Climate helped drive Vikings from Greenland

Greenland settlement in 972

Qassiarsuk: This is the site of the Viking settlement of 972 and unlike much of Greenland, offers relatively sheltered grazing land for sheep. Photo: John McLean. (Click to see more images of Greenland).

For the first time temperatures over the last 5,600 years have been reassembled from the inhabited area of Greenland. (Other estimates were from ice-cores that are far inland.)

William D’Andrea, the paper’s first author says: “.. we can say there is a definite cooling trend in the region right before the Norse disappear.”

Greenland’s early Viking settlers were subjected to rapidly changing climate. Temperatures plunged several degrees in a span of decades, according to research from Brown University.

What climate scientists have been able to ascertain is that an extended cold snap, called the Little Ice Age, gripped Greenland beginning in the 1400s. This has been cited as a major cause of the Norse’s disappearance. Now researchers led by Brown University show the climate turned colder in an earlier span of several decades, setting in motion the end of the Greenland Norse. Their findings appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

D’Andrea points out that climate is not the only factor in the demise of the Norse Western Settlement. The Vikings’ sedentary lifestyle, reliance on agriculture and livestock for food, dependence on trade with Scandinavia and combative relations with the neighboring Inuit, are believed to be contributing factors.

Still, it appears that climate played a significant role. The Vikings arrived in Greenland in the 980s, establishing a string of small communities along Greenland’s west coast. (Another grouping of communities, called the “Eastern Settlement” also was located on the west coast but farther south on the island.) The arrival coincided with a time of relatively mild weather, similar to that in Greenland today. However, beginning around 1100, the climate began an 80-year period in which temperatures dropped 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit), the Brown scientists concluded from the lake readings. While that may not be considered precipitous, especially in the summer, the change could have ushered in a number of hazards, including shorter crop-growing seasons, less available food for livestock and more sea ice that may have blocked trade.

From Brown University

Photo: Tappert. Kirchenruine von Hvalsey, Ruins in Greenland.

See also my other posts on the  Medieval Warm Period, and  Little Ice Age. If anyone tries to claim the Warmth in Greenland 1000 years ago was a local phenomenon, look at this assembly of hundreds of studies from every continent (bar Australia) showing that it was warmer all over the globe, and that the hockey stick is a minor flawed set of studies in disagreement with most of the data.

h/t to C32 headlines via Climate Depot.

Thanks to John McLean for the image at the top.

8.2 out of 10 based on 5 ratings

81 comments to Climate helped drive Vikings from Greenland

  • #
    Treeman

    Jo

    One wonders if a reassembly of temps 5000 years from now will reveal that it really was the sun and not CO2 that drove global warming/climate change/climate disruption/ bad decisions by politicians?

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  • #

    I fail to see how middle ages agriculture could be considered a sedentary lifestyle. Even today, with all the mechanical help, multiculture farming is anything but sedentary.

    cheers,

    gary

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  • #
    John in NZ

    Talking of getting cold. Have you seen the news from the AAS about sunspots dissapearing for a while. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/the-major-aas-solar-announcement-suns-fading-spots-signal-big-drop-in-solar-activity/#more-41648

    This is big news.

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  • #
    Jannes Kleintje

    I remember a lecture by an historian somewhere in the late sixties. This speaker told about the history of the vikings of Greenland. He gave all evidence of those people finding their way towards this Greenland when the climate allowed them to. Then, after a long period of settlement, they had to either abandon that region (or die while trying to stay there) when the climate shifted again and the previously adequate to even abundant crops started to fail. Why is it that our “scientists” tend to forget what had already been proven before (and beyond doubt)? Is it because they don’t have the ability to look for older evidence or is it simply a matter of trying to claim the honor and fame that comes with their “new” discoveries?
    Whatever the reason, this is old news and the evidence has been around for a long time. And yes, the historian also made the connection with change of climate throughout the ages and the ability of man to either adapt or to migrate. Climate is. And it is never the same, no matter what our climate alarmists try to tell us.

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  • #

    Warmists merely point to greenland and yell – local! Not Global. Yet a Stanford study showed roughly during the same time, there is evidence of a massive warming around the globe (most put it at 1100 to 1300 as the core years).

    Whether local or global, I have seen some accolytes of AGW maintain that it was neither and that Greenland was always “iceland”. It bogles the mind to wonder how iron age people could then farm permafrost.

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  • #
    MadJak

    Much cooler times ahead by the look of it….

    maybe we should be thinking about taxing people for not emitting enough Co2?

    Maybe Bubbles will remain in my beer?

    10

  • #

    When it gets colder and the glaciers reappear, we move south or die. When it warms up and the glaciers retreat, we resettle the lands we abandoned thousands of years ago. Not much new under the Sun really …

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/the-steady-state-environment-delusion/

    Pointman

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  • #
    Bulldust

    Darn hacker bastards have shut down EVE online… leaving me to read twice the news I ordinarily would >.<

    Anywho, and going waaay O/T, I notice people are starting to raise questions about the potential for health impacts from wind turbine installations:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/turbine-health-effects-are-blowing-in-the-wind/story-fn59niix-1226075277052

    While noise can be an issue (I deal with that from idiots stumbling out of a nearby nightclub every weeknd, but I digress) it is also suggested that low frequency "infranoise" may cause health problems.

    As a complete O/T to the O/T, notice Jooolya's popularity keeps on plummeting and hitting new lows… ah the schadefreude 🙂

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/julia-gillards-support-hits-record-low-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226075299938

    Personal support for Ms Gillard is now similar to that of former Labor prime minister Paul Keating before he lost the 1996 election and that of former Liberal prime minister John Howard in 1998 after he announced he would introduce a GST. It is also lower than Kevin Rudd’s approval rating when Ms Gillard replaced him as Prime Minister a year ago.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    Back on topic it might be worth linking a couple of the new WUWT articles posted today such as the one speculating on a new Maunder Minimum:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/the-major-aas-solar-announcement-suns-fading-spots-signal-big-drop-in-solar-activity/

    That ties in nicely with the Greenland story.

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  • #
    pat

    they are “eminent”….

    15 June: News.com.au: AAP: Eminent Australians call for carbon tax
    SOME of Australia’s most eminent scientists, medical researchers and environmental campaigners believe a carbon tax will be essential to confront climate change.
    Led by former Victorian governor Professor David de Kretser, a group including medical researchers Dr Fiona Stanley and Sir Gus Nossal, mental health expert Professor Patrick McGorry and philanthropist Dame Elisabeth Murdoch has written an open letter to Australian newspapers calling for action.
    The group says Australia has reached a critical point in the evolution of climate change..
    Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s stand on climate change may be an example of a “trickle-up” effect.
    Her grandson James has long been an avid climate change campaigner and is credited by his father Rupert for converting him to the cause…
    http://www.news.com.au/eminent-australians-call-for-carbon-tax/story-e6freqmx-1226075318518

    15 June: Age: Michael Gordon: Climate crusader: Dame Elisabeth Murdoch joins public campaign for a price on carbon
    Professor de Kretser said he first discussed the idea of a letter with David Shelmerdine, the deputy chairman of ClimateWorks, a non-profit collaboration between Monash University and The Myer Foundation, and a friend of Mr Kantor. It was then decided to approach a handful high-profile and highly respected Australians.
    ”It was mutually agreed that it would be great to see whether my grandmother would be willing to come out and sign this letter and I went down and saw my grandmother and talked it through with her,” said Mr Kantor, the son of one of Rupert’s three sisters, Anne Kantor.
    ”She was very keen and she would have taken a more active stance, but she’s 102.”…
    http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-crusader-dame-elisabeth-murdoch-joins-public-campaign-for-a-price-on-carbon-20110614-1g21g.html?from=age_sb

    for thee, but not for me…

    15 June: Australian: Sid Maher: Ex-ACTU head Jennie George calls for no tax on steel
    Ms George, who as a Rudd government MP was involved in negotiations between the government and the steel industry on the carbon pollution reduction scheme, has written to her local newspaper backing Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes’s call for steel to be exempted from the carbon tax until there is a level playing field with international competitors…
    The comments came as the government’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, said the introduction of a carbon price had proved more difficult than major economic reforms of the 1980s.
    “I think the reason is that there has been a deterioration of Australian political culture over the past decade, beginning in the early years of this century,” he told ABC radio.
    Professor Garnaut said if he had known how difficult the task was going to be, he may not have accepted his job as climate adviser…
    Professor Garnaut conceded it was possible there could be some job losses in the resources sector under a carbon price, but he said there would be beneficial results elsewhere in the economy….
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/ex-actu-head-calls-for-no-tax-on-steel/story-fn59niix-1226075254085

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  • #
    pat

    jo, have u and david seen this?

    13 June: Houston Chronicle Blog: Kathleen McKinley: No Global Warming In The Last Ten Years
    Sadly, politics has infected science, and we don’t know who to trust anymore. So, when anything interesting crops up, I think we need to look at it. This is interesting because it says that although the increases in emissions is much much higher than expected in the last ten years, there has been no global warming…
    A former AGW advocate and scientist David Evans has a good article here as well…
    Read the whole thing. He details how the models are not accurate. Here is where the politics and money infected science…
    Always follow the money. It always leads to dishonesty. It’s sad that we have come to this place…
    (comments) Damien says:
    Just for balance:
    here’s a response to David Evans scientific position:
    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/07/the_australians_war_on_science_16.php
    and some notes on his credentials:
    http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans
    (comments) Damien says:
    An addition to the above: didn’t realise that this was a US publication…ETC ETC
    (comments) Simon says:
    David Evans( rocket scientist!!! lol)theories proving AGW is a mith are easily debunked. Checkout http://www.desmogblog.com/who-is-rocket-scientist-david-evans
    TexasSparkle whether or not AGW is real or not is a mute point as the real point of this debate is whether we can afford to ignore it? ETC…
    (comments) Kathleen McKinley says:
    I found it interesting that about six “green” websites linked to me, to send those that believe in man made global warming… But I’m always willing to look at both sides…
    But copy and pasting the same comments on any blog that disagrees with you (which is what many did here) is not the way to convince me. And I know many of you are new here, but you are not allowed to insult the host. Try to write your comment in a civil manner, then maybe I will publish it. I know you can do it. I mean, you are so smart. I think you can make a point without resorting to schoolyard taunts. Saying that it’s been warmer or colder here does not convince me for either side either. And you can’t say that 10 yrs is a blip when in reality 10,000 years is a blip in the age of the earth.
    http://blog.chron.com/texassparkle/2011/06/no-global-warming-in-the-last-ten-years/

    10

  • #
    pat

    10 June: New Jersey Watchdog.org: N.E. CARBON MARKET REELS AS RGGI AUCTION HITS ALL-TIME LOW
    ■RGGI managed to sell just 30 percent of the allowances, or permits, it offered for sale at the June 8 auction.
    ■The auction raised only $25 million, a fraction of the record high of $117 million set two years ago.
    ■The price per allowance was $1.89, the minimum allowed by RGGI…
    The June auction is the first since Gov. Chris Christie announced New Jersey is quitting RGGI. The state plans to participate in the next two auctions scheduled for Sept. 7 and Dec. 7 before it pulls out of the program at the end of the year, according to a letter from Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin. NJDEP will continue to require electric generators in the state to have RGGI permits for CO-2 emissions through Dec. 31, 2011.
    However, the remaining nine RGGI states have not decided whether to honor New Jersey permits sold after this month’s auction…
    Under RGGI, utilities are required to obtain an allowance for each ton of CO-2 released by their electric generators. The cost is ultimately passed along to businesses and consumers in the form of higher rates for electricity.
    MORE LINKS BELOW THE ARTICLE
    http://newjersey.watchdog.org/2011/06/10/2635/

    RGGI: Auction Results
    As shown in the Market Monitor Report for Auction 12:
    •85 percent of the CO2 allowances auctioned in Auctions 1-12 were purchased by electric generators and their corporate affiliates;
    •97 percent of the CO2 allowances in circulation will be held by electric generators and their corporate affiliates (“compliance entities”) following the settlement of Auction 12.
    http://www.rggi.org/market/co2_auctions/results

    10

  • #
    PeterD

    Treeman at #1,

    One wonders if a reassembly of temps 5000 years from now will reveal that it really was the sun and not CO2 that drove global warming/climate change/climate disruption/ bad decisions by politicians?

    Or, alternatively:

    One wonders if a reassembly of temps history 5000 years from now will reveal that it really was the sun lust for power and not CO2 that drove global warming/climate change/climate disruption/ bad decisions by politicians?

    10

  • #
    Llew Jones

    Got this one printed in response to the seven eminent Australians who back the carbon tax in Melbourne’s Herald-Sun (couldn’t have said it better myself):

    Llew of Niddrie Posted at 3:16 AM Today

    They treat fellow Australians as fools. No one has explained how a carbon tax will do anything to reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO2. One would have expected some of these who are scientists to understand the increasing lack of plausibility the alarmist position has. Perhaps they assume without checking that the alarmist scientists have empirical evidence for their claims. No one has yet shown they do. And two white elephant desalination plants, one in Queensland and one in Victoria are evidence that Climate Change experts are more akin to astrologers than scientists. Perhaps the seven eminent people are the real fools as the Australian public is increasingly unconvinced of the “consensus” science that undergirds the predictive failures of the alarmist position. The voting public are astute enough to know that as this carbon tax is progressively increased it will be destructive of our economy. That’s why even those who would be offered bribes by way of monetary compensation reject it.

    Comment 29 of 62

    10

  • #
    Willem de Lange

    A good paper to consider in conjunction with this one is

    Berner, K.S., Koç, N., Godtliebsen, F., and Devine, D., 2011. Holocene climate variability of the Norwegian Atlantic Current during high and low solar forcing. Palaeoceanography, 26, PA2220:1-15 doi:10.1029/2010PA002002

    There is a summary of it on The Hockey Schtick blog (

    Of relevance to this post is the rapid onset of the Little Ice Age about 550 BP in the North Atlantic, which the authors attribute to a reduction in solar forcing

    10

  • #
    1DandyTroll

    I like these studies where they keep it in the civilized time frame where the resolution of any geological finding, or its like, can be further defined by referenced to known history and writing.

    Climatological studies of CAGW proportions are so fuzzy and general because of a lack of resolution and references to known historical events.

    I don’t care about the climate 65 million years ago when the poor sodding dinos upped and croaked. I don’t really care about the climate 650 000 years and six ice age’s ago and before the advent of homo sapiens or the climate of 65 000 years and one or two ice ages ago when, apparently, six or so humanoid species collectively screwed their specie individuality to pieces.

    IMHO a few thousand years after the last ice age, when “all” the ice had melted off and the rising sea had settled on a fair hand with the land rise, seem like a good starting point for present day man start with when comparing pretty much anything really.

    10

  • #
    theRealUniverse

    Climatologist Cliff Harris. mentions the medieval warm period.
    http://iceagenow.com/Climategate-A_Hockey-Stick_of_Errors.htm
    Lowest temps in Darwin
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/14/3243324.htm

    10

  • #
    MattB

    I always like to see how the actual climate experts react to such news as this Brown research… oh look, right in the article:

    “Yongsong Huang, professor of geological sciences at Brown, principal investigator of the NSF-funded project, and D’Andrea’s Ph.D. adviser. “It is interesting to consider how rapid climate change may have impacted past societies, particularly in light of the rapid changes taking place today.”

    but what would he know.

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  • #
  • #
    Colin Henderson

    Obviously the Vikings were the first climate refugees, driven out by rising sea levels due to the melting Greenland ice cap which was caused by CAGW. But that can’t be because there was no Medieval warm period!

    10

  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Pat: #10

    SOME of Australia’s most eminent scientists, medical researchers and environmental campaigners believe a carbon tax will be essential to confront climate change.

    And some people believe that aliens have visited earth … so the point is what, exactly?

    …a group including medical researchers, [a] mental health expert … and [a] philanthropist

    Oh well, they will know all about atmospheric physics, so that is all right then.

    Why does news.com.au publish this rubbish?

    The group says Australia has reached a critical point in the evolution of climate change.

    This is true … they have to get the tax passed before it starts to get really cold, and they all look like total idiots.

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  • #
    Paul S

    Matt B@18: yes, rapid changes can take place and have taken place in the past, only they were not due to C02 changes. They were caused by other mechanisms which affect climate, possibly changes in solar radiation such as we are expected to experience over the next few decades. Ipso facto, it is reasonable to consider those causes of climate variability when thinking about todays climate.

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  • #
    Ross

    OT but Steve McIntyre does it again showing how Greenpeace and the IPCC can be joined “at the hip”

    http://climateaudit.org/2011/06/14/ipcc-wg3-and-the-greenpeace-karaoke/#comments

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  • #
    MattB

    Paul S which ones are not being considered?

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  • #
    cohenite

    What rapid changes? Examples please!

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  • #
    MattB

    Surely you’ve read the IPCC reports Cohers?

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  • #
    Treeman

    PeterD @13

    One wonders if a reassembly of temps history 5000 years from now will reveal that it really was the sun lust for power and not CO2 that drove global warming/climate change/climate disruption/ bad decisions by politicians?

    Methinks you are partly right….temps history like all histories will have been re-written many times in 5000 years in the lust for power! However a reassembly of Temps like the fossil record cannot be re-written and will remain then as now, a true record of bad decisions by politicians!

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  • #

    […] Climate helped drive Vikings from Greenland […]

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  • #
    Albert

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
    The Arctic 1922 melt and 1 century earlier seem the extremes of normal climate variability as was the current 2010 period.

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  • #

    Perhaps the Vikings imposed a carbon tax and were able to prevent global warming.

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  • #
    cohenite

    MattB, referring to the IPCC reports is inadequate; the [in]validity of the IPCC reports has been noted here:

    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/29880.html

    Just pick one ‘rapid change’ and put your money where your mouth is, so to speak.

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  • #
    MattB

    Ha the IPCC is inadequate but a couple of randoms on Unleased is credible:)

    But I’ll play… the temperature is rising – it’s a veritable Disco Inferno.

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  • #
    cohenite

    So, the temperature is rising, in a rapid way, compared with what?

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  • #
    MattB

    a less rapid way. Look the graphs are in my hard copy IPCC report on my desk… surely you have a copy. They are in section “graphs with the data that’s important.”

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  • #
    incoherent rambler

    Without a reference (other than my memory), I believe the indications are that 5 years moved the viking population in Greenland from stable to zero. The reason for lack of reference is that I read this in an archaeology paper several years ago. The deduction being that when the climate shifts, it can do so quickly.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “One wonders if a reassembly of temps 5000 years from now will reveal that it really was the sun and not CO2 that drove global warming/climate change/climate disruption/ bad decisions by politicians?”

    Treeman. In about 2005 I saw this absolutely magnificent visual rendering of a solar reconstruction versus a temperature reconstruction by Sami Solanki of the Max Plank institute. It was a model of scientific righteousness, because he started off with three proxies for the solar reconstruction, and as he got down to less proxies in the distant past, the red line got thicker to reflect the potential range of the thing reconstructed.

    This just conformed to my three proxy rule, and to my idea of what good science is about. I had access to it for about two weeks then it was ethnically cleansed from the internet. We have no idea of the reach of these lunatics, or at least the social forces, that have been at play here.

    It was clear that a sixty year period in the 20th century harbored the strongest solar activity in 8000 years. Sami said in at least 1150 years. But looking at his study we have to assume that the medieval period was warmer than a big chunk of the twentieth century THAT HAD STRONGER SOLAR OUTPUT THAN IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD.

    We appear to cool the planet or something else is going on. Or probably it was recovery from a colder starting point. And why would we not cool the planet? We know that SO2 in the stratosphere cools. We don’t know that marginal extra CO2 warms.

    The 8000 years ago was no contest it seems. Very strong activity. My understanding is the Malinkovitch started turning against us about 6000 years ago. To spread joules out is to retain them better according to the Stefan Boltzmann law.

    So its a reasonable picture where you have the holocene optimum from about 8000 to 5000 years ago. With the massive solar activity 8000 years ago. The Malinkovitch turning bad 6000 years ago.The cooling finally kicking in 5000 years ago.

    Seems to make reasonable sense. Don’t ask me to prove it because this stuff tends to be edited out by the central scrutinizer.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “Without a reference (other than my memory), I believe the indications are that 5 years moved the viking population in Greenland from stable to zero. The reason for lack of reference is that I read this in an archaeology paper several years ago. The deduction being that when the climate shifts, it can do so quickly.”

    Yes but also that when the natives are restless, they can move pretty quick also. There was a certain balance of power at work between two populations I think.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “Surely you’ve read the IPCC reports Cohers?”

    Why? You would read a couple of them. You know what idiocy to expect. Its like Sydneys Gay Mardi Gras. You got to go once I guess. Two times is more than enough.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “Yet a Stanford study showed roughly during the same time, there is evidence of a massive warming around the globe (most put it at 1100 to 1300 as the core years).”

    The way it ought to be done is three proxies for every specific geographical time and date. Then a survey. Of a bunch of far-flung places.

    The alarmists just pick the studies they want, and jack them all into the same graph. Its incredible that they can keep a straight face. Also with tree ring growth, knowing that late 20th century had a rising CO2 level they chose this single proxy for temperature. But they knew that higher CO2 levels lead to faster tree-ring growth. Double dipping. Clear science fraud. Take them out the back and shoot them.

    Once someone pulls a stunt like that one time they ought never be trusted again.

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    “But I’ll play… the temperature is rising – it’s a veritable Disco Inferno.”

    The science frauds graphs are rising. The temperature is falling. There is a difference.

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  • #
    MattB

    True on the IPCC reports GB, but my point is that I have no magical MattB science that is not in the mainstream sphere. He knows what they say is rising, so why ask me? If cohers has a response to any supposed “rapid change” then why restrict himself to one of my choosing. I’m not here to lay out the “accepted”, I’m here to see if there are any good reasons it is wrong.

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  • #
    MattB

    GB Jo only posted this last week: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/06/study-finds-global-warming-over-past-400-years-was-due-to-increased-solar-activity/

    so is that study rubbish as it says the warming was solar, but you say there was no warming and the graphs that show rising are a fraud. Or do you mean falling, with a warming bounce for late 20C?

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    “MattB” (27),
    says “Surely you’ve read the IPCC reports….”.

    What the hell for ?????

    Surely you have read about CLIMATEGATE and the corrupt IPCC (International Panel of Climate Crooks) !

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  • #
    Graeme Bird

    The real manipulation starts in the 90’s. Also there has been a rewriting of history that goes as far back as the thirties.

    When Siberian, and many other former-Soviet-Union measuring stations went down, the alarmists took this as an extra boost to their doctrine.

    They are liars Matt. This is something you just have to accept. I cannot help it that we don’t have good worldwide figures. We have to go on the best unrigged data we can get hold of.

    If thats just the mainland US data for the time being then thats how it has to be. You cannot base conclusions on data that is rigged even though you might think the unrigged stuff is inadequate in some ways.

    The rigged data just has to be disregarded. You have to block it out using your best zen thought-control techniques. Its not to add or subtract from the smaller subset of honest data that is out there.

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  • #
    Damian Allen

    Just for all the GAIA WORSHIPPERS……

    It called fanaticism. Religious cults whip their followers into a delusional fervour. Those cult leaders – including the left wing government paid scientists, tim flannery ross guarnat and those in the left of politics including ”there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead” pm, have lots to loose if their target audience reject their agenda. A new religion that demands that its followers (taxpayers) sacrifice their money (tithes) and lifestyle (freedom) to appease the god of climate change.

    There would be many on the fringes (right) that know what the “elders” are doing is wrong. But whether it be fear of being excommunicated, thus loosing prestige and position with the organism, they remain compliant until they cannot stand the pressure and escape, but unable to function again in any worthwhile position.

    This has nothing to do with science. But it is to do with power and controlling wealth. Science is breaking down in a time in history where there is much technical advancement. These cult leaders are using nature to sway gullible people. It feels good and right and virtuous to say that “I’m saving the planet by giving my money to control the climate”! Its ego driven.

    Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.

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  • #
    cohenite

    MattB; this is the IPCC evidence for a rapid increase in temperature in the modern era;

    http://noconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/image102.jpg

    It is wrong because it is end point fallacy; this will explain it for you:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/12/the-new-math-ipcc-version/#more-18382

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  • #
    Pete H

    Matt B:
    Well, the strict embargo is over so you better get ready for your CO2 empire to fall down around your ears!

    http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~deforest/SPD-sunspot-release/SPD_solar_cycle_release.txt

    By the way, remember that CO2 reduction takes some time to kick in even though the IPCC do not like to admit it!

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  • #

    Pat #11. Yes Yes, DeSmog love to attack credentials. What else can they do when the evidence doesn’t go their way? Oh if only someone at Desmoggy had half of David’s degrees.

    David Evans Qualifications From Stanford: Ph.D. Electrical Engineering , M.S. Electrical Engineering, M.S. Statistics, and from Uni Sydney: B.E. Electrical Engineering (First Class Honours), University Medal (1983), M.A. Applied Mathematics, B.Sc. Applied Mathematics and Physics (Uni Sydney).

    “Researched topics in image processing, digital signal processing, Fourier analysis, fast computation of transforms, information theory, and game theory. Thesis introduced an improved version of the Fourier transform.”

    You can always cut n paste these qualifications back. Don’t forget to add, of course, David must be a fool, because DeSmog – the PR agency for Hoggan and Associates — says so. They would know wouldn’t they?

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    Graeme Bird

    Wow. All that electrical engineering.

    Imagine the pressure for someone that qualified, were he sympathetic to the electric solar system thesis. One would have to bite ones tongue the whole time. In some ways it would be a curse to be that qualified.

    One hopes the expected persecution (coming over to the bright side of the road in 2005) wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t earn a living.

    Don’t tell us anything Joanne. I’m just thinking out loud. Its good that you managed to get someone that righteous away from the library for some of the time.

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    MattB

    COhers if you look at the rates of increase for the 3 warming periods in the last 100 or so years the most recent has the highest increase, regardless with your concerns about the graph you’ve presented.

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    Damian Allen

    New term for global warming Cultists…..

    DECEIVERS ……..

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    MattB

    LMWD I thought you guys all make fun of those scientists in the 1970s who said the same thing?

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    Graeme Bird

    “LMWD I thought you guys all make fun of those scientists in the 1970s who said the same thing?”

    Unless there has been some sort of recent pole shift or something we don’t know about, the evidence that cooling will be nasty, fast, hard and continuous is simply too strong to ignore.

    Thats the crazy thing about this racket. People worrying about some tiny bit of warming on a planet whose normal state is so frigid that its hard to understand or believe.

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    pat

    thanx for the response jo. keep up the good fight. best wishes.

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    manalive

    In his much quoted statement to the US Senate Committee in 2006, Dr. David Deming recounted an email he received in 1995 from a colleague: “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

    The ‘hockey stick’, as originally published in TAR (and various ‘sons of’ MBH99), was a piece of scientific nonsense but it has been crucial as an IPCC propaganda tool.
    After all, it makes no difference to IPCC science (the CAGW hypothesis) whether the MWP was warmer, about the same, cooler, or whether it existed at all.
    Paleoclimate reconstructions of the Holocene have shown many periods when temperatures were probably warmer than today.

    It’s a mystery why CAGW enthusiasts cling to it so trenchantly.

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    Rereke Whakaaro

    Joanne Nova: #49

    Ah, but all of those degrees are in Applied Science and Engineering, David is therefore not a REAL scientist, like the eminent persons doing cutting edge research into high-speed pecuniary balancing algorithms. 🙂

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    will gray

    Australian MWP from NASA.
    http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003EAEJA…..3382G

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    lmwd

    MattB # 54

    I’ve never made fun of the scientists who said it was cooling between 1947 – 1977. I only object to the alarmists who attempt to pin the blame solely on humans because of underlying belief systems whereby they view humans and human activity as essentially evil and/or more significant than we are.

    I fully accept that our climate warms and cools naturally and that the mechanism by which this happens is only partially understood (the science isn’t settled). Psychologically, I’m also ok with the fact that our climate is beyond my control. For example, I don’t need to stick some panels on my roof in some futile attempt to convince myself I can make a difference, and nor would I petition the Govt to tax me some more in the belief this will do the trick – in effect an empty but sanguine gesture that isn’t ‘noble’ but in reality looks more like pious sanctimony. Don’t even get me started on the issue of gullibility in addition to misanthropic views on humanity. I pretty sure gullibility is a factor with those who steadfastly adhere to the doctrine of dangerous AGW, even when presented with disconfirming evidence, like, ‘it’s the sun, stupid’.

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    Llew Jones

    Haven’t read much on Greenland but one can only surmise that even when it was inhabited and farmed in those warmer periods it was agriculturally marginal.

    There are well identified areas of arable land in Australia that are classified as marginal and have periodically been going in and out of agricultural use since settlement. The most likely reason for that cyclical phenomenon is natural variability in the relevant climate system. That, the existence of such marginal land, may account for the claimed rapid changes that occurred, there and elsewhere and still occur in other places.

    In the Australian case these cyclically marginal areas are surrounded by continuing arable areas within the same local or regional governing climate system and are only affected by dry conditions and do not cycle in and out of being productive over long periods as the marginal lands do.

    If that is so then the IPCC prediction of the massive productive degradation of agricultural land under the influence of a few degrees warming needs more than fine tuning. Perhaps it needs to assess how much arable land, on a world wide scale, is cyclically marginal and how much is not.

    That is because non-marginal arable land in Australia has basically remained just that despite natural cyclical changes within all the local and regional climate systems in Australia. That is probably true of all other countries and their many relevant and unique climate systems also.

    Makes one wonder about the usefulness of an “average global temperature”? That possibly is a bit of an irrelevant parameter when farming land the world over is subject to many different and mostly overall unique local and/or regional climate systems.

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    cohenite

    MattB@51; you are making this up, aren’t you? The graph below shows the rate of temperature increase from the beginning of the +PDO in 1910 for 35 years; the 2nd rate is from the beginning of the +PDO in 1976; both periods are for 35 year; try and live on the difference in rates;

    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1945/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1976/trend

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    Llew Jones

    Was listening briefly to one of the shock jocks on MTR whilst at work. Not sure who he was, as I was talking to a client and someone had the radio playing in the office but he was interviewing an Italian Scientist who advised that CAGW is a load of old cobblers or its Italian equivalent. About all I got was “science is not democratic” which I guess is Italian for not about consensus. Would like to get the scientist’s name and check out his credentials. I think his surname stated with “V”.

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    allen mcmahon

    Matt@51
    We are talking fractions of degrees and changes in land use and UHI could more than account for the increase. In any event the global average temp is a meaningless metric apart from the scare factor of course.

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    Mark

    Llew Jones:

    That was Chris Smith from Sydney radio 2GB. Smithy interviewed Will Happer recently. Podcast here,

    http://podcasts.mrn.com.au.s3.amazonaws.com/chrissmith/20110607-cs2-williamhapper.mp3

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    Jaymez

    In the face of recent published research into sun spot activity, there appears to be begrudging acknowledgement by a few ‘climate alarmists’ that we could be heading for a new solar minimum which will cool the planet causing climate changes similar to those which made the Vikings leave Greenland.

    There has also been reluctance acknowledging all those Pacific Islands which they predicted would be under water by now are still here! They are not actually sinking, coral islands are continually changing and many have increased in size over the last 50 years. There are even some climate alarmists who accept that terrestrial and sub-sea volcanic activity is contributing to atmospheric CO2 by an unknown factor.

    In the past the climate alarmist’s narrative morphed from ‘Global Warming’ to ‘Climate Change’ to ‘Climate Disruption’ as their disaster predictions of rising temperatures, unbreakable drought, disappearing snowfall, melting Antarctic ice, rising sea levels and so on, failed dismally to eventuate.

    The new ‘climate alarmist’s’ narrative being given a ‘test drive’ seems to be, “had it not been for the recent reduction in solar activity we would have reached the catastrophic climate predictions previously made.”

    While being unable to quantify a host of other known climate drivers including solar activity climate alarmists will continue claiming CO2 is the primary climate change driver. The alarmists will continue to state that “disaster is just around the corner once the sun resumes normal activity” or some such excuse. Accordingly climate alarmists will continue to advocate CO2 emissions, regardless of which way the global temperature goes.

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    DavidA

    Jaymez, I like to think of it as ‘Climate Something-or-other’

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    MattB

    cohers you’d not like my source. skeptical science. but not much I can do bout that.

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    Mark D.

    Calling Memoryvault, are you the same author (same name) that wrote at least one history of the Vikings? If so perhaps you have some additional information?

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    BobC

    MattB: If you would like to see what a real physicist, Lubos Motl, says about failed physics student John Cook’s “Skeptical Science” site, look here.

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    Llew Jones

    Mark@65

    Thanks for that. Had read Happer from a URL given here. Good to hear the audio.

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    Interestingly the SMH has the AAS solar announcement on its main webpage but the Oz has hidden it. Maybe Mr Murdoch is worried about what his mum will say if he runs the story more prominently.

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    rjm385

    I think I’ve discovered the main forcing for CAGW in the atmosphere.. it is CO2.

    This is my theory. If we take the most inconspicuous, reproducable, readilly availbale and persistant trace gas in the atmosphere an tax it, we can generate a large of amount of tax revenue as follows;

    1. We can apply a $25/tonne price on this trace gas which we can set a free market for later.

    2. The energy producers, we will call them “the Big Polluters”, are then charged $25.00 per tonne for producing this trace gas, and admittedly they produce a lot of it, and then we can employ 50 – 100 people to keep tabs on these “Big Polluters”.

    3. The Big polluters will then charge everyone the $25.00/tonne plus the fees required to support the additional 50 – 100 Government employees and GST making it about $50.00/tonne.

    4. This will add about $300-400 per annum to the family energy bill. To make it look appealing to the tax payer and to garner the idea we are doing the “right thing for Australia” we will give 100% of this trace gas price back to the tax payer ie $25/tonne less GST.

    5. In the mean time the GST is accruing into our revenue account by about $7.50/tonne per trace gas transaction. Now we must be clear here that this money has to be given back to the households at the end of the tax year. But in the interum we can invest these funds in the Free trace gas market that we have now finally set up.

    6. This will end our incompetent managment of Australia’s budget and put us in the black for our budget speech in May 2013 and it will all be blamed on a reproducable, unconspicuous, abundant trace gas.

    What do you think Jooliah?

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    Bush bunny

    Dear Jannes @ 4, you are spot on, The Danish Queen Margarethe (?)
    was interviewed a few years ago, and she said Archaeological evidence that those Greenlanders did diminish as the climate cooled
    and permafrost took over, but that their skeletal remains showed they also diminished in size. Once robust (like all Danes and Vikings) over a couple of generations they became puny. Also but I am not sure, doesn’t Greenland suffer the land of the midnight sun
    like Norway and the Arctic circle. Including parts of Northern
    Scotland, North America and the Hebrides. That doesn’t favor agriculture or animal husbandry does it.

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    Mark D.

    BB @ 74 Yes, when it gets cold we get small

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    Damian Allen

    ross GUANO (garnaut) is a Criminal and a Traitor to all Australians…..

    garnaut and the Lihir mine pollution

    http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2010/09/garnaut-is-silent-on-lihir-pollution-claims.html

    Ross Garnaut – the “gold” standard of environmentalism

    http://climatereview.net/ChewTheFat/?p=206

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    Graeme Bird

    Cohenite sez:

    “It is wrong because it is end point fallacy”

    Matty sez:

    “COhers if you look at the rates of increase for the 3 warming periods in the last 100 or so years the most recent has the highest increase, regardless with your concerns about the graph you’ve presented.”

    I sez:

    Cohenite. I was going to say yesterday that you made a big mistake talking like you were taking the data for granted and only complaining about the way they drew the graph, or presented the material. That data has to be totally disregarded. For most purposes one has to convince oneself that one has never laid eyes on it. A little bit of discipline is required here. All these guys are up to their old tricks.

    Hadley was adding sea surface areas where none had been included before. Thats a great way to keep a warming trend going, when you have so much time on your hands, being trapped inside by blizzards and dangerously icy roads.

    If one must look at these bogus graphs there are a couple of other considerations. The excellent progress the coal industry made getting rid of SO2 emissions right before China took off as an industrial power. But there is also the wild card of Hale Bopp.

    According to the James McCanney way of thinking Hale Bopp was way larger than NASA let on. It was charging around for six years “discharging the solar capacitor” If thats right then solar cycle 23, by sunspot count a very weak solar cycle, was putting out more energy than it ought to have been.

    If the graph you two are talking about were valid I’d still be thinking that the position that Patrick Michaels took was the most fairminded deal.

    You remember Mike Hammers presentation of the raw data for the US? He presented it for Jennifers site. This has to be the best graph we have. Actually I haven’t been paying attention since then but its the best one I’ve seen.

    Hammers graph can only underestimate the relatively warmer 30’s, since its not adjusted for urban heat effect and it does not exclude the scandalous examples of measuring areas above asphalt, next to the air-conditioning, and all these other rorts. If there is a more honest graph we ought to go with that.

    http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-5-us-temps.jpg

    As you can see Matt, the 30’s and the mid 50’s were both warmer than the 90’s. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this was not the case for the world generally. And this is an underestimate of how much the 30’s and mid-50’s were hotter for reasons already mentioned.

    Plus this tends to cohere with what we know about the solar cycles. Nothing gives one pause to doubt the solar pre-eminence when looking at this graph.

    The conclusion has to be that the 30’s and part of the 50’s were warmer than the 90’s globally. Not just a little bit warmer but in a very serious way.

    But the 90’s was a hot decade. It really was. Nothing like this refrigerator we have to put up with now.

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    rjm385

    Let’s see who all these traiterous dogs are? Just pull the pin on Carbon Tax and watch the empires collapse.

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    Scott Duncan

    Good thread this – and hard to find concrete info by learned people.

    One point which should be made – if we have to excavate the Viking ruins in Greenland from the ice, does this not clearly make the point that it was warmer in Greenland then than it is now?

    Also, a P-38 Lightning fighter bomber crash landed in Greenland during World War 2. Recently it was recovered leading to this quick quiz – Did the recoveres of this aircraft

    A) Find it standing in a pool of meltwater…

    B) Had to dig down 250 feet ie 25 stories to find it?

    The answer is “B”. Seems damn strange that in the “Hottest Five Decades Of Recorded History” that 25 stories of ice can form, when back in the Viking era Greenland was green.

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    David Larsen

    I just read one where an axe from Spain was found at a Huron site dated 1500 AD. They could not figure out why. The Vikings traded to the Iroquois (Hadunasanee) and the Iroquois traded to the Huron around 12-1300 AD. Wonder what Columbia would say about that?

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