What's the hottest the Earth has ever been?

AnnieA

AnnieA

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Down South
From climate.gov

What's the hottest Earth's ever been?

From climate.gov

Wish it were possible to expand the timeline nearer our current time, but it's clear enough to see that the time that resulted in the development of humans occurred in a colder cycle. Not great timing for billions of humans on earth as we warm back up.


graph-from-scott-wing-620px.png



ETA Temperatures in perspective during human existence. 15 C / 59 F is low compared to the visual above.

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Actually it does not concern me how hot it was somewhere else because I can't do anything about it since China and India tolerates smog so much to the point where it creates a visual, ground level fog daily.

What does concern me is how hot it is in my location. For the past two days weathermen in my location have been forecasting highs for the past two days in the mid-70's (f), but at the beach it has been in the 80's both days. I would surly like a job like theirs. Be wrong 90% of the time and still keep your job.

So the way I figure it is that if these weather experts can't get their local forecasts right then why rely on their predictions about climate change? Like weathermen they get to keep their jobs, too.
 
Robb.hisself said:
Actually it does not concern me how hot it was somewhere else because I can't do anything about it since China and India tolerates smog so much to the point where it creates a visual, ground level fog daily.
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I don't think there's much we can do about it either given earth's current population; maybe population, human practices, or human existence itself is a non-factor in the grand scheme of things. @Paco Dennis 's thread got me wondering about historical temperatures and I found this and thought it interesting enough to make a thread.

The takeaway for me is that for much of Earth's history, it has been much hotter than now. I knew the Earth had temperature cycles but had never understood them to the extremes the graph visually demonstrates. It makes me feel really small to realize that humanity's emergence and our subsequent great developments in the arts, sciences have only occurred because there's been a little blip of hospitable climate.
 

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According to the data from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), the average global temperature in 2022 was **1.55 degrees F (0.86 of a degree C)** above the 20th-century average of 57.0 degrees F (13.9 degrees C) ¹². This was the **sixth-warmest year** on record since 1880 ¹²³⁴. The 10 warmest years in the 143-year record have all occurred since 2010, with the last nine years (2014–2022) ranking as the nine warmest years on record ².

The year 2022 was influenced by a cold phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) known as La Niña, which tends to have a cooling effect on global temperatures ². Despite this, the global annual temperature increased at an average rate of 0.08 degrees F (0.14 degrees C) per decade since 1880 and over twice that rate (0.18 degrees F / 0.32 degrees C) since 1981 ².

The following table shows the monthly global temperature anomalies for 2022 compared to the 1991-2020 average, with places that were warmer than average colored red, and places that were cooler than average colored blue ¹:

| Month | Temperature Anomaly (degrees C) |
|:-----:|:------------------------------:|
| Jan | 0.81 |
| Feb | 0.86 |
| Mar | 0.94 |
| Apr | 0.88 |
| May | 0.82 |
| Jun | 0.83 |
| Jul | 0.84 |
| Aug | 0.83 |
| Sep | 0.82 |
| Oct | 0.80 |
| Nov | 0.75 |
| Dec | 0.79 |

Source: Conversation with Bing, 11/22/2023
(1) 2022 Global temperature recap | NOAA Climate.gov. 2022 Global temperature recap.
(2) Annual 2022 Global Climate Report | National Centers for Environmental .... Annual 2022 Global Climate Report | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).
(3) Assessing the Global Climate in 2022 | News | National Centers for .... Assessing the Global Climate in 2022.
(4) 2022 was world’s 6th-warmest year on record | National Oceanic and .... https://www.noaa.gov/news/2022-was-worlds-6th-warmest-year-on-record.
 
So do you think you are out here as a force of luck. Sure! The Universe is a Cosmic disaster mostly with also a tinge of miracle mixed in thar! If you think you can change what's going on, well good luck, maybe you got the right stuff? As the old Indian once said, " only the white can screw everything up!" (Actually meaning, "man will **** all up for profit" sure that's going to always be the fact of the place, time moment and fore-Evva!
 
papa tiger said:
So do you think you are out here as a force of luck. Sure! The Universe is a Cosmic disaster mostly with also a tinge of miracle mixed in thar! If you think you can change what's going on, well good luck, maybe you got the right stuff? As the old Indian once said, " only the white can screw everything up!" (Actually meaning, "man will **** all up for profit" sure that's going to always be the fact of the place, time moment and fore-Evva!
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No, I don't think there's much we can do.

Reducing the hole in the ozone layer over Antartica by restricting CFCs has been a win. But for preventing warming, culling the Earth's population to small, self-sustaining groups of say a billion people max might buy that billion some time but I believe their offspring would have limited time before humans eventually go extinct unless there were small, cooler pockets that a few could survive for millions of years until the next global cool period. That's not considering catastrophic events such as caldera eruptions though.

PS Think you might enjoy this woman's humor @papa tiger

 
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Didn't the whole surface of the planet melt when that other planet thing collided and birthed the moon? I'd say that was probably the hottest time.
 
Pollution is a serious man-made problem for the planet, plastics, toxic chemicals, radioactive waste, oil spills, etc. Scientists study core samples from polar ice and the ocean floor which show multiple climate swings over the millennia resulting in ice ages followed by periods of warming. As a result sea levels rise and fall and populations of humans, flora and fauna, rise and fall and migrate around the globe adapting and trying to survive. It is a process which has been going on for millions of years. Yes we should be better stewards of the planet and its precious resources, and our mismanagement of resources is affecting Earth's climate, but climate changes will continue to occur, as it always has, regardless of what we do.
 


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