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Has the Earth been warming or cooling over the past few thousand years?

Feb. 23, 2023
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Sediment core tube held in a small boat on a lake.

Knowing whether the recent post-industrial rise in global temperature is superimposed on longer-term warming or cooling trends is a matter of practical importance, but climate models favor warming, disagreeing with temperature reconstructions from natural archives, which favor cooling. LTRR postdoctoral researcher Ellie Broadman is an author of an article in the journal Nature which reviews a large body of evidence on the disagreement, finding support for a cooling trend, but suggesting that more research is needed to resolve the issue.

Original article

Kaufman, D.S., Broadman, E. Revisiting the Holocene global temperature conundrum. Nature 614, 425–435 (2023).

University of Arizona News Article

Before global warming, was Earth cooling down or heating up? (by Daniel Stolte)

Popular article in The Conversation

Was Earth already heating up, or did global warming reverse a long-term cooling trend? (by Ellie Broadman and Darrell Kaufman)