From the University of Maryland: Looking to the past to predict the future of climate change
FROSTBURG, MD (August 5, 2013)—Climate changes how species interact with one another—and not just today. Scientists are studying trends from fossil records to understand how climate change impacted the world in the ancient past and to identify ways to predict how things may change in the future, according to a new study by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researcher Matt Fitzpatrick and colleagues published in the August 2 issue of Science.
Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth’s history, but the recent rate of global warming far exceeds that of any previous episode in the past 10,000 years or longer. Knowing how climate change altered the interactions between plants and animals in the past may help us understand whether there are identifiable patterns that could give us clues into what will happen in the future.
“Looking to the past is one of the few ways ecologist have for understanding how natural systems respond to climate change,” said Fitzpatrick of the Center’s Appalachian Laboratory. “When we look to the fossil record, from hundreds of millions of years ago to near present day, we see episodes of climatic change and biological upheaval, and we see similar patterns.”
For example, changes in temperatures may force certain animals to move to different territories and new predatory-prey interactions my result. Some may go extinct. Changes in carbon dioxide levels may make it easier for new plants to take over the landscape, such as more shrubs growing in the Arctic. All of these changes shake up how the ecosystem and food webs work.
“Because these patterns emerge repeatedly and largely regardless of place and time,” Fitzpatrick says. “It suggests that similar underlying processes drive how natural systems respond to climate change and provides a glimpse of what could be in store for the future.”
The worry is that the rate of current and future climate change is more than species can handle naturally. “People are comfortable with the way things are now – we know where to plant crops, where to get water,” said lead author Jessica Blois of the University of California, Merced. “We want to know how to respond to the changes that are happening, but if the future is highly novel, then it’s also hard to predict.”
“Climate Change and the Past, Present and Future of Biotic Interactions” is published in the August 2 issue of Science. Authors include Jessica Blois of the University of California, Merced, Phoebe Zarnetske of Yale University, Matt Fitzpatrick of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Seth Finnegan of the University of California, Berkley.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science unleashes the power of science to transform the way society understands and manages the environment. By conducting cutting-edge research into today’s most pressing environmental problems, we are developing new ideas to help guide our state, nation, and world toward a more environmentally sustainable future through five research centers—the Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, the Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge, the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology in Baltimore, and the Maryland Sea Grant College in College Park. www.umces.edu
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@Dale Rainwater. Lurtz
I think you hit the nail on the head but I would put it into terms more direct: One of the major negative results of increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is that it makes climate scientists stupid.
Funny how in less than one decade we went from the warmest climate in 1000 years (The infamous Hockey Stick), to the warmest climate in 10,000 years. At this rate, we will be at the warmest climate in 5 million years around 2020.
Am much more interested in looking for the causes of ice ages and sudden climate cooling, as theses would have a major impact on the modern world. lt is sudden climate cooling that is the real thing we need to fear.
Used to live in a cave, now live in a centrally heated house with hot and cold running water, food from the supermarket etc etc.We have survived a massive change from cold to warmer.
“Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth’s history, but the recent rate of global warming far exceeds that of any previous episode in the past 10,000 years or longer.”
10k years is probably significant if you’re an old-timey Bible fundamentalist who believes Earth to be only 6k or 8k years old. For those of us who live in reality and understand the age of our planet to be in the neighbourhood of 4,560,000,000 years, 10k years is an inconsequential blip of time – on the order of approximately 0.00022% the age of the Earth.. So how does the recent rate of change compare with other changes occurring since the beginning of geological time – you know that 4,559,990,000 years you conveniently left off? Since the author(s) are aware of climate changing ‘repeatedly’ over the geological history of earth, failing to provide any context for their first claim puts the remainder of their article squarely into the realm of propaganda.
Shoot, if they’d even put the last 10,000 years into context with the current ice age dating back 2,580,000 years, and which has seen seven well-documented cycles of glaciation and subsequent warming, it would be an improvement. But even at 2,580,000 years, the current ice age only represents 0.05658% of the age of the planet. Claims can only have meaning if provided context, and these claims have none.
The conniving duplicity is appalling.
Explain why humans are not part of nature, not part of survival of the fittest. I don’t recall Darwin excluding humans from natural selection nor claiming we are not part of this ecosystem. All I can see here is climate science is saying Darwin was wrong–humans are outside of natural selection and nature.
johanna says:
August 5, 2013 at 9:46 am
“Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth’s history, but the recent rate … ”
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“Repeatedly”?
I agree, but actually, I find the use of ‘repeatedly’ to fully confirm that they accept significant climate changes have occurred in the past. Moreover, this further confirms that no-one can discern the ‘current’ climate change as being anything out of the ordinary, let alone of direct anthropogenic cause,
Hence, in order to define the current warming as AGW, they must:
a) determine what (amongst all the possible variables and multiple combinations thereof) caused previous warming (and/or cooling)
b) determine and demonstrate that these effects cannot have caused the observations of today.
c) demonstrate a robust link between anthropogenic CO2 and current observations
d) demonstrate that the current observations are indeed robust (which they are not IMHO)
So, for me, I like the term ‘repeatedly’ !
Modern humans are an integral part of the biosphere. Some of what we do is good and some of it is bad. If there is too much bad then we self destruct and are eliminated. That’s just how old Mother Nature works. I am not worried about that, my worries are more political as there in lies the real danger to us all, tyranny over liberty. And the connection between AGW and tyranny is glaringly obvious.
Don’t send your kids to the University of Maryland. All they learn is BS (Bad Science).
They’re hot in Frostburg
l think the only sure thing that will cure climate science of AGW and that is sudden climate cooling.
The first sentence of Blois et al 2013, Science 2 Aug 2013:
Ref. 1 is Marcott-2013 (also Science, March 2013). Marcott retreated from the 20th century findings in his FAQ.
Without the 20th century work, Marcott can only be used to support long term cooling over the past 6000 years, if you believe any of it at all after the adjustments and redating.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/16/mcintyre-finds-the-marcott-trick-how-long-before-science-has-to-retract-marcott-et-al/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/03/proxy-spikes-the-missed-message-in-marcott-et-al/
See Spotfire view of adjustment, redating, and individual trends at April 4, 9:10am
Ref 2 is S. Solomon et al., in Climate Change 2007, contribution to FAR IPCC.
Only advocacy, ignorance of the record, and pal review, all working together can explain how Blois can get away with such an unsupported opening sentence. The rest of the data shows nothing to support the claim.
To top it off, it seems that the Science Mag. Editor-in-Chief, believes the message of the paper hook-line-and-sinker.
The above was tinder for Willis Eschenbach’s An Open Letter to.. McNutt (Aug 4)
But maybe the real irony and contradiction here is in the Blois-2013 abstract:
“Similar processes” across the geologic time scale? How can human induced climate change, operable only since the mid 20th century be included in those “Similar processes”? “Similar Processes” must be of natural origin and variation.
“l think the only sure thing that will cure climate science of AGW and that is sudden climate cooling.”
That is caused by global warming and it’s worse than we thought.
Why don’t these CAGW charlatans read their history and realize that it’s COOLING that decimates human civilizations, not beneficial warming trends….
The Wolf Grand Solar Minimum (1280~1350) marked the beginning of the LIttle Ice Age. The sudden drop of global temperatures created terrible famines and awful storms that lead to the deaths of an estimated 20% of the entire European population in the early 14th century.
The LIA cold shortened growing seasons and decreased crop yields, which weakened the population and exacerbated the effects of the Black Death, which started in 1348 and killed roughly 50% of the survivors of the LIA induced cold-weather famines….
The Wolf Minimum was soon followed by the Sporer and Maunder Minima, which further decreased temperatures leading to numerous famines around the world and killing millions.
We’ll soon find out if the Svensmark Effect is a real phenomenon as there is a high probability the next solar cycle could be the beginning of another Grand Solar Minumum cycle. If the Svensmark Effect is proven real and there is a Grand Solar Minimum, the CAGW zealots may have some serious blood on their hands for pushing junk science, like this unsubstantiated paper clearly is.
DirkH says:
August 5, 2013 at 9:18 am
“Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth’s history, but the recent rate of global warming far exceeds that of any previous episode in the past 10,000 years or longer. ”
That’s false. Why didn’t the reviewer notice?
Because the whole system has been packed by and for the watermelons. (See the previous blog by Eschenbach about Ms. McNutt(er).) And it will continue to be packed by them unless we loudly reveal their repeated lies and distortions
SAMURAI says:
August 5, 2013 at 11:19 am
LIA cold led not only to famines but to pandemics.
The last & perhaps most famous such disasters of the LIA were the Irish Potato Famine & cholera pandemic. Europe came to rely on tuber crops instead of grains because summers grew too cool, making overpopulated Ireland especially vulnerable.
Between 1758 and 1775 the BEST temperature record (Downloaded 20121218 5:30 PM CST http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/) warmed 2.67 deg. C. That is 15.7 deg. C per century. The BEST temperature record is for land only, but serves as a proxy for global temperature. Of course, the record has huge error bars, but are we to assume other types of proxies (tree rings, sediments, etc.) have better error bars? The rate of warming/cooling before 1850 is very crude (it is rather crude after 1850 as well) and no definitive comparison can be made to current rates. We just don’t know.
In 6 PDF pages the word “may” was used 17 times; “might” 1 time; “could” 6 times; and “possible” 1 time. Too much speculation in a scientific paper for me.
Fossil records? How many millions of species have come and gone and failed to appear as a fossil? How many climate indicators occurred and failed to appear in fossils? The fossil record is the most incomplete data set in all of science! That is why it is likely the perfect ‘official record’ for less-than-reputable ‘scientists’ to make their case.
Martin M on August 5, 2013 at 11:53 am
Especially when we continously are destroying the evidence, by using it in engines and heating systems ..
It looks like they were careful not to explicitly mention the last glacial termination.
Willis, a few posts back, pointed out.
Dr. Lurtz says:
August 5, 2013 at 9:09 am
“Climate change has occurred repeatedly throughout Earth’s history, but the recent rate of global warming far exceeds that of any previous episode in the past 10,000 years or longer.”
Prove it! Show me the “Climate Record” that you used! If you are a scientist, you should be ashamed making statements like that!
Correct. The 8.2 k event was in the last 10 k years. Do they pretend current warming exceeds the 9.2 event? Or do they base their affirmations on the Marcott et al joke as Joe says?
Joe says:
August 5, 2013 at 9:13 am
Published in Science and their 1st reference is S. A. Marcott, et al.
the sudden cooling 8200 years ago was followed by fast warming 200 years later:
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/8200yrevent.html
is the climate change now comparable with the climate change that created the Sahara desert?
End of the African Humid Period 6000 years ago:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data6.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379112002430
or the Drought and the Akkadian empire 4200 years ago:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data7.html
“Paleoclimatic data from other sites also document significant changes in climate throughout the region, including precipitation reductions of up to 30% between 4200 and 4000 years BP inferred from cave deposits in present-day Israel (Bar-Matthews et al. 2003). Evidence for a dry spell of several hundred years also exists from cave deposits in Italy, marine sediments from the Red Sea and Arabian Sea, and an ice core from Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa ”
Not to talk about the MWP with thousands of references:
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Or even shorter events that we cannot explain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_changes_of_535%E2%80%93536
Scientists? No, simply clowns.
Here is something to note about previous warming rates. You do have to wonder how much carbon dioxide had to do with the rates of warming before 1940.
There has been a 0.8C global surface temperature rise since around 1850. How much of this 0.8C rise was caused by man-made greenhouse gases?
“People are comfortable with the way things are now – we know where to plant crops, where to get water,” said lead author Jessica Blois of the University of California, Merced. “We want to know how to respond to the changes that are happening, but if the future is highly novel, then it’s also hard to predict.”
Here’s how to respond. In the last several decades, based on all empirical data, continue to plant crops in the same locations that have produced good results in the past. The 2 biggest changes are:
1. Expansion of agriculture in some regions(where droughts occur) and/or better success in dry regions has been possible, thanks in part to increasing CO2
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V3/N16/B2.php
2. Harvesting and storage require more resources because of crop/food production/yields increasing across the board………..thanks in part to globally well mixed CO2. Free to all the worlds farmers/producers.
I was able to find numerous studies that come to that conclusion(CO2 is harmful to plants) but none of them use legit plant science as I understand it.
I predict crop yields for a living, based mainly on the influence of weather but take into account all elements that factor in.
I will say that increasing CO2, if it means some modest warming will lead to a slight increase in excessive short term rain events and flood damage to some crops, especially during the planting season. These would occur with a low frequency and be far outweighed by the benefits of CO2 fertilization which would be present 100% of the time.
@Martin M 11:53 am:
Fossil records? How many millions of species have come and gone and failed to appear as a fossil?
This is slightly OT, but it reminds me of a TED talk by Jack Horner called: Shape Shifting Dinosaurs. A very entertaining 18 minutes.
The summary of the talk is that there are lots of adult dinosaur species found in the fossil record. But where are the young ones? His talk is the research he did that came to the conclusion that some of the adult species identified were actuallly young and juveniles of other known adult species. As an example, he took the end of the Cretaceous 12 dinosaur species and he found 5 were really the younger versions of the other 7.
Moral of the story: There may be fewer species in the fossil record than we think.