All these things happened before CO2, AGW, and worldwide worry wartism, and yet someday, somehow, we are warned, it will be worse, except that it isn’t likely. That and this zinger: “Climate models have yet to simulate the full scope of the event.” Well, of course, how can you simulate such an event with such spotty paleo data anyway? And then the author says:
“There’s much less ice left to collapse into the North Atlantic now,” Stager says, “so I’d be surprised if it could all happen again–at least on such a huge scale.”
So why did you lead with this?
How severe can climate change become in a warming world?
Worse than anything we’ve seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science.
At least they didn’t claim that the ancient megadrought was somehow “teleconnected” to our current CO2 level through time. That’s probably the next big breakthrough.
Extreme megadrought in Afro-Asian region likely had consequences for Paleolithic cultures
A boat on Lake Tanganyika today; the lake’s ancient surface water level fell dramatically. |
From the National Science Foundation
How severe can climate change become in a warming world?
Worse than anything we’ve seen in written history, according to results of a study appearing this week in the journal Science.
An international team of scientists led by Curt Stager of Paul Smith’s College, New York, has compiled four dozen paleoclimate records from sediment cores in Lake Tanganyika and other locations in Africa.
The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more struck Africa and Southern Asia 17,000 to 16,000 years ago.
Between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago, large amounts of ice and meltwater entered the North Atlantic Ocean, causing regional cooling but also major drought in the tropics, says Paul Filmer, program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research along with NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences and its Division of Ocean Sciences.
“The height of this time period coincided with one of the most extreme megadroughts of the last 50,000 years in the Afro-Asian monsoon region with potentially serious consequences for the Paleolithic humans that lived there at the time,” says Filmer.
The “H1 megadrought,” as it’s known, was one of the most severe climate trials ever faced by anatomically modern humans.
Africa’s Lake Victoria, now the world’s largest tropical lake, dried out, as did Lake Tana in Ethiopia, and Lake Van in Turkey.
The Nile, Congo and other major rivers shriveled, and Asian summer monsoons weakened or failed from China to the Mediterranean, meaning the monsoon season carried little or no rainwater.
What caused the megadrought remains a mystery, but its timing suggests a link to Heinrich Event 1 (or “H1”), a massive surge of icebergs and meltwater into the North Atlantic at the close of the last ice age.
Previous studies had implicated southward drift of the tropical rain belt as a localized cause, but the broad geographic coverage in this study paints a more nuanced picture.
“If southward drift were the only cause,” says Stager, lead author of the Science paper, “we’d have found evidence of wetting farther south. But the megadrought hit equatorial and southeastern Africa as well, so the rain belt didn’t just move–it also weakened.”
Climate models have yet to simulate the full scope of the event.
The lack of a complete explanation opens the question of whether an extreme megadrought could strike again as the world warms and de-ices further.
“There’s much less ice left to collapse into the North Atlantic now,” Stager says, “so I’d be surprised if it could all happen again–at least on such a huge scale.”
Given what such a catastrophic megadrought could do to today’s most densely populated regions of the globe, Stager hopes he’s right.
Stager also holds an adjunct position at the Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono.
Co-authors of the paper are David Ryves of Loughborough University in the United Kingdom; Brian Chase of the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier in France and the Department of Archaeology, University of Bergen, Norway; and Francesco Pausata of the Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, Norway.
-NSF-
Bruce Cobb and Espen beat me to pointing out the absurdity of comparing megadrought conditions when an ice age starts transitioning to an interglacial to present day conditions. That bit of ‘logic’ from the article blew my mind.
Bruce, LOVE the “Psyentists.” Don’t believe I’ve seen that one before, and it seems oh-so appropriate in oh-so many ways!
I would dearly like some mega drought to whisk its tail over southern England. Its rained every day for over 4 weeks now. Even the grass on the lawn is growing mouldy.
A yard-and-a-half of global warming wouldn’t go amiss, either.
The earth weighs roughly 6 x 10 e24 tonnes, the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is about 3 x 10 e12 tonnes. There is 10 e12 more earth than CO2, unless CO2 is raised to temperatures much, much higher than the surface of the sun, there is no way it can raise the temperature of the earth. Expecting the energy captured by CO2 to raise the earth’s temperature is like putting one drop of boiling water into a swimming pool and expecting a measurable increase in the pool’s temperature. There just isn’t enough CO2 to capture and contain enough energy to significantly change the energy content and temperature of the earth.
Atlantis was to blame. They emmitted huge amounts of C02 at the hovercreaft factories. The hovercrafts were just giant rocks that were magnetically charged to float above the planet. They would ride these cloud rocks from The bermuda Triangle (where Atlantis was before it was sunk by a meteor)
“The records show that one of the most widespread and intense droughts of the last 50,000 years or more struck Africa and Southern Asia 17,000 to 16,000 years ago.”
“Between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago, large amounts of ice and meltwater entered the North Atlantic Ocean, causing regional cooling but also major drought in the tropics…”
“What caused the megadrought remains a mystery, but its timing suggests a link to Heinrich Event 1 (or “H1″), a massive surge of icebergs and meltwater into the North Atlantic at the close of the last ice age.”
I am a slightly confused. Didn’t the last ice age close about 10,000 years ago? The Wisconsian Ice Sheet hadn’t even fully retreated from southern Canada until 7-8000 years ago. They seem to be at least 5000 years too early (probably more).
These people have truly no clues about atmospheric circulation and how climate changes are implemented through its workings.
They should read Marcel Leroux updated thesis on “Meteorology and Climate of Tropical Africa”, Springer Praxis 2001, that was a revised and updating of his 1983 PhD. His PhD was sponsored by the WMO back then for it was a ground breaking study.
For those who wish to familiarize quickly with the work of Leroux, read this article and clearly the NSF clowns better get acquainted with this work PDQ!
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
They’ll get the answer that their “megadrought” is the result of rapid mode of circulation established during a cooling period and not at all global warming!
Lets see now:
1. Heinrich events cause large scale drought at low latitudes (and we already knew that, the subject has been extensively researched).
2. Heinrich events are large scale discharges of icebergs from the Laurentide ice cap in the Hudson bay area into the North Atlantic
3. There is currently no glaciers in the Hudson bay area
4. Thus Heinrich events cannot happen, unless we first have an ice age.
5. So what is all the excitement about?
17,000 – 16,000 years ago Greenland was about 16°C (29°F) colder than it is today.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/greenland.18kyr.gif
In a sane world you’d bet the megadrought was caused by cold, not “warming”.
Steven Goddard highlights some of the press release:
I also note the words “less water evaporating off it.” I thought AGW meant increasing evaporation.
Here is an excellent piece on megdroughts from the Resilient Earth.
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/monsoons-megadroughts
Talking of monsoons and rain:
Most of Africa to get more rain
Most of Africa to get less rain
Indian monsoons to be wetter
Indian monsoons to be drier
Consider “Lake Effect” rains. They were once a daily part of much of Africa and Asia. Their absence is a large part of the recurrent drought. The cooling system is clogged with weeds and silt. The aquifer recharge areas are blocked, and the ground water is not replenished. If we weed and dredge the lakes and streams, we can have back the “Lake effect” rains. In Lakes Chad and Jipe, it is Typha, in Lake Victoria, it is water hyacinth. The Nile tributaries appear to be more Phragmites and Papyrus. You’ll find the same troubles in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Tibet. The weeds are all biomass, waiting to be biofuel.
I am currently re-reading Jules Verne’s “Around the Moon” and was amused by his comments on scientists of his time. Sound eerily like those supporters of CAGW today.
“Those gentlemen (readers) who regularly conned the scientific magazines took every word of the learned Professor’s dispatch for gospel–or rather for something of far higher value, and more strictly in accordance with the highly advanced scientific developments of the day.”
To Others, it went on “the rest of the dispatch was mere twaddle, though asserted with all the sternness of a religious dogma and enveloped in the usual scientific slang.”
My favorite passage though is: “Science, or rather pseudo-science, always exerts a mysterious attraction of an exceedingly powerful nature over the generality–that is the more ignorant portion of the human race. Assert the most absurd nonsense, call it a scientific truth, and back it up with strange words which, like “potentiality,” etc, sound as if they had a meaning but in reality have none, and nine out of every ten men who read your book will believe you. Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, and presto! you are infallible in all. Who can contradict you, if you only wrap up your assertions in specious phrases that not one man in a million attempts to ascrtain the real meaning of? We like so much to be save the trouble of thinking, that it is far easier, and more comfortable to be led than contradict, to fall in quietly with the great flock of sheep that jump blindly after their leader than to remain apart, making one’s self ridiculous by foolishly attempting to argue.”
Regards,
John
John Stover,
Thanks for those passages. The last one is very prescient [“Acquire a remarkable name in one branch of human knowledge, and presto! you are infallible in all.”]: in Copenhagen the actor Brad Pitt apparently has the expertise to save the world. And the line about “specious phrases” certainly applies to Jerome Ravitz’ unquantified [except by Jerome Ravitz] vague and undefined terms like “quality.”
The climate clique [the “Team”] has all the disingenuousness, faults and dishonesty of Elmer Gantry, but with none of his charm.
There is a need for so many inches of column each day that SOMETHING has to be written. And since sensationalism sells rather than information, that something has to be dripping with red.
It is a shame that policies at a government level are driven in this way. Not that the American war on Cuba and San Juan hill didn’t start by Hearst wanting to sell more newspapers ….
tty says:
February 25, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Lets see now:
1. Heinrich events cause large scale drought at low latitudes (and we already knew that, the subject has been extensively researched).
2. Heinrich events are large scale discharges of icebergs from the Laurentide ice cap in the Hudson bay area into the North Atlantic
3. There is currently no glaciers in the Hudson bay area
4. Thus Heinrich events cannot happen, unless we first have an ice age.
5. So what is all the excitement about?
I am with you. The scientist who wrote the paper is also. He says there isn’t enough ice floating around to make this happen.
Why is everyone talking about Nature and Science? I read them while I am waiting for checkout at the supermarket. But if you want the facts, you go for Cosmopolitan; no question about it.
http://ccb.colorado.edu/ijas/ijasno2/georgis.html
Interesting. I wonder if it was a mega-ENSO event that triggered the collapse of the ice age.