Industrial Revolution Kick-Started Climate Change Earlier Than Thought
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“In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, no one would have thought that their burning of fossil fuels would have an almost immediate effect on the climate. But our new study, published Wednesday in Nature, reveals that warming in some regions actually began as early as the 1830s. That is much earlier than previously thought, so our discovery redefines our understanding of when human activity began to influence our climate.
Determining when global warming began and how quickly the planet has warmed since then, is essential for understanding how much we have altered the climate in different parts of the world. Our study helps to answer the question of whether our climate is already operating outside thresholds that are considered safe for human society and functional ecosystems. Our findings show that warming did not develop at the same time across the planet. The tropical oceans and the Arctic were the first regions to begin warming, in the 1830s. Europe, North America and Asia followed roughly two decades later.”
Read the full article online at http://www.ecowatch.com
