Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of  California, San Diego, report evidence of pronounced changes in the earth's climate that can be tracked in cycles of ocean conditions over thousands of years. These cycles reveal that Earth is currently in a period in which a natural rise in global temperatures -- combined with warming from the greenhouse effect -- will push the planet through an era of rapid global warming.

Charles Keeling and Timothy Whorf report in the March 21 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that strong oceanic tides are the engines behind this warming-cooling cycle that may help determine future climates. This report is the first comprehensive study of the effects of tidal mixing on climate change spanning millennia. The current phase in the cycle suggests that a natural warming trend began a hundred years ago, picked up in the 1970s, and should continue over the next five centuries.

"We have discovered an 1,800-year tidal cycle that appears to match with recent climate change," said Charles Keeling, the study's first author. "If this is a correct mechanism for understanding climate change over millennia, then           temperatures will rise both because of weaker tidal mixing and because of the     greenhouse effect, which is on the increase as well."
Full Story: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/03/000321080716.htm

Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com