Earth Is At The Warmest It’s Been In 120,000 Years, New Study Says

It seems that the Earth is now at its warmest in 120,000 years, and even currently hitting its hottest mark in more than 2 million years. Published as a letter in the journal Nature, insights suggest that greenhouse gas emissions released since the Industrial Revolution may have already committed the Earth to as much as a five-degree Celsius hike over the next few millennia.

The continuous 2 million year temperature record was part of the doctoral dissertation of Carolyn Snyder at Stanford University. Now a climate policy official at the US Environmental Protection Agency, her temperature reconstruction is noted not to only estimate temperature for a single year, but the average 5,000-year time period, also going back a couple million years.

According to CBS News, Syder based her reconstruction on 61 different sea surface temperature proxies from across the globe, however, as the study goes back further in time, the fewer of the proxies became available, making estimate less certain. Still, she found that the temperature change correlated well to the levels of carbon dioxide.

The link with the levels of carbon dioxide and the factors taken into account regarding past trends, she was able to calculate how much warming can be expected in the future. She said that if the climate factors are the same as they were in the past, the Earth has already committed to another seven degrees or so of warming over the next few millennia.

Still, many other scientists think that Snyder's estimates have been high - some even calling it unrealistic and not matching historical time periods. Still, as reports noted, the research matters as it helps us look into the future of our planet. Not only does the research back up the need to work on climate change, it also tells us how much it already changed the big geological picture - specifically, that the policy leaders' worries about the range of the two-to-three-degree heat hike may have been long past due.