Sceptics climate change argument doubtful

For years those sceptical of climate change have claimed that a global rise in temperature is normal and has been happening throughout history. However a recently published study by Professor Svante Björk, a climate researcher at Lund University in Sweden, shows that simultaneous warming events of the northern and southern hemispheres have not occurred periodically over the past 20,000 years.  He says “What is happening today is unique from a historical geological perspective.” 

Professor Björk has completed a comprehensive study of research publications that go through the global climate archives and document climate events since the end of the last Ice Age. The results show that when one hemisphere’s temperature rises the other’s either drops or remains unchanged.  An example of this occurrence is the last clear change in climate which was between 1600 and 1900 and known as the Little Ice Age.  During this time Europe experienced some of its coldest centuries, however there is no evidence of any change in the Southern hemisphere. There are numerous examples similar to this throughout the climate archives which have accumulated data by using samples of glacier ice as well as marine and lake sediments to show how temperature, precipitation and the composition of atmospheric gases change over the centuries. 

The only global changes in history were caused by an external influence on the climate system, for instance a volcanic eruption that causes ash to spread all around the world.  Similarly, today’s raised levels of green house gases can be seen as the external influence that is causing an increase in global temperature.  Based on the evidence his study provides, Professor Björk stated that “We must see today’s global warming as an exception caused by human influence on the Earth’s carbon cycle.”