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
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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
bah, my sentence structure sux….please excuse
Michael Asten says:
Also I recall remains of a Roman bridge being uncovered a few years ago below a retreating alpine glacier. Anyone recall a reference?
Which would be conclusive evidence that the glacier wasn’t there as recently as Roman times.
Most likely that any glacier was a distance from the bridge if it was intended to carry traffic. Possibly closer if the structure was part of an aquaduct intended to carry melt water.
It’s not as if the Romans would have dug through a glacier, built a bridge which could never be used (or seen), then refilled the hole.
Don’t confuse climate alarmists with facts and real data. It stops them from psychologically projecting their own failings onto their critics. It is much easier for them to ignore the scientific method and deny real evidence as they wrap themselves in imaginary scenarios that come out of computer climate models which have been coded to produce those scary scenarios.
Good stuff, but be reminded that the EPA is marching forward on GHG emissions. If we don’t find a way to stop it, this country will be shackled.
SO not only is the warmth not unprecedented. But the rate of increase is not even close to what has been experienced in the recent past.
Thanks for the great piece, but please correct the typo in the final (italicised) sentence, thanks.
Hmmm – unfortunately I have to agree with Nick Stokes on this one. The early Holocene climate and it’s causes are pretty well understood. Larry Bell’s report is misleading (at best) when he suggests that experts were caught “off guard” by Schlüchter’s discovery.
I didn’t know it was controversial that the holocene maximum (Holocene Climate Optimum, also known as Hypsithermal, Altithermal, Climatic Optimum, Holocene Optimum, Holocene Thermal Maximum, and Holocene Megathermal) was a warm period during roughly the interval 9,000 to 5,000 years B.P. and that it’s cooling since then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Alan the Brit: love the snark.
You have to love Rick Rokes. As someone on here mentioned before his name must be ‘adjusted’ by us ‘climatologicbloggers’ because he incorrectly wrote Nick Stokes in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. Luckily we are here to correct his incorrect keystrokes. Raw names v Adjusted names, no difference the Adjusted names are more realistic because they fit well in my model.
Julius Caesar, in his “De Bello Gallico,” took great pains to describe in detail the flora, fauna and geographic encountered in his military campaign north of the Italian peninsula. He never mentioned glaciers- which surely would have been noteworthy features.
Thats actually quite funny, in a Monty Python sketch kind of way.
“Review of Holocene ‘Climate Optimum’ shows Temperatures 2°C hotter than Present”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.dk/2010/11/review-of-holocene-climate-optimum.html
And yet this old stuff is turning up from under melting glaciers.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
“More over, we clearly know the cause of this natural warming, and know without doubt that this proven “astronomical” climate forcing mechanism cannot be responsible for the warming over the last 100 years.”
How much more reasoned evidence is required before the world at large recognises CAGW for the cynical fraud it is?
John Finn says: August 8, 2014 at 4:17 am
“Larry Bell’s report is misleading (at best) when he suggests that experts were caught “off guard” by Schlüchter’s discovery.”
Indeed. Here is a 2007 paper by mainstream paleo climate people which describes in detail finds from this period in receding Swiss glaciers, and the climatological context.
Some years ago, another Austrian glacial retreat uncovered an ancient mine, with stacked tools, etc. The miners left one day and never returned. Many such anecdotal examples of glacial ebb and flow have been found.
Nick Stokes says:
August 8, 2014 at 4:44 am
John Finn says: August 8, 2014 at 4:17 am
“Larry Bell’s report is misleading (at best) when he suggests that experts were caught “off guard” by Schlüchter’s discovery.”
Indeed. Here is a 2007 paper by mainstream paleo climate people which describes in detail finds from this period in receding Swiss glaciers, and the climatological context.
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Bell did not suggest that experts were caught off guard, but instead, was reporting Schlüchter’s own words, which in proper context, do not say that the experts were caught off guard that such a discovery could be made…
I recall Rush Limbaugh from a couple years back describing the recent discovery of medieval silver mines in the Alps (?). The mine entrance was sealed and the tools were neatly stored waiting for the next summer period of mining when the snow line again receded high enough above the elevation to pack the mules with food supplies and make the trek up there. At some point the date was too late in the summer and it wasn’t worth going up there for only a few weeks so they skipped doing it that summer – and then another, and another … until NOW when it has warmed back up enough to reveal the silver mine still up there waiting for them to return a dozen generations later.
To me such accounts as that and revelations of ancient forests under glaciers are all irrefutable evidence of periods of warmer times in the past that simply obliterate CAGW theory. They should all be FORCED to admit that their theory cannot explain those warmer periods… before Congress.
David, UK, perhaps the original typist has a hairlip.
I recall a news article of several years ago of the Mendenhall glacial retreat uncovering a 1000 year old forest.
I’m surprised not to be able to find any photos of the recently discovered chunks of wood. Shouldn’t they exist somewhere?
Alan Robertson says: August 8, 2014 at 4:56 am
“Bell did not suggest that experts were caught off guard…”
He said:
“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.”
But he didn’t give any support for saying that those were the accepted theories. And they weren’t.
Nicely defined in Alley’s reconstruction of the Holocene.
http://i49.tinypic.com/oji4b7.jpg
Mike M says:
August 8, 2014 at 5:01 am
To me such accounts as that and revelations of ancient forests under glaciers are all irrefutable evidence of periods of warmer times in the past that simply obliterate CAGW theory. They should all be FORCED to admit that their theory cannot explain those warmer periods… before Congress.
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That would give Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and his cohorts another excuse to stand up and prevaricate about global warming and why you must be made to give up your money and your freedom.
So Bell reported that part of the interview “out of context”.. I’d say that’s misleading. Bell did also write