For those worried about tundra melt and methane outgassing, this study might dampen those worries a bit. A new peer-reviewed study by Clegg et al. demonstrates that modern global warming is significantly less than the global warming experienced in the higher latitudes, specifically Alaska, during the summers of the last 3,000 years. It demonstrates that the Current Warm Period (CWP) is not unprecedented, at least for Alaska. The authors suggest a tie in to solar variability.
From CO2 science:
What was done
The authors conducted a high-resolution analysis of midge assemblages found in the sediments of Moose Lake (61°22.45’N, 143°35.93’W) in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve of south-central Alaska (USA), based on data obtained from cores removed from the lake bottom in the summer of AD 2000 and a midge-to-temperature transfer function that yielded mean July temperatures (TJuly) for the past six thousand years.
What was learned
The results of the study are portrayed in the accompanying figure, where it can be seen, in the words of Clegg et al., that “a piecewise linear regression analysis identifies a significant change point at ca 4000 years before present (cal BP),” with “a decreasing trend after this point.” And from 2500 cal BP to the present, there is a clear multi-centennial oscillation about the declining trend line, with its peaks and valleys defining the temporal locations of the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period, the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age — during which the coldest temperatures of the entire interglacial or Holocene were reached — and, finally, the start of the Current Warm Period, which is still not expressed to any significant degree compared to the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods.
C3 Headlines provided an annotated and reversed graph which you can see below:
The paper title is published in Quaternary Science Reviews
Here’s the abstract:
Six millennia of summer temperature variation based on midge analysis of lake sediments from Alaska
Benjamin F. Clegg, Gina H. Clarke, Melissa L. Chipman, Michael Chou, Ian R. Walker, Willy Tinnere and Feng Sheng Hu
Abstract
Despite their importance for evaluating anthropogenic climatic change, quantitative temperature reconstructions of the Holocene remain scarce from northern high-latitude regions. We conducted high-resolution midge analysis on the sediments of the past 6000 years from a lake in south-central Alaska. Results were used to estimate mean July air temperature (TJuly) variations on the basis of a midge temperature transfer function. The TJuly estimates from the near-surface samples are broadly consistent with instrumental and treering-based temperature data. Together with previous studies, these results suggest that midge assemblages are more sensitive to small shifts in summer temperature (
0.5 °C) than indicated by the typical error range of midge temperature transfer functions (1.5 °C). A piecewise linear regression analysis identifies a significant change point at ca 4000 years before present (cal BP) in our TJuly record, with a decreasing trend after this point. Episodic TJuly peaks (14.5 °C) between 5500 and 4200 cal BP and the subsequent climatic cooling may have resulted from decreasing summer insolation associated with the precessional cycle. Centennial-scale climatic cooling of up to 1 °C occurred around 4000, 3300, 1800–1300, 600, and 250 cal BP. These cooling events were more pronounced and lasted longer during the last two millennia than between 2000 and 4000 cal BP. Some of these events have counterparts in climatic records from elsewhere in Alaska and other regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including several roughly synchronous with known grand minima in solar irradiance. Over the past 2000 years, our TJuly record displays patterns similar to those inferred from a wide variety of temperature proxy indicators at other sites in Alaska, including fluctuations coeval with the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Climate Anomaly, and the First Millennial Cooling (centered around 1400 cal BP). To our knowledge, this study offers the first high-resolution, quantitative record of summer temperature variation that spans longer than the past 2000 years from the high-latitude regions around the North Pacific.
Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion:
Within the limit of chronological uncertainties, some (but not all) of these cooling events at Moose Lake coincide with periods of reduced solar irradiance, such as the solar minima centered on the middle and late LIA (250 and 100 cal BP), 1400 cal BP, and 3400 cal BP (Steinhilber et al., 2009).
Although the co-occurrence of solar minima with cooling during the LIA is well appreciated, the role of solar output in modulating surface temperature remains controversial, partially because the effect of solar activity changes on the surface energy budget is orders of magnitude lower than those of the drivers operating over shorter timescales (e.g., clouds or volcanism) (Damon and Peristykh, 2005). Nonetheless, a number of recent paleoclimate
studies have attributed decadal- to millennial-scale variation to fluctuating solar irradiance in Alaska (Hu et al., 2003; Wiles et al., 2004; Tinner et al., 2008) and elsewhere (Hegerl et al., 2003; Damon and Peristykh, 2005; Eichler et al., 2009). Thus the potential role of solar irradiance in high-latitude climate change remains an issue that warrants further research (MacDonald, 2010). Analysis of midge assemblages in lake-sediment cores
from other sites is necessary to verify our results from Moose Lake and assess the potential linkages of summer temperature variation to fluctuating solar output.
The full paper is available at the Willie Soon’s website at Harvard here (PDF)
Addendum:
Some commenters point out that I did not include this caveat from the paper:
The Moose Lake TJuly record is of limited value for assessing anthropogenic warming in the context of the long-term natural variability because of the relatively coarse temporal resolution and potential impacts of human activity on the lake chemistry. The youngest sample of the record spans the period of AD 1968-1972, falling within the cooler interval of the 20th-century in Alaska (Chapin et al., 2005).
And they have a point, I should have included this. So I’m rectifying that now. They also say:
The inferred TJuly from this sample (13.76 +/- 1.43 °C) compares favorably with the mean of instrumental
July temperatures of the same period (13.77 +/- 1.13 °C,
corrected for a dry adiabatic lapse rate of 9.80 °C per km) as
recorded at a nearby weather station (Gulkana Airport). The relatively coarse resolution of the Moose Lake midge record, along with the brevity of weather-station records from our study region (w50 years), precludes a further assessment of our midge-based TJuly estimates through comparison with instrumental climate data.
However, the midge TJuly estimates of the past 350 years (Fig. 4A) can be compared with treering temperature estimates of the same period from tree line sites in the Wrangell Mountains (Davi et al., 2003; Fig. 4B). In general, the midge temperature inferences parallel the treering temperature patterns. For example, the two records exhibit similar magnitudes of climatic warming after the Little Ice Age (LIA) and both capture low temperatures corresponding to the middle and late phases of the LIA, which also coincide with local advances in valley glaciers within the Wrangell Mountains (Wiles et al., 2004). However, the specific peaks and troughs do not always match between the two records, which is expected given the chronological uncertainties associated with our 210Pb ages and with the age-depth model for samples older than 64 cal BP.
These results contribute to a growing body of evidence
demonstrating the utility of midge assemblages for reconstruction of relatively small TJuly variation on both historic and Holocene timescales (e.g., Heiri et al., 2003; Larocque and Hall, 2003). Together, these studies indicate greater sensitivity of midge assemblages to TJuly variation than implied by reported error envelopes of midge temperature transfer functions.
Clegg et al thinks that the TJuly agrees with a local instrument record, some tree-ring study, and suggest TJuly signal is greater than the error bands. However, this brings up an interesting point.
In a similar midge-paleo study covered on WUWT (Yarrow et al 2009, PNAS, full PDF here, CU-Boulder press release here) the authors of that study say in the press release that:
…changes seen in the sediment cores since about 1950 indicate expected climate cooling is being overridden by human activity like greenhouse gas emissions.
So we have one study, Clegg et al saying that this midge-paleo is too coarse to use for AGW signal determinations, and another similar study Yarrow et al saying midge-paleo (with others) does have enough resolution and it shows a modern impact of humans emitted GHG. Quite the contradiction.
In the Yarrow et al Baffin Island study, they do in fact look at more recent core data than the Clegg et al Alaska lake study. In reading the Clegg et al study, they say:
The youngest sample of the Moose Lake midge record (from 3.0 to 3.5 cm core depth; we did not have adequate amount of sediment from 0 to 3 cm for midge analysis) encompasses sediment deposition of AD 1968-1972.
Yet, in the Yarrow study they apparently did have enough sediment to make a determination and then claim that it shows unprecedented warming and human influence. Interestingly though, they cite a “statistical uncertainty of 2.2 °C”
As with any transfer function, chironomid-inferred temperatures contain some statistical uncertainty (14, 34). Although absolute temperature values have a statistical uncertainty of 2.2 °C, reconstructed trends in past temperature at this site are likely robust because the amplitude of these trends exceeds the statistical uncertainty of the model; furthermore, these trends are supported by many other proxies from the region (36).
So they also compared to other proxies. I find it odd though that Yarrow says this in the CU-Boulder press release here, emphasis mine:
But the cold-adapted midge species abruptly began declining in about 1950, matching their lowest abundances of the last 200,000 years. Two of the midge species adapted to the coldest temperatures have completely disappeared from the lake region, said Axford.
This seems to point to a sample problem for recent layers such as Clegg et al lament. I wonder what chironomid data Clegg et al had from 1972 forward and why they deemed it insufficient.
Apparently though, the lack of certain species wasn’t a problem for Yarrow et al, and they used that to bolster the claim that human caused warming was reflected by that species loss. I pointed to the fact that in Alaska and Canada, post World War II DDT use for mosquito control was the norm, so perhaps the lack of modern midges was a consequence of that DDT use in both cases. It is an uncertainty.
I’m reminded though of the Mann-Briffa Yamal tree ring debacle, where if that data didn’t fit near the present, you throw it out post 1960 and splice on the instrumental temperature record. Yarrow’s insistence that the cold species midge disappearance implies human caused warming is on par with the leap of “Mikes’ Nature trick”. Both ignore other potential influences.
While some commenters complain about the lack of Clegg et al data since 1972, the same posters IIRC did not complain about the proxy data truncation at 1960 and substitution of post 1960 instrumental data in Mann-Briffa’s studies.
While the lack of a useful sample post 1972 may simply be the lake biology, I think I’ll ask Clegg why they decided the post 1972 sample was insufficient and why Yarrow et al 2009 wasn’t referenced in the context of the modern midge data sample, and if they reply, and post a follow up note here.
I’ll close by pointing out Clegg et al’s closing sentence:
Analysis of midge assemblages in lake-sediment cores from other sites is necessary to verify our results from Moose Lake and assess the potential linkages of summer temperature variation to fluctuating solar output.
Replication is the basis of science, it is good to see them calling for that.
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Using biological anything seems risky. I guess if you had a lot of different biological proxies, then you could be more certain. But can’t a virus or bacterium come along and wipe out 1/3 or some number of the midges, like the black plague did humans? Other species have diseases too.
Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but this paper, like the others before it, and the discussion they generate to me lead directly to one very clear conclusion:
There is not enough data to conclude that the climate we are experiencing today is or is not influenced by CO2.
Trying to “bully” others into agreeing CO2 does or does not affect the climate seems to me quite futile.
The best thing about this paper, IMHO, is what Anthony has pointed out: rather than ask others to accept their findings the authors instead point out the need for verification. What a refreshing notion!
Smokey says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:45 am
You are right—Gneiss, Fred and Sir Paul Squarepants, or whoever, have been thoroughly outed and debunked, as far as I am concerned. I have passed over them for some time now. It would be wise to not waste your valuable blogging time dealing with them any longer, but get on with the good stuff, Smokey!
Jim D says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:30 am
A quick search around the Web shows that southern Alaska summers have warmed about 0.5 degrees per decade since about 1980, or 2 degrees since 1950, which would make an interesting off-the-scale spike on the graphs displayed.
________________________
Surely you mean wouldn’t it be interesting if the reconstructed temperature from midge data from recent times were plotted on the graph and matched the observed temperature increases? Of course you’re not suggesting using observed temperature data on the same chart with reconstructed temperature data, are you? I think we’ve seen that “trick” before!!!
Yes, KD, it is apparently against the rules to graft actual thermometer data onto the end of paleo reconstructions. My bad:-)
Instead of focusing on each proxy and rubbishing or lauding each, I think that the meta-analysis of proxies, as I mentioned before, is the way to go. What I would do with the data sets, is do a sigma relative curve for each proxy study. I would put all of the data in a column in an Excel spreadsheet or statistical software package. Then find the standard deviation. Then assign one, two or three sigmas to each point, with sign, either positively or negatively deviating from the mean.
Then I would graph each “sigma curve” as it oscillates around the mean, and plot it versus time period.
Then we would see if each proxy “tracks” with every other proxy. Then I would do a mean of the means to see if it correlates with a certain time. The derived temperature (absolute values of temperature—a derived number, anyway) in this scenario, would be irrelevant. We would only want to see which proxies validate other proxies with regard to the peaks and values versus time, and which proxies contradict the meta-analysis.
That way, we could see if the RWP, for example, was colder or warmer than the mean.
This suggestion is just an example of how to do a crude meta-analysis, using non-parametric tools.
A good statistician sets the appropriate “rules” in play before he gets the result. Let the evidence lead, rather than the bias.
Gneiss,
“New paleo reconstruction shows warmer periods in Alaska over the past 3000 years
Posted on January 29, 2011 by Anthony Watts
For those worried about tundra melt and methane out gassing, this study might dampen those worries a bit. A new peer-reviewed study by Clegg et al. demonstrates that modern global warming is significantly less than the global warming experienced in the higher latitudes, specifically Alaska, during the summers of the last 3,000 years. It demonstrates that the Current Warm Period (CWP) is not unprecedented, at least for Alaska. The authors suggest a tie in to solar variability.”
Do the graphs show there were two warmer periods, RWP & MWP, with temperatures apparently higher than the CWP? Answer? Yes. Were these periods separated by DACP & LIA? Answer? Yes. Which means that “modern global warming is significantly less than the global warming experienced in the higher latitudes, specifically Alaska, during the summers of the last 3,000 years.” Ergo, the lead paragraph does not need editing, because it’s still not as warm as those two warm periods.
Actually, what you believe really does not matter in the overall scheme of things, because global temperatures will continue to decline to such a degree that even GISS will not be able to hide the decline. Such is life, man proposes & nature disposes. M’thinks you doth protest too much.
The graphs show well the (expected) decline in temps through the Neoglacial due to declining axial tilt.
Whether, as Jim D says, recent warming would push the line off the scale remains to be seen – we must always be wary of short term variation which may not be picked up in paleao-temperature data. But, of course, if the current warming trend continues ……
They aren’t measuring the number of midges, but the ratio of cold-adapted midges to warm-adapted midges.
bubbagyro :
See Osborn and Briffa 2006 in Science – I think they do what you suggest.
There is, sadly, no argument. Paul, Fred, and Gneiss arrived at this study with conclusion in hand, and frankly most of the responses to them are just from the other side. I think Anthony did respond to them with sufficient detail about this study, but it doesn’t matter because, as amusing as the response is, when the comparison is made to the flaws in Mann, the answer is that Mann is “accepted.”
It would have been nice if this subject wasn’t so political, because that seems to drive most of the research. But then, it was pretty much political from the start, and it’s difficult to navigate that particular maze.
These results are so preliminary that I don’t see what the CAGW proponents are getting twisted over anyway, clearly more work has to be done. The results to make *sense*, after a fashion (in context with a variety of geological and cultural records), which does not validate them but does suggest a need for further study.
Jim D says:
January 29, 2011 at 11:23 am
Yes, KD, it is apparently against the rules to graft actual thermometer data onto the end of paleo reconstructions. My bad:-)
_____________________________
In fact, yes it is. As a scientist, one typically doesn’t mix data in that fashion.
Using paleo data up to a given point in time and then switching to observed temperatures is analogous to this:
I want to know the average maximium speed in a given lap at Daytona. For years the best I can do during the race is to time a complete lap, calculating the average speed for the lap. Prior to the race I calibrate my average speed to maximum speed by having a driver, on the track alone, read his maximum speed while I record lap times. I build a simple correlation that says if I have a lap time of X the maximum speed was Y.
Then one day I have a radar gun to use. I now simply point the gun down the track at the fastest spot and record all of the speeds for every car and every lap.
Can you appreciate that the QUALITY of the data you get might be different and there is a very high probability that the maximum speeds DETERMINED using the two methods would be DIFFERENT, even if the maximum speeds were actually IDENTICAL?
Temperature history of Holocene and even earlier periods has a bearing on what might or might not happen today. Since it is their bearing on the state of current warming that all these measurements are supposed to elucidate, why don’t we forget all these proxies and take a direct look at what is known about the present warming. If we go back to the beginning of the twentieth century we notice that the first ten years of the century are not even warming – there is a ten year cooling period that starts off the century.
This is followed by a thirty year period of sustained warming from 1910 to 1940. That was when World War II started and temperatures dropped severely. The Finnish Winter War of 1939/40 was fought in the bitter cold of minus forty Celsius, German invaders in Russia were being frozen to death, and GIs fought their way from the Battle of the Bulge to the German frontier in the coldest winter West Europeans could remember. But if you look at the temperature curves from NASA, NOAA and the Met Office that entire period is shown as a giant warm spell! That is a laugh. They do show a temperature drop but that is after the war and they miss the warm dust bowl years in the early thirties.
That already should tell us something about the quality of these temperature graphs in use. From the fifties to the late seventies temperature is fairly even although some people see a slight cooling and worry about a coming ice age. But suddenly in the late seventies all three official temperature curves turn up and keep on going up. That has been called the late twentieth century warming. It is also Hansen’s warming because in 1988 Hansen stood up in front of the Senate and testified that global warming had started and that we were responsible because we were putting carbon dioxide in the air. Both of these claims were false but global warming movement rests on this foundation.
Fortunately, satellites had started to measure global temperature in late 1978 and this is why we know that the warming he claimed did not exist in 1988. What satellites see in the eighties and nineties is a temperature oscillation, up and down by half a degree, but no warming until 1998 which is ten years after he spoke. And that warming was started by a super El Nino and had nothing to do with carbon dioxide. In four years it raised global temperature by a third of a degree and then stopped. Nothing anthropogenic about it. A third of a degree is half of what has been allotted to the entire twentieth century and this explains the unusual warmth of the first decade of this century.
As to why the temperature curves from NASA, NOAA and the Met Office show warming in the eighties and nineties is simple: they are all cooked. As in falsified. In my book (What Warming?) I show how it is done: they raise the low temperatures between high El Nino peaks which gives the curve an upward slope and call that a warming.
Coordinated action was needed to start it at the same time and an investigation of how this was accomplished is needed. It’s importance far exceeds that of Climategate which is only the tip of an iceberg compared to this criminal conspiracy. Literally trillions of dollars have been swindled out of governments by insisting on the existence of this imaginary warming.
Smokey writes,
“Note to Gneiss and Fred: Anthony has refuted your complaints.”
No, he hasn’t, although he tried changing the subject to tree rings.
“And Mann ’08 deliberately and knowingly used the corrupted Tiljander sediment proxy. Why? Because without Tiljander’s upside-down proxy, Mann couldn’t get the hockey stick shape he wanted. And the cowering journal referees didn’t dare to reject a Michael Mann paper. Only true believer CAGW Kool Aid drinkers would accept such an irretrievably damaged paper, knowing that Ms Tiljander had unwittingly used sediments that had been overturned by road construction equipment, putting the deeper sediment layers on top, and vice versa. Mann was notified of the corrupted Tiljander proxy before he published – and he published anyway. That is the act of a dishonest mann.”
Smokey, I gather that you haven’t read any of this research either? Mann et al. show (and others have replicated) that omitting the Tiljander series makes little difference to their results — except that, ironically, the Medieval Warm period looks a little less warm without Tiljander. In any event, they published graphs that show it both ways.
Just to let these much-hated scientists speak for themselves, here’s a quote from the Supplemental Information that goes with Mann 2008:
“Potential data quality problems. In addition to checking whether or
not potential problems specific to tree-ring data have any
significant impact on our reconstructions in earlier centuries (see
Fig. S7), we also examined whether or not potential problems
noted for several records (see Dataset S1 for details) might
compromise the reconstructions. These records include the four
Tijander et al. (12) series used (see Fig. S9) for which the original
authors note that human effects over the past few centuries
unrelated to climate might impact records (the original paper
states ‘‘Natural variability in the sediment record was disrupted
by increased human impact in the catchment area at A.D. 1720.’’
and later, ‘‘In the case of Lake Korttajarvi it is a demanding task
to calibrate the physical varve data we have collected against
meteorological data, because human impacts have distorted the
natural signal to varying extents’’). These issues are particularly
significant because there are few proxy records, particularly in
the temperature-screened dataset (see Fig. S9), available back
through the 9th century. The Tijander et al. series constitute 4
of the 15 available Northern Hemisphere records before that
point.
In addition there are three other records in our database with
potential data quality problems, as noted in the database notes:
Benson et al. (13) (Mono Lake): ‘‘Data after 1940 no good—
water exported to CA;’’ Isdale (14) (fluorescence): ‘‘anthropogenic
influence after 1870;’’ and McCulloch (15) (Ba/Ca):
‘‘anthropogenic influence after 1870’’.
We therefore performed additional analyses as in Fig. S7, but
instead compaired the reconstructions both with and without the
above”
I see any possible opportunity to destroy this study has been used. I wish you folks that wish to say the earth is now warmer than it has ever been before would take the time to be consistent. Also, take the time to criticize things that apply in the real world. There is a level of mindlessness in not only your criticisms but also in your defenses of the criticisms.
bubbagyro says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:59 am
You are right—Gneiss, Fred and Sir Paul Squarepants, or whoever,
What is telling about them that though their ilk insists the science is settled they still spend a Saturday morning trying to defend what they tell us is already settled. Aren’t there better ways for them to spend a Saturday morning? One would think they’d rest in their settled science and take a vacation. But, as it is, the more there are signs the earth is cooling the more they are working on web sites like WUWT to tell everyone global warming is happening. I came across one of them yesterday who is trying to say we can expect an increase in glaciation as the earth warms more.
So we see science, data, and common sense, none of these things are germane in their movement. To them man is causing the earth to warm, they believe it, and that settles it.
This is an interesting study, but it is one of many.
A look at 6 previously published studies of Alaska, which cover the last 2000 years, indicates that Alaska is much warmer now than it was in the MWP.
http://www.pages-igbp.org/products/newsletters/2009-1/special%20section/science%20highlights/Kaufman_2009-1%2810-11%29.pdf
It would be interesting to see the midge studies and the others analysed with a consistent methodology to compare them and determine an overall trend including uncertainty.
Given that many studies, such as this one, have contradicting results when compared to other studies, what value is gained from stating that ANY study is ‘peer reviewed’?
Roger Knights says:
January 29, 2011 at 11:37 am
Jim says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:58 am
Using biological anything seems risky. I guess if you had a lot of different biological proxies, then you could be more certain. But can’t a virus or bacterium come along and wipe out 1/3 or some number of the midges, like the black plague did humans? Other species have diseases too.
“They aren’t measuring the number of midges, but the ratio of cold-adapted midges to warm-adapted midges.”
Thank you Roger Knights as, though you were answering a different Jim, you answered my questions as well. Like I said in my post, I don’t know much about bugs.
Amino writes,
“What is telling about them that though their ilk insists the science is settled they still spend a Saturday morning trying to defend what they tell us is already settled. Aren’t there better ways for them to spend a Saturday morning?”
My ilk likes multitasking. Me, I’ve been doing a whole bunch of other things while just occasionally dropping by to post a reality-check note at WUWT.
KD says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:59 am
Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but this paper, like the others before it, and the discussion they generate to me lead directly to one very clear conclusion:
There is not enough data to conclude that the climate we are experiencing today is or is not influenced by CO2.
A quick look at Jones CRU 99 dataset for Sitka, Alaska shows that the period from 1869 to 1940 was warmer than from 1950 to present:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/Sitka.GIF
Merovign writes,
“There is, sadly, no argument. Paul, Fred, and Gneiss arrived at this study with conclusion in hand,”
Hah, Fred and I are the only ones here who actually looked at this study to find out what it said. You’ve got reality backwards.
Looks like a fine study to me. Have you read it?
Richard Telford says:
January 29, 2011 at 8:52 am
And thank you for answering my question as well. I now know more about bugs and bat droppings than I ever thought I would want to know. But I guess I still feel there are too many potentail exogenous variables to say too much about the relationship between midge colonies and temperature over thousands of years.
Seems pretty cut and dried to me that the entire AGW theory is as crazy as a rat in a corn crib.
Paul H says:
January 29, 2011 at 10:04 am
“I see certain commenters are getting their knickers in a twist trying to belittle this paper.
For their benefit, the paper is just one small part of a very big jigsaw, of which most of the pieces have been lost.
This does not mean we should ignore it.”
———–
Indeed. The flood of new research and information that has been unleashed by the partial lifting of the muzzle by Climategate proves one thing – that this debate cannot be over because there is so much still unknown, and so much we are still learning.
This simple reality confirms that anyone screaming that the debate is/was over was being anti-scientific and ideological. The shrill certainty of the AGW gang looks exactly like the rants of religious fundamentalists to me. So do their fear-mongering warnings of floods, droughts and plagues of ‘Biblical proportions,’ not to mention their analogy of hell to come from the planetary fever, IF we do not do what they say.
Gneiss says:
January 29, 2011 at 1:26 pm
“My ilk likes multitasking. Me, I’ve been doing a whole bunch of other things while just occasionally dropping by to post a reality-check note at WUWT.”
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Rock off Gnasty!