Using radiocarbon dating, new research in Geophysical Research Letters has calculated the age of relic moss samples that have been exposed by modern Arctic warming. Results claim that temperatures in the Arctic are warmer than during any sustained period since the mosses were originally buried. Video follows.
Geophysical Research Letters Press Release:
Arctic Warmth Unprecedented in 44,000 Years, Reveals Samples of Ancient Moss
When the temperature rises on Baffin Island, in the Canadian high Arctic, ancient Polytrichum mosses, trapped beneath the ice for thousands of years, are exposed. Using radiocarbon dating, new research in Geophysical Research Letters has calculated the age of relic moss samples that have been exposed by modern Arctic warming. Since the moss samples would have been destroyed by erosion had they been previously exposed, the authors suggest that the temperatures in the Arctic now must be warmer than during any sustained period since the mosses were originally buried.
The authors collected 365 samples of recently exposed biological material from 110 different locations, cutting a 1000 kilometer long transect across Baffin Island, with samples representing a range of altitudes. From their samples the authors obtained 145 viable measurements through radiocarbon dating. They found that most of their samples date from the past 5000 years, when a period of strong cooling overtook the Arctic. However, the authors also found even older samples which were buried from 24,000 to 44,000 years ago.
The records suggest that in general, the eastern Canadian Arctic is warmer now than in any century in the past 5000 years, and in some places, modern temperatures are unprecedented in at least the past 44,000 years. The observations, the authors suggest, show that modern Arctic warming far exceeds the bounds of historical natural variability.
“The great time these plants have been entombed in ice, and their current exposure, is the first direct evidence that present summer warmth in the Eastern Canadian Arctic now exceeds the peak warmth there in the Early Holocene era”, said Gifford Miller, from the University of Colorado. “Our findings add additional evidence to the growing consensus that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have now resulted in unprecedented recent summer warmth that is well outside the range of that attributable to natural climate variability.”
Video: Disappearing Ice Caps – Giff Miller on Baffin Island
Do Presumptologists actually get paid to imagine stuff and write tall tales?
And call it calculating?
What a limitless arena of hypothetical speculation to consider.
How is real science to avoid being suffocated by the growing blanket of made up stuff?
Has mankind advanced?
Every piece of dirt, drop of water, plant and animal species is being observed with presumptuous eyes producing wild notions just like ancient civilizations did 1000s of years ago.
By “relic moss”, do they mean dead moss? A google search for the term mostly turned up links to this article and no definitions. And if they do mean dead moss, then they must have concluded it’s been dead for 44,000 years (thus the erosion assumption). I’m curious as to their evidence of that.
I notice the press release contains a link to a video, but not to the study.
Wait, so this part of the arctic is as warm as it was in the middle of the last iceage??? Why is this supposed to be alarming??? How in the world could anyone conclude this is outside of normal? Isnt is supposed to be warmer there now? Its an interglacial period afterall…
Id actually think if it WAS this warm in that part of the arctic 44k years ago, this vastly alters what we know about iceages, if random spots so far north are warm enough for moss while it was in the middle of an iceage. LOL
Actually, the much more obvious answer is that this moss was there since the last interglacial if its been there atleast 44k years. You know back when it was several degrees warmer then today, when presumably the moss could actually grow, rather then just barely be exposed.
I also find the conclusion bizarre and I can only assume agenda driven. So according to the study, there is exposed moss that is atleast 44k years old, so obviously this means its totally unnatural!!! Except going only by what they said, it was WARMER there when the moss grew, and was well before humans even made major land use changes let alone released co2. So obviously this happened naturally before, plus enough extra warmth for the moss to grow.
How can someone whos own work shows this DID happen before be proof that this happening is un natural??? Its amazing this stands as “science” and questioning it is “anti science”…. What a brave new world.
If you’re interested in seeing what is wrong with this paper see my review posted on Climate Depot at http://www.climatedepot.com/?s=easterbrook
The author’s use of both “unprecedented” and “consensus” in the same climate-related academic publication is pathognomonic for warmist fixation disorder and grant dependency syndrome.
“Our findings add additional evidence to the growing consensus that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have now resulted in unprecedented recent summer warmth that is well outside the range of that attributable to natural climate variability.”
http://womenofwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Woman-Laughing2.jpg
Correction,
Our findings by ignoring species from the MWP that we carefully didn’t use for our samples and various other samples we didn’t use at other times, have contributed to additional awful science, It is well in the range towards the desperate scientific assumptions that AGW emissions have even any known problems at all.
Reviewers don’t care what the science content is as long as includes something stating the religion at the top.
I don’t know about 44 thousand years but I can tell you that water reaching the Arctic Ocean in 2010 was warmer than anything known for the past 2000 years. This came out in 2010. I know this because I had just determined that Arctic warming is caused by currents that carry warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. Warming started suddenly at the turn of the twentieth century and there was no corresponding increase of CO2 which ruled out the greenhouse effect. Temperature measurements I had were all from the early part of the century and when the one I referred to came out it verified my prediction. In case you wonder why the Arctic is still warming while the rest of the world is not, it is because it’s warming does not depend on atmospheric trace gases but is entirely a product of warm water carried north by currents. It was started by a change of North Atlantic current patterns at the turn of the century and should this pattern change again for any reason we can expect the real Arctic cold to return.
They are recycling this ridiculous claim, again?
This is the same article that was under discussion in November 2013. If you follow the press release link to the abstract, it links to the earlier article.
Assuming for a moment that this claim is correct (it’s not), it would mean that 44,000 years ago it was warmer than now.
But 44,000 years ago CO2 was much lower… so much for the “carbon” scare, then.
Since 44,000 years ago was in the middle of the last Ice Age, the real question is how it could have been warm enough up on Baffin Island back then to uncover the ground and grow moss? It suggests tremendous natural variability in the arctic, for there to be such warming period in the middle of an Ice Age.
re: “the moss samples would have been destroyed by erosion had they been previously exposed…”
The moss samples are now exposed. The fact that they have not yet been ‘destroyed by erosion’ (which we know because they were available to be studied) suggests that they could have been exposed before but, by chance or undefined mechanism, also not ‘destroyed by erosion’ prior to being re-covered. I am unpersuaded by their opening premise.
Glaciers move; glaciers grind to dust everything in their way. Damned tough moss.
dbstealey
“Assuming for a moment that this claim is correct (it’s not), it would mean that 44,000 years ago it was warmer than now.
But 44,000 years ago CO2 was much lower… so much for the “carbon” scare, then.”
From memory, when reading the original article, it was stated that carbon dating is only accurate to about this length of time back. So if it is at least 44k old then it is very likely much older than this, and probably grew when things were warmer, which would be before the last ice age. Talked to a scientist near my work who verified this is in fact true…. i.e you can’t carbon date back more than about 50,000 years with any accuracy.
Baffin = Arctic. first mistake.
Also didn’t a Canadian geologist take some of this ancient moss, thaw it out and it started growing? How does that affect carbon dating methods?
2013……… Fourrrrrrrrrrrrrth warrrrrrrrrrrrrmest everrrrrrrrrrrrr!
One region of Baffin Island and… that’s the entire Arctic… Miller needs to take courses in meteo before making such ridiculous claim.
As the alarmists say – how can you project a regional sample over the globe? for all we know, the Inuits were using the area for freeze dry fish and that is why it never melted.