Guest post by Dr. J Storrs Hall
A bit over a year ago, in the wake of Climategate, I put up a blog post over at the Foresight Institute which got picked up and run here at WUWT. The essence of the post was that there was lots of natural variation in the ice core record of climate, so that it was reasonable to be skeptical of scientists who claimed that recent CO2 variations were “the only thing that could account for the recent warming trend” (quoting myself).
Apparently that got enough exposure — and was persuasive enough — that over a year later the alarmists still feel the urge to “debunk” it. Most recently, Rob Honeycutt at the “SkepticalScience” alarmist fanboi blog weighed in with this: Crux of a Core, Part 1 – addressing J Storrs Hall. Now the thing about this particular piece that jumped out at me at first was the fact that he associated me with a graph I never used, and he calls me “Mr. Hall” to make me sound less qualified than other sources such as “Dr. Alley” he refers to. It’s Dr. Hall (and yes, I am a scientist, not a nanotech engineer as he claims), a fact that he could have discovered in 3 seconds with Google. That told me about all I needed to know about Honeycutt’s bona fides (in the original Latin sense of acting in good faith).
The only substantive point in the post is that GISP2 (or any specific ice core) is a local as opposed to global temperature record. Is it misrepresentation to use it as a proxy for global climate? Well, the inconvenient truth is that I’m hardly the first person to use ice cores as climate proxies in popular presentations:
… but, on the other hand, it’s actually an interesting question and one worth looking at.
How Ice Cores Record a History of Climate
That’s not my title, it’s from this page at the GISP2 site. Not “a history of local temperature,” — of climate. Here are some quotes from the abstracts of papers by GISP2 authors:
“Ice cores provide high-resolution, multi-parameter records of changes in climate and environmental conditions spanning two or more full glacial- interglacial cycles. …”
“Polar ice contains a unique record of past climate variations; …”
“One of the most dramatic climate events observed in marine and ice core records is the Younger Dryas (YD), … High resolution, continuous glaciochemical records, newly retrieved from central Greenland, record the chemical composition of the Arctic atmosphere at this time. This record shows that both onset and termination of the YD occurred within 10-20 years …”
“The Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) core can enhance our understanding of the relationship between parameters measured in the ice in central Greenland and variability in the ocean, atmosphere, and cryosphere of the North Atlantic Ocean and adjacent land masses. …”
“High-resolution, continuous multivariate chemical records from a central Greenland ice core provide a sensitive measure of climate change…”
“The accumulation record from the GISP2 core as an indicator of climate change throughout the Holocene” (paper title)
So, sure, a single ice core is not a global average temperature record; but it is quite a bit more than one thermometer. It’s just mud-slinging to claim that using it for a climate proxy is “misinformation”.
… especially when I didn’t just use one ice core in my post but two, and the other one was from Antarctica. One way to cut past the verbiage is simply to look at a comparison of the Greenland and Antarctic data and see how well they correlate:
(This is GISP2 in green, NGRIP, another Greenland core, in cyan, and the Vostok Antarctic core in blue. The Vostok has been scaled and shifted for a best match with the others; the temperature in Antarctica is colder, with smaller variations, than in Greenland. Furthermore, there are some time-scaling issues — note the temporal divergence of the two Greenland records before about 40 kya. It’s possible that NH/SH actually match better than this plot indicates. Look here for data.)
Nowhere near a perfect match, but it’s pretty clear that these are all from the same planet. Even Vostok shows the Younger Dryas, which is generally believed to be a mostly northern-hemisphere event. The NH has more variability in ice ages, notably the Dansgaard-Oeschger events, but the SH more, on a relative scale, in the Holocene.
The GISP2 people also compared their core’s record with Antarctic ones; on this page they say that it “shows close correlation between GISP2 and Vostok in the delta 18O of air in these ice cores.” (That’s a key temperature proxy.) On this page they say “Holocene climate is characterized by rapid climate change events and considerable complexity. GISP2 Holocene ¶18O (proxy for temperature) (Grootes, et al., 1993) and EOF1 (composite measure of major chemistry representing atmospheric circulation) show parallel behavior for the Early Holocene but not for the Late Holocene (O’Brien, et al., 1995).”
Note that bit about “rapid climate change events.” In the words of Jeffrey Masters here, “The historical records shows us that abrupt climate change is not only possible–it is the normal state of affairs. The present warm, stable climate is a rare anomaly.” (And he’s talking specifically about the lessons of GISP2 — although alas he takes home the wrong lesson from it.) See also this recent post here by Don Easterbrook.
Does GISP2 — or any other paleoclimate record — show us that climate change isn’t happening? No, of course not. It shows us that climate change always happens. The 20th-century warming was hardly unprecedented, and doesn’t call for unusual explanations.
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Maybe there’s an existential explanation. Every age and era has prominent factions who want urgently to believe that they live in the End Times. A bunch of little Louis XVs: “Après
moinous, le déluge!” Can’t bear the thought of life going on after their unremarked passing, I guess.Oh Dr. Hall, the warmistas are going to be very angry that you are using their own information against them! Good show!
I wonder why it seems that the NH and the SH were “out of phase” between 50-60kya. I also notice little blips of the same thing at other times, SH will go cold, NH will shoot warm or vice versa. Look at around -40k. SH blips warm, NH goes cold. A similar event happens at about -65k.
Seems that if they do not like your comments on Real Climate a new impossible capcha is presented.
Dr. Hall said: “I am a scientist, not a nanotech engineer.” Let’s see.
Here on WUWT you were only identified as J. Scott Hall, not Dr. Hall. Did you complain?
According to wikipedia: “John Storrs Hall is involved in the field of molecular nanotechnology. He founded the sci.nanotech Usenet newsgroup and moderated it for ten years, and served as the founding chief scientist of Nanorex Inc. for two years. He has written several papers on nanotechnology and developed several ideas such as the Utility fog, the space pier, a weather control system called The Weather Machine and a novel flying car.”
Is this you: http://autogeny.org/ ?
If so your CV lists nothing about climate science.
http://autogeny.org/HallCV.html
The Foresight Institute’s mission is to ensure the beneficial implementation of nanotechnology.
You are entitled to your views but one or two ice cores do not provide enough information to reconstruct global climate.
This is an interesting discussion. The graph presented, in my view, looks a bit noisy, but I’d like to see more and how they’d line up. It would be nice if there were a consistent message about ice-cores and their representation of the globe or not. Let me see if I get this right……..in terms of historic CO2 levels, yes ….very valid and speaks to the entire globe……in terms of temps, no way! Its just local! 😐 :-0 😐 :-0 😐
Dr. Hall, thanks for the money quote and a nice summary statement. “It shows us that climate change always happens. The 20th-century warming was hardly unprecedented, and doesn’t call for unusual explanations.” This can’t get repeated often enough.
Excellent post.
Don’t mess with Dr Hall!
Another takeaway for me from the chart is that while we are enjoying the warmest climate in the past 80+K years, the recent trend is down.
The new tactics are really quite pathetic. They are not doing themselves any favours. Childish really.
Looking at these long-term ice cores always reminds me just how ironic the term “climate change” is. The climate has always been changing and hopefully always will. It would be amusing to start a parody ‘counter-scare’ by announcing that it appears earth’s climate has *stopped* changing. Climate data from the last 13 years certainly supports that conclusion. Perhaps the underlying magnetic, geothermal, etc forces that have driven our planetary climate variation for billions of years are finally “running out”. Such a trend of climate stagnation would be unprecedented and if it continues the consequences are likely to be catastrophic! Is the “engine of the earth” dying? The alarming press release practically writes itself.
Of course the cause of climate non-change is obviously man-made. As our society has industrialized more people and their machines have been put in motion. When in contact with the earth, this motion causes forces which have a measurable impact on the planet. This can easily be shown with Newton’s Laws so the science is settled. Clearly, we need to strive for a motion-neutral society. Fortunately, those who need to move mass at high speeds, such as drag racers and fire trucks, can buy motion offsets. 🙂
If the data supports the AGW alarmist orthodoxy it’s teleconnected data that is a global measurement, if not it’s obviously a local anomaly.
> The Vostok has been scaled and shifted for a best match with the others…
Could you be more specific about this? I have no issues about scaling or shifting the Y-axis (temperature) — it’s shifts of the X-axis (time) that I’m asking about.
What do these three plots look like, without X-axis shifting? Do you think shifting is informative because it corrects for dating errors? Or because there is a temporal lag between Arctic and Antarctic events, as shown in these records? (Or something else, of course.)
@Mike
You’re looking at the finger!
Mark says:
March 1, 2011 at 9:54 am
It would be amusing to start a parody ‘counter-scare’ by announcing that it appears earth’s climate has *stopped* changing.
Great idea Mark, but I hate to tell you that the folks pushing the Maya calendar 2012 apocalypse have beaten you to it.
Give it another shot after December 21, 2012 when the end of the world prognostications start fresh.
Mike says:
March 1, 2011 at 9:33 am
Dr. Hall said: “I am a scientist, not a nanotech engineer.” Let’s see.
Here on WUWT you were only identified as J. Scott Hall, not Dr. Hall. Did you complain? ……
=======================================
Are you intentionally being obtuse? Try applying a concept called “context”.
“…..and he calls me “Mr. Hall” to make me sound less qualified than other sources such as “Dr. Alley….”
It seems, all Dr. Hall is asking for is to be afforded the same respect and treatment given to others. Is that really too much to ask? Do you think it likely he didn’t complain about WUWT because he was afforded fair treatment?
@ur momisugly Mike
“served as the founding chief scientist of Nanorex Inc.”
—–
Did you miss that part, that you yourself read? An engineer is different from a scientist, though a person can swing between professions, it’s a completely different sort of skill set and role. He’s a scientist in the nanotech world, not an engineer.
And when ice cores from completely different sides of the planet are in general agreement, then the local climate of two different sides of a planet are generally the same… then how is that not global climate? I don’t think you understand what global is if you honestly believe that.
Clearly Rob Honeycutt has made a fool of himself. Those on Skeptical Science that couldn’t take the time to validate Honeycutt’s statements also look like fools. Now, we see Mike (March 1, 2011 at 9:33 am) adding his name to the list of fools.
Tell me Mike, if you were going to claim someone is passing misinformation don’t you think one should at least figure out who the person is? If Honeycutt can’t get that right why would you expect anything else he says to be right?
Series of geomagnetic storms in last 2-3 hours shifted Earth’s magnetic meridian by 1.5 degrees.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
@ur momisugly Mike
WOW , don’t ever participate in archery ! If you miss the target with as bigger margin as you missed the point with your post then no one would want to be in the same square mile !! LOL !! did you not read the article properly ?? No wonder people fall for AGW, are there many more who scan, misread, and then accept ??
Dr Hall, you did “it” again. Look at the last sentence of you post … is there a “global” inference again?! If you compare the GISP2 data with the Vostok data on a more revealing time scale (aside from well understood glacial/interglacial events) you’ll note that the abrupt climate events between the poles is typically anti-phase. Again, indicating local swings, not global in scope.
@Ged Darkstorm
Hall has zero background in climate science. The difference between an applied scientist in industry and an engineer is nil. Further, Honeycutt intended no degradation in identifying Hall as an engineer. And two points simply do not cover the global.
I’ve analyzed as much ice core data as I could find on the web and came to the same conclusions. http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf. We must recognize that data are bi-variant proxies. Both time and temperature are calculate values, their values and accuracy changing with depth and latitude value. Calibrating time scales to the Younger- Dryas and adjusting latitude effects to a common latitude produces a time temperature relationship that reveals many climate cycles of different frequencies that have continued into the present so that our present changes are not unique.
The article would appear to speak for itself when the only rebuttal is a rather poorly researched ad hominem, re: @Mike says:
March 1, 2011 at 9:33 am
stupidboy says:
March 1, 2011 at 10:37 am
@Mike
You’re looking at the finger!
Jack Greer said:
“a more revealing time scale”
Correction: “a more revealing time scale with smoothing representation x-noise.”
@Bushy –
I am not an Al Gore basher, but since they point out so often anyone who isn’t exactly one of the Hockey Team, it should be pointed out that Al Gore is about as far from a climatologist as can be. The double standard is pretty despicable.
Many of the scientists who have AGW papers are physicists or other scientists, but if they are AGWers, fine and dandy. Yet perhaps the greatest scientist of the last 40 years, Freeman Dyson, is frowned upon as “just a physicist,” when he voices skeptical points.