A paper published January 21st in Quaternary Science Reviews reconstructs storm activity in Iceland over the past 1,200 years and finds storminess and extreme weather variability was far more common during the Little Ice Age in comparison to the Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century. The paper adds to many other peer-reviewed publications finding global warming decreases storm activity, the opposite of claims by climate alarmists.
The graph below shows storm activity shown in 2nd graph from top was much greater and more variable during the Little Ice Age in comparison to the Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century. Top graph shows one of Mann’s bogus hockey sticks in red, and another non-hockey-stick reconstruction in grey [Moberg et al 2005].
Fig. 8. Multiple proxies of environmental change in Iceland AD 700–2000. (a) Two multi-proxy temperature reconstructions, North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST, Mann et al., 2009) and Moberg et al. (2005). (b) Shows GISP2 Na+ deviations from the mean, a proxy for storminess (Meeker and Mayewski, 2002). Cumulative deviations from the mean show a shift to stormier and windier conditions around AD 1425 (Dugmore et al., 2007). (c) Changes in total organic carbon at Lake Haukadalsvatn, west Iceland used as a proxy for aeolian erosion (Geirsdóttir et al., 2009). Bold horizontal bars show means over periods matching key tephra horizons in study (see Table 1). (d) Woodland cover is represented by Betulapollen percentages from a lake core near Lake Mývatn, north Iceland (Lawson et al., 2007) and charcoal pits present in south Iceland (Church et al., 2007) (e) Mean aggregate SeAR from Skaftártunga for period separated by dated tephra layers, with 1 standard deviation show by grey shading. Mean calculated where n = >10. (f) Mean aggregate SeAR at the scale of the landholding, from two small landholdings (Hrífunes and Flaga, see Fig. 1d). (g) Change in SeAR at the landscape scale, 2 stratigraphic sections which record the onset of increased erosion at AD 1597, but profile 38 shows stability through the entire settlement period prior to AD 1918. (h) Population trends in Iceland. Prior to the first census in AD 1703 estimates are based on medieval populations being similar to or even higher than the population in AD 1703 (90 and 43). Plague reductions of ∼40% in AD 1402–1404 and ∼30% in AD 1496 are shown (Karlsson, 1996).
The paper:
Late-Holocene land surface change in a coupled social–ecological system, southern Iceland: a cross-scale tephrochronology approach
Richard Streeter, Andrew Dugmore
Highlights
• Tephrochronology can be used to produce cross scale-analysis of land surface change.
• Grímsvötn tephras are dated to AD 1432 ± 5 and AD 1457 ± 5.
• High resolution 1200-year record of land surface change from Skaftártunga, south Iceland.
• Increasing spatial heterogeneity in sediment accumulation rates after AD ∼870.
• Relationship between climate, vegetation cover and land surface change contingent on past conditions.
Abstract
The chronological challenge of cross-scale analysis within coupled socio-ecological systems can be met with tephrochronology based on numerous well-dated tephra layers. We illustrate this with an enhanced chronology from Skaftártunga, south Iceland that is based on 200 stratigraphic profiles and 2635 individual tephra deposits from 23 different eruptions within the last 1140 years. We present new sediment-accumulation rate based dating of tephra layers from Grímsvötn in AD 1432 ± 5 and AD 1457 ± 5. These and other tephras underpin an analysis of land surface stability across multiple scales. The aggregate regional sediment accumulation records suggest a relatively slow rate of land surface change which can be explained by climate and land use change over the period of human occupation of the island (after AD ∼870), but the spatial patterning of change shows that it is more complex, with landscape scale hysteresis and path dependency making the relationship between climate and land surface instability contingent. An alternative steady state of much higher rates of sediment accumulation is seen in areas below 300 m asl after AD ∼870 despite large variations in climate, with two phases of increased erosion, one related to vegetation change (AD 870–1206) and another related to climate (AD 1597–1918). In areas above 300 m asl there is a short lived increase in erosion and related deposition after settlement (AD ∼870–935) and then relatively little additional change to present. Spatial correlation between rates of sediment accumulation at different profiles decreases rapidly after AD ∼935 from ∼4 km to less than 250 m as the landscape becomes more heterogeneous. These new insights are only possible using high-resolution tephrochronology applied spatially across a landscape, an approach that can be applied to the large areas of the Earth’s surface affected by the repeated fallout of cm-scale tephra layers.
This article was originally published on The Hockey Schtick, and presented here with some minor edits for format and clarity.
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This is nothing new!
This of course has been a common knowledge for everyone that cared to investigate it, while being ignored by the AGW crowd.
Instead they are now lying by claiming that a warmer world would create more storminess.
That’s right the IPCC tells us that the warming will be at night, in the winter and in the Arctic. In other words, the difference between the highs and lows will will be less. So the energy gradient driving storms won’t be as great; ergo – calmer weather. The other side just ignores that fact. They ignore a lot of facts. And it looks like the so called main stream media is never going to point it out.
Lamb postulated this some 50years ago. Don’t these losers read any other papers before writing their cr@p?
ren says:
January 25, 2014 at 9:10 am
“Soon will experience it even more, because the sun goes to sleep.”
Yes, and that will be taken as proof that they were right about extreme weather events, never mind that the actual temperatures are falling.
KevinM says:
January 25, 2014 at 9:11 am
“At what temperature is there no extreme weather? At what temperature is all weather extreme?”
That’s like asking, at what angle on a rotating circle of a given radius does one experience the most centripetal acceleration? It is the wrong question. Centripetal acceleration depends upon the rate of rotation, not on the angle.
The only answer to the question as phrased is: all of them. No extreme if everything is isothermal, all extreme if there is a neighboring reservoir at higher or lower temperature, from or to which energy can flow.
As I and others have been saying all along… IF we begin cooling, we will begin to understand what severe weather actually means.
It is not only the increasing equatorial/polar delta P, but also the increasing density of cold air. Now throw in a shrinking biosphere, and is easy to see where this leads.
Warming is the default fail safe directions whose benefits rapidly disappear (to mankind’s chagrin), as cooling commences. Warming is a pleasant walk in the park… when compared to long term cooling. GK
That’s ok.
Doesn’t everybody know that Climate Change causes heat AND cold, wet AND dry, storms AND fine weather, sea level rise AND fall…you name it?
So ANY geo-climatic finding obviously supports the hypothesis. I wonder why as few as 97% of scientists believe in it…
“That’s like asking, at what angle on a rotating circle of a given radius does one experience the most centripetal acceleration?”
Let me try to make that a little more down-to-Earth. At what point on a circular racetrack does the driver of a race car experience the most centrifugal force? It cannot be answered, as it does not matter at what point. What matters is how fast he is going.
does it need to be said again?
global temperature does not effect the development of anticyclones (storms). it is differential temperatures that create storms, to absolute temperatures.
thus it is easy to see that a colder climate (especially one with colder poles), could easily develop much more vigorous storms than an warmer but more uniform temperature profile. why does it take climate ‘science’ 30 years to discover that?
ralph
40 years ago this was common knowledge among climatologists. It was mentioned by Lamb (in Climate, History and the Modern World) in connection with the onset of LIA. It was discussed in more detail by Reid Bryson in an article published in the mid-70’s (in The Ecologist, I think), where he describes the temperature gradient effect.
As the arctic and antarctic cool the increased polar jet will cause sever winter storms.
As the Arctic and antarctic warm the winter storms will decrease and equatorial storms such as hurricanes etc will increase.
Over the last several hundred years we have been in a state of near equilibrium where the storm energy was evenly divided. As we begin to cool the energy balance is rapidly changing and winter storms are more wide spread while the equatorial region storms are more closely confined to the equator.
interesting how it all comes back to the energy balance and overall temperatures in the arctic regions which drive the polar jet streams size and power.
Really? The WHOLE Universe? Wow!
The Viking colony in Greenland was largely dependent on trade. Trade was largely dependent on seas being calmer than they are now, with ice further north. There are scant records from that time, (trade routes involved an element of secrecy, after all,) however there was apparently a point at which taking the “northern route” became less feasible, and then a point at which trading across the Atlantic became so high-risk that few captains would try it at all.
All of this points to the MWP being a more benign climate. Warmer is better.
Leroux has been demonstrating why and how since 1993…
The worst hurricanes to affect Southeastern Virginia occurred in the period from 1650-1850. A 7 mile plus peninsula in Norfolk on Chesapeake Bay called Willoughby Spit was formed by hurricanes in 1667 and 1806. There have not been hurricane conditions here greater than Category 1 since the end of the Little Ice Age.
WHATEVER FITS THE LEFTS AGENDA…IT’S GLOBAL WARMING TILL THE WEATHER CHANGES TO FREEZING THEN IT’S CLIMATE CHANGE…NOW THE HEAT IS CAUSING THE COLD…AND VISE VERSA…IT’S ALL BS…THE LEFT IS SO GULLABLE!
It wont be long now before they claim that CO2 does not control temperature anymore it only controls the weather. CO2 is a shapeshifting fog monster of Godzilla proportions..
Re Hockey Schtick says:
January 25, 2014 at 8:37 am
Why do climate scientists conveniently forget that temperature differentials drive all weather, not absolute temperatures?
It is this conviction of those climate scientists that most likely causes many, if not most people to become sceptical as they know intuitively that such a claim doesn’t pass the commonsense test or represent what can be readily concluded by ordinary people who observe and ponder natural events over time.
Richard Lindzen has been pointing this out for decades!
This is not brand new information all of a sudden.. A warming planet should cause less extreme weather down to the physical processes of the planet. Nothing unusual here apart from the alarmists telling white lies most of time. The main factor why this happens is down to the jet stream. The jest stream moves North the warmer the planet becomes and moves South the cooler the planet generally becomes. With the planet becoming narrower the further away from the equator, the less surface area the jet has chance to interact.
Therefore when the jet stream moves South with cooler climate, severe weather increases due to much larger area the jet stream affects. When the jet stream is further north with a warmer planet much smaller regions are affected by severe weather.
The jet stream is boundary between warmer sub-tropical air and polar Arctic air. When these interact the most unstable the atmosphere becomes and greater severe weather results. This is not rocket science, but the climate alarmists chose to ignore this, partly because they don’t have a clue how the planet mechanisms behaves and con people into thinking they do. The other reason being avoiding anything against their agenda of finding only human influences.
Jeff Alberts says:
January 25, 2014 at 11:52 am
He must have meant solar system.
It’s true that the colder planets have higher winds & more storminess, thanks to delta T.
Earth also is stormier during its ice house phases than hot house.
Pretty elementary, really, thus beyond Climate Science (TM).
I recall maybe ten years ago reading that during warmer periods, as the tropics received more heat, larger volumes of warmed air made its way toward the poles via the Hadley cells. This air flow, because of the Coriolis effect, caused the jet stream, and more air movement meant a stronger faster jet stream with a straighter path. This strong jet stream kept cold arctic air trapped in the north and more of the earth’s surface would exhibit higher temperatures. Conversely, during cooler periods, the jet stream was weaker and more meandering, resulting in large Rossby waves which allow cold arctic air to move southward covering more of the earth’s surface. With colder air spread over a larger portion of earth, the average temperatures would be lower. In addition, with the large cold air masses moving south, there would be more storms due to large temperature gradients at the boundaries and as well as high winds of the jet stream aloft. So by simple observation of increasing storms and increasing “polar vortices” bringing colder air masses southward, the obvious conclusion is — global cooling. Is this too simple?
John H you’re right. “…that during warmer periods, as the tropics received more heat,” is the key phrase here. It received more heat from where?
Paul P you’re right. “During our global warming peak from 1996 to 2007, the Atlantic Basin had one of the strongest hurricane seasons, …” What caused both?
and “…it may be as the earth cools under weaker sunspot cycles, winter storms gain strength and under stronger sunspot cycles winter storms drop off and tropical storms pick up.” What forces this to happen?
The Sun produced more photons, protons, and electrons from the increased sunspot activity during this active solar cycle period; the Sun caused global warming and many extreme weather events.
This was always the standard thermodynamics based understanding before the AGW disinformation campaign.
Thank you for keeping up on all this makes it easy when your looking for this subject to disprove nonsense that comes out of the gloBULL enviro fascists. There’s so much other corruption and cronyism going on it’s hard for people to keep track of it all.
The reason the Pacific ocean is called the ‘Pacific’ was because Magellan, who first crossed it, remarked how ‘pacified’ or peaceful it was compared to the Atlantic, even though it is much bigger.
This might be because it is larger, meaning, having less landmasses about it, it spreads heat out more evenly, lowering the temperature differential between the poles and the equator and reducing storms.
In 1998, the year of the big El Nino, the southwestern side of the Pacific, where it was warm, was noticable on how calm it was. So warmer doesn’t necessarily mean stormier, it can be the opposite, it can mean less stormy if such heat reduces temperature differential from the poles to the equator. The same seems to be occurring with regards to global warming since ~1850, where the poles are warming faster than the tropics.