An international research project discovered that human activity has been causing global warming for almost two centuries, proving human-induced climate change is not just a 20th-century phenomenon. Lead researcher Associate Professor Nerilie Abram from The Australian National University said the study found warming began during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and is first detectable in the Arctic and tropical oceans around the 1830s, much earlier than scientists had expected, Phys.org reported. “It was an extraordinary finding,” said Associate Professor Abram, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences and ARC Center of Excellence for Climate System Science. “It was one of those moments where science really surprised us. But the results were clear. The climate warming we are witnessing today started about 180 years ago (in the 1830s).” The new findings have important implications for assessing the extent humans have caused the climate to move away from its pre-industrial state and will help scientists understand the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the climate. Titled “Early onset of industrial-era warming across the oceans and continents”, the study has been published in the journal Nature.
