From Pierre Gosselin’s No Tricks Zone:
Oases of the Chinese Taklamakan Desert Greened Up In Sync With Solar Millenial Cycles
by Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt
The Taklamakan Desert is the 2nd world’s largest sand desert after the Rub el-Khali Desert in Saudi Arabia. A Chinese-Australian team of scientists lead by Keliang Zhao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Peking studied the sediment-profiles from an oasis at the edge of the Taklamakan where they reconstructed the climate of the last 4000 years based on pollen. The scientists published their results in March, 2012.
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The study is yet another beautiful example of the global climatic impact of the solar millenial cycles (also see our recent article “New Study in PNAS Confirms Solar Impact Over the Last 9000 Years“ and “Solar Millennium Cycles Regulated the Wet and Dry Periods of the Mediteranean During the Roman Times“, also see pages 68-75 of our book “Die kalte Sonne“.
Figure 2: Reconstruction of the moisture development in the region of study using pollen for the last 4000 years. The shaded gray areas depict wet periods in the Tarim Basin. These coincide with the cold phases in the North Atlantic (numbered 1, 2, 3) and solar weak phases, as described by Bond et al. (2001). Chart from Zhao et al. (2012).
Read the full story here
Climatic variations over the last 4000 cal yr BP in the western margin of the Tarim Basin, Xinjiang, reconstructed from pollen data
Keliang Zhao, Xiaoqiang Li, John Dodson, Pia Atahan, Xinying Zhou, Fiona Bertuch
Abstract
The nature of Holocene climate patterns and mechanisms in central Asia are open areas of inquiry. In this study, regional vegetation and climate dynamics over the last ca. 4000 years are reconstructed using a high resolution pollen record from the Kashgar oasis, on the western margin of the Tarim Basin, central Asia. Ephedra, Chenopodiaceae and Cannabaceae dominate the pollen assemblages, and Chenopodiaceae/Ephedra ratios and percentages of long-distance transported pollen taxa are used to infer regional variations in moisture and vegetation density. Three periods of increased humidity are identified, from ca. 4000–2620 cal yr BP, ca. 1750–1260 cal yr BP and ca. 550–390 cal yr BP and these periods coincide with the respective Holocene Bond Events 2, 1 and 0, which are reported in the North Atlantic. Any increase in strength, or southward migration, of the mid-latitude westerlies would result in more precipitation and meltwater on mountains surrounding the study site. Warm and dry conditions are detected between ca.1260 and 840 cal yr BP (AD 690–1110), and cool and wet conditions are detected between ca. 840 and 680 cal yr BP (AD 1110–1270), during the Medieval Warm Period (ca. AD 800–1200). The climate variations in the Kashgar region over the last 4000 years appear to have been dominated by changes to the westerly circulation system and glacier dynamics on surrounding mountains. However, the question of whether the Asian monsoon delivers precipitation to the western Tarim Basin, a region that is influenced by several climate systems, is still open to debate.
Highlights
► New pollen records for the last 4000 cal yr BP in the western Tarim Basin.
► Four humid and three dry periods were identified in the study region.
► Increase in the strength of the westerlies resulted in the three humid periods.
► The climate was warm and dry during the early Medieval Warm Period (AD 690–1110).
Legatus says:
May 14, 2012 at 5:28 pm
This may stimulated the production of DMS from ocean life (a chemical), which tends to mean more clouds.
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It is the arrogance of human beings to assume that only they have the power to change the climate. Life has existed on this planet for as long as it has because it long ago developed the ability to regulate the climate long-term, keeping average temperatures within about 3% of current temperatures (degrees K) over the past 500 million years.
It is humans, with their short term view that misunderstand their role, overestimating their importance. Having only learned to measure temperature withing the past few hundred years, we now believe that we are the ones controlling the earth’s thermostat. The alternative, that the situation is outside our control, is too fearful to consider.
Yet, each human being is simply a host, transporting the microbes that provide it with life. The vast majority of the cells in a human body are not even human. We live in an infinite universe. No matter how much we learn, there is still infinitely more to learn.
It is our ignorance that leads us to believe we know a high percentage of what there left to learn. If we take all the knowledge of every human and add it together, it forms exactly 0% of what is still left to learn. The unknown is so large that it defies even our ability to imagine its size.
Legatus,
Luv the way you’re thinking. We all need to stretch that way. Humans were not selected to understand climate change, but rather to deal with it. Our numbers have grown. We have harnessed powers that may make us a force in climate. We really need to understand it now in order to deal with it. Unfortunately, I must suggest that you need to add another dimension and factor in longitude (ie Rossby Waves in the jet streams and the THC in the oceans). You go.
Legatus,
That is a fair summary.
However I think that pinning the solar effect down to protons alone is probably unduly restrictive. Rather, I now think it is the net result of a whole suite of solar effects on the temperature of the upper atmosphere caused by varying wavelength and particle proportions from the sun but the ozone response does appear to dominate on the basis of the evidence available.
Lots of implications follow from that and I’m pleased to see you exploring some of them.
Hi?
The Chinese authors of the peer-reviewed paper do not talk about any solar relation whatsoever.
It is the two Germans who ‘interprete” the Chinese results at their blog.
This is not serious.
Alex.
“Having only learned to measure temperature withing the past few hundred years”
Erm, really? Perhaps go and do some reading before spouting nonsense like that?
Steven Mosher says: May 14, 2012 at 8:25 pm
And opps looks like there might be a problem for GCR theory here.
GCR is only a hypothesis.
See text update to the sun-Earth electric & magnetic link, including a quote from Dr. L. Svalgaard, as an initial introduction into possible theoretical explanation for this potentially primary factor in synchronizing the observed climate change with the solar magnetic activity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-dBzA1.htm
Highlights
► New pollen records for the last 4000 cal yr BP in the western Tarim Basin.
► “Four humid” and three dry periods were identified in the study region.
► Increase in the strength of the westerlies resulted in the “three humid” periods.
► The climate was warm and dry during the early Medieval Warm Period (AD 690–1110).
Ahhm so which was it four or three humid periods.
@Pamela Gray (May 14, 2012 at 9:11 pm)
What seems to go horribly wrong conceptually is that “temperature anomalies” severely corrupt many (most?) climate enthusiasts’ sense of the relative magnitudes of variations as a function of timescale.
In order of decreasing magnitude:
1. annual.
2. interannual (including ENSO).
3. multidecadal.
vukcevic, is it really the case that you can find no reference to the coherence in the literature? I remember hearing of this coherence long ago, but I’ve never done a literature survey of the topic and to my knowledge the data you plot are not available publicly, so it has not been convenient to take a look. Have you suggested to the proprietors of the data that they consider putting it up on plain-text webpages? Also, as I understand, the historical data is modeled. We need info on the models. For example, what inputs do they take? This is key. Thanks.
@Pamela Gray (May 14, 2012 at 9:11 pm)
Just about anyone here could estimate screw thread lead [ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Lead_and_pitch.png ] using “rise over run” from grade 9 math.
I have an elementary question for you:
What metric would quantify the changing “rise over run” in this summary of decadal earth rotation & westerly wind anomalies?
http://i49.tinypic.com/219q848.png
Once you and everyone else reading here have consumed all of a few seconds figuring that out (rate of change of solar cycle length), here’s the next question:
What terrestrial variables show coherence with that metric?
Here are a few examples:
http://i40.tinypic.com/16a368w.png
More examples are illustrated on p.4 here:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/vaughn-sun-earth-moon-harmonies-beats-biases.pdf
Assumptions of uniform modulus of continuity (whether made explicitly or implicitly) are NOT supported by earth rotation & atmospheric angular momentum data. In simpler terms: Mother Earth’s subtle responsiveness to Father Sun’s advances varies according to Mother Earth’s own cycles.
Pamela Gray says:
May 14, 2012 at 9:11 pm
“I don’t think intrinsic ENSO factors on multidecadel oscillation and overturning scales have been ruled out yet as the source of global temperature trends. Until someone comes up with something else that is more powerful than these intrinsic oceanic atmospheric drivers, ENSO remains as King and Queen of this court.”
Glassman had a go: http://rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/07/solar_wind.html
An El Nino episode is a response to a drop in what is driving temperatures, look at 96/97 and 08/09;
http://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/tmp/images/ret_19222.gif
A stratospheric volcanic eruption can have the same result and bring on El Nino conditions.
The LIA had higher El Nino frequency, and full glacial conditions are likely to have a continuous El Nino state.
Paul Vaughan says: May 15, 2012 at 7:42 am
………
Hi Paul
Historically early start is the ‘magnetotellurics’ (MT), known to geophysists since 1860s.
Telluric currents are geomagnetically induced and flow in the surface layers of the Earth’s crust. The MT currents are induced by interactions between the solar wind and the magnetosphere and or possibly by solar radiation effects in the ionosphere.
MT monitoring systems are installed by Geographical Survey Institute of Japan in number of locations to measure fluctuations in the intensity of surface electromagnetic field that may relate to seismic activity.
NOAA website has an easy to use geomagnetic calculator for 1900 onwards epoch. The ETH Zurich (1590-1995) and Potsdam GM Institute’s (5000 BC -1950AD), data files are more difficult to handle, some time ago I developed number of Fortran patches (linking into my old F7) for rapid calculations.
When I come up with some new data plot, Dr.S tends to do a quick check, and declares whole thing spurious or cherry picking, thus of no value to the science.
I suggest everyone take a careful look at the Dickey & Keppenne (1997) article to which I linked above. They give insight into NASA’s inclination 15 years ago. In hindsight, their vision was 20/20 (while their voice was mute).
What they illustrated (even though they didn’t write about it explicitly):
For an ENSO-overarching summary tuned to semi-annual or annual grain and Schwabe extent, ENSO’s amplitude varies in synch with the solar cycle.
That’s a rather key bit of insight.
Keep in mind this is NOT abstract speculation; this is OBSERVED. You can’t even avoid finding ENSO in annual & semi-annual LOD. You’ll either find it in the modulus or in the argument as you vary extent. The solar-terrestrial-climate weave IS ROBUST and once you’ve isolated it you’ll find ENSO in the phase residuals – complementary sides of the same coin.
Equator-pole gradients and consequent westerly pumping accumulates subtle variations into climatologies via north-south zonal-land-ocean-heat-capacity-contrast asymmetry. Tisdale’s Steps and steps more generally, whether up or down, synch loosely with the solar cycle since there’s an asymmetric cyclic amplitude boost.
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Vukcevic: The graphs you bring to the discussion are valuable, some much more so than others. A few have been VERY informative. Please keep contributing. You are a volunteer and should NOT be subject to abuse from anyone. Thank you sincerely for your contributions. Best Regards.
Paul Vaughan says:
May 15, 2012 at 9:53 pm
I have said the same to Vuckevic on several occasions.
We discuss geochemical and sedimentological characteristics of 12 tephra layers, intercalated within the finely laminated sediments of Lake Van. Within the about 15 kyr long sediment record studied, volcanic activity concentrated in the periods 2.6-7.2 and 11.9-12.9 kyr B.P. Concentrations of 25 elements provide the geochemical fingerprint of each tephra layer and allow comparison to literature values of potential source volcanoes such as Mts. Nemrut and Suephan. The youngest two tephra layers (and probably also the other three ashes from the 2.6-7.2 kyr B.P. eruptions) originate from the Nemrut volcano. The source of the older tephra (11.9-12.9 kyr B.P.), however, remains unidentified.