Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A range of proxy records, supported by contemporaneous descriptions of the weather, all agree that the earth went through what is called the “Little Ice Age”. The coldest part seems to have been somewhere around 1700, at which time it was perhaps two or three degrees colder than at present. Akasufo, for example, estimates the warming to have been on the order of half a degree per century. Figure 1 shows the analysis of one of the many proxies, the Greenland ice core data:
Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
Modern thermometer records show similar results. For the most extreme example, the recently released (and still unverified) BEST temperature data shows a warming of nearly 2°C over the last two centuries.
Now, compare and contrast that with the opening salvo of the “Durban Platform for Enhanced Action“. That’s the two page document that was the sole and total result of the labors of the 10,000 delegates and camp followers at the recent Durban climate party. I busted out laughing when I read the following:
The Conference of the Parties, … Noting with grave concern the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, and aggregate emission pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C or 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels,
Now, “pre-industrial” in IPCC jargon means 1750. Which brings up the following question:
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
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Arno Arrack says
Apparently those who want us to keep the temperature rise down don’t want us to know where these numbers come from.
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Apparently not because the numbers are out there, you just have not found them yet.
We are currently at 390ppm CO2 and we should probably get nervous about CO2 reaching 650ppm. If things do look bad at 650ppm and we decide to do something serious about it only then, it will be to late. The genie is out of the bottle and can’t be put back in.
Willis says
Given that temperatures have gone up on the order of 2°C since 1800, what are our chances of limiting the temperature rise to a degree and a half above the 1750 temperatures, as these folks insist that we should do?
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My lying eyes say the temperature has gone up by 1C not 2C. By that I mean the underlying trend, and ignoring maximum and minimum excursions.
sunsettommy says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Thanks, fixed.
w.
LazyTeenager says:
December 17, 2011 at 4:57 pm
Sorry for the lack of clarity. I was referring to the BEST temperature record, not Figure 1.
w.
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records…. One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
Some might say the Maunder and Dalton Minimums and 20th Century Maximum qualify. They certainly are superior to what seem to be acceptable variations to the paleo-proxy pundits.
LazyTeenager says:
December 17, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Before I get nervous I like to have at least a little evidence that there is something to get nervous about. Temperatures have gone up somewhere around a couple of degrees since the pre-industrial depth of the Little Ice Age somewhere around 1700. Clearly most of this temperature increase is not from CO2 … so what is it from? No one knows.
Until we do know, the default assumption would have to be that the earth would continue to warm. It has generally done so, up until the last 15 years. Perhaps you are surprised.
During the last half century or so, both hemlines and CO2 levels have increased. No one has shown that either one is the cause of changes in global average air temperature.
Finally, the couple of degrees warming since the Little Ice Age has generally been beneficial for humans. I see no reason to think that another two degrees would be other than that, and certainly not a global catastrophe.
So you are free to be as nervous as you wish. I’ll pass until we have some evidence in hand, and not just Tinkertoy model results.
w.
LazyTeenager says: December 17, 2011 at 4:50 pm
“We are currently at 390ppm CO2 and we should probably get nervous about CO2 reaching 650ppm.”
Under the following assumtions, we reach 650 ppm in the year around 2150. Calm down please.
(1) The current rate of CO2 emission continues.
(2) Fossil fuels are available throughoout.
(3) No new energy generating technology is available by then.
140 years is a long long time. Only 40 years ago here in Japan, when I was undergrad/grad student, the tools for research were a ruler calculator, a manual typewriter, and diazo copying apparatus. Nobody was able to imagine a day with fast personal computer, a magical cell phone, the magnificent internet , etc.
Mooloo says:
December 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
…..Food can be safe and nutritious, or not. Plants can be safe to the overall environment, or not. The origin of the food and the plants is entirely irrelevant to the criteria of nutrition and safety.
The repulsion with GM food is just a taboo, and like all taboos it has no other validity. Like the way the French eat horse quite happily and Koreans eat dog, yet apparently most Anglos consider that vile! Those taboos are quickly overcome when life depends on it – as with diabetics and their insulin. Starving Africans are unlikely to feel that they should continue to starve because you have an issue with fish genes in tomatoes.
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Not in my case.
My problem with GMP foods is being a guinea pig because Micheal Taylor (a Lawyer for Monsanto) got the FDA to rule that gene inserted plants [correct term transgenic] were “substantially equivalent” to normal hybridization and needed no testing before marketing. http://www.ijsaf.org/archive/16/1/lotter1.pdf
KEY FDA DOCUMENTS REVEALING: (1) HAZARDS OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOODS–AND (2) FLAWS WITH HOW THE AGENCY MADE ITS POLICY: http://biointegrity.org/list.html
The sale of Starlite corn in third world countries and causing major health problems did not help GMOs image. Then having Monsanto sue the heck out of loads of farmers along with the WTO, the UN and EU push licensed only seed/ no seed saving allowed did not endear GMOs/Monsanto to anyone either.
If they did the Darn TESTING and did not hide the results I would not have a problem. Intellectually I think the idea is fascinating.
I should also add that studies like this do not help either:
GM food toxins found in the blood of 93% of unborn babies
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1388888/GM-food-toxins-blood-93-unborn-babies.html
DirkH says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:44 pm
JustMEinT Musings says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:02 pm
“Everything is “genetically modified”. … does what you are saying equate to evolution ? naturally evolving versus round-up ready”
The active ingredient in Round-up is glyphosate, and glyphosate-resistant weeds are naturally evolving all the time. No qualitative difference.
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Actually there has been some studies showing Horizontal Gene Transfer from GMOs
From Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%E2%80%9Chorizontal+gene+transfer.%E2%80%9D+ISIS&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Annie says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:23 pm
“I don’t think that Mother Nature would insert a fish gene into a tomato somehow.”
I seem to recall reading things that suggest you are perhaps 50 to 60 years behind the known science. Not about the fish/tomato bit, just in general.
By the time I could find references and post, things will have moved on, so I hope you check back here and then do your own research.
But, here is a start:
http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/topics/transformation/
I know this is a sniggling, tiny point….but the one thing Algore has accomplished is that most people no longer misspell “Consensus” as “concensus”.
(Not sure if it’s worth a Nobel Prize, tho…)
Leif Svalgaard says:
December 17, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“Figure 1. Greenland temperatures from 1000 AD to 1950, as indicated by ice core records. Image from CO2 Science, based on an interesting study by Kobashi et al.
One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
I don’t know. Look at this site… http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html
Lassen says “Greenland ice core 1550-1974
Dansgaard et al. (1975) compared temperature variations derived from the 18-O concerntration in snow fallen in Central Greenland with temperatures in Iceland through the interval 900-1970. They concluded that most of the pronounced medium frequency (60ï 200 yr periods) oscillations back to 900 are essentially in phase, so that the 18-O curve is representative of climatic changes far beyond the Greenland area. In accordance with their conclusion we show in Fig.11 that the temperature data derived from the ice-core in Central Greenland like the variation of sea-ice extent at Iceland have varied in concert with the medium length solar activity during most of a 500 year period.”
Lassen shows a graph (don’t know how to show it here) which appears to be general agreement with the figure 1 of Willis.
Who is right??? I don’t know.
The real challenge for humanity is how to reduce public funding of pseudoscientific scaremongers and their propaganda teams to pre-1750 levels.
Re: Chemical toxins and gene-splicing concerns that somehow crept into a discussion of global temperature.
Now that we’re being poisoned by manufactured chemicals, we live approximately twice as long as we did in the days when we weren’t being poisoned. I’ll believe I’ll take that deal. As an added bonus, large numbers of us now even take our own teeth to the grave with us; unheard of in “the good old days”.
There’s no theory too ridiculous for a 3rd world despot to expound, when he’s trying to extract a few extra Mercedes from the rest of us…..
Al Gored says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:21 pm
“One notes the complete absence of solar activity related cycles in this graph…”
OK. Please educate me from your perspective. What, if anything, do they relate to?
Why do they have to relate to something?
Bob Tisdale says:
December 17, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Enjoy your holidays, Leif. And as one who reads and looks forward to your comments, thanks for the education this year.
You are welcome. Thanks for the kind words.
Around 1900 there was real nervousness about horse manure being more than a metre high in the streets of London in the decades to follow. Then came the motor car………………..
By the time we reach 650ppm you and I will be just a thing of the past and technological developments will make your statement look similar to the horse poop article that appeared in in Times of London.
Final thought?
Could you have imagined mobile phones with cameras, video, internet surfing etc. back in 1970? A computer more powerful than landed man on the Moon? It’s just been 40 odd years since and you are nervous about the year 2150. I’m not. 🙂
Have a safe and prosperous holiday Leif. We may be adversaries in scientific debate but we need someone to play the role of Pope Urban VIII.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record on King Canute: he staged a demonstration to court syncophants that Nature was not a royal subject. One or two were bound and tossed into the waves for emphasis, I think. A fine precedent.
No, they’re not that stupid. What they KNOW they have their hands on is the keys to the global treasury.
Ninderthana says:
December 18, 2011 at 2:40 am
Have a safe and prosperous holiday Leif. We may be adversaries in scientific debate but we need someone to play the role of Pope Urban VIII.
I don’t think what you do is science, so there is no adversarial issue.
I suggest that LazyTeenager change his/her monitor to TimexTeenager.
He/She ‘Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking’
sorry,shud b ‘moniker’ not monitor
TFIFY
(There, Fixed It For You)
😉