When did Global Warming begin?

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Victorian times with the industrial revolution...Show more

The earth has always gone through periods of heating and cooling. When the dinosaurs roamed the earth the average daily temperature was very high. During the Ice Age the temperatures were extremely low. During the different time periods it could be attributed to various different things such as Milankovitch's cycle, Volcanic Fissures, algae being eaten too fast by trilobites and other sea life, and lots of other variables. For the records Geologists know this because of two factors. The abundance (and loss) of a type of fossil at specific point in the time line, and secondly because certain types of rocks form under certain circumstances. Example Coal (dominantly a marshy environment), dolomite (an environment like Saudi Arabia) etc. Oh and of course geologists do dating on rocks in order to determine their age, it's pretty accurate really. Yes, there is debate over it's accuracy, but that's usually by people who don't really understand the process or calculations involved in calculating half-lives. It's calculated by statistical data by the way, and it's a fun experiment to conduct in a physics class....Show more

t's nearly impossible to overstate the threat of climate change.

Global warming will have catastrophic effects such as accelerating sea level rise, droughts, floods, storms and heat waves. These will impact some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, disrupting food production, and threatening vitally important specie setc....Show more

That's an interesting question.

Global Warming is a big deal, so it should be easy enough to see when it started by looking at a graph of annual temperature, shouldn't it?

Here is a graph of a well known temperature record... except I have removed the 'year' labels.

Can you pick when global warming started from this graph?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8253/8630817384_7725d8db8e_b_d.jpg

Edit. 'That guy' has told you how to spot it in the graph. You are looking for "the massive increase in the amount and rapidity of the warming"

Edit.
Here is the same chart with the years labeled.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8535/8630817394_2f82f45a8d_b_d.jpg...Show more

Cmon man thats like asking when did dinosaurs begin pooping? Since Forever. Have you smelt that stuff before, that is how global warming started. All that methane gas....Show more