I love field work. I think any climate scientist that basically becomes a data jockey should be forced to go out and examine real world measurement systems and weather stations once a year so that they don’t lose touch with the source of the data they study. That’s why I’m pleased to see that scientists at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU ) did some good old fashioned field work to look at geologic residues of past climate.
What they found was intriguing. The arctic may have periodically been nearly ice free in recent geologic history, after the last ice age. It is clear from this that we don’t really know as much as some think they do about climatic and ice cycles of our planet.
Recent mapping of a number of raised beach ridges on the north coast of Greenland suggests that the ice cover in the Arctic Ocean was greatly reduced some 6000-7000 years ago. The Arctic Ocean may have been periodically ice free.
BEACH RIDGE: The scientists believe that this beach ridge in North Greenland formed by wave activity about 6000-7000 years ago. This implies that there was more open sea in this region than there is today. (Click the picture for a larger image) Photo: Astrid Lyså, NGU
”The climate in the northern regions has never been milder since the last Ice Age than it was about 6000-7000 years ago. We still don’t know whether the Arctic Ocean was completely ice free, but there was more open water in the area north of Greenland than there is today,” says Astrid Lyså, a geologist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU).
Shore features
ICE COVER: Today, at the mouth of Independence Fjord in North Greenland, drift ice forms a continuous cover from the land. (Click for a larger image) Photo: Eiliv Larsen, NGU
Together with her NGU colleague, Eiliv Larsen, she has worked on the north coast of Greenland with a group of scientists from the University of Copenhagen, mapping sea-level changes and studying a number of shore features. She has also collected samples of driftwood that originated from Siberia or Alaska and had these dated, and has collected shells and microfossils from shore sediments.
SETTLEMENT: Astrid Lyså in August 2007 in the ruined settlement left by the Independence I Culture in North Greenland. The first immigrants to these inhospitable regions succumbed to the elements nearly 4000 years ago, when the climate became colder again. (Click for a larger image) Photo: Eiliv Larsen, NGU
”The architecture of a sandy shore depends partly on whether wave activity or pack ice has influenced its formation. Beach ridges, which are generally distinct, very long, broad features running parallel to the shoreline, form when there is wave activity and occasional storms. This requires periodically open water,” Astrid Lyså tells me.
Pack-ice ridges which form when drift ice is pressed onto the seashore piling up shore sediments that lie in its path, have a completely different character. They are generally shorter, narrower and more irregular in shape.
Open sea
”The beach ridges which we have had dated to about 6000-7000 years ago were shaped by wave activity,” says Astrid Lyså. They are located at the mouth of Independence Fjord in North Greenland, on an open, flat plain facing directly onto the Arctic Ocean. Today, drift ice forms a continuous cover from the land here.
Astrid Lyså says that such old beach formations require that the sea all the way to the North Pole was periodically ice free for a long time.
”This stands in sharp contrast to the present-day situation where only ridges piled up by pack ice are being formed,” she says.
However, the scientists are very careful about drawing parallels with the present-day trend in the Arctic Ocean where the cover of sea ice seems to be decreasing.
“Changes that took place 6000-7000 years ago were controlled by other climatic forces than those which seem to dominate today,” Astrid Lyså believes.
Inuit immigration
The mapping at 82 degrees North took place in summer 2007 as part of the LongTerm project, a sub-project of the major International Polar Year project, SciencePub. The scientists also studied ruined settlements dating from the first Inuit immigration to these desolate coasts.
The first people from Alaska and Canada, called the Independence I Culture, travelled north-east as far as they could go on land as long ago as 4000-4500 years ago. The scientists have found out that drift ice had formed on the sea again in this period, which was essential for the Inuit in connection with their hunting. No beach ridges have been formed since then.
”Seals and driftwood were absolutely vital if they were to survive. They needed seals for food and clothing, and driftwood for fuel when the temperature crept towards minus 50 degrees. For us, it is inconceivable and extremely impressive,” says Eiliv Larsen, the NGU scientist and geologist.
(hat tip to many commenters and emailers, too numerous to mention, but thanks to all)
Edward Morgan – Eh? You better take a cold shower.
Edward Morgan (15:43:22) :
What’s was your prediction for the last ten years and what is it for the next?
I’m in the prediction business for sunspots not for the weather [not even climate yet]. For the previous sunspot maximum my prediction was a sunspot number of 126 [observed 121], and for the next cycle my prediction [in 2005] was 75. A feature of my method [which is fully described and does not require poor people in Africa to pay me intellectual property royalties] is that the prediction gets better the closer we are to solar minimum, so the latest prediction [I made it up yesterday] is 71.
So you don’t know what temperature it will be. I thought you knew everyone else was wrong.
Are you going! March 8-10 2009
“The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change will serve as a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory of man-made climate change. This year’s theme, “Global Warming Crisis: Cancelled,” calls attention to new research findings that contradict the conclusions of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.”
I’ll be watching for all the stuff I already said to you.
Edward Morgan (17:58:52) :
“The 2009 International Conference on Climate Change”
is sponsored by ultra-conservative foundations, individuals, and Big Oil. Hardly an impartial forum, so I’m not going.
Edward Morgan (17:58:52) :
I’ll be presenting two papers at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco, 15-19 December.
Are you going?
—-
Tuesday Afternoon 2
1600 SH24A-01 MC 3022 Towards a Consensus View of the Heliospheric Magnetic Field Strength Since 1900
E W Cliver, *L Svalgaard
Friday Morning 1
0800 SH51A-1593 MC Hall D Predicting Solar Cycle 24
*L Svalgaard, K H Schatten
[…] MORE HERE WITH PHOTOS (No Ratings Yet) Loading … […]
Leif Svalgaard (06:39:57) :
Well, it seems to me that they have been out of alignment the last 20 years or so. Or even more, if one accepts my argument that solar activity in the 1850-70s is no different from 1970-present.
Let me explain where I’m coming from. In the early 1970s the only measurements of the ’solar constant’ was those of Abbot dating back to 1913-1956 [or so]. Abbot claimed a 1-2% solar cycle variation of TSI.
I also agree with you that the TSI is not the best candidate for a driver of climate, but that is not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the correlation between sunspots and climate/temperatures. I like the idea of the suns magnetic field effecting cosmic rays and cloud formation because it’s simple, and albedo would have a much greater effect than raw TSI. This is why I was interested in the mimumums in the original graph you showed with the holocence. I’m just guessing, but if the cosmic ray influence is important then perhaps the depth of the solar mimumims is more important than the strength of the maximums. I.e. once the suns magnetic field is strong enough to block most or all? of the cosmic rays that influence cloud formation, it does not matter how much stronger it gets. Again back to the original graph, the mimimums in the Holocence were not as low as the earlier or later mimimums. I admit I only had a cursory look at the later part of the graph but that seemed like the mimimums might fit later on as well. Thanks for humouring me!
Nick Yates (00:55:15) :
I also agree with you that the TSI is not the best candidate for a driver of climate, but that is not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the correlation between sunspots and climate/temperatures. I like the idea of the suns magnetic field effecting cosmic rays
Both changes in TSI and sunspots are manifestations of the Sun’s magnetic field and are strongly correlated with each other that either one of them can be used as a [very good] proxy for the other. Same goes for the [inverse] cosmic ray flux.
and cloud formation because it’s simple, and albedo would have a much greater effect than raw TSI.
The problem with this is that the albedo does not vary with the solar cycle [as TSI, SSN, and GCRs do]: http://www.leif.org/research/albedo.png
if the cosmic ray influence is important then perhaps the depth of the solar minima is more important than the strength of the maximums. I.e. once the suns magnetic field is strong enough to block most or all? of the cosmic rays that influence cloud formation, it does not matter how much stronger it gets.
All solar minima are of the same ‘depth’ [you can’t get lower than zero] and the GCR flux is the same at all minima [apart from the very small 2nd-order effect having to do with the GCR drift related to the polarity of the Sun’s field] because we are basically seeing the constant unmodulated flux at minimum. The blocking of GCRs is not complete. The solar modulation is only a small fraction of the total flux.
Again back to the original graph, the minima in the Holocence were not as low as the earlier or later minima.
What is shown is the 11-year averages, so the minima are not the normal solar minima, but the minima of the 200-yr Suess cycle, like in 1810 and 2020. Also there are uncertainties in the amplitude [more than in the timing], so a too close comparison of the details may not be very meaningful.
Leif Svalgaard (03:21:54) :
The beginning of the previous post should have been:
Nick Yates (00:55:15) :
I also agree with you that the TSI is not the best candidate for a driver of climate, but that is not what I was thinking of. I was thinking of the correlation between sunspots and climate/temperatures. I like the idea of the suns magnetic field effecting cosmic rays
Both changes in TSI and sunspots are manifestations of the Sun’s magnetic field and are strongly correlated with each other that either one of them can be used as a [very good] proxy for the other. Same goes for the [inverse] cosmic ray flux.
sure would be nice with a preview… [I know, it’s not in the free version, etc]
Leif Svalgaard (03:21:54) :
Just one more question then I’ll stop bothering you!
The problem with this is that the albedo does not vary with the solar cycle [as TSI, SSN, and GCRs do]: http://www.leif.org/research/albedo.png
I see that graph was from an earlier article on wattsup, and I think it’s better in that context.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/10/17/earths-albedo-tells-a-interesting-story/
All solar minima are of the same ‘depth’ [you can’t get lower than zero]
Depth was a bad choice of word on my part, duration would have been better.
What is shown is the 11-year averages, so the minima are not the normal solar minima, but the minima of the 200-yr Suess cycle, like in 1810 and 2020. Also there are uncertainties in the amplitude [more than in the timing], so a too close comparison of the details may not be very meaningful.
Again my mistake, although I still think there could be a correlation there if you apply a sort of low pass filter 🙂
Back to my question about about chaotic systems just so I’m sure I understand you. Are you saying that the cooler temperatures observed during the Maunder and Dalton mimimums, along with the late 20th century warming and increased solar activity are random chance? If the sun goes into a period of lower activity over the next few cycles, or into another Dalton minimum and global temperatures fall, that again it’s all random chance? Or are you just saying that you see no correlation at all between sunspot activity and the climate from the Maunder onwards? Thanks.
Dear Sirs,
Last autumn I was one of the press spokesmen for a symposium convened by HE Kofi Annan the former UN Secretary-General, and HE Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of European Commission. My co-press spokesmen for the symposium were Professor Robert Correll from Heinz III Centre, the lead Author of the Arctic Impact Report, IPPC and Distinguished Professor Jane Lubachenko the former President of AAAS.
The anthropogenic global warming is serious problem for two reasons: its climatic impact through warmer climate and changing weather patterns. on laboratory the greenhouse (warming) property of carbon dioxide is extremely well established fact and its infrared (heat) radiation absorbing capacity unquestioned. In addition, carbon dioxide like sulphur oxides causes acidification which disrupts biological ecosystems.
It is important to note the issue that the Arctic Ocean contains numerous deposits of methane clathrates. These deposits contain copious amount of methane and also carbon dioxide which are millions of years old. When the sea level had dropped towards the end of the last ice age many of these old deposits discharged into the atmosphere containing only carbon-12 and carbon-13 whereas the phenomenally cold oceans around world had almost insatiable capacity to mop up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This would easily lead into situation of carbon-14 dilution where the proportion of this substance appears less than the other two isotopes because its production due to cosmic rays occurs at relatively stable rates. The largest known carbon-12 and carbon-13 releasing seafloor crater from collapsed methane clathrates measures up to 950 sq km. This is a massive hole on the ground and all this material of fossil carbon had to go up in air rapidly decreasing the proportion of carbon-14 to the amount of carbon-12 and 13.
For the authors of this article it is important to notice that ancient writings can be accurately dated when the characters, words and sentence constructions can be analysed. Most of the remaining ancient texts appear on stone-based materials. However, occasionally some early writings have been preserved in biomaterials. In China there is an example of writing on biomaterial that has been carbon-14 dated at age 8,700 years old, however, when the characters are known to be from period 2,700 BCC, there appears some 4,000 years missing. We believe this is due to carbon-14 dilution from the methane clathrate venting events whilst cold seas remained still good carbon sink and their bioactivity sedimented away all carbon indiscriminately.
There are thousands of craters of variable sizes on the Arctic Ocean seabed as a result of depressurisation of sea bed during the ice age and the global warming that occurred towards the end of period inducing large releases of fully depleted carbon from the sea bed deposits. Therefore, there are factors that I would not account carbon-14 as reliable in the extreme North where these sources of ancient geocarbon were so predominant.
I also would like to draw attention to the possibility of glaciations in Greenland producing significant ice sheet mass balance changes and this lifting up and drowning sea side due to isostatic rebound or land subsidence.
Another important factor to bear in mind is the ice – volcano teleconnections and the possibility that the glaciation in Greenland could have been significantly contributed by fluctuations on volcanic out put on Mid-Atlantic ridge (Iceland – Jan Mayen section in particular). I have been advocating few experiments to check it out for the possibility of Mega-Surtsey event (the 1963 eruption that built new island south of Westmannajar, Iceland).
If ice age(s) were driven by Mega-Surtsey like major outpourings of volcanic rocks there is a possibility that the Icelandic seas could have been very heated and thus contributing enormously to the pile up of snow in Greenland. We are planning a new ice core drilling through Greenland ice dome to its base to check it out whether the ice sheet was geothermally deposited. If so, then the pre-glaciation bio detritus under Greenland ice will show signs of carbon-14, impossibility if the ice were to be deposited over 500 kyr due to slow deposition by astronomic forcing (Milutin Milankovits).
The geothermal heating and mineralisation is more recently come up as Apectodinium fern deposits (a plant that is native to the Amazon) grew in the vicinity of the North Pole. At the same time, the sediment core contains moraine drop stones which were carved out from the rocks by the moving glaciers and when the ice bergs then floated to the area where Apectodinium grew, the ice melted and the moraine drop stones got mixed into Apectodinium which requires constant +25C water temperature to grow. As Apectodinium was dated to Oligocene at 23 million years ago, it is now suggested that instead of Pleiostocene 2-3 million years, Greenland glaciations began further back in time Oligocene.
We suggest that as the tropical athomospheric conditions around North Pole for Apectodinium and presence of ice bergs, the source of heat is geothermal and most likely explanation is Mega-Surtsey eruption around Iceland seas. Volcanic mineralisation of sea water also introduced tens and even hundreds of millions of years old radio minerals from the deep earth and therefore the timings could be totally unreliable. But if we detect any carbon-14 under Greenland ice dome on the pre-glaciation deposits, we have then proven beyond doubt that this carbon-14 got there because ice was piled up due to volcanic eruptions around Iceland – Jan Mayen section.
Thus, the possibility of major ice – volcano teleconnection between the build up of volcanic deposits on the Iceland – Jan Mayen section of the Mid Atlantic Ridge and formation of Greenland’s ice dome needs urgently be checked out for the better understanding on the possible climate changes induced by anthropogenic global warming and its ice-volcano teleconnection.
Yours sincerely,
Veli Albert Kallio, FRGS
Frozen Isthmuses’ Protection Campaign
of the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean
albert_kallio@hotmail.com
“This looks like a rhetorical question. I think you really do not want to know, because it would upset your beliefs, if there was a good explanation.
One explanation might be that the Arctic was scoured clean by the ice and every is now buried deep under moraines and other debris. The organic stuff now in the Arctic has likely built up since the end of glaciation. Does this do it for you?” -Lief
No it was not a rhetorical question. What happened to the organic stuff from the prior interglacials? The Eemian was warmer than this one, and there were interglacials prior to that, so in your model, then there would have been a store of methane for each warming up to the stuff that would have been left from prior to the glacial period. This methane would have shown up in ice cores. It is not there.
BTW Lief, I really do want to know and I don’t have “beliefs” re climate change, I have suspicions, questions, and tentative conclusions, more like theories, on which I await further data collection. It seems like you are the one with “beliefs”, since you were so quick with a rationalization that really doesn’t make sense.
OK, down to a simple question. Since the climate has fluctuated many times since the glaciations began, why haven’t we seen the spikes in methane predicted by the warm scaremongers in periods warmer than today in the Arctic?
Veli Albert Kallio (12:41:37) :
I have no doubt that CO2 is an efficient blocker of a band of IR wavelengths. In fact, it appears to be saturated except at the edges of the band. Therefore, additional CO2 shouldn’t have much effect.
Do the laboratory studies include studying atmospheric convection? I’m not sure whether convection or radiation is more important, WUTW cuts into learning time, but if convection moves more heat vertically than does radiation, that would be interesting.
Ocean acidification appears to be the latest issue touted by the AGW supporters. http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/acid.htm raises some interesting points about the subject, and http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003220.html shows plants and coral growing in a region of bubbling CO2 near Papua and New Guinea.
Most of the SO2 stuff we deal with here has been in the stratosphere, we tend to look at low level SO2 as a pollution instead of a climate change issue.
Nick Yates (11:12:06) :
Just one more question then I’ll stop bothering you!
You are no bother at all and it is a pleasure to share what I know [or think I know] with you [and the general readership].
“The problem with this is that the albedo does not vary with the solar cycle [as TSI, SSN, and GCRs do]”
I got the graph from Enric Palle [and Goode] whom I know quite well. They are working on a paper with their latest results up to this summer. Here is an email from Enric:
Enric Palle to leif@leif.org
date Wed, May 7, 2008 at 4:58 AM
Hi Leif, I am just now writing up the paper. I will send you a draft once I have something readable if you want.
—-
The important thing about this graph is the red line [at one solar max, at a high value of the albedo] and the grey strip [at the next solar max, at a low value of the albedo] that shows that there is no 11-year solar cycle in the albedo. Real enthusiasts might counter, ‘ah, but maybe there is 22-year Hale cycle, or a 35-year Bruckner cycle, or a 33-year Ahluvalia cycle, or an 88-year Gleissberg cycle, or a 1500-year Bond cycle, or a 2300-year Halstett cycle’, or what have you, lots of possibilities, but hardly something to commit trillions of dollars to.
Again my mistake, although I still think there could be a correlation there if you apply a sort of low pass filter 🙂
It is a favorite sport in this business to hunt around trying this, trying that, unless a desired outcome appears.
Are you saying that the cooler temperatures observed during the Maunder and Dalton mimimums, along with the late 20th century warming and increased solar activity are random chance? If the sun goes into a period of lower activity over the next few cycles, or into another Dalton minimum and global temperatures fall, that again it’s all random chance?
No discussion of correlations is meaningful unless the statistical significance of the purported correlation is estimated. Fundamental to this is the notion of ‘number of degrees of freedom’ [abbrev. df], see e.g. [ http://www.creative-wisdom.com/computer/sas/df.html ] which roughly is the number of ‘independent’ data points minus 1.
If you have only two data points [x1,y1 and x2,y2] you can fit a straight line and the correlation coefficient is 1 – perfect correlation. But because the df is only 1, there is no statistical significance in the otherwise perfect correlation. Now, your statement: “the cooler temperatures observed during the Maunder and Dalton minima, along with the late 20th century warming and increased solar activity are random chance?” has three degrees of freedom. That is still not enough information, see the above link. So, yes, that could easily be just chance.
Or are you just saying that you see no correlation at all between sunspot activity and the climate from the Maunder onwards?
There is always some correlation if you have more than one data point; the question how significant it is depends on the df. If you had 400 years of data with every little wiggle present in two time series [even though there may be some scatter in the sizes, and perhaps a handful didn’t match up] you would have a large number of df and one would have to accept the correlation as significant even if no mechanism is known or the claim is ridiculous on its face [like number of sunspots versus the last three digits of telephone numbers on page 417 of the phone book]. So, in the details are where the answer lies. and the details don’t match up very well. Take, for instance, the LIA. It began well before 1600, yet solar activity when Galileo [and others] observed the spots during the first three decades of the 1600s was high [possibly as high as today]. During the early 20th century, temperatures peaked well before solar activity did, etc. For each of these mismatches [that reduces the df] an explanation can be cooked up: the temperature data is unreliable, aerosols, volcanoes, etc. But for each ad-hoc extra special pleading you have to add, the significance drops. Careful studies, e.g. by Lean and Rind find that no more that 10% of the climate variability can be correlated with solar activity.
moptop (14:18:42) :
“One explanation might be that the Arctic was scoured clean by the ice and every is now buried deep under moraines and other debris.” […]What happened to the organic stuff from the prior interglacials? […]you were so quick with a rationalization that really doesn’t make sense.
I can be slower in responding, if that would increase my credibility [my being less ‘quick’] 🙂
The organic material in the Arctic that has build up when it was warm is scraped off by the advancing ice and buried under hundreds of feet of debris and moraines at lower latitudes. The Arctic is not a very efficient biomass producer [low sunlight, cold, dry] and the production of methane from decaying leaves etc, at mid and low latitudes is much higher. That, combined with a much larger area an mid/low latitude means that the additional methane was small compared to the methane produced by decaying biomass already present at mid latitudes. So, no conspicuous spikes are seen, as the additional methane simply drowns in the background.
Leif Svalgaard (02:43:02) :
You are no bother at all and it is a pleasure to share what I know [or think I know] with you [and the general readership].
That’s very magnanomous of you.
Take, for instance, the LIA. It began well before 1600, yet solar activity when Galileo [and others] observed the spots during the first three decades of the 1600s was high [possibly as high as today]. During the early 20th century, temperatures peaked well before solar activity did, etc. For each of these mismatches [that reduces the df] an explanation can be cooked up: the temperature data is unreliable, aerosols, volcanoes, etc. But for each ad-hoc extra special pleading you have to add, the significance drops. Careful studies, e.g. by Lean and Rind find that no more that 10% of the climate variability can be correlated with solar activity.
It all goes to show that the climate is a complex thing, but whatever caused the LIA we at least know it was natural. Ultimately, the energy that drives our climate comes from the sun (barring some unknown glactic force). If, as you say, the direct correlation between the solar activity and the LIA is weak, then the question is what other natural variations exists on top of Solar variation that can explain the LIA or the Medieval Warm Period? I don’t expect you to answer that one 🙂
Until that is explained and backed up with good empirical evidence, then I don’t see how anyone can be sure that the late 20th century warming was both unusual and mostly due to C02. Thanks again.
[…] Of course it could change. […]
“So, no conspicuous spikes are seen, as the additional methane simply drowns in the background.” -Lief
This makes sense, but what doesn’t make sense is why are we expecting a huge spike that potentially can lead to mass extinction, if we have already experienced far greater warming in the Arctic than today just a few thousand years ago.
“Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia’s northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through “methane chimneys” rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a “lid” to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html
Why wasn’t this methane an issue in the past?
moptop (04:25:12) :
“Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures”
Why wasn’t this methane an issue in the past?
According to your own cite is was an issue in the past…
Leif, you re-awakened my latent df knowledge. I completely get why the few correlations there are don’t pass the significance smell test regarding Sun and climate now that you have reminded me of df. Small sample size and few data points taken from those samples = low df. My research was done on a small sample size that compared the effects of a standard signal against a new type of steeply ramped and gated signal set at different narrow frequencies (resulting in the samples being their own control), but we repeated the measures over and over again, giving us pages and pages of data and a high df number.
I would also bet that this low df problem cuts both ways in the climate debate, or it should. If AGW theory is also based on some correlations they found, they have the same problem. Very low df. That doesn’t delete the fact that some things happen (re: methane in the Arctic, CO2 absorbing properties in the lab). It is just that these smaller things and their measurements are buried in the larger and very noisy data.
Pamela Gray (08:55:10) :
Leif, you re-awakened my latent df knowledge. I completely get why the few correlations there are don’t pass the significance smell test regarding Sun and climate now that you have reminded me of df.[…] I would also bet that this low df problem cuts both ways in the climate debate, or it should.
Good! Now we just have to get the remaining 99.999% to see the light too 🙂
“The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves..”
This very likely didn’t collect since the glaciers most recently melted, as you claimed upthread in your just so story. Second, the context of the question was this warming that most recently occured in the Arcti 4000 years ago that was far greater than today’s warming. And the methane time bomb didn’t go off.
It seems pretty obvious that, for this “time-bomb” to go off, a carbon sensitivity much higher than that which has been observed so far will be required. Prior to the recent era of glaciation, the Earth was much warmer than today, and the “time-bomb” didn’t go off.
Third, your reply is snark, you caught me out in a bit of careless writing. Good for you. It doesn’t change the basic facts of the matter.
moptop (11:09:59) :
It seems pretty obvious that, for this “time-bomb” to go off, a carbon sensitivity much higher than that which has been observed so far will be required.
No, suppose the Sun-Climate correlation is true, then extremely high solar activity could trigger the bomb as well, so the time-bomb has nothing to do with carbon sensitivity, just with warming, whatever causes it.
Third, your reply is snark, you caught me out in a bit of careless writing. Good for you. It doesn’t change the basic facts of the matter.
I can only go by what you write 🙂
And I don’t know what the basic fact is [see my comment a few lines up]. Maybe you mean that temperatures in the past were higher at times? This I think is a fact that is not disputed by any serious worker. So, I’m at a loss to what the ‘basic fact’ is.
moptop (04:25:12) :
“Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures”
Just reading your earlier post. So, you are saying that the time-bomb did go off in the past?