Green World Trust

[jimbo1490]

Of course both sides know this is a central question in the debate because if past warming really was as great in magnitude and rapidity as the most recent warming, then it means

1) There's nothing anomalous in recent warming, therefore no reason to look for an anomalous cause

2) Past warming events of equal or greater magnitude/rapidity did NOT cause catastrophes so should not be expected to cause catastrophes in the future

3) Past warming events cannot be attributed to anthropogenic CO2, as the latter has only a ~70 year history, implying that recent warming is also plausibly due to natural causes

That this topic is so central to the debate is illustrated in the (continuing?) debate over the MBH-98 reconstruction and its famous 'hockey stick' graph, which was controversial precisely because that work eliminated past warming events, more so than it exaggerated recent warming.


I recently discovered this map:

http://www.timstouse.com/EarthHistory/Antarctic/oronteusfinaeus.htm

and here:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3901

Though the map has been around almost 50 years, I'd never seen it or heard of it before. Let me say at the outset that the authenticity of the map is not questioned; it is NOT though to be a fraudulent artifact. Do we count this as evidence of a past warm period, at least for the region? Are we not compelled to, given the accuracy of the cartography?

Jimbo

[Derek]

Hi Jimbo 1490 (surname not Hansen I trust),
Err, firstly, the Hockey Stick is, and was not contravercial because it seemingly eradicated a relatively recent warming event,
ie the Medievil Warm Period,
BUT, because it did not explain the known, archeological and documented human history of the period.
Namely graves in northern Greenland and Roman silver mines recently exposed as European glaciers retreated,
and they continue to do so from known historical greater pasts of the mid and late 1700s.
(Yes, you also forgot to mention a known and recent cold period also eradicated by the Hockey Stick,
the little ice age of the late 1700s...)

The Hockey Stick is also (and mostly) contraversial because it is a fraudulent use of statistical analysis.
A plot that pretends to show over four hundred proxies, but is actually 112 proxies,
of which one is wieghted by 396, is nothing but a fraud.

Elsewhere (realclimate.org.nonsense for example - a website set up by amongst others, mann, of Mann 1998, YES, the Hockey Stick lead author)
people seem to think polishing a tu** is clever,
here it is known as, and to be in this case specifically, an obvious and exposed (scientific) fraud.
Please desist.

If you want to argue the Hockey Stick and it's supposed validity, please watch these first...
(I await, and have done so for several years now, rebuttal)

Part 1
http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g43/DerekJohn_photos/Hockey/GHSP%20White%20Part%201/?albumview=slideshow

Part 2
http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g43/DerekJohn_photos/Hockey/GHSP%20White%20Part%201/GHSP%20White%20Part%202/?albumview=slideshow

Part 3
http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g43/DerekJohn_photos/Hockey/GHSP%20White%20Part%201/GHSP%20White%20Part%202/GHSP%20White%20Part%203/?albumview=slideshow
_________________

An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race.

[Lucy Skywalker]

Dear Jimbo1490

Why 1490? You should read Gavin Menzies' book "1421" which describes an ice-free Arctic Ocean amongst other extraordinary things. The book is well worth a read, in fact it is so robustly challenging, intrepid Tintin-style, that an army of academics have collaborated in setting up a website specifically to debunk it. That speaks volumes already. It fired me up to read BOTH SIDES and it was clear pretty soon which side had truth and integrity - as well as all the other human virtues - on its side.

I'm in the process of joining the Climate Realists' forum so that I can comment there on the map you mention. I think the issue is more complicated and I want to do it justice.

[John Philips]

Well, not everyone is as convinced about the reliability of '1421', one prominent sceptic used it in Part I of a two part series in the Sunday Telegraph, stating that in the 'Medieval Warm Period'...

"There was little ice at the North Pole: a Chinese naval squadron sailed right round the Arctic in 1421 and found none."...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533290/Climate-chaos-Dont-believe-it.html

But then had a change of heart and in part 2 our author relented, deciding that Chen Ho's voyage was 'perhaps apocryphal' and apologising for citing it as a fact.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533912/Wrong-problem-wrong-solution.html

It was of course the DDT-munching Viscount Monckton. Question - does the Viscount possess the qualities of truth and integrity for deciding that '1421' is an unreliable source?

As for recent warming being 'anomalous', that depends on your definition of an anomaly, in the proxy record, the most rapid warmings occur as the planet emerges from an ice age... the warming of the last century has occurred at approximately ten times that rate, also the increase in CO2 concentrations is about 100 times more rapid, and has taken concentrations 35% higher than the range in which they have fluctuated for at least 600,000 years... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/63/Co2-temperature-plot.svg

Could two phenomena possibly be related?
_________________
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool.

[Vincent]

John Philips wrote:

"As for recent warming being 'anomalous', that depends on your definition of an anomaly, in the proxy record, the most rapid warmings occur as the planet emerges from an ice age... the warming of the last century has occurred at approximately ten times that rate, also the increase in CO2 concentrations is about 100 times more rapid, and has taken concentrations 35% higher than the range in which they have fluctuated for at least 600,000 years"

This is an attempt to show a) that the twentieth century warming is unprecendented and b) that it is caused by rapid CO2 buildup. However, I will show the reader that this argument is comparing apples with oranges and is just smoke and mirrors.

First of all, rate of temperature change depends on the time scale over which you take your measurement. The thawing of most of the ice-sheets in the northern hemisphere began between 20,000 and 19,000 years ago (Clark, 2009), and finally ended around 8,000 years ago, when the ice-sheets reached (more or less) their current volume and extension. Therefore, we are looking at long time periods, thousands of years, and if we calculate the average rate of temperature change we would not expect it to be particularly high, at least not compared to what can occur in multi decadal timescales.

It should be obvious that upon the major warming trend, there would be intermediate trends of rising/falling termperatures, and within each of these would be trends shorter still. It is also obvious that if we were to take an instantaneous measurement dT/dt along these shorter trends we would find values far higher than the average of the long term trend. And yet Philips thinks it appropriate to compare a multi decadal temperature increase in our modern warming against the overal average of the interglacial warmings, and find it alarming that the multidecadal trend has a higher rate. Indeed, there have been single months in the past year where temperatures have dropped 0.2C. Using his logic I could wave my arms and say this cooling is 100 times more rapid than that which ended the Eiman interglacial. Not very meaningful is it?

The second point of this marvellous argument is to try and link the modern warming with CO2 levels, yet this ingnores the fact that most warming occured pre 1940 when CO2 was unimportant, and even declined until 1976 when CO2 levels WERE significant. Of course, there is still the MWP, Roman warming, minoan warming to account for, but never mind. The fact I want to draw your attention to is that on geological timescales, the CO2 levels of the Quarternary period are lower than ever. Much lower.

During the late Ordovician, CO2 levels were 16 times greater than at present, and yet a GLACIATION occurred. During the Mesozoic era, CO2 levels were around 2000 ppm, but towards the late Tertiary they began to fall. They fell until we entered the Pleistocene glaciations, where levels dipped as low as 150ppm, and only managing to climb to 280 during interglacials. I see nothing good about wishing for CO2 levels that are commensurate with an ice age.

[Richard111]

Well folks, you've all got it wrong. Here from the hallowed pages of the Science and Public Policy Institute.

Fat Folks Beware!

[Derek]

Richard111,
Can I paraphrase you please.

It really makes me want to weep at the level of blatant politicisation
of an "Institute" that can publish such statements.
_________________

An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race.

[Richard111]

Be my guest Derek. And I spelt intelligence wrong.

Tried to register at your other site a few days ago. Got first email but no acceptance email. Ah well.

[Derek]

Thanks Richard111,
errr, "edit", re spelling, something I frequently do.
_________________

An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race.

[yan9085]

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[perseus]

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[perseus]