Looking at graph, what would you expect current temps to do?

Question

I noticed this historical temp graph going back 450,000 thousand years ago, and I noticed a pattern. I would like some other peoples opinions (Note: current day is on the left side of graph). Does our current warming trend look abnormal? Based on the graph, what would you predict global temps will be in the near future? Based on the graph, does the current rate of change seem exceptionally high compared to the past?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Answer 1

what is very clear from the graphs is that as we go back in time, the data seems less and less accurate, which can be deduced from the smaller estimated variations in the Graph.

the data also indicates that we were entering an ice age, in a cycle of about 125000 years, and this ice age was to be the normal expected trend.

But the short term data, for the last 50 years or so, which is not in those graphs, indicates that instead of slow glaciation, as should be expected, and as the trend from the last 500 years indicated, we are moving very fast away from that expected ice age.

I tend to believe that this sudden reverse trend is the result of artificial global warming, and that makes the artificial intervention even stronger, since it managed to totally reverse the natural cycle.

Answer 2

You're absolutely right that we should have "topped out".  But, your graph is for so many years, you can't really see the "blip" of global warming at the end.  Going back only 12,000 or so shows the actuality.  We were in a very stable phase (as your graph also shows) until we messed it up.

Before anyone complains about "wiki", note that: A.  This article is not editable and B. the peer reviewed scientific references from which the data was taken.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

"We humans have built a remarkable socioeconomic system during perhaps the only time when it could be built, when climate was sufficiently stable to allow us to develop the agricultural infrastructure required to maintain an advanced society."

Answer 3

These graphs are over enormously long time spans and do not relate to recent global warming since the 1970's.

Answer 4

I would say that the only thing you should conclude from those graphs is that the temperature of the Earth changes from -6 to +3 of the present day climate.  

Even then that the theory used to analyse proxy data is accurate which we have no way of checking.

We really don't know how the climate works as we don't have the physics to derive climate behaviour from first priciples and the theories that we have are not a good fit to real world data.

Answer 5

if you are refering to http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

note the time scale.

now if you turn your attention over to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:...

it shows a stable temp. again note the time scale.

i guess this is better then your past sea level arguments.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 6

First of all I'd keep in mind that a human with possible bias or incomplete data can post info to wikipedia so it's not a totally reliable source, though I don't question this graph itself. Ice cores from Antarctica are the main way to judge past events in that region. Secondly, although I question AGW or man-caused warming, you can't use a graph of temp in Antarctica to extrapolate global temperatures. It's actually cooling there and has even when the rest of the planet has gotten warmer. This is one reason water levels haven't risen despite glacier melt in Greenland and other areas: it comes down as snow in Antarctica and the ice has grown thicker there.

The only way to predict whether the temperature will go up in the future is to have someone travel back in time and tell you, computer modeling is imperfect since there are literally too many variables. But based on solar activity I think temps will start trending down, as they have in the past. Think Medieval Warming Period and Little Ice Age.

Answer 7

The pattern one sees is that as temperature reaches a maximum not far from our current level, it levels off, then drops precipitously. This is often interpreted that when water vapor in the atmosphere rises to a high enough degree, we start to get global cloud cover, and with it a high level of reflectivity... sunlight bouncing off the top of our global cloud cover.

Temperatures do not have to reach the point of melting off all the ice on Antarctica to bring this about. It can be precipitated by volcanic activity.

But if earth does see a complete melt-off of antarctica, there would be a very major cooling event as that ice-water spreads out above our salt water. This would be a fail-safe to ensure that that precipitous drop in global temperature is somewhere in the future once we get to a sustained high.

This does not give one cause to wish for an early arrival of our global maximums even though it may have some short term benefits.

Answer 8

Looking at the graph, I would expect the global temperature to remain steady as it has for the past 6,000 years.  Looking at the Milankovitch Theory, that's exactly what we should expect.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that, 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitc...

But it's not, because of the anthropogenic forcing mentioned in the above quote.

*Additional Details*

1) The planet hasn't been warming for the past 16,000 years.  The past 6,000 have been basically flat, and in fact, cooling slightly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Holoc...

2) The section you're quoting is just talking about one part of the cycle (due to eccentricity).

3) You're not reading this part correctly.

"More recent work by Berger and Loutre suggests that the current warm climate may last another 50,000 years."

The current *warm* climate, not the current *warming* climate.  They're saying it's going to be relatively stable for 50,000 years, not 23,000 as the Imbrie study concludes.

Answer 9

Based on the graph,  the temperature changes in the last 100 years (which it conveniently does not show, as the scale is too large) our current trends would be clearly abnormal--since we are experiencing temperature (and ice volume) changes in a matter of a few years tha t--on this graph--take thousands of years.

Which is what climate scientist s have been saying--one of the reasons we know the current global warming is abnormal and caused by humans is that it is NOT following the natural patterns--it is occurring  at many times the rate natural

changes occur.