” Claude Harvey (23:15:45) :

This finding would seem at odds with a recent study reported in WUWT. In it, the analysis of New Zealand cave stalactites purportedly indicated the European medieval warming period had been simultaneously experienced in the southern hemisphere.”

Actually, there is no contradiction. The Lorrey paper says the glaciers grew during the LIA, NOT the MWP. Please reread it more closely.

Furthermore, you should also pay attention to the relative altitudes of the caves and the glaciers. “”"

Mike,

The ancient glacial moraine beds of the Fox glacier ar essentially at sea level; same for Franz Joseph. The main hiway past both of those is only a few feet above the sea, and the present glacier terminal face might be 200 feet up the canyon; but I doubt it is much more; they are sea level glaciers, although they start a good way up the Mount Cook area of the Southern Alps.

George

RW (00:41:06) : After all, the mediaeval warming period and little ice age were largely northern hemisphere phenomena, “”"

Not so. A number of authors have done reviews of hundreds of world wide studies of various climate indicators and show that BOTH the the MWP and the LIA were indeed global phenomena.

But you only have to look at the land/water assymmetry, with most of the land being in the northern hemisphere, and most of the water in the southern hemisphere, including both the Arctic, and the Antarctic; to see that you wouldn’t expect both hemishperes to fall lockstep into the same patterns.

One famous phenomenon that definitely was not global; as stated even by it’s best known promoter; is the Mann “Hockey Stick”
The original publication of the phenomenon states quite learly at the top of the graph: “NORTHERN HEMISPHERE”

So we know the hockey stick was just a local anomalie; not a global event; Mann said so.

“”"
Each glacier has an idiosyncratic local set of conditions in the water field supply of vapor mass and the snow field accumulator along with the foot melt point. These are very unlikely to be in simple sync with a LIA “average” temperature. Not to mention that shifts of ocean currents and winds could have a dramatic impact on a single little island like N.Z. while still being part of a global cooling. “”"

Time for a little geography E.M.

New Zealand definitely is NOT a “single little Island”, as any credible map of the world will show; And it is somewhere between Oregon, and California in size. If you flipped NZ across the equator, and moved it to the US West Coast, it would stretch from up in the Gulf of Alaska, down to the Mexican border: and it has four islands; North Island, South Island, Stewart Island, and Rangitoto.

So it definitely does have its own climate.

But, as someone who is proud to be a liberal, I can hope that other participants in this debate remember the essential utility of liberalism–the tolerance that allows consensus and yes, compromise. President Obama’s energy plan is a good start for this country, and I say that as one who is skeptical about the current range of catastrophic outcomes predicted by alarmists. Let’s use it as a starting point for Round Two of debate on climate change. “”"

What debate are you talking about. There is no debate; the science is settled remember !

Just what Obama energy plan are you talking about: his “energy plan” is a massive tax scam designed to raise the trillions of dollars required to fund his wild socialist Marxist totalitarian take over of America.
Tolerance ? you have to be kidding. In the Congress, the minority party may not even introduece ANY legislation; and may not make amendments to legislation the majority party puts up. If the minor party doesn’t vote for the legislation of the major party; they are obstructionists, and mean spirited.
Well the minority party is supposed tor resist stupid legislation that will destroy the country the founders gave us. All three branches of the Government simply run roughshod over the Constitution. The Constitution grants authority to the Congress to make uniform laws of bankruptcy that apply uniformly everywhere in th4e USA; but this little dictator simply usurps authority he doesn’t have and simply tells a private business that they have to sell out or go bankrupt under his rules; which is to give that company to the ubiob workers who helped put him in absolute power; “we won” is his authotity to do whatever Saul Alinski taught him and other radicals to do.
You’ve got to be living in a dream world Tom; if you think this is what the American People voted for.

Well you and your fellow liberals have the whole ball of wax now; so whatever happens next is on your ticket.
When the minority part can not raise a single vote to support wild run amok legislation; and significant numbers of the Majority part can’t either; that is usually a warning that the train is off the rails.

Enjoy it while you can Tom; your children, and your grandchildren; and their granchildren are going to love you, for what you are doing to this once great country.
Maybe with luck Mother Nature will step in and throw the light of reality on this foolishness.

This finding would seem at odds with a recent study reported in WUWT. In it, the analysis of New Zealand cave stalactites purportedly indicated the European medieval warming period had been simultaneously experienced in the southern hemisphere. “”"

What’s the mystery? The study says the Fox Glacier reached its most advanced position 6500 years ago, and has been receding since. They do not say it has been receding monotonically. In fact Fox Glacier, and its cousin Franz Joseph Glacier a few mile up the road regularly advance and recede. When I was there New Year’s Day of 2007, both were advancing, but you could see from the signs and early photographs where the glacier had been earlier and it was much more advanced than it is today. At it’s furthest advance the chances are the Fox Glacier ended up in the Tasman Sea. In Jan 2007 you could walk right up to the very face, and that brown strip on the bottom left of the picture above.

Some rocket scientists were actually walking inside ice caves at the bottom of the front face with overhanging cliffs above them (for photo opportunities. The string of large ice blocks that had bounded 1/4 mile down stream from that face; probably would give some clue as to one’s life expectancy for being so foolish. Unlike in the USA; in NZ, they don’t care too much if you want to off yourself in such a fashion. Don’t look for a payoff for your hers . The signs plainly tell you it is illegal to even go up there that far (without being on a guided trek.

The long term trend is they retreat from the last ice age, but on shorter (30 year) time scales they wax and wane.

George

This finding would seem at odds with a recent study reported in WUWT. In it, the analysis of New Zealand cave stalactites purportedly indicated the European medieval warming period had been simultaneously experienced in the southern hemisphere.”

Actually, there is no contradiction. The Lorrey paper says the glaciers grew during the LIA, NOT the MWP. Please reread it more closely.

Furthermore, you should also pay attention to the relative altitudes of the caves and the glaciers.

Entirely possible, it is overdue, I think. The South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly is one possible precursor of this change – it is an area of weakening magnetic field that is allowing cosmic rays etc into the atmosphere. And it is growing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
http://web.dmi.dk/fsweb/Esautilw/pee04ag.gif
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081125090348.htm
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/fileadmin/documents/OSTST/2002_no/willis.pdf

.

So there’s absolutely no point in comparing continental glaciers anywhere, with these babies. The ocean they face and the prevailing westerly wind, has a clear run right from Africa. That ocean is host to some of the scariest wave trains in the world (100 ft is not unusual, read abaht it in any round-the-world yachting epic), and thus those glaciers are a creature of SST and winds, just as the study rather bleedingly obviously is reported to have, well, reported.

More than a leetle skepticism is warranted here, as Rhys J has pointed out way above.

Tarpon, I could not find any paper that linked space weather to terrestrial weather, but Svensmark notes that CGRs may cause cloud formation. You write:”Who wants to do the research and then write a paper about how the changing earth’s magnetic field effects the climate with the changing effects of cosmic rays?” I refer you to this paper;
[2] K. Scherer, et al Interstellar-Terrestrial Relations: Variable Cosmic Environments, The Dynamic Heliosphere, And Their Imprints On Terrestrial Archives And Climate. Space Science Reviews (2006) DOI: 10.1007/s11214-006-9126-6 _C
It’s abstract is in my paper which you can download from my website but one of the ideas is that as the Our Galaxy moves through space we hit regions of intense CGR and these tie up with ice ages.

Just a quick comment about me so you know where I am coming from. I am not an academic, I am 61 years old and have been an electronics engineer for all my working life and am partially retired. I gained an MSc in Electronic Engineering in 1992 .The reason I started to look at climate change was purely an interest in learning more about it. Just out of curiosity I decided to look at the position of the north magnetic pole and norther hemisphere temperatures as there was conjecture that the poles were about to reverse and plunge us into an ice age. I originally went back to 1600 but before ~1900 temperature projections vary wildly and the estimates for the magentic pole positions are also variable so I restricted it to the last 100 years. As the pole positions are given in 5 yr intervals the cooling seen recently is not reflected in the graphs. All comments welcome. Cheers Adrian

You stated,

The Fox Glacier had retreated by 1,000 feet in December, 1974, during global cooling.

Both Fox & nearby Franz Josef Glaciers have an approx. 5 yr lag between weather conditions at the neve and manifestation at the terminal face. For 1974 look to the conditions in 1969. Both of these west coast glaciers have been advancing rapidly, with occasional retreats, since 1984.

With the recent overflowing of the hydro lakes in the downstream region of the Southern Alps (on the eastern side of the divide) as a result of a steady flow of heavy rain in the headwaters since last September, expect to see more major advances at the terminal faces of F.J. & Fox in 4.5 years.

An announcement on the weather for T.V.N.Z. tonight stated that Mt Hutt Ski Field on the eastern flank of the Southern Alps has a ski base of 45cm (18 inches) with opening day not far away. A great start for ski fans!

Your original inquiry, to which several have referred, makes a good point about the inconsistency of such studies. They assume uniformity in some things known NOT to be uniform over time in order to study unique cataclysmic events! There is much about the past that we do not know and all such studies and their methods must constantly be questioned for logical consistency.

Tom

“…but are intentionally ignoring that another re-doubling and perhaps yet a further re-doubling of CO2, and the effluent that would accompany it, would, as the conventional environmental wisdom has it, carry costs we do not want to bear–or sometimes even contemplate.”

All the fossil fuel we have burned to date is claimed to be responsible for about 110ppm CO2. To finish the first doubling we need to add another 170ppm, more than we have added since the late 1800′s. The next doubling we will need to add 560ppm, 5 times what we have added already. A third doubling envisions burning a totally ridiculous amount of fossil fuels.

Exactly how much fossil fuel do you think is available in the planet???

Dave Middleton,

“Add coal to the equation…And there probably is enough fossil “carbon” left to do that. Before all of that carbon was bound up in fossil fuels, the Earth’s atmosphere had about 4000ppm to 7000ppm CO2.”

Sorry, more CO2 is tied up in soils, “The White Cliffs of Dover”, plants, shells (living and dead)… Please do your homework on that.

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/9r.html

See table 9r-1.

All that CO2 was NATURALLY sequestered, BUT, the majority didn’t make it to fossil fuels. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH FOSSIL FUEL TO DO THE JOB.

Of course. Oceans and winds. And of course the climate models miss all this because their emphasis is really on the atmosphere rather than the seas…time to revisit this piece….

http://climatesci.org/2009/01/29/real-climate-suffers-from-foggy-perception-by-henk-tennekes/

“A weather model deals with the atmosphere. Slow processes in the oceans, the biosphere, and human activities can be ignored or crudely parameterized. This strategy has been very successful. The dominant fraternity in the meteorological modeling community has appropriated this advantage, and made itself the lead community for climate modeling.”

The climate models were ‘doomed’ from the start.