The question is, “Who is right?”‘ said Professor Liu. ‘Or, maybe none of us is completely right.
‘It could be partly a data problem, since some of the data in last year’s study contradicts itself.
‘It could partly be a model problem because of some missing physical mechanisms.’
Liu admits that there is much more work to be done. Because the science is not settle. Weird. Of course, Liu and the rest of the researchers say none of this invalidates their religious belief that the current warming is the fault of Mankind. Of course. They’re biased.
The press release is here. The study is here.
