Climate around the world is warming at a faster rate than it has in 2,000 years, a pair of new studies from Switzerland's University of Bern revealed this week.
"We find that the warmest period of the past two millennia occurred during the 20th Century for more than 98 percent of the globe," one peer-reviewed article stated.
Researchers reviewed numerous climate abnormalities in history, from the “Roman Warm Period” (A.D. 250 to A.D. 400) to the “Medieval Warm Period” (A.D. 950 to A.D. 1250) and finally the “Little Ice Age” (A.D. 1300 and A.D. 1870).
Arguments employed by climate skeptics are no longer valid, scientists said, completely debunking the idea that the constant and extreme fluctuation of temperatures is a normal occurrence in earth’s climate changes.
Using 700 records of temperature changes, ranging from corals to tree rings, and lake sediments, the researchers reconstructed a graph of the known climate conditions which transpired over the last 2,000 years.
Although episodes like the "Little Ice Age" were extreme, they were concentrated and never reached a global level like that being witnessed today. Even the most extreme case, the "Medieval Warm Period", only affected 40 percent of the world. Nowadays, 98 percent of the world is experiencing hotter temperatures.
Although the report never intended to investigate the cause of these changing temperatures, industrialization and developments have had an impact on the environment.
"This provides strong evidence that anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming is not only unparalleled in terms of absolute temperatures but also unprecedented in spatial consistency within the context of the past 2,000 years," the report concluded.
For Professor Mark Maslin from the University College London "this paper should finally stop climate change deniers claiming that the recent observed coherent global warming is part of a natural climate cycle,” adding that it "shows the truly stark difference between regional and localized changes in climate of the past and the truly global effect of anthropogenic greenhouse emissions."