Friday, April 11, 2008

You're getting warmer

Way back when I was considering a career as a scientist, I briefly considered learning more about paleoclimatology (studying the climate of the geologic past). I think I may have come across this when I was researching grad programs at the University of Arizona, but as this was a decade ago, I can't really remember.

That's why I found this article from Wired fascinating. The human impact on the climate very likely predates industrial times - certainly on a local level, but possibly even on a global level. One of the scientists quoted even stated that the advent of agriculture may have prevented another period of glaciation! I don't think we'll ever know that for sure, but there is tremendous value in slowly uncovering the puzzle of humanity's impact on the earth over the last several thousand years.

In short,

3 comments:

emilyruth said...

The past is the key to the present! Just ask any uniformitarianist!

Roman said...

I used to know what "uniformitarianist" meant.

In the past.

Curmudgeon said...

The person who took that photo has some real talent. Excellent picture.