The graphic above is not from this paper/abstract, nor even the same time frame, but is from this one: A High-Resolution Absolute-Dated Late Pleistocene Monsoon Record from Hulu Cave, China I posted it because it seems relevant to the discussion of the paper below. I’m not an expert on cave and isotope dating, but I thought I’d provide a mix of resources to go along.
Here is some interesting reading. From the abstract, it suggests a correlation between monsoon and medieval warm period etc. But as we often see in papers that touch the edge of skepticism, there’s the obligatory line: “The sign of the correlation between the AM and temperature switches around 1960, suggesting that anthropogenic forcing superseded natural forcing as the major driver of AM changes in the late 20th century.”
I wonder. Here is another paper along the same lines, Holocene variability of the East Asian summer monsoon from Chinese cave records: a re-assessment sans the AGW suggestion.
Here is the link to the abstract below. Unfortunately, the full paper is behind the green wall of the AAA$, even though much of the research is from public institutions. Personally I think charging for access to such papers is flat wrong.
A Test of Climate, Sun, and Culture Relationships from an 1810-Year Chinese Cave Record
Pingzhong Zhang,1 Hai Cheng,2* R. Lawrence Edwards,2 Fahu Chen,1 Yongjin Wang,3 Xunlin Yang,1 Jian Liu,4 Ming Tan,5 Xianfeng Wang,2 Jinghua Liu,1 Chunlei An,1 Zhibo Dai,1 Jing Zhou,1 Dezhong Zhang,1 Jihong Jia,1 Liya Jin,1 Kathleen R. Johnson6
A record from Wanxiang Cave, China, characterizes Asian Monsoon (AM) history over the past 1810 years. The summer monsoon correlates with solar variability, Northern Hemisphere and Chinese temperature, Alpine glacial retreat, and Chinese cultural changes. It was generally strong during Europe’s Medieval Warm Period and weak during Europe’s Little Ice Age, as well as during the final decades of the Tang, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, all times that were characterized by popular unrest. It was strong during the first several decades of the Northern Song Dynasty, a period of increased rice cultivation and dramatic population increase. The sign of the correlation between the AM and temperature switches around 1960, suggesting that anthropogenic forcing superseded natural forcing as the major driver of AM changes in the late 20th century.
1 Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environment Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
3 College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China.
4 Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
5 Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
6 Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
hat tip to Dave Hagen
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/11/07/a-test-of-climate-sun-and-culture-relationships-from-an-1810-y… […]
Wow, looking at that timeline, someone living during the time when we came out of the last glaciation would have witnessed something amazing. It seems that most of it happened over the course of a single century. Sea levels would have risen at least a couple of hundred feet in that time.
There are some light colored spots near the perimeter of the sun at the 2:00 and 8:00 positions. Aren’t sun spots supposed to be dark? Watts up with that?
Sciencedaily also covers the story with better graphics and diluted obligatory line.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081106165233.htm
Science: Rise and Fall of Chinese Dynasties Linked to Asian Monsoon
“Clues from a stalagmite found in a Chinese cave hint that the fortunes of several Chinese dynasties may have been connected to the varying strength of the Asian Monsoon…”
Note the word, hint, which in the specious science of AGW, means “fact.”
“But these natural drivers appear to be giving way to human influences,…”
Note the word, appear, again a fact in the specious science of AGW.
“Since 1960, air pollution—mostly greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and soot particles—has become the dominant force affecting the Monsoon’s peak and weak periods. The human influence is so great that rising temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are now correlated with a weaker, drier Monsoon—reversing a trend that stood for centuries.”
Note that is no longer a hint or an appearance but a cold hard fact according to the specious science of AGW.
The remainder of the article recounts the human misery caused by the rise and fall monsoons through the millennia.
Is the stalagmite still extant or has it been removed for scientific study and thereby forever lost as a prognosticator of the rise and fall of Chinese Dynasties?
The sign of the correlation between the AM and temperature switches around 1960
Yet another paleo record showing the divergence problem. In a nutshell, after around 1960 many paleo, dendro and similar reconstructions show climate cooling, while the temperature record shows warming. Hence they diverge.
The obvious interpretation is the global climate is in fact cooling and the warming in the temperature record is due to local and regional effects, instrument issues, etc. I find this interpretation quite persuasive.
Study confirms the Medieval Warm Period and the assertion that temps were warmer then than today as well as temps and climate during the Little Ice Age.
The Chinese are beating us at good science now too.
David S (13:57:04) :
There are some light colored spots near the perimeter of the sun at the 2:00 and 8:00 positions. Aren’t sun spots supposed to be dark? Watts up with that?
The 2:00 position light area is the remnant [a facula] of dark spots and so is the 8:00 area, except that the spot died on the backside of the Sun. Spots are dark, but are surrounded by brighter areas.
If I understood correctly:
Finally: A safe place for carbon credits
>>>Scientists sample a stalagmite of carbonate <<<>>…Peridotite also occurs in the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea and Caledonia, and along the coast of the Adriatic Sea and in smaller amounts in California.( Chico?????)
The Man of Caves.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre4a59ib-us-climate-rocks/
They removed the stalagmite (“we collected”) in May 2003.
I downloaded the paper and read most of it quickly, but way too tired to get a lot out of it tonight. It appears to be an interesting proxy record with some fits and some contrasts to other proxy and modelled temperature data between 190 and 2000AD.
Anthony: “Unfortunately, the full paper is behind the green wall of the AAA$, even though much of the research is from public institutions. Personally I think charging for access to such papers is flat wrong.”
Here in Australia the Interlibrary Lending Service provides me photocopies for free. The silliness is that electronic copies should be cheaper.
Crosspatch:
With such a sea level change is it any wonder that so many societies have a flood myth?
That usual and seemingly obligatory line yielding to AGW is so sad. It turns a work that could offer useful insights into a piece of politically correct sloppy science. If they could just remove those AGW blinders and really look at the science of what may be impacting the monsoons, I suspect they will find that it is not greenhouse gases that are at play here, but rather high levels of atmospheric particulate matter that is impacting the timing and intensity of the monsoons, particulate matter that is being emitted by the increasingly vibrant economies of India and China. It’s not the CO2 they should be worrying about, but rather all the real pollution that is being emitted that impacts directly on the health of nearby residents and indirectly impacts the well-being of all the regional residents through changes in the monsoonal pattern.
Leif Svalgaard (15:17:45) :
The 2:00 position light area is the remnant [a facula] of dark spots and so is the 8:00 area, except that the spot died on the backside of the Sun. Spots are dark, but are surrounded by brighter areas.
From its latitude, would it be correct to assume that the “8:00 remnant” is from a SC23 sunspot?
Bill Illis says
I don’t see anywhere in the study any claim whatsoever that temps during the MWP were warmer than today.
It’s no wonder Realclimate is troubled by geologists.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/08/are-geologists-different/#more-590
I think it would be interesting to gather all of the geological papers on past temperatures and try to come up with an overall picture. For example, the one that Anthony posted here a few weeks ago that mention that there is evidence that the arctic may have been warmer 6000 years ago.
Joel (16:17:42) Whoops, someone forgot to tell the Chinese to make the MWP go away. Sloppy, sloppy.
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If carbon dioxide is the culprit, as some have proposed, the drying trend may well continue in Inner Mongolia, northern China and neighboring areas on the fringes of the monsoon’s reach.
If, however, the culprit is man-made soot, as others have proposed, the trend could be reversed, the researchers said, by reduction of soot emissions.
More if’s so they are now saying “if”…. I thought “it” was C02. LOL
Joel (16:17:42) As I’m sure you could be aware, the point here is natural variability of climate. Now, how about proving the apparent warming of the last quarter of the last century is from CO2 and not from nature. The course of temperature this century makes it difficult to make the case. So stop with the carbon encumbering until we know enough to make a sound decision. Anything else is most likely to be the wrong thing to do.
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Basil (16:16:33) :
From its latitude, would it be correct to assume that the “8:00 remnant” is from a SC23 sunspot?
Yes, and also from its magnetic signature that is still there, so SC23 ain’t quite dead yet…
does it look to you guys like there might be another SC23 spot forming just south of the solar equator?
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/1024/latest.html
Joel Shore – “I don’t see anywhere in the study any claim whatsoever that temps during the MWP were warmer than today.”
The ScienceDaily article linked above has a different graphic of the data produced by the National Science Foundation which helped fund the study. I should have said the ScienceDaily graphic shows …
Interesting link from solarcycle 24
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_/ai_8290867
Suggests a connection between volcano eruptions and the solar cycle.
As a geologist, I can say that as a profession, we have a better appreciation of climate change than anyone. We know that it has always been changing, often much more dramatically than we see in recent times. As it has been changing continually through geologic time, there is no reason to suspect that what ever forcing mechanisms that are out there have suddenly disappeared. Yet, despite that indisputable fact, natural forcing mechanism are completely dismissed by the AGW crowd – no attempt what so ever to recognize this well established fact. It is a fundamental flaw in their agrument. You can’t say that CO2 is the forcing mechanism unless you can show how all other forcing mechanism effects can be separated from the total signal. It’s called separation of variables & it is a basic scientific principle that even a high school science student would know. This is also why very few geologists subscribe to the AGW theory – they have the historical record of natural climate variation burnt into their brains.
My god, a paper which links climate change to solar activity and acknowledge that The Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age were not limited to the North Atlantic region.
Well, they still have to follow the AGW party line. Today apparently, trace gases such as CO2 and SO2 have replaced the Sun as the primary climate driver.
Of course they use the IPCC urban heat island contaminated temperature reconstruction for recent temperature variations.
Also it can’t be the Sun today, as the TSI haven’t varied much since 1960. Apparently it varied much more during the warming during the early part of the 20 th century. It must do that to fit the AGW agenda, so no proof is necessary.
It can’t be caused by indirect solar activity variations, to say so is heresy.
This might be of interest for you!
I have found a similar paper which shows the same thing.
“Century-Scale Mega-Droughts in India During the Holocene”
This paper can be found in this collection:
http://www.mesh.usc.edu/files/HPIM_Research_Summaries.pdf
The data were collected from caves in India. The paper links solar activity to climate variations. This paper also shows that periods of reduction in the monsoon are linked to period with cold climate such as that during the Little Ice Age. This makes the threat of reduced food production not only a threat for lower food production in temperate regions but also a threat for food production in the high population countries of India and China during periods of colder climate.