One of the favorite buzzwords of alarmists is “unprecedented” when talking about present day warming. Yah, the Earth’s never, ever, been hotter, the “hockey stick” proves it, it’s unprecedented, and its all your fault!
Well, we’ve known it’s unsubstantiated spin for quite a long time. NOAA apparently has too, because the data presented in this video is in fact from NOAA and is from the year 2000 on their website. But you don’t see it publicized much. Why? Well, because it totally destroys claims of “unprecedented warming” in our present day.
The source of inspiration is from my post Hockey stick observed in NOAA ice core data. And the source of inspiration for that is from J. Storrs Hall, writing here.
WUWT reader “docattheautopsy” produced a YouTube video for us for distribution for which I’m grateful and you can see below. I’ve also produced an animated GIF which is done somewhat like a video, since not all blogs and websites can support video. Here is the low-res version at 480 pixels wide. As you go back in time, our “unprecendented” temperatures of the present day don’t seem quite so large, when put in perspective of geologic time.
Here are the permalinks to both the low-res and hi-def versions:
Low-res: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim3.gif
Hi-Definition: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_hi-def3.gif
And here is a YouTube video showing the same process:
Just a couple of caveats to mention:
1) The ice core data from Greenland doesn’t go past the year 1900
2) The reason for this is that ice is formed by the compaction of snow, that takes time. Young snow, and snow in transition to becoming ice through compaction is not a reliable indicator yet.
3) From the observed temperature change in the last century, one could add about a .5C to 0.7C line to the end of the ice core data. It does not change the conclusion. UPDATE: Upon further thought, In version 3 of the animation, I decided to do this to be a better comparison to the Mann/IPCC chart shown, since that is what they did also. The instrumental record for the last century (~ 0.7C) is shown in red, approximately fit to each scale.
4) My first animated GIF had a labeling error due to using a template. I forgot to label the Vostok Ice Core presentation separately. Fixed now and links updated. If you grabbed links in the first 30 minutes, please note they have changed.
UPDATE: I’ve added the source images for those that may want to include them in a slide show or display independently. Click each image below for full sized version suitable for saving on your local disk.
bill (10:40:11) :
I guess if people don’t take the time to think about what you’ve said they might believe you. But we have thermometer readings that cover the blue part of your graph. They don’t register this jump in temperatures your graph has.
bill (10:40:11) :
Vikings grew crops on land that is permafrost now. This happened because it was warmer on earth 1000 years ago than it is now.
photon without a Higgs (12:58:17)
correction
Vikings grew crops on land in Greenland that is permafrost now
bill,
Is that the best you can produce?
1) A disconnected graph of two sites measured by vastly different means.
2) An explained fudge factor to try line them up.
3) If GISP2 present is 1950, why doesn’t the graph run to then?
I’m underwhelmed.
I too got a reply to my complaint from the ACT on CO2 mob.
Here’s my reply:
Dear Team,
Further to my previous reply reproduced below:
http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3553
Take a careful look at this and ask yourselves if you still think anything unprecedented or worrying is going on.
Comments in line below.
At 01:25 AM 13/12/2009, you wrote:
“Thank you for your email to the ACT ON CO2 team. I apologise for the
delay in replying.
The latest science shows us that climate change is a bigger and more
urgent challenge than had been previously understood. ”
Simply untrue. What latest “science”? The arctic ice is growing, a German team did an aerial radar survey in the last year and even the thickness was twice what they expected.
Antarctic ice is at near record levels. Lindzen and Choi 2009 have shown that instead of heat being trapped the Earth is radiating it away according to their analysis of the ERBE satellite measurements.
“The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment
Report provides an even stronger link between human activities and
climate change, concluding that there is a more than 90% chance that
most of the observed warming since the mid-20th Century is due to human
emissions of greenhouse gases. ”
They plucked the 90% number out of their arses. There was no scientific methodology to arrive at this number.
In any case as a result of the fraud revelations at CRU there is now great doubt as to the actual extent of any “observed” warming in the surface temperature record. Most of the “warming” appears to be in the “adjustments” which were applied to the raw data. The method for the adjustments is opaque and subject to serious challenge until a complete independent review of the data and methodology is done (and I mean independent – not by the university where these scammers worked or by civil servants with interests in the greenhouse industry)
” It also clearly demonstrates the need
for urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”
It does no such thing as there are no indications of any problems caused by the approximately 30% increase in the already very low CO2 levels from pre industrial times although even that number is under challenge as the fossil leaf stomata folks think the number was around 335 to 345ppm and highly variable not 290ppm as the very problematical ice cores show seem to show.
“Although the ACT ON CO2 advertisement uses the dramatic device of a
father reading a story to his daughter, it is directed at adults, not
children. ”
Yes, of course children never get to see TV intended for adults. /sarc off
“It aims to communicate the need to take immediate action
against the effects of climate change before the next generation suffers
even worse consequences. ”
Lets see now – there are no visible consequences now so twice nothing is …. nothing.
“The campaign has a positive message – that
there is still time to make a difference.”
Given that there’s no evidence anything unusual is happening how are you going to “make a difference”?
“The Government has recognised that to play our part in reducing global
emissions Britain needs to become a low carbon economy and the current
ACT ON CO2 campaign is an important part of the Government’s action on
public engagement on this issue. We have taken decisive steps to ensure
that this becomes reality. We were the first country in the world to
establish binding CO2 reduction targets through the Climate Change Act.
In July, we published the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan which shows how
we intend to get there. You can find the publication on the DECC website
at http://www.decc.gov.uk.
We encourage everyone, whether individuals, communities or businesses,
to play their part. Our ACT ON CO2 campaign (www.direct.gov.uk/actonco2)
provides advice and suggests sources of financial help for people to
lower their carbon footprint.
Kind Regards
The ACT ON CO2 Team”
As I don’t live in Britain the only effect anything the British government does on this is to mislead my own government. I will make sure that I don’t own shares in companies who do business in Britain or who depend on trade with Britain. If everyone did this I’m sure British CO2 emissions would decrease sharply as the British economy collapsed…oh wait.
I’m a former meteorologist and atmospheric researcher. I’ve studied the CO2 “problem”. I’ve seen no evidence that anything untoward is happening. The only unequivocal evidence is that plants are growing better as a result of the increased CO2 levels. This is resulting in greater crop yields. If CO2 results in a temperature rise of 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius this is hardly a tragedy(Lindzen and Choi 2009 again) and will be nearly undetectable by the present observing network although it may make some areas marginally more pleasant to live in.
It isn’t too late to open your eyes and see that you have been thoroughly mislead.
Study the issue and go public with your conversion to scepticism and commitment to the truth. You would be far from the first to do so.
Regards
Mike Borgelt
If you look at both the ‘after combining sources at same location’ and ‘after homogeneity adjustment’, they are the same graph. Nothing changed. Compare yours, which you say is ‘raw’ data, to this one:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431043600000&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
It has seemed to escape the meat grinder ‘adjustment’ that GISS does. But New Hampton was not as lucky, WUWT?
New Hampton 43.1 N 92.3 W 425725480060 rural area 1897 – 2009
Before ‘adjustment’
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725480060&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
After ‘adjustment’
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725480060&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Just very well done! This video demonstrates the perspective missing from nearly all alarmist claims. What disturbs is the continued avoidance of ethical clarity from key alarmist scientists. Recall Prof. Steven Schneider’s “double ethical bind” statement:
““On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.”
Now the very same Prof. Schneider is confronted with a question about Climategate at the Copenhagen conference and he responds:
“I don’t make comments on redacted emails presented to me by people whose values I don’t trust.”
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/11/un-security-stops-journalists-questions-about-climategate/
“Redacted emails??” Climategate emails are each intact with no editing outside the internet addresses of senders and recipients. Redacted? A word reserved for classified documents far different from global temperature trends. Another alarmist reaction lacking hindsight and perspective.
bill (12:00:53) :
I believe the instrument record has been added to the graphs, and it dosnt reinforce your earlier statements? You will notice when ever a scientist makes the proclamation “unprecedented warming” they add the qualifier, last 1000years.
3 “must seen” videos from the Climate Congress in Berlin !
A show-down: Monckton and a Greenpeace activist in discussion.
Great, best it the third !
http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/lord-monckton-uber-die-gauner-von-climategate/001436/
Sooo…I have some questions which keep popping into my rather crowded and disorganized mind, the one I’m keenest to have answered sensibly is, “was the speed of the MWP climate-change similar to the current up-tick (notwithstanding the last decade)?”. I ask only as it seems to me that the speed of the change is pretty important to us as a species; I can’t help thinking we’ll adapt better if the changes happen slowly, whereas if there’s a rapid change then the likelihood of finding we have crops unsuitable for growing in a slightly changed climate, or we all get wet feet or whatnot.
michel (12:15:08),
Does this show malfeasance? From Harry_Read_Me:
Here, the expected 1990 – 2003 period is missing – so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet, the WMO codes and station names/dates are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh, yeah – there is no ’supposed’, I can make it up. So I have.
Inventing temperatures from 1990 to 2003 is hard to explain. Isn’t it? They should have left that 13 years out, or at least done something more ethical than making up numbers, no mater how they try to justify it now that they’re caught.
We’ve been showing a lot of graphs recently to put present temperatures into context (see here: http://www.c3headlines.com/temperature-charts-historical-proxies.html ) but the series of simple GISP graphs, especially animated, are great. I gotta learn that animation thingy.
For people who are terrified of today’s “warming,” it’s truly a shame they will probably not see this historical context available at your site because of their refusal to accept (or to learn) that global warming is mostly natural, a good thing, and, unfortunately, very much temporary.
OK, I went on a wild speculation ride and decided my top candidate for the Climategate whistleblower was Dr Keith Briffa:
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11861
It is a long, drawn out and likely completely wrong!
michel (12:08:55) :
I am no friend of climate alarmism. I’m uneasy about what exactly these graphs are proving. Let us say that we conclude that current warming is not exceptional in a time scale of millenia. What does that show exactly? It does not prove that we should not worry about it, if it is happening. It does not prove that it will not be a threat, if it happens.
The logic has to be right, and here the logic of the argument escapes one. It does not have to be unprecedented on a scale of this length of time, to be capable of extinguishing human life.
About 5,000 – 9,000 years ago was a warm period called the Climate Optimum (as in, ideal), when it was warmer and wetter than today. The MWP, or Little Climate Optimum was at least as warm, if not warmer than today. History, and indeed common sense tells us that warm periods are conducive to life, and indeed man thrives during those periods. It is cooler periods, especially ice ages which are dangerous to man and to all life. We are indeed fortunate to be living during an interglacial period, the Holocene, which began about 11,500 years ago. The claim of “unprecedented warming” is not only false, it is based on a totally misplaced and hyped fear of something which is completely benevolent.
If anything, thanks to the Warmists, man is focused on exactly the wrong thing climatically speaking. There is good evidence for significant cooling in the coming decades, possibly rivaling the LIA. That was not a good time for man then, and it won’t be for us either, even with our technological advances.
A sympathetic article on Steve McIntyre from his hometown but very pro-AGW newspaper, the Toronto Star.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/737357–portrait-of-a-local-climate-skeptic
Hi Anthony, I really appreciate the work you do. I have a question regarding a recent posting by Tamino,
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
I am neither mathematician nor scientist, I would really appreciate you or one of the audience answering his main claims here. Several posters get pounded & denigrated-perhaps he is correct, however I cannot help but notice that the graph he uses begins in 1975- to claim proof of AGW it seems.(unprecedented!!!)
“We’re only 10 years into the 21st century, but so far, global temperature has done exactly what was expected by mainstream climate scientists. Exactly…
…This is undeniable. Unless of course you’re in denial.
My gut reaction tells me this approach is fishy especially when we look at your article regarding historical ice-core data.
cheers, Mark
Guys,
you don’t get it: the ultimate proof of Global Warming has finally been revealed…
“BY SETH BORENSTEIN, RAPHAEL SATTER and MALCOLM RITTER, Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein, Raphael Satter And Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press Writers – 2 hrs 17 mins ago
LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.
The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don’t undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. (…)”
Oh yes, I forgot- he says
“Don’t trust the people at RSS? How about the denialists’ favorite data, satellite estimates from UAH?”
Now did I read somewhere that the satellite data was calibrated from the surface temperature record?
Even if it wasn’t, does not the historical record afford much more relevant perspective-
I need to know!
Anthony
After taking a good look at your Central Greenland temperature anomaly chart I realised I have come across it elsewhere, it was in my collection of the North Hemisphere’s geomagnetic records.
For some time now I have investigated correlation between North Atlantic temperature records and geomagnetic field in the areas controlling polar ocean’s currents circulation.
It appears that there is some kind of a plausible physical relationship. In my last post on another thread I spoke about several decades time delay, here it is in region of about 40 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CGT-GMF.gif
REPLY: Thanks, interesting. – Anthony
these graphics are very similar to those presented by Professor Bob Carter in a four part video here: http://climateobserver.blogspot.com/2009/12/professor-bob-carter-on-co2-and-climate.html
I tried in vain to find a powerpoint or pdf of his presentation as the graphics are so understandable to the lay person. So eureka! I have found them without looking!
One of the points that he makes is not only that the temperature is not unprecendented, but likewise the rate of temperature change. This is also somewhat evident in your charts, but Mr. Carter has a separate illustration devoted to the rate of temperature change as opposed to the simple temperature.
In your charts, it’s not clear that the arrow is pointed directly toward the hockey stick; it seems to point somewhere else. And a caption or two pointing out the differing time scales would help the lay person as well.
Vincent (12:52:49)
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1373/gisp2moderngrnlnd.png
Is a plot of ice core data from GISP2 with an appended instrumental record (averaged over 10 years)
This is the Giss version of the instrument record (Not homogenised)
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9707/angmagssalikgissraw.gif
AnthonyB (12:59:52
Yes it is the best I could produce but it is better than the red line plonked on the plots above
3) gisp2 is measured in years before present. Present unless stated otherwise is 1950 the record for gisp 2 goes to 0.0951409ybp = 1854.8591(date)
photon without a Higgs (12:58:17) :
Check the Giss plot above I did not generate it. It is not the homogenised plot!
Vincent (12:54:33) :
Paranoid – why did a whole thread get deleted on climateaudit?
Thomas J. Arnold. (12:53:29) :
Here is a plot from nordic countries above 60n
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6634/nordikabove60n.png
Similar?
yes – only 1.5 C increase not 2C as in the greenland temp. Still overpowers the mwp
bill (10:40:11) :
Thank God that got cleared up. And now that the modern rise is shown? What is the new gripe?
And thanks for taking that bullet out of the gun Anthony.
Some people point out that the chart only goes back to 1900. I’m just wondering if Is this a known fact, written down somewhere, or is that just a common guess? All I know is that I sure can’t tell by looking at it. I can only see that it’s not COMPLETELY up to date.
That said, what IS clear is that even with all the manufactured “warming”, it’s still been hotter over the past one, two, and three thousand years (roughly), by the look of things, and that this extended warming period we’re in started well before man started to burn coal and oil. I mean, sheeze, why not blame the extended warming on the building of the Egyptian pyramids or the birth of Christ? Makes about as much sense as blamming it on man-emitted CO2!
Sooo… are the warmists going to be handed their bitter defeat some time this side of the millennium, or was there a more distant, special date in mind? 🙂
Never mind the questions I asked about the incompleteness of the chart. I missed the explanations on the first read!
Not even Einstein could answer this question.
Quantify the percentage of human caused climate change from CO2 as opposed to the percentage caused by natural climate variation?
Any Einsteins out there who can answer this question?