It’s a well-established fact that the Earth has been warming ever since the advent of industrialization. While climate skeptics have traditionally argued that the timing of this is merely a coincidence — that burning huge amounts of fossil fuels isn’t a significant factor contributing to long-term climate change — a new piece of research means they might have to come up with a new thesis, and fast.
The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that the rate of global warming is not merely chugging along at a steady clip. Instead, it’s accelerating at an astonishing rate. Scientists found that, between 2015 and 2025, the Earth warmed at rate of 0.35 degrees Celsius (0.63 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to an average of around 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade between 1970 and 2015.
Because of all the factors that impact climate data, it can be tough to say for certain whether our planet is actually warming at a faster or slower rate compared to previous eras. To cut through the clutter, the study authors looked at five global temperature datasets, controlling for non-human factors like El Niño cycles, solar patterns, and volcanic activity.
“We filter out known natural influences in the observational data, so that the ‘noise’ is reduced, making the underlying long-term warming signal more clearly visible,” study co-author and retired statistician Grant Foster explained in a press release.
