“Debunking Dan Peña: The Truth About Climate Change and Earth’s Temperature 55,000 Years Ago”
The claim circulating on social media that the Earth was warmer 55,000 years ago than it is today by 2°C is false. Reliable scientific data confirms that the Earth was actually much cooler 55,000 years ago than it is today. The average global temperature now is approximately 59°F (15°C).
Dr. Howard Diamond, Climate Science Program Manager at NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, stated that the most recent ice age occurred between 120,000 and 11,500 years ago, and 50,000 years ago, temperatures were definitely lower than they are today. We are currently in a period of milder climate between ice ages called an interglacial period.
An article published in The Conversation by Darrell Kaufman, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Northern Arizona University, also confirms that the Earth was considerably cooler 55,000 years ago than it is today. A chart in the article shows reconstructions of temperature over time, indicating that the temperature 55,000 years ago was around 4°C lower than the pre-Industrial Revolution average temperature.
According to 2023 data, the average global temperature reached around 2.12 °F (1.18 °C) above the 20th-century average, amounting to approximately 59.12°F (15.08°C). This was 2.43 °F (1.35 °C) above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900).
Climate cycles are natural, but the rise in CO2 levels over the past 370 years is not. The current rate of increase in carbon dioxide is 100 times greater than the previous natural increase during the end of the last ice age, showing that human activity significantly impacts carbon dioxide levels.
A letter published in the scientific journal Environmental Research in 2021 analyzed 3,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers and showed a 99 percent consensus on human-caused climate change.
In conclusion, the claim that the Earth was warmer 55,000 years ago than it is today is false. The Earth was actually much cooler 55,000 years ago, and human activity is causing the Earth to warm up, leading to climate change.