Earth just had its 600 millionth straight cooler-than-average month, thanks to naturally driven cooling.
An historical reconstruction of the Earth’s temperature by Northwestern University adjunct professor Dr. Christopher Scotese provides an illuminating and surprising comparison of today’s temperatures to those of the past. And it’s not what you think.
According to Scotese, the Earth “has alternated between a frigid ‘ice house,’ like today’s world, and a steaming ‘hothouse,’ like the world of the dinosaurs.”
That’s correct, he described today’s temperatures as frigid. It turns out that most of Earth’s history since the explosion of life in the Cambrian Period nearly 600 million years ago was hotter than our climate today — a lot hotter, notwithstanding the views of former Vice President Al Gore (pictured above).
For fully two-thirds of that time, the Earth experienced temperatures that were much warmer than today. During these periods of “hothouse” conditions, there was no ice at either pole. We “only” entered our current “ice house” conditions about 50 million years ago.
Using the average temperature of the Earth for the past 600 million years, we have experienced 50 million consecutive years of below-average temperature. While factually correct and, for a climate geek and geologist like myself, quite interesting, this information has nothing to do with the current climate debate. – READ MORE
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