90th Anniversary Issue: 1990s
Detecting climate change and other highlights, 1990–99
By Science News
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Climate in flux
More than half a century ago, temperature records from Antarctica and the Arctic showed data “consistent with the theory that the entire world is slowly getting warmer,” Science News Letter reported. This low-grade fever began around 1900 and was believed “to amount to some two or three degrees each century” (2/28/59, p. 131). But not until the 1990s would climate experts from around the world begin issuing consensus statements through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warning of catastrophic climate perturbations if humankind didn’t put the brakes on releases of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (6/23/90, p. 391) — preferably immediately (11/4/95, p. 293). As international agreements such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol have largely failed in that task, scientists have expanded efforts to chronicle the world’s shifting climate (above, 2008 temperatures compared with 1950–1980 baseline period) and ecosystems (SN Online: 12/2/11). — Janet RaloffNote: N indicates findings that went on to win a Nobel Prize.