The Medieval Warm Period hit west Antarctica

What do you know? The Medieval Warm Period, which either “didn’t exist” or “only happened in Europe”, also hit Western Antarctica.

Booth Island and Mount Scott are also on the Antarctic Peninsula. Photo: Stan Shebs.

The climate models don’t know why the world was warmer 1000 years ago. They don’t know why it cooled into the Little Ice Age either. The models don’t do regional projections well, and they don’t do seasonal projections with any skill, and they (in the last ten years) don’t work on short decadal timeframes either, but surely when it comes to big global temperature changes the models have got all the major forces figured out? Surely they’d be able to predict large movements across the entire globe eh? — but the first test we come to, a mere thousand years ago, shows the models have a predictive ability not significantly different from a coin toss.

Just because it was warmer 1000 years ago (due to some other reason), doesn’t mean that CO2 isn’t responsible for this warming cycle, but when all the evidence for CO2’s guilt comes only from models that can’t get the last warming cycle right, and from argument from ignorance (“Our models don’t project this warm period without putting CO2 in!”) then we know that the “evidence” (such as it isn’t) is very weak. The mysterious forces that warmed us a thousand years ago could easily be at work right now. Worse, some entirely different factor could be too. The unknown unknowns eh?

During the “perfect stable idyllic climate” before SUV’s and power stations were invented and while the global population was one 20th of what it is today, ice on the Western Peninsula was at least as degraded as it is now, or possibly was even more so.

The timing of the warmest era 700 – 1000 years ago fits in very well with Craig Loehle’s reconstructions.

Loehle 2008

Map

Bransfield Basin, South Shetland Islands, Western Antarctica

From NIPCC: Regarding  Hall, B.L., Koffman, T. and Denton, G.H. 2010. Reduced ice extent on the western Antarctic Peninsula at 700-970 cal. yr B.P. Geology 38: 635-638.

“Is the recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula unique in the Holocene?”

The three U.S. scientists report that “peat from the overrun sediments dates between 707 ± 36 and 967 ± 47 cal. yr B.P.,” leading them to conclude that “ice was at or behind its present position at ca. 700-970 cal. yr B.P. and during at least two earlier times, represented by the dates of shells, in the mid-to-late Holocene.”

In language pure and simple, Hall et al. say their findings mean that “the present state of reduced ice on the western Antarctic Peninsula is not unprecedented,” which leads them to pose another important question: “How widespread is the event at 700-970 cal. yr B.P.?”

In answering their own query, the researchers respond that (1) “Khim et al. (2002) noted a pronounced high-productivity (warm) event between 500 and 1000 cal. yr B.P. in magnetic susceptibility records from Bransfield Basin,” that (2) “dates of moss adjacent to the present ice front in the South Shetland Islands (Hall, 2007) indicate that ice there was no more extensive between ca. 650 and 825 cal. yr B.P. than it is now,” that (3) “evidence for reduced ice extent at 700-970 cal. yr B.P. is consistent with tree-ring data from New Zealand that show a pronounced peak in summer temperatures (Cook et al., 2002),” that (4) “New Zealand glaciers were retracted at the same time (Schaefer et al., 2009),” and that (5) their most recent findings “are compatible with a record of glacier fluctuations from southern South America, the continental landmass closest to Antarctica (Strelin et al., 2008).”

In light of these several observations, it would appear that much of the southern portion of the planet likely experienced a period of significantly enhanced warmth that falls within the broad timeframe of earth’s global Medieval Warm Period, which truly impressive interval of warmth occurred when there was far less CO2 and methane in the atmosphere than there is today.

See my map of the warmer empirical evidence from Africa, Asia, Europe, Antarctica and America. Which of course is provided in more lavish detail on CO2Science’s Medieval Warm Period database and map:

Medieval Warm Period Project
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 912 individual scientists from 542 separate research institutions in 43 different countries … and counting! To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project’s database, click here.

References

Cook, A.J. and Vaughan, D. 2009. Overview of areal changes of the ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula over the past 50 years. The Cryosphere Discussions 3: 579-630.

Cook, E., Palmer, J. and D’Arrigo, R. 2002. Evidence for a “Medieval Warm Period” in a 1100-year tree-ring reconstruction of past austral summer temperatures in New Zealand. Geophysical Research Letters 29: 10.1029/2001GL014580.

Hall, B. 2007. Late-Holocene advance of the Collins Ice Cap, King George Island, South Shetland Islands. The Holocene 17: 1253-1258.

Hall, B.L., Koffman, T. and Denton, G.H. 2010. Reduced ice extent on the western Antarctic Peninsula at 700-970 cal. yr B.P. Geology 38: 635-638.

Khim, B-K., Yoon, H.I., Kang, C.Y. and Bahk, J.J. 2002. Unstable climate oscillations during the Late Holocene in the Eastern Bransfield Basin, Antarctic Peninsula. Quaternary Research 58: 234-245.

Schaefer, J., Denton, G., Kaplan, M., Putnam, A., Finkel, R., Barrell, D.J.A., Andersen, B.G., Schwartz, R., Mackintosh, A., Chinn, T. and Schluchter, C. 2009. High-frequency Holocene glacier fluctuations in New Zealand differ from the northern signature. Science 324: 622-625.

Strelin, J., Casassa, G., Rosqvist, G. and Holmlund, P. 2008. Holocene glaciations in the Ema Glacier valley, Monte Sarmiento Massif, Tierra del Fuego. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 260: 299-314.

twitter shortlink: http://joannenova.com.au/?p=11239

UPDATE: Oct 2012 Loehle 2007 Graph replaced with Loehle 2008 corrected graph. Though it makes little difference to the height or amplitude of the curves.  h/t “NiceOne”

7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings

46 comments to The Medieval Warm Period hit west Antarctica

  • #
    FrankSW

    “doesn’t mean that CO2 isn’t responsible for this warming cycle”

    You think they would ever take notice of such conciliatory language? At Cancun they are still trying to recreate the hockey stick. Redraw Loehle’s graph with that 4 degree predicted rise this century at Cancun and the graph then looks pretty much like Mann’s original.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Ho hum!

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  • #
    Joe Veragio

    Has anyone heard or seen anything from the good Lord, Christopher Monckton at Cancun ?

    His regular updates on SPPI last year from Copenhagen made addictive reading, but so far from Cancun, seemingly not a peep.

    Google seems to have a Monckton filter, but even with Bing one can find only some comments about him (confirming he’s there & manning the CFACT stand) but nothing from him.

    One really was looking forward to Cancun, if only for the prospect of hearing his commentary on events – much as one did for Terry Wogan on the goings on at Eurovision (sorry if that one’s lost on the Ausssie readership).

    Please flag up anything I may have missed.

    Thanks,

    Joe

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Lest anyone think I’m indifferent to this horrible threat to Antartica…Yes, I am!

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  • #
    Mia Nony

    UN Tricks and Treaties

    The United Nations has ensnared the world in voluntary treaties intended to become mandatory later, tricking politicians and the public. The treaties may be vague and open to interpretation over time, using a tactic known as ‘incrementalism’. These treaties affect many branches of government. The treaties are designed to deindustrialize and economically break nations, restrict energy resources (especially for electricity and transportation) and implement taxation schemes based on manipulated science from the UN (the EPA has authority to implement Cap-and-Trade).

    Geoengineering: Climate Ghouls’ ‘Plan B’

    The current UN Climate talks in Cancun are now focusing on geoengineering, using it as a tool to extort a binding UN treaty to reduce phony global warming. The AP reported December 4th, 2010 that “we may need geoengineering as a ‘Plan B,’ if nations fail to forge agreement on a binding treaty to rein in greenhouse gases”, per a British House of Commons report.

    Geoengineering and contrived global warming lies are facets of Agenda 21, the overarching blueprint for global governing control and depopulation. The article states that geoengineering can cause rain precipitation and other weather changes. Geo-engineering gives the phrase “man made climate disruption” a whole new meaning. It’s just that mad scientists are now in charge of engineering climate with vast risks to those on the receiving end.

    The AP article revealed that the primary forces behind geoengineering are the UN, the US and the UK.

    The US and the UK governments urged the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to study geoengineering, with the US in the research forefront. The article says that “specialists regard the stratospheric sulfates proposal as among the most feasible”– this means chemtrails. But instead of sulfates, patents and evidence indicate that aluminum and barium are currently being sprayed.

    The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will do the unreliable computer modeling tests for the US research.

    Watch this video to understand that this is a depopulation program and this NOAA scientist advocates “doing whatever we can to reduce population”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGTk4S_HV2w&feature=player_embedded

    The new willingness of the UN to consider geoengineering comes just weeks after the UN’s Biodiversity conference in Japan wherein they imposed a moratorium on it until the implications could be fully studied.

    http://www.alternet.org/environment/148768/no_to_geo-engineering%3A_un_issues_a_moratorium_on_efforts_to_manipulate_the_earth%27s_climate

    The UN used the ‘moratorium’ for support to gain global control over geoengineering and weather. Notably, the US did not sign the UN Biodiversity Convention (another word for ‘treaty’) in favor of the moratorium and UN control.

    The UK government hosts the Hadley Center at East Anglia University, the home-base of the UN IPCC and is known for the ‘Climategate’ scandal and manipulated science. Margaret Thatcher established Hadley Center to usher in globalism and to weaken US power. The UN IPCC will pay off hundreds of scientists to study geoengineering for the IPCC’s next assessment report. The UK supports UN control over geoengineering.

    Sylvia Ribeiro of ETC was responsible for the UN short-lived moratorium promise on geoengineering at the Biodiversity Convention. She said that the UN must control geoengineering. Her 501(c)3 organization, ETC, has been funded by the likes of the Ford Foundation (known for supporting depopulation) and the HKH Foundation that funds other extreme environmental groups (Tides Foundation, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientists, etc) with ties to the UN.

    http://www.etcgroup.org/en/about/annual_reports

    http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.329/pub_detail.asp

    http://www.activistcash.com/foundation.cfm?did=125

    Foundations and depopulation policy makers are deeply intertwined; the UN IPCC sets public policy directly and indirectly. An example of this is UN IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri who is married to Saroj Pachauri, a director of the Rockefeller founded Population Council and she also worked for the Ford Foundation. While Rajendra may appear to be concerned about the effects of geoengineering, his wife works to limit population.
    The article reports that scientists say warming is being caused by greenhouse gases emitted by industry, vehicles and agriculture. The truth is that only a fraction of 1% of carbon emissions comes from these sources and agriculture, industry and transportation are targets for control. Food production is a depopulation focal point and genetic modification as well as changes in precipitation affect food.

    Ocean acidification is another global warming lie. Geoengineering iron seeding or fertilization in the oceans can produce toxic algae blooms and would have little effect on carbon reduction.

    Britain’s national science academy said that the greatest challenges to geoengineering may not be science and engineering, but social ethical, legal and political issues.
    It is seen as a problem by the depopulation ghouls that many people are aware of the potential effects of chemtrails and are angry about being sprayed like bugs.

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  • #
    Thumbnail

    Pachauri doesn’t know that there has been no significant warming for 15 years:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD69Xx1tnmI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    CFACT email today.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    It is seen as a problem by the depopulation ghouls that many people are aware of the potential effects of chemtrails and are angry about being sprayed like bugs.

    Mia,

    Just the sheer number of different explanations I found in about 10 minutes tells me that chemtrails are nonsense.

    Notice something about them in all the photos — what is allegedly being sprayed is coming directly from the jet engine exhaust. Nothing would be intentionally sprayed from there. It’s much too hot. What you are seeing is the normal condensation of water vapor generated by burning jet fuel. Under the right circumstances it can look quite unlike what you may have been used to. Take note that the aircraft involved are twins or 747s with larger more powerful engines than past jetliners. More power means more fuel burned every minute and more fuel means more exhaust from a small cross section exhaust cone. That in turn means higher pressure and greater spread of the resulting exhaust gas once free in the atmosphere. Hence the larger contrail is quite likely.

    On top of that, I have some World War II footage of Boeing B17 bombers at altitude with quite large contrails from their piston engines. All it takes is the right circumstance.

    I don’t know how anyone can be sure that any air sample contains anything from the jet exhaust so any analysis is not very convincing.

    We need to be fighting real devils, not imaginary ones. 🙂

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  • #

    […] 3. Jo Nova on The Medieval Warm Period Hit West Antarctica […]

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    val majkus

    Quadrant Online has a couple of interesting articles:
    Sceptics losing clarity
    by Peter Smith

    and reply by Professor Carter linked at the foot of that article; read them both at
    http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/12/sceptics-losing-clarity

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  • #
    elsie

    Roy Hogue, indeed the B-17 aircrew flying over Europe in WW2 were terrified that their contrails from their supercharged engines “drew” a straight, wide line like an arrow to their position. Enemy fighters didn’t need radar or any help to find the bombers. An aeroplane or even a fast racing car turning can induce a trail just by the edges turning the humidity in the air into a vapour mist. A lot of people see this and write letters to editors complaining that the aeroplanes are dumping fuel as they fly over them. I can remember when flying became the norm in the 70s that it was suggested the contrails over USA were so much that they might reduce temperatures. Never heard anymore about that.

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  • #

    Bleh!
    All we are measuring in the current interglacial is minor climate noise and random variation. There is no reason to suspect that a large complex system shouldn’t show variation on many and all scales of size and time. Likely it is just a reaction to whatever forcing caused the end of the last ice age and it won’t damp out before the onset of the next one.

    The only climate change that we need to worry about is the onset of the next ice age.

    Mia Nony:
    December 6th, 2010 at 5:57 am Oh god! Chemtrails! They are contrails and you’ve been conned.

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  • #

    val majkus@8

    Thanks for the link. I do sympathize with Peter Smith’s complaint that the sceptic message is disjointed and at times self-contradictory.

    For example you hear that there is no warming for 15years vs. we are warming from coming out of an ice age vs. there is cooling vs. there is apparent warming but temperature data is falsified – well which is it?
    Similarly, some sceptics deny greenhouse gas theory, some say it is auto-compensated between H2O and CO2(Miscolczi), other say GHG do warm planet but only 0.5 DegC (majority) and others say GHG will warm planet a lot but we should adapt instead of mitigate (Lomborg), and still others say CO2 rise in not man-made in the first place.

    This, of course, reflects the fact that warmist’s clear message is a self-admitted constructed propaganda by the IPCC to simplify and exaggerate, all in the good cause of saving the world.

    The sceptic’s messages are snippets of messy raw truth – the climate is chaotic and largely not understood and so not surprisingly its description by sceptics, as replied by Prof Carter, is necessarily unclear and chaotic.

    Consider the warmist’s unholy simplification of climate to an average global temperature – across altitude, latitude, terrain, urban vs country, day vs night, seasons, land vs ocean. It is an artefact so processed and manipulated that it struggles to have any meaning.

    I agree that clarity a should be the next phase of our efforts – move the info format from the motivated self-studying blogger to the disinterested masses.

    Of course, Joanne has been doing this for years with her “The Sceptic’s Hanbook”. The NIPCC report is another consensus report.

    In last year’s byelections we used “No Carbon Tax”. While necessarily too sloganistic, we will have to come up with a one or two sentence message or meme which can be easily digested by the public.

    Of course, if the UN gives us sceptics $10 billion in funding a year and tropical island conferences, I dare say we can come up with a simple sceptic propagandist message.

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  • #
    val majkus

    shock and horror Global Warming has stopped, good article for people (like me) who are not scientists
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html#ixzz17FxZlpdJ
    last para quote
    The question now emerging for climate scientists and policymakers alike is very simple. Just how long does a pause have to be before the thesis that the world is getting hotter because of human activity starts to collapse?

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1335798/Global-warming-halted-Thats-happened-warmest-year-record.html#ixzz17HvDwLCB

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  • #
    Eddy Aruda

    There are hundreds of peer reviewed papers that show that the MWP was worldwide. Moreover, CO2 levels were lower and there were no other forcings to account for the higher temps. It amazes me that the proponents of the CAGW hypothesis can’t figure out what else it could be that has caused a 0.7 degree increase in temps since we exited the LIA. Every time I ask a proponent of the CAGW hypothesis what caused the warming in the MWP or since we exited the LIA the only response I ever get is in the form of vague answers such as “other things” or “other forcings”. The proponents also say that the only thing it could be is CO2 since they don’t know what else it could be, an appeal to ignorance!

    The best evidence I have ever seen that falsifies the CAGW hypothesis was on this site. There was a graph of temps for the current interglacial and it showed that temps peaked during the bronze age and have trended downward since and yet CO2 levels are higher now than they were then. There is not a shred of empirical evidence to give credence to the CAGW hypothesis.

    I wonder how many CAGW lemmings are going to follow the leaders right over the cliff. Sadly for the followers, only the leaders have parachutes!

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    Michael Cejnar: #11
    December 6th, 2010 at 9:59 am

    I do sympathize with Peter Smith’s complaint that the sceptic message is disjointed and at times self-contradictory.

    For example you hear that there is no warming for 15years vs. we are warming from coming out of an ice age vs. there is cooling vs. there is apparent warming but temperature data is falsified – well which is it? etc

    Michael there is no one right and one wrong position in all of this, and that is the point.
    If the science of our climate was apolitical and unaffected by advocacy groups such as WWF and Greenpeace, we would find various research and studies holding all sorts of positions because NOBODY KNOWS.

    Proponents of AGW have all congregated in one place, i.e. CO2 is a GHG, therefore more GHG will warm therefore get worried, very very worried. A single outcome position.

    On the other hand, some sceptics say even though CO2 is a GHG and we are well aware of it’s behaviour in the lab, this does not necessatily mean it behaves the same in the atmosphere well mixed with other gases, ergo a different outcome.
    Then there are others who say yes it warms, but not enough to worry about etc
    Then there are others who say yes it warms as much as the IPCC says, but the feedbacks are negative and cancell out the warming (or some of it at least)
    And on and on

    I guess one way to explain it in a simple analogy may be the following..

    Q- How long is a piece of string?

    A-) (Pro AGW) It is 1.5 to 4.5 mtrs long therefore given enough string, we will hang ourselves.

    A-) (Sceptic a) It is 1.5 mtrs long but too thin to be strong enough to hang yourself.
    A-) (Sceptic b) It is barely 0.8 mtrs long, not long enough to hang yourself.
    A-) (sceptic c) Its length is irrelevant, we can make use of a good long string.
    A-) (sceptic z) etc etc you get the drift

    So it is entirely acceptable and expected in a field of study as new (relatively) and as complicated (due to it’s stochastic nature) as climate that there should be various positions.

    So far as our current knowledge of our climate allows, the correct position is to have many positions. As our knowledge grows, our positions will converge. Unlike the alarmists, irregardless of any new knowledge, (e.g. this very post on the MWP) their position has not shifted one iota.

    How does that saying go? “If the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do sir?”

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  • #
    Rick Bradford

    #3 Joe,

    There is an acerbic piece on Cancun from (I think, not bylined) Monckton at the SPPI blog.

    http://sppiblog.org/

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  • #
    DB

    In another study of west Antarctica, Baroni and Orombelli write that penguins “are sensitive indicators of the Antarctic climate and of the environmental parameters that limit their presence and distribution.”

    They found abandoned penguin rookeries near the Ross Ice Shelf along the Victoria Land coast. The rookeries were used when it was warmer and abandoned when it was colder. The authors write that a period of penguin reoccupation occurred in the eighth to fourteenth centuries A.D. Since the sites are not used at the present time this implies warmer temperatures during the MWP.

    Abandoned penguin rookeries as Holocene paleoclimatic indicators in Antarctica
    http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/short/22/1

    DB2

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  • #
    davidc

    Baa Humbug

    I agree, I’m always amazed that people think this amounts to an argument. I express it like this. There is a proposition P. Someone puts the reason R1 that P is false. Others put reasons R2, R3, … that P is false. But R1, R2, R3, … are different. Therefore P is true.

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    davidc: #17
    December 6th, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    Thats a good succinct way to put it David, thankyou.

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  • #
    manalive

    Commenting on val majkus’ link (8).

    In his article for Quadrant, Peter Smith comments as follows:
    “…..sometimes I read that the land temperature record has beeen compromised. Other times I read that the warming we observe is simply a product of coming out of the little ice age. Well which is it?…”.

    In the event Mr Smith reads this thread, I would answer him that it is both.

    That we are indeed emerging from probably one of the coldest episodes in this interglacial and that the post-circa1880 instrumental record has been tampered with, adjusted, fiddled and monkeyed around with, resulting in exaggerated post-war warming.

    Prior to the Hansen/Jones ‘adjustments’, the temperature trend (NH) looked like this (1968) and this (1976).
    Notice that in both examples (amongst others), the 1970 temperature is at about the same level as 1910.

    The ‘adjusted’ HadCRUT (NH) now shows a 0.4°C linear rise 1910-1970 — some ‘adjustment’.

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  • #
    anthony cox

    Michael Cejnar@11; the fact that the sceptics are comparatively disjointed compared to the streamlined and simplistic meme of AGW should not be thought of as a weakness; what you say is true; that is, true science is never settled; as Lord William Thomson Kelvin said, “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”

    In hindsight that is so ridiculous but that is what AGW is asserting and it is being asserted for a variety of reasons all of them polemical and for purposes of propaganda; a simple message sells; reality is messier and less simple which is why the sceptics have trouble with the PR war.

    However having a simple message with attendant ‘prophecies’ as AGW has makes the message very vulnerable when the prophecies don’t eventuate and the meassage is found to have serious flaws by a proper and objective evaluation such as in a court of law; this of course is what happened in New Zealand recently and it is time it happened in Australia.

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  • #
    janama

    before the greenies start blaming AGW for the Wagga Wagga flood here is the flood history of the City.

    http://www.wagga.nsw.gov.au/www/html/303-murrumbidgee-river-and-floods.asp

    Note the la nina years. 😉

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  • #

    janama: #21
    December 6th, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    before the greenies start blaming AGW for the Wagga Wagga flood here is the flood history of the City.

    Yeah Janama, but what about the locusts?

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  • #
    janama

    but what about the locusts?

    I understand they are delicious with honey 😉

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  • #

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joanne Nova and Haru Santa Fe, Robert James. Robert James said: The Medieval Warm Period hit west Antarctica « JoNova http://goo.gl/ujTNs […]

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  • #
    Bulldust

    Someone emailed this to me and I immediately thought of us skeptics…

    An Obituary printed in the London Times – Interesting and sadly rather true

    Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
    – Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
    – Why the early bird gets the worm;
    – Life isn’t always fair;
    – and Maybe it was my fault.

    Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

    His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

    Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

    It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

    Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

    Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

    Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

    Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

    He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
    I Know My Rights
    I Want It Now
    Someone Else Is To Blame
    I’m A Victim

    Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.

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    Bulldust: #24
    December 6th, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    thnx for sharing Bully. maybe send it off to A Bolt? He makes good use of these things and many pollies read his blog (whilst wearing very dark sunglasses and a hat)

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  • #
    Bulldust

    I see France is inking deals to sell a couple of nukes to India:

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/8460207/india-france-sign-nuclear-power-deal/

    Ironically we won’t supply India uranium, at least not directly.

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  • #
    Bulldust

    I am sure most readers here probably look at WUWT on a regular basis, but this new article is worth a gander:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/05/new-peer-reviewed-paper-shows-just-how-bad-the-climate-models-are/

    To a degree it is simply stating what we already knew, i.e. that the GCM models were rubbish, but it is good to have a peer reviewed paper stating it. I bet this one doesn’t make it into AR5…

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    Baa Humbug@15 and Anthony@21

    Totally agree with you, but perhaps I did not make my point clearly.

    We need more attention to packaging and presenting our idea to the lay public, precisely because it is complex and chaotic. We need to stir public into action – like the Tea Party, to abolish this climate madness. But we are up against enormous marketing propaganda by experts & our uncoordinated little truths and logic alone may not convince people enought to move them to action. Logic alone is a rare motivator.

    Only a minority of people will study the topic enough to become informed sceptics. The majority want just the bottom line. In a way, this is a contest for hearts and minds – like a political campaign – we are the opposition and we can’t be a rubble of disparate ideas just poking holes in the AGW establishment. If we want people’s trust, we need to present a coherent, simple to understand alternative narrative and vision of the future.

    The alarmists give an escapist image – green pastures with crisp clean air and white windmills in the distance, with us frolicking like lambs in the stream (of course with the abattoir out of sight). What do we sceptics have – we have Weimar Republic’s Metropolis, with ever more heavy industry, China’s polluted skies, ‘dirty’ coal, drudgery and slavery to consumerism. Who wants that, whether true or not.

    Furthermore our message must impact in the 20 seconds of attention people will give us, so we have only several sentences – just like the warmist’s message “Nearly all scientists agree that unprecedented warming caused by man’s industrial carbon pollution will cause a climate catastrophe”. That’s very powerful – I am starting to believe it just writing it!

    We appear to counter this with hundreds of relatively small complaints, like a few scientists behaving badly or a falsified Temp record here and there, missing hotspots, seas rising less quickly etc. This is too complex and easily portrayed as just nitpicking? I am just saying we need to put it all together into one or two sentences that are stronger than their message – more convincing and emotionally connecting.

    I’m no wordsmith, but perhaps messages like “Era of expensive energy rationing for all except the privileged”, and “Global warming catastrophe is a failed scientific theory that has been remade into a scare campaign by environmentalists wanting to control your life and big business wanting to fleece you. Climate will warm only mildly, if at all from our carbon dioxide, we can more easily adapt to any effects, and alternative energy sources need more development to be practical and affordable to all before they are rolled out in large quantities.

    Maybe others can propose the most concise and effective statement explaining the Sceptic view is in order.

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    janama

    Bulldust : common sense just creates a tired boring society that doesn’t create anything new, what is commonly thought, common sense produces nothing.

    bring on nonsense!

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    anthony cox

    Michael, a succinct slogan; maybe this is useful:

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/sunday-mail/queenslanders-getting-power-cut-off-as-power-bills-soar/story-e6frep2f-1225965728078

    So; the solution to global warming: freeze and starve in the dark;

    Personally I have a couple of T-shirts which I wear around; one says:

    Humans are carbon lifeforms
    Greens hate carbon
    Greens hate humans

    And more simply:

    I hate Greens.

    Anything to start the conversation but I think the key, as always, is the hip pocket nerve and misanthropism; that the Greens care more about mosquitos than humans.

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    Tel

    For example you hear that there is no warming for 15 years vs. we are warming from coming out of an ice age vs. there is cooling vs. there is apparent warming but temperature data is falsified – well which is it?

    “So you’re telling me that it’s getting dark?”

    “Yes I am.”

    “But this morning you told me it was getting lighter.”

    “And so it was.”

    “That’s inconsistent, you keep telling me different things.”

    “I told you exactly the same things yesterday.”

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    Tel

    Only a minority of people will study the topic enough to become informed sceptics. The majority want just the bottom line.

    The bottom line is all those IPCC graphs with global temperature predicted to go shooting up tah the moon! They made the prediction, and they published it. We just sit around and watch it not happen. Nice snow they’re having in England right now after a mild winter was predicted (twice), nice rain we are having in the southeast of Australia that was predicted to shift into permanent drought. See how easy it is?

    Of course, the climatologists will run around saying that weather has nothing whatsoever to do with climate. Let them say it, let them have the tough job of explaining how the whole illogical stack of cards fits together. After the explain that you just say, “Oh, so if weather has nothing to do with climate then regardless of Global Warming we will still have great weather for our crops to grow.”

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    Michael Cejnar: #30
    December 6th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

    Thnku Michael, you make your points well.

    My thoughts on this issue lie closely with tel #34

    We have 2 very very strong allies at the moment, and the alarmists are at a loss as to what to do about them. They’re pooling all their best minds, organizing think tanks, teleconferencing etc to solve their dillema.

    our 2 allies are…

    1-) Mother nature. see Tels post re: snow in NH and cool spring and floods SH

    2-) vast majority of the populace have totally tuned off to the alarmism. They are not listening, they don’t want to listen and have other probs to worry about, especially in Europe and Nth America.

    It may be counter productive if all of a sudden a new group emerged talking about this subject.

    However there is something to be said about the criminal waste of money. Now there is something people are listening to. As more and more of these green schemes come on line and drain finances, the more questioning people will be, and it’s happening now. (for instance the Queensland Govt. suspending the water desal plant, and you can bet the new coalition govt in Victoria will cut green costs. Some EU govts have wound back green schemes etc)

    The Oz opposition leader Tony Abbott is taking this approach, and the many o’seas MSMs I read are highlighting these wastes.
    The whole thing has morphed back into the usual political hubbub. We can’t lose the usual political hubbub because we are not the ones wanting to spend the money.

    The only unknown is how much will be wasted before it comes to a screeching halt slowly dies off, the formerly Great Britain seems to be leading the way, closely followed by some of the other EU nations.

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    Joe Veragio

    Rick Bradford:
    December 6th, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    #3 Joe,

    There is an acerbic piece on Cancun from (I think, not bylined) Monckton at the SPPI blog.

    http://sppiblog.org/

    Thanks Rick @ #16.
    it’s not attributed , ‘though full of Moncktonisms, it cann’t be anyone else. I can get back to mainlining on Monckton after months of withdrawal. 🙂

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    A couple of links to illustrate point 2 in my post at #35

    Al Gores group,the Alliance for Climate Protection, has scaled back operations from as high as 25 states down to just 7. HERE

    LA, under deputy mayor Austin Beutner is revising plans to generate 40% of it’s power from renewables by 2020. HERE

    These people are looking long and hard at their finances and have realised, without an extra avenue to tax the people, the coffers are emptying very quickly.

    I’m sure there’ll be lots more to come. lets hope so.

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    confused

    Models dont do hindcasting well either

    A new paper ‘pear’ reviewed an’ everyfink….

    Anagnostopoulos, G. G. , Koutsoyiannis, D. , Christofides, A. , Efstratiadis, A. and Mamassis, N. ‘A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data’, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 55:7, 1094 – 1110

    Several models couldn’t predict temperatures that were actually recorded…

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    Roy Hogue

    elsie @10,

    It’s way off topic. But just briefly — in 1965 and ’66 I worked with a man who had been a crew chief on B17s, which would make him the top turret gunner as well as responsible for all the aircraft systems. He wasn’t very talkative about it but it was pretty clear it had been a living Hell for everyone. His wife told me that he had never recovered from his wartime experience. In the early years of the raids the losses were so bad that sometimes no more than a third of the planes that took off returned from the mission. Later when better escort fighters were available, especially the P51, the tide turned in favor of the bombers and the losses were not so bad. By the end of the war they were flying virtually unopposed.

    Though I’ve long forgotten his name I’ve always remembered him.

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    One item not addressed (but I did not read all the comments), is the static amount of ice that in our current “raging” Global Warmth we seem to have maintained. In other words, we have been told that we are losing ice – when in reality, the total between the artic/Greenland and the Antartic seems to balance.

    However, based upon this article, it would appear that the world lost massive amounts of ice 1000 years ago since Antartica appears to have lost ice (by the sediments) and we know Greenland had lost a lot of ice (by the Norse settlements that are now under ice). And the world did not end.

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    co2isnotevil

    This looks remarkably similar to the 500 year average extracted from the DomeC ice core records, shown as a dotted magenta line in the following plot. The time scale is reversed and it covers 5000 years, rather than just 2000.

    http://www.palisad.com/co2/domec/pic.png

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    Tel

    Speaking of great weather for the crops to grow:

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704250704576005850542957310.html?mod=WSJ_article_LatestHeadlines

    Of course, now they are trying to claim they predicted it all along, but that doesn’t wash unless they can find a peer reviewed published article that predicted cold snaps across the USA printed some years before it happened. Sorry but predicting after the event just does not cut it.

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    Tel at 42:
    Not to worry. If the war mists can still modify 1934 temps, they will soon figure out how to backdate their new predictions !

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    The start of this thread states that scientists can not explain the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age, that was true until recently, when Frederick Bailey discovered the underlying mechanism that caused these events and consequently the same mechanism can also be used to predict future climate changes. Full details of the discovery can be viewed on http://www.solarchords.com. The science is based upon sound Newtonian maths and pragmatic observations, also, a secondary discovery from this work over the past 10years or so, explains how Sun Spots are regulated and their effect upon climate.

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    […] characteristics and likely causes of the Medieval megadroughts in North America West Antarctica, The Medieval Warm Period hit west Antarctica « JoNova A global overview from a German article translated into English at Watts Up With That The […]

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