1732: Earth Temperature Timeline

2016-09-12T19:49:51Z

Bananafigs: Add climate data sources per image text and links to sources.

{{comic
| number = 1732
| date = September 12, 2016
| title = Earth Temperature Timeline
| before = [[#Explanation|↓ Skip to explanation ↓]]
| image = earth_temperature_timeline.png
| titletext = [After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Include table for explanations of each event including the year and the temperature at that time. Please remove this tag only when everything is explained.}}
In the past 100 years, human action produced lots of {{w|CO₂ emissions}}, which have caused a rise in average global temperature through the {{w|greenhouse effect}}. This is called {{w|global warming}} and is part of a {{w|climate change}}, a subject that has become a [[:Category:Climate change|recurrent subject]] on xkcd. There are still many people who claim that this is not happening, or at least that it is not caused by any human actions, called "climate change deniers". One argument of theirs is that global warming is happening for natural causes, summarized with the phrase "temperature has changed before".

This comic shows that while temperature changes have indeed occurred before, the speed of the current temperature rise is much, much faster than those seen (actually: estimated) in the previous thousands of years.

This comic is a [[:Category:Timeline|timeline]] on how the temperature has changed since 20,000 BCE to the present day and extrapolated 84 years on depending on the choice of actions to stop CO₂ emission is taken now or never. It is meant to contrast the slow-paced natural changes with the rapid temperature rise in the recent years. The effect is achieved by forcing the reader to scroll endlessly through slow, building-up changes and then face them with an almost instantaneous, quick rise towards the end.

The title text compares the slow changes to a car that occur over many years with the rapid destruction caused by burning. This joke was made previously in [[1693: Oxidation]].

* 9000 BCE: '''Last North American Pokemon'''[''sic'']''' go extinct''' — as prehistoric [[Megan]] states, this is not a real fact. Pokémon are still thriving throughout the entire world (see [[1705: Pokémon Go]]), and are most commonly found near regions of dense human habitation.
* 2750 BCE: '''Stonehenge completed''' — the drawing is a reference to the 1984 movie "This is Spinal Tap" (A documentary/parody featuring the fake metal band "Spinal Tap", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/), the musicians order a Stone Henge prop for the stage, which turns out to be too small (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXzzHM8zLw)

The image attributes climate data sources as "Shakun et al. (2012), Marcott et al. (2013), Annan and Hargreaves (2013), HadCRUT4, IPCC":
* Shakun et al. (2012) - [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html Nature], [http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/mcintyre/shakun-co2-temp-lag-nat12.pdf (pdf)]
* Marcott et al. (2013) - [http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198 Science], [http://www.atm.damtp.cam.ac.uk/mcintyre/shakun-co2-temp-lag-nat12.pdf (pdf)]
* Annan and Hargreaves (2013) - [http://www.clim-past.net/9/367/2013/cp-9-367-2013.html Climate of the Past] [http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/LGM_temp.pdf (pdf)]
* [http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/ HadCRUT4] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HadCRUT#HadCRUT4 wikipedia]
* [http://www.ipcc.ch/ IPCC] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change wikipedia]

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript}}
*I'm working on it. Hold your breath... --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 19:32, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

==Trivia==
*The timeline starts at 20000BCE (22,000 years ago) and ends near 2200CE, thus covering 22,200 years.
**The colors used to represent temperature vary from blue (the perceived hue of a black body at 20000K) to pale red (perceived at 2200K).
**Since humans generally lack familiarity with extreme temperatures, blue is commonly associated with cold substances such as ice, while red is associated with hot obvious black body radiators, in contrast to the temperatures of objects which predominantly emit those wavelengths.

{{comic discussion}}

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1732: Earth Temperature Timeline