Here is just one more indication that despite what some would like you to believe, the MWP was not a regional “non event”.
From a University of Arizona press release,
Giant Sequoias Yield Longest Fire History from Tree Rings
California’s western Sierra Nevada had more frequent fires between 800 and 1300 than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a new study led by Thomas W. Swetnam, director of UA’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world’s oldest trees shows that California’s western Sierra Nevada was droughty and often fiery from 800 to 1300, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers.
Scientists reconstructed the 3,000-year history of fire by dating fire scars on ancient giant sequoia trees, Sequoiadendron giganteum, in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. Individual giant sequoias can live more than 3,000 years.
“It’s the longest tree-ring fire history in the world, and it’s from this amazing place with these amazing trees.” said lead author Thomas W. Swetnam of the UA. “This is an epic collection of tree rings.”
The new research extends Swetnam’s previous tree-ring fire history for giant sequoias another 1,000 years into the past. In addition, he and his colleagues used tree-ring records from other species of trees to reconstruct the region’s past climate.
The scientists found the years from 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had the most frequent fires in the 3,000 years studied. Other research has found that the period from 800 to 1300 was warm and dry.
“What’s not so well known about the Medieval Warm Period is how warm it was in the western U.S.,” Swetnam said. “This is one line of evidence that it was very fiery on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada – and there’s a very strong relationship between drought and fire.”
Droughts are typically both warm and dry, he added.
Knowing how giant sequoia trees responded to a 500-year warm spell in the past is important because scientists predict that climate change will probably subject the trees to such a warm, dry environment again, said Swetnam, a UA professor of dendrochronology and director of UA’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
During the Medieval Warm Period extensive fires burned through parts of the Giant Forest at intervals of about 3 to 10 years, he said. Any individual tree was probably in a fire about every 10 to 15 years.
The team also compared charcoal deposits in boggy meadows within the groves to the tree-ring fire history. The chronology of charcoal deposits closely matches the tree-ring chronology of fire scars.
The health of the giant sequoia forests seems to require those frequent, low-intensity fires, Swetnam said. He added that as the climate warms, carefully reintroducing low-intensity fires at frequencies similar to those of the Medieval Warm Period may be crucial for the survival of those magnificent forests, such as those in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
Since 1860, human activity has greatly reduced the extent of fires. He and his colleagues commend the National Park Service for its recent work reintroducing fire into the giant sequoia groves.
The team’s report, “Multi-Millennial Fire History of the Giant Forest, Sequoia National Park, California, USA,” was published in the electronic journal Fire Ecology in February. A complete list of authors and funding sources is at the bottom of this story.
To study tree rings, researchers generally take a pencil-sized core from a tree. The oldest rings are those closest to the center of the tree. However, ancient giant sequoias can have trunks that are 30 feet in diameter – far too big to be sampled using even the longest coring tools, which are only three feet long.
To gather samples from the Giant Forest trees, the researchers were allowed to collect cross-sections of downed logs and standing dead trees, he said. It turned out to be a gargantuan undertaking that required many people and many field seasons.
“We were sampling with the largest chain saws we could find – a chain-saw bar of seven feet,” he said. “We were hauling these slabs of wood two meters on a side as far as two kilometers to the road. We were using wheeled litters – the emergency rescue equipment for people – and put a couple hundred pounds on them.”
To develop a separate chronology for past fires, co-authors R. Scott Anderson and Douglas J. Hallett looked for charcoal in sediment cores taken from meadows within the sequoia groves.
“We can compare the charcoal and tree-ring fire records. It confirms that the charcoal is a good indicator of past fires,” Swetnam said.
Such charcoal-based fire histories can extend much further into the past than most tree-ring-based fire histories, he said. The charcoal history of fire in the giant sequoia groves extends back more than 8,000 years.
Increasingly, researchers all over the world are using charcoal to reconstruct fire histories, Swetnam said. Many scientists are analyzing the global record of charcoal to study relationships between climate, fire and the resulting addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Swetnam’s co-authors are Christopher H. Baisan and Ramzi Touchan of the University of Arizona; Anthony C. Caprio of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in Three Rivers, Calif.; Peter M. Brown of the Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research and Colorado State University in Fort Collins; R. Scott Anderson of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff; and Douglas J. Hallett of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
The National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest and Calaveras Big Trees State Park provided funding.
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
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It’s always Marcia, Marcia (16:21:40): You are trying to produce a list of reason why there would be an increase from 800–1300 AD but your list didn’t include the Medieval Warm Period. Is this because you want to say there was no Medieval Warm Period?
Marcia, Marcia. I said (18:55:01) that I accept the MWP, but on the basis of Greenland ice cores, not fire scars. Consider this: Swetnam said that over the last 3,000 years the highest fire frequency was from 800 to 1300 AD. Therefore the fire scar evidence fails to record the Roman Warm Period, which the ice cores indicate was even warmer than the MWP.
So if you believe the fire scars recorded global temperatures, that must mean you deny the Roman Warm Period. Is that what you’re saying?
Wygart (14:27:07) :
“Thus the potential nutritive value that the deadfall represents to the forest and the sequoias themselves is only slowly returned to back to the soil and that therefore it is reasonable to wonder where, [aside from needle fall and cones], where all of the nutrient inputs to the ecosystem are.”
In my understanding, most plant nutrient comes from the air and water via photosynthesis: 6CO2 + 6H20 = C6H12O6 + 6O2.
The glucose from photosynthesis is further metabolised to produce the substance of the plant – cellulose, starch, fats, enzymes, structural proteins, Nucleic acid, and so on.
The H2O comes from ground water, and the only other stuff from the ground comes as fertilizer – natural or artificial. Minority but essential elements like N, P and K etc. get in this way (though N can also come from bacteria in root nodules for legumes, for example).
I suspect a lot of what is needed in the way of fertiliser in a wild wood could indeed come from leaf and tree fall. And also, I suppose, wood ash from burning?
So apparently, the majestic sequoia is mainly the product of CO2 and water, with just a soupcon of other essential ingredients. And, since we are at the end of a food chain beginning with plants, we too are generated mainly by CO2 and water.
Miraculous, isn’t it? Life is a process of turning air and water and very little else into all the critters that teem on earth.
Even AGW supporters 🙂
Human sacrifice was practiced by the Amerindian cultures inhabiting the present day CONUS (Continental United States). The extent to which the human sacrifices were similar to and different from the Mayan, Aztec, and other Mesoamerican practices is subjective and arguable.
Mike D. (20:17:25) :
The reality and the task of recognizing the differences between fire origins may be much more complex and difficult than everyone first assumes. It is noted by the USFS that the sought for benefits of a fire may not be feasible until and unless the red flag weather or climate conditions are already present to support a fire that is hot enough to achieve the goals of the burn. If so, the same could be true of the Amerindian fires, which could make the task of recognizing a natural versus artificial fire that much more difficult.
Williams, Gerald W., Ph.D. ABORIGINAL USE OF FIRE: ARE THERE ANY “NATURAL” PLANT COMMUNITIES? Historical Analyst, USDA Forest Service, National Office, Washington, D.C. 20090-6090; June 17, 2002.
http://www.wy.blm.gov/fireuse/pubs/AboriginalFireUse.pdf
Anderson, M. Kat. Indian Fire-Based Management in the Sequoia-Mixed Conifer Forests of the Central and Southern Sierra Nevada. Final contract report submitted to Yosemite Research; 1993.
I bet 1200 AD was a great time to be alive.
As long as you kept your head.
After Seven (15:02:11) :
Thanks for the information.
The two contenders in the “battle of the graphs” above do not compare like with like.
Mann’s hockey stick is a reconstruction of global temperature anomalies.
The so-called “historical view” is NOT of anomalies – but of purported temperatutes and only in Europe (as others have pointed out).
To get closer to like for like, at least “anomalise” the data in the second chart.
Incidentally, what does either (global/European) have to do with these new tree -ring data from the Sierra Nevada?
@T McLaughlin
If you carefully read the legends on the graphs, they explicitly state what they represent.
Since Mann’s graph shows alleged anomalies ‘relative to 1960-90′
it should not be difficult to discern how the temperature record in graph 2
does not support (or is not supported by – take your pick) Mann’s graph.
“Incidentally, what does either (global/European) have to do with these new tree -ring data from the Sierra Nevada?”
What the new data provides is evidence that perhaps the MWP was truly global and not limited to Europe. For a proper examination of the significance of this point, I suggest you read: “The `Hockey Stick’: A New Low in Climate Science” by the late John L. Daly
(http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm)
As Daly argues: “To disprove the `Hockey Stick’, it is sufficient to merely demonstrate conclusively the existence of the Medieval Warm Period and/or the Little Ice Age in proxy and/or historical evidence from around the world. According to the `falsifiability’ principle of science, substantial physical evidence that contradicts a theory is sufficient to `falsify’ that theory. To that end, `exhibits’ of physical evidence are presented below to prove that not only is the `Hockey Stick’ false, but that the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age were not only very real – but also global in extent.”
That is the point.
Correction: What the new data provides is additional evidence that perhaps the MWP was truly global and not limited to Europe.
Amino Acids in Meteorites (19:41:27) :
I know this is way off topic, but do either of you know if Indians in the area that is now the Contiguous 48 practiced human sacrifice similar to the Mayans?
In Mound 72 of the Cahokia Mounds Wikapedia states the following was found:
1.)Four young males, missing their hands and skulls.
2.)A mass grave of more than 50 women around 21 years old, with the bodies arranged in two layers separated by matting.
3.)A mass burial containing 40 men and women who appear to have been violently killed. The suggestion has been made that some of these were buried alive: “From the vertical position of some of the fingers, which appear to have been digging in the sand, it is apparent that not all of the victims were dead when they were interred – that some had been trying to pull themselves out of the mass of bodies.”
It is of course dangerous to judge an entire culture on a single leader, who may represent a sort of Adolf Hitler of his time.
Many cultures go through a rise, period of stability, and then period of decline. It is a great error to imagine such cultures did not go through great changes. In the case oif the Mississpean Mound Builders, or the Vikings in Greenland, we are talking about periods of hundreds of years, and changes in climate from the MWP to the start of the LIA, and the culture at the end may have been utterly different from what the culture was like at the start. (Justr look at how much the USA has changed the last four generations. In my grandgfather’s time over half of us were farmers.)
At the start growing corn was very liberating, giving people free time. However as the population grew the diet contained less and less variety, and growing corn may have become a liability. The size of skelitons at some mound-builder sites indicate a shrunken people, smaller than the Native Americans who followed the demise of that culture at those sites. However other mound builder sites apparently adjusted, and cultures improved, and still were in existance when the great pandemic occurred.
In regard to some comments on this site which belittle the Americans at that time because they lacked the wheel and horses, it should be stated there was trade from the Rockies to the east coast, and from Minnisota to the Gulf of Mexico. This is shown by copper and sea-shells found far from their mines and shores.
However perhaps the neatest example of the trade-trails of Indians is the saga of David Ingrams, who was a volentary castaway, from the Damaged English ship “Minion,” in 1568. He was set ashore on the east coast of Mexico, and walked from there to Nova Scotia, where he hitched a ride back to Europe aboard a French fishing boat.
Many have scorned what we retain of David Ingram’s testimony as merely a sailor’s exaggerations, and some of his testimony may indeed be hyperbole, however I think a lot is an accurate picture of what the pre-pandemic Native civilizations were like.
Anyone who seeks to wander very far off topic should check out this American Heritage article, titaled “The Longest Walk.”
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1979/3/1979_3_4.shtml
Ian McLeod: ‘Far from causing us to become more violent, something in modernity and its cultural institutions has made us nobler.’
In my opinion, that something goes under the name ‘Christianity’.
Pascvaks (14:32:40) : “Anthony, Seems like there’s a fair amount of interest in Pre-Columbian Native American population. When the weather breaks, might be nice to have a guest post by someone who really knows something about the subject.”
Pascvaks, I think you have the best of the best — minds and arguments and research — right here on WUWT. No surpise because that is what Anthony, Moderators, Contributors, Commenters do all the time. Great thread for insights into recent research in a variety of scientific fields. Enneagram even snuck (?) in a little “earthquakes and solar minima” material (3/18-07:56:35). Happy Birthday, Charles the Mod.
Well that one photo of a Sequoia crossection; tells us more than just about the Sierra Nevada Fires.
Anyone who believes that tree rings are a valid proxy for temperature, moisture, CO2, wind, whatever (except age) just needs to see that one photograph.
If you core bored that very tree at zero, 45, or 90 degrees, as in N, NE, E, you would get totally different results.
So any single bored core of a tree taken at some height, and some radial direction, is a one dimensional look at a three dimensional object, and with just a single core, it would fail the Nyquist Sampling Criterion.
So count the rings for age; but nyet, on any of that other stuff. If they hadn’t killed this tree, they wouldn’t have found that evidence.
Caleb: Thanks for that link to Ingram’s story:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1979/3/1979_3_4_print.shtml
There may be a some degree of correlation between the MWP and the cultural periods of the Anasazi culture. Their communities appear to have flourished with improved agriculture and habitation consistent with a warmer and wetter climate. Then they appear to have abandoned some of their magnificent pueblos complete with pottery and moved south at about the time when the climate turned colder and the mega-droughts disrupted agriculture.
Brian D Finch (06:49:55) :
“If you carefully read the legends on the graphs, they explicitly state what they represent”
I have done that and KNOW what they represent. My concern id with casual readers who look at the two graphs and believe them to be different representations of the same thing.
Willis Eschenbach makes amends here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/18/more-on-the-national-geographic-decline/#more-17466
He compares anomalies with anaomalies -which is as it should be.
Mike D said: “Denial of the existence and basic humanity of people is the worst form of denial — right? Denial of American aboriginal populations and influences is equivalent to denial of Hitler’s Holocaust. It is an evil thing.”
So, following the Holocaust and AGW, you have now added yet another subject to the list that is to be considered beyond question and verboten to investigate. Where exactly do you, and those like you (i.e., post-normal “scientists”), intend to stop with these forbidden subjects, Mike? (And BTW, I doubt if many Jews would be happy with your equation of the questioning of the numbers of native Americans and their cultural achievements with the Nazi death camps.)
Also, you seem to have carved yourself a nice little niche in this debate where you can think of yourself as both intellectually and morally superior to all sides. You are obviously a legend in your own mind.
Digsby, it is you who suggest that certain subjects should be taboo. I am merely pointing out that real denial, of humanity, is something other than global warming denial.
Let’s take this a step at a time. Climate realists, like me, take huge offense at being called “deniers” because of the connotation with Holocaust deniers. There really was a Holocaust. Hitler really did murder 6,000,000 innocent people.
The Holocaust is not a forbidden subject to me. I think it should be studied, reported, and NEVER forgotten. There are lessons there for all human kind to learn.
Similarly, human habitation of the Americas for the last 12,000+ years really happened. I think that subject should be studied, reported, and the findings not denied. Millions of people lived here. The pre-Columbian population suffered a 95% collapse when Old World diseases were introduced. Many refer to that as “the American Holocaust.” There are lessons there for everyone, including Jewish people, and including you.
Do you see, Digsby, that I am not forbidding the study of history — I am encouraging it. But you take umbrage at that. I think you are confused.
I am not a “post-normal scientist” anymore than you are a complete idiot mouthing cliches who cannot grasp what others have written. I suggest you calm down and go read all the comments above carefully, with maximum comprehension effort. Try to concentrate on what was actually written. I know you can do it.
Fellows,
The alarm that 4.4*C causes 34 more murders per 100,000 seems easily refutable. Plot murder rates versus average temperatures/min temperatures/max temperatures for major cities across NAmerica and Europe. It seems ludicrous. Are statisticians losing track of reasonableness? Canada has more than 4.4*C differences between cities and has no such remarkable heat-related crime levels, in fact, has no such alarming crime rate! Pray tell what is going on?