Bradshaw Art, Kimberley, Australia. This distinctive style of painting disappeared 7,000 years ago. | Photo TimJN1
Two million years of climate change has made us human — in a ying meets yang contradiction, while climate change destroyed cultures and groups, without it, we would not be who we are. The brutal forces of Nature tested our ancestors with droughts, storms, floods and tidal surges, but if the climate had stayed the same, would we have had Bach, Leonardo, and Newton?
At the end of the day, we have a civilization that allows millions of people to pursue happiness without fear that they will die of dysentery, be murdered by marauding barbarians, or lose their children to slave traders.
We are the lucky bastards at the end of a long line of poor sods who struggled and suffered to stay one step ahead of the reaper.
Here are two stories of studies that suggest dramatic effects of climate change on long lost peoples. The second, below, may finally explain the disappearance of the mysterious well developed aboriginal artform known as the “Bradshaw” style.
Rapid changes occurred 2 million years ago
Some swings occurred so fast they happened in “hundreds of years” – as little as 10 generations in the Olduvai Gorge area.
A series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa roughly 2 million years ago may be responsible for driving human evolution, according to researchers at Penn State and Rutgers University.
“The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed woodland and an open grassland about five to six times during a period of 200,000 years,” said Clayton Magill, graduate student in geosciences at Penn State. “These changes happened very abruptly, with each transition occurring over hundreds to just a few thousand years.”
It wasn’t a slow progression of climate, or one big change, it was rapid swings back and forward:
According to Katherine Freeman, professor of geosciences, Penn State, … “There is a view this time in Africa was the ‘Great Drying,’ when the environment slowly dried out over 3 million years,” she said. “But our data show that it was not a grand progression towards dry; the environment was highly variable.”
According to Magill, many anthropologists believe that variability of experience can trigger cognitive development.
The changes happened at the same time we started using tools:
“We show that the environment changed dramatically over a short time, and this variability coincides with an important period in our human evolution when the genus Homo was first established and when there was first evidence of tool use.”
Planetary changes drove the climate:
“The orbit of the Earth around the sun slowly changes with time,” said Freeman. “These changes were tied to the local climate at Olduvai Gorge through changes in the monsoon system in Africa. Slight changes in the amount of sunshine changed the intensity of atmospheric circulation and the supply of water. The rain patterns that drive the plant patterns follow this monsoon circulation. We found a correlation between changes in the environment and planetary movement
[Read more at Science Daily: Fluctuating Environment May Have Driven Human Evolution ]
Stop Climate Sameness! If the climate had been steady and unchanging, we would not be what we are.
A study suggests a 1500-year-long ‘mega drought’ killed off original Australians
A beautiful mysterious form of aboriginal art (see the images on this page) disappeared 7,000 years ago from the remote Kimberley region of far north Western Australia. The art that replaced it 3,000 years later was very different and not as complex, and the reason the original artists stopped making the Bradshaw style of painting has long been a mystery.
A new study finally might answer that question. A monster ENSO induced drought from 7,000 to 5,500 years ago may have wiped out the first indigenous people in the Kimberley. The Australian summer monsoon collapsed. The 1,500 year drought coincides with the disappearance of the distinct art.
Bradshaw figures superimposed over a kangaroo and snake. Prince Regent River area, the Kimberley, West Australia. Drawn by Joseph Bradshaw in April 1891 (Wikimedia)
AUSTRALIA’S original inhabitants may have died-off during a 1500-year-long “mega drought”, new research suggests.
Researchers investigating rapid climate change in the Kimberley region found the intense drought coincided with the disappearance of a pre-Aboriginal style of rock paintings about 7000 years ago. [Source: News.com]
Four traditional styles of Bradshaw rock paintings. (Image: WLRoss)
One branch of aboriginal art, called Bradshaw or Gwion art, was paradoxically highly developed, stylized and distinctive, and more complex than other forms, yet it’s also some of the oldest art. About 7,000 years ago it vanished, and was replaced (after a 3,000 year gap) with the simpler style called Wandjina.
Joeseph Bradshaw was a pastoralist in the late 1800’s who discovered the art, and described it as being aesethically similar to ancient Egyptian art. Bradshaw’s expertise was questioned, other experts (who apparently hadn’t seen the art first hand) figured he had put his own Eurocentric view on it, and the art was ignored for decades. An amateur archaeologist Grahame Walsh documented many of the Bradshaw artworks in the 80’s and 90’s.
In another quirky curiosity, many of the old images keep their vivid colours apparently “because they have been colonized by bacteria and fungi, such as the black fungus, Chaetothyriales. The pigments originally applied may have initiated an ongoing, symbiotic relationship between black fungi and red bacteria.” [Wiki]
The timing could be coincidence
Correlation is not causation. Professor Peter Veth, chair in Kimberley rock art at the University of Western Australia disagrees that the drought caused the death of this pre-historic people:
“…Peter critiques the research paper for its argument about how the simultaneous changes in climate patterns and art styles reveal the collapse of a culture. “The cultural explanations they’ve put forward, about it being the demise of one culture and the beginning of another, are fundamentally flawed,” he told Australian Geographic.
Peter explains that archaeology from occupation sites throughout the Kimberley suggests Aboriginal habitation from about 45,000 years ago until the present.
“They’ve got a coincidence – a gap in the pollen record that fits into what is thought to be the change from Gwions to the very obviously different Wandjina art form,” Peter says. “But to suggest that you’ve had the death of a pre-aboriginal culture and then the migration of a new people is totally unsupported by the linguistics, the genetics and the archaeology.”
“A change in art style does not equate with a new people or a crash – graphic switches occur in the art of Aboriginal Australia in many places,” he says.”
The Climate Deniers are those who pretend the climate has always been the same.
——————————————————–
REFERENCES:
C. R. Magill, G. M. Ashley, K. H. Freeman. Feature Article: Water, plants, and early human habitats in eastern Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209405109
Hamish McGowan,Samuel Marx, Patrick Moss, Andrew Hammond (2012): Evidence of ENSO mega-drought triggered collapse of prehistory Aboriginal society in northwest Australia, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 39, Issue 22. DOI: 10.1029/2012GL053916 [Abstract]
——
Images: Wikimedia Bradshaw Rock Paintings | Bradshaw rock art | Drawing of Bradshaw Rock Art |
From the Bureau of Met web site
“During the time-span of Aboriginal settlement in Australia, there have been great changes in the climate of the continent.
The main weather event of this era consisted of an ice age which arrived about 20,000 years ago and lasted for some 5,000 years, during which time the average temperatures fell by some 10 degrees, rainfall decreased, and cold, dry winds blew across the land.
What was previously a place of plenty, with ample water supplies and bountiful game, became a stark and inhospitable countryside which threatened the very survival of the Aboriginal people. It has been suggested that up to 80% of the entire population may have perished during this extended period of cold and dry weather.
However, pockets of people were able to survive by retreating to parts of the Pilbara and Kimberley in Western Australia, Kakadu and Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, as well as the southeast parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Then, about 14,000 years ago, the temperatures again began to rise and plant and animal populations returned to the levels of earlier days, allowing the Aboriginal people to once again extend their area of influence across much of the continent.
These fluctuating temperatures also produced large variations in sea levels, which in turn had far reaching consequences for the Aboriginal population.”
I find this interesting because it challenges the myth of the 50K years of continual settlement by the same tribe in many parts of Australia. An 80% drop in population would suggest an indigenous population across the whole country of maybe as little as 60,000. Also, this personal anecdote is also interesting:
Recently, I was talking to a geologist who had worked in the Kimberley in the seventies. He had taken an indigenous guide from the local tribe around with him during his survey. He had seen a whole bunch of rock “peckings” of various designs and had asked the local guide to explain the motifs. The indigenous guide responded that he had no idea; that these peckings were not part of his culture. They were part of an earlier tradition that pre-dated the arrival of his tribe. When I talked to him, the geologist had just been back to the region only to discover that the rock peckings were now part of an “eco-tour” where the same local indigenous tribe now showed off these peckings and explained, in detail, the motifs and their sacred importance to the local tribe. Thus the art work of an un-known indigenous group is taken over by the current tribe in order to bolster the longevity of its land claims.
Sorry about that – back to the climate.
440
Hi AC
If you look at the sea level depth between the top of Australia and PNG you will see that there was a land
bridge between the two and that this was open until about 18,000 years back when the great melt started after
the ice age.
During the period in which water was tied up in massive ice fields the oceans were up to 130 metres lower than now.
Oceans reached a temporary high about 7,000 years back at the peak of the melt.
KK
150
Ditto Tasmania. Which is why that damned yellow bellied parrot became the worlds only ocean migrating parrot – (no actual research for that just memory, which is unreliab le.)
63
G’day Bob. It also makes Bass Strait one of the most treachorous pieces of water to sail in bad weather. Lack of depth means those big waves travelling from west to east come out of a very deep Southern Ocean into a relatively shallow strait and become steep and short. Been there, done that many years ago on my now departed father’s professional fishing boat and it is not a good way to spend your time. Been back quite a few times but haven’t seen too many of those parrots crossing the strait though but having done so they damn well stopped development at Point Wilson which was not a bad thing.
62
Unfortunately the yellow bellied parrots don’t complete the crossing as they are sliced and minced by the coastal and King Island wind farms. Those bird slicers kill all manner of avian life, everything apart from egrets. Which just proves Edith Piaf was correct, “No Egrets”.
40
Non, ne r-egret.
I know it’s pathetic but.
KK
10
Another migration?
I like reading the story of the Duracks, ‘Kings in Grass Castles’. Aboriginals from New South Wales and Queensland accompanied the Duracks and fellow ‘invaders’ to the Kimberleys. I daresay these Australians would have shared their successful (able to learn how to manage stock, salt beef, prepare and store provisions ) genetics with the locals.
21
Google: ancient gold mines in Africa. Evidence of a large civilisation dating 150,000 to 250,000 years ago in Africa which had cities and farms and extensive gold mines. Stanford University California and Cambridge University UK studies revealed that “Eve” was the first mother with modern humans aquiring her genes 143,000 years ago, “Adam” who gave males the Y chromosome did so 60,000 years ago,84,000 years apart. We know very little of ancient Earth times and civilisations.
43
Eve was a halfbreed Cylon/Human didnt you watch the series?
Seriously Dennis you are right we know very little of ancient earth times and civilsations. Take the Pyramids for example we are led to believe the Egyptians built them however there is now evidence to show they did, no writings exist for why, how and when these structures were built surely the Kings tomb would command even a post script somewhere.
The official line is that the piles of rubble scattered around the site are the earlier attempts to build one then one day they got it right a built one of the wonders of the world but in the end Khafre was not even buried in the thing. Then his son came along and built a smaller one????? then his son built an even smaller one????? and then they ditched the whole i dea and went back to living in mud brick shanties……………..Yeah right
The alternative is……(hang on Max watch RAAF Base Edinburgh 42.9C @ 1230 IK), as i was saying the alternative is the Egyptians walked into the desert along the Nile and they came across 3 big ass Pyramids. Khafre took the biggest one for himself his son took the next and his son took the smallest. Mind you none were buried there but they did attempt to build/emulate them hence all the piles of rubble lying around.
When the Greeks got their Giza was still sealed so they opened it (Egyptians did not open them as they were religious monuments to them) so the Greeks opened them thinking they would be filled with jewells etc but they were completely empty as they are today.
So who could build such structures? Obviously a civilisation far for advance than the Egyptians but where are they today? Where did they go?
Maybe they were wiped out by AGW…sorry…globa….climate change
30
I’m surprised Lewendowsky didn’t ask about this theory? This a fun little piece on the pyramids: http://www.europa.com/~edge/giza.html
12
…which shows that if you torture the data hard enough, it will confess to anything you want it to say
31
Crakar the Sphinx is believed to be the oldest structure dated using rainfall and water erosion across its top and sides to be in the range 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. From my researching I believe that there are several much earlier than Sphinx lost civilisations that were advanced in technology and had knowledge that we have not gained so far. The African ancient gold mine story unfolding will be difficult for many to accept, but the evidence of civilisation is there to see. As is the modern research on modern human’s deep ancestory back Africa. And why the 84,000 year gap between the original mother and father. The research was published in Nature Genetics but I do not have a date.
10
please admit that you don’t understand the science. Your question is implicit in the science and in the publications related to it.
You are talking about the coalescence time for human mtDNAs and the Y-chromosomes. This has nothing to do with first men and women. If you had read the papers and not the media hype you would know this and would have not written a statement of such ignorance.
30
Is it the heat Craker? It affects me like that.
20
Problem GA, dont be shy if you have something to say just say it, enlighten us on where we went wrong
20
Lets do our best not offend Egyptians nevertheless the latest news is “Irish”DNA for the pharaohs.
10
Oi! Back to the last Unthreaded post with this malarkey.
40
I shall probably get struck by lightning but if Genisis is right siring the human race on an 84,000 year old is frankly quite disturbing. Sorry GOD but I just couldn’t resist it.
10
Hi AC; your little anecdote about the Geologist and the indigenous person is instructive, isn’t it?
What interesting concepts ‘noble savage’ and its new friend, ‘asylum seekers’ are.
72
The last known group to die out as a result of Climate Change was the Neanderthals.
They lived during the last major ice out, which lasted over 100,000 years, and were progressively moved towards Southern Spain where they perished at the peak of that ice age about 30,000 years ago.
Adapted for the cold, they could not compete with the existing occupants of southern Spain and could not live in their original habitat because it was under ice.
As an example, the ice sheet over north America at the time was one and a half kilometers deep in the vicinity of New York.
It is interesting that the date mentioned in the article of 7,000 years ago corresponds with the the last pulse of the melting ice from the ice age and sea levels were a couple of metres higher for a couple of thousand years.
It is possible that the area described had been cut off by the temporary ocean level rise.
KK 🙂
52
KK think I posted before on the decline or collapse of the Mayan civilisation. It seems it was due to natural climate change …a century long drought due possibly to a series of El Ninos in an area that had had good rainfall for previous centuries.
“The political collapse of the Maya kings came around the year 900, when prolonged drought undermined their authority. But Maya populations remained for another century or so, when a severe drought lasting from the years 1000 to 1100 forced Maya to leave what used to be their biggest centers of population.”
http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/11-11-2012/122762-mayan_climate_change-0/
Of course the alarmists do their best to draw parallels with this natural phenomenon and their obsession, CACC, when there are none. El Ninos and the many other natural climate drivers do their own thing without any help from us.
The difference, as alluded to in this Jo post, is that our science and technology would do a lot better job of helping modern humans live and prosper even under radical natural climate change than the Mayans were able to.
Of course what the alarmists are clueless about is what sort of climate change increasing global temperatures would cause. Would there be more rain or less? Like storage water dams never filling again or 100 metre sea level rise etc. It does seem the alarmists are clutching at straws on the Mayans et al and are as clueless about historic natural climate change as they are about their imagined anthropogenic climate change.
100
OK
I have to give you that one Llew.
The Maya were the last group to be done in by climate change.
But I can still say that the Neanderthals with their huge brains, much larger than ours, and their squat physique and large noses were too well adapted to the cold weather.
When forced to warmers areas they were just not equipped. At the equator you need to be tall, thin and preferably dark skinned.
KK 🙂
50
My eldest, a son, who has a Masters in Ag Science from La Trobe, told me years ago that they learned that there were many tracts of arable land that since settlement had gone in and out of production due to natural climate change. That is most likely what happens in many parts of Africa. I wonder if the alarmists have deleted that interesting information from the course.
(We bought 40 hectares of good cattle country at Lauriston Vic back in the 1980s when the kids were at primary school to give them an interest. We built an Angus Stud. Sold a few bulls for $10,000 in the 1990s at the National Sale at Wodonga. Got involved in Breedplan. Noticed recently that one of our bulls who would be long since dead is a trait leader for EMA and Yield and is still being used via AI. I think that farming experience got David interested in Ag Science. He ended up at Penn State in the US doing a bit of research in endocrinology).
80
Llew
Interesting about the arable land switching on and off but even more interesting that it has been wiped from
the record as far as CAGW proponents are concerned.
Had to google EMA as my only experience with livestock was raising chickens before they all came frozen and wrapped in plastic.
Really : Eye muscle area?
KK 🙂
31
Yes KK eye muscle area. We did weighing for each beast at birth weaning and yearling. Measured bulls scrotal circumference (a measure of fertility) and ultrasonically scanned for EMA, Intramuscular fat (marbling) rib and back fat. We forwarded the info progressively to Breedplan. It then calculated a range of EBVs (estimated breeding values for each beast) As pedigree was also used and some bulls were used by AI in many herds it didn’t take long to get a good accuracy for the EBVs which enabled one to quickly build the valuable economic traits into the herd.
80
Quote Llew Jones:
“My eldest, a son, who has a Masters in Ag Science from La Trobe, told me years ago that they learned that there were many tracts of arable land that since settlement had gone in and out of production due to natural climate change.”
.
JANUARY 7, 2010
UNDER THE JUNGLE
The gradual devastation of the Amazon—the felling of thousands of square miles of forest, the clear-cutting of the jungle—has produced, paradoxically, one of the greatest archeological discoveries: a vast and complex ancient civilization.
In cleared-away areas of the upper Amazon basin, researchers, using satellite imagery, have recently pinpointed a vast network of monumental earthworks, including geometrically aligned roads and structures, constructed by a hitherto unknown civilization.
.
Jonova, January 2nd, 2012:
Rewriting the Dawn Of Civilization
Seven thousand years before Stonehenge was Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, where you’ll find ring upon ring of T-shaped stone towers arranged in a circle.
Around 11,600 B.C. hundreds of people gathered on this mound, year after year, possibly for centuries.
.
O/T, but, seeing 7000 years ago is mentioned, here is an amazing recent discovery:
Wooden wells point to first carpenters
The sophisticated 7,000-year-old structures found near Leipzig, Germany, were built by farmers before Europe had metal tools, archaeologists say.
.
17,500 Year Old Ceramic Figures Unearthed in Croatia
50
Hi Handjive
The interesting thing about LLew’s comment was that the transition had occurred a few times AND the time period; which was since the arrival of the white man”.
So arable to non arable every 30 years over a 200 year period is what I take from the comment.
The ancient lifestyle items are interesting; when the Gobleki thing came up I looked into that quite a bit and checked it out on Google earth; fascinating.
KK
10
100,00 thousand years ago. If global warming is similar this time around we and “our children” and “generations to come” have no time to prepare. A 3 degree Celsius warming in 100,00 ears would mean staggering 0.0000003 degree increase per year. Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
30
The “Bradshaw stuff”is clearly African art.
42
Interesting fact is that Boab trees and Bradshaw art are also geographically restricted, find one, find the other.
51
I think that the boab tree is a native of Madagascar. Seed pods may have been washed down streams and rivers out into the Indian Ocean, and were eventually washed ashore in the Kimberleys. Given that the Aboriginals use the boab seeds as food, they may have carried them inland after collecting seeds on fishing trips.
30
Doesn’t appear that similar to that in the Tassili rock art.
They date back in part to 7-8,00BC. They show domesticated cattle, reasonably elaborate clothing and hair does, and bows.
Seems more advanced that those in Bradshaw art. And where do the makers of Bradshaw art fit in with the findings at Lake Mungo?
Louis Hissink: Did original emigrants bring the boab? Unlikely.
20
Hi Geoff
Just wondering how top end Australian art compares with New Guinea art?
KK
20
Your quote’ ”The Climate Deniers are those who pretend the climate has always been the same.” love it
During Sandy, a black woman with 2 young children was seeking refuge, she was told by one person to call 911 and by another that she didn’t know her and go away. Both children perished.
As with Katrina the biggest danger of Hurricanes was being black.
612
Holy dooly! Straight in with the black race card there Albert as well as a climate linkage.
Geez mate is that all you have!…. An anecdote of racism with no proof, or at best, the say so of a woman stricken with guilt at causing the deaths of her two children because she failed to take precautions for a storm that had been more than well advertised and advised on…. and blamed white people for ignoring her plight who were probably in just as much strife with the storm as her.
However there is some very well documented racism during the Storm…. A white Jewish man walking on the street during the storm being assaulted and knocked unconscious by a group of black men, which was caught on CCTV…. But of course, a white guy being bashed by black guys is never a race or hate crime, it is always just a common assault…. hmmm.
As to Katrina. You are just wrong. The official records show that more “whites” died than “blacks” in hurricane Katrina overall effected areas. As for New Orleans itself just over forty five percent of the dead were “non black” dispite the city’s population being above 60% “black”…. here’s a newspaper link.
So your conclusion is completely wrong. It should actually read…. With Katrina the biggest danger of Hurricanes was being white.
…. Which is still wrong because the fact of the matter is… The biggest danger of Hurricanes was being old and neglected.
Right. Now where we supposed to be? Oh, that’s right. Rock art and lost cultures…..
193
The statistics are curious, as you will see from these snippets:
One study;
Results: We identified 971 Katrina-related deaths in Louisiana and 15 deaths among Katrina evacuees in other states. Drowning (40%), injury and trauma (25%), and heart conditions (11%) were the major causes of death among Louisiana victims. Forty-nine percent of victims were people 75 years old and older. Fifty-three percent of victims were men; 51% were black; and 42% were white. In Orleans Parish, the mortality rate among blacks was 1.7 to 4 times higher than that among whites for all people 18 years old and older. People 75 years old and older were significantly more likely to be storm victims (P
22
Yes, curious, since blacks make up almost 60% of the population and whites about 30% in Orleans Parish.
30
For 2 million years….
Everything was normal….
And then along came George Soros!
Bugger!!
120
“but if the climate had stayed the same, would we have had Bach, Leonardo, and Newton?”
OK I’ll give you Barbara Bach was pretty good to look at, but did we really need Di Caprio and Bert???
TFIC
190
“The Climate Deniers are those who pretend the climate has always been the same.”
So who are they? Certainly not AGW scientists or the IPCC or anyone else I can think of? Interesting article. Absurd spin.
527
With articles like this, you always have to read between the lines. And in between the lines one sees, “the AGW crowd think the climate has never changed until now”, even though nobody on either “skeptic” or AGW side believes this. The other thing skulking between the lines is a bit of a long shot, “Past climate change led to the evolution of our species, and that was a good thing. Therefore the current climate change is a good thing.”
633
Climate change may or may not be a good thing. Its totally irrelevant its just going to happen and we will as always adapt to it. And in the not to distant future the way we are advancing its not going to be an issue. What is an issue is attempts to stifle the ongoing technological advancement.
152
The Chinese delegation to Copenhagen commented on 3,600 years of their civilisation and three warmer than before 1998 periods during which China prospered from high crop yields and other warmer climate changes for the better. The alarmists were not listening.
50
Hi Dennis,
That is because Alarmists have a definition in their vocabulary for “Adverse effects of climate change” – but no definition for “Beneficial effects of climate change”.
It is like people who are blind from birth discussing the appearance of the colour Blue – they can’t do it.
50
Hi JB, the official UN position is that there was no climate change prior to the onset of the modern human industrial era – as I demonstrate here.
The problem that both Mattb and yourself have – is that like the rest (most) of the people commenting here, including myself, – you think that climate change has something to do with changes to temperature, humidity, and other factors on time scales that matter (such as 30+ years).
The difficulty that you have, is that you have not realised that the official Warmist position that you have been defending for so long is something entirely different from what you think it is.
61
What a pathetic and convoluted use of “logic”. You have misrepresented the IPCC statement. Why am I not surprised?
24
Hi JB, you are correct in your words, but mistake the correct target – the UN FCCC use …in your own words…
To construct a definition of Climate Change without using normal climate change descriptors such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, etc.
Perhaps instead of pathetic, or convoluted – you could have used the word “misleading” to describe the UN FCCC definition. (for you have been misled.)
However, you also say, that I misrepresent the IPCC statement, however my reference is to the UN FCCC, as per below.
And I note that you say that I use pathetic and convoluted logic, and yet you have not offered a refutation that the above UN FCCC definition, which means that the UN need only to …
[1] Measure any changes to the composition of the global atmosphere, and
[2] Determine the proportion of the measured changes to the composition of the global atmosphere that are attributable to human activity.
To claim that the climate is changing.
Now the UN IPCC claims that …
So the UN FCCC definition – drawn from the “science” of the IPCC 1990 report – is the definition sanctioned by both the UN and the IPCC.
##################
The vehemence of your response betrays the pain you feel that your superstitious dogma is not what you thought it was.
70
My apologies.
The link to the UN IPCC quote is here.
40
So the IPCC defines “climate change” as the change in the climate due to human activities. Woopy doo.
How is this in any way dodgy? They are, of course, interested in measuring and predicting the bit of the climate change that we can do something about. Which means you leave out the natural variations.
Of course in fact, the IPCC climate projections are based on both human and natural causes. But natural causes are a bit tricky, because we don’t know when the next volcano will blow, how solar irradiance will vary, the exact timing of the ENSO cycle etc.
But post hoc you get guys like Foster & Rahmsdorf who remove as much of the natural variation as they can, leaving just the tell tale rise in temperatures due to CO2. (But you must remember that they are in on the game, and the only way their results work is through using dodgily adjusted temperatures, and half a dozen fudge factors).
29
It’s change to the composition of the atmosphere that is attributable to human activity.
It is their own words.
It’s misleading.
40
So JB…. For the 342nd time….
How are those AR 4 predictions going??
30
Good proof Ex, but Mann had already presented proof [sic] of an unchanging climate with his hockeystick.
The hockeystick, one of the great scientific achievements; the real hockeystick.
60
So Mann was using the UN definition of “Climate Change” when he drew up the “hockey stick” graph?
The makes a lot of sense, explaining why the Medieval Warm Period is missing and the Little Ice Age is also missing — neither of those satisfy the UN definition, since they cannot be “attributed directly or indirectly to human activity”. Previously I had been thinking that there was a problem, but no it turns out that everything has been clearly and precisely defined.
I had better bookmark some of these quotes, it is going to be difficult to explain this.
30
Err…. to work, Mann’s hockey stick depended on denying the Mediaeval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Much intellectual credibility and taxpayers money was invested in hiding those 2 events, eventually to no avail. Both the IPCC and climate activists, some of whom allegedly claimed a scientific background, were involved in hiding the truth. Absurd post, absurd spin.
320
“On the question of whether humans are causing climate change, there’s not just a consensus of scientists – there’s a consensus of evidence.”
“97 out of 100 of climate experts think humans are causing global warming.”
– The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism. (skepticalscience.com)
I don’t see much discussion of natural climate change from this mob.
115
Neither quote suggests that nothing else changes climate. Just that humans are changing the climate.
527
So why didn’t they ever say, “There are many naturally occurring forces causing climate change.”?
“Humans are causing global warming.” Sounds quite obvious that they’ve nailed it down to just one cause.
The booklet itself doesn’t suggest that anything else changes the climate. It’s all man’s CO2 what does it!
201
I think you will find the IPCC reports are choc-a-bloc of natural forces that cause climate change.
422
Indeed, all the other forcings that actually do something are in the IPCC reports. Its just a little game “skeptics” like to play, “Lets bait the warmists by pretending they don’t believe stuff, even though we know full well they do.”
726
True, the report covers these facts. However, the “Summary for Policymakers” never does — it is uniformly alarmist and is the only thing that the media ever covers. When the report is finally released months later, it is ‘old news’.
This is why the IPCC is having a tissy over the premature release of the next report — now the scientist’s equivocations are the ‘news’ and the alarmist summary will be the ‘old news’. Transparency is not what they wanted.
Currently, the alarmists are busy writing alarmist papers, which will ‘refute’ the current draft, and will be fast-tracked into publications so that the IPCC can regain the initiative for the Summary press release. By the time these bogus papers are debunked, it will again be ‘old news’.
300
Hi Guys…
Ref here
As per the UN FCCC definitions – there must be a change to the composition of the atmosphere that is attributable to human activity…
I.e. natural climate variability is acknowledged – but only the human attributable change to the composition of the atmosphere is “Climate Change”.
NOTE: Pay attention to the use of the phrase “in addition to” in the definition.
If it’s not human activity – it’s not climate change.
60
Ahhh, but natural forcings are the climate and humans change the climate… I think I’m getting this.
The interesting implication is that temperature change does not imply climate change.
20
Did they happen to mention what this wondrous consensus of evidence was? No, I thought not, but wait, models you say? A consensus of models? And the the greater the number of times we run the models, the more consensus we have!
Simples really, when you know what is going on.
311
You want evidence? There are volumes written on it. Simply google “evidence for climate change” You have a few years to spend reading??
420
I have spent a few years looking for the right evidence. Been asking for 3 years here.. I found this instead.
253
jfreed27 says …
What do you mean by “climate change”? Is it what the UN FCCC says which is…
Because if you are inline with the official climate science position, then you only have to show that human activity (such as burning oil, gas, coal, etc) is changing the composition of the atmosphere – which given the rise in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere during the modern industrial era is easy to show as a correlation (although not causally certain), but likely to be correct.
Or do you have a private definition of climate change?
The reason I ask is that the UN FCCC definition has nothing to do with the typical descriptors of climate such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, etc – and yet alarmists and warmists seem to think that these descriptors are, in fact, part of climate change in contradiction with the official definition.
60
Just read through Beenstock et al, November 2012 (not so easy for me with my middle-level stats)
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/173/2012/esd-3-173-2012.pdf
NOT paywalled, just peer-reviewed, re-edited and published in the literature
Money quote from the abstract: “Therefore, greenhouse gas forcings, aerosols, solar irradiance and global temperature are not polynomially cointegrated, and the perceived relationship between these variables is a spurious regression phenomenon.”
Note also the quote from p.185, 2nd paragraph: “This is not an argument about physics, but an argument about data interpretation.”
I’m waiting for Tamino’s head to explode
20
I believe this paper belongs to the class generally classified as, “Lets play around with statistics to the nth degree, until we find something that might be naively interpreted as disproving some aspect of climate science”.
48
Tamino has a head?
50
Good comment John, coming from a supporter of tamino who could prove [to people lke you] that black is white and cold is hot.
But seriously, is that what you take from Beenstock? Why don’t you do a bit of research.
Beenstock slide-show.
Beenstock primer.
Cointegration primer, hard.
There is a soft/easy cointegration primer which I’ll post later.
61
Brookes says: (and I have to laugh)
.
Well John, That is denial……..
40
ianl8888 – Regarding Beenstock et al 2012 (and the earlier 2009 work), there are some huge errors that invalidate the paper.
—
First, a definition: a non-stationary series is one whose mean or variance changes over time, in a fashion dependent on past behavior. This describes cumulative random walks, “step-changes” unrelated to forcings, etc. A stationary series can be perturbed, but will return to the underlying trend(s).
The test they use for non-stationary behavior (aka integrative, aka with statistics dependent on past trajectory) are incorrectly applied: the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test can only identify nonstationary series with at most an underlying linear trend, but they apply it to the last century and a half of temperatures with time-variant forcings. That makes their test invalid, and gives false results (if you don’t account for forcing changes, the mean of temperature appears to randomly wander – no surprise there).
If you test the data since 1975 with the ADF(roughly linear increase with variations), the temperature is trend stationary – returning to the trend that matches the forcings. If you use the proper test for nonstationary data, the covariate-adjusted ADF test which looks at whether the temperatures are stationary WRT forcings, temperatures are again trend-stationary – the mean and variance of the temperatures minus the forcing trend doesn’t change over time.
As to climate forcings, those covary with, oddly enough, climate forcings – it’s inappropriate to test the forcings for nonstationary behavior in the first place. Only if there were a record of forcing separate from the various known inputs (CO2, solar, volcanic, etc), would it be relevant to test that forcing record to see if it was nonstationary with respect to the inputs.
This makes polynomial cointegration an invalid method by definition – it only applies to nonstationary series, if the data is stationary you should use regression to identify the causal relationships.
—
There is a good collection of some the discussions on this topic here. This is yet another claim that temperature is a random walk, albeit with more complex math thrown at the wall than most. And it’s just wrong.
32
KR, your conclusion is more aptly applied to the deterministic assumptions of AGW; and the fact that you select data from 1975 [!] when 150 years of data is available indicates that.
Beenstock has been around since 2009 and when they first self-published there was a lot of blog chatter. A blogger called VS created some stir here.
VS initially tested and found a unit root, meaning a stocastic quality, which means it is unpredictable, in global temperature from all the indices.
VS doesn’t look at forcings, he looks at temperature, the purported consequence of the forcings. For that the ADF test is proper.
I find this statement of yours incredible:
It is incredible because of this. If the temperature trend matched the forcings why does the IPCC and AGW make erroneous predictions and continually torture and adjust the temperature record so that it fits the theory?
If the assumptions about the forcings are wrong, and they most certainly are when it comes to the AGW forcings, then the CADF test is useless because the regression covariates have been manipulated already to be correlated with a manipulated temperature ‘trend’.
I expected more form you KR, then to be a sock-puppet for Tamino.
42
cohenite –
The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test can, at best, identify unit roots in a nonstationary process with an added linear trend (Dickey 2005, section 8). It is inappropriate to apply it to data with even the possibility of an added nonlinear trend, as it may falsely indicate unit roots.
Hence the use of 1975-2008 data, which is statistically well fit by a linear trend with variations. And on that data unit root tests overwhelmingly reject any unit roots. You could also look at the 1910-1940 subset, which (in GISTEMP at least) also fits that criteria.
But Beenstock et al did not do that – they applied their unit root tests to the data from 1880-2007, with no accounting for nonlinear forcings over that period. The ADF as defined can only adapt to a slope and offset – since they did not incorporate covariance against the expected inputs (forcings), their tests are by definition invalid.
Perhaps, cohenite, you should review the ADF and it’s realm of applicability?
If the appropriate test is run, the covariant adjusted ADF, looking to see if the joint probability distribution of the temperature data is trend-stationary against forcings, the unit root is overwhelmingly rejected.
Beenstock et al used the wrong tests for data with potential nonlinear trend additions, and failed to run tests valid for linear trend additions on linear subsets. To be blunt, these errors do not speak well for Beenstock et al’s knowledge of these techniques.
—
Statistically, temperatures are demonstrably trend-stationary with respect to forcings. The mean, variance, and covariance of temperatures are stationary once forcing trends are subtracted. If you disagree, you are welcome to run the stats and see for yourself.
Physically, temperatures are driven to follow forcings due to the 1st law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy – if you were to suddenly drive the climate 20C warmer, it would rapidly cool as the warmer planet radiated faster than solar energy came in, and if you were to suddenly drive it 20C colder, it would rapidly warm due to that energy imbalance. Not a random walk at all.
Therein lies at least part of the problem – their analysis comes up with random walk for the energy driven climate, short term decay in CO2 forcing influence regardless of concentration (what, the molecules wear out?), and they even find a negative influence from added methane (apparently in their math adding a strong greenhouse gas like methane cools the Earth???). If they had any physics background whatsoever these absurdities should be red flags indicating that their analysis is in error.
—
Let’s see – the rest of your post consists of references to VS, who can only have come to his numeric conclusions by inappropriately using the statistics (CADFtest is readily available in R, meaning VS’s claims are easily crossed checked), and conspiracy theory accusations that the observational data on CO2, particulate, and solar influences (sunspot statistics), plus perhaps temperature, have _all_ been manipulated for some reason…
I’m afraid, cohenite, that you have not exceeded my expectations in any form.
11
You won’t or don’t get it KR; your forcing data, and temperature data is corrupt. But that is not your only problem.
A good comparison between the ADF and the CADF, as developed by Hansen, is here.
Lupi says this:
The same situation for climate and weather processes which are never univariate. However temperature is the product or result of the climate process and can be treated univariatedly; in fact such treatment is common with forcings removed to produce a univariate temperture trend, or at least one with selected forcings applied to it. You are doing that very thing by relying on the post 1975 temperature trend when everyone who knows anything about this knows that post 1975 temperature is a product of a PDO phase shift.
Your hero Tamino in fact has treated temperature as a univariate in his paper isolating the ‘pure’ AGW forced temperature trend.
Foster, of course, made an egregious error in his paper as I explain at comment 11.1.1.1.
Anyway if Foster can treat temperature as a univariate why can’t Beenstock?
This comment is once again astounding:
Temperature is a product of the forcings so naturally temperature will be unchanging if the forcings are removed; what you are saying is the forcings are stationary; Beenstock says, no, some are and some aren’t; CO2 appears to be while solar isn’t. Who could argue against that?
By concentrating on temperature being stationary and not considering the forcings you and Tamino are looking at this from the wrong direction; in short you are a..e up.
11
Cohenite
* You have simply not addressed Beenstock et al’s invalid use of simple unit root tests on data with possible nonlinear trends (when those tests _by definition_ can only handle linear trend additions). If you don’t account for forcing trend changes, temperatures will of course appear to vary randomly – because you’re doing your statistics wrong.
* You have simply not addressed Beenstock et al’s failure to apply their linear plus stochastic unit root tests to linear subsets of the data, ones appropriate to those tests, where it has been demonstrated that temperatures are trend-stationary (ie not random).
* And you have most definitely not addressed the fact that appropriate testing for unit roots against observed forcings, over the last 150 years, clearly demonstrate that global temperatures are trend-stationary, and not a random process.
* Or that if temperatures are trend-stationary against forcings, forcings that are deterministically driven by solar cycles, volcanoes, and emissions (fixed inputs, hence not stochastic processes), that polynomial cointegration is a wholly invalid technique, and the Beenstock et al paper is nonsense.
Enough. You’re arm-waving, pumping out multiple red herrings, and just not addressing the issues raised with the paper.
—
Readers – Apologies on a fairly dense discussion of a topic that could be considered esoteric with respect to physics. The take-home messages are that (1) Beenstock et al misuse versions of economic tests on data inappropriate for those tests, drawing wholly unsupported conclusions from those errors, and (2) Global temperatures are not randomly wandering around, but rather are, demonstrably, statistically related to trends in observed climate forcings. Which is perhaps the sole benefit I can see from the Beenstock paper – that this investigation of their erroneous methods gives a useful insight.
And (perhaps the aspect that most irritates cohenite) these temperature related climate forcings include our emissions, hence we have the capability to affect how the climate changes. Despite cohenites many postings to the contrary…
That’s what examination of this paper indicates – take it as you will.
Adieu, and a somewhat belated Happy New Year.
21
Wrong. Beenstock do consider nonlinear trends in paragraph 3.6 of their 2nd paper, here they conclude:
As I have noted Beenstock treats the whole data stream from 1880; cherry-picking a segment of that data from 1975, at the time of a climate phase shift, to claim a defect in Beenstock’s analysis is both wrong and typical.
What tests were they? This is a key issue; if the temperature data over the last 120-150 years has a unit root then AGW is a dead duck so what are these tests?
11
cohenite
Actually – no. They consider nonlinear transformations of differenced (ie derivatives) GHG forcings, nonlinear interactions of different forcings, but they do not consider whether temperatures are covariant with the sum of nonlinear time-dependent forcing deltas, a nonlinear trend such as that of the deterministically input, modelled, forcings. Nor do they apply any unit root tests that ould (correctly applied) detect a nonstationary series that might have an added non-linear trend.
I would again suggest the covariant augmented Dickey-Fuller test (CADF), which I’ve repeatedly referred to before. This is a version of the Dickey-Fuller test that can detect nonstationary behavior added to an underlying covariant trend, an extension on the augmented DF test with added linear trends, itself an extension of the DF test for zero mean zero trend nonstationary series. Of you could look at subsets of the data with an underlying linear trend, in which case the ADF, not to mention the Phillips-Perron test, show that the data is overwhelmingly trend-stationary.
Which has been discussed over and over. You can only have missed it by plugging your ears and singing “La la la la la…”… I can only hope that you are not deliberately ignoring the appropriate tests for this kind of data.
And when tested with this appropriate method, the CADF, temperature is overwhelmingly trend-stationary WRT forcings, with unit roots disproved – hence not random. This is an “own goal” by Beenstock and deniers – investigation of their methods only supports the causal link between forcings (including our emissions) and global temperature change.
Enough, cohenite. You continue to support Beenstock et al using the wrong tests for the data (“Beenstock treats the whole data stream from 1880” using the plain ADF on an distinctly nonlinear trendline), and ignore appropriate tests for those nonlinear trends. Without even acknowledging or addressing Beenstock et al’s errors in in their approach by the _very definition_ of those economic statistical tests. Temperatures are trend-stationary, regression is the appropriate technique, polynomial cointegration just doesn’t apply.
I apologize for bluntness to others on the thread, but cohenite – you’re pushing BS. And the further you take it, the more blatant the display (of arguments based more on preferences than science) on your part.
You are welcome to continue to dig your own hole – I’m done on this thread. Other readers – Beenstock et al make some grievous errors in application of these economic techniques, don’t have the physics to spot the real world red flags (such as methane having a negative influence with their analysis), and their conclusions don’t hold up.
Instead, analysis of their errors only statistically supports a causal link between forcings (including emissions) and global temperatures. Temperatures demonstrably do not change mean, variance, or covariance with respect to forcings.
10
Hi Ian
Have not done anything but skim all of the discussion below and my only comment is that KR simply is trying to extend the debate to make it look as though uncertainty about AGW has survived another day.
In this area maybe; but there are other more important battlegrounds on which it is quite clear from a scientific perspective the AGW does not exist, except as a tool for thieves and scoundrels.
As MaryF would say: there is a very basic perspective on this, so with apologies to Rudyard:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/09/carbon-tax-going-through-next-week-alp-set-to-be-global-patsies/#comment-488345
KK 🙂
10
A nonlinear transformation is merely a method of dealing with a nonlinear data stream by converting it into a linear stream. And by considering “nonlinear interactions of different forcings” they just about cover the issue don’t they?
Oh wait, you say:
They don’t deal with the “deterministically input, modelled, forcings.” Beenstock fail because they merely deal with the data not the modelling. That must mean they are wrong and AGW is right.
The issue remaining is whether temperature in the modern era, post about 1850, the end of the LIA, is stationary, that is it doesn’t have a trend; what KR is saying, in agreement with the Foster paper I link to above, is that temperature is assumed to be stationary so when all natural trend causing factors are removed whatever trend is left must be due to AGW. The defects with Foster’s attempt to do that are also linked to above.
At the end of the day this is what Beenstock is also doing; removing the trend from temperature and the various forcings; the steps required to do that show that there is no effective correlation between CO2 and temperature. KR maintains Beenstock is wrong because of the method they use, yet Beenstock appears to have addressed the concerns between the method they use and the method KR says they should have used. Good o.
21
Highly convoluted discussion that is clouding the debate.
Basics first:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/08/blockbuster-planetary-temperature-controls-co2-levels-not-humans/#comment-416601
KK
10
KK, it is convoluted but I still think it is a crucial point; if Beenstock are correct then, as I say, AGW, or what is left of it, is severely dinted.
KR has rabbitted on about linear and nonlinear and stationary and non-stationary aspects of the data and forcings and since I was at my pay scale for the statistics I contacted Beenstock et al and they pointed out that they had put the data through exhaustive tests for stationary attributes and only then applied the ADF which KR disapproves of; perhaps KR and his chums should read through paragraphs 2, 2.1 and 2.2 of the paper again.
21
If one of ‘the team’ had gone to this great an extent to try and demonstrate an AGW trend you just know you’d all be slamming it as biased manipulation of statistics.
31
That’s not true Matt; I did link to Foster’s effort to detrend and I pointed out some issues with that; KR has pointed out what he thinks are some issues with Beenstock; and I disagree with him; aren’t I allowed to disagree now?
21
no. you’re either right or wrong. apparently.
20
As with all things in evolution, there are outliers, those creatures which got thru no matter what.
I’m here to suggest that AGW True Believers like mattie, brooksie and filly, are such outliers.
…emphasis on liers………
90
Lets start with the fact that the UN (via the Framework Convention on Climate Change) defines “Climate Change” as follows…
Which means that the onus is on the UN FCCC and it’s ideological offspring, the UN IPCC to do the following.
[1] Measure any changes to the composition of the global atmosphere.
[2] Determine the proportion of the measured changes to the composition of the global atmosphere that are attributable to human activity.
The bottom line is that for “Climate Change” to occur under this definition, there is only the requirement that a measurable change to the composition of the atmosphere occurs that can be attributed to human activity.
The obvious example of climate change then becomes the increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere that has occurred during the modern industrial era.
The obvious corollary is that prior to the presence of attributable human activity changing the composition of the atmosphere there was no climate change.
QED.
Given the above definition is from the UN FCCC and is used by the UN IPCC – I would contend that the offical position of Warmists is that there was no climate change prior to the modern industrial era.
######################
What puzzles me about this definition is that it has no mention of changes to temperature, humidity, etc – which I would think would be a natural part of a definition of climate change.
It would seem to me that the definition is defined the way that it is, so as to clearly demarcate human activity emitting CO2 into the atmosphere as the key driver of climate change. It only then requires that “Climate Change” be threatening (i.e. Alarming) to provide a rationale for control of human activity to reduced CO2 emissions.
30
Another interesting point from the definitions page of the UN FCCC.
Which is the first thing defined, followed by the term “Climate Change”.
There is no definition of “Positive effects of climate change”.
How about that – from the definitions – Climate change is caused by human activity and can only be adverse.
50
This is not a denial of everything, but there are some tough questions about aboriginal art and its later imitations.
One fundamental question relates to why the better examples are more or less in isolation sometimes (though at times there are sveral apparent episodes of overpainting). If the artists had tens of thoudands of years to make their art, why are we limited to so few, with some of them being so good cf the others? Was there a taboo that said “Once I have painted here, no other person is allowed.” Haed to enforce, hard to imagine. With tens of thousamnds of aspiring artists each year for tens of thousands of years, why so few?
The usual expalantion is that some art has been preserved by silica layers forming over the paint, encrusting them protectively. If this is the case, did that process operate only sporadically, because those 10,000 x 10,000 starts are still possible, but we don’t see that many.
In the 70s we used to talk to Top End custodians, who were prone to have variations on the stories from year to year, particularly from decade to decade. Not always – the common theme of the Rainbow Serpent was strong, but a lot of minor detail changed. I suspect that some of the legends are less than ten decades ago from being relatable in any detail to the ten decade old version. As for 40,000 years of word by mouth, there you have a sceptic with a problem.
I’m not at all concerned whether the 40,000 year habitation was right, or if there was a differnt tribe arising after extermination from whatever cause later then that. I do object to some questionable interpretation being cast in the stone of the anthropologist, so to speak.
There was some excitement in the 1970s when a new type of art with blue pigment was found near the East Aligator River. Fortunately, diligence discovered that the pigment was Rickett’s bag blue from the laundry at Munmarlary cattle station. I’m not bagging the whole rock art concept because of this. I’m merely pointing out that changes in custom can happen. Like the shift from natural to acrylic paints, also since the 1970s, and the huge changes in interpretation and style seen in the trendy art galleries of the NT. Sure, some of the modern artists are very good, but their stories are relatable only with several degrees of separation and some good imagination, from the stories that were told in the time of Leichhardt.
As to importance, one evening we were sitting down with Big Bill Neidje, a supremo from west Arnhem land and a lovely old bloke. We told him we had a problem with a map showing a sacred site, from which we were barred entry. “Oh,” he said. “That’s just where we go to catch flying foxes some times of the year. We can take that off the map. Plenty more places like it.” So we had some more smoked oysters, of which he was fond.
140
The Kimberlies were so named due to their similarity with the African Kimberlies.What is contentious is when it separated from the African continent.Possibly as recently as 12,000 years ago.Hence the African art.
68
I’m not a geologist, but our Kimberlies separating from Africa just 12,000 years ago? I might believe it if they find the outboard motors pushing Australia away from Africa…
209
One could just about walk from Africa to Australia during the last glacial. At the glacial maximum, the Sunda Shelf in Indonesia would have been dry land and the same with the Sahul Shelf. One needed to do only some minor island hopping of islands quite visible from each other to get across Wallacea:
http://www.starfish.ch/Zeichnung/Karten/Wallacea-migration.gif
62
Crosspatch
Did you say you could just about walk to Africa?
Maybe you could check that.
How is that possible when two things: Distance and Depth work against that.
KK
40
Hi KK,
The migration path would be around the coastlines…
10
Hi Ex
Walking around the coastlines to Africa may have been theoretically possible but the distance up through Indonesia, India and across to Africa!
Now if he said Asia I would have not been at all concerned.
KK
20
I don’t mean one person walking it all at once. I mean a culture migrating expanding into new land generation by generation just as modern man did into Europe and Northern Asia during the Holocene. They could have migrated to Australia during the glacial as they had a much longer period of time to accomplish that (nearly 100,000 years) while the North was unavailable to them due to cold. They would have had to stay in climates that were tolerable to an unclothed human body. So it seems logical that they would have expanded along the coast of the Indian Ocean. The climate was drier at that time, too, with more savannah and less jungle.
10
Hi Guys,
Crosspatch has my idea… it takes time to get from Africa to Australia, – generations of humans to get from one continent to the next.
10
As your gif image shows. There were some waterways still separating Australia and Asia. For most gaps land could be viewed at least by a boat staying in sight of the land mass it derived from.
20
Did people smugglers operate at that time?
10
umm… ha ha?
If we make a guess that some of the practices prevalent in the region a few hundred years ago existed thousands of years ago then, quite possibly if, that is, you count slave traders as people smugglers. There was likely also quite a lot of kid napping.
20
I think they were named for the resemblance according to the explorers who named them and who had visited both, not that they were together when they were both named and then separated in only 12,000 years time. I hope the 12,000 years is a typo.
40
JB
On this, and this only, so far we are in agreement.
12,000 years ago is just not possible.
KK
60
The Kimberley region was named after the Earl of Kimberley not due to the similarity with the African Kimberlies which do not exist. The town Kimberley in South Africa was named after Lord Kimberley. The Kaapvaal Craton (South africa) and the Pilbara craton (close to the Kimberleys in WA) have certain structural similarities and rocks of the same age which indicates they may have formed part of the same first super-continent known as Vaalbara. This was supposed to have broken up about 2500 million years ago. Man has been around a lot less than this. Maybe one million years.
110
The Australian Kimberly region was so named by its discoverer due to the similarity in the landscape[volcanic pipes].This is general knowledge.As is the theory of the region separating from Africa,a long time ago,as an “island”and eventually[also a long time ago] cementing itself to the Australian continent.I don’t need to google that.You bring nothing helpful to the discussion by nitpicking and pretending to argue from a authority.Who did the art and what about the Boabs?
10
There is some controversy but at about 7,000 years ago we would have seen a rather long period of reduced trade winds. We saw either a long period of persistent El Nino conditions or at the least, a GREATLY reduced ENSO cycle where we still had La Nina events but they were much diminished in intensity from today.
Here is a link to one paper which can be read on the Internet: http://water.columbia.edu/files/2011/11/Cane2005Evolution.pdf and there is another I was looking for but wasn’t able to find a copy that wasn’t paywalled: El Niño–Southern Oscillation extrema in the Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum Athanasios Koutavas, Stephan Joanides and is rather recent.
How would one expect the climate of Australia to behave with a “greatly diminished” ENSO cycle?
20
We look at our world and the universe with human eyes and more importantly, with a human lifespan. In terms of the latter, we see an apparently ageless and unchanging view but it’s a false impression. When looked at through the eyes of “deep” time, it is dynamic, violent and forever changing. There is no ideal static harmonious state which must be maintained. There never was and there never will be either.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/the-steady-state-environment-delusion/
Pointman
80
I think we are pretty lucky to live in a time of remarkable climatic stability.
Not much changing at the moment, relatively speaking.
71
Actually, now you mention it, it is really quite boring.
31
indeed. you’d not want to change it much would you.
22
A permanent breakout from the current Ice Age that returned the world to the warmer climate of the Pliocene world
Would – I contend – be safer for the future of humanity, then the risk presented by the next glacial period.
40
A bit tricky ex. It might be safer, but the road to this nirvana could be a little rough. It would involve losing all of the worlds coastal cities for one thing.
36
JB – you have a point…
Cheers ExWarmist.
21
True, a bit boring. We’re living in the Earth’s fifth ice age but one of its interglacial periods. That mght be changing though …
Pointman
50
To me, the Bradshaw art resembles that in North Africa from about the same period and Southern Europe from c.15000 BC and probably elsewhere, while the Wondjina art appears far more primitive.
Could the Bradshaw art have been the result of the immigration of groups from S E Asia who died out or left due to environmental pressures?
A return to the CO2 concentration (around 270 ppm) and av. global temperature (1 C less than now) at say 1850, if that were possible, would cause widespread famine.
The ~7 billion people on Earth now are just as dependent (if not more so) on the current atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate (whether human-caused CO2 is a factor or not) — get used to it.
70
Toward 700ppm, I say !! 🙂
20
If you look at the Times Atlas of World History, there were a number of Grand Migrations in the early history of hominids.
One, of course was the outward expansion of human ancestors out of Africa, both Northwards and Eastwards, that eventually developed into the three major ethnic groupings, Africian, Caucasian, and Asian.
The Asian migration could have reached as far as Australia because it is postulated that the Malaysian and Philippine islands formed a continuous land bridge between continental Asia and Australia (but not New Zealand).
It would have taken numerous human lifetimes (especially with an average life expectancy of around 20-25 years) for that migration to occur, and peoples would probably have arrived at various locations in waves.
This could explain the difference between earlier art (which is closer to the African), with the later art, which is much simpler, and more “shorthand”, and therefore appears cruder and regressive.
Entirely hypothetical, of course.
30
“The brutal forces of Nature tested our ancestors with droughts, storms, floods and tidal surges, but if the climate had stayed the same, would we have had Bach, Leonardo, and Newton?”
We’d have had the cuckoo clock.
20
In the South China sea off Sarawak Malaysia Borneo during oil exploration seismic surveys you can see all the old ice age era rivers and lakes. As you go down through successive time slices (deeper data) you can watch the rivers change course and ox bow lakes form which are now buried and covered in 100m of ocean or more. You really get a sense of how temporary these high sea levels are.
100
Fascinating Shauno.
KK
20
Regarding the first paper about the Olduvai Gorge, I recently saw a documentary showing elephants destroying thousands of trees in one dry season turning a woodlands area into savanna (with the accompanying change in flora and fauna) only to see this area wooded again in a few years time.
So it need not have been ‘climate change’ spanning decades or even hundreds of years.
Regards the second paper about Aboriginal art, one thing for certain, never ever believe word of mouth stories ‘handed down by generations’.
151
I tend to believe them all, but believe some more than others…
10
Have heard a couple of times on the BBC – so it must be true – of The most important climate catastrophe since the last ice age – the change of the Sahara from savannah to desert. States Phillip Mueller
Have heard a this a couple of times on the BBC – so it must be true. They attribute the founding of the Ancient Egyptian civilization to the nomadic people’s being forced to settle on the narrow fertile strip beside the Nile. An earlier reporting of event by the BBC in 1999 maintained that the savannah was cooler than the current desert – a not unreasonable assumption. The more recent TV versions agree with Mueller that it was warmer.
60
Yes. And also the Egypt of the Pharaohs died out because they trusted the river instead of building dams.
103
Much like we trusted Flannery rather than building dams.
171
So John, so you both accept that catastrophic climate change can be natural, and that mighty rulers, advised by high priests, are not just fallible, but can bring ruin on all their subjects.
Couldn’t agree with you more mate. Just I apply it to the present day context as well.
140
MBC
Surely you don’t think he actually believes all that stuff.
I think he is probably Buddhist and simply probing and pushing everyone to keep thinking in the right
direction, searching for the Truth.
KK
20
I will let Mr Brooks answer for himself, to demonstrate he is not a hit-and-run merchant. Over to you John…
40
KK
And in what way do you think that being Buddhist and searching for truth and enlightenment is a bad thing?
Are we not all seekers after truth? Do we not all crave knowledge of our own purpose?
Do we reject the notion that we are all interconnected in our fundamental sharing of space and time?
Just askin’.
60
Hi RW
I think you may have misinterpreted my thinking there.
I study Buddhism and can see that if I had more discipline and practiced every day I would be better off.
I saw him as the wise old man (if you can possibly imagine that) delivering what is known as an “activity teaching”.
That’s where someone is strongly confronted in order to create a change in thinking.
So maybe you have delivered me an “activity teaching:.
Thanks RW, it gave me cause to see things differently.
KK 🙂
10
KK
You need to practice buddhism all of he time, to make other people better off, and that requires discipline. You had the cause and effect and beneficiary a little bit mixed up there.
But that is OK. Being misguided, and learning from the experience, is the only way we learn and grow.
Or to put it another way, people who cannot admit they are wrong never learn or grow. And we get a few of them of this site.
For what it is worth, I study the ways of the Bodhisattva.
50
RW
I first began practicing about 8 years back.
If you think I can get a bit testy now, you should have seen me then after almost 30 years of heavy duty conflict.
In the beginning, there is always a beginning, I could sit still for about 2 minutes before my mind wanted to get up and go for a walk.
After a few months and lots of practice I could sit through 45 minutes with little trouble.
My scientific leaning has me trying to work out how and why it works and then to marvel that people in the past were smart enough to put it all together.
KK
10
Yeah, I’ll apply it to the present day. The smart buggers advise the rulers that we are messing up the climate which has allowed our civilisation to develop, but the rulers say, “Look, there are lots of people telling us that it isn’t a problem, so we won’t be fixing it. OK?”
24
The “smart buggers” are employed by the rulers. And they are practically unemployable by anyone else.
Therefore if they don’t play the tune that the rulers want to hear they are out of a job.
61
I remember this well.The crok. eating fossilized family discovered by the ancient,dried out,lake bed[the “daddy”looks like “Samuel L. Jackson”,upon facial reconstruction]was such a potentially contentious story they sat on it for 5 years.Upon announcement the find was heralded,[a new “subspecies”]”the “Elder race”or Homo Elder,I think.Estimated 150,000 years old.
10
“Early humans went from having trees available to having only grasses available in just 10 to 100 generations, and their diets would have had to change in response,” he said. “Changes in food availability, food type, or the way you get food can trigger evolutionary mechanisms to deal with those changes. The result can be increased brain size and cognition, changes in locomotion and even social changes — how you interact with others in a group.”
“Some swings occurred so fast they happened in “hundreds of years” – as little as 10 generations in the Olduvai Gorge area.”
==============================
Cognitive changes . . . maybe.
Brain size . . . NFW.
Evolution comes from natural selection between variable traits. Barring mutation, there would have to have been significant variability in brain size for “larger” to be selected. I don’t think that’s possible. The proto-humans would not have changed their breeding habits because there was a shortage of beets.
10
But maybe the advent of savannah hunting, with the need for tactics, teamwork and tools, would have started an inexorable natural selection for the sort of brains able to master those arts.
73
The three t’s : tactics, teamwork and tools.
51
It is true that generally Neanderthals had larger brain capacity than modern humans but this does not
necessarily translate to greater intelligence only the potential.
Physical changes in the environment are more likely to see rapid change in selection of body shape and other factors unrelated to brain size.
One theory is that the large Neanderthal cranium cause difficulties in birthing and poor survival rate among newborn but I am not sure that would be true.
KK
01
As I understand it, intelligence is more related to synaptic density than the overall volume of the brain.
I quite like the idea that the denser your brain is, the more intelligent you are. Therefore being thought dense is actually a complement.
At least, that is my excuse.
30
There is evidence that human ( is that Hom sap sap?) brain activity in the first twelve months far outstripped that of Neanderthals and staved off necrosis (use it or lose it).
A lack of such pathway building in Neanderthals during early periods is indicative of lesser “intelligence” despite their larger brains.
KK
00
Modern humans from the age of about 14 start to emulate the lack of synaptic connects in Neanderthals by the excessive use of alcohol.
KK
00
Aboriginals also have slightly larger brains but with less of the convolutions that we have. A larger head would definitely be associated with deaths during birth. But I don’t think Neanderthals had larger brains, think without looking up their brain was 1000cc compared to our 1300cc (would look it up but it is too HOT to bother, whew, global warming is a bitch, eh? LOL!
15
evidence? lol
10
Max’
The average Neander brain cap was over 1400 cc. Our ancestors in the 1300s.
KK
10
Hi Maxine,
WRT Neanderthal brain size…
There are many other references…
20
Nothing like hardship and a changing environment to drive natural selection! The higher rate of deaths during birth from bigger heads would perhaps have been offset by better techniques in hunting.
03
this makes no sense. Actually few comments here demonstrate any knowledge of natural selection, evolutionary biology or Australian human prehistory.
All I can ask is please check facts before posting and don’t assume that because something sounds right that it is.
And stop mentioning Africa!
23
this makes no sense….actually its a WTF moment
10
“And stop mentioning Africa!”
Can I second that.
Africa for all intents and purposes is so far away as to be another planet.
KK
10
Jo’s post is one that should help us think outside the politically correct squares we get shoved into by “those who know best for all others”.
First a correction for those who haven’t lived and/or worked there; it’s the Kimberley, singular, not “Kimberlies”, plural as often spelt by “armchair experts”.
The sad reality is many “modern” contemporary stories are simply an artifact of politics, where manufacture of “traditional” mythology for political purposes (primarily money and special status) is a reward. Separating historical reality from modern fiction is not always easy. Sometimes longevity and local knowledge help. Political correctness only serves to encourage flexibility with, or ignoring of, the truth, and re-writing history to fit a chosen narrative rather than fact (often it seems to be the intention).
Another sad reality is much (but not all) of the oral history literally died out decades ago when elders passed away with their knowledge intact before others had earned the respect or right (of passage) to be the recipient and therefore custodian of story (mythology) handed down. Many sites of spiritual and ceremonial importance were re-introduced back to the closest descendants or “community” (sometimes a composite of different tribal groups thrown together), who had lost knowledge of their existence, let alone stories. Our national history is much the poorer for it. Who determines fact from fiction?
Geological and climate histories (continual change is the only constant) are inextricably interwoven with the progression of humanity (two steps forward and one back?). Art and other artifacts reflecting past cultures in a geographic setting might be used as another surrogate for interpreting change in natural history and culture of human occupation. The more complex and objective is our knowledge, the better the chance of reaching greater understanding, but with a caveat; providing all political pitfalls are sidestepped and objectivity is achieved. Impossible? We should value history for it’s intrinsic value in a balanced context, and also be prepared to be surprised by new analytical techniques overturning contemporary belief. Are we ready for that?
Everyone on this planet is a descendant of a migrant at some point in history. A focus on common humanity and humane virtues is more important than exploiting often assumed difference for advantage.
120
Hi Realist – good piece.
KK
20
I have found the best and only way to get through to a global warming / climate change brain-dead moron:
Challenge them with questions…
1. What are you afraid of the weather? Don’t think you can cope?
2. Have you ever gone on holiday to a warmer colder part of The world? Did you [snip] in your pants?
3. Are you a [snip] moron?
[—————–keep it clean Mod]
145
lol how to win friends and influence people
210
Climate change is not weather. . .
27
Hi Maxine – according to the UN FCCC – you are absolutely CORRECT!.
No it’s definitely not weather, its…
Simply – human activity that changes the composition of the atmosphere.
20
I suspect that no one ever expected me to say that Maxine was correct.
10
Scared complicit moron ALERT!
10
Evolution and species adaption can be a surprisingly rapid process:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mice%20carnivorous%20island%20huge&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDwQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F1992853%2FMonster-carnivorous-mice-overrun-Gough-Island.html&ei=qmzlUIrsBqTs0gWW14DgCA&usg=AFQjCNG7r0xkfh7XENnNRWT-gFDItoxW9A
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=dogs%20evolution%20siberia%2010000&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CD4QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDog&ei=uW3lUOvvEsa50QXMxoGADg&usg=AFQjCNGkEDcWzea4pSlurHhcuQfqFcp_pw
So, unless you are a creationist, evolution is a fact and man has obviously evolved from less sophisticated species over the last x million years, as he continually adapted to his environment.
Man’s solution to combatting the rapid and erratic changes of climate experienced during the Pleistocene era was by developing the ability to think, learn and make tools etc., which required a much longer time span to reach adulthood. This is neither a good nor a bad thing, it is just a fact. Man nearly became extinct on several ocassions, we just happen to be lucky, in that we are one of nature’s experiments which worked – arguably worked too well.
40
so many comments here make me go arrrg.
Peter, you start with a little known fact about how evolution can be rapid and dramatic. You then make something up.
maybe this is true but actually without evidence this is just rhetoric. It is the “just-so story” trap that even famous evolutionary biologists fall into. It sounds nice, it make a nice narrative and consists of a string of factual statements but the whole thing is completely unsupported by evidence.
There are at least 20 other comments like this and I’d like to award them with an arrg (I don’t think the mods would be happy if I did though)
44
Gee Aye is correct.
11
Well, let’s think about this.
1. I believe it is firmly established that the origin of modern man was in the savannah areas of Africa.
2. Somewhere between 75,000 and 150,000 years ago there was a series of small migrations of modern humans out of Africa, via the Horn of Africa to Arabia.
Comment: This obviously upsets Bible Belt creationists, as it means our ancestors 3,500-5,000 generations ago were black skinned. As man migrated, he adapted to the climate in which he found himself – most became fairer skinned with straighter hair, etc. Maybe a couple of genetic mutations helped this process along.
3. Man’s greatest stride forwards took place in climate areas which cannot be considered ideal – in other words, where the winters were cold and/or where rainfall was low/erratic. In other words, man had to adapt/evolve. He undoubtedly became smarter during this process and one of the things which helped was the prime period of learning – i.e. to early adulthood – was extended.
4. Other primates stayed in the tropics in less challenging climates.
5. Without opposable thumbs, it is unlikely man would have survived and flourished, but many primate species also have this feature.
The problem with evolution is that species adapt to their environment and bigger is usually better (and safer). So, one of the big problems facing man today in this relative age of plenty is we are becoming taller and plumper – and this is not good. Nature did not design man to be 6 feet 8 inches (203cms) tall or have a 44 inch (112cms) waist.
I am not sure what your bitch is about unless you are a creationist. We are what we are and we were all black skinned with curly hair 5,000 generations ago.
Here is Wikipedia’s take on the subject:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=man%2075000%20years%20horn%20of%20africa%20migration&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEarly_human_migrations&ei=gK3mUOOlIpKa1AX8loG4BQ&usg=AFQjCNHMab1E_hRg2zfUFJoX_3T4zUO6kA
30
that s all very interesting and all avoided the point.
By the way, the stuff about skin colour is way off.
12
So you are a creationist.
Just like true believers in the CAGW cult, you can have faith, but you can’t have facts.
10
So because I point out that your facts are not really the same facts that are published in scientific literature, you label me a creationist? I hope my employer doesn’t find out.
10
It’s so sad and odd that we humans are failing to “adapt” to the current crisis by “mitigating”, or stopping it.
Do we have to wait for a global disaster to adapt? Is that not dumb? r Can we not use our brains and prevent it? Are we as clueless as manatees, moving only when we are slashed by propellers?
Who wants to “adapt” to a vast Midwest desert we will create, or to the end of forests and fisheries, or be so casual about the loss of 50% of species, or the eventual loss of 50% of Boston, Charleston, Huntington Beach, 25% of New York City, all of Miami, etc. etc.
When with a little honesty and grit we can stop (or at least mitigate) this man caused armageddon?
422
Hi Jfreed 27
Don’t worry, I think it’s highly unlikely that all the bullshit from the UN and IPCC could overwhelm Boston,
Charleston, Huntington Beach, 25% of New York City and all of Miami.
If it gets too bad we can always defund the whole UN apparatus and find that the problem goes way very quickly.
KK 🙂
132
Great post jfreed. Wasted on most of those here who use junk science, cherry picked real data to pretend the world is cooling.
44°C in Adelaide says it isn’t cooling! Not just Adelaide, pretty much the whole country faces those sort of temperatures today.
In the northern hemisphere summer last year the US, France, much of Europe had record high temperatures. Then we read that temperature readings were close to or exceeded predictions made years ago using the various models.
Scary facing up to what is happening, much nicer to stick your head in the sand like most of those here are doing.
221
In bold…….never thought i would see the day when a warmbot would present as evidence the weather for one day in a small geogaphical area to show how AGW is gunna gitcha if we dont repent.
This is a sad, sad, sad day for the movement, such a sad day indeed.
Next thing you know is Maxwell will be using the past decade in Alaska as evidence of an impending ice age and why not ten years is more significant than one day we just need to wait until he converts to the new religion.
120
Maxine:
And yet, in this very same thread you state at 19.2
You see this is why you guys keep alienating anyone who still bothers to listen – you use the same arguments for whatever agenda you’re trying to push.
By doing it as the same person, you’re just getting lazy.
Keep it up though. It’s working wonders!
90
Yeah yeah, like all churchgoers you lack a sense of humor. Google “humor” oh I give up!
04
Maxine,
Churchgoer? Me? Wow, you seem to be stuck in some stereotypical for loop with no exit condition.
You can remain there – I would find that really funny
20
Humor?
Do you mean this kind of humour?
No – I don’t get it TBH.
20
Hey Maxine – I’m an Atheist and I also do not believe in your much beloved superstitious dogma of CAGW.
Madjak – the Warmists loved the splattergate video and were dumbfounded to discover that it was offensive to blow up people for being indifferent to CAGW.
30
Hallelujah Brother.
00
Max
One of the people blogging here said that they ate a 2 kg box of cherries; or was that mangoes, whatever.
Don’t be too hard on cherry pickers.
Where would we be without them?
Probably eating mangoes instead.
KK
40
I confess – that was me. The cherries were wonderful, much better than mangoes.
10
I would debate that RW.
Cherries are so intense, best used as topping on the mangoes.
KK
00
Max I have experienced many heatwaves around Australia over decades past, check the records
30
Yeah, go look at the records, both hot and cold and report back, I’ll wait. . .hum de dum dum. . .Ah, you are back! What’s that, you found HEAPS of hot records lately but stuff all cold records? Gee, maybe the globe IS warming after all, you think?
04
And is it caused by human activity?
20
You know Maxine, twelve months ago I showed Jo and others of our discussion group a list of 79 occurrences of “3-consecutive-days-of-38C-or-higher-in-Adelaide” and Jo decided to publish it. Today’s scorcher won’t even contribute to the 80th such occurrence unless the BOM has tomorrow’s forecast high of 31C woefully wrong.
“Climate change is not weather” according to you but any weather is evidence of climate change if it is convenient to you!
Just adding to what MadJak has already said!
60
Like I said, learn to recognise humor!
But you will find more heat records, heat records outside the hottest part of the year. In the UK, spring arrives 11 days earlier, causing huge problems for migratory birds.
We just had a record Arctic melt, enough to slow the Gulf Stream, google that and reflect on what that means! It could mean the first refugees from climate change will come from the UK and Europe!
And plants do not benefit from extra CO2, not plants that grow outside of hothouses, they end up producing less protein!
05
What it means Max is that at some time in the future the Earth’s axis will tilt to expose the South more than the North.
The antarctic may melt a bit more than now but you might see a cold snap and huge piles of ice and
snow over the Northern hemi.
Then there will be trouble.
Nature works in mysterious ways.
KK
20
Yeah, you win Maxine. It’s just reached 59.9C in a suburb of Hobart! lol
Look at Dunalley.
http://www.bom.gov.au/tas/observations/hobart.shtml
30
Hi Ian,
I think there’s a glitch in their random number generator program.
Maybe they had 20°C left over and Dunalley seemed like a nice place to put it.
30
Maxine says…
cherry picked real data = 44°C in Adelaide says it isn’t cooling!
Once again Maxine – you excel at demonstrating a complete lack of self awareness. You are quite a curious phenomenon.
20
I’m convinced Maxine is really a skeptic pretending to be pro AGW zealot to demonstrate how stupid the mainstream lamestream understanding of climate change really is.
Well done Maxine! Keep fighting the good fight. Every time you open your mouth someone else awakes from their climate change zombified mindset!
60
The forecast for the maximum temperature in Adelaide tomorrow is 31 degrees C.
00
jfreed27 says…
[1] What crisis – there is no discernible trend in disasters according to the 2012 UN IPCC SREX report.
[2] If you can clearly identify an oncoming disaster, then it would be wise to first determine which strategy will be both (a) Effective, and (b) Efficient in dealing with it, and then implementing the correct strategy.
[3] However, you have yet to clearly identify an oncoming disaster. To do that, you will need to demonstrate that the
is (a) measurably sensitive to the human emissions of GHGs (principally CO2) and (b) is driven by positive feedbacks to increasing concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere and (c) that those positive feedbacks will cause adverse effects.
[4] You have presented these assertions without empirical evidence to support them – hence – these assertions are not credible.
[5] I expect that you honestly believe what you say – however, have you examined and rigorously interrogated the methodology that you use to determine what the actual, known facts about the climate are?
30
A couple of notes here.
* While humans have been evolving and adapting over the last 2 million years, all of agriculture, necessary to support anything like the current population density, has occurred during the 10,000 years of the Holocene period. We appear to be on track to reach global temperatures above any in the Holocene in a century or so.
* Previous climate changes over the last million years or so of our history have primarily been colder, not warmer – the ice ages.
* And finally, adaptation takes time. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which reached ~6°C above current temperatures, resulting in both major extinctions and in new species, occurred at a rate of 0.0003C/year – very rapidly in geological terms. Presently we’re seeing changes in global temperatures averaging ~0.15°C/year, or climate change 500 times faster. We can expect this period to be a major extinction event on its own (current extinction rates are very high already) due to environment shifts occurring too rapidly for genetic drift and variation to permit exploitation of the changing ecological niches.
—
Yes, Homo Sapiens has evolved over several million years, driven at times by changing environmental pressures. But we are currently on track to reach global temperatures above any we’ve dealt with in that evolution, above any during the entire period of agriculture, and at a rate orders of magnitude above those that led to major extinction events. That’s going to be a rough ride… is it a ride we really want to be taking?
318
My apologies, my error, I dropped a decimal place – current changes are 0.015°C/year, 0.15°C/decade. So we’re seeing global temperature change only 50x as fast as the PETM, not 500x.
So – only one or two orders of magnitude faster than the PETM, not three. But geologically, a huge rate, and still orders of magnitude faster than some major extinction events.
The points about exceeding global temperatures seen during the Holocene, and exceeding temperatures seen during the age of agriculture, are unchanged.
416
KR- that argument is precisely why alarmists such as yourself have shown themselves to be not only untrustworthy and duplicitous, but imprecise as well.
Over short time frames, a trend cannot be extrapolated over millenial or epochal timeframes due to the influence of “noise” in the data. No doubt throughout paleo history there have been episodes of 30, 50, 100 or 150 years where temperatures have risen or fallen (independent of mankind’s influence) at far greater than 0.15 degrees per decade, or even 0.15 degrees per year for that matter. To extrapolate a trend in a sinusoidal/cyclical/oscillating planetary temperature fluctuation over such an embarassingly short time frame simply exaggerates “noise” in the signal disproportionately and applies a trend which is not representative of the likely long term result.
Much as a long term bull market on Wall Street cannot then be compared to stock fluctuations in the first 10 minutes of trading on any given day- such a comparison is completely untenable as a comparator. I’m afraid while ever you seek to draw such tenuous comparisons, you look simply desperate rather than knowledgeable or believable. You’ll have to do better than that.
102
So let me get this straight, you got your info from Wiki which i will accept as being correct however here is the quote from Wiki
So the temp rose about 6 C for approximately 20,000 years and from this you/some dodgy scientist/wiki have been able to measure the global temp on a yearly scale from 55 million years ago to the 4th decimal place?
From this you can then deduce that the current rate of warming per year is higher than the PETM and we are all going to die?
Talk about conspiracy theorists, Sonny had more merit in his selling of chemtrails i have seen better arguments mounted about alien abduction. KR this is nothing but bullshit, booga booga, the voodoo science you lot are famous for, this is junk, crap, rubbish, a joke, embarrassing.
FFS KR i expect better from you, this is MattB territory…………………
111
Hi Winston, Crakar24 – well said.
I too, was mystified by the amazing accuracy of measurement down to 100ths of a degree celsius.
KR: – You need to watch what you actually claim is indeed warranted by the available empirical evidence, and that you do not fall into a trap caused by confirmation bias. (presuming that you want to be credible).
40
Nah, not really.
KK
22
“We appear to be on track to reach global temperatures above any in the Holocene in a century or so. ”
WAFLOBS !!!
Where did you dredge that piece of rubbish up from !! A climate model or something ??
Get off those panic tablets, and back to reality !!
114
AndyG55 – That particular temperature comparison comes from paleo data on foraminifera shell composition (directly affected by sea tempeartures) versus current sea surface temperature observations (Hansen et al 2006 and references, among others). That estimate is based on some very strong data. As the saying goes, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts”.
We’re currently at or within 0.5°C (by the most conservative estimate) of the Holocene maximum global temperature, and about 1°C below the warmest interglacials in the past 1.35 million years.
And, given our current practice of increasing greenhouse gases, global temperatures will continue to rise. At the current rate even a 0.5°C difference will be gone in 35 years.
314
Yawn.
And for all that, the ‘warming’ (if it exists at all) is statistically insignificant. Typical warmist, running up to the naked emperor with a fig leaf.
92
KR/Johnny B/Silly horse etc etc
If you (and your warmist brothers & sisters) were SERIOUS about the so called dangers of carbon (sic) dioxide they’d agree we should be looking at other means of generating power besides non-renewables and wind or solar (neither wind nor solar “cut the mustard”).
If you were REALLY serious about saving the planet because you all think CO2 isn’t plant food then you’d think about investing research money into things like LENR technology but NO we’ll miss the bus because we’ll be too busy following this warmist SCAM religion.
You could insist that Toyota use the odd $40 million we’ve given them to assist with their investigations and experiments into LENR with us then having a finger in the pie so to speak.
No – you’d just rather give money to despots, carbon traders and the UN for nothing with absolutely NO return.
Bunch of fools!!!
Cheers,
00
As extrapolated in the models which assume (ie do not prove) that increases in greenhouse gases have a causative affect on global temperatures, and which also assume (without any rationale) that the extrapolation will continue at the current rate indefinitely.
Anybody who has worked with cattle will recognise that for what it is. Where is your empirical evidence?
143
Rereke Whakaaro – I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with the evidence from basic spectroscopy, measured (and attributed) increases in greenhouse gases, corresponding spectral changes observed from orbit, ocean heat content showing an average of ~0.6 W/m^2 imbalance over the last 50 years as predicted by the spectroscopy, etc etc.
In other words, from the science of the last century and a half, and from the data.
As to extrapolation, an expection of increasing greenhouse gas concentration, hence ongoing energy imbalance, hence rising temperatures – that’s the only reasonable conclusion from our energy practices unless something changes.
415
KR,
Thank you for sharing that. It has confirmed my understanding that the current observational methods, with regard to the measurement of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, have not appreciably improved since I studied Physics, many years ago.
With an exception, of course, of the satellite observations, which have only been available for the last few decades.
But what your explanation lacks is the causal link between CO2 concentration and temperature. It misses an explanation of the cause and effect relationship.
An explanation of why and how the increase in the presumed cause is relatively constant, whilst the measurement of the presumed effect is so variable, would also be most enlightening.
I don’t actually accept conclusions, reasonable or otherwise, without understanding the method used to demonstrably move from observation to the formulation of a conclusion.
In my day, omitting that last detail would result if an F grade on an examination. Perhaps you would care to expand on your original comment?
101
Thanks Rereke Whakaaro,
KR – yes – the method does matter.
30
Rereke Whakaaro – Perhaps you would care to expand on your original comment?
I would suggest following and reading the link I provided on the science in my last post. It’s a good overview, complete with additional links and a good bibliography of relevant primary sources.
In addition, the physics such as spectroscopy, lapse rate, and the Stephan-Bolzmann relationship are discussed with respect to the radiative greenhouse effect in many venues.
“In my day, omitting that last detail would result if an F grade on an examination.”
In my day, failure to do the reading would result in an F on an examination.
11
Rereke Whakaaro – One other reference for you (and anyone else who is interested), which lays out the basics of how CO2 effects the climate:
The CO2 problem in 6 easy steps
If you have questions about particulars, there is significant discussion of the various aspects of the radiative greenhouse effect, observational support, etc, in the comments.
If (as I rather expect) anyone complains about this information due to the sources, I’m just going to laugh. Follow the links to the primary references, the papers with the data.
10
Pity about the last 16 years then, for your theory, sorry, conjecture.
The temperatures during the Holocene have risen and fallen, local climates changed, globally climate varied. The ice caps have varied in extent. We’re still here.
Quoting Hansen as a source is surely a joke. If smilin’ Jim said the sky was blue I’d check. You’ve got nothing to support your idea that temperatures will continue to rise except some theoretical considerations. I’m not interested in any supposed CO2 effects unless you mix it with the amounts of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere. from what I’ve seen the relatively small amount of CO2 and its variations doesn’t make much difference except to plant growth.
123
My apologies, my reply went here.
04
Mike you can add this new paper to support your case
http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/3/561/2012/esdd-3-561-2012.html
10
Hansen.. I wonder when he will be tried for “grevious data torturing”
30
LOL, using Hansen as ANY REFERNECE of fact is a joke. !!! The guy is one of the CAGW priests known for massive exaggeration
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/hologisp2.png
We are NOWHERE NEAR the MWP or RWP and certainly not within cooee of the Holocene optimum.
70
And note.. the long term trend is DOWN !! And unfortunately, for many generations in the future, is going to stay that way.
Long term…….. gradually colder and colder. Unless of course it really falls off the cliff first.
70
“Long term trend is down” that is not what the UK Met Office said.
06
Maxine – that would be the long term trend in the Holocene is down.
Please try and stay in the context.
Thanks ExWarmist
30
For and excellent presentation on the global nature of the MWP and the LIA, you cant go past John Daly.
Also happens to be a handy refutation of Michael Manns Hockey Stick.
30
KR, why are you so afraid of climate change?
Are you this mal-adjusted in other areas of your life?
Change is a natural part of life. I suggest you embrace it rather than fight it.
20
I wonder what some far distant future archaeologist will think when the paintings on the Sistine Chapel ceiling are uncovered.
What will the future think of us? Will they learn from us? Will they marvel at the skills we had in so many things? Or will they discover and catalog only our mistakes? Both will certainly be on display.
30
Roy your time-scale is awry: never mind distant future, the present generation are dumbstruck and befuddled that people actually used to think of things for themselves, aw, fifty years ago.
It amazes ME to compare what NASA did in its first few years of existence with the pathetic litany of failures said organisation manages today.
So in answer to your question, yes, the present generation try to learn from their ancestors….specifically, NASA engineers had to bring Pratt and Whitney engineers out of decades of retirement (those still alive) to show them how to build an engine first made 50 years ago,the J2.
50
But they’re doing such a good job of representing the western world and its technological culture to the Muslim. How can they fail at that? There’s no challenge at all, just instant built-in success.
40
Back in the late 90s I think it was Jerry Pournelle who asked a NASA high up how long it would take to go back to the Moon with people. He said they could not do it. Jerry pointed out it took 8 years starting from essentially very little and we had a much larger knowledge base now. Still “we can’t do it”. Maybe the Second Republic will do better.
40
Personally, my bench mark is the X15. almost weekly flights by a manned hypersonic spaceplane and only one accident in several years regular operation. This starting BEFORE Gagarin.
Compared with their latest effort, a poxy five foot flying surf-board that flew for a few minutes after release from a rocket. Estes could do as well.
There IS such a thing as going backwards.
00
Now the impetus is with the private sector.
00
I think they just packed it in because of all the copyright pirates thieving their work to put on Tumblr.
10
I recently visited Kangaroo Island just off the coast of South Australia (Australia’s 4th largest Island). I was interested to find that while there was some evidence of previous Aboriginal habitation, they had long since disappeared from the Island before ‘white man’ arrived. There were a number of theories proposed by those who had studied the subject regarding the demise of Aborigines from the island from a prolonged drought, to over hunting. But the fact is they really don’t know.
This article is presenting a working hypothesis regarding why the style of art in the Kimberley changed, but whether it can be tested, or whether the vehement denial of the hypothesis can be tested is to be seen. I would say the science on this matter is clearly not settled.
Without any reasonable basis I can propose my own theory based on my visit many years ago to Peru and in particular the grand Inca city of Cusco and the ceremonial mountain perched city of Machu Picchu. I learnt that as sophisticated as Inca society had been, they had not left a written language. The Inka kept their accounts, their genealogy, their astronomical calculations, and their stories on a complicated system of cords and knots made from Llama wool, called quipu. The Spanish destroyed most of them and as only the ruling class understood this system, and the Spanish were ruthless in killing the ruling class, the remaining native Inca Indians were unable to decipher the quipu which survived.
In other ancient societies it was most common for only the ruling class to be the writers, recorders and indeed the artists – for instance the Egyptians in the times of the Pharaohs. When those cultures suffered massive shocks, those high end skills often died out because the only skills that mattered were the ones which kept you alive. The ones which enabled you to find food and water.
It is conceivable that in times of plenty in the Kimberley region there could have developed an ‘artist’ class among the Aboriginal people who were able to spend their time perfecting their fine art skills. As food and water was readily available, the rest of a tribe didn’t mind supporting them, or perhaps it was so abundant, finding sustenance took so little time, much time could be devoted to art. But when the climate changed and food and water became scarce individuals and tribes could not afford to spend time on fine arts. Perhaps there was even competition among tribes and families including warring for the best resources. It is likely the best artists were probably not the best fighters or the best providers. So while parts of the tribe survived continuously in the area, the artists didn’t, nor did interest in art. Focus had to be on finding food and water.
When the climate stabilised and food and water became more readily available and the population more stable, their attention may have been drawn to art once more, but they were re-learning it. They hadn’t developed any skills which were handed down from the previous generations.
My theory has at least as much logic as simply saying that the style of art had just changed from the complex to the simplistic.
50
Hi Jaymez.
There is a possibility that ice was a problem until it started warming 18,000 years ago but in relation to accessibility Google earth shows that the land bridge is only 30 metres below current sea levels.
This pathway would have been covered say 10,000 years back (very roughly) so between the cold and the rising seas there may have only been a relatively short period of access to the island on foot.
KK
30
That’s how they got there obviously, but that doesn’t explain why they died out or disappeared. It’s not like they all walked back over to the mainland before the rising waters isolated the island because the evidence of occupation post dates it becoming an island.
10
“We are the lucky bastards at the end of a long line of poor sods”. Sometimes, a Australian can say it better than anyone… 🙂
30
And what could possibly be more of a threat to species than mere “climate change”?
Windmills, that’s what!
This wildlife biologist in the UK has some interesting stats.
Note the reference to the threatened Tasmanian wedge tailed eagle, especially in light of Hydro Tasmania’s plans to build 200 bird blenders on King Island.
51
44°C in Adelaide in January. . .how is that global cooling thing going for you? Can you send some my way? Would have to be from Antarctica but even that is warming and losing ice pretty rapidly as these things go.
Bird blenders Jo? Not trying to be emotive or anything? Any sensible person likes clean energy even if they believe against the evidence that the globe is cooling. Coal produces dirty power, tons of pollution spewed out. Then, emission free power means the oceans won’t continue to get less and less alkaline and any sensible person welcomes that.
218
Like it has never done that before. Thank you for taking the time to advertise your stupidity for the the world to admire in posterity.
131
Mike Borgelt – As I’ve noted elsewhere on this site, 16 years isn’t enough data to separate the 0.15C/decade trend from a null hypothesis of no trend. It’s insufficient evidence to make claims either way. And if you include enough data for statistical significance (1994 HadCRUT4 trend of 0.119 ±0.103 °C/decade (2σ), the earliest date actually separating trend and null), the null hypothesis is rather soundly rejected.
16 years (especially starting from a 3-sigma extreme El Nino, rather than the previous trend) is a statistically insignificant cherry-pick – at that point you are only looking at noise.
310
Santer says 17 yrs is the magic figure , so only one year to wait !!!
91
Ross – The time required for statistical significance depends on the data and it’s variation. Santer was discussing RSS and the minimum possible period (I expect it would take longer if you started from a 2-3σ extreme, for example); for HadCRUT4 you need to go back to 1994 to separate a trend and the null hypothesis.
As to 1998:
HadCRUT4 trends from:
1996: 0.095 per decade
1998: 0.044 per decade
1999: 0.08 per decade (hmm)
If you’re seeing a trend change of a factor of 2x from year to year, you’re looking at too little data – you are just looking at noise. Nothing to draw a conclusion from, other than the need for more data to make a determination.
48
HadCrud4 has a manufactured trend, mostly dues to “adjustments”
It is meaningless.
64
KR
I have cut and pasted the following from a post by Werner Brozek on a recent thread on WUWT. Note he is using a tool on the Skepticalscience website !!
80
Ross – That is indeed a useful tool, as it properly incorporates autocorrelation (for ARMA(1,1) behavior) in the uncertainty estimates.
As I said earlier, Santer et al 17 years is the absolute minimum required for statistical significance in RSS. That doesn’t mean it will hold in all cases, in particular cases incorporating 2 or 3 sigma peak variations, but simply that you would never be able to separate a trend from the null hypothesis (either way) with less data.
45
Ross,
Problem being that after 17 years of no change, Santer (or someone else) will then push the goal posts out to 20 years….25 years….. Oh well, you get the picture.
Wasn’t it NOAA’s models in 2008 that ruled out 15 years of stasis with 95% confidence? Oh dear, about the only time they were prepared to falsify their hypothesis, it backfired on them. I feel their pain!
You can bet they won’t make that booboo again.
53
Current CO2 levels 392.81ppm
For RSS the warming is NOT significant for 23 years.
For RSS: +0.130 +/-0.136 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
CO2 levels in 1990 353.05 increase of 39.76ppm and no significant warming
For UAH, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For UAH: 0.143 +/- 0.173 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hacrut3, the warming is NOT significant for 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.098 +/- 0.113 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
CO2 levels in 1994 357.56 increase of 35.25ppm and no significant warming
For Hacrut4, the warming is NOT significant for 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.098 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
CO2 levels in 1995 359.4 increase of 33.41ppm and no significant warming
For GISS, the warming is NOT significant for 17 years.
For GISS: 0.113 +/- 0.122 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1996
CO2 levels in 1996 360.84 increase of 31.97ppm and no significant warming
This shortfall in warming compared to the predictions based on a theory needs to be addressed now, we cannot hide behind the notion that we need umpteen years to pass before we can make a descision rubbish.
Based on the above this is a non problem and a non problem requires no action like carbon taxes and Kyoto treaties however in umpteen years from now we will take another look and if we percieve there to be a problem then we can talk about taxes and what not.
Just sitting here trying to bide some time with your fingers and toes crossed hoping the planet defies logic and starts to warm up thus proving yourself right is not an acceptable response.
KR instead of trying to baffle us with bullshit with stats why dont you start by explaining the lack of warming younever know you might convince us but your present course is only making you lokk like a fool.
73
Crakar24, Ross, Mark – A proper statistical analysis consists of looking at sufficient data to separate a hypothesis (such as a trend) from a null hypothesis (such as no warming).
When you have sufficient data to distinguish between trend and null with 2σ certainty, at the earliest point for any global temperature data where that determination can be made over the last 45 years, the null hypothesis of no warming is rejected by the data. In fact, over 30 years the null hypothesis is rejected with 99.99% certainty.
Those are the facts. And you are really not entitled to your own facts…
If/when temperature data shows a 2σ separation (just to be consistent with normal statistical practice) that rejects the hypothesis of a particular trend, I will happily agree that such a trend is not occurring. But not before. And that just hasn’t happened.
39
Ross,
KR is looking for his microscope now. He’s trying to see exactly what dance the angels are doing on the pinheads!
52
Your spot on, the warming, cooling, or any other trend does not show up in short term observations. Short term variation is too large when viewing a decades worth of data. as you use more of it, the trend becomes more certain. Stats are a funny thing hey! No I take that back – it’s perfectly obvious really!
Try using larger amounts of data, then you start to see significance.
Ever wondered why no “skeptic” ever cherry picks 1984 as a start year?
22
A good lesson on statistical significance.
http://www.fool-me-once.com/2010/07/global-warming-has-stopped.html
11
KR,
So by your own definition Maxine is an idiot and Mike is 100% correct?
64
Well, noise is all you are looking at. Stop wasting our time with your bs, troll.
82
Don’t worry Mike , KR will be contacting the guys at Skepticalscience and telling them to take the calculation tool off their site as it doesn’t provide an indication of the facts as he sees them.
I note he has stretched the time out to 45 years now !!!Just proving Mark’s point.
52
Global cooling is just fine – it is on holiday in the Northern Hemisphere right now, it should come back south around April/May, so no need to fret.
And I am pleased to hear that the normal Antarctic ice melt is proceeding according to schedule. It means that the real empirical scientific experiments conducted at McMurdo and Ross Island research stations can proceed as planned. That is great news.
Bird blenders? Yes, it is an emotive term. But when you walk across the Scottish highlands, and you see that once majestic landscape defiled in the cause of obtaining Government subsidies, and you observe all of the bird carcasses rotting under those windmills, it does make you feel a little emotive. It has been known to bring a tear to my eye, although I just claim it is the wind.
It also appears stupid and somewhat counter intuitive, to destroy the environment for the purposes of … saving the environment. It is like a surgeon saying, “The only way I can save your leg, is by cutting it off”.
And as for your stupid belief in “emission free power” … Well, try calculating how much concrete goes into the footings for each of those bird blenders, and then multiply that by the emissions produced in the mining of raw materials, and the manufacture, transportation, and construction of those footings. And then do the same for each power pylon used to carry this “clean” energy to a point where it can connect to the existing grid. And then take into account the energy expended in maintaining each and every bird blender on a two-monthly cycle.
But of course, you won’t do any of that, will you. That would require some fact checking, and then some thinking, and then, heaven forbid, some introspection, and perhaps re-evaluation of your belief system.
142
Hi RW
You left something out.
The casualty rate.
For any industry there is a safety background that is important.
Running a coal fired power station or Nuclear powered plant have different but estimable (is that the word) risks.
During construction of Sydney harbour bridge, there were a few deaths, during the winning of coal needed for steel making there was likewise a human toll in poor health , injury and death even in the best of circumstances.
Just in the area of maintenance, per mega watt hour, wind turbines have a very high mortality rate attached when compared to the same generating capacity of coal fired power.
As you say , things are not always what they seem.
30
Oh for the love of God you just finish dismantling one idiots belief system and another one turns up.
Maybe this one can go one step further than the last
Please show us how your God is warming the planet
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/01/uah-v5-5-global-temperature-update-for-december-2012-0-20-deg-c/
51
Thank goodness the NH is still holding some heat !!
Most probably generated from urban area.
Tropics and SH are starting to cool as expected due to the lazy sun.
51
The definition of “dirty power” means it is not a stable 50Hz or in the case of aircraft 400Hz. The power will fluctuate, the power will spike that is dirty power. Dirty power does not mean it has been rolling around in the mud all day, dirty power does not mean you produce Co2 when you make it.
If you wish to be an idiot thats fine with me but can you at least get your definitions right??????????????????
61
“dirty power does not mean you produce Co2 when you make it. ”
In fact it almost certainly mean the opposite. Power from coal stations is generally very stable, its all the silly little feed-ins from so-called “alternatives” that destabalise the supply network.
Alternatives.. the electricity you have when you don’t have electricity.
61
January 45.7
Jan 4th, 44°C, it gets hotter as January goes along, indicating we will break that record.
05
Poor Maxine afraid of a little hot weather? Don’t think your grandchildren will be able to adapt? Maybe natural selection will do it’s job on you.
Me? I’ll get an air conditioner. Hahhahaha
31
from the newspaper
“THE mercury in Adelaide has soared past today’s forecast of 44 degrees, and is threatening a record set in the city in 1939</strong>”
10
Maxine records are broken somewhere in the world some time all the time. Last week we had 40C+ temperatures in Perth now it’s down to high 20C’s while Adelaide swelters. I don’t think you can look at one part of the country and call that GLOBAL warming! Of course the thousands of people who have died in rural Siberia and hundreds in Moscow from temperatures lower than -40C would probably happily swap with those in Adelaide and go to the beach.
20
Maxine,
Max. temperature records: for the 35.2 years between 1977 and 2012, BOM
Adelaide daily records, maximum high
November 43.0C
December 42.5C
January 45.7C
February 44.3C
March 41.9C
So January and February historically have high temperature days.
The temperature today in Adelaide is nothing unusual……get over it!
80
Update for Maxine
At RAAF Base Edinburgh it was 36C at 0900 and 39C at 0930, all times in India-Kilo of course.
40
Another Update for Maxine
The temperature is actually going down in Adelaide at present, not up, in Adelaide, at Adelaide airport and Edinburgh
http://www.bom.gov.au/sa/observations/adelaide.shtml
40
Gee, you think the change is moving in?
03
Wow – just wow – climate change in action…
30
You start thinking critically rather than being a parrot?
No I don’t think that change is moving in.
30
Not at 11.27 am when to remark was posted, it wasn’t.
00
Quite frankly, seeing we are still, hopefully, climbing out of the the LIA, and considering that urban heat effects can add as much as 3-4C to a local temperature, I am amazed at the lack of records that have been set recently. I would have expected far more.,
Maybe it isn’t getting as warm as we thought. !! 😉
Are we over the peak already? Darn 🙁
50
Maxine:
At 21.2:
At 29:
And yet, in this very same thread you state at 19.2
.
You see this is why you guys keep alienating anyone who still bothers to listen – you use the same arguments for whatever agenda you’re trying to push.
By doing it as the same person, you’re just getting lazy. The fact that you’ve done it more than once in the same thread as the same person suggests something even more insulting.
Keep it up though. It’s working wonders! Maybe we could go for a hat-trick?
70
Not going to happen MadJak
You see the 44C forecast for Adelaide is based on BOM modeling. And this is the same crowd that is giving us the modeling on CAGW.
For analysis of the BOM predictions go to
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?cat=20
I for one don’t believe one word of any BOM forecast…..my ants do a better job.
40
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20130103.shtml
Sticking your head in the sand may make you feel safe but is now way to cope with what is coming your way.
011
Maxine well done on your quoting government propaganda and then using the old “head in sand” analogy….
I would rather have my head in the sand than right up my (snip) like you do.
Australia has hot days . GTFO IT! lolol
40
Speaking of sticking ones head in the sand….
Whenever one place experiences extreme heat, another place experiences extreme cold. It was ever thus and always will be.
The question is, how does the above affect average temperatures? Picking a few extreme hot days at some place in Australia (wow some place in Australia experienced hot summer days, who’d a thunk?) and believing it to be all about AGW is dumbass personified.
60
Maxine I wouldn’t rely on the BOM if I were you, the manager of Climate services David Jones who authorised and released the report you quote is equally famous for his other utterings on climate. Quoting fools just makes you look foolish:
He is the same climate alarmist who wrote to UK Climate Scientist Phil Jones (of East Anglia University and Hadcrut/IPCC fame) in Sep 2007 in one of the leaked ‘Climate Gate’ emails:
0601.txt
cc: “Shoni Dawkins” < [email protected]>
date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 08:28:03 +100 ???
from: “David Jones” < [email protected]>
subject: RE: African stations used in HadCRU global data set
to: “Phil Jones” < [email protected]>
………..”Truth be know, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it. Almost everyone of our cities is on the verge of running out of water and our largest irrigation system (the Murray Darling Basin is on the verge of collapse – across NSW farmer have received a 0% allocation of water for the coming summer and in Victoria they currently have 5% allocations – numbers that will just about see the death of our fruit, citrus, vine and dairy industries if we don’t get good spring rain).
The odd things is that even when we see average rainfall our runoffs are far below average, which seems to be a direct result of warmer temperatures. Recent polls show that Australians now rate climate change as a greater threat than world terrorism.”………..
Thanks to David Jones and other equally errant climate alarmists who mistook natural climate and weather events for signs of catastrophic man made climate change, Australia now has $12 Billion in mothballed Desalination plants costing hundreds of millions of dollars in maintenance and other contract obligations. We also missed the opportunity to build flood mitigation dams which would have saved billions of dollars in flood damage, and engineers at Wivenhoe didn’t bother to reduce dam levels before the wet season which would have significantly reduced the impact of the Brisbane floods to which all Australians had to contribute through the flood levy.
Fortunately most of the world has woken up to the stupidity of the claims you still cling to and have refused to sign up to Kyoto II. The fact that the original Kyoto targets were to reduce global CO2 emissions by 5% below 1990 levels and they have in fact increased by 58% over 1990 levels, yet global average temperatures have failed to increase for 16 years, falsifies the CAGW theory and all the climate models you and your heroes relied upon.
30
Maxine,
Don’t try to scare me with 44 C. It’s only a paltry 111.2 F. Try Blythe California in August, 122 F (50 C); or the Phoenix Arizona area, 120 F regularly (49 C); or Yuma Arizona in the summer, 120 – 130 F (130 F = 54 C); or Death Valley in the summer with 130 plus being possible.
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. Summer temperatures there can be 110 F (43 C), higher is not unknown. So, Adelaide is hotter than you can remember — what of it?
Records are only what we’ve recorded so far and have nothing to do with the future. Do you really have the nerve to assert that the very, very short term records we have available are a good indicator of what’s normal and what’s not?
A couple of years ago I recorded a local winter low temperature of 25 F (-3.9 C). Since I’ve been watching the highs and lows (over 40 years in the same area) I’ve never seen an overnight frost go that low. But it doesn’t mean another ice age is upon us. Last summer’s hot days were not even a record locally.
You don’t like the dirty exhaust from coal fired power plants. Good! Now give us all a break and talk about how those coal fired plants can be cleaned up. That would actually benefit everyone in Australia. But that’s not what you really care about, is it?
10
It’s all about money !! Here is a laugh to start off the new year
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/pope-of-global-warming-just-lined-his.html
71
Hey Ross,
The Gore family made money out of oil and tobacco – it was either Al Jazeera or Philip Morris.
Geez, it must be tough for the well intentioned people who followed him.
Here’s some advice – you might want to reconsider the prospect of taking scientific advice from a politician with a degree in fine arts and law!
Suckers
60
Actually Glenn Beck made Gore a very good offer for his little propaganda operation. He would have folded it into his own similar network and turned those assets into something worthwhile. Gore turned him down.
So now Al Jazeera gets to continue the legacy of financial failure started by Gore. Read that as my prediction that Al Jazeera won’t make it profitable either. But of course, they don’t intend to, do they?
If Gore and his supporters had half as much commitment to their cause as they have to themselves they’d poor their own money into the thing in spite of the financial failure.
Al Jazeera doesn’t suffer from that selfish affliction.
00
“Two million years of climate change has made us human ”
Speak for yourself, Jo. I know I’m no longer quite in the first flush of youth, but I’m a long way from two million.
It’s coffee in the morning that makes me human.
50
“At the end of the day, we have a civilization, that allows millions of people to pursue happiness”
(Pssst. Superfluous comma. The one after “civilization” should be omitted.)
——–
Thanks for the proofing. Fixed 🙂 — Jo
40
You’re welcome. I’m always ready to be irritatingly, nitpickingly, pedantic.
10
Meet the Liberal Elite!
10
Very interesting viewing. Typical Labor female attitude.
00
The other interesting thing about the Bradshaws is that the paintings are fused into the siliceous patina of the rock faces they are painted on. Or more accurately, they are under this siliceous patina which has preserved them. This patina is somewhat pervasive in the Kimberley Region.
22
Do you have any idea of its origin Louis?
KK
00
All I know is that the Kimberley Aborigines regard them as rubbish paintings, there before they were on the scene. That in itself is surprising as well. No way to date the patina either but from the plasma work some of us suspect them to be older than 10,000 years since the plasma phenomena carved world wide as petroglyphs are tentatively dated at that time. However, that’s petroglyphs, and no one has, as far as I know, documented a petroglyph carved over a Bradshaw, so the age date is a guess. These paintings are also seen on Madagascar I am told but that needs to be verified.
OT but an innocuous statement of fact gets 2 thumbs down? Only a brain dead lefty would do that.
20
Origin of the patina!
Misinterpreted your question – the patina seems a climatic effect but geologically I’m not sure. A similar coating exists on the Hawkesbury sandstone in NSW as well, but those are better defined as quartzites. (Actually drilling the Hawkesbury Sandstone, say under the Cordeaux Dam I supervised during 1977/78 showed that at depth it was soft pliable and slightly sticky sand that under drying turned into the sandstone we are familiar with at surface). We have no idea what surface process could achieve this development of patina on the sandstones in the kimberleys. Might have chance to check it out during the dry season this year.
20
Sorry, should have been more specific.
Thanks
There are probably 3 main mechanisms.
Windblown liquid deposited on walls.
Liquid exuding from sandstone to dry on the surface.
Flooded and deposit left.
KK
00
Possibility 3 requires a flood of Noachian dimensions
Possibility 2 – well, yes, all sand deposits would initially be waterlogged but the sheer dimensions of these beds, the internal structures raises serious questions.
And wind blown moisture might be plausible but if the standard model is correct, then we need to also be able to show it happening today; we can’t.
10
Yes, Noachian, definitely off the list.
Visited the Museum of Natural History in New York in 2009.
In the geology section they had a small but fascinating exhibit which was just a few rocks including
granite sitting on pedestals. beside each sample was a beaker with water to indicate the amount of
water contained in each sample.
I was astounded to see that so called, solid rock actually contained so much free water.
In light of this, the less densely packed (than granite) “dry” sandstone could still hold an amount
that could perhaps later be pushed out by some pressure effect.
Provided of course that it could pick up and hold the siliceous material.
KK
00
I think it’s a climate effect somehow – high humidity but until you get a specimen, cut a thin section and observe the skin and underlying rock with a petrological microscope, it’s all airy fairy stuff. You are right about the water content though – milky quartz has a lot of water in it.
10
Ok
Narrowing it down.
Most likely a differential humidity effect with water coming from rock in dry spells to evaporate on the surface leaving the siliceous material to harden.
00
I did an archaeology module as a filler in my current degree and got a “2”. I didn’t have to read about cave paintings and the fascinating assessment topic of Pacific migration Ive now largely forgotten. But the one thing that really made an impression on me in Archaeology was that the prehistoric folk had a really easy time of it. Food was so abundant that foragers could gather enough in a few weeks to live on for a year whilst the North Americans who slaughtered bison thousands at a time simply abandoned untouched much more than they ever ate. What they did eat were only the “gourmet cuts”. Their whole lives consisted almost entirely of feasting, crafts and sex.
43
and death.
42
Small correction GA
No only the bit at the very end not for their whole lives.
30
yeah that didn’t follow too well. My point was that the “easy life” was markedly short and full of disease and war and predators and everything else you can think of as bad (apart from elected governments).
Of course since dying they’ve spent all their time dead.
21
Uuum No Ace , hunter/gatherer lifestyles are only bountiful and idyllic in hippies dreams , nature in the raw is a savage bitch with You on Her menu . A very beautiful and majestic bitch yes , but a bitch nonetheless
20
No Byron, that is precisely what I thought. But studying Archaeology taught me otherwise. I am always willing to change my opinion and all the physical and experimental data pointed to an easy life.
Experimental? Well experiments HAVE been conducted in which people HAVE gathered enough food in a month to live on for a year in conditions comparable to the pre-historic mid-East.
Physical data? Yes, tonnes of it (literally). North American nomadic peoples slaughtered bison by driving entire herds into gulleys where they were crushed by their own mass. These kills are preserved. When you dig down into them you find only the “gourmet cuts” of the kill have been butchered. The bulk of each carcass was discarded. Fully an entire third of all the animals killed (thats the entirety of one in three animals) was totally untouched.They remain til the present at the bottom of these gulleys.
So, as a matter of fact, the food was abundant. Moreover, in both the instances I refer to such people had no natural predators.
As for disease and discomfort, well its interesting because what ended all of the above ease was population growth, which indicates a relative lack of disease. Whilst who would consider going to work in a poxy job (eg, fish-gutter) 8.00 – 6.00 6 days aweek for 50 years to be “comfort”?
12
…oh, there were no wars in that era as there were no polities to engage in war and populations were so diffuse that there was no competition or rivalry for resources. Each group was unlikely to encounter anyone else to go to war with.
02
Boom and bust , One successful hunt doesn`t feed you for the Year and as you don`t get migratory herds of bison coming past at 3:00 pm on alternate days they had to follow the herds , prior to the introduction of the horse , hunting bison that would have been hard brutal , constantly on the trot , NEVER stopping , carrying uncured buffalo hide waterskins and all Your tools and weapons (long way between rivers on the plains ), The safest way to head large herds in to gullies etc would have been to set fire to a large area of grass , if it`s not dry enough or it`s covered in snow or the wind changes You`re buggered .
The other option is to use a burning branch etc as torch and try and spook them with that , you fail ,You die . You reckon it`d be easy ? See how You go trying to turn a mob of domestic cattle when You`re on a motorbike and They`re in a mood . Now think about trying to do that on foot with a burning torch , a flint tipped spear and a mob of 20,000 or so bison with adult males pushing the one tonne mark in the front ranks bearing down on You at 50 km/h with bloody murder in their tiny little brains . One of the character traits the bison is renown for btw is violent unpredictable behavior .
Oh and the reason why they only ate the best cuts of meat from the rare big kills should be obvious ……..didn`t get that either well NO refrigerators , during summertime , all just a pile rotting putrescence inside 4 days at best , you can`t make anymore biltong or jerky than you can carry if You`re going to follow the herd .
Non-Nomadic tribes DID hunt Bison but it was only a once a year bonus as the Bison went past IF things went right, the rest of the year back to foraging , snaring or spearing anything you could
40
From an original estimated population of up to 100 million, the North American Bison were slaughtered by hunters with guns for the pelts, and to ‘control’ Indian populations and by railroad companies. They were hunted almost to extinction and caused the starvation of many native north American Indians who had relied on them as a food source. http://www.conservenature.org/learn_about_wildlife/prairie/bison.htm
10
The study Jo gives us is interesting, i note that the scientists believe the original inhabitants (Bradshaw artists) died out approx 7 to 5 K years ago. Then where replaced by others i assume around 5 K years ago, interestingly the Dingo arrived in Australia about that time.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/33/12387.full
The dingo can be seen in more recent artwork, it would be interesting to know whether Dingo’s appeared in the bradshaw art.
Is it possible that the Dingo hitched a ride with the newer people that arrived?
Did two million years of climate change make us what we are? Of course it did, every species evolves to adapt to the environment, i watched a show about Neanderthals and they said we all started as a sub species of humans some went north some stayed in the south then the ice age split us in two. After the ice age we met up again and we looked a little different, each one of us has some Neanderthal DNA in us, we split, we changed, then we reintegrated.
We are still evolving today, problem is we have people that view this evolution as a bad thing, nasty humans releasing CO2 into the ATM these people need to either get on board or get out of the way as their ideas are nothing more than simplistic ramblings.
81
Ramblings yes, but also a cunning highly political agenda with parasites seeking to create more wealth from the alarmist con.
61
I’ve heard that finer-boned people inhabited this country before the current indigenous people. The claim was based on a skeleton at Lake Mungo, a skeleton that was uncovered then, when the Aboriginals quickly protested, was covered up again. I’m wondering if this change of drawing styles in the Kimberleys doesn’t point to the same possibility.
51
Actually the Book of Revelations in the Bible predicts that massive climate change will happen, and it will kill one-third of the earth’s population.
14
Hey, don’t you just love this stuff.
“According to Magill, many anthropologists believe that variability of experience can trigger cognitive development.”
Experiential forcings drive cognitive change? Plenty of scope to have some cognitive fun here.
Toss some more of those dummy variables on the barbie!
20
ACE at 35
I think it is fair to say that each society lives at the carrying capacity of its lands – which means some abundances in certain seasons but shortages at other times. The First Fleeters noticed this at Botony Bay – when winter saw the indigenous tribesmen unable to fish because of bad weather. They describe much privation amongst the indigenous peoples over the winter period.
This makes sense. Obviously they cannot live beyond the carrying capacity of the land for any extended period – but if there is excess will increase their populations until they are living at the capacity again. The thing with hunter and gatherer or even subsistance agriculture is that they are not in control of their environment but are subject to that environment – or perhaps more accurately a fully integrated part of that environment and therefore subject to its constant ebbs and flows.
Things look a little different today because a combination of western agriculture and western global integration can move foodstuffs around quickly to points where local carrying capacity has been exceeded. Clearly for example the Ethiopians are living unsustainably because every drought spell they lapse into famine. In fact there are few societies across the world who do live a sustainable life style. Western lifestyles are not the only ones that are unsustainable. I mean look at Egypt for example.
40
Carrying capacity depends on your level of technology. I just read David Deutsch’s “The Beginning of Infinity”. One point he makes is that there is no such thing as “sustainability”. It is a dead end trap resulting in a static society that will eventually fail when external conditions change. Dynamic societies will always have problems but at least have a chance to solve them by inventing solutions. This why “sustainobabble” and the greens are so dangerous for us.
91
Spot on. Sustainability, as used by the apologists for alarmism, makes absolutely no sense when the world population is 7 billion. That that population, which increased about seven fold over about a hundred years, can be fed and accommodated is a tribute to human ingenuity and its range of technologies including energy, agriculture and of course medicine.
The safe future of the human race on this Earth, is dependent, not on the reduction of such human endeavours but on their continuance.
That is why the alarmists have absolutely nothing useful to contribute to that future.
40
It has long been established in the Top End that tribal boundaries are set by abundance of food. Stephen Davis, anthropologist, showed us examples in the 1980s.
10
Was watching a doco many years ago (dont recall the name) but apparently there is a problem with the time lines of evolution. As the early hominids (dont know scientific names) headed out of Africa they spread all over the world.
We can see each area evolving at the same time but how could this be? So the current theory is that we evolved in Africa spread over the world, then evolved in Africa again and spread throughout the world. This is the only way each new evolution could appear all over the world at about the same time.
However…..a scientist (female cant remember her name) had/has another theory, she theorised that each evolutionary step involved the bone at the base of the skull (the bit that connects to the top of our spine) Evrey time we evolved this bone changed shape slightly and allowed us (eventually) to stand on two legs (bipod) as opposed to a cat or dog.
The controvertial bit was that this evolution took place all over the world at the same time, we only marched out of Africa once after this a global trigger made us take the next evolutionary step whichis why we all appeared all over the world at the same time. These steps are happening closer together, what was the trigger she did not know, when is the next one she did not know.
Interesting doco and the women was ostrecised from the scientific community for her thinking (sounds familiar).
Have no reference but thought i would share the info
22
It’s interesting that Bradshaw speculated that the drawings had an aesthetic similarity to Egyptian art. The Egyptians joined with the Phoenicians (Hebrew and Canaanite seamen), and there are indications that they had extensive mining operations here in Australia ( link )
The Phoenicians brought with them slaves from Africa (Sudan and Ethiopia), and from the Indus Valley, as oarsmen and mining workers. Given that the Australian Aboriginal’s DNA indicates an African and Indian heritage, perhaps they are the descendants of freed or runaway Phoenician slaves.
22
arrrg
00
As time progresses, estimates of the number of generations over which species evolution takes place have been shortening. There are some interesting examples. One concerns the colour of moth wings as camouflage, on the bark of tress that became lighter in tone as soot died down after the dirty part of the coal revolution. There are many moths preserved, identified and dated in museaums. Another came from Queenslans, when milk was delivered to homes in bottles. At first, a thick cardboard cap was used, then later a thin aluminium cap. At many places, more or less simultaneously, within a very short time, birds that were implausibly able to communicate with each other learned the trick of sticking the beak through the foil. It’s not my field, but it’s intersting to see how DNA mutations ot changes are being allied with genera undergoing species evolution. Hard to calibrate, but not the slow rate that I suspect Darwin would have thought.
20
No mysterious communication with the birds and foil bottlecaps ,I`m afraid , just a automatic reflex . Most avians have an investigate peck at anything shiny , some even collect “Bling” to decorate their nests they like it so much . A shiny foil bottlecap screams to avians “PECK ME NOW !!!” and automatically rewards for doing so . I suspect the “if it`s shiny/metallic looking , whack it with yer beak” , reflex was a positive trait for early birds as not only would they be selecting rocks/pebbles for use in their crops but on a frequent basis one of those shiny metallic “rocks” would turn out to be a tasty bug .
30
shh Byron, he was about to add another post on morphic resonance.
00
also not only are there many modern avians that are fish eaters (shiny metallic again )but so too are many of their proto-beaked possible ancestors , all carrion eaters and even some raptors have that same reflex with eyeballs (shiny) as a vitality test on potential meals . Essentially to the bird , shiny is like a button reading “push for food”
10
Geoff, you are straying into heretical territory saying that Darwin may not have it all explained. I can just see the likes of Richard Dawkins foaming at the mouth, but I tend to agree.
What amazes me in animals is how complex instinctive behaviour is somehow passsed via DNA. Got to be something else going on.
Your example of the moths is probably not a good one, as moths are rapid breeders and would have the less cryptic ones selected out quite quickly. I think these particular moths are the poster child for natural selection that is presented to most school kids.
00
So what might this something else be?
00
by the way, adaptation using existing variation is a one generation thing. Behavioural changes can occur within a generation. Neither are speciation. And for dlb below, Darwin and others wrote about this.
00
OK, it is hot here. Can I please have a grant (say $2M) to study this?
10
Ok, I’m sufficiently scared and sufficiently gullible to agree with everything that the smart smart scientists and the good good politicians say about global warming and climate change.
Please take all of my taxes and use them to save precious mother earth!
Beahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
30
I can see the T-Shirt
“I lived through global warming and all I got was this lousy genetic adaptation”
I must say it is a long bow to draw to suggest that we’ll evolve our way out of this one…. hint… all the non evolved people die in history… every time…
25
I hereby invoke the concept of the Extended Phenotype.
Our technology and its attendant vast supply chain is our adaptation, and we already have it.
Since he believes humans are responsible for current climate change (ROFL!), surely Matt ought to worry about saving other species with slower adaptability? Such as warmists who still haven’t reacted to a 15 year halt in global warming…OR the lull in OHC rise at a time of maximum CO2 emissions…
30
Emboldened by a few reds (glasses, not friends), I recon that as much as I enjoy the passionate debates among the faithful here – unfortunately I believe that the majority public are really just not interested in complex scientific opinions between friendly enemies. People lead busy lives and the majority are not science graduates. They simply digest the simplistic headline/news grabs that lazy MSM journo’s proliferate with the help of a vast and well organised global PR propaganda campaign.
Winning this contest is central to the platform of the NWO and will be run on a political agenda. It will not be thwarted by reason or logic. I recon that only a proportionate global PR campaign aimed at ‘Joe Six-pack’ will stand a snowflakes chance. Sorry guys – be free to argue amongst yourselves, however.
40
From post 21.2.5.1.2 above I wrote:
I originally attributed the false reading to a malfunction, but the automatic weather station must have been very close to the bushfire in the Dunalley area, not known at the time of posting.
The BOM link continually updates with new data and the 59.9 will be overwritten after 9am, presumably.
30
[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2013/01/climate-change-made-us-human/#more-26249 […]
00