The Hockey Stick Lives: Canadian Arctic Warming Unprecedented In 120,000 Years

[kristopher]

The Hockey Stick Lives: Canadian Arctic Warming Unprecedented In 120,000 Years
BY JOE ROMM ON JANUARY 27, 2014 AT 5:09 PM



Recent warming has been unprecedented in speed, scale, and cause. Last year, we reported on a study that found the rate of warming since 1900 is 50 times greater than the rate of cooling in the previous 5000 years, which threatens to destroy the stable climate that enabled civilization.

The warming is so fast that it’s easy to forget how cold it used to be just a few decades ago, which is the point of a recent Climate Central analysis and the awesome xkcd cartoon based on it (above).

We’ve known for a while that the Arctic — which is warming at twice the rate of Earth as a whole — is now warmer than it has been in at least 2000 years. As a National Center for Atmospheric Research study found in 2009:

Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, new research indicates. The study, which incorporates geologic records and computer simulations, provides new evidence that the Arctic would be cooling if not for greenhouse gas emissions that are overpowering natural climate patterns.

That is one long hockey stick. But now a new study led by UC Boulder Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research Associate Director Gifford Miller takes things way, way back:

Average summer temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic during the last 100 years are higher now than during any century in the past 44,000 years….
Since radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 50,000 years and because Earth’s geological record shows it was in a glaciation stage prior to that time, the indications are that Canadian Arctic temperatures today have not been matched or exceeded for roughly 120,000 years, Miller said.
“The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is,” said Miller…. “This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

....

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/27/3207621/hockey-stick-warming/

[Control-Z]

1. I fucking hate republicans,

greedy fucking corporations, and every last ignorant, selfish bastard who denies climate change. I really do.

[Bigmack]

4. Alas. Right with you here….

We have only despair and angst with which to wrap our worried minds…. Ms Bigmack

[hatrack]

2. Much like Big Boy, the Hockey Stick never really went away . . .

(Secret photograph of Michael Mann obtained from Jerome Corsi's website)

[progressoid]

3. But it's so cold outside...