Don’t tell me that cold is nice and the climate was ever ideal
A few scientists thought that the climate was stable and well behaved during the Holocene until we invented coal power and the Ford Model T and everything fell apart “unprecedentedly”.
But 8200 years ago things apparently got pretty wild. See the GISP graph below where there was a three degree fall in temperatures suddenly (circled in red below). A new study found that at the same time China and California also cooled. Strangely, this cooling effect probably did not produce calm, happy days for the Californians at the time. Instead it looks like they got 150 years of intense winter storms and a lot of wet weather.
UPDATE: This graph shows the ice-core data up until 1855. The last 150 years (1705 to 1855) are highlighted in red to show the warming as the Earth began coming out of the LIA. Obviously that red line would continue up further if it was drawn to the present.
Looks like real climate change….
The reason for the sudden snap is possibly that a couple of massive glacial lakes in North East America collapsed and suddenly drained out into the Atlantic, dumping a bucketload of freshwater there. That is said to have changed a few oceanic currents and raised the seas by 2 – 10 feet. (1 – 3m). The effects appear to have been found around the world, also weakening the monsoons in Asia, and strengthening them in South America, while increasing drought in Africa.
And since we have stalagmites in Australia, hopefully someone can study our caves and tell us something about our own, largely unknown paleohistory. We may not have many deciduous trees to get nice tree rings from , but we certainly have caves.
In this press release, no one even mentions CO2.
The 8200 year even in California and China.
The Press release for those who want the details:
Wet and stormy weather lashed California coast…8,200 years ago
The weather report for California 8,200 years ago was exceptionally wet and stormy.
That is the conclusion of a paleoclimate study that analyzed stalagmite records from White Moon Cave in the Santa Cruz Mountains published online Jun. 20 in Nature Scientific Reports.
The Golden State’s 150-year stretch of unusually wet weather appears to have been marked by particularly intense winter storms and coincides with a climate anomaly in Greenland ice cores first detected in 1997. Before this “8.2 ka event” was discovered, scientists thought the world’s climate had been unusually stable during the Holocene, the geological epoch that covers the last 11,700 years of Earth’s history.
Graph showing the results of the analysis of the White Moon Cave stalagmite compared with the Greenland ice core record and comparable data from the Heshang Cave in China. (Jessica Oster / Vanderbilt)
Since then researchers have associated the distinctive, 3.3-degree Celsius temperature dip in the Greenland ice cores with a catastrophic event: The drainage of two giant glacial lakes (Lake Ojibway and Lake Agassiz) located in northeastern North America caused by the collapse of massive ice sheet that covered much of the continent during the last ice age. In short order, the two lakes dumped enough melt water into the North Atlantic to disrupt the world’s oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns and raise the sea level by somewhere between two to 10 feet. The tremendous freshwater flood has been associated with an extended cold snap in Europe, increased drought in Africa, weakened monsoons in Asia and strengthened monsoons in South America.
“This is the first high-resolution evidence of the response of the coastal California climate to the most distinctive event in the Holocene. Although the effects appear to have been less severe than in other parts of the world, it provides us with new information about the nature of this global climate event,” said Jessica Oster, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University, who directed the study.
Oster is a member of a small community of earth scientists pioneering the use of mineral deposits in caves as proxies for the prehistoric climate. Cave formations, including stalagmites and stalactites, can provide valuable information about the climate for the last 600,000 years. They have a built-in clock: The mineral deposits contain radioactive uranium-234 that decays into thorium-230 at a constant rate so the ratio of the two isotopes is determined by the date the mineral deposit formed. Seasonal variations in water seepage produce layers that can be dated with considerable precision. The ratios of other isotopes in the minerals including oxygen and carbon provide information about the temperature and nature of the vegetation in the region at the time the layers formed. Concentrations of trace elements like magnesium, strontium and phosphorus provide information about how wet the environment was.
“Events like this are particularly difficult to study because they are so brief,” said Oster. “Fast-growing stalagmites are particularly good for this purpose because they have very high temporal resolution.”
With a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Oster is analyzing stalagmites from two California caves in order to shed new light on the factors that produced megadroughts in the region during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. During her studies, she discovered a stalagmite that was growing rapidly just before, during and after the 8.2 ka event. By analyzing the oxygen and carbon isotope ratios and the concentrations of the trace elements phosphorus and magnesium in the mineral layers formed from 6,900 to 8,600 years ago, Oster and her collaborators extracted a considerable amount of information about what was going on in the prehistoric California atmosphere.
According to the paper, “…the new record suggests that the 8.2 ka event was associated with a brief period of wetter conditions, potentially arising from increased storminess, and demonstrates a near synchronous climate response to this event on both sides of the Pacific.”
Climatologists are particularly interested in this prehistoric event because it can provide insight into what would happen if global warming reaches a point where glaciers in Greenland and other parts of the globe melt rapidly enough to dump large amounts of fresh water into the ocean. In 2003, for example, the Office of Net Assessment at the U.S. Department of Defense produced a study of prospective climate change specifically based on this event.
Coauthors of the study are Vanderbilt undergraduate student Jansen Gibson and former graduate student Aaron Covey; Warren Sharp from the Berkeley Geochronology Center; Bruce Rogers from the Western Cave Conservancy; and Hari Mix from Santa Clara University.
The study was funded by National Science Foundation grants AGS-1203701, AGS-1554998 and AGS-1632913.
Media Inquiries:
David Salisbury, (615) 322-NEWS
[email protected]
h/t to ScienceDaily. See also Watts Up for more comments.
REFERENCE
Jessica L. Oster, Warren D. Sharp, Aaron K. Covey, Jansen Gibson, Bruce Rogers, Hari Mix. Climate response to the 8.2 ka event in coastal California. Scientific Reports, 2017; 7 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04215-5
Vanderbilt University. “Wet and stormy weather lashed California coast… 8,200 years ago: First high resolution evidence of California climate response to Holocene 8.2 ka event.” ScienceDaily, 20 June 2017. <>
“scientists thought that” and “scientists surprised by”. Seems like these phrases show up in a lot of climate literature.
141
Science is full of surprises; so multiple appearances of a phrase such as “scientists surprised by” in the climate literature is an indictment of climate science only to the degree that climate science is settled. Oh, wait. How stupid of me. The climate literature and climate scientists tell us that climate science is settled science, so your implied indictment is valid.
101
I’d be questioning the need for reporting new science if the scientists being interviewed said, “we already knew this”.
40
Which examples of “climate literature” contain the phrase “scientists surprised by”?
Seeing as you say it shows up “a lot”, you won’t have any trouble giving us “a lot” of examples, right?
57
You mean like the IPCC being “surprised” the glaciers arent retreating after all?
Or by the ice melting in Antarctica because of volcanoes underneath? That sort of surprise?
91
So Antarctica is suddenly melting because of a volcano that erupted 10,000 years ago? I remember that story, what a hoot.
And glaciers globally have undeniably retreated:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Glacier_Mass_Balance.png
I guess you are projecting your own suprise.
510
Wrong Craig. Not 10,000 years ago. 4 years ago. What a hoot.
Who cares about the glaciers? They’ll grow back. That’s what they do.
81
Geez, Sophocles, is it too much to ask for you to actually read what you link to?
“This volcanic complex has been operating for millions of years … There have been past eruptions of this system”
47
Of course I do. The volcano in question which was a recent discovery under the ice last erupted in spectacular fashion 2325 years ago and has remained active since.
It’s a bit like erebus, which is still erupting.
40
Hmm, yet another unattributed graph, anonymously loaded to Wikipedia, with no supporting data. This level of veracity is becoming quite fashionable, it would seem.
90
Settle down
Craig is definitely a good man.
Good for nothing.
51
Well, there are plenty more where that comes from – it boggles the mind that anybody would attempt to deny that glaciers are well known to have lost a lot of mass over the past few decades:
http://nsidc.org/sites/nsidc.org/files/images/cryosphere/sotc/bams-sotc-2015-wgms.png
67
I boggles the mind to think that trees stumps and human artefacts found under retreating glaciers don’t a clue to alarmist clowns. !!
12
correction “don’t GIVE a clue to alarmist clowns. !!
They obviously are doing their utmost to remain WITHOUT A CLUE..
… aren’t you, CT. !
12
You must know that an expedition ship full of scientists got stuck in the Antarctic ice just last winter. They most definitely stated that they hadn’t expected it. Where ya been Craig?
71
You mean the expedition that got trapped 3.5 years ago, in Summer?
I can’t see anybody being quoted as being particularly suprised about being trapped in ice while navigating through icy waters in this article. Maybe that’s why you failed to accompany your (apparently innaccurate and unresearched) claim with any supporting evidence?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/25/antarctic-expedition-scientists-trapped-ice
In fact, it sounds like they weren’t particularly suprised:
“It was one of those events which happens occasionally (and with little warning). We were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time”
46
Perhaps this failed effort, a bit closer in time, will amuse Master Thomas:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/14/scientists-blame-climate-change-for-thick-sea-ice-that-halted-arctic-expedition/
20
Again, I see no evidence of anybody being surprised at finding ice in the Arctic Sea. I htink normal people would understand that there is lots of ice in the Arctic Sea.
Of course, there is far *less* ice than there used to be:
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Are *you* suprised that Arctic Sea ice is so close to a record low?
30
There is FAR MORE Arctic sea ice than there has been for some 90-95% of the last 10,000 years.
Why are you are ALWAYS so absolutely bereft in any sort of real knowledge, CT ?
12
Only an absolute ass would compare current levels to those of the last 200-300 years, which has been the COLDEST period in the whole Holocene.
Did you even know that the late 1970s extent was up there with those of the Little Ice Age, CT?
Be honest, if you can!
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Arctic-Sea-Ice-Iceland-Koch-Since-1200.jpg
12
You do know Craig that the majority of the glaciers that have been reported to have retreated are less than 2000 years old. Think about that for a moment…
31
No, I didn’t know that and without any supporting evidence I treat your assertion with intense scepticism.
I *do* know that Otzi the Iceman thawed out of 5,000-year old ice a few years ago indicating that Alpine glaciers are likely to be much older than the dodgy “2,000” years you mention.
In fact if I take one glacier monitoring organisation – the Swiss one – they monitor about 100 glaciers, almost all of which are receding, and they don’t seem to publish how old they think all these glaciers are.
30
http://glaciology.ethz.ch/swiss-glaciers/downloadPubs/glrep_125-126.pdf
30
https://climateaudit.org/2005/11/18/archaeological-finds-in-retreating-swiss-glacier/
REALITY bites back
Choose the period of the HIGHLY BENEFICIAL warming since the LIA (coldest period in 10,000 years (except a very sharp cold period some 8000 years ago.)
CT, if you really WANT to go back to those times, then move out of your inner-city fossil fuel heated basement, and go to live in Siberia. !
If you don’t want to go back to the bitter cold of the LIA,
..then STOP YAPPING about a tiny amount of NATURAL and very beneficial warming.
13
No, I didn’t know that and without any supporting evidence I treat your assertion with intense scepticism.
I *do* know that Otzi the Iceman thawed out of 5,000-year old ice a few years ago indicating that Alpine glaciers are likely to be much older than the dodgy “2,000” years you mention.
In fact if I take one glacier monitoring organisation – the Swiss one – they monitor about 100 glaciers, almost all of which are receding, and they don’t seem to publish how old they think all these glaciers are.
20
Swiss glaciers are retreating and growing in line with the AMO..
did you know that, CT?
Or again.. more wilful ignorance.
(my image host seems to be having issues at the moment, otherwise graphs would be posted.)
Even the Mt Baker glaciers wax and wane time with the AMO.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/09/13/mt-baker-glaciers-disappearing-a-response-to-the-seattle-times/
12
Yes, just a few years back the British Antarctic Survey detected a huge subglacial ash sheet from an old eruption and, more critically, still active volcanism in the vicinity of PIG. I guess the whole cordillera look of the region is the reason nobody should be surprised.
50
And the data also shows that California has suffered through centuries long periods of intense drought, long before mankind harnessed industrial quantities of energy. But to be sure, in the stormy case, some other areas were not getting as much rain and in the drought case, other areas were getting more rain as the total amount of rainfall across the planet remained roughly proportional to the planets average temperature (higher temperatures, more evaporation and more rain).
81
This is nothing compared to the current intelligence drought sweeping from the left of California, a sense of reality and self preservation are drying up at an alarmist rate!
122
Yeah, well I thought I would check it out on, like, YouTube, and that, and got nuffin’, zip, nada. So it never happened. And don’t talk to me about stuff hanging around in caves – them things are bats, and they have fleas.
80
RW:
Are you sure that those things hanging around in caves aren’t greenies getting used to their desired future?
50
Bats are part of nature.
Therefore all bats are green,
Ergo all greens are bats.
That’s logic, init.
60
I remember attending a lecture on the Multiple Climates of Africa (this was before climate worrying was even thought of, let alone being a new age religion).
I was fascinated to learn that the Sahara was once verdant forest which supported more land animal and insect species, than the rest of the world combined, does today.
Of course, that was before the early hominids invented the protocar1.
1 The intellectual property rights of which were eventually acquired, by Damlier-Benz et al.
40
” it can provide insight into what would happen if global warming reaches a point where glaciers in Greenland and other parts of the globe melt rapidly enough to dump large amounts of fresh water into the ocean.”
“IF” the rate of melting causes enough meltwater about equal to Lake Ojibway and Agassiz to suddenly slosh into the Atlantic. How do I make that “IF” bigger?
90
And weather in the UK has finally been as warm as 40 years ago …….. this week’s records equal those of 1976. And I thought we have all been told the earth has experienced ‘unprecedented’ warming.
91
Strange conclusion to be drawing from just two temperature measurements made in a single place.
According to the MET, temperatures are significntly higher in the UK now than they were in 1976:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
48
Since Roger seems to be quoting two statements, both from the UK Met Office, perhaps you should take your niggle up with them?
31
The Met office isn’t saying anything about the UK being as warm as 40 years ago. They are saying that one record was broken.
44
Craig has comprehension issues. !!
01
Yeah, a new record high whenever a jet lands. Heathrow is their favourite ever and most quoted thermometer.
20
And the Hadley Centre also seems to pour cold water on your strange conlusion:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
48
Well, perhaps the Hadley Centre didn’t get the memo from Met Central? You know how hard it is to coordinate the subject matter of press releases, especially if you want them to give the appearance of being independent.
41
I still can’t find any evidence that anybody at the Met is dim enough to have claimed that one broken temperature record means “the UK is as warm as 40 years ago”.
43
I can’t see the `dumping’ of fresh water into the saline oceans as being the sole cause of a dip in temperatures which dropped below the benchmark set in the Little Ice Age (c. 1690). That doesn’t make sense, especially considering it wasn’t the only one.
I think it was more likely Solar.
I point to other, later dips in temperature such as the one corresponding to the Dark Ages, immediately prior to the Medieval Warming. It was of similar magnitude, although not quite as deep as the one at 8KYA. The Dark Ages are not called the Dark Ages for nothing. Civilization north of the European Alps was pretty much wiped out, as people were reduced to bare survival. Documents from China (not then entirely unified) suggest hard times there, too. There were no large freshwater lakes dumping their water into the oceans then.
There are three dips from about 4KYA (before the Minoan Maximum) to 5.4KYA with a good deep one between those at 4.7KYA. This one reached a low similar to those of the Little Ice Age (LIA), but, again, was not quite as low as the one of 8KYA. We can expect similar weather as that of the LIA for these two drops, rough and cold. The British Isles were not intensively settled, but they were widely settled by Hunter-Gatherers. Food supplies for the human inhabitants would have been affected. Agricultural ideas were arriving in the British Isles somewhere around 5KYA to 4.5KYA. Salisbury Plain around Stonehenge was first cultivated about 4.5KYA.
It may be that the food shortages induced by the cold snaps were responsible for conversion of Hunter Gatherers to Farmers. We don’t know. However, food would have been in plentiful supply from 5.2KYA about to 4.8KYA. It was about 5KYA that the construction of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain was begun. It would have taken a lot of labourers to build Stonehenge. The excavations of Durrington Walls, the construction workers’ village nearby, suggests somewhere around 4 to 5 thousand.
There were other henges built around England-Wales at the time, and right up into the Hebrides. It seems almost as though Stonehenge was to be the `biggest henge ever,’ just as Munich Cathedral was to have the highest vault ever in the Medieval Warming. That seems to indicate a lot of leisure time and ample supplies of food all over. But Stonehenge was never finished, and the Munich vault collapsed.
Such large civil works projects were almost totally labour intensive, with sheer numbers as at Stonehenge and horse and cart or elephant and drag transport during later times. There has to have been a suitable surplus of food with easy growing conditions to to be able to maintain such work forces let alone raise them. We (mankind) were at it during the Roman Warming, with the wars and conquests around the Mediterranean. Hannibal marched elephants over the Alps. The Romans and Carthaginians successfully burnt that surplus in their Games of Empires. We were at it again during the Medieval Warming, burning the economic surplus from bumper crops around the world. Genghis Khan beat up China and swept through Central Asia. The Ming Dynasty in China built most of the Great Wall (1368-1640s). Angkhor, the capital city of the Khmer Empire, with the temple of Angkhor Wat and others, rose in Siam c. 1010AD (Cambodia and surrounding lands) and collapsed in the early fifteenth century. Empires rose and fell in the Americas, the Mayan City States and the Incas. The Incas were collapsed by the Conquistadors. Africa was not immune but I don’t know much of it other than the Arab Empire across Northern Africa. Europe concentrated on building cathedrals all over Europe, and Saving The Holy Land with multiple Crusades. The Third Crusade took a side step and pillaged and plundered Byzantium, an ally at the urging of the Doge of Venice who wanted his money back.
Europe’s antics have a familiar sound: Save the World from CO2 by Pillaging and Plundering the Industrialised West.
There’s Nothing New Under The Sun . (Ecclesiastes, aka The Book of Solomon). Warm weather and plentiful food makes the ants busy.
The Salisbury Plains tribes began construction of Stonehenge about 5KYA, before that deep dip at 4.7KYA. It may have have been what stopped work on Stonehenge for three or four hundred years. It was during the following rise in temperatures that more work on Stonehenge was made but it was limited to changing a few of the stones to a new alignment. Agriculture on Salisbury Plain was, by this time fully in place, which occupied much of what would otherwise have been the labour force.
Workers are like armies: they need to be fed and if supplies to feed them were at all constrained, there would be no work.
Both those dips bottomed out to temperatures represented as about the same as the lows in the Little Ice Age of 400 Years Ago, with the first dip going lower. If that evoked similar, or even worse, weather to that documented in the LIA, then times for all, both Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer, would have been hard, just as they were in the LIA.
From excavations of middens of the time of the first work on Stonehenge, food was plentiful and the workforce was large. Durrington Walls probably housed the workforce. Work stopped about 4.5KYA then some modifications to alignments were made about 4KYA ago, and no attempt was made to finish it.
Stonehenge was a cemetery for the local elite. With agriculture now well established, there was little surplus labour to invest in building their favourite Cathedral/Celestial Clock, and with the postulated climate change, little surplus food to feed a large labour force, so the building would not be done. The Chiefs and Kings and other Homo Superiors would have to make do with Economy model Tombs. Enter the Barrows.
My thoughts are that all those deep temperature dips are Solar induced Climate Change. The fresh water incursion into the oceans could have aided and abetted, making the Solar induced drop at 8KYA a little deeper than it otherwise might have been, but it was more likely just coincidental. It seems as far fetched as CO2 `from burning fossil fuels’ causing the 1970’s cooling then the 1980’s, and the rest of the current Northern Hemisphere’s, warming. The Californian bad weather for a hundred and fifty years indicates a wide spread phenomenon. We don’t know what happened in the Southern Hemisphere. Let’s look for Solar proxies.
A deep Solar Minimum has been forecast for circa 2030-2040 for something of the order of either the Dalton or Maunder Minimum.
Dr Valentina Zharkova and team are saying “Maunder Minimum.” We’ve been warned, and we’ll find out very soon.
We orbit a variable star. Every burp and hiccup of that star has climatic consequences. And from the look of what we’re trying to do to this civilisation, we must be close to the closing years of this warming.
61
A video from the History Channel that I think is a very fair representation of the prospective causes and the effects of the LIA. It’s 1 1/2 hours long but I found it well worth my time to watch. The video gives a fair discussion of the various theories for the causes and also discusses the effects on European and American civilization and world history. They discuss the theories of the disruption of Thermohaline circulation, volcanism, and the Maunder minimum as causes of the LIA. For some it will be old hat. For others perhaps informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn9PUdY4Q0g
20
The graph does show how unexceptional the recent slight increase in temperature has been. You would think before anyone pinned the runaway catastrophic tipping point tiny warming on the industrial revolution, someone should be able to explain this graph based wholly and solely on CO2 levels.
There is nothing special about the last hundred years except the development of communism, globalism and the power hungry United Nations. The burning question for Malcolm Turnbull, the greatest moral challenge of his time, is whether he can get a nice apartment and salary in New York at someone else’s expense. There is also the vexed question whether Tony Abbott will support his application for the job of Secretary. Now that is a real problem and there is no amount of other people’s money he will not spend. What is money without world wide fame?
91
The graph doesn’t show the recent increase in temperature seeing as it ends in 1855.
I think you need more scepticism when viewing Lappi’s recycled Easterbrook memes.
410
Oh, so it has to be new history? We can’t get any insights into climate variation by looking at older time-frames?
What a strangely disjoint life you must lead. Has it not occurred to you that historic records set a benchmark for comparative purposes. As such, any complete record is useful, as long as we don’t try to use it to predict tomorrows weather.
41
I know I shouldn’t respond to such blatant trolling, but read the caption “Obviously that red line would continue up further if it was drawn to the present.”
So what part of my statement and logic is invalid? Why do I have to be skeptical of published data like this?
My point is that recent variations over the last 100 years are trivial compared with the natural variation and known history prior to the industrial revolution.
41
Again, the graph doesn’t show any temperature variation over the past 162 years, meaning you can’t possibly refer to it to make any statement about “recent variations” or “the past 100 years”.
43
‘How do I make that “IF” bigger?’
–
Simples; strategically add more letters, eg;
–
Ifcouldbesuggeststhatmaybeisthoughttoperhaps….
40
Skiers hit the slopes in bikini tops as California’s endless winter endures a heat wave
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-endless-winter-20170617-story.html
In the interest of fairness, men are topless.
30
Would you like to own an electric vehicle?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/weekend-australian-magazine/review-tesla-model-x-p100d/news-story/8fe3b1484ee5f0f3a019e3b508ad7543
10
That reference slammed hard up against my tag filter. I don’t mind looking at other peoples marketing blurb, but I do object to people trying to leave tags on my system, so they can better target their next tranche of advertising.
20
Whenever a claim about “unprecedented” weather or climate is made, a few seconds checking show otherwise. It’s not that remote climate events have been extreme; even within our brief current epoch the swings have been enormous and constant. Manipulators rely on the emotional charge and greater reportage of recent events and on the hope that nobody will check.
Skeps believe in actual climate change. Warmies don’t.
92
OK, so I checked.
So I wonder what conclusion could be drawn from the following observations:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
Over the last 365 days, 139 new “high” records have been set, and 14 “low” records.
When record “hot” temperatures outnumber record “low” temperatures by 10 to 1, how does that affect your “belief” in climate change?
410
If you set up lots of weather stations and record temps in a period of warming you will get lots of “high” records. Around 1700 and the period of glacial advances you might have got lots of “low” records – but nobody was doing the record thing very extensively. Same with those warming periods like when the Storegga Slide cancelled cricket permanently in Doggerland a bit over 8000 years ago (but you’d have been too busy dodging rising waters to worry about temps). Life in an interglacial!
Because, as stated, climate changes. Duh.
That is my “belief”.
82
More likely is when rural weather stations are surrounded by city sprawl and become urban weather stations, the UHI effect applies.
52
BEST spent 2 years analysing this assertion and found that in fact the bias was a slight cooling one, so you are wrong.
410
Or BEST are wrong? Who can say? All we can say is that different conclusions can be drawn.
The urban heat island effect has been well documented. There is considerable debate over the cause and effect, including instrument changes, and “adjustments”, and physical site relocations, etc. etc. As such, drawing temporal comparisons has become a black art.
62
….and BEST found that assertions about UHI and adjustments were causing a warming bias were completely wrong.
At the very least we can accept that there is no data to support any assertion that UHI is skewing the temperature record.
52
The BEST methodology was woefully abysmal.
Also, it was a pre-decided outcome, due to recurrent funding requirements.
01
Now wait a minute! Your claiming that UHI does not exist?
31
Craig: you were WRONG to assert:
Dr Ross McKitrick recommended in his referee report that the BEST report “Influence of Urban Heating on the Global Temperature Land Average Using Rural Sites Identified from MODIS Classifications” by Wickham et al, be rejected.
McKitrick explains in the referee report.
You might like to read Socioeconomic Patterns in Climate Data by Mickitrick and Nierenberg and to put you to sleep at night, there’s Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data by McKitrick and Michaels.
In a Nutshell: McKitrick et al discovered that UHI was very real and contaminated the gridded climate data through inadequate filtering. BEST stuffed up.
Enjoy 🙂
31
I don’t know why the economist McKitrick, known only for publishing poor quality non-science opinion pieces in joke-journals, is relevant to the comprehensive study performed and published by BEST.
To my knowledge, no science paper has been published that addresses any significant flaws in the BEST conclusions.
45
Careful Craig, you’re letting your ignorance show.
He’s relevant and was asked or appointed to referee the paper, because he’s an expert statistician, one of the best in the world. Unlike you, Craig, he holds a Ph.D. If you had ever taken an economics paper at University level, you would have met statistics head on, and you wouldn’t be denigrating someone who is far and away more capable and knowledgeable than you as scornfully as you have. McKitrick is an active and highly respected researcher.
Statistics is one thing any qualified economists know well. That’s what their profession is all about. It doesn’t matter what the data means, any competent statistician can analyse it and economists just happen to be far better qualified in that area than most scientists.
Well, thank you Craig. I don’t need to say anything.
10
BEST is funded by the most rabid of bunch of socialists there is around.
Paid operatives of the AGW scam.
Just down your alley, CT
12
ROTFLMAO!
Koch funded BEST.
More unintentional comedy from the resident clown.
20
These things are so variable within short geographical ranges that UHI is only one factor to confuse. Places with old records show their hottest years (by mean max) with or completely without possibility of UHI. Newcastle Nobby’s hottest years (say 90th percentile) are in a cluster from the mid 1870s to late 1880s. In my region (Midcoast NSW) the hottest cluster is between 1910 and 1919. Sydney’s Observatory Hill with its very old record certainly shows hottest in recent years, as does Riverview Obs, though it’s hard to see much UHI affecting Riverview in its scenic position.
What struck me was that when Obs Hill made the record daily max in 2013 (finally beating out 1939), Wedding Cake, just a paddle away in the harbour, was more than 11 degrees cooler. Wedding Cake’s maritime position and lack of UHI don’t account for that huge variation. It’s always a bit cooler out there…but by 11+ degrees? A mere 34.3 while the city (briefly) baked at 45.8?
I’m guessing there’s a bit more to know about these things…but when you try to ask an expert you can too often find yourself talking to an activist.
31
But it’s strange that you believe the planet is currently warming when we are supposed to believe David Evans’ prediction that we are entering a massive cold period.
49
I’m not David Evans, nor am I a “we” who is supposed to believe anything.
However, I would not be the least surprised if, after a period of warming, there is a period of the opposite. As stated, I have no trouble accepting climate change; I’m just glad we’re in a fairly benign part of the Holocene, which is a very benign part of the Quaternary Ice Age .
A few sorry souls believe in stable climate, I suppose. They even believe in stabilising our present climate, eg by wasting huge amounts of hydrocarbons to manufacture, install and supplement feeble whirlygigs right across the planet. Go figure.
82
Ah, good, I’m glad there are at least two of us here who are sceptical of David Evans’ impending ice age which was supposed to kick in by now.
…although, I am curious why you think that a period of warming should be followed by a period of the opposite. Wouldn’t global trends occur as a result of some kind of actual forcing being in play?
410
Let me help out here. I do not believe that a period of warming should be followed by the opposite. However I would not be surprised. Because what goes up usually comes down, and that applies to the Holocene with regard to temps, event frequency/severity, sea levels etc. (I do hope you are paying closer attention to David Evans’ actual words, whatever they are, than you are paying to mine.)
As for global trends occurring due to some kind of actual forcing…I can’t think of a single trend of any kind which isn’t caused by some forcing or other. Can you? Effect without cause? I’ve believed in some dumb things, but never that. As to knowing causes, I try to avoid the facile and accept that even best available knowledge is not necessarily adequate knowledge.
Consider the 1970s and just be glad trends end, otherwise the flares at the end of jeans would cover entire rooms and men’s mullets would be sweeping the ground by now…and we’d still be contemplating sooting or nuking the poles to stop global cooling.
61
So when do Voyager I and Voyager II “come down”?
There is no basis for assuming that any trend is likely unless you can predict the forcing that will entail that trend.
44
So I say that what usually goes up comes down (eg various Holocene conditions) and Craig asks when the Voyager missions will “come down”. You really got me that time, Craig! And when you throw up a ball in Auckland and it comes down again it is really going up toward London, at least in a cosmic sense. Not a lot of people know that, just us clever gotcha kidz who can never lose – eh Craig?
As for not being able to “predict the forcing” (and I can’t), I guess I’ll have to refrain entirely from making assumptions about future climate trends all together. This won’t be hard for me.
42
Mosomoso said:
Ah, no. The antipodes of Auckland is due west of the straits of Gibraltar, and about 550kms out in the Atlantic. Sorry, London doesn’t feature. It’s too far to the north east. But I understand your feelings towards our pet troll. He actually said something sensible, once, which I had to agree with. But so far, only once.
31
The question, Craig, is one of recognising cyclic phenomena as opposed to singular events.
When you say, “at least two of us here who are sceptical of David Evans’ impending ice age which was supposed to kick in by now”, you are attempting to apply a number of very old, but well worn, psychological tricks:
1. You include mosomoso in your ad hominem, to give your opinion weight.
2. You attempt to nullify and circumvent David Evans conclusions, by implying that they should have already occurred in a time frame mandated by yourself.
3. You up the anti by attributing an, “impending ice age”, with all that entails, to David Evans, when he has only hypothesised cooling, and has not used the phrase you quote.
4. You are “curious” as to why climatic variation,”should be followed by a period of the opposite”, when natural phenomena are invariably cyclic and periodic.
5. You look for a discrete forcing for “global trends”, whilst totally ignoring the fact that nature requires no such forcings.
53
Ah, but the key thing about “cyclic phenomena” is that they rely on there being a *cycle*.
If you can’t identify a cycle, asserting the existence of a cyclic phenomenon is something to laugh at.
David Evans identified no cycle. He shoved some numbers together to create a model that predicted future cooling. His model, hindcasted, erupts into pure nonsense: negative CO2 concentrations. So not a cycle, just a garbage model.
54
Solar effects.
41
Cycles, Craig, spectral analysis showing climate
change due to natural cycles. At 13.24 something real,
and oscillations cross reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAELGs1kKsQ
41
Patience, Grasshopper.
So far the “garbage model” has done better than the official Computer Models. You can’t have read Dr. Evans’ ideas at all thoroughly. He gave 2017 as his “most likely” start date and the Northern Hemisphere, especially over Europe, has had a bad winter. What much of Europe got, running from December 2016 to March 2017, was a mean cold one with over a metre of snow in places like the Sahara Desert, Saudi Arabia, across Turkey and so on. Spring didn’t arrive in many places until mid May, there were snow storms instead. Ireland and England had a lucky escape with a mild but dry winter.
That’s just the first five months of 2017. Sure some places had a really smiley and warm May. Like England and like Australia. Maybe. Many didn’t, like Poland where it was still snowing halfway through May. Now England and Ireland are having a heatwave. No clouds in their skys and so they are getting the full burn from the TSI.
Crop yields, winter wheat and winter vegetables, are a good indication of weather. The US’s grain yield was said to be 35% of expected. That’s not dropped by 35% but to 35% of the previous year’s. The US farmers were told that spring was expected to be “early and mild” so they put in their spring sowing. Nature snowed on it and frosted it, so that must be redone. It means a shorter growing season which will badly impact yields. If next winter sets in early, the whole summer crop could be lost.
Didn’t you pay any attention, Craig? If you had, you would have noticed all this. So far, in just the first six months of 2017, since the 2015/2016 El Nino, global average temperature has dropped by 0.5°C. That’s further than Dr. Evan’s prediction of 0.1°. Any explanation, Craig? CO2 is still rising, so the planet must still be warming … so 2017 must still be on track for a hottest year evah!. But Wait! There’s More! Your mate Gavin tried to tell the world its average temperature has reached a “record 14°C.” That average temp used to be 15°C … so Gavin’s fiddling the numbers still. :-).
Now, one winter does not a trend make, so let’s all just be patient and take the next five years one winter at a time and watch. By then, if we aren’t into a nuclear war, we can all play “Spot The Trend.” In the meantime, you can suffer your winter over the next few months, first.
Idiot.
30
and yes, I’m aware the Sahara Desert is in North Africa, and not Europe. Nor is Saudi Arabia, nor Turkey.
30
Surprisingly honest sig you’ve used there.
20
Craig. It could mean that the time series have been adjusted to lower the temperatures in the 1930s and increase temperatures since 2000. That would make the hottest ever events in recent data. Before you answer, take a few minutes and look for evidence of data manipulation, adjustments, corrections, etc.
30
Cool, publish and all of us will be the wiser. Unless all you have is a fanciful assertion…?
53
By ‘he’ I’m referring to Craig.
20
Proof is all over the web that NOAA/GISS et al have massively manipulated the temperature data.
DENY all you want, CT….. if it helps you feel bad to be human.
01
He won’t!:(
30
Time’s arrow in reverse! )
30
Craig,
The more homogenisation that is allowed to go on – unabated – will lead to more records.
No doubt you are one of the brethren that tells us that Cloncurry was not the hottest recorded in Oz and that Marble Bar did not have the longest run of +100F days in Oz.
These both occurred before you and I were born you GOOSE.
People who depend on telling lies about climate history have “homogenised” these events out of existence.
What disgusting people they are. JUST LIKE YOU.
32
My only issue with the piece is the top graph. That green curve fit has no place on that graph. It adds no information and only serves to lead/distract the eye. It has no functional form which explains any relationship. The trends are quite obvious without it, and it is therefore redundant.
40
Agree. The green line is completely meaningless.
Also, as this is aimed at a non-science audience, the caption “present” is (at best) non-informative, considering the last 162 years of temperature is not included.
48
Then why don’t you do something constructive instead of whining, Craig? You know where the databases are. You can obviously read and understand a graph. Why not do update it? From an accurate, not a homogenised database.
52
Why would I do that?
I have no pressing urge to publish an opinion piece on global temperatures accompanied by a temperature record from central Greenland, with or without misleading captions and a fantasy trend line.
47
Even worse, if my eyeballing is correct, is that the green curve suffers from end-point error. It is dropping on the left because of the first few data point and is therefore not representing the entirety of the graph.
40
If you go back to 13000bp you cover the massive Dryas cold period, which would make the bizarre green line even more….er…bizarre.
46
true. I was taking the line at face value as though it was appropriate to place a trend line there at all.
The end point drop off could be meaningful if the data projected back further but then it is a different time period with potentially different drivers. This highlights that a trend line should only be applied with caution; it is inadvisable to trend fit where multiple and possibly unknown drivers, with poorly understood behaviours, are operating.
30
The green line is obviously not a rolling average or anything like it – I’d say it is some kind of arbitrary function being superimposed on the data.
In other words, the green line is an attempt at a model. As you hint – hindcasting it back another 10,000 years would certainly prove it to be a completely useless model of the temperature series.
63
Ah, and we can’t ask the author of this dodgy graph to explain the green line because he died 6 years ago.
45
So we shall never know why it was deemed necessary by the author.
But, it would have been useful if you had noticed the authors’ demise earlier. Pixels don’t grow on trees, you know.
40
I want to know why the time scale (x-axis) of the graph is compressed at the left side. Is it to make the past look more variable? And what does the missing 162 years look like for this particular location?
60
What would be useful is if an old, long-ago debunked graph full of misleading elements wasn’t being recycled to make a point.
53
That is what happens, when you pick up a graph that has been created for one purpose; one that puts meaning on the green line, and then attempt to use it for another purpose that does not need the green line.
Whether the line is there or not, for the purposes of this conversation on this site, is immaterial. You guys are getting vaporous for no reason. The body of the graph carries some information relevant to the scale and extent of the plotted values. Read it, understand it, or don’t, as you prefer, and get over it. Geez!
50
I can debate the line if I want. If the mods don’t like it I’ll stop.
21
That is fair enough, if that is your bent.
But it does seem a little anal to me to have ten-plus comments over a line that nobody likes, and nobody understands.
30
It seems sensible that a blog-sourced graph that contained one major error, a very dubious X axis and some obvious mathematical shenanigans in the form of a green line from nowhere should be tossed in the bin and replaced with something a lot better.
Here’s one done by a real scientists without the dodginess:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/greenland.18kyr.gif
Maybe a different blogger could draw in recent varations in Greenland temperature, so we can be better informed?
Oh…looky here:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hksiecM4u3Q/VLYC3ecYOKI/AAAAAAAAAP4/ZsJFpmrxgZo/s1600/GISP2%2BHADCRUT4CW%2BHolocene.png
Well, that is interesting isn’t it…?
43
First graph shows that most of the last 10,000 years have been WARMER than current.
Well done CT, you are starting to get back to REALITY.
Let’s have a look at Greenland ice area.. Currently higher than all but the last hundred or so years.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/48379-1.jpg
We could also have a look at the Total Greenland Ice Mass since 1900.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/48380-1.png
You really do have to get some sort of PERSPECTIVE of REALITY into your sad existence, CT.
01
The second graph…
Yes it is interesting, a total fabrication, attaching high resolution highly manipulated data onto a proxy graph …. and thinking it means anything
Shows an absolute contempt for any scientific or mathematical principles. (not that you would know what they are, CT)
00
What surprises me is that the claim of limestone stalagmites being a suitable proxy for past climate tends to make sense. If you can calibrate your model of radioactive decay and your temperature proxy then the result can be a whole lot better than tree rings which we know hasn’t worked out so well. Ms. Oster and her associates may be onto something.
50
Gosh, those scientists should compare the different proxies to test their analyses. I wonder why only Roy ever thought of doing this?
Oh look, turns out the scientists have been doing exactly that for over 20 years:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/abs/ngeo1797.html
“…SUcomp shows good agreement with other published NAO-sensitive records…, including winter drought-sensitive tree-ring… and stalagmite records”
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep10307
http://www.igg.cas.cn/xwzx/yjcg/200908/W020090828562959241596.pdf
“We provide the first example of combining annual-resolution
proxy data to reconstruct large-scale temperature over the last
millennium for China”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x/pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252.full
47
Craig,
It wasn’t that I had thought of this myself. I didn’t. But thinking about what she and her associates were doing led to the conclusion that it just might work.
I had never heard of the prior activities you listed. There is only so much time for searching the net and I have some other interests as well as climate change, these days, chiefly politics, which is hurting all of us all the time.
00
O/T
Another renewable plan “scrutenised with a very intense scrut”
“Renewable energy cost and reliability claims exposed and debunked”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/21/renewable-energy-cost-and-reliability-claims-exposed-and-debunked/
Sounds like another application of that well known modelling dictum of “if in doubt leave it out”
50
Interesting problem the 8.2kyr event, as to its’ cause.
Other than huge glacial lake breaches into the Atlantic, other possible causes include solar cycles, solar flares, volcanic eruptions, and a meteor/comet impact. The timing matches ‘Bond event 5’, which are solar fluctuations around +-1000-1500 year cycles; if so, this one probably being the strongest in the record for the last 20,000 years or so.
Note that a curious aspect of ice-related climate features is that once summer ice cover doesn’t melt, temperatures can rapidly decline due to self-reinforcing ice build up, and sudden increased albedo over large land areas. The same is true in reverse, once summer ice cover melts, rapid warming often occurs, as in the end of the ice ages, with sudden loss of albedo and self-reinforcing cold over large land areas. But where there is little ice over land to begin with (such as within the warm interglacial now), or very thick ice (such as in Greenland), you don’t get sudden changes in summer ice cover, so don’t expect any ice related tipping point anytime soon.
30
Have you looked at the “Double Solar Dynamo” hypothesis from Prof Zharkova and team? This is the Royal Astronomical Society’s press release.
It looks interesting. They’re predicting a Maunder-type minimum in about fifteen years time (2030). Of course, that went down like a solid concrete balloon and at about the same speed in the Fossil-Fuel/CO2 quarter. It is predicted to last for about three cycles or 33 years. If it’s right, it’s going to be turbulent weather with very changeable temperatures for a while.
If the predicted minimum occurs and to the same depth as the last Maunder minimum, then this will gain some kudos and there will be another temperature drop in the Holocene temperature record to about the same depth as the LIA on the (right hand side of the) graph. Notice the other ones. They could all be Maunder-type minima.
I like your point about the summer ice not melting and temperatures declining to the level of self-reinforcing ice growth. That and the helpful changes from the Milankovitch cycles, would give the logarithmic decay we see in all the previous interstadials in the record over about 35,000 years or so, until the stadial’s low point is reached. The initial decline seems pretty fast as is the rise into the next interstadial. Tipping points may just be real.
40
very funny…read all, incl lots of tweets:
21 Jun: NBC Bay Area: ‘False Alarm:’ USGS Mistakenly Reports 6.8 Earthquake Near Santa Barbara
By Riya Bhattacharjee and Associated Press
The U.S. Geological Survey said that an email alert that went out about a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in Isla Vista Wednesday was a “false alarm” based on a quake that happened in the same area nearly a century ago.
“We are sending something out to correct it. It was systems maintenance and something was sent out that shouldn’t have been,” a spokesperson told NBC Bay Area.
An email alert received by NBC Bay Area at 4:51 p.m. from USGS said there had been a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the Santa Barbara Channel on June 29, 2025 at 7:42 a.m., nine miles from Isla Vista, and 10 miles from downtown Santa Barbara.
A follow-up email from USGS said the event had been deleted. “The quake did happen, but it happened in 1925,” said Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist from the US Geological Survey…
The Los Angeles Times was put in an especially bad spot. The newspaper sent out a robotic story that it quickly had to retract.
“We have an algorithm (Quakebot) that automatically writes stories about earthquakes based on USGS alerts,” the Times said in a tweet. “The USGS alert was incorrect.”…
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/USGS-M68-Earthquake-Alert–430017183.html#ixzz4khi0KDWx
10
21 Jun: High Country News: Ruxandra Guidi: California enters the global climate stage
As Trump backs off climate agreement, California tackles ambitious renewables goal
According to a poll conducted by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California last year, two-thirds of residents support independent state efforts to address global warming…
In short, while Washington takes big strides to dismantle former President Obama’s environmental legacy, California appears more determined than ever to reduce its CO2 emissions. Days after the Paris Agreement withdrawal, Brown headed to China in an effort to tie California’s cap-and-trade system to that country’s emerging trading plan. Also, the State Senate passed a bill that would require California to obtain 100 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2045, making it one of the most aggressive targets in the country — if not the world.
Observers say the chances of the bill getting Brown’s signature (LINK) look very promising…
According to the California Energy Commission, the state currently obtains about 30 percent of its electricity from renewables, twice as much as the U.S. as a whole. Its vision for the future includes a mix of approaches such as vehicle emissions limits, expanding its existing cap-and-trade system, energy efficiency standards and renewable portfolio standards for utilities. But while California’s new zero carbon goal is very ambitious — how realistic is it?
The bill sets a threshold but it doesn’t mandate how to reach it — except by keeping nuclear and hydroelectric power out of the equation. When asked about that recently, author of the bill and the Kevin de León, California Senate president pro tempore, said the state has met past targets, adding, “we always hit our goals. It doesn’t make a difference.”
“The news makes me a little nervous because 2045 isn’t that far away,” says Jason Cotrell, a renewable energy entrepreneur who was until recently employed at Colorado’s National Renewables Energy Laboratory as an expert on wind energy innovation. “Details matter.”
Currently, the power system relies on natural gas to meet the changes in electricity demand beyond what’s provided by renewable sources, and according to the California Energy Commission, gas is still the state’s largest main source of electricity. What will replace gas? And how will utilities deal with the challenge of energy storage? Is a 100 percent renewable grid technically feasible? And, would it bring rates up for consumers?
“Maybe the 100 percent renewables goal will turn out to be too expensive, but the real value of the law is the signal it gives to the rest of the country that ‘we’re going to do this,’” Cotrell says. “California is playing a bigger role and people across the country are looking to it to lead the way.”…
http://www.hcn.org/articles/california-enters-the-global-climate-stage
10
21 Jun: Breitbart: James Delingpole: Tesla Car Batteries Not Remotely Green, Study Finds
The car batteries used in a Tesla generate as much CO2 as driving a gasoline-powered car for eight years. And that’s before they even come off the production line.
This news, from a study by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute, will no doubt delight all those U.S. taxpayers who have been forking out billions of dollars to prop up Tesla’s share price having been assured by their government that subsidizing overpriced electric cars represents a vital step towards “combatting climate change.”
The report, commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency, cannot easily be dismissed because it is a meta-analysis (ie a summary) of all the available studies on the subject…LINK
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/21/delingpole-tesla-car-batteries-co2-not-remotely-green-study-finds/
subscription reqd, comments mostly scathing:
20 Jun: UK Telegraph: Scramble begins for the vast financial prize of electric vehicles
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Morgan Stanley is betting that electric cars will corner 70pc of the European vehicle market by the middle of century, leading to a drastic upheaval for the power sector and scramble for dominance of lucrative new technologies.
Global banks in London and New York are no longer debating whether the switch-over will occur.
A report this week from Nicholas Ashworth and Carolina Dores at Morgan Stanley says a ratchet effect is underway. It is becoming more costly each year to develop petrol and diesel cars that comply with tightening rules on emissions of CO2 and particulates (NOx), yet the cost of EV batteries keeps falling. The crossover point will arrive in the mid-2020s…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/20/scramble-begins-vast-financial-prize-electric-vehicles/
11
“The crossover point will arrive in the mid-2020s”
at which point the cost of electricity to power them will probably exceed the cost of petrol!
40
When I posted this info on another forum the replies I got back (apart from “stupid climate denier”) were:
“Why are you cherry picking it at “years before 1950? Are you scared the recent warming will skew the right side of the graph?”
Yes, they totally ignored the huge spike downwards and the article about the spike… in favour of their own little agenda.
10