From the UK another paper with some pragmatic analysis, coupled with some rhetoric on sea ice:
Arctic climate variation under ancient greenhouse conditions
Tiny organisms preserved in marine sediments hold clues about Arctic climate variation during an ancient episode of greenhouse warming.
Based on reconstructions of Arctic climate variability in the greenhouse world of the Late Cretaceous, Southampton scientists have concluded that man-made global warming probably would not greatly change the climatic influence associated with natural modes of inter-annual climate variability such as the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Arctic Oscillation/ North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/ NAO).
“Even in the warm Cretaceous period, the patterns of these climatic oscillations changed over longer decadal timescales,” explained Professor Alan Kemp of the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. “It is therefore difficult to predict whether anthropogenically driven warming will lead to systematic changes such as persistently milder European winters (a positive AO/ NAO) as some have suggested.”
It is anticipated that the Arctic Ocean will become ice free during the summer within the next 15–50 years as a result of global warming. Because sea ice is reflective, its loss will reduce the amount of the Sun’s energy bounced back out to space, thereby amplifying regional warming. However, changes in atmospheric circulation could also occur, making it difficult to unravel the likely net effect on climate.
“A key question is how an Arctic without permanent ice cover will affect atmospheric circulation and climate variability, particularly over high and mid latitudes,” said Kemp.
One way of addressing this issue is to look back at previous greenhouse episodes in Earth’s history. For example, Kemp’s group has previously reported in the journal Nature that during the Late Cretaceous, when the dinosaurs roamed the world, the Arctic Ocean was free of ice in summer with only intermittent sea ice in the winter.
“Understanding Late Cretaceous climate should inform debate about future climate trends and variability under greenhouse conditions,” said Kemp, whose team’s new findings are published in Geophysical Research Letters.
In both studies, Kemp and his collaborators analysed sediment cores from a marine ridge in the Arctic Ocean. These sediments date to the Late Cretaceous (69–76 million years ago) and contain fossil remains of diatoms, an important group of phytoplankton – tiny planktonic marine plants.
The sediments contain alternating band-like laminae of two types, representing diatom growth conditions in the Arctic spring and summer, respectively. Each year is represented by a couplet of laminae, one of each type, which allowed the researchers to reconstruct ocean conditions at annual resolution.
“The presence of diatom laminae testify to ice-free Arctic summers during the Late Cretaceous, although there is also evidence of ice rafting by intermittent winter ice,” said Kemp.
The researchers analysed two sections of sediment core covering between them a continuous period of around 1,000 years. By analysing the characteristics of the diatom laminae and measuring their thickness they were able to reconstruct climate-driven variation in ocean conditions both between years and over decades.
Their analyses revealed that the Arctic climate of the Late Cretaceous varied over various timescales with periodicities closely matching those observed in the modern Arctic. It therefore appears that the Arctic was subject to some of the same climatic influences in the Late Cretaceous as it is today, including ENSO, which periodically transmits equatorial influences to high-latitudes via ocean-atmosphere interactions.
“A modern Arctic lacking permanent sea ice should be subject to similar influences as it was under greenhouse conditions in the Late Cretaceous,” said Kemp.
This is important because there has been an ongoing debate about whether natural modes of climate variability such as ENSO and AO/ NAO would be perturbed or enhanced by global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Particular controversy has surrounded whether such warming could cause a permanent El Niño state or milder European winters.
“Based on our findings, it seems unlikely that man-made global warming would cause a permanent El Niño state,” concluded Kemp.
The researchers are Andrew Davies, Alan Kemp, and Heiko Pälike of the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.
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When El Nino (and ENSO, PDO, SOI) is concerned, most of the climate scientist behave like a blind man in a deep, deep dark room, trying to catch a black cat.
Basically they have no idea.
substitute Cretaceous, anthropogenically driven warming, etc….
…with CO2 levels 2 to 8 times higher than present
This would also support Bob Tisdale’s research.
Blogger Tamino, however, should stop avoiding the scientific method and postulate speculations. such as:
“Bob Tisdale (and others) simply can’t wrap their brains around the fact that global warming is the cause, not the effect, of much of the changes in N.Atl SST anomaly. Therefore global warming is the cause, not the effect, of much of the variation in the AMO.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/03/tisdale-tasks-tamino/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/03/tisdale-tasks-tamino/
You mean it’s not worse than we thought?
I suspect that Antarctica has a bit more to do with El Nino than the Arctic, and not only will it not be ice free in this geological epoch, but outside of the peninsula, there appears to be no warming at all.
Haven’t these people ever heard of continental drift?
The Earth was a very different place 65-70 million years ago. The Himalayas didn’t exist, the Atlantic Ocean was much smaller and Siberia and North America were much further apart. What effect would that have had on atmospheric and oceanic circulation?
While these past re-constructions are interesting in themselves, to suggest that what may have happened 70 million years ago has any direct relevance to what may happen in the 21st. century is a huge stretch, and that’s putting it (very) politely.
Oh darn. Too late to include this research into the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, so well just have to go with Tamino’s assessment of the AMO influence.
What was that somebody said in a recent post about a little bitty tail wagging a great big dog??
I didn’t find any of the newspeak-keywords.
Robust, unprecedented, unequivocal, ….hmmm….oh yes, concensus.
Very refreshing.
There is also an interesting article about sea level rise in the Falklands where it was measuered at 0.75mm a year until the early 1980s. From 1992 it jumped to 2.5mm a year.
http://noc.ac.uk/news/measuring-sea-level-rise-falklands
The capital of the Falklands was discovered due to a dim-witted naval pilot called Stan, who couldn’t tell his right from left. He swung the ship to the right and crashed into a bay, whereupon the captain shouted at him “I said PORT, Stanley !”
(That joke copyright Private Eye magazine 1982 )
The earth’s surface temperatures have oscillated since the dawn of time. Primarily a function of suns output in radiation on the earths external surface. During the aurignacian oscillations the oceans were at times 125 feet above what they are today. Caveman coal plants did not do that. The sun did.
In a section discussing the effects of continental drift on oceanic circulation, and the onset of the glaciation periods. Global Tectonics 3rd ed has this interesting nugget of info…
Really this research is about looking at microfossils in marine sediments. That is what these guys do. But of course you can’t publish a paper that says simply “we looks at microfossils in marine sediments and we noticed some variation”. You need to hang some sort of justification and interpretation on this basic observation to get it into a journal.
Providing evidence fo rthe effects of climate change used to be the great justifier of research of this type. Thousands of papers on all sorts of topics have been published with tenuous and contrived links to climate change used in order to justify the research.
What I find interesting is that this paper uses the debunking of climate change to achieve the same effect. Two or three years ago I don’t think a paper like this would have been submitted. The world has changed.
This bit…
“Based on reconstructions of Arctic climate variability in the greenhouse world of the Late Cretaceous, Southampton scientists have concluded that man-made global warming probably would not greatly change the climatic influence associated with natural modes of inter-annual climate variability such as the El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the Arctic Oscillation/ North Atlantic Oscillation (AO/ NAO).”
That is the meat, the rest is rent seeking, but at least they were honest enough to write the quote above.
Houses of cards falling, etc.
Ian H says:
February 11, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Really this research is about looking at microfossils in marine sediments. That is what these guys do. But of course you can’t publish a paper that says simply “we looks at microfossils in marine sediments and we noticed some variation”. You need to hang some sort of justification and interpretation on this basic observation to get it into a journal.
Providing evidence fo rthe effects of climate change used to be the great justifier of research of this type. Thousands of papers on all sorts of topics have been published with tenuous and contrived links to climate change used in order to justify the research.
What I find interesting is that this paper uses the debunking of climate change to achieve the same effect. Two or three years ago I don’t think a paper like this would have been submitted. The world has changed.
I don’t see any evidence that they are” debunking climate change”. In fact, the author says:
It is anticipated that the Arctic Ocean will become ice free during the summer within the next 15–50 years as a result of global warming. Because sea ice is reflective, its loss will reduce the amount of the Sun’s energy bounced back out to space, thereby amplifying regional warming. However, changes in atmospheric circulation could also occur, making it difficult to unravel the likely net effect on climate.
“A key question is how an Arctic without permanent ice cover will affect atmospheric circulation and climate variability, particularly over high and mid latitudes,” said Kemp.
Where is this “Greenhouse World”? Perhaps we will soon see it next to Disney World ?
They just have to keep on begging that question. Notice how ‘obviously’ any warming that occurred historically is “greenhouse” warming. Couldn’t possibly be any other cause, now could it? Doesn’t matter that often (most of the time?) CO2 levels lagged the temperature increases as best we can tell, cripes, that’s STILL greenhouse warming, ain’t it obvious? /sarc Just state it as if its a clear well established fact, and eventually all will believe (they need Obi Wan Kenobi wave of the hand mind control on a world wide scale I suppose). Brand any and all warming, Earth millions of years ago, Venus, you name it – clearly it’s greenhouse gas caused. Sheesh.
Seems like it contains some propaganda. One doesn’t need to go so far back in time.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/08/inconvenient-ice-study-less-ice-in-the-arctic-ocean-6000-7000-years-ago/
Again we have “scientists” ignorant of what they talk about. A permanent El Nino state is an oxymoron because El Nino is a periodic phenomenon and has been ever since the Panamanian Seaway closed. It is part of ENSO, the El Nino – Southern Oscillation in the Pacific Ocean. ENSO is a physical oscillation of ocean water from shore to shore in the equatorial Pacific. It is comprised of warm El Nino and cool La Nina phases and one cycle takes four-five years to complete. There is no way to make it stand still which is what you would have to do to create a permanent El Nino state. Read “What Warming?” and find out the facts.
As recently covered on WUWT – it’s much worse than we thought.
See also:
Ice free Arctic ocean during the Holocene ~10,000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.08.016
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP11A0203F
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/227
The author most likely won’t be around in 50 years time. :>)
Call me a sceptic if you like: :>)
http://www.c3headlines.com/predictionsforecasts/
Warmer Northern Hemisphere winters
Colder Northern Hemisphere winters
Earth’s rotation to slow down
Earth’s rotation to speed up
North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty
North Atlantic Ocean has become more salty
Avalanches may increase
Avalanches may decrease
Plants move uphill
Plants move downhill
Fascinating stuff. The ice ages started 3 million years ago. One wonders if these oceanic oscillations started with them, or were always present. This suggests they were always there.
Too bad they had to add that AGW clap-trap. Now I don’t know if part of their paper is a lie or all of it is. pg
Each year is represented by a couplet of laminae, one of each type, which allowed the researchers to reconstruct ocean conditions at annual resolution.
Annual resolution for conditions 65+ million years ago is pretty impressive. I wonder how closely they can date that particular 1000 year segment.
Firstly:
So how was this determined? Would that be by using a model perhaps? Or a time machine?
Next, this idea of a permanent El Nino is one that is designed to frighten, or at least alarm. There is a cycle of El Nino, / La Nina. Predicting even the possibility of one without the other is ludicrous. It implies a state of constant warm water rising in the Pacific (as I understand it). That cannot continue forever, and there must be an opposite flow to return the warm water (or bring up cold water).
Perhaps I have that wrong, or way to simple, but the idea seems to be that there would be some kind of permanent warming due to some fantasy of a cycle that doesn’t cycle any more. That is horse apples.
Interestingly enough, there is no ~11 yr solar cycle signal in the data:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL046151.pdf