Our planet’s history includes episodes of cold so extreme that glaciers reached sea level in equatorial regions.
Long-term Cycles
Earth has warmed in the past due to changes in the Sun, volcanic eruptions, and naturally occurring increases in greenhouse gases. Our ability to understand and explain past changes is one reason we are confident that recent changes are due to humans.
For New Englanders, the saying “as American as apple pie” may as well be “as New England as lobster.” But warming sea surface temperatures from climate change are forcing populations of the American lobster to higher latitudes than ever before—and upending fishing communities on the New England coast.
Earth’s hottest periods occurred before humans existed. Those ancient climates would have been like nothing our species has ever seen.
Why on Earth are climate scientists so interested in the West Antarctic ice sheet? This remote region of the seventh continent has been the subject of many recent research explorations--the results of which have been described in the news with words like “collapse,” “irreversible,” and “huge.”
Like a prehistoric fly trapped in amber during dinosaurs' days, airborne relics of Earth's earlier climate can end up trapped in glacial ice for eons. How do climate scientists turn those tiny relics into a story about Earth's ancient climate?
In October 2003, a little-known think tank in the Department of Defense quietly released a report warning that climate change could happen so suddenly it could pose a major threat to our country's national security. Why was the Pentagon worried about abrupt climate change? Because new evidence from Greenland showed it had happened before.
In this week's Beyond the Data blog, NCEI's Deke Arndt explains how comparing a record-setting warm streak from 2015 to one in 1944 is like comparing the tallest player in the NBA to the tallest kid in 2nd grade.