Guest Post by David Middleton
I just love it when the authors of these sorts of articles start out with a series of mistakes…
The Anthropocene: Can Humans Survive A Human Age?
by Adam Frank
About 12,000 years ago (give or take a thousand) the glaciers covering much of the northern hemisphere disappeared and an ice age gripping the Earth ended. The planet became warmer, wetter and entered the geological era scientists call the Holocene. Marked by a stable climate, the Holocene has been good to humans. The entire history of our civilization (agriculture, city building, writing etc.) is bound within the Holocene and its bounty of productive land and oceans.
Now, it appears, the Holocene is over…
[…]
The author, an astrophysicist, must have never taken a course in Quaternary geology.
Mistake #1: “About 12,000 years ago (give or take a thousand) the glaciers covering much of the northern hemisphere disappeared and an ice age gripping the Earth ended.”
The glaciers retreated; but we are still very much in the grip of an ice age that began about 35 million years ago (the x-axes of first four graphs are denominated in millions of years ago (MYA) – Today is to the left)…
The boundary between the Eocene and Oligocene marks the beginning of the Cenozoic ice age. It’s the fourth major ice age of the Phanerozoic Eon…
The Holocene is an interglacial period within an ice age. The only thing that distinguishes the Holocene from previous Pleistocene interglacial episodes is the fact that modern man migrated out of Africa and hunted the megafauna of Europe and North America into extinction…
Yes… I know that there’s not much evidence that our ancestors were capable of causing so much extinction prior to the invention of capitalism – But those megafauna had coped with all of the previous glacial-interglacial cycles just fine, so long as our ancestors stayed in Africa.
At this point in time there is no reason to assume that the Holocene marked the end of the Cenozoic ice age… There’s not even any reason to think that it marked the end of very cold Quaternary Period…
Mistake #2: “Marked by a stable climate, the Holocene has been good to humans.”
The Holocene has been a heck of a lot more stable than the preceding Pleistocene glacial episode (the x-axes of next three graphs are denominated in calendar years – Today is to the right)…
But it has been far from stable…
And it hasn’t always been nice to humans…
The Holocene of the Dark Ages Cold Period and Little Ice Age were quite often very unkind to humans.
Will there one day be a clear geological distinction between the “Anthropocene” and the Holocene and the rest of the Quaternary? I seriously doubt it – But no one will know for hundreds of thousands of years.
Professor Frank started out with a paragraph-full of mistakes; which then formed the basis of his sheer speculation about the Anthropocene’s future relevance in the geologic record.
H/T to Bill Illis for much of the paleoclimate data.
NO I strongly disagree….I know about all the stuff you have just posted. And I have NO DOUBT that “The author, an astrophysicist” knows this stuff too.
However I also have used the same words. i.e interglacial, ice age, etc. in talks that I have given. It is a form of ‘excepted wisdom’ that the public ‘know about’ and can relate to.
Telling them that we ‘still in an ice age’ means little to them. The Holocene ending in an Ice age (at some point) IS TRUE enough.
I agree with Peter George ( June 25, 2011 at 1:47 am ) who says
“It’s fairly routine for people to refer to the recent glacial advances as ice ages. Calling someone on that is sort of nit-picky”
Phil says:
June 25, 2011 at 12:10 am
“AGW as a theory needs to explain the paradox of scale. When zoomed in to the last couple of hundred years, linear projections predict future continued warming. However, when zoomed out to millions of years, linear projections predict future continued cooling, which cooling has been happening since about 7 million years ago.”
Mainstream science understands the “paradox” of scale perfectly well. While being aware of what happened over millions of years, we are also aware that over the scale of tens of thousands of years, the scale of human civilisation, climate has been relatively stable. We are then aware that over the scale of hundreds of years, CO2 has gone up 40%, relative to the fairly stable level of the previous few thousand years, and that temperatures have risen in line with that, accepting that there are wiggles due to other factors.
We zoom in on thousands of years and see stability (yes, really). We then zoom in further on hundreds of years and see an uprecedented rate of change. It is the rate of change more than the absolute level which is problematic. And it is the scale of hundreds of years that matters to us, our children and our children’s children.
No links, Google is your friend 🙂
An ice age is what we are in. Ice ages comprise glacials and interglacials. We are currently in an interglacial. There’s nothing nit-picky about getting your terminology correct. These terms exist for the reason of accuracy and clarity.
Where is it written that the current iteration of hominids is the last? Evolution marches on, driven by many factors. The warmists seem to think that evolution stops here. Our far future progeny may very well be unrecognizable to us. So what?
Possibly the origin of this new terminology “Anthropocene” comes from our chief alarmist, Professor Will Steffen, of the Australian National University (A.N.U.) in Canberra. Professor Steffen has been an author on two IPCC reports and an expert reviewer on two of these reports. He is a scientific adviser to the Australian Department of Climate Change and Environment.
Here is a a link to one of the conferences – Stockhlm University 2007, “Surviving the Anthropocene” – there are many others listed on Google.
http://tinyurl.com/67bwllv
Unless your into self punishment, I would suggest that you don’t watch the 1hr 2min video
Curiousgeorge says:
June 25, 2011 at 4:29 am
Where is it written that the current iteration of hominids is the last? Evolution marches on, driven by many factors. The warmists seem to think that evolution stops here. Our far future progeny may very well be unrecognizable to us. So what?
I care more about my children and grandchildren than “far future progeny”. Back to that “paradox” of scale again!
The Anthropocene: Can Humans Survive A Human Age?
My guess is that, by definition, the Human Age ends when the last human dies. So the answer is … NO.
the glaciers covering much of the northern hemisphere disappeared
a) How much of the NH? In New England, Cape Cod and the nearby islands are terminal moraines that mark the southern extent of the glaciers here. That’s about latitude 40N. Oh wow – if the area of the NH is 1 (unit terran hemisphere!), then the surface area of a band from the equator to a latitude is just the sine of the latitude. I never knew that. So, if glaciers covered everything down to 40°N, then the uncovered area is sin(40) = 0.64. So glaciers only covered about a third of the NH. Perhaps that qualifies as “much,” at least if you want to be alarming so you get attention.
b) They haven’t all disappeared!
And we are finding out more and more that so called pristine paradise jungles like the Amazon are in fact…anthropogenic. They didn’t exist before man settled on the land and enriched the soil. So how do we get eggheads claiming man is destroying the Amazon???
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Prof. Adam Frank and the whole gang of propagandists and proselytizers at NPR have been in the midst of a concerted campaign of missionary sales ( at the expense of science ) during the past several months. Some of us have attempted to respond with fact only to be shouted down with a barrage of insults and John Cook-Gavin-Romm Kool-Aid “science.” It’s a bit difficult to be heard and frustrating when one side controls the megaphones and the microphones.
If anyone cares to join the discussions:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/06/21/137317694/the-anthropocene-can-humans-survive-a-human-age
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/21/137309964/climate-change-public-skeptical-scientists-sure
The reference to humans hunting megafauna to extintion is not only unproven and unnecessesary, but gives sympathy to the left narrative that humans are responsible for everything. After-all, a lot of african megafauna survived, even though that’s where men originated.
******
Phil says:
June 25, 2011 at 12:10 am
I would submit that the formation of the isthmus of Panama may be responsible. Before formation of the isthmus of Panama, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans were connected near the equator.
******
Perhaps, but IIRC, the climate was “stable” & remained warm for about a million yrs after the isthmus closed. That’s a long time — far longer than any cycle, like ocean bottom-water flow. Also, the isthmus, even before closing, caused the water to become very shallow there & deep-water currents there were shut off for some time.
I don’t know for sure, of course, but I apply some skepticism to the closing isthmus causing the current ice-age.
Geologists in particular seem to be most skeptical of AGW and it’s hard to ignore them when they show up with 25 million years of data. Thanks “evil” David Middleton.
I had never put it together that interglacial meant we are within a current ice age. Now it seems so obvious.
Given the way climate scientists line up for public money, I dare say we’re in the anthroporcine epoch.
All part of the propaganda. By giving it a name you legitimise it.
If we are going to call it the anthropocene pehaps we should also have the mammothocene and the dinosaurocene.
One has to simply look at the last interglacial period, Eemian, to see how interglacials play out.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc130k.html
Why hasn’t this information been more widely disseminated to the followers of AGW?
GabrielHBay says:
June 25, 2011 at 2:10 am
@sleepalot: LOL yes, and even now with modern rifles and vastly higher numbers man has STILL not managed to devour the African megafauna… so what on earth was wrong with these pathetic European and North American megafauna? No survival fitness? Or was the devourer not the same african man who migrated north? Strange how common sense logic gets in the way of science… (sarc or not? Who knows?)
My visit to Africa gave me the answer to the question above… DISEASE kept the Europeans at bay. Good old malaria and sleeping sickness. Without it, Africa would be ploughed up and fenced like the USA west. If Africans ever get the go ahead to blast the insects with DDT, the result will be the wild grasslands to be populated and the wild herds areas will dissapear. I keep voting for the staus quo, but it will be a miracle for the wild areas to survive the population explosions of the Massai etc.
Didn’t many species of large animals in North America go extinct about the time humans migrated into North America? Wasn’t that many thousands of years ago?
Now tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that had nothing to do with CO2.
How about whales, bears, wolves, eagles, etc., etc., Aren’t animal populations largely stable or increasing in areas where they are no longer being hunted? How about in cities? Aren’t animal populations also increasing in cities where they are no longer being hunted or otherwise removed?
Isn’t human caused extinction now mostly a result of land use? Over the past 150 years human land use has gone from 4% of the surface of the earth to 40%, mostly for agriculture. Surely that is the dominant factor. As land is converted to agriculture, it is no longer available to many of the native species, leading to their extinction.
CO2 is also increasing, leading to the mistaken conclusion that CO2 is driving extinction, when in reality it is land use.
Looking at CO2 vs Temperature above, it is apparent that two major ices ages, 170 and 450 million years ago, took place during times of high CO2. The two other ice ages, took place during times of low CO2.
This would suggest very strongly that CO2 is not a long term driver of temperature. Looking at the rest of the graph there appears to be no significant correlation between CO2 and temperature over the past 600 million years. Temperature and CO2 have gone up and down independent of each other.
This graph would suggest that there is no long term CO2 GHG effect on earth. CO2 and Temperature may be related in the short term, but in the long term there is no correlation.
I collected an Ordovician nautiloid in northern Saskatchewan- a gastropod with a long straight tapered shell with a screw-like interior chambering developed as it grew, the living portion (at the time!) occupying the last forward chamber.
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Ordovician%20fossils%20gastropod%20nautilus&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
It is over one foot long, is about 440 million years old and lived in a sea covering much of the area that became North America – CO2 in the atmos was about 5000ppmv and this fed a global deposition of limestones. The seas were teeming with life (whatever the acidity level was). Sea levels were:
“… high during the Ordovician period, ranging from 180 meters (590 feet) above modern sea level at the beginning to a peak in the late Ordovician of 220m (722ft) and then falling rapidly near the end of the period to 140m (459ft) (Huq 2008). Coincident with the drop in sea level was drop in the global mean temperature of nearly 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit).
During the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into a single continent called Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole. As with North America and Europe, Gondwana was largely covered with shallow seas during the Ordovician. Shallow clear waters over continental shelves encouraged the growth of organisms that deposit calcium carbonates in their shells and hard parts. Panthalassic Ocean covered much of the northern hemisphere, …”
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=ordovician%20seas%20north%20america&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
(scroll down a short way to “Ordovician Paleogeography”)
So much for unprecedented, settled science, robust models, and irreversible tipping points.
“It’s a bit difficult to be heard and frustrating when one side controls the megaphones and the microphones”
My 80 year old Mom was convinced that AGW was real. She saw the dead polar bears and was sold. Then she learned of the financial connections between the politicians and scientists promoting AGW and she smelled a rat.
People don’t always understand the science – even the scientists can’t agree. What they do understand is human greed and the willingness of people to believe and say whatever is in their best interests, regardless of the facts.
Consider the recent sea-level study. The area in question, the barrier islands have some of the most expensive properties in the country. The owners are among the richest and most influential people on the planet.
Look at the benefits of the study. Suddenly the erosion problems on the barrier islands are not natural. They are the result of human activity. This provides ammunition to petition the government to pay the cost of erosion control.
Instead of the very wealthy land owners paying the cost of preserving their houses built on shifting sands, the argument can be made that the taxpayer should pay the cost. After all, you can’t become wealthy paying for things out of your own pocket.
In return it would not be unusual for these same land owners to make generous donations to the universities involved in gratitude for their fine work. The first rule of journalism. Don’t concern yourself with the facts, write what sells. The same applies for science.
If you are going to write a scientific study it makes much more sense to write a study that serves the interests of the well connected than it is to write a study that serves the interests of the poor. It doesn’t matter if the science is right or wrong – no one can prove this – it is simply a difference of opinion between experts. What matters is who stands to gain.
Sleepalot says:
June 25, 2011 at 1:27 am
Forgive me if I’m wrong, I’m no scientist but, aiui, ….
Man migrated out of Africa 50,000 years ago – well before the Holocene.
Also if man devoured all the european megafauna, why didn’t he devour all the African megafauna – that would’ve involved less walking.
Quite right to question the orthodoxy, To blame early humans for killing off not just one species of mega fauna but dozens is far fetched to say the least. The industrial sustained slaughter of millions of animals over a period of time would have left traces that nobody has yet found, the human population levels and clan sizes needed to sustain mass killings is not supported by the archaeological evidence. Even hunter gatherers leave traces, they trod well known hunting circuits, the same patterns for tens of thousands of years leaving middens and traces of fires. There is no firm evidence of mass slaughter and butchery locations, it takes a hell of a lot of energy to bring down and dismantle one giant animal, a small tribe of hunter gatherers would be hard pressed to bring down a giant elk let alone consume the animal.
There is too much of the story missing and too much is being inferred or guessed at, the experts have only the scantiest actual firm evidence and the huge gaps are filled with extrapolation and guess work. Take numbers, the giant elk lived in huge herds and their ranges were huge, small clans of humans could follow the herds and take sick and elderly with relative ease along migration routes competing with the wolf packs. In fact the early humans would have mimicked the wolf pack behaviour but to suggest that small isolated clans of lets say 30-40 individuals of which only 10 max would be prime male fit hunters could wipe out entire herds is far fetched. There is no evidence to suggest a gathering of clans for a hunting season, no evidence of over sized clans using advanced industrial and highly advanced mass slaughter techniques until way past the end of the extinction event an into the bronze age. The number of humans needed to sustain a mass slaughter is simply not supported by the evidence.
Curiousgeorge says, June 25, 2011 at 4:29 am:
Where is it written that the current iteration of hominids is the last? Evolution marches on, driven by many factors. The warmists seem to think that evolution stops here. Our far future progeny may very well be unrecognizable to us. So what?
(My emphasis)
Worse – they seem to think that this, the present, is the perfect end-state of evolution, which should therefore be made to stop right now. Even the minutest perceived change is seen as detrimental.
They look at ‘deviations’ in years, decades or even centennia – mere seconds in geological time.
Like hypochondriacs, they stare at the slightest change and become thoroughly alarmed.
Sadly, they don’t run to see their doctors – they have set up the IPCC instead …
“Sleepalot says:
June 25, 2011 at 1:56 am
Isn’t it the grasses that dominate the planet?”
Nope. Bacteria
ferd berple says @ur momisugly June 25, 2011 at 7:32 am ”
Looking at CO2 vs Temperature above, it is apparent that two major ices ages, 170 and 450 million years ago, took place during times of high CO2. The two other ice ages, took place during times of low CO2.”
Sigh, here we go again.
Ferd – are you claiming at only CO2 regulates climate? Are all forces from 170 and 450 million years ago identical now except for CO2?