“We are about 1 degree Celsius above the coldest it’s been in the last 10,000 years” and “that’s why we shouldn’t be panicking.”
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A woman holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun in Bangkok, Thailand, April 22, 2023. A heat wave in parts of southern Asia in April this year was at least 30 times more likely by climate change, according to a study released Wednesday, May 17. (AP)
A claim full of hot air: Earth’s temperature historically high, not colder than 10,000 years ago
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The claim was not made by a climate change expert.
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Research shows that for a decade, the Earth’s temperature has likely been the hottest in the past 125,000 years.
An Instagram post suggested that people shouldn’t worry much about global warming because the average global temperature is historically low.
"We are about 1 degree Celsius above the coldest it’s been in the last 10,000 years," read text in a May 15 Instagram post.
The post showed a video clip in which a man made the same claim to an interviewer, who replied: "So, in a sense, that’s why we shouldn’t be panicking."
(One degree Celsius is equivalent to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.)
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
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The clip is from an August interview by London-based TalkTV with Brian Catt. Catt’s LinkedIn profile says he lives in England and has a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in business.
The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science told Agence France-Presse Fact Check that Catt has no qualifications on climate change.
The claim is "not even close to being accurate with respect to the situation going on with climate change and global warming," said Howard Diamond, climate science program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Air Resources Laboratory.
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Bethan Davies, senior lecturer in physical geography at Newcastle University in England, said the Earth is "warmer than at any point in the last 125,000 years, warming faster than at any point in the last 2,000 years, and warming due to human emissions rather than natural causes."
A landmark 2021 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the past decade is likely the hottest the planet has been in 125,000 years.
Davies cited a 2020 study led by a Northern Arizona University researcher that shows the last decade was warmer than any other multicentury period in the last 125,000 years.
Most of the world’s scientists agree that climate change is driven by greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from human activity. The gases, notably carbon dioxide, are produced when fossil fuels such as coal and oil are burned for energy. When these gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they trap heat and raise surface temperatures, leading to climate changes.
We rate the claim False.
Our Sources
Instagram, post (archived), May 15, 2023
Twitter, Richard Tice tweet, Aug. 14, 2022
AFP Fact Check, "Interviewee makes false claims about warming, CO2, climate models," Aug. 23, 2022
United Nations, "On the Frontline of Climate Crisis, Worlds Most Vulnerable Nations Suffer Disproportionately," accessed May 16, 2023
New York Times, "A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us," published Aug. 9, 2021; updated Nov. 11, 2021
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, "Countering bogus climate claims made on British television," Aug. 26, 2022
Nature, "Seasonal origin of the thermal maxima at the Holocene and the last interglacial," January 2021
PolitiFact, "No, research doesn’t show the Earth was 2 degrees Celsius warmer 55,000 years ago," Oct. 10, 2022
PolitiFact, "Climate change is real and the Earth is warming," Jan. 24, 2023
PolitiFact, "Climate change is not a "naturally occurring phenomenon." Humanity is the driving force," Jan. 23, 2023
PolitiFact, "Human activity causes climate change? Yes, but from greenhouses gases, not weather modification," March 29, 2023
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Climate Change: Global Temperature," Jan. 18, 2023
Email, Bethan Davies, senior lecturer in physical geography at Newcastle University in England, May 16, 2023
Scientific Data, "A global database of Holocene paleotemperature records," April 14, 2020
Email, Peter Jacobs, climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, May 16, 2023
Email, Howard Diamond, climate science program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Air Resources Laboratory, May 16, 2023
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A claim full of hot air: Earth’s temperature historically high, not colder than 10,000 years ago
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