Climate Changes Ten Times Faster Now Than Over the Past 65 Million Years

Scientists from University of Stanford  published a review of climate research, as part of a report on climate change in the latest issue of Science.

Taking into account factors that affect various ecosystems, Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of environmental Earth system science, and Chris Field, a professor of biology and of environmental Earth system science and the director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution, predicted that over the coming century world’s climate will change 10 times faster than it has over the past 65 million years.

Climate change has been and still is a subject of heated debates and a key topic of the world’s largest scientific and political conferences. And yet, there are still skeptics, who desperately try to undermine its importance and fail, or simply do not want, to see that unless humans change the way they consume and generate energy, extreme weather events will become more frequent and severe.

This is exactly what the literature study proves. Looking through historical data and previous research, Diffenbaugh and Field evaluated current findings and predictions for the coming century. The scientists did not argue that climate has changed in the past, and species had to adjust to increase in temperature, however they pointed out that human activity causes this change to occur much faster now.

Urbanization, water pollution and carbon emissions, are just a few of the determining factors, which cause the rate of modern climate change to increase drastically. These are also the factors that were not present in the past and explain the troubling predictions.

Nevertheless, the authors are maintaining their positive attitude. They believe that society still has time to react. Although a drastic change in behavior could change these predictions. Of course, human activities could also accelerate the magnitude of change and it is only up to us to decide which way we choose to go.