Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
There is nothing permanent except change. – Heraclitus
If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. – Giuseppe di Lamedusa
Moving the Goalposts Again.
Climate changes significantly all the time. Those who point this out are considered more dangerous than global warming skeptics. Perversely and incorrectly, they are called climate change deniers, with its holocaust connotations. However, even a brief examination of the historic record shows how much climate changes naturally. This information is reaching the public and reducing people’s fear and is encouraging questions.
The political reaction, as in the past, is to move the goalposts. From the pulpit of the White House, John Holdren created climate disruptions; another ‘spin’ phrase used to imply abnormality and therefore due to humans. As proof, he pointed to media reports of increasing weather extremes. They weren’t extreme, but if you don’t know the history and the facts, exaggerations in the media make them so. It becomes a classic circular argument. Most people don’t understand that hurricanes are normal weather events. What has increased are the number of people who choose to live in hurricane regions and media attention, who are the phony storm chasers.
Forced to acknowledge that climate changes required a new name, but also a change in the story. It had to be abnormal, so now the claim is it is more rapid, frequent, abrupt and severe than anywhere in history. It isn’t, but the idea maintained the fear and guilt factors – millions will die, plants and animals will suffer and it is your fault. Maybe opponents to these claims should be called Climate Disruption Dastards.
Why Does Rate of Change Create Concern?
Every time a new threat is promoted, evidence shows it is unsubstantiated. Usually, the threat only worked because the public doesn’t understand. Once they appear to understand, a new threat is required. Increased rate of change resulted in stories claiming nature would be unable to adapt because the rate of change was abnormal.
It resonated because western science is based on the philosophy of uniformitarianism (gradualism), which assumes that processes occurring today were the same in the past. Charles Lyell summarized it as, “The present is the key to the past.” It was interpreted, incorrectly, that nothing changes much over time.
Lyell’s book Principles of Geology accompanied Darwin on the Beagle and profoundly influenced his thinking. Darwin’s theory required a much older world with time for evolution to occur. It replaced Catastrophism, which is ironic, because it held that the earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope.” Briefly, at the end of the 20th century, Chaos theory appeared, but faded. Stephen Jay Gould proposed a compromise called “punctuated equilibrium,” which said change was gradual with occasional catastrophic events.
This idea coincided with what appeared to be a good example, evidence that an asteroid wiped out dinosaurs 65 million years ago. (I celebrate that event each year, because it allowed the mammals and ultimately humans to emerge – it is my religion of Asteroidism). Despite this, traditional uniformitarian thinking persisted because it formed the philosophical thinking of western science. One result was the assumption that recovery from catastrophic events would take considerable time. This translated into the claim that human induced climate change was beyond the capability of plants and animals to recover.
Examples of Gradualist Thinking
An example of this thinking, accompanied a forest policy proposal for the Province of British Columbia by Werner Kurz.
“The climatic “comfort zone” for some species of trees is shifting north and it is moving far faster than the natural climate changes recorded in the geological record. “As long as change is a slow process the response of vegetation is to migrate with the shifting climate zone,” Kurz said. Paleo-ecologists measure the pace of migration in kilometres per century, but climate bands in recent years are moving at least 10 times that fast, outstripping the ability of plants to cope with the change, he said.” “Relying solely on the biological migration mechanisms of trees is not going to be sufficient,” he said.
Proper scientific method challenges such theories and thinking. Apparently, Kurz didn’t do his research. First, he should look at the palynological record for the last 12,000 years to get a measure of the rate and extent of natural change. Using the geologic record for recent change is like measuring human hair with a yardstick.
Diane L. Six, like Kurz in BC, lacks wider knowledge, historical perspective and understanding of climate patterns and mechanisms. In a Billings Gazette opinion article, Six wrote,
As scientists who have lived and worked in Montana, we understand the scientific principles demonstrating that human activity is rapidly changing our climate. That is why we joined over 100 other scientists across Montana in sending a letter to our top elected officials calling on them to support policies that reduce carbon pollution.
Thousands of scientists have produced thousands of studies on the causes and impacts of climate change. Each of those studies has undergone a rigorous peer review process. Building such a body of evidence to explain what is happening in the world around us is a careful, slow, and painstaking process, which rarely yields broad agreement. That’s why it is so remarkable that 97 percent of scientists who study climate change say that it is real, and largely caused by human activities that produce carbon pollution.
Climate change is a major concern for Montana. Scientists in Montana and around the West have documented that spring snowpack is melting on average two weeks earlier than in the 1950s. There has been an extension of two months in the wildfire season since the 1980s. August stream flows now average 20 percent lower than in the 1950s. These impacts are already having notable impacts on agriculture, recreation, wildlife, and water resources.
Ms. Six makes the inferred, but unsubstantiated connection between IPCC science and local conditions, while ignoring facts. For example, Ken Schlichte notes NOAA data shows that
· Montana’s meteorological winter (December – February) temperatures have trended downward at a rate of 4.2 degrees F per decade over the last 10 winters.
· Montana’s meteorological spring (March – May) temperatures have trended downward at a rate of 2.2 degrees F per decade over the last 10 springs.
There are also the inferences that the pattern Six describes are not normal and will continue. What Kurz and Six observe is perfectly normal. The problem is, the trend is incorrect. It cools, while they demand preparation for warming. They also need to know about the rate of adaptation to climate change. But these are problems created by academics and bureaucrats with a vested interest in perpetuating fear, while not understanding the science.
Kurz and Six must consider the events following the eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980. It provided a natural experiment that rejected predictions that recovery would take a hundred years or more. After just thirty years, scientists were amazed at the recovery rate. They were amazed because the basic philosophy was wrong; it’s the same error that allows the false claim that change is too rapid for nature to cope. Both Kurz and Six quote ecologists, but one of the earliest ecology studies illustrated how much animal populations fluctuate in response to climate changes that in turn affect food supply. Figure 1 shows a plot of Lynx population number fluctuations over 100 years. There is a link to sunspot numbers that links to the precipitation pattern.
Figure 1.
An Example Of Rapid Forest Adaptation
In my climate research I found a map drawn in 1772 by fur trader and self-taught biologist Samuel Hearne. He followed the tree line (he called it the “woods edge”) from Churchill on the southwest coast of Hudson Bay to the Coppermine River on the Arctic coast and plotted it on a map. It’s a very distinct boundary, as I know from flying over this region for five years. The entire story was published as “Historical Evidence and Climatic Implications of a Shift in the Boreal Forest Tundra Transition in Central Canada“, Climatic Change 1986, Vol. 7, pp. 218-229.
Hearne, whose observations on Arctic Fox are still considered among the best, made a remarkable, astute, comment in his journal.
“I have observed, during my several journeys in those parts that all the way to the North of Seal River the edge of the wood is faced with old withered stumps, and trees which have been flown (sic) down by the wind. They are mostly of the sort which is called here Juniper, but were seldom of any considerable size. Those blasted trees are found in some parts to extend to the distance of twenty miles from the living woods, and detached patches of them are further off; which is proof that the cold has been increasing in those parts for some ages. Indeed, some of the older Northern Indians have assured me that they have heard their fathers and grandfathers say, they remembered the greatest part of those places where the trees are now blasted and dead, in a flourishing state. (Hearne, 1772, p.138).
Figure 2
Source: Author
Hearne’s observations fit the climate record. The tree line advanced during the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) then retreated in the cooling to the nadir of the Little Ice Age (LIA). Hearne describes this with his comment that this is “proof that the cold has been increasing in those parts for some ages”. It has warmed since Hearne’s time and the tree line has advanced with a pattern of movement appropriate for the general circulation of the region.
Comparing the “woods edge” (Figure 2) as Hearne drew it in 1772, with the tree line determined 200 years later by Rowe (1972) and Elliot-Fisk (1983), the amount of movement is significant. In the west/east portion from Great Slave Lake to Churchill on Hudson Bay, movement was up to 300 km. This means it moved more than one kilometer per year. Even if it is only half that, it is a remarkable rate of adjustment in one of the harshest growing environments anywhere.
Emergence of New Land Provides Evidence
While flying anti-submarine patrols in the North Atlantic in the 1960s I had the privilege of watching, month by month, the appearance of a new island off the Icelandic coast. Named Surtsey, it provided an opportunity for modern science to monitor how quickly life establishes itself. Insects were among the first to arrive, with birds bringing seeds and providing nutrients. Scientists were surprised and impressed by the rates of colonization and adaptation. It is not surprising to people who live on the land.
Once you realize climate changes significantly all the time it is much easier to understand that nature would have evolved for that eventuality. But, this is only one of the misconceptions created to promote environmentalism as a religion and climate change for a political agenda. It is a long list, but partly includes, the claim extinction is abnormal, when it is the norm; that if one species disappears the entire interconnection collapses; that warming will cause nothing but problems.
Further proof of political exploitation, but also the rapid rate of change, is that just 35 years ago governments were preparing for cooling. Indeed, some of the scientists active today in promoting the threat of warming were measuring and warning about the impact of cooling. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) sponsored studies on the impact of cooling on agricultural productivity in various regions. The CIA produced a few reports including, “The Potential Implications of Trends in World Population, Food Production, and Climate”. OPR – 401, August 1974.
Governments are misled and misdirected by the science and policy suggestions of the IPCC. They’re adapting for warming when cooling is occurring and is the greater threat because adaptation is more difficult. If it occurs as rapidly as it has in the past we appear disadvantaged. However, humans have prospered and progressed because we used technology, invention and innovation to adapt. Fire, clothing, irrigation are all adaptations to climate change. The biggest threat is to our food supply, but genetic modification, which allows adaptation in two years compared to over 15 years for plant breeding, significantly improves our adaptability.
The only thing changing faster than the climate are the names given to political attempts to exploit people’s fears for a political agenda. In approximately 14 years it is variously Global Warming, Climate Change, Climate Catastrophe, Climate Chaos and currently Climate Disruptions. As Bertrand Russell said, ‘Change’ is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical: change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.”
From what I’ve heard, the birds were not the only ones providing nutrients at Surtsey. A couple of scientists/workers were chastised for soiling the pristine environment when nature called.
What we see is Climate Capitalism. They simply profit as opportunity to embellish science and funding becomes available. Simple really, from a monetary perspective. Think about it…….. once a precondition is conditioned, the rest is easy, even if very wrong…….
Climate Capitalism, I like that.
This is a good piece of work. We need such reports from all around the globe, so that we can advise the governments, more particularly developing countries where fund crunch hinders the development. We can present adaptation measures under different fields of importance. In fact I presented this in agriculture as back as 1993 through my book “Agroclimatic/agrometeorological techniques: As applicable to dry-land agriculture in developing countries”. IPCC’s misguided reports lead to wrong path and wastage of funds that are meant for development.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Mankind’s ability to infuence global climate is conjecture.
We think we are relevant, but that’s just a curious function of humanity’s narcissism.
Strange weather –
gods must be angry –
we must offer sacrifice
oldest scam of them all.
A typo: it’s Giuseppe di Lampedusa
Yes, Dave. I agree, no amount of models and graphs will convince me that climate changes. We know it does! But to the degree the IPCC, Mann and Gore suggests is just fraud. And politically biased against developed nations. Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. And weather, volcanoes, earthquakes, typhoons and tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis kill us.
And wars and famines caused by displacement of subsistence farming communities. Cities have to cull a lot of the UHI effects, how I don’t know. Clean water and sanitation must be pristine.
More like Climate Socialism. The “experts” and “planners” have advised the state and the state has decided how things should be. The state will extract taxes from all to give to the very same experts and planners, first to campaign so that what they have decided becomes accepted, then to make happen that which the experts and planners have decided should happen.
Lost me at
because extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Very interesting post, otherwise.
Dave says:
July 27, 2014 at 9:33 pm
“Mankind’s ability to infuence global climate is conjecture.
We think we are relevant, but that’s just a curious function of humanity’s narcissism.”
Beautifully said!
Agree Murray. If human beings could change the climate, we’d be God like.
Stephen Jay Gould proposed a compromise called “punctuated equilibrium,” which said change was gradual with occasional catastrophic events.
========
“Punctuated equilibrium” was just Gould’s fancy new name for what Darwin himself described in 1859. Gould relied on his audience to trust his word rather than checking the primary sources. Here’s Darwin:
In other words, “punctuated.”
Dr. Diana Six is a professor at the College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana. How is it possible Dr. Six writes about “carbon pollution” in Montana without referencing studies (if any) done by her own university showing the ill effects of this pollution? Exactly what has some extra carbon dioxide done to the forests of MT? Once Dr. Six digs into that 97% number a little further, she may join me in finding it remarkable that there are 3% of scientists that study climate change who do not think it is real. And that “largely” blaming human activity for our changing climates (whether in Sydney, MT, or Sydney, NSW) is due to UN IPCC bureaucrats.
Latest News from the BBC, If the dinosaurs hadn’t died out they would still be alive.
The examples given by Dr Ball are just a drop in the bucket. Paleoclimatologists and prehistorians have documented both climate shifts and cultural shifts throughout the Americas and Eurasia.
The climate shifts during the early to middle Holocene (5000 years ago) were much greater than those in recorded history which started to give a murky picture of climate changes about four thousand years ago. Hubert Lamb documented in great detail more recent historical impacts of climate change.
What emerges is the fact that warm periods like our own have been times of prosperity and cold periods of hardship,
Let us hope that the 20th Century Warm Period (20CWP) continues for a hundred years so that the children and grandchildren of today’s people will continue to grow in prosperity. Let us hope that when the climate flips to cold, that by then the people of the world are rich enough to avoid hardship.
“Climate changes significantly all the time. … However, even a brief examination of the historic record shows how much climate changes naturally.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I join issue with those assertions, since they lie at the heart of a fundamental mistake as to what climate actually is. You are correct to observe that there are large natural changes, but that is not changes to climate, but rather that is precisely what climate is, ie., climate is a range. I expand:
This debate has got off to a bad and unscientific start since climate is not stasis. Climate is not measured in terms of a few tenths of a degree C. Climate is not global, but regional.
The distortion of these fundamental facts and/or a failure to understand and appreciate them, has for too long skewed the debate, and has hindered an objective assessment of what is going on, and whether any action is required at all, and if so whether a policy of adaption ought to be the preferred response.
The average temperature for a region, or country is only a very small part of the mix, as you will see when you look at the recognised classifications of climate, such as Koppen..
Climate is a range of bounds, within which there is much variation on yearly and decadal and multidecadal basis. Any variations within those bounds, is not climate change, but instead is just part of the natural climate for that particular country, or region.
The problem is that Climate is not measured over 30 years, but rather over hundreds of years, I would venture to suggest perhaps even on a millenium timescale.
If you were to look at the historical records of any country/region, you will observe that what we are seeing today has all been seen before, many times in the past. What we are seeing today is within the bounds of the historical climate record for that country/region.
Even within the LIA, it was not universally cold, there were warm summers, there were mild winters, it was merely that the mix, during that period, tended towards the cool end of the bound, rather than lying more in the middle, or towards the warm end of the bound.
At the moment (2014) we are not witnessing climate change, and that is why not one single country has since say 1950, or say 1975 changed its Koppen classification (or other recognised system of climate classification). That is why in the IPCC report, it does not set out a table detailing country by country their pre industrial climate classification, there say 1950 climate classification, their 2013 climate classification.
So called ‘Climate Change’ is a political issue. From a scientif perspective CO2 does not per se cause climate change. The scientific issue is ‘Global Warming’; the theory being that the basic physics of that gas as a GHG will lead to warming. That is something that the science can test.
We should not allow the debate to be skewed off topic. It is important that the debate remains one of AGW. That is where the science can shed light.
Having explored some garden centers, it seemed like the simplest explanation for the speedy migration of bamboos from South-East Asia to Europe. But perhaps e.g. the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs wouldn’t mind explaining the migration speed and patterns of more than 30,000 different kinds of plants living in Kew.
Thanks Dr Tim, valuable enlightening work.
& thanks also commenters.
May I ask why I see 1950 quoted as a timepoint, particularly for CO2 effects?
Thanks in advance.
Kew plant paradise is in London, which not only has been warming since the 19th century, but is also notorious birthplace of ‘smog’. Nowadays London seems to be methane powered. As I understand the recent AGW priority fears then, Kew is the first destined to doom.
How about the prominent nature conservationists like Prince Charles showing example by redirecting most of his superfluous wealth to the commonwealth botanical gardens, Svalbard Global Seed Vault etc? I’m convinced that they are as such more beneficial to the environment and, like Xmas, also to the mental health and well-being of his subordinates than his favorite doom prophecies blaming them.
Taking into consideration the extent to which the belief-laden anthropocalypse has persisted, academic reputation rescue operation may first need to go further back into basics – even up to epistemology. It’s unlikely that the overwhelming generosity of the wealthiest doomsayers suffice to restore it.
Fortunately, anthropogenic climate project and even research have now been completed. The generous public funds can be redirected for paying back the national debt, reducing tax and perhaps even financing the necessary fundamental research.
Spot on, thanks.
It is true that climate changes all the time. Much work has gone into finding why climate changed in the past. Very good explanations are provided.
The unfortunate thing is that none of those causes are operating now to cause the change in climate we are currently experiencing.
The question is what is causing the change now? Could it be due to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since industrialisation? It is a known greenhouse gas that would change earth’s heat balance which could cause the climate to change.
Billmelater:
At July 28, 2014 at 2:39 am you write saying in total
How do you know that
“none of those causes are operating now to cause the change in climate we are currently experiencing”?
Do you mean that the recent lack of discernible global warming or cooling for nearly 18 years means those “causes” must have ceased operating?
And, no, it could not be that carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere is changing the “earth’s heat balance” because the carbon dioxide increase continues but discernible global warming stopped nearly 18 years ago.
Richard
One of life’s early lessons is that change is the only constant in life. For a child it is difficult for them to accept, even though they are changing the fastest in their environment.
It seems that the alarmists never learned that. Any change is “unprecedented” and “unusual” regardless of the geological record that shows it is not. So every change is catastrophic and devastating even when it clearly is not.
Richard, the eighteen year pause is a myth. Heat records are being broken all the time. Just google hottest year and you will find the hottest year was not 18 years ago. While your at it google second hottest year. It was also not 18 years ago. Check the hottest 10 years and you will find they are not 18 years ago. In fact you may find that they have occurred in this century.
Ironically, a standard part of global warming alarmism is that there were occasion in the past when the climate apparently changed dramatically fast, in some cases in just a few years or decades.
Chris
Billmelater says:
July 28, 2014 at 4:31 am
“Richard, the eighteen year pause is a myth….”
Are you serious? Take a look at the data, you can see there is no positive trend in this century. Because we’re still at the top, it’s very easy for new short term records to be set. But they are just that: short term.
Science should have no place for short term records, as they are meaningless and are only useful for propaganda. All that matters is the trend.
Chris
Chris, do as I suggested Richard do, google a few heat records and you will see it is a myth.
Billmelater:
Thankyou for your clarification for me that you provide at July 28, 2014 at 4:31 am and which says in total.
Oh! Thankyou, that explains much. You have been fooled into thinking reality is a “myth”.
For more than 17 years there has been no discernible global warming or cooling at 95% confidence (i.e. the standard confidence level used by so-called ‘climate science). In fact, taking linear trends and ignoring confidence levels indicates global cooling for more than a decade; see here.
Also, there is an outlier which is NASA GISS but its ‘adjustments’ are so extreme that its global temperature time series is completely corrupted, as you can see here.
I hope that clears up your misunderstanding. I commend that in future you check source data for yourself because otherwise activists may again dupe you.
Richard
Richard, so,which was the hottest year then? I bet it wasn’t 18 years ago.
I just figured out where the IPCC gets its facts : Google!
Thanks Bill!
@Bill, you seem confused, possibly from guzzling climate koolaid. The RSS records do show no warming for nearly 18 years now. See?
Like all true Believers, you have things completely backwards. It is manmade warming/climate change/chaos/disruption/extreme weather change which is the fabrication.
But you’re just a know-nothing Warmist troll, right? Why let facts get in the way of your Belief system?
Billmelater:
You have yet to provide ANY information. You have only provided unsubstantiated assertions which are denied by reality. On the other hand, I have provided links which justify all my statements which are true and accurate.
Clearly, your indoctrination is so severe that you have not dared to make the one click of a mouse which would have shown you reality because your reply is to ask me at July 28, 2014 at 5:28 am
If you had dared to look at reality you would have seen the “hottest year” was 1998 which was 16 years ago, but so what? Warmest is NOT warming.
The trend indicates a slight cooling, and when 95% confidence limits are applied then there has been no discernible change (as I explained to you).
I repeat what I advised you in my post you purport to be answering
In this case you were so afraid to check the data I provided for you that you provided a self-defeating argument. If you claim warming consists of obtaining the warmest year then – according to you – we have had cooling since 1998.
Richard
There is a new movie coming out called “Into the Storm”. The trailers play on the meme with large block lettrs: “we have been having more and more extreme weather in the past decade….” interspersed with clips where 747s are being blown around like leaves in the fall.
I have mixed feelings about this since I love exploitation movies, which to me this obviously is. My concern is too many people will not recognize this as the same kind of movie that has gigantic ants and grasshoppers invading a small town due to some local nefarious radiactive testing.
In reality it is goofy entertainment, which is fine, on the other it could become another propaganda tool in the “OMG CO2 we are all gonna die” tradition.
This is what we call a complete misuse of the word capitalism. In capitalism, people conduct transactions freely. What we have here is fascism.
Lynx population changes over 100 years?!?!?!? Bull crap. They can’t count populations today, and certainly could not 200 years ago. In 1995 I had a lynx stand on my rear patio deck and look into my living room through a glass door. Was able to examine it for a good minute prior to its leaving. Ten years later the DOW (Dept of Wildlife) announced they were going to “re-introduce” them to the area. They talk of reintroducing wolves here to west central Colorado, I have heard of ranchers seeing them for a couple of decades now. In Jan of 2013, I saw one at the top of my driveway, well over 100 lbs. Reported it to the DOW online. Received an email they would contact me if they thought it was a viable report. I also noted that I lived with an arctic wolf for the past decade and certainly know what they look like, and I have never seen a 100lb+ coyote… Never heard from them.
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was the writers and it was a character in his famous book Il Gattopardo that said it.
Great actor Burt Lancaster was in the film made by Visconti.
The original is more drastic than usual English translation: If you want things to stay as they are, everything will have to change.
Where did you guys learn your definition of capitalism — from an Occupier rally?
“Climate changes significantly all the time.”
I agree with
richard verney says:
July 28, 2014 at 12:15 am
Only weather changes all the time. By definition, climate CANNOT change all the time.
Billmelater, please tell us the forcings that caused climate changes in the past that are not operating today. Then perhaps you can write an essay to explain to us how the 18 year hiatus is actually just a myth, oh wait why am I even acknowledging a guy that doesn’t know the difference between warm and warming.
Gamecock says: Only weather changes all the time. By definition, climate CANNOT change all the time.
Can a moving average change all the time? Yes. You get it yet?
Hereby we have more proof that the true believers neither understand science, or scientific language nor plain English.
Billmelater,
Here in Oregon we have a disproportionate share of those like you who cannot distinguish significance or the difference between some alarmists cited observations and global temperature trend.
Why is it that you are unable to perceive what “trend” means?
Your basis for claiming “the eighteen year pause is a myth” appears to ignore the concept of “trend” entirely.
You are trying to dispute the absence of a trend without providing evidence of one.
You are disputing what has not been claimed by anyone.
No one disputes that the globe is still in it’s end of last century warm phase.
The beef and pause is all about the previous warming trend coming to a pause for almost as many years as it had warmed.
Telling everyone it is still warm does not debunk the pause in trend.
So gee whiz thanks. Yes we’ve seen warm years and some records broken.
But where do you think the global temperature is heading?
Billmelater says:
July 28, 2014 at 5:28 am
Richard, so,which was the hottest year then? I bet it wasn’t 18 years ago.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
You are so right!!!
In the US, it was 1936. No need to Google, here’s a link to lots of goodies on that year.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/?s=1936
It was so hot, even the data tampering hasn’t managed to erase it—-yet.
Steve Keohane says:
July 28, 2014 at 7:50 am
Maybe… Maybe not.
Here is a link to the 1942 paper in which the graph appeared:
http://jxshix.people.wm.edu/2009-harbin-course/classic/Elton-1942-J-Anim-Ecol.pdf
It appears that the study was based on very extensive fur trade data produced by the Hudson’s Bay Company. No (climate) models appear to have been used in the writing of the the paper although in the summary the authors conclude that:
Had it been reviewed by Cook et al. for their 97% consensus paper, this conclusion would likely have given a classifiication as strongly supporting CAGW. 🙂
I love the opening quotes. They are very close in spirit to one of my favorites: “Change is inevitable, so in the long run only adaptability is sustainable.”
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that animals and plants can’t cope with change. Can you get any more rapid than this?
Life is persistent. A few degrees warming is generally good and not bad.
Ya damned right.
———————-
Some made it through and evolved. They’re called birds.
We made it too.
Check this out. It maybe 17 or 18 depending on the temp index chosen. They know what a pause is, check out the earliest quotes, right up to earlier this year. You have been had my friend, Google is my friend too.
Billmelater:
I vaguely recall that 1998 was the hottest year globally. Now if you accept that then read and you will realise that they just don’t understand what is going on. Here it is from Real Climate.
Billmelater says:
July 28, 2014 at 4:31 am
Richard, the eighteen year pause is a myth. Heat records are being broken all the time. Just google hottest year and you will find the hottest year was not 18 years ago. While your at it google second hottest year. It was also not 18 years ago. Check the hottest 10 years and you will find they are not 18 years ago. In fact you may find that they have occurred in this century.
/////////////////
There have already many good posts in response to the argument that Billmeister raises.
Not wishing to further stoke matters, I googled as he suggested to find the state of heat records set. I attach an article from that well known warmist edited encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Since this the editing of this encyclopedia has a warmist slant, no accusations of cherry picking should arise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records
As can be seen form this, there are few heat records set these past 18 years.
The warmest heat record in the USA was July 1913!
Billmelater
You talk of record heat. What about record cold? Cherry picking and using Google is very easy.
“NOAA – 28,504 Low Max Records Set in Last 365 Days”
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/noaa-28504-low-max-records-set-in-last-365-days/
Now see the record heat in the Arctic. 😉 Arctic sea ice in death spiral.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php
Arctic heat is rising.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
It should be noted that that the palynological record of 12ky is about carbon dating years and based on the date “11 920 ± 245 years B.P” Note that carbon dating requires calibration with the latest calibration table INTCAL13 (https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/16947)
That would take you to about 13,750 calendar years before present (Cal yr BP) Present being 1950.
http://www.radiocarbon.org/IntCal13%20files/intcal13.14c
There are more sophisticated tools like CALIB but this would be accurate enough.
Why is Gould’s “evolution by jerks” still part of the America biological psyche?
Why do Americans think Darwin was a gradualist, 170 years after his book was published? Why aren’t people willing to say, “I was wrong”?
For how many more decades will Gould’s destructive legacy poison the wells of evolution?
ossqss:
It’s not capitalism. It’s Communism. Capitalism operates in markets with natural and artificial regulatory mechanisms in order to mitigate monopoly formation. Communism operates by design as a monopoly of power wielded by a minority. It creates markets where none may exist, typically with authoritarian directives, mandates, and simply by force. Paradoxically, Communism’s, or generally Marxism’s, strict effort to control a complex and unwieldy system predetermines its mortality and predisposes it to suffer from misaligned development.
Gamecock:
You’re right. By definition, weather describes a physical phenomenon in a constant state of flux. Whereas climate describes an average of that phenomenon over a fixed period. However, based on the chaotic nature of the system, it would be better to define climate over a variable period. While the system is remarkable stable within a range of time and space, its nonlinear and unwieldy character undermine efforts to describe its behavior within fixed periods. In fact, the notable distinction between science and other philosophies is that its application is intentionally constrained within time and space to acknowledge the limitations inherent in a system predominantly populated by chaotic processes.
richard verney says:
July 28, 2014 at 12:15 am
================================================
That is a great definition for climate, although the wisdom of it seems to be lost on Billmelater, several comments below yours.
Jimbo says:
July 28, 2014 at 11:53 am
Five decades after a series of nuclear tests began, we provide evidence that 70% of the Bikini Atoll zooxanthellate coral assemblage is resilient to large-scale anthropogenic disturbance.
=============================================================================
humor: they should have used a bigger bomb!!!
reality: life is truly amazing, and so is your endless library of appropriate responses!!!
Robert W Turner says:
July 28, 2014 at 8:41 am
Gamecock says: Only weather changes all the time. By definition, climate CANNOT change all the time.
Can a moving average change all the time? Yes. You get it yet?
=========================
Please provide a reference for your definition of climate as being a moving average. You completely made that up. You are now qualified to be a climate scientist.
Sorry Richard, 2010 was the warmest year. 1998 WAS the warmest year, but as the earth surface continues to warm up it was displaced by 2010. Which I predict will be knocked off first place in future as the earth continues to warm.
1998 was an outstanding year as it was a year when we had a strong El Niño event. For 2010 to surpass it, when an El Niño was not happening, indicates the Earth is still warming. When we experience the next El Niño, I predict we will get a scorcher.
What puzzles me, is the theme of this thread was that climate always changes. Yet
a large number of posters are going to great lengths to prove that climate is not changing.
Someone asked earlier what are the causes of previous climatic changes. This is a big question, so I suggest you look it up.
As for the person stating that the IPCC uses google for its information – an amazing claim that needs amazing evidence to substantiate. Not that I am saying you made it up, but how did you come to that conclusion?
Billmelater says:
July 28, 2014 at 4:43 pm
“As for the person stating that the IPCC uses google for its information – an amazing claim that needs amazing evidence to substantiate. Not that I am saying you made it up, but how did you come to that conclusion?”
You, Sir, have a very pronounced reading comprehension defect. It probably plays a large role in your adherence to being misinformed.
Ed, what are you referring to?
We have a long history of rate of change of the environment and we have an equally long rate of adaption of flora and fauna including hominids going back nearly a million years. Can someone show a catastrophic failure of life to prevail against anything less than massive planet killer die-off events? Even given die-offs, we’re still here though apparently less prepared for what life deals us than our uneducated and illiterate ancestors from 25,000 years ago. I’d like to know how that happened.
Billmelater:
In my post addressed to you at July 28, 2014 at 5:47 am I wrote
And
You have replied to that with your post at July 28, 2014 at 4:43 pm which begins saying
Your unsubstantiated assertion that “2010 was the warmest year” is a falsehood as you would know if you had managed to break through your indoctrination and looked at reality which I again provide for you here.
1998 is the hottest year on record. But so what?
You again demonstrate that you don’t know the difference between warmest and warming.
If your argument were true then the fact that 2010 is warmer than subsequent years (and we agree it was) then that would indicate recent cooling.
Your behaviour suggests you are too young to remember 1998, but I remember how warmunists were then saying the ‘hot’ 1998 was the first of many hot years and future years would be ‘hotter’. You now say we should ignore that 1998 was hot but you “predict” a future of hotter years “as the earth continues to warm”.
Billmelater, the Earth is NOT continuing to warm: global warming stopped nearly 18 years ago. Face up to it, and live with it.
Richard
Billmelater:
It doesn’t matter if 2010 was warmer than 1998, if 2010 was an outlier. The trend is (AFAIKJ) determined by the running mean, which is what is generally used. It has been flat for a dozen years and has only insignificantly risen in the past 17 years or so. Take a look at the charts from many official sources in the Global Temperature page on this site, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/global-weather-climate/global-temperature/
Richard, where are you getting your information from? NOAA has a list of hottest years and 2010 is the hottest.
I notice that you are using surface temperature interchangeably with global warming. This is rather puzzling as you strike me as a fairly knowledgable sort of chap, who obviously puts a lot of thought intoyour posts.
The Earth is experiencing a energy imbalance, which is effecting the surface temperature as well as ocean temperature (and lesser extent soil/rock temperature). This is something you would expect when every year you are ‘throwing another blanket’ around the Earth in the form of extra Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
So getting back to the theme of this thread, the Earth’s climate changes all the time due to some physical change to the energy driving the climate. The changes we are experiencing are due to something, and my money is on the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. What is your explanation?
Roger knight, thanks for the link. 1998 sure was an outlier. Taking it out (which is permissible as it was influenced by the El Niño which didn’t influence the other years) there is a clear trend of rising temperatures from 1979 to 2014.
Yep, climate is changing all the time. Has in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Most probably humans as a species will cease to exist as the climate changes to the extent that it will no longer support us. I just hope it doesn’t happen when I or my offspring and their offspring is around.
Since the Little Ice Age persisted until 1850, the rate of advancement of the tree line may be well in excess of 1 km/yr.
Billmelater, when I was twenty I was 6’2 which was a record and tonight I remeasured my height and I was 6’2 an EQUAL record height, so clearly my height must be increasing since each year is always a record, and always higher than when I was 6.
See the point here. The fact that 1999 or 2010 were recent records has no bearing on whether the earth is warming or not for that you need to determine whether temperature is consistently increasing – it is not, in fact even in the presence of that “Record” it has cooled because the cold weather has more than cancelled out the warm, even taking into account 1999 and 2010. We know it was once much hotter than now because greenland was once , well, green. Nothing unusual about 1999 or 2010 at all, it has all happened before, many times.
Besides, the real issue is not does CO2 warm, the real issue is how much, and what are the costs and benefits of doing anything about it. 25000 grannies died of energy poverty in the UK in 2012, so the price of mitigation is clearly too high. The billions wasted on green schemes would be better put to use protecting those grannies, the poor, babies and building cyclone shelters in the Philippines instead of building expensive windmills, monuments to our stupidity as a species.
I don’t remember anything particularly warm about 1998 (I was living in Virginia at the time). I don’t remember 2010 being particularly warm (Been living in Western Washington since 2002). In fact, I remember the years from 2008 through 2012 as being particularly cool out here.
You simply can’t put one number, or one trend, as a “global temperature”, there’s no such thing.
@Jeff Alberts – I was living in Virginia that year as well – and while the snow was scant that year, what I remember is the very WET Spring. Most of the low lying roads flooded during that time (they do periodically, but that was the first non-TS time that I remember it happening in the 40 years I have been here).
Billmelater says:
July 28, 2014 at 4:43 pm
For 2010 to surpass it, when an El Niño was not happening,
========================================================
There was an El Nino peak in early 2010. You must have missed the news. I remember that year. There was no real winter that year where I was living.
Billmelater:
Your post at July 29, 2014 at 4:17 am begins saying
My links provided the source information I stated and they cited the specific data sets that were used.
Your failure to read the links is not puzzling because you strike me as a fairly thick anonymous troll whose lack of reading comprehension has been commented by others in the thread (see here).
Warming consists of increasing temperature. Global warming is increasing global surface temperature. Global warming stopped nearly 18 years ago.
Richard
Far be it from me to criticize anyone’s religion but in this case I feel compelled to point out that Gravity was the real Force behind the catastrophe that allowed mammals and ultimately humans to dominate the Earth. It is Gravity that is ultimately responsible for the tides, the seasons, the oceans, atmosphere, light, universe, etc. etc. etc. Most all the things that make life possible are Gravity’s doing.
Gravity is omnipresent, being in all places from right here with me to the center of the Sun and all other places in the universe simultaneously from before the beginning as far as we can tell.
Gravity is omnipotent, ruling the destiny of all matter (but still allowing free will) from the least to the greatest.
Gravity is omniscient, being in profound contact with all matter at all times.
Thank Gravity for another day, another meal, another breath.
Or if you prefer you could thank God for gravity, or your lucky stars, or asteroids, or whatever, or nothing, it’s really your choice.
@philjourdan – I was in Northern VA most of my life. From Front Royal, to Manassas, to Reston/Herndon, Fairfax, etc… 1998 doesn’t stand out to me at all. I remember lots of flooding in the early 70s due to a couple hurricanes, and the extreme snows in Jan and Feb 1995 and 1996, and when Hurricane Floyd came through in 1999. But 1998? Nothing at all outstanding to me. But memory can be faulty…
@Jeff Alberts
It was the early spring. And at least in the Richmond area, all the roads over the Chickahominy “river” flooded. Not washed out. But they have a tendency to flood when we get a lot of rain. That was the year that I was driving up and down 295 on my Job (for a local School division), and the only way off of 295 INTO Henrico county for half the trip was across one of those roads. I moved to the area in 76. And that is the only time I have seen that happen (other than things like Gaston and Isabel).
And there’s a clear trend of flat temps from 2003 thru 2014–which the IPCC was 95% sure wouldn’t happen. The warm is turning. See this just-up link for more:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/29/temperature-analysis-of-5-datasets-shows-the-great-pause-has-endured-for-13-years-4-months/
Why are they so involved with temperatures. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to consider rain fall and clouds that can keep the planet’s surface warmer or colder. And large cities create their own UHI. Even solar activity?