Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years

As “Interesting Times” goes on, while we eat our pop-corn and comment at WUWT, the real icy issues will begin to take an equally more interesting perspective as your next winter time grows near.
Igloos anyone?

Canucks rock when it comes to reasonable approaches to climate studies.

This does fit in with the climate record from the end of the last ice age when it was warmer than today.

This is all beginning to resemble one of those boxing matches where the hot young favourite is first knocked down, gets up groggy, dazed and reeling, and is then repeatedly hammered mercilessly by the old-timer until, staggering and bleeding, he collapses on the ropes. The last few posts on WUWT have been like a count-down to the end of the CAGW scam and we can all hope it’s carried out on a stretcher soon. Can’t you see the faces of the guys in the red corner? Seven, eight ……….
Thank you Anthony and all those others who have been the frontfighters in this struggle for the return of real, honest science.

The Titanic just hit an iceberg. Is Captain Smith, er I mean Captain Mann going to go down with the ship or is he elbowing his way to the lifeboats screaming that the data was bad.

Bah, humbug. All those drowning polar bears beg to differ.

Nice to see a scientific article here again. Very interesting post, but I find it curious that the graph shows declining sea ice on a rising scale on the x-axis. “ka” means “per thousand years”, I assume? The use of dinocyst diversity and density provides a compelling methodology to support the conclusions, although I have not seen the data. This appears to be solid geological/paleontological paper. Of course, the implications are frightening, as it does sound as if we might be nearing the end of the holocene interglacial. Yikes!

Interesting. The North West passage has been attempted but seldom completed as recorded at the British Library site
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/northwpass/intro.html
and is still being attempted this year by Paul Allen of Microsoft;
http://megayachtnews.org/content/yachts/41-motoryachts/1858-octopus-superyacht-northwest-passage.html
Then of course we have the dichotomy of AGW ice loss assisting the potential extraction of arctic oil;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11395015
Yet it could be that the best chance of navigable waters has long gone and the next chance is far off. Mother Nature can be so cruel.

Slight change in topic, the introduction to the article said “(and never about Antarctic sea ice extent which reached a record high this year)” and I have noticed the recent rather fast drop in Antarctic ice in the WUWT Sea Ice page. I am really curious about this sudden drop and wondering why it is occurring following the record high extent. Seems to be some odd weather about recently.

It is interesting to note that the authors said that the trends in the Western Arctic Ocean were the opposite of those shown in the east. It is a kind of difficult paper to read, however, so I have just skimmed it. But it is not surprising that ice extent (actually SST’s) were higher around the time of the holocene optimum. At that time, because of orbital factors, the northern hemisphere received more insolation.
Of course this one will probably show up on poptech’s list of papers which disprove AGW.

What I dislike about the historical arguments is that at the end of the day, they largely miss the point –that something else may be causing the 1977-2010 warming, is not to prove that it is. For all we can know from such arguments, perhaps without C02 the 1940-1977 cooling should have continued, and the impact of C02 is actually more than the AGW consensus (to the degree there is one).
But still, the exercise is necessary, because the AGWers insist that all this is unprecedented, and rely heavily on that supposed “fact” to make their argument. So in the end I hold them responsible for having to continually have these fights over the history.
What’s sad –and possibly even dangerous– is that by placing so much reliance on those arguments, the AGWers are liable to discredit their cause whether it needs discrediting or not.
But I continue to believe that another 10 yrs or so of data and research will probably settle this stuff one way or another. In the meantime, I remain reluctant to engage in multi-trillion dollar reengineering of our energy supply on that account. “Peak oil” seems a more credible threat than AGW to me, but of course you’d have to stop demonizing coal and natural gas to do your best to meet that threat.

Serreze and Joe Romm: Let’s quote Chateaubriand when he saw Talleyrand -Diplomat- walking with Fouche -Police Ministre-: “Here comes vice resting on crime’s arm”… LOL

http://www.c3headlines.com/temperature-charts-historical-proxies.html
This link contains a multitude of proxies for various areas of the globe, all showing that:
The MWP was global,
That global warmings and coolings are on a sinusoidal waveform, and
That climate does not depend on CO2 levels at all.
I had stopped worrying about catastrophic GW some years ago, when I had to time to start reading about what was really going on. But then I started worrying about global cooling when I saw this:
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a62f87f3970c-pi
If one were to plot a line joining the lowest points on the troughs of the cooling periods, one will get a downward trend, with each global cooling period getting colder and colder, indicating that the next cooling could be even worse than the LIA. I hope I’m wrong and that the current global warming stays staedy. If the cold takes hold, I bet Al Gore, Mann, Romm and others of the same ilk would still be touring the icy planet putting the blame on CO2 and global warming.

Re. who will be the first to go, we will all be in danger from cold summers and low harvests. This summer in N. CA local apples and pears were hard hit by late frosts. I have heard numerous friends complain that their tomatoes didn’t get ripe. We picked our grapes but they are still tart. Just a first taste of what might be if it turns colder. S.CA complains they moved from spring to fall without ever tasting summer.

I must admit from the start, that I have just arrived back on my ship (after a couple of sedatives from my doctor (Guinness)), and could not resist mentioning, without reading through this piece, or the comments, that Prof Bob Carter has already made a reasonable case for global cooling. Makes one wonder… peut etre, je reviendrais.

Can we discuss this in say 5 years, when the signal will be strong enough to penetrate even (most of) this level of [snip]? Have you seen the graphs for sea ice volume, as opposed to extent? They’re even more telling. We are cooking the planet folks, and it’s not a good thing at all.

the map re-drawn by the Turk Piri Reis in 1513 with a mostly ice free artic has been of interest to me for many years.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm

This paper reminded me of the extracts from Alan Wilkie’s 1976 book that Warwick Hughes posted .
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=347
Page 51 is very relevant.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/wilk51.gif

Come on, warmies, forget the skeptics! It has to be arranged: an annual circumpolar Arctic yacht race, planned several years in advance, like all major sports events. Trophies, live coverage, major sponsorships. Branson will come on board with sponsorship, Soros will be good for some cash, Leo will do the publicity shots from a melty ice floe. (Al can just hand out the trophies, since he’s a bit one-way with cash). You have to do this!

Jim Pettit-
That’s the way it works here.

I don’t get what’s so comforting about instances when things were warmer millions or thousands of years ago. Why do we want to force a return to those conditions? And what about the rate of change? Has the climate warmed this fast in the past?

the map re-drawn by the Turk Piri Reis in 1513 with a mostly ice free artic has been of interest to me for many years.
http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_1.htm

But history has no place in computer models that first assert that CO2 causes warming and forcings of A, B and C where
A is “the world is going to end VERY soon.”
B is “the world is going to end FAIRLY soon.”
C is “the world is going to end somewhat soon.”
I for one am not worried that global warming is going to be swept under the rug in a few years, I think the bigger worry is that these same scientists are going to keep their jobs over the next 10 years and start spouting off about global cooling because of “human influences” and politicians will jump on that band-wagon like the opportunists they are.
We need to throw these bums out now before they continue on their tenured track and continue to spout off on this non-sense with no understanding of the systems.

“we are cooking the planet” wial, at 4:22 pm
Funny, pathetic, sad – all at the same time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jim Pettit, 4:28 pm
Jim,
In many publications it is expected that a paper begin with a summary of relevant literature. The purpose is to show editors, reviewers, and readers that you have knowledge of the topic about which you write. This does not indicate that you believe everything you have cited. In fact, many research efforts and the papers subsequently published have as their goal to upend previously well accepted notions. Moral: The “few snippets” you quote are not relevant to the findings of the research.

Smokey,
Smokey says:
September 23, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Cliff says:
“1. It is not intended to be ‘comforting.’ It shows that natural variability is sufficient to fully explain the current climate without the unnecessary addition of a trace gas, less than 3% of which is contributed by human activity.”
I don’t see how that logically follows. The fact that the climate has warmed in the past without manmade GHGs does not mean it’s not happening now.
“2. There is no credible way for humans to “force” the planet’s temperature one way or another, despite the mistaken presumption that the Earth’s temperature can be tweaked until it is just right.”
Aren’t the physics of what GHGs do well understood? Haven’t temperatures been higher in the past when CO2 was naturally higher? Is it possible to explain current CO2 levels without manmade sources. The last question I honestly don’t know while the first two are rhetorical of course but you get my point.
“3. Yes, the planet has warmed “this fast” in the past — and by much more than the current fraction of a degree over a century and a half. In addition to warming faster, it has also gotten cold faster, and by a much greater magnitude.”
OK thanks for that info. But what folks are worried about is not the last fraction of a degree but obviously the much larger increases projected by the mainstream climate scientists (rightly or wrongly).
The bottom line is we don’t want temperatures that are much higher, regardless of whether they existed 200 million years ago. So the whole question comes down to manmade versus natural variability. And the mere existence of higher temperatures (or colder ones) in the past does not answer that question.
Nothing is occurring now that has not happened repeatedly prior to the industrial revolution. The scientific method requires any hypothesis to be falsifiable and testable. The AGW hypothesis fails on both counts, therefore it does not fit the definition of science. It is simply an unverified conjecture.

Smokey, about that last paragraph –
“Nothing is occurring now that has not happened repeatedly prior to the industrial revolution. The scientific method requires any hypothesis to be falsifiable and testable. The AGW hypothesis fails on both counts, therefore it does not fit the definition of science. It is simply an unverified conjecture”
Couldn’t one falsify AGW by showing that the warming since the industrial revolution is not attributable to manmade GHGs? Also, it seems that AGW is testable by seeing whether temperatures rise significantly more over the next several decades instead of the cooling that a number of folks here a confident is coming. That test may take a while but it’s a test.

Yes, the planet has warmed “this fast” in the past — and by much more than the current fraction of a degree over a century and a half.
And please tell the readers what happened to the creatures that were living on this planet at the time. They can also look it up themselves under “extinction events”.

db stealey, with ‘these people are lying’ I mean the folks at Hockey Schtick. The title of this post should be changed immediately, before more people get misguided into thinking the sea ice cover was smaller for most of the past 9000 years. They completely twisted that sentence to mean the exact opposite.

Jim Pettit writes,
“After reading many of the “Aha! Gotcha!” comments from the contrarians here, I have to naturally wonder whether many–or even any–of them actually read the paper.”
Looks like close to zero, no skeptics here! A few other notes about the paper, added to Jim’s:
This is not mainly about the Arctic as a whole, but reports on data from a the eastern Chuckchi Sea.
The authors are cautious about their data, noting possible problems and that some findings run opposite to what has been found in other parts of the Arctic. For example,
“The difference between the top of the sequence and the ‘‘modern’’ hydrography might well be due to the fact that the top of the trigger core represents a longer time interval than that of the limited numbers of hydrographic measurements, which were made between 1954 and 2001. If both the observed and reconstructed time series are correct, then the last part of the 20th century must have been particularly
cold compared with the mid- to late Holocene in the Chukchi Sea, which is opposite to what is seen in the eastern Arctic and northern Baffin Bay”
Note that their reference period for “modern” sea ice and hydrographic conditions is 1954-2001.
The final sentence of their paper makes clear the different time scales they are comparing: millennial-scale changes appear larger than those in the second half of the 20th century.
“It is important to note that the amplitude of these millennial-scale changes in sea-surface conditions far exceed those observed at the end of the 20th century.”
But the second half of the 20th century, and changes taking place over thousands of years, are not what WUWT and many others have been writing about in this season.
I doubt that the paper’s authors would agree with the tabloid-style treatment their research received here. It would be wonderful if they could pop in themselves, and comment.

Well OK….if you are Michael Mann, graphs DO lie because they are spliced. But you know what I mean.

No, Smokey, the sentence you quote is their words. The people at Hockey Schtick say the paper says that during most of the past 9000 years the Arctic sea ice extent was smaller than at the end of the 20th century.
But the paper doesn’t say that. It says the exact opposite. It says there have been times when the Arctic sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century. Not most of the time, but a few times.
Not in the whole Arctic, but in the western Arctic (based on cores in the eastern Chukchi Sea). They even say: “This is in direct contrast to the eastern Arctic where sea-ice cover was substantially reduced during the early to mid-Holocene and has increased over the last 3000 years”.
Note too that they say ‘at the end of the 20th century’. The situation in the first decade of the 21st century is radically different from the end of the 20th century. The title of this WUWT blog post even says ‘current Arctic sea ice’. That is simply not what the paper states. Not at all.
—
The people at Hockey Schtick twisted that sentence, there is no doubt about it. And given the name of their site and the fact that generally they have problems with proxy temperature reconstructions, I’m inclined to conclude that they did it on purpose, probably because they want to divert attention from the fact that there was no recovery in the Arctic this year. Why else would they cite a paper from 2008?
And thus it is imperative that the title of this WUWT blog post gets changed asap, or else the person who wrote it might look guilty by proxy of spreading the same disinformation as the people at the Hockey Schtick blog.
Change it into “Surprise: Arctic sea ice extent has been lower than at the end of the 20th century.” Or whatever, but don’t leave it as is.

Does no one see how Hockey Schtick twisted one of the conclusions of the paper in such a manner that it says the exact opposite (on three points)?
Do none of the people who are responsible for the content on WUWT see that the title from this blog post – that was copied almost verbatim from that twisted Hockey Schtick version of what the paper actually says – is wrong and misleading?

Hard to argue with that. I guess that site is representative of the whole arctic. And the warm, ice free conditions thousands of years ago I read about on WUWT just a little while ago seem to be bogus too, according to the graph.

Well said, Mike Jonas.
And that chart is seen here:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/seaice4.jpg
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Smokey says:
September 23, 2010 at 8:51 pm
EFS_Junior says:
“…someone will have to come up with a convincing argument that current Arctic sea ice extent/area/volume declines can be fully explained and modeled using natural climate variability alone.”
I’m going to try to simplify Smokey’s response.
For a theory there should be experiments or predictions, the positive results of which should strengthen that being put forward. When an experiment or prediction does not happen as proposed it is the responsibility of those proposing the theory to change it and try again or withdraw. Others do not have a responsibility to come up with anything.
Why not find and read this booklet to see how this is working out for AGW:
The Skeptics Handbook: http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 23, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Does no one see how Hockey Schtick twisted one of the conclusions of the paper in such a manner that it says the exact opposite (on three points)?
Do none of the people who are responsible for the content on WUWT see that the title from this blog post – that was copied almost verbatim from that twisted Hockey Schtick version of what the paper actually says – is wrong and misleading?
Its time you took a deep breath, went outside, and maybe smell some flowers or observe nature in action for a change. You are getting bent over backwards on something that is wrong, I did not see that conclusion from the data in the paper, but sure, in your reality you can assume anything you want.
When you are accusing this article of being incorrect, the burden is on YOU to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are correct. Simply saying that the paper mentions the opposite is not grounds for removing a paper, or even issueing a retraction of any type.
This is the same “reality dysfunction” that believers in CaGW have. They believe that the burden is on everyone else to prove them incorrect when in fact the scientific method says the opposite. Its up to you to prove the null hypothesis false first. This is just like the belief in God. Its not up to a non-believer to prove God does not exist, its up to the church to prove that he does. Since this can not happen, churches nowadays have taken the logical assumption that you must have faith. But I digress..
If you really want us to not see you as an arm-wailing loony, then the best bet is to probably see things from our perspective(s) and then prove us wrong. Until you prove us wrong, you are simply forcing your beliefs onto us and by being offensive, you will just get the “troll” brush by the rest of us.

moderator – Please rescue my last comment from where-ever it ended up.
The paper I mentioned
Limitations of dinoflagellate cyst transfer functions. QSR 25, 1375-1382 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.02.012

Ben D, this is the title at Hockey Schtick: “Paper: Current Arctic Sea Ice is More Extensive than Most of the past 9000 Years”
This is the title here: “Surprise: Peer reviewed study says current Arctic sea ice is more extensive than most of the past 9000 years”
THE PAPER DOES NOT SAY THAT!
Sorry for the capslock, but I really don’t know how to get this fairly simple and obvious conclusion across. I have explained it several times now.
Can someone who is responsible for the content on this blog react? Or are you waiting for Smokey, savethesharks and Ben D to wear me down and just keep things as they are? The title is clearly very successful at misleading people into thinking something that the quoted paper is NOT saying. If this is what you want, then keep it this way. If it’s not what you want, change it.

When you are accusing this article of being incorrect, the burden is on YOU to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are correct.

The Chukchi Sea, the area considered in the study, is 10% of the Arctic ocean. The top post here refers to the entire Arctic ocean. That is an error of 90%.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:06 pm
THE PAPER DOES NOT SAY THAT!
================================
The graph from the paper does.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/seaice4.jpg

Günther,
I would hate to spoil savethesharks’ fun getting you all worked up, but yes, you do have a point. I hope that your frustration with this extrapolation from the Chukchi sea to the whole Arctic and “at times” becoming “most” is something like what I feel about the barrage of impending doom stories your champions come up with.

So we’re leaving everything as is, do we?
Well, in that case all I can hope is that people see what is happening here. And perhaps they’ll notice a trend and conclude how trustworthy this blog is as a source.
REPLY: Maybe I’ll get lucky and you start citing Joe Romm then. -A

I have to agree with Günther.

barry says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:12 pm
The Chukchi Sea, the area considered in the study, is 10% of the Arctic ocean. The top post here refers to the entire Arctic ocean. That is an error of 90%.
Other proxies such as ice cores represent only a few square cm (or inches if you prefer). This gives you an “error” of almost 100%. Why does anyone take them seriously? (/sarc off)
When the Chukchi sea temperatures and ice melt are above normal, the Chukchi sea is a cause celebre for the AGWer – but find an inconvenient proxy result in the Chukchi sea and suddenly its “only 10% of the Arctic”.

Looks a bit like a hockeystick again: long stick of slow decline followed by a very sharp uptick.

Steven Mosher says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:21 am
Smokey
” No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperatures changes are the result of natural variability.”
that’s because its NOT a properly formulated hypothesis. “natural variability” is NOT a cause. It is the admission that we dont know the cause.
We’ve been through this before. Rejecting “natural variation” because we dont understand all the sources of variation, is “argumentun ad ignorantium” i.e. bad epistemology and logic.
Natural variation is a valid null hypothesis.

phlogiston: September 24, 2010 at 12:11 am

barry says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:12 pm
The Chukchi Sea, the area considered in the study, is 10% of the Arctic ocean. The top post here refers to the entire Arctic ocean. That is an error of 90%.

Other proxies such as ice cores represent only a few square cm (or inches if you prefer). This gives you an “error” of almost 100%. Why does anyone take them seriously? (/sarc off)
When the Chukchi sea temperatures and ice melt are above normal, the Chukchi sea is a cause celebre for the AGWer – but find an inconvenient proxy result in the Chukchi sea and suddenly its “only 10% of the Arctic”.

Oooooohh! That must have hurt!
Payback is such a female canine.
/dr.bill

I don’t see anything so surprising about the paper. Eyeballing the second graph, which gives data from approximately 9500 to 1250 years ago, we see the following:
A general decline peaking at about 5000 years ago – representing the remains of the transition from the last glacial maximum to what is known as the Holocene Climate Optimum. Then about a thousand years of strong recovery suggesting colder conditions – certainly in the UK a deterioration in climate is thought to have occurred during the Bronze age – then a decline again through into Roman times – known to have been marked by warmer conditions. The data then stops at 750 AD.
Someone mentioned the previous Interglacial – the Eemian. About 2C warmer than today and sea levels a good 5m higher. Food for thought!
Cheers – John

Various people in this thread have attempted to interpret what the authors of the paper in question were actually saying (or not saying). Unfortunately, mind reading is just one of the many skill areas in which I am lamentably deficient.
Consequently, I have taken the radical step of contacting the editorial office of the CJES and asking if any of the original authors might care to share their thoughts with us.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
September 23, 2010 at 11:04 pm

So we’re leaving everything as is, do we?
Well, in that case all I can hope is that people see what is happening here. And perhaps they’ll notice a trend and conclude how trustworthy this blog is as a source.

At least on this blog everyone is allowed to express their views, as long as they are polite.
Even when moderators snip, there is a record of the snipping with the reason the comment has been snipped.
Not so at other places.

One thing we can all be thankful for is that nearly 50% of the political and economic changes the world will need for another Ice Age have already been proposed by the AGW mob. These guys is real smart.

barry says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:12 pm
“The Chukchi Sea, the area considered in the study, is 10% of the Arctic ocean. The top post here refers to the entire Arctic ocean. That is an error of 90%.”
So, we should infer that while the Chukchi sea ice was less than present, the rest of the arctic, of which Chukchi is a part, was showing more ice?
Hmmm!

I am not terribly impressed by this paper. It seems that their dates all came up wrong, so they “corrected” them by assuming that someone had managed to lose 1m from the top of the cores! This means that there is no overlap between the proxies and any real data. Why then did they not go back and get a core sample to cover the last few thousand years? Because of this I have no confidence that the calibration of the absolute level from these proxies is correct, or that they can be usefully compared with the recent actual observations. That the extent has historically expanded and contracted in the way their graph shows seems a reasonable conclusion, but whether at any given epoch it was greater or less than now is not, in my judgement, and in the absence of proxy-and-direct-observation overlap, sustainable with any certainty.

>>Oliver Ramsay says:
September 23, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Günther,
I would hate to spoil savethesharks’ fun getting you all worked up, but yes, you do have a point. I hope that your frustration with this extrapolation from the Chukchi sea to the whole Arctic and “at times” becoming “most” is something like what I feel about the barrage of impending doom stories your champions come up with.<<
I agree with you Oliver on both the points you make. Günther has a point and if he "gets" your point about his frustration possibly mirroring your (our) frustration over the typical media treatment of AGW, then maybe he will better understand you (us.)
And Günther, you could learn something from Richard Telford's method of commenting. Because of your vitriolic approach even though you had valid points in hand, you had to plow through moderators' snipping you (justifiably, I suspect), overcome a barrage skeptical sniping and generally make a bad name for yourself before finally getting things explained well enough that people could sort out your main point, i.e., that the study covered only one fringe area of the Arctic and that the title of the main post implied the entire Arctic.
Using Mr. Telford's approach (see his discussion of the reliability of the method the researchers used) you could have easily made that point succinctly and people would have understood your concern. While Anthony explained that he took the title from another site, I suspect that he might have considered changing it to reflect your concern if it was initially made respectfully instead of "snippably," or perhaps not.
And Anthony, I disagree with your logic for keeping the title. ClimateDepot, along with other skeptic sites, is quite likely to link to your post directly using the title you've chosen to use. That adds your name to the credibility of the title in a pretty direct way. By the third or fourth iteration, it becomes "Anthony Watts says…." and the original source has disappeared. Just my two cents.

phlogiston says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:28 am
Steven Mosher says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:21 am
Smokey
” No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperatures changes are the result of natural variability.”
that’s because its NOT a properly formulated hypothesis. “natural variability” is NOT a cause. It is the admission that we dont know the cause.
We’ve been through this before. Rejecting “natural variation” because we dont understand all the sources of variation, is “argumentun ad ignorantium” i.e. bad epistemology and logic.
Natural variation is a valid null hypothesis.
_____________________________________________________________
Natural variation is NOT a valid null hypothesis. TFTFY
You need to quantify the natural variability and it’s causes and effects.
Saying “I don’t know” which is EXACTLY what you are saying, is like burying one’s head in the proverbial sands of all the Earth’s deserts.
We know that the sands exist, but we all have the choice of NOT burying one’s head in said sands. I choose to NOT bury my head in said sands.
You would need to first model all (or most of) the drivers of the natural variability.
In other words, if you can’t trouble yourself with hypothesis and theories, and come up with your own GCM’s and analyses, like the IPCC has done, you are simply waving your hands in the air and then pointing at nothing, saying look over here, to turn a blind eye as it were, nothing to see here, move along.
Thus we do understand the major sources of variations, both natural and anthropogenic.
Therefore, if you are unwilling to accept the current state-of-the-art (SOTA) of climate science, then please do continue on with your argumentum ad ignorantiam.
Kind of like these posts digging up old science concurrent with the current 2010 Arctic sea ice extent/area/volume minimum.
Go figure.

richard telford says:
September 24, 2010 at 8:52 am
“The radiocarbon correction is standard, indeed required, in marine systems. Over-penetration of the sediment by pistons corers is very common (and very annoying). Neither of these problems is critical.”
What is critical is that, because the C-14 dates didn’t tie up even after the standard corrections, leaving them with an assumed loss of 1m from the top of the cores (not merely over-penetration), there is no overlap between proxies and observation. In its absence, the magnitude of the ice extent has been adjusted by line fitting, which is not adequate for robust conclusions. I’m not blaming them – they probably did the best they could with what they had – but it still needs a set of measurements extended to the present epoch to tie down the proxy reliably.

John F. Hultquist says:
September 23, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Ed Forbes says: at 4:27 pm
“the map re-drawn by the Turk Piri Reis in 1513 with a mostly ice free artic ”
I went to that link. The map does not include the (artic) Arctic Ocean, rather the “northern coast of Antarctica” is the area in question. I note that the web site is titled World Mysteries. Any ideas?
————
Should have said 1528 when he made his second world map for a piece of Greenland.
http://www.diegocuoghi.it/Piri_Reis/McIntosh/McIntosh_PiriReis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis

Hey Günther
Don’t bother arguing with the ideologues – it’s fruitless. Just because the study is from “site HLY0501-05”, just one piston core close to Point Barrow at 72.69N, and just because the title is deliberately misleading, they will believe whatever they read here and whatever they want to. It’s why they read stuff here, not actual science papers.

Juraj V. writes,
“No wonder, since the last interglacial was warmer than today for most of the time;
Greenland ice core says so:”
No, Greenland ice core does not say so. And the ice core data graph you link twice on this page gives estimated temperatures from 20,000 years ago up to 1855, so it covers neither the last interglacial nor today.
Judging from Alley’s ice core estimates alongside modern temperature data, it is warmer in central Greenland now than it was during the Medieval Warm Period.

phlogiston says:
September 24, 2010 at 3:02 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 24, 2010 at 11:10 am
Natural variation is NOT a valid null hypothesis. TFTFY
You need to quantify the natural variability and it’s causes and effects.
There is another metaphor to describe this argument: a “jar of fleas”.
The Russian Tsar Ivan the 4th (“Ivan the Terrible”) used to punish troublesome boyars by demanding that they collect and present to him a jar of fleas. Finding enough fleas to fill a glass jar was of course practically impossible. Therefore, failure to meet this demand was assured.
It is impossible to “quantify the natural variability and it’s causes and effects”. We are no-where even close to coming anywhere near this. This AGW argument that skeptics need to fully qualtify and characterise natural variability and it sources – i.e. collect their jar of fleas, reveals that AGWers have an oversimplified conception of climate and really do not grasp its fundamental complexity.
_____________________________________________________________
So what you are really saying is that you refuse to do the actual science.
Yet you claim to understand the scientific method, where clearly you do not fully understand the scientific method, as is abundently clear from your posts here at WUWT.
Nuff said.

EFS_Junior says:
September 24, 2010 at 5:53 pm
So what you are really saying is that you refuse to do the actual science.
===============================
No. What he is saying that he doesn’t have to prove a damn thing. For “natural variability” it is science business as usual.
The burden of proof is on all the chicken little warmists out there.
You guys want to put forth a bizarre hypothesis?? Then prove it with real data and evidence.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

I am not surprised at all. The scientific evidence has always contradicted Al Gores crackpot theory. They just thought with media biased to their side and having paid off several formerly respectable institutions such as NASA, The Weather Channel, the National Geographic Society, Nature, Scientific American, etc…they would win an a priori argument. Luckily they were wrong.

Smokey,
You say AGW is trying to get “promotion to the status of a theory by falsifying the null”
You again seem to confuse proof with falsifiability. AGW is a valid theory. It can be falsified. It at most hasn’t been proven with sufficient evidence, although I might note that the majority science view is that it is a correct theory. See NAS reports from this year.
“Since the planet’s temperature is well within its past parameters, the null hypothesis is that the current climate is a consequence of natural variability, just as the past climate was”
Again I don’t see how this logically follows. The fact that temps are within past parameters does not mean AGW is wrong. Natural variability alone could have us at lower than normal temps, and then with the addition of AGW that puts us at average temps. You don’t even need higher than normal temps for AGW to be happening. In this scenario, AGW would be real but not harmful.
“an opinion lacking empirical evidence or verifiable observations [keep in mind that model output is not evidence,”
You seem to have a really cramped view of what evidence is. Evidence is anything supporting a theory. The evidence does not need to be sufficient to prove the theory to be evidence. Some evidence is better than other evidence, but we don’t disqualify the weaker forms of evidence as not evidence. Its just less persuasive or conclusive.
CO2 is up. CO2 warms the climate. The climate is warming. And it’s warming in ways consistent with how CO2 warms the climate as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong). And some other mechanisms like solar have been shown to be insufficient to explain the warming (since the 70s at least). That’s all evidence that supports AGW. It may not be enough to prove it beyond doubt, but it’s evidence. Oh, and the models are evidence too. Additional evidence, and perhaps evidence with issues, but evidence nonetheless.
I guess what I’m saying is you’re overreaching. You should say AGW is unproven or an unpersuasive theory or natural variability is a much better theory. But AGW is not an illegitimate theory.

richard telford says:
September 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm
“It does not matter much for validating the proxy that it does not reach the present. ”
What matters is that there is no overlap between the proxy and actual observations. Whether the overlap reaches the present or is far in the past is irrelevant, so long as there is one. If you don’t have an overlap, you don’t have a validated proxy.
Perhaps you are saying that the proxy has previously been validated with other cores and other observations, so the lack of overlap in this particular case doesn’t matter much? If so, I would accept that, with some reservations concerning possible inaccuracies. I didn’t see anything about this in the paper, which did seem to use a graph fitting to align the proxy, but I admit it may have been hidden in the details or references I may not have studied carefully enough. I also understand and accept that you have other issues with the proxy’s “limited utility”.

“And it’s warming in ways consistent with how CO2 warms the climate as I understand it (correct me if I’m wrong).”
There are a number of problems. The output from GCM’s include higher rates of warming in the tropical mid troposphere, which would result from positive water vapour feedback. This has not been observed. The CO2 theory also mandates a radiative imbalance of something like 0.85 watts per meter squared. This absolutely leads to the prediction that heat must accumulate in the oceans (it isn’t accumulating in the atmosphere). Dr. Pielke has estimated that there should be about 1 * 10^29 joules of extra ocean heat accumulated since the year 2000. Despite deploying state of the art sumbersible temperature sensors (Argo network) this heat has not yet been detected. Professor Lindzen has also done some research on the ERBE satellite data and has concluded that the radiation flows are not behaving as models predict.
The climate is not behaving at all well.

The output from GCM’s include higher rates of warming in the tropical mid troposphere, which would result from positive water vapour feedback. This has not been observed. The CO2 theory also mandates…

Warming in the tropical mid-troposphere is not a function of CO2 warming, but atmospheric warming from any cause. Doesn’t matter if the driver is solar or cosmic rays or GHGs. There may be a flaw in the understanding of the moist adibiatic lapse rate, but that is not specifically to do with CO2. However, the data on which the ‘missing hotspot’ is based is problematic.

barry,
“However, you can read the paper for yourself and learn that they said the opposite was occurring (less ice) on the other side of the Arctic (Eastern Arctic) for most of the period.”
I presume that what they say is happening on the Eastern Arctic has come from other studies, since their own study was based in one area?
“it only refers to an area that is 4% (I said 10% before, mistakenly) of the entire Arctic ocean.”
Isn’t it possible to make sweeping generalisations from a small point in space? Isn’t that what Mann did with his bristlecones? And is it any different from what GISS are doing extrapolating a single temperature station over 1200km?

barry,
“Vince, deal with or at least acknowledge my main point about the top article – ”
I assume you are making the point that because the study only looks at 4% of the arctic, it would be wrong to draw any conclusions about the other 96%. I’m not sure I agree. It has long be accepted to take proxy readings from a single area and draw conclusions for wider areas. Mann did in MBH98. This wasn’t the reason that the hockey stick was criticised. It was criticized on the statistical methods. The assumption behind this reasoning is that if the climate has altered at one point on the earths surface for a long enough period (decades? centuries?) then it is reasonable to attribute this to larger scale climate variations. I don’t see any problems with this, unless it is contradicted by other evidence. You say other studies show the opposite trends for the wider area. In that case, the methodology of these studies should be re-examined. Maybe invalid methods or assumptions were used. or the techniques have become obsolete. Given that warmer periods existed in the past, this is quite likely.

I assume you are making the point that because the study only looks at 4% of the arctic, it would be wrong to draw any conclusions about the other 96%.

Why assume when you can read my posts?
The article at the top of this thread does misrepresents what is in the paper. Simple. No need to shift goal posts or pretend that some extrapolation from data in the Cukchi Sea was attempted. This is the thrust of the top post…

A peer-reviewed paper published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences finds that Arctic sea ice extent at the end of the 20th century was more extensive than most of the past 9000 years. The paper also finds that Arctic sea ice extent was on a declining trend over the past 9000 years

Not one mention of the area assessed (Cukchi Sea), not one mention that it covers 4% of the Arctic, no attempt to extrapolate, not one mention of the paper advising that that the Eastern Arctic sea ice cover showed opposite behaviour to that of sea ice in the Cuchki Sea over most of the Holocene.
Distortion by selective quoting. Simple.
Now you, Vince, appear to be trying trying to redeem the article with a completely false analogy of a different subject altogether.
Mann’s conclusions on Northern Hemispheric temperatures in his 98 and 99 papers were tentative and based on a range of proxy data from various locations. In order to match what was done in the top post, Mann would have needed to make absolute conclusions about the whole globe and have expressed no uncertainty or failed commented on difficulties and limitations with data.
Is it possible the arctic had less sea ice at different times over the Holocene than at present? Yes. But you can’t establish that from this paper. Nor did Mann’s early work conclude anything about global temperatures over the last millennium, and those papers of 11 and 12 years ago were qualified and called for more data and study.

Smokey,
“In the scientific method, evidence refers to empirical [real world], testable, falsifiable, replicable data — and the burden is entirely on the promoters of a new hypothesis, not on skeptics — who have nothing to prove.
But there is empirical evidence supporting AGW. Such as the empirical evidence of warming. The empirical evidence of higher GHGs. The empirical evidence showing solar is not sufficient to explain the recent warming. And the models too are empirical evidence. You feed in historical climate data and without the GHGs you don’t output the warming observed historically. This evidence may not be sufficient proof but it’s evidence that makes AGW more than unsupported conjecture.
“Skeptics simply question — and the CAGW crowd lacks convincing answers.”
Not exactly. YOU and some others haven’t been convinced. Others are, including a lot of scientists. See the NAS reports from this year that everyone loves to ignore here. That many scientists believe AGW is true doesn’t mean AGW is true. My point here is only that AGW unquestionably is a legitimate theory.
“There is no testable, measurable evidence supporting CAGW, or tipping points, or runaway global warming; nor any measurable, quantifiable, scientific evidence showing that the <3% of CO2 attributable to human activity has any effect on temperature."
Maybe not for runaway global warming. But yes there is measurable evidence that supports AGW as an explanation for the warming observed. Maybe not enough to prove it. But lack of proof does not equal lack of evidence.
"The criterion of the scientific method is its falsifiability, and refutability, and testability. . . CO2=CAGW is not falsifiable, therefore it is not science."
As I have repeated and you have not answered, AGW is falsifiable. One could show that the recent warming since the 70s is fully attributable to solar, for example. One could shown that man is not responsible for the measurable increase in CO2.
"It is a conjecture lacking empirical evidence; a “what if” scenario. Planet Earth is not cooperating with that particular conjecture. So who are we to believe? The promoters of the deliberately scary CAGW conjecture — or planet Earth, and our lying eyes?"
It looks like the planet is warming to most people. Do you have some data showing otherwise? Really, the whole question here is the cause, AGW or something else. AGW is not inconsistent with what's being observed. That doesn't mean AGW is proven, but again it's overreaching to say what is being observed is at odds with AGW.
"Finally, your assertion that “CO2 is up. CO2 warms the climate. The climate is warming” proves nothing."
Well it's not just that. It's also the absence of another suitable explanation so far. For example, solar doesn't cut it. Plus, my point here is not that AGW is PROVEN. It's that you are overstating things to say AGW is unscientific.
"The fact that on all time scales, rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature should tell you that there are fatal assumptions in the CO2=CAGW conjecture.
Not really. If higher temps lead to more CO2 release for any reason, it's quite possible for CO2 to cause an increase in temp that then results in more CO2 in the atmosphere. That alone doesn't resolve the question.
"Do a search of the WUWT archives for “CO2″, and do some necessary reading. It will provide valuable education on the difference between speculation and the the essential role of skepticism in the scientific method."
I am reading here and so far nothing is giving me much reason to doubt AGW. I'm still reading though.
"Or, you could go back to the comfortable echo chamber at realclimate, climate progress, etc.,"
Oh, yeah, it's real "comforting" to think AGW is right. I'd love to find something convincing indicating it's not. But the idea that AGW is not scientific when tons of scientists believe it – again see the NAS reports from this year — sorry that doesn't help me at all.

Cliff,
“Not exactly. YOU and some others haven’t been convinced. Others are, including a lot of scientists. See the NAS reports from this year that everyone loves to ignore here.”
One of the most stubborn myths is the one that states that thousands of scientists have examined the evidence and concluded that AGW is a real problem. I often despair of the number of times, after explaining the counter evidence, when people reply along the lines; well that’s what the vast majority of scientists believe.
You quote the NAS. Others have quoted the Royal Society. Yet, again, this is not the workings of thousands of scientists examining evidence, but instead, the output of a handful of individuals who sit on the boards. The closest analogy would be an op-ed published in a scientific journal, like new scientists.
The largest and most listened to voice is the IPCC, and nowhere is the myth of thousands of climate scientists examining the evidence more prevalent. But if you look closely, you find that the overwhelming majority of scientists are researching areas that are peripheral to the main question. The IPCC is spread over three working groups – the second and third are to do with consequences (of assumed climate change) and mitigation respectively. Out of the first working group, only one chapter actually addresses the question. That single chapter references some 500 scientists. So the thousands of scientists have been narrowed down to 500. But it gets worse.
These scientists have no role in writing the chapter or in drawing the conclusions. Indeed, some of the names among the 500 include well known sceptics such as Christy and Spencer. The writing is delegated to a team of about 50 authors and lead authors, who are selected from volunteers by the IPCC comittee. I am prepared to accept that these 50 scientists believe that AGW is a problem, but there are also dozens of sceptical climate scientists who don’t believe.
But what about the endorsements from learned societies all around the world? Surely that adds weight. Other that observing that the scholars that sit on the boards of these societies have no role in climate science, I do find it strange that they can make such pronouncements. But I believe the answers can be found in psychology rather than climate science. Ideology plays a large role; as some research recently concluded, belief in AGW and disbelief have a correlation with political beliefs. I think it is reasonable to observe, that individuals with a left wing bias view AGW scepticism as being pro-capitalist to an excessive degree. Group think is also important, as people that move only among circles who hold the same beliefs will tend to echo the same beliefs.
I often ask myself the question; what work has Lord Rees, an astronomer, done in climate science to make him so certain that the IPCC is right and sceptics are wrong? The only conclusion I can reach is that Rees, being a scientist, accepts the words published by the IPCC who represent other scientists. He is effectively telling us: I am a scientists and I can tell you that the output of these other scientists that have gone through peer review and rigorous vetting to reach the IPCC, must be as robust as they say.
Well, I’m sorry. That may be the way it ought to be, or the way Lord Rees thinks it is, but I have seen enough to make me realise, it is all smoke and mirrors.

also forgot to mention that the Eastern Arctic sea ice was less than present 6000-7000 yr ago during the Holocene “climate optimum” per this study:
http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/weather/weather_news/study%3A-less-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-6000-7000-years-ago
(and featured here at WUWT) which would coincide with the low extent of the western Arctic sea ice shown in the graph in this study. Thus, there may have been an “ice free Arctic” during the “climate optimum”
and sorry for the CAPS for emphasis in the last post – not shouting -just the lazy man’s bold

Hockey Schtick says:
September 25, 2010 at 5:51 pm
also forgot to mention that the Eastern Arctic sea ice was less than present 6000-7000 yr ago during the Holocene “climate optimum” per this study:
(and featured here at WUWT) which would coincide with the low extent of the western Arctic sea ice shown in the graph in this study. Thus, there may have been an “ice free Arctic” during the “climate optimum”
This study looks to have been at a single site fairly close to Alaskan coast (72.6N). At 7000 years ago, graph shows about 8 months per year of ice coverage, which, being at the margin of the arctic, hardly seems to equate with “ice free Arctic”. What do you mean?

Vince Causey says:
September 25, 2010 at 1:31 pm
==========================
Extremely well articulated!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

barry says:
September 25, 2010 at 8:48 am
There’s no need to be so defensive. It may be that the missing heat isn’t in the deep oceans. I’m just pointing out new science that tentatively concludes there might be. It’s not definitive. There is a strange tendency to be close-minded in so-called ‘skeptical’ blogs.
====================================
He is not the one being defensive, Barry. That is crystal clear. Pot/Kettle/Black.
Huh? “New Science” that “concludes” there might be missing heat in the deep oceans?
“Concludes?”
Just who is grasping for straws here?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Mike J,
Addendum: Although the SPM2 figure expresses values of various forcings (GHG, solar, aerosol, ozone etc) over a time period twice as long as 9.1 – and can’t be directly compared – it can give you an idea of the sign of each in relation to the 9.1 model estimate graphs.

HockeySchtick

Barry, well, I guess you better write to the 6 authors asking for a retraction of their statement as the concluding line of the abstract, “More importantly, there have been times when sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century.”

Why? I have no issue with their paper (how could I? I’m no expert on the subject). But I don’t need to be an expert to see that your commentary is selective and misleading. You have provided yet another example in your last post. All one has to do is read the sentence before the one you quote,

The results of this study clearly show that sea-ice cover in the western Arctic Ocean has varied throughout the Holocene. More importantly, there have been times when sea-ice cover was less extensive than at the end of the 20th century.

As my point is that the study is assessing one region of the Arctic Ocean – and I have no problem with their results for that regio0n – then your treatment that this represents the entire Arctic is shown to be fallacious just by reading the paper.
Then there’s the conclusion.
The Holocene record from site HLY0501-05 illustrates the sensitivity of hydrographical conditions in the western Arctic Ocean. The data show a long-term warming that is opposite to what is reconstructed for the eastern Arctic and point to a bipolar behavior of the Arctic Ocean at the timescale of the Holocene. The millennial-scale variability in the eastern Chukchi Sea is characterized by quasi-cyclic periods of high SSS, high SST, and reduced sea-ice cover, which most probably reflects variations in the stratification of the upper water column. Such changes may be related to tidal forcing and (or) large-scale mechanisms, such as AO/NAOlike
oscillations. It is important to note that the amplitude of these millennial-scale changes in sea-surface conditions far exceed those observed at the end of the 20th century.
The bulk of this study, and the conclusions it rests on data from one site in the Cukchi Sea. The paper discusses opposite effects occurring elsewhere in the Arctic, and the same goes for their more recent paper. There is no justification whatsoever for a bald assertion that Arctic-wide sea ice cover was definitely less than current – not based on these papers.
Sea ice cover was likely less in the early Holocene than current. I’m sure you could find a paper making qualified conclusions on that. Even NSIDC points that out. It’s not a particularly controversial item. Why do you hold the idea that less ice cover on the geologic past would ‘take the winds out of the sails’ of ‘alarmists’ (whoever they may be)? In the long-distant past there was no summer sea ice at all, and, there was probably a ‘snowball Earth.’ a few times. What point are you trying to make?
[clicking links]
Ah – I see the issue seems to be with an eco-video saying Arctic sea ice is at an “all time low”. OK, that’s a fine example of false rhetoric from the other side of the debate from someone with a different agenda. Truth is obscured in propaganda wars, and this discussion is indicative.

But…but…Al Gore in 2008 predicted that “the entire north polar ice cap will be completely gone in five years!” And geez, he’s famous, with a Noble Prize and everything, isn’t he. And he done a movie to prove it, too.

barry said: “There is no justification whatsoever for a bald assertion that Arctic-wide sea ice cover was definitely less than current”
There is no justification for misquoting and distorting what I said either. At no point did I say “the entire Arctic” or “Arctic-wide” sea ice cover was “definitely less than current” and it was immediately obvious to anyone who read the abstract provided exactly where the drilling site was located. The authors themselves extrapolate their findings to the “western Arctic” as stated in the abstract I provided.
But thanks for providing the link to the NSIDC which states, “A recent study suggests that 5,500 years ago, the Arctic had substantially less summertime sea ice than today.” Now would their “post” about this unnamed study happen to be referring to the entire Arctic, western Arctic, eastern Arctic, or? Doesn’t say. Do you know what paper they are referring to?
What point am I trying to make?
That Arctic sea ice cover has been “far” less than current in the western, or eastern, or both (see fig 6 in my comment above; low at both east & west in the 1500’s-1600’s) portions without causing a planetary-albedo-positive-feedback-tipping-point that is claimed to be occurring now with better sea ice conditions, such as by taxpayer funded ‘scientists’ like Mark “death spiral” Serreze.

richard telford says:
September 26, 2010 at 5:12 am
“…Validation of proxies”
Unless there is overlap between proxy data and actual observations – a direct comparison between examples of the proxy and historical records – you do not have a validated proxy. You may have a model or theory which you believe to be robust, but experimental confirmation is lacking. This is quite general, a basic requirement of the scientific method. All the cross-correlations and “training sets” in the world cannot change it. Perhaps you did mean to imply that such direct comparisons have been utilised here, but I’m afraid I found your reply to be ambiguous and needlessly convoluted. So I will ask you straight out: is there a direct confirmation of the dinocysts for sea ice proxy, between actual cores and actual observations? If so, what dates and areas are covered by this?

richard telford says:
September 28, 2010 at 4:29 pm
“…”
Kindly just answer my question: is there a direct confirmation of the dinocysts for sea ice proxy, between actual cores and actual observations? If so, what dates and areas are covered by this?

Paul Birch says:
September 29, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Passing cross validation is a necessary and sufficient condition. Dinocysts fail this test.

Paul Birch says:
September 30, 2010 at 3:38 am
Your question is of little relevance. Since the dinocysts have not been shown to pass robust cross-validation, they shouldn’t be used for reconstructing sea ice.
There are few multi-century observational ice cover records available for validation. There is one north of Iceland that has been used to validate a geochemical marker of sea ice algae, but I don’t think it has been used to test dinocysts.

richard telford says:
September 30, 2010 at 5:12 am
“Your question is of little relevance. ”
No, it isn’t. Stop wriggling and answer it. If you can’t, just admit you can’t.
For the fourth time of asking: Is there a direct confirmation of the dinocysts for sea ice proxy, between actual cores and actual observations? (Answer “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know”). If so, what dates and areas are covered by this?

richard telford says:
October 3, 2010 at 3:18 am
“I fail to understand why you are so keen to know if the dinocyst-sea ice transfer function has been validated against historical data (in any case, the answer to your quest should be obvious from my previous). The dinocysts have not been shown to pass robust cross-validation. This is a major problem. If they cannot pass cross-validation, it is pointless to ask if they can be validated. It is like demanding to know if a car with no wheels has an MOT.”
You don’t actually need to understand why I’m asking. All you need to understand is the question. If you know the answer, all you have to do is to give that answer. If you don’t know the answer, all you have to do is to say you don’t know. Until you have answered that question, without trying to morph it into something slightly different, I can have no confidence in anything you say about what you claim to be “a major problem”, or in the relevance of whether you consider dinocyst proxies to be robust.
If I ask whether your car has an MOT, that’s what I want to know. Not whether or not it has wheels. Many cars with no wheels still have MOTs.
So, for the fifth time of asking: Is there a direct confirmation of the dinocysts for sea ice proxy, between actual cores and actual observations? (Answer “yes”, “no”, or “I don’t know”). If so, what dates and areas are covered by this?

richard telford says:
October 5, 2010 at 2:12 pm
“I am not aware of any attempt to correlate dinocyst-ice reconstructions with historical records, there are very few places where this could be done. ”
Thank you.

Texanjeff,
You do understand they are simply laying out the arguments for AGW not endorsing that position? They explicitly reference Overland and Wang 2005 for this argument. Papers do this all the time, they present the opposing argument or the source of debate their paper may be addressing. This has nothing to do with their conclusions.