Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A range of proxy records, supported by contemporaneous descriptions of the weather, all agree that the earth went through what is called the “Little Ice Age”. The coldest part seems to have been somewhere around 1700, at which time it was perhaps two or three degrees colder than at present. Akasufo, for example, estimates the warming to have been on the order of half a degree per century. Figure 1 shows the analysis of one of the many proxies, the Greenland ice core data:
Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
Modern thermometer records show similar results. For the most extreme example, the recently released (and still unverified) BEST temperature data shows a warming of nearly 2°C over the last two centuries.
Now, compare and contrast that with the opening salvo of the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action“. That’s the two page document that was the sole and total result of the labors of the 10,000 delegates and camp followers at the recent Durban climate party. I busted out laughing when I read the following:
The Conference of the Parties, … Noting with grave concern the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels,
Now, “pre-industrial” in IPCC jargon means 1750. Which brings up the following question:
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
They obviously feel they can demand anything, reguardless of whether it’s laughable or not since the point of the exercise wasn’t/isn’t any kind of climate control but, instead, people/government control.
Not a problem Willis. Nature will take care of it.
I wonder how long it will be before the very august assortment of envirologues assembling figure out that, since the pre-industrial period, the largest increase in carbonators is us, and that mitigation will, of necessity, have to be focussed primarily on reducing the number of us, all else being derivative…?
“…and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels…”
This begs the question…What is so special about a climate that is 1.5 – 2 C above “pre-industrial” levels? Is it “better” in some way? I mean the ice age was well below this level, and I don’t think people would think it was “better”. In any case, their logic is so twisted and inane, it makes my head hurt…
@ Paul Coppin
They already are trying to reduce our numbers by ‘education and vaccination’ (Bill Gates).
This isn’t about climate. If climate fails to be the issue that gains them their need for “distributive justice” they will simply select a different issue. It would be pollution maybe after they get people terrified of some chemical that has so far been harmless. Fenton Communications has been doing that since the Alar scare:
http://junksciencecom.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/fear_profiteers.pdf
“Climate Change” is simply the latest lever they have to use to manage their ultimate goal of regulating the entire planet through unelected bureaucrats. Once climate no longer works for them, they’ll drop it and move on two the next thing. It was DDT there for a while. Then it was nuclear power. Next might be “genetically modified food” even though every single food we eat is “genetically modified”. There was never a “wild” Jersey cow. The was never a wild tomato or potato or sweet corn that looks like what we eat today. Everything is “genetically modified”. It’s just that the old ways took longer.
Math and lefties = oxymoron.
They apparently believe in time machines
Looking serious, like when watching “The Lord of The Rings” or putting your trousers on the right way round, is taken as a sign of intelligence by these fools.
So irony is a much too advanced humanoid skill set for them to recognise. They actually enjoy being in an endless loop of breastbeating. Traced through their recent forebears, we see the flagellators ( of which they are mentally equivalent) back to the knuckledraggers.
“Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950”
Yes, yes, but Greenland is only a small part of the planet so what happens there is not representative of the whole global climate.
No. Wait. I forgot that it was in fact representative of the whole global climate.
Sorry. OK then. Who knew Big Oil started faking data so early?
They want to bring us back to the temperatures of The Little ice age.
Failing crops, widespread hunger, no summer, disease and pestilence.
A lot to look forward to!
Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…
For those who have not followed or been exposed to the considerable debate in these pages and at similar sites the facts are as presented by the MSM which in turn take their “news” from advocate press releases. The majority of those who are involved in the AGW discourse are ignorant. The groupies who follow the UNIPCC band around the world are not interested in the truth or science for that matter. No amount of facts will dissuade them from their beliefs.
The greatest threat to the AGW bandwagon is global recession. When survival is on the line belief takes a back seat. A missionary to Africa once told me that you can not preach to a starving man let alone a mother of a starving child. Many middle class westerners, the majority and the most affected by movements in the economy, are concerned about the future. Higher utility prices, many caused by renewable subsidies, are hurting. Politicians are seeing and reacting to that hurt because if they don’t they will unemployed.
Just as the AGW scam has become political it will be buried by politics too. The grave has been dug and we just need a few bodies to throw in. The Pollies need to be able to say “we were misled by this lying so and so”. Our job now is to make sure we deliver a few scapegoats, a few sacrificial climate scientists. FOIA has given us the heads up. We have to follow through.
Don’t have the link, but a prominent Swedish (?) scientist observed that the tragedy of climate science was that the field of meteorology was developed during the coldest few decades since the latest retreat of the Ice Sheets. That became the implicit ‘norm’.
All the warming since then has been benign, and unremarkable. More, please!
Ed Caryl says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Not a problem Willis. Nature will take care of it.
I suppose they can starve to death or die of disease after putting their policies in place. That would be a natural consequence. Unfortunately, there is at least one problem with that strategy. How many of us will have to suffer the same fate? It is likely they would be the protected elites, perhaps having access to a modern equivalent of the Beryozka stores of the old Soviet Union.
http://englishrussia.com/2011/09/29/what-the-legendary-beryozka-store-used-to-sell/
Regular people couldn’t shop there.
Without a doubt, nature will teach lessons. Sometimes very harsh ones.
The goal to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is a policy decision and not subject to scientific scrutiny. It does not even need to make sense as long as the warmists are happy with it. No explanation of the origin of the goal will be offerred, and since they aren’t subject to FOIA’s, we will never get one.
It was never about the science or even about the climate.
The Arctic is the canary in the coal mine. What ever happens in the Arctic will happen on the whole planet – except the Medieval Warm period or Little Ice Age on Greenland, which was just a local event.
CROSSPATCH: The(re) was never a wild tomato or potato or sweet corn that looks like what we eat today. Everything is “genetically modified”. It’s just that the old ways took longer.
Nature took care of what you are calling GMO’s in the past right? But Nature did not do it via “roundup ready” crops, and labrats injecting genes from one plant into another— it happened naturally – what is that called ? natural selection? and then those that failed this process died out naturally, not via Monsanto’s interference me thinks.
crosspatch says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:35 pm
“Next might be “genetically modified food” even though every single food we eat is “genetically modified”
Sigh..
Genetically modified food in modern parlance means gene insertion by human intervention.
It is mere sloppy sophistry to confuse that with normal breeding.
How people can still not understand the difference is mind boggling.
Everything is “genetically modified”. … does what you are saying equate to evolution ? naturally evolving versus round-up ready
I’m not sure “distributive justice” has much if anything to do with it. I think most of them are probably just jumping on the latest “we gotta save the world from us humans” cause and don’t really care what it is. And, if it later falls over, they’ll just jump on the next one that pop up without looking back, much less performing any postmortem analysis.
The Durbanites come across as humanoid lemmings.
At least when lemmings succumb to mass insanity, however,
they don’t try to take the whole world with them over the cliff.
It’s all about reducing the population of the planet!
Have a financial collapse to make people poor then freeze them to death because they can’t afford to keep themselves warm! The old and the sick will be the first to go!
Seems my first post disappeared. AGW will be destroyed by global recession. The Western middle classes, the most populous and the most at risk of economic down turns, realise that survival is more urgent than faith in a hypothesis. An African missionary once told me that it was pointless preaching to a starving man let alone the mother of a starving child. Most of us won’t starve in a recession but we will see our dreams diminish and we may lose our houses. Utility price rises add to our burdens and some of those rises are the result of renewable energy mandates. When constituents hurt so do their representatives eventually. The pollies want to back away from AGW but they want to do it without losing face. What they really want is to be able to say “we were misled by those fraudulent climate scientists. We relied on their advice but now we know it was based on bad science.”
AGW became pollitical and will be buried by pollitics too. FOIA gave us the heads up now we need to deliver some sacrificial climate scientists to the pollies.
Didnt Canute try something similar with water?
Howd that go by the way?
Let’s be fair,these guys haven’t a clue about real statistics or climate history. They obviously don’t want a return of the LIA, unless they are really stupid …………. OK, so maybe they do..
Put it down to MMS (Mannian Maths Syndrome): the inability or unwillingness to interpret historical climatic history correctly. A syndrome widely experienced by those of the CAGW Alarmist Cult.
Lemmings jumping off cliffs and CAGW. Good link. The evidence for both stories was entirely manufactured by unethical people trying to make money.
JustMEinT Musings s actual humans have been cross breeding or selectively breeding animals for a very long time , similarly with cross pollinating plants all that is ‘artificial’ in the true sense.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
OK. Please educate me from your perspective. What, if anything, do they relate to?
Mike Williams, the problem is terminology. The term “genetic modification” is a broad one that covers both what humans have been doing for thousands of years and what we have only been doing recently in laboratories. Cross-breeding sub-species X with sub-species Y or choosing male X1 to mate with female Y1 for certain characteristics is still genetic modification. What happens in the laboratory is direct genome manipulation which is also genetic modification. Terminology is important and if you want communication with clarity, you need to get the terminology right.
Crosspatch:
Inserting foreign genes into foodstuffs is not natural selection or mutation. I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow. I have no wish to eat tomatoes with fish genes in them either, much as I love both fish and tomatoes!
Why are they so concerned about their graves at this time in their careers?
I get this when clicking on AKASUFO.
Error 404: File Not Found
[REPLY: thanks, fixed. -w.]
I didn’t watch the proceeding, so perhaps I have an incorrect impression. But my Impression is that the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action” was not adopted by a roll call vote, or even a voice vote, of the 190+ nations attending. It was adopted by some kind of “consensus.” Perhaps someone who followed the proceeding more closely could comment on the method used to get consensus.
From my reading the only agreement was to continue the partying of the Parties.
Well that 2 deg temperature rise hasn’t been so bad!
I guess this was the result of CO2 increasing from 280 to 390ppm (ie 40 percent). Being logarithmic, about 75 percent of the impact should occur after 40 percent of the forcing.
If a doubling of CO2 would increase temps by 3 deg (per the IPCC) then we should have experienced about 2.2deg by now. But about a tenth of that could well have been offset by aerosols.
QED
Enjoy your holidays, Leif. And as one who reads and looks forward to your comments, thanks for the education this year.
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
I hate these mathematical perplexing questions. “what are our chances…” sounds like you are expecting an answer using a value expressed as a percentage, however, I’m not sure that “zero” is really a percentage of anything.
Or is this a philosophical question:
If one knows that they will fail, should they even try?
Paul Coppin says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:24 pm
That’s true. The first question then is: “What was the global population in 1750?” And the second question is: “Since these people are apparently the most concerned with their deleterious impact, wouldn’t they be willing to voluntarity “go” first?”
JustMEinT Musings says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:02 pm
“Everything is “genetically modified”. … does what you are saying equate to evolution ? naturally evolving versus round-up ready”
The active ingredient in Round-up is glyphosate, and glyphosate-resistant weeds are naturally evolving all the time. No qualitative difference.
” Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800…”
This premise is based on an estimate that you yourself put at an extreme. That’s what they do, so I s’pose it is ok turn this back on them. But I would be careful, even in jest. And there is in the data a great variation in the timing of especially in the MWP in various parts of the world, which suggest a much flatter global peak than often suggested.
Why not stick with what is a greater consensus on both sides: a rise of around 0.7 since the low point of 1860s. The silliness of such oh-so-ernest statements as quoted remain hopelessly unsupported by the evidence: they think that they have their hands on the global thermostat!
mike williams says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Normal breeding? What is normal about the big ears on modern corn or the size of carrots? Or even trees made out of one or more fruitstocks grafted on rootstock? Or monocultured row crops that will all ripen on the same day?
Some of these products came about by irradiating seeds or cloning desirable plants to spped up nature’s rate of spontaneous mutation.
None of these can survive “in the wild”.
Or do you mean this is the new normal?
mike williams says: Sigh..Genetically modified food in modern parlance means gene insertion by human intervention. It is mere sloppy sophistry to confuse that with normal breeding.
Sigh….. Perhaps you can grace us with what word we may use to describe mutagenic and fusion techniques in plant breeding. No sloppy sophistry please.
mike williams says:
“Sigh..
Genetically modified food in modern parlance means gene insertion by human intervention.
It is mere sloppy sophistry to confuse that with normal breeding.
How people can still not understand the difference is mind boggling.”
Mike, is that last sentence a typo?
Shouldn’t it read ‘How people can still not understand there is no difference is mind boggling.’
And perhaps at the end ‘Sigh…’
Yes, well, obviously Warmer Is Better. Nobody wants a return to the Little Ice Age, or the big one either. All this foofarah and handwringing over improving climate is stupid. Authoritarian-inspired, crisis-driven expense and control inflicted over a boon to the planet and to Life Itself is utter rubbish.
My computer model says temperatures should be rising dramatically.
My satellite data says temperatures are adjusting within historical norms.
Gradually models yield to the dictates of data.
Fear not, the Eco Greenie industry will dream up some new fear mongering hairy scary ponzi scheme to replace AGW, just as AGW replaced the Club of Rome and the CoR replaced the Population Bomb.
I was thinking it would be something to do with water, but it looks like the UN is lining up some con job based on biodiversity to replace AGW.
Fred from Canuckistan
Don’t forget acid rain!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/26/documentary-on-the-german-waldsterben-hysteria-looking-back-30-years/
And, yes, looks like Biodiversity is their next project. Bit of a problem flogging that one in Canada but they are trying, and have been for decades.
Annie says:
…
Inserting foreign genes into foodstuffs is not natural selection or mutation. I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow. I have no wish to eat tomatoes with fish genes in them either, much as I love both fish and tomatoes!
But if you become diabetic, will you take insulin from GM safflower? Or will you insist on (worse quality, more expensive) pig insulin?
Food can be safe and nutritious, or not. Plants can be safe to the overall environment, or not. The origin of the food and the plants is entirely irrelevant to the criteria of nutrition and safety.
The repulsion with GM food is just a taboo, and like all taboos it has no other validity. Like the way the French eat horse quite happily and Koreans eat dog, yet apparently most Anglos consider that vile! Those taboos are quickly overcome when life depends on it – as with diabetics and their insulin. Starving Africans are unlikely to feel that they should continue to starve because you have an issue with fish genes in tomatoes.
When they set targets to keep temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees it is assumed that the rise comes from adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Would someone please tell me exactly how you get that number by starting only with the amount of carbon dioxide in the air? This is important when they tell you to keep the temperature rise down but don’t tell you how that converts to the amount of carbon dioxide involved. Is there a standard formula IPCC gives out or does it depend upon individual climaticians who give out these temperature numbers? Is there a consensus about it or is it debated? Also, is there just one theory or several for predicting temperature rise? You need to know all this if you believe that emission controls are required. Apparently those who want us to keep the temperature rise down don’t want us to know where these numbers come from.
“Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800”
Willis, I beg to differ.
The Central England temperature series is one of the oldest instrumental records in the world and shows a linear increase since 1750 of just 0.26degC per hundred years. That would be a rise of only 0.68degC between 1800 and 2010. See:
http://www.thetruthaboutclimatechange.org/tempsCentralEngland.html
Even the (very highly suspect) HadCRUT3 world temperature series from the Climate Reasearch Unit at the University of East Anglia shows a linear increase since 1850 of just 0.41degC per hundred years. Even that would be a rise of only 1.4degC between 1800 and 2010. See:
http://www.thetruthaboutclimatechange.org//tempsworld.html
So where do you get your comparatively alarming figure of 2degC from?
Now, “pre-industrial” in IPCC jargon means 1750. Which brings up the following question:
————
But Durban is not the IPCC, so who knows what the delegates had in mind for their base temperature. It could be the start of industrialization during the Victorian era: 1850s. Or it could mean the post world war 2 period.
Good for a slight ironic smile maybe but not a whole article.
Annie says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Crosspatch:
Inserting foreign genes into foodstuffs is not natural selection or mutation. I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow. I have no wish to eat tomatoes with fish genes in them either, much as I love both fish and tomatoes!
Unfortunately Mother Nature (or evolution or whatever) seems to do exactly that on its own. See
Nature Reviews Genetics 9, 605-618 (August 2008)
doi:10.1038/nrg2386
Horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotic evolution
Patrick J. Keeling & Jeffrey D. Palmer
The right question about genetic modification technology under development is not whether it does something “unnatural”, but how thoroughly the new variants are tested before getting into the food chain and more importantly, what specific intentions are hiding behind the umbrella term GMO.
For example, genetic use restriction technology is plainly evil, especially if unintended cross-breeding is taken into account between GMO plantations of this kind and neighboring populations.
Arno Arrack says
Apparently those who want us to keep the temperature rise down don’t want us to know where these numbers come from.
————–
Apparently not because the numbers are out there, you just have not found them yet.
We are currently at 390ppm CO2 and we should probably get nervous about CO2 reaching 650ppm. If things do look bad at 650ppm and we decide to do something serious about it only then, it will be to late. The genie is out of the bottle and can’t be put back in.
Willis says
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
———–
My lying eyes say the temperature has gone up by 1C not 2C. By that I mean the underlying trend, and ignoring maximum and minimum excursions.
sunsettommy says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Thanks, fixed.
w.
LazyTeenager says:
December 17, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I was referring to the BEST temperature record, not Figure 1.
w.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records…. One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
Some might say the Maunder and Dalton Minimums and 20th Century Maximum qualify. They certainly are superior to what seem to be acceptable variations to the paleo-proxy pundits.
LazyTeenager says:
December 17, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Before I get nervous I like to have at least a little evidence that there is something to get nervous about. Temperatures have gone up somewhere around a couple of degrees since the pre-industrial depth of the Little Ice Age somewhere around 1700. Clearly most of this temperature increase is not from CO2 … so what is it from? No one knows.
Until we do know, the default assumption would have to be that the earth would continue to warm. It has generally done so, up until the last 15 years. Perhaps you are surprised.
During the last half century or so, both hemlines and CO2 levels have increased. No one has shown that either one is the cause of changes in global average air temperature.
Finally, the couple of degrees warming since the Little Ice Age has generally been beneficial for humans. I see no reason to think that another two degrees would be other than that, and certainly not a global catastrophe.
So you are free to be as nervous as you wish. I’ll pass until we have some evidence in hand, and not just Tinkertoy model results.
w.
LazyTeenager says: December 17, 2011 at 4:50 pm
“We are currently at 390ppm CO2 and we should probably get nervous about CO2 reaching 650ppm.”
Under the following assumtions, we reach 650 ppm in the year around 2150. Calm down please.
(1) The current rate of CO2 emission continues.
(2) Fossil fuels are available throughoout.
(3) No new energy generating technology is available by then.
140 years is a long long time. Only 40 years ago here in Japan, when I was undergrad/grad student, the tools for research were a ruler calculator, a manual typewriter, and diazo copying apparatus. Nobody was able to imagine a day with fast personal computer, a magical cell phone, the magnificent internet , etc.
Mooloo says:
December 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
…..Food can be safe and nutritious, or not. Plants can be safe to the overall environment, or not. The origin of the food and the plants is entirely irrelevant to the criteria of nutrition and safety.
The repulsion with GM food is just a taboo, and like all taboos it has no other validity. Like the way the French eat horse quite happily and Koreans eat dog, yet apparently most Anglos consider that vile! Those taboos are quickly overcome when life depends on it – as with diabetics and their insulin. Starving Africans are unlikely to feel that they should continue to starve because you have an issue with fish genes in tomatoes.
___________________________________
Not in my case.
My problem with GMP foods is being a guinea pig because Micheal Taylor (a Lawyer for Monsanto) got the FDA to rule that gene inserted plants [correct term transgenic] were “substantially equivalent” to normal hybridization and needed no testing before marketing. http://www.ijsaf.org/archive/16/1/lotter1.pdf
KEY FDA DOCUMENTS REVEALING: (1) HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS–AND (2) FLAWS WITH HOW THE AGENCY MADE ITS POLICY: http://biointegrity.org/list.html
The sale of Starlite corn in third world countries and causing major health problems did not help GMOs image. Then having Monsanto sue the heck out of loads of farmers along with the WTO, the UN and EU push licensed only seed/ no seed saving allowed did not endear GMOs/Monsanto to anyone either.
If they did the Darn TESTING and did not hide the results I would not have a problem. Intellectually I think the idea is fascinating.
I should also add that studies like this do not help either:
GM food toxins found in the blood of 93% of unborn babies
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1388888/GM-food-toxins-blood-93-unborn-babies.html
DirkH says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:44 pm
JustMEinT Musings says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:02 pm
“Everything is “genetically modified”. … does what you are saying equate to evolution ? naturally evolving versus round-up ready”
The active ingredient in Round-up is glyphosate, and glyphosate-resistant weeds are naturally evolving all the time. No qualitative difference.
___________________________
Actually there has been some studies showing Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMOs
From Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%E2%80%9Chorizontal+gene+transfer.%E2%80%9D+ISIS&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Annie says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm
“I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow.”
I seem to recall reading things that suggest you are perhaps 50 to 60 years behind the known science. Not about the fish/tomato bit, just in general.
By the time I could find references and post, things will have moved on, so I hope you check back here and then do your own research.
But, here is a start:
http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/topics/transformation/
I know this is a sniggling, tiny point….but the one thing Algore has accomplished is that most people no longer misspell “Consensus” as “concensus”.
(Not sure if it’s worth a Nobel Prize, tho…)
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
I don’t know. Look at this site… http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html
Lassen says “Greenland ice core 1550-1974
Dansgaard et al. (1975) compared temperature variations derived from the 18-O concerntration in snow fallen in Central Greenland with temperatures in Iceland through the interval 900-1970. They concluded that most of the pronounced medium frequency (60ï 200 yr periods) oscillations back to 900 are essentially in phase, so that the 18-O curve is representative of climatic changes far beyond the Greenland area. In accordance with their conclusion we show in Fig.11 that the temperature data derived from the ice-core in Central Greenland like the variation of sea-ice extent at Iceland have varied in concert with the medium length solar activity during most of a 500 year period.”
Lassen shows a graph (don’t know how to show it here) which appears to be general agreement with the figure 1 of Willis.
Who is right??? I don’t know.
The real challenge for humanity is how to reduce public funding of pseudoscientific scaremongers and their propaganda teams to pre-1750 levels.
Re: Chemical toxins and gene-splicing concerns that somehow crept into a discussion of global temperature.
Now that we’re being poisoned by manufactured chemicals, we live approximately twice as long as we did in the days when we weren’t being poisoned. I’ll believe I’ll take that deal. As an added bonus, large numbers of us now even take our own teeth to the grave with us; unheard of in “the good old days”.
There’s no theory too ridiculous for a 3rd world despot to expound, when he’s trying to extract a few extra Mercedes from the rest of us…..
Al Gored says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:21 pm
“One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
OK. Please educate me from your perspective. What, if anything, do they relate to?
Why do they have to relate to something?
Bob Tisdale says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Enjoy your holidays, Leif. And as one who reads and looks forward to your comments, thanks for the education this year.
You are welcome. Thanks for the kind words.
Around 1900 there was real nervousness about horse manure being more than a metre high in the streets of London in the decades to follow. Then came the motor car………………..
By the time we reach 650ppm you and I will be just a thing of the past and technological developments will make your statement look similar to the horse poop article that appeared in in Times of London.
Final thought?
Could you have imagined mobile phones with cameras, video, internet surfing etc. back in 1970? A computer more powerful than landed man on the Moon? It’s just been 40 odd years since and you are nervous about the year 2150. I’m not. 🙂
Have a safe and prosperous holiday Leif. We may be adversaries in scientific debate but we need someone to play the role of Pope Urban VIII.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record on King Canute: he staged a demonstration to court syncophants that Nature was not a royal subject. One or two were bound and tossed into the waves for emphasis, I think. A fine precedent.
No, they’re not that stupid. What they KNOW they have their hands on is the keys to the global treasury.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:40 am
Have a safe and prosperous holiday Leif. We may be adversaries in scientific debate but we need someone to play the role of Pope Urban VIII.
I don’t think what you do is science, so there is no adversarial issue.
I suggest that LazyTeenager change his/her monitor to TimexTeenager.
He/She ‘Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking’
sorry,shud b ‘moniker’ not monitor
TFIFY
(There, Fixed It For You)
😉
TFIFY
Heh. Just noticed the other fix needed. There’s no direct evidence that LT’s computer screen is defective, after all.
Leif Svalgaard,
You constantly use your personal beliefs to validate an absolute statement,
as though your opinion makes it true. This is not a mark of true scientific debate e.g.
“I don’t think what you do is science…” a personal belief
some how implies ==> “so there is no adversarial issue” and absolute statement.
Unlike you, I do not use abuse, intimidation and trivial semantics to support my arguments. Nor do I try to insult you by claiming that what you do is not science. Indeed, I have posted emails on this and other sites praising your scientific contributions and achievements. I have also posted comments which highlight your tireless efforts answering questions from non-specialists on Solar Science. For that, I am continually thankful.
Prof. Hannes Alfvén, winner of the 1970 Nobel prize for Physics, taught me that a scientist should never stop questioning “established beliefs”. In addition, Prof Alex Rodgers, a former Director of the Mount Stromolo observatory from 1987 to 1992, taught me to never let
the abuse and intimidation from another scientist stop me from proposing a scientific result, particularly if I believed it was soundly supported by the available evidence.
I have access to a number of very experienced scientific researchers who have [what I believe is] very strong scientific evidence to show that some of the things that you claim on this forum are in fact completely wrong. These researchers are in the process of getting their results written up and published and they will soon appear in print. Once their collective work is out in the wider scientific community [this will take a few years], I believe that you will have to eat a very large serving of humble pie.
And lastly, in order to keep this post OT, if we are to overturn the phenomenon of “Durban Dementia”, so clearly enunciated by Willis [Eschenbach], skeptics [a redundant label if you are true scientist] need to stop insulting each other and maybe listen to some ideas with which we may disagree.
Ian Wilson PhD (Astronomy)
Australian National University 1983
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:40 am
need to stop insulting each other and maybe listen to some ideas with which we may disagree.
Not sure Pope Urban would agree…
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:40 am
I have access to a number of very experienced scientific researchers who have [what I believe is] very strong scientific evidence to show that some of the things that you claim on this forum are in fact completely wrong.
Unsubstantiated claims carry no weight. You got something, say it.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:40 am
I have posted emails on this and other sites praising your scientific contributions and achievements. I have also posted comments which highlight your tireless efforts answering questions from non-specialists on Solar Science
Before you get carried away by too much self praise, let me remind you of:
Ninderthana says:
December 2, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Is this the modus operandi of a person who professes to believe in and use the scientific method?
“..and I are conveners for a workshop designed to bring about a consensus [if possible] about the long term behavior of solar activity.”
“…so in a couple of years, mainstream science [!] might [hopefully] have a unified and thoroughly vetted view on this.”
Other than using words like the “the team” and “the cause”, you might think that this person was Dr. Mann or Dr. Jones. Consensus.., unified [view]….thoroughly vetted view… mainstream science… surely these are not the words of a scientist with an open mind?
Well, at least he does not stoop to smearing those who disagree with him on this issue like Mann and Jones has done.
“I’m busy right now. And most of the comments [on this post] are just the same old, tired sycophantic babble by the usual pushers of pseudo-science which we all have heard a million times.”
Isn’t it good to know that you can look forward to Dr. Leif Svalgaard telling what to think on this important topic. Don’t bother your little minds with any of those silly little independent thoughts that might lead you to stray from the party line……Dr. Svalgaard is here to save the day!
—–
I suggest you tone down the rhetoric a bit.
Anyone ever hear the expression, “Two cats in a bag”?
Willis,
To hop over to the opposite side of the fence for a minute, where does the IPCC say after 1750 represents “post-industrial” warming? I recall Gavin Schmidt refer to human warming as anything after 1980 (during his silly polar bear talk in Churchill).
The best estimate of how far we have warmed versus the (arbitrary) 1.5-2.0 degree limit is to plot fossil fuel usage (or CO2 emissions from fossil fuels) and then to (arbitrarily) select a starting point below which most thinking scientists would agree there is little effect. The starting point + 1.5-2.0 is the point of no return.
Also, some AGW believers are of the opinion that the pre-industrial CO2 was the main culprit for warming due to the logarithmic effect of CO2. Initial levels have a lot of effect, later additions less so.
It seems CO2 levels (man-made) have increased almost 50% in the last 20 years alone (if you believe Wikipedia). Either most of the warming was caused by non-fossil fuel CO2 or the atmosphere should be on fire by now. Whoops, I hopped the fence again.
Steve from Rockwood says:
December 18, 2011 at 11:34
The changes in e.g. greenhouse gas forcing is evaluated against “pre-industrial” conditions, which are usually taken as 1750.
It’s all over the IPCC reports, a quick google finds the following:
In the Summary of AR4 I find:
and
w.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 6:40 am
need to stop insulting each other and maybe listen to some ideas with which we may disagree.
Not sure Pope Urban would agree…
You have assumed the worst of my original posted comment – it was meant to mean that one of US (i.e. you or me) had to play the role of Pope Urban VIII …. not that you specifically were a modern day version of Pope Urban. All scientist know that they are not always on the side of truth and so I was raising the possibility that one of us would turn out to be a modern day version of Pope Urban VIII. I am sorry that you have misunderstood what I had posted. I should have made my intent more obvious.
The original post was simply meant to be a innocent message wishing you a happy holiday break.
My sentiments still apply despite your reaction.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:21 pm
I am sorry that you have misunderstood what I had posted. I should have made my intent more obvious.
From your previous postings, the intent was very obvious, with a predictable reaction on my part. ‘Poor old Leif’ as you often refer to me as, still has some teeth left, and a long memory to boot.
Leif says,
I have access to a number of very experienced scientific researchers who have [what I believe is] very strong scientific evidence to show that some of the things that you claim on this forum are in fact completely wrong. Unsubstantiated claims carry no weight. You got something, say it.
As you and every one else on this forum knows, I cannot reveal the unpublished research of scientific colleagues that has been shown to me in confidence. You will see these results in good time. There is nothing I can do to speed up the process.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 3:42 pm
There is nothing I can do to speed up the process.
Then you keep quiet until you the time comes.
Doesn’t the plot suggest that the 1940s/50s were a lot warmer than today? Given that manmade emissions of CO2 beagan to significantly escalate after the 1940s WUWT??
Leif Svalgaard at December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm says that the plot shows no correlation with solar related cycles. Without joining issue on that point, I would observe that this is yet another plot that suggests there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature. The upshot of both these observations taken together is that the observed temperature fluctuations appear due to natural variations that are not known or understood .
Willis
Your comment made at 12:02 pm (see Willis Eschenbach says: December 18, 2011 at 12:02 pm) is well noted. Obviously, it is a question of historical fact as to when the industrial revolution took place (ie., first took hold) although there is some ambit of interpretation regarding factors such as changes in agricultural land use and precisely how localised/widespread the move to industrialisation became. That said, I consider that the IPCC have their dates a little early and indeed if one looks at the ‘accepted’ CO2 levels/eimissions this would also suggest that 1750 did not see any significant rise in CO2.
Whilst one has to be cautious as to the accuracy of what Wikipedia might have to say, it states:
“The First Industrial Revolution, which began in the 18th century, merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships, railways, and later in the 19th century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation. The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians. Eric Hobsbawm held that it ‘broke out’ in Britain in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[7] while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.”
I consider the better interpretation to be that one is looking more at 1800/1820s than at 1750 if the meaning of pre-industrial conditions is to be based upon historical fact. However, as we know Climate Science never allows historical (or archaelogical) fact to get in the way of a good story.
richard verney says:
December 18, 2011 at 5:23 pm
The upshot of both these observations taken together is that the observed temperature fluctuations appear due to natural variations that are not known or understood
I’ll subscribe to that, except perhaps add that any sufficiently complex system seems to undergo random internal fluctuations, see e.g. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ELIS-complexity.pdf
Annie says:
Inserting foreign genes into foodstuffs is not natural selection or mutation. I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow. I have no wish to eat tomatoes with fish genes in them either, much as I love both fish and tomatoes!
+++++++
I gotta agree with the others, Annie. All sorts of genes pop into all sorts of plants and creatures. We are made up of the accidents and intentional choices for millenia, and probably more of the former and less of the latter. Genes and the junk DNA that control them are far more like a Lego set than some imagined pure lineal descent. Neurotoxin in fish, for example, appears in several species but is entirely non-fish in origin. If just transferred wholesale into existing fish, several times in fact. Diverse fish have exactly the same neurotoxin producing capabilities (gene set).
Man-induced genetic modifications at least have a purpose and direction! Yes there are dangers. No I don’t think they are all validly expressed. There are alarmists crying ‘wolf’ about anything and everything. It’s OK. Just don’t give them the keys to the car. I agree it is hard to separate the science from the knee-jerk opposition to it.
mike williams says: (December 17, 2011 at 2:00 pm)
Genetically modified food in modern parlance means gene insertion by human intervention.
It is mere sloppy sophistry to confuse that with normal breeding.
How people can still not understand the difference is mind boggling.
Because “normal” breeding is a very dubious concept whan you look at where our food crops came from…
For example:
Wheat is a hybrid of several wild species of grass, thereby mixing in genes that would not “normally” be together in the same plant. Back in the 40s and 50s, I believe they were mutating wheat repeatedly (via radiation and chemical mutagens) to shuffle the chromosomes and add new mutations. Select from the shufled pack, them repeat. Rust resistance got inserted from yet other species of grass by cross breeding, and somewhere in its history, wheat chromosomes got doubled up. Twice, I think, if tetraploid means what I think it does.
So what is “normal breeding”? We’ve been eating genetically modified food, billions of us, for decades (or even centuries).
And now they have methods of inserting a single new gene into the shuffle rather than mixing all the cards from another pack. So what? Wheat is an artificial construct, about as natural as a pentium processor. And that’s how it can it feed us all. It’s not just rising CO2 that’s made that possible –the wicked chemical industry and the Haber Process also gets some of the blame. Or credit.
And modern maize doesn’t look much like Teosinte either.
Willis:
Thankyou for your fine demolition of the nonsensical IPCC assertion concerning
“aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.”
You rightly use the IPCC’s definition of the end of the “pre-industrial” era as being 1750 and consider global temperature rise since then.
But there is a more fundamental objection to the IPCC assertion; viz.
Mean global temperature rises by 3.8°C from June to January each year and falls by 3.8°C from January to June each year. This natural variation results from the different proportions of land and ocean coverage in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
So, every year the increase in global average temperature IS NEARLY DOUBLE 2 °C above the levels which existed in June of each year during the pre-industrial era. Of course the decrease within each year is of nearly the same amount. But the 3.8°C rise within each year has no disastrous effects and does not induce a “tipping point”.
Importantly, natural variation provides nearly double 2 °C increase to known pre-industrial levels within each year and this natural variation cannot be stopped.
Richard
I have never understood how IPCC can claim that the industrial era started in 1750. What we call industry was limited to some small factories mainly in UK, and the emissions from these can hardly have been of any importance to the climate. It is hard to see how real industrial age before the end of the 19th century in Europe and USA, even later worldwide.
The real substance, if it can be called that, is in this pathetic little two pager. This conference was supposed to close the deal on post-Kyoto. And what have they done? Why nothing more than extend the Ad Hoc Working Group for ONE year.
Even if you take the supposed threat of greenhouse gases seriously, this was a pathetic outcome for two years of negotiations. What it shows is what I have stated in many posts prior to this. Irrespective of the science, the COP/MOP process is dead, deader than Marley’s Ghost, and it died frozen to death in a Copenhagen snowstorm.
This was an outcome that a colleague and I predicted back in 2003 after the Hague COP conference. It can only fail because it is a UN process, and it brings in all of the baggage and uselessness of the UN with it.
Zero, since it is already too late!
Crucial ideas and processes began developing then, but the economy, population, and distribution of “industrial” systems were all very small fractions of mid-20th C levels. Even by IPCC figures, human activity was far too trivial to leverage the climate till then.
1750 probably coincides with the enclosures of common land, and the slow drift from rural areas
to large cities. Poverty was rife, partly because of famines. England was becoming intolerable
with crime rates climbing, no prisons only hulks from which they sent convicts to Canada and America, west Indies until – Australia. Social discontent, petty theft (sometimes to survive, not always, petty crime was a way of life. Certain parts of London, the few cops they had Bow Street Runners, weren’t game to enter). Then America gained their independence and wouldn’t accept our convicts any more. So the weather and climate did have a vast effect on social disorder.
However, folks, you will have do some in depth social history and see what was going on around the world, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. They had gas then, but no electricity. Coal of course was the chief energy source, and steam started to turn turbines from coal burning, I believe. But hardly an industrialised country or countries. If they want to be accurate, China was burning coke since the 1400s. Then of course the big volcanic eruptions? They are striving and cherry picking, a sign that they are running out of logical explanations. Actually the mini ice age hasn’t really ended. Just that we’ve enjoyed some warm interludes. 1947 and 1963 were very extreme cold years and winters. The Thames froze up to Windsor in 1963. And that was when London made it a smoke free zone, that stopped the SMOGS, from which thousands died in the 1950s.
Have a good Christmas and New Year, I believe Texas is having some bad snow and cyclones are circulating around Australia. I hope we don’t have a repeat of the Darwin cyclone of the 1970s.
Wiped out Darwin, and two are circulating now off Australia’s Northern shores.