By Larry Bell
Dr. Christian Schlüchter’s discovery of 4,000-year-old chunks of wood at the leading edge of a Swiss glacier was clearly not cheered by many members of the global warming doom-and-gloom science orthodoxy.
This finding indicated that the Alps were pretty nearly glacier-free at that time, disproving accepted theories that they only began retreating after the end of the little ice age in the mid-19th century. As he concluded, the region had once been much warmer than today, with “a wild landscape and wide flowing river.”
Dr. Schlüchter’s report might have been more conveniently dismissed by the entrenched global warming establishment were it not for his distinguished reputation as a giant in the field of geology and paleoclimatology who has authored/coauthored more than 250 papers and is a professor emeritus at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
Then he made himself even more unpopular thanks to a recent interview titled “Our Society is Fundamentally Dishonest” which appeared in the Swiss publication Der Bund where he criticized the U.N.-dominated institutional climate science hierarchy for extreme tunnel vision and political contamination.
Following the ancient forest evidence discovery Schlüchter became a target of scorn. As he observes in the interview, “I wasn’t supposed to find that chunk of wood because I didn’t belong to the close-knit circle of Holocene and climate researchers. My findings thus caught many experts off guard: Now an ‘amateur’ had found something that the [more recent time-focused] Holocene and climate experts should have found.”
Other evidence exists that there is really nothing new about dramatic glacier advances and retreats. In fact the Alps were nearly glacier-free again about 2,000 years ago. Schlüchter points out that “the forest line was much higher than it is today; there were hardly any glaciers. Nowhere in the detailed travel accounts from Roman times are glaciers mentioned.”
Schlüchter criticizes his critics for focusing on a time period which is “indeed too short.” His studies and analyses of a Rhone glacier area reveal that “the rock surface had [previously] been ice-free 5,800 of the last 10,000 years.”
More here: http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/warming-global-climate/2014/06/17/id/577481/#ixzz355f6L5y2
==============================================================
On Pierre Gosselin’s “No Tricks Zone” we have this:
Distinct solar imprint on climate
What’s more worrisome, Schlüchter’s findings show that cold periods can strike very rapidly. Near the edge of Mont Miné Glacier his team found huge tree trunks and discovered that they all had died in just a single year. The scientists were stunned.
The year of death could be determined to be exactly 8195 years before present. The oxygen isotopes in the Greenland ice show there was a marked cooling around 8200.”
That finding, Schlüchter states, confirmed that the sun is the main driver in climate change.
Today’s “rapid” changes are nothing new
In the interview he casts doubt on the UN projection that the Alps will be almost glacier-free by 2100, reminding us that “the system is extremely dynamic and doesn’t function linearly” and that “extreme, sudden changes have clearly been seen in the past“. History’s record is unequivocal on this.
Schlüchter also doesn’t view today’s climate warming as anything unusual, and poses a number of unanswered questions:
Why did the glaciers retreat in the middle of the 19th century, although the large CO2 increase in the atmosphere came later? Why did the earth ‘tip’ in such a short time into a warming phase? Why did glaciers again advance in 1880s, 1920s and 1980s? […] Sooner or later climate science will have to answer the question why the retreat of the glacier at the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850 was so rapid.”
On science: “Our society is fundamentally dishonest”
CO2 fails to answer many open questions. Already we get the sense that hockey stick climate claims are turning out to be rather sorrowful and unimaginative wives’ tales. He summarizes on the refusal to acknowledge the reality of our past: “Our society in fundamentally dishonest“.
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/09/giant-of-geologyglaciology-christian-schluechter-refutes-co2-feature-interview-throws-climate-science-into-disarray/#sthash.z6pKzqtQ.dpuf
sturgishooper says: August 8, 2014 at 6:56 pm
“As recently as 2008 he was a dues fully paid up, card carrying member of the Team. But now, cast into outer darkness for his heresies.”
Maybe he has quarrelled with someone. But the wood discoveries referred to by Bell are ancient, and uncontroversial. Here, from that 1998 paper, co-authored by TF Stocker, Co-Chair WG1:
“The 14C dates suggest a ca. 2000-yr cyclicity of tree growth in the area covered by the present Unteraarglacier. The most intense warm and dry period occurred between 4100 BP (probably extending back to 4580 BP) and 3600 BP, with growth of fen peat between 3800 and 3600 BP attributed to wetter conditions.”
“Latitude says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:04 pm
Nick Stokes says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:33 pm
They analyse the known forcings for the last 50 years, and show that alternatives could not produce the observed warming. This is by successive elimination, and confidence grows gradually.
But that is given knowledge of all forcings during the last fifty years. It does not claim that CO2 must have caused warmings in the past, when forcings were different, and not well known. It says that CO2 is the only remaining “control knob” in that 50-year period, when others have been eliminated.
====
…gobsmacked
They analyze forcings they don’t even know….and conclude it must be CO2..
What an incredible thing to say…..no one knows the forcings now”
Read that again…and think about it. What is the one forcing they do admit?
So, if that is ‘known’ and the rest are ‘unknown’, how many were analyzed?
How many were accepted?
Nick Stokes says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:22 pm
His conclusion that glacial movements are caused by insolation however is anathema. The same or greater changes as observed in the 20th century happened in the past without rising CO2. Yet another nail in the coffin of the great climate conspiracy, a swindle of global proportions.
mjc says: August 8, 2014 at 7:28 pm
What an incredible thing to say…..no one knows the forcings now”
Read that again…and think about it.”
No. Read what I said again. You even quoted it:
“in the past, when forcings were different, and not well known”
Forcings in the last century are rather well known.
@Nick Stokes
If they are so well known, why were they not modeled correctly?
Nick Stokes says:
August 8, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Forcings were the same in the past and previous centuries as in the 20th and 21st. Effect on climate of more CO2 is negligible at best, although the increase has had a noticeable positive effect on vegetation.
Magnitude of forcing of course changed enough from early 19th to early 20th to switch from LIA conditions to Modern Warming Period, but CO2 played practically no role.
Nick Stokes says
“Forcing in the last century are rather well know”
Really I guess that’s why the climate models work so well!
I guess that’s why the climate was warming before the addition of the one extra force co2?
Maybe you can explain this forcing in detail vs forcing in prior centuries?
Bob Boder says: August 8, 2014 at 8:01 pm
“Maybe you can explain this forcing in detail vs forcing in prior centuries?”</i?
Details are here
I was following the extensive exchange between “H Grouse” and other commenters, and noted that “John Finn” also commented. I recall the latter name in other WUWT postings. I did a Google search for “H Grouse” + “John Finn” and came up with “About 40 results (0.35 seconds)”. That’s a small enough number to scroll through all of them. All but one of the hits were from WUWT. The last hit was http://amozeshi.aliexirs.ir/Report-Global-warming-stopped-years.html, but that linked back to WUWT.
The mod dispensed with H Grouse, so I looked up “John Finn” “global warming”. I came across this link:
Climate action that can make a difference – Ithaca Times …
http://www.ithaca.com/…/article_08d868b0-cbf0-11e3-887e-001a4bcf887a.html
Apr 24, 2014 – … in the Northeast, it’s tempting to wonder if global warming is actually real. … John Finn is a licensed professional engineer and volunteer with …
That led to an April 2014 comment on ithaca.com by John Finn, P.E., supporting a carbon tax:
http://www.ithaca.com/opinion/climate-action-that-can-make-a-difference/article_08d868b0-cbf0-11e3-887e-001a4bcf887a.html
“By John Finn, P.E.
“John Finn is a licensed professional engineer and volunteer with the local chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby. Learn more online at http://www.citizensclimatelobby.org”
I followed the link to Citizens Climate Lobby, and to its advisory board:
http://citizensclimatelobby.org/about-us/advisory-board/
Dr. James Hansen
Dr. Katherine Hayhoe
and others
If the Team recognizes past cycles, then why did they want to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period, and why did Mann et al engage in such criminal activities in order to do so?
Nick stokes says
“Effective climate forcing used in our current simulations”. Right from your post
Those same simulation that work so well at predicting the climate?
Ya well understood.
Another poser spewing BS that he doesn’t take the time to read before he posts it.
The Team doesn’t understand anything. These posers always say that was predicted or that was already understood. Run their stupid models in reverse you think it would look anything like past climate? Their models would have a static climate in the past and that’s why they work so hard to eliminate any past climate variation. They one changing forcing component and that’s what ever BS they can push to get funding.
They also send out their teenage groupies like H Grouse and Nick Stokes to spew BS and fly a bunch of trial balloons hoping they’ll find their next line of sellable crap.
Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
While the scientists were “stunned” by the speed of the cooling 8,0200 years ago, it might we a good time to remember that we live in a chaotic universe and stuff happens.
Such changes can occur very rapidly. His research team was stunned to find trunks of huge trees near the edge of Mont Miné Glacier which had all died in just a single year. They determined that time to be 8,200 years ago based upon oxygen isotopes in the Greenland ice which showed marked cooling.
We all should be wise to remember that chaotic events can happen at any time in our universe and on our planet. We are currently living in a null point between events: super volcanos, x-Class CMEs, meteor impacts, and some events that we have yet to imagine.
Sturgis…thanks, I was going to get around to saying that, but you beat me to it.
It’s simple…if something works for a very long time (as in practically all of history), then there is no reason to assume that it suddenly stopped working in the last 100 yrs.
Schweet!
Christian scientist speaks truth to power….
Details to follow. Video at 11.
Wow, that Minoan Warm Period must have really been nice. Doubtful ours will last long enough to have the same effect. Seems each succeeding warm period is more wimpy than the previous one.
[+emphasis]
[+emphasis]
Either Grouse is wrong about his (presumably world wide) 50mm sea level rise claim or mpainter’s post is wrong. Can’t be both unless Grouse is referring to some local, but un-named, rise.
Based on local observations of no verifiable sea level change in 60 years I opt to trust mpainter over Grouse. And, therefore dbstealey is probably correct as well.
F. Ross,
You left out my full reply to Grouse:
You tied that number in with your flat wrong statement about no lag time in thermal expansion. I corrected that. So once again, you were wrong.
After Grouse claimed his 50mm sea level rise was due to ongoing global warming, I reminded him that his comment was tied in with his assertion that there is no lag time in thermal expansion. That is clearly wrong, as this link says:
Grouse can’t have it both ways. His claim that instantaneous, no-lag-time ocean thermal expansion proves ongoing global warming is wrong. Thus, his carefully selected “50mm” is wrong. There is, in fact, a significant lag time between energy input and thermal expansion. Thus, thermal expansion continues even after global warming stops.
Everything Grouse says is wrong in one way or another. That’s OK, not everyone is up to speed. But Grouse refuses to learn, and when he is shown to be wrong by others, which happens constantly, he never admits it — instead, he changes the subject, or he moves the goal posts, or he re-frames the comments the way he wants, or he engages in other troll-typr behavior. That is the problem with H Grouse.
@dbstealey says:
August 8, 2014 at 10:44 pm
Exactly so!
I was just trying to pin him down on one point, but, as anyone can easily see, he is rather “slithery”.
F. Ross,
Exactly right, you’ve got his number. Good for you. Very perceptive.
I hope you didn’t ban H Grouse, troll or not. I hate when I get banned from Pro-CAGW sites.
His arguments are repetitive and circular. His obstinacy should …just be ignored, not banned. IMO. He does appear to have the knack of getting under most peoples skin though. He sounds like a Nuccitelli-ite!
Nick Stokes says:
August 8, 2014 at 8:06 pm
Bob Boder says: August 8, 2014 at 8:01 pm
“Maybe you can explain this forcing in detail vs forcing in prior centuries?”</i?
Details are here
////////////////////////
But that does not answer the question that was put to you, since your citation is not the forcings of prior centuries.
What were the forcings that gave rise to:
1. The Holocene Optimum
2. The Minoan Warm Period
3 The Roman Warm Period/The almost glacier free Alps some 2100 BP
4/ The Viking Warm Period
5. The Little Ice Age
6. The 1810 to 1820 warming seen in CET
ETC, ETC
What were the relevant forcings/radiative budget at those times?
When you can answer that, you may be in a position to answer what caused the post 1970s warming, but until you can answer the above, quite simply you are not in a postion to do so, and the statement that the post 1970s warming can only be due to CO2 is false.
The problem is that we KNOW as FACT that there is something that we do not know about, ie., this is one of the known unknowns. We know that there is something that can cause significant warming (greater than we see today), and we do not know what that is, or how it works. But we know that it definitely exist because we can see physical evidence of its hand at work.
It may be correct to say that presently, we cannot think of anything other than CO2 that would explain the post 1970s warming, but since we know that CO2 did not cause any of the above warmings (the IPCC is firm that during the last 10,000 years and prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 has remained constant at about 280ppm), we cannot rule out the known 'unknown factor' that brought about the past warmings (cited above), as being the operative forcing factor post 1970.
Your comments are illogical. The failure to accept this simple point (ie., that we know that there is something that we do not know about) demonstartes an unscientific approach and state of mind. Your approach may work with Politicians (who for the main part have never held down a proper job, accordingly lack commonsense, and lying and being economical with the truth is part and parcel of the daily life of a Politician), but to ordinary people it makes you appear ridiculous; it is a PR disaster.
The problem is that nature will play out the hand, and there comes a time when adjusting data simply cannot conceal the cards lying face up on the table. The way that the cards are presently unfolding, suggest that the game will be up within the next decade.
The funniest thing posted today was this:
+++++++++
H Grouse says:
MarkW says:
August 8, 2014 at 1:28 pm
“No 2 std dev is not a lot.”..
2 sigma is 95%……
I think 95% is “a lot”
+++++++++
That is slack-jawed amazing. There is literally nothing there.
H Grouse and the engineer guided by M Mann are not the same person. No engineer could get stats so wrong.
The discussion of Antarctic v.s. Arctic ice is interesting if only that it teaches us that to speak out of both sides of your mouth you have to have a forked tongue.
RGB, please don’t waste your valuable capacity for insight responding to trolls. While Anthony appreciates the clicks, you have better things to do.
richard verney says: August 9, 2014 at 1:32 am
“What were the forcings that gave rise to:
1. The Holocene Optimum
…”
In fact there was a study of the Mid-Holocene, reported back in AR3 8.5.5.1. It’s results seem to have held up well. It made sense because at least one major forcing was known, which was orbital.
But generally the forcings aren’t well known for long past periods, as I said. This isn’t a lack of understanding, and doesn’t affect the modern period, where they are known. We just don’t have the observations.
This long thread was dominated by a back-and-forth between regulars and an obstinate troll who has now been told to use his correct name/handle. But this comment by Stokes should have come early and been discussed much more.
We do know many of the “forcings” but we may not know them all. Of the ones we do know, we have little to no clue as to how large a roll they play in determining the climate. I wager the young science of climatology would have made a lot of progress in my long lifetime if they had not gone done the road to religious worship of Hansen and his pet theory.
The world has focused on CO2 which does nothing to speak of on net as even the “adjusted” temperature record shows. At the same time, all these “forcings” that Stokes says we “know” have been depreciated as minor — unless it could be shown that mankind’s use of industry could be blamed.
Yes, Mr. Stokes, we do know many of Mother Nature’s “forcings” by name but we don’t know how they really work and to what degree they effect the climate over time.
NOTE: I find the word “forcing” to be distasteful. Our planet’s climate (and weather of course) is the product of many, many factors. We should call each of those factors a, …. factor. (or some other word besides “forcing”)