![Holocene_Temperature_Variations_Rev[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/holocene_temperature_variations_rev1.png?quality=75)
Excerpt from “Hello Anthropocene, Goodbye Holocene”:
: “As the official timescale keepers deliberate the introduction of the Anthropocene and a Holocene-Anthropocene boundary (Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy; Zalasiewicz, J., M. et al., 2010; http://goo.gl/wIm6X0 ), they should consider the alternative: Remove the Holocene Epoch from the geologic timescale. Whereas any timescale change is a contentious issue, let alone changes to an existing epoch, modern human society’s interactions with its planet and ecosystems, embodied by the Anthropocene, are sufficiently large to produce a lasting geologic marker that supports such modification. This new boundary would remain visible in the geologic record of oceans and continents (see also Corcoran et al., 2014 on plastics), meeting the stratigraphic requirements that ultimately underlie the timescale and marking a shift from the Pleistocene’s Milankovitch forcing to the Anthropocene’s human forcing.
The Holocene is a climate-centric placeholder for change after the latest Quaternary glaciation, but does not, as defined, match the accelerated changes in land, ocean and atmosphere that mark modern times. So, I suggest that (a) we remove the Holocene altogether in favor of a (young) Anthropocene Epoch that reflects planet-wide geologic changes since c. 1900 CE, or (b) we demote the Holocene to Stage/Age status, marking the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. The latter, perhaps more palatable compromise, would recognize historical precedent and allow continued use of Holocene in the literature as a temporal (“Age”) marker. Regardless, slicing the Quaternary Period in ever thinner epochs has no geologic merit. Given the degree and impact of modern, human-induced changes on our planet, a young Pleistocene-Anthropocene boundary seems justified.”
The journal titled The Holocene probably isn’t going to like this idea.
The fact is the tiny 0.7C recovery since the end of the Little Ice Age in ~1850, which is coincidentally when the global temperature record begins, could easily be natural and 95% explained by solar activity and ocean oscillations, and is not unprecedented or unusual within the past ~10,000 years of the Holocene Epoch. Thousands of paleoclimate papers show the Medieval, Roman, Egyptian, Minoan, and multiple other unnamed warm periods within the Holocene were warmer than the present. In addition, the Pacific Ocean has been significantly warmer than the present throughout vast majority of the Holocene.
Further, during the last interglacial ~120,000 years ago, Greenland was up to 8C warmer than the current interglacial warm period, and sea levels were up to 29 feet higher. Therefore, there is no evidence that warmth during the current interglacial warm period is unprecedented, unusual, or unnatural.
Therefore, there is no valid reason whatsoever to remove the Holocene Epoch “blip” from the geological timescale, despite how convenient it would be for the climate propagandists. Kinda bad timing too promoting the silly Anthropocene/Mannocene notion that man-made CO2 controls the climate given the 50+ excuses for the absence of global warming for the past 18-26 years despite a steady rise in CO2.
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| GISP2 Greenland ice core data in blue, the tiny 0.7C “Anthropocene” warming of HADCRU sea surface temperatures to present-day shown in red spliced at end |
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| Above GISP2 Greenland ice core data with labeled warm periods |
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| Present Greenland temperatures haves been exceeded many times over past 4000 yrs Full paper |
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| Temperatures during the last interglacial period ~120,000 years ago [and several other interglacials] were higher than during the present interglacial period. |
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| Holocene Epoch shown at lower right, as well as the lack of correlation on geologic timescales between CO2 and temperature. |
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| On geologic timescales, we are still in an ice age, because there are ice sheets present at both poles |
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Ever feel like sometimes you are Winston Smith and the alarmists are O’Brien?
Somewhere along the way, science took a left turn and left reality. I think it comes from compartmentalizing – striving to find your own niche. Consider cancer research. At some point it left the playing field of trying to conquer cancer and went off into splintered areas “looking for carcinogens” instead of trying to understand how to reverse the process that causes cancer to happen. Billions of dollars have been wasted, literally, chasing after inconsequential knowledge, but niche science is where the money is.
The same goes with climate studies. Once the presumed relationship between molecular isotopes and various possible conditions was discovered, niches formed drawing grant money to pad the research. Some useful things have come from niche studies, but the trouble with niche studies is that they don’t always apply well to the total picture. Somewhere along the line, everyone seems to have forgotten that proxies are not data, they are presumptions based on guesses.
Proxies are based, in part at least, on the known temperature record. If the physical record is true, than the proxy based on it has some validity, but it is still a guess. All proxies are calibrated, if you will, from the physical record of information, yet in the past 30 years, that physical record has been manipulated so much that it is hard to know what actually is the true record, and yet the proxies based on those records are still assumed to be just as valid as they were when the record was vastly different than it is now.
In my mind, if the record upon which the proxies were calibrated has changed, then it is time to recalibrate the proxies as well. I wonder, if that was to happen, what would the ice core and mud cores then reflect? Was it warmer or colder, more CO2 or less CO2, higher water vapor in the air at 1000 meters or less? And that last statement is part of the problem as I see climate studies – assuming you can tell what the air or water temperature was 10,000 years ago at 1000 meters above or below the surface – based on proxies which are based on best guess, but treated as if it was absolute data.
Tom O September 16, 2014 at 8:55 am
but niche science is where the money is
You have it – right there. No scientist in academia appears to be interested in knowledge for its own sake, the research has to bring in research grants, more students, result in large numbers of papers cited by larger numbers of others. It is all about fame and fortune.
Worse still, research is expected to come up with a desired result or it has ‘failed’. But that is totally incorrect, a research result is valuable even if it falsifies the original hypothesis; but try to sell that to the Grants department who want a satisfied customer.
We are living Eisenhower’s nightmare.
You know when I first read the Headline I thought it made good sense. I thought they were going to suggest that we were still in the Pleistocene. I see nothing about the Holocene that makes it different from any other interglacial in the Pleistocene.
It isn’t. It was elevated to Epoch status before science knew as much about Ice Ages as now.
http://www.academia.edu/2708563/Formal_Subdivision_of_the_Holocene_Series_Epoch
The Holocene is the most recent stratigraphic unit within the geological record and covers the time interval from 11.7 ka BP until the present day. The term
Holocene, which means ‘entirely recent’, was first used by Gervais (1867–69) to refer to the warm episode that began with the end of the last glacial period, and which had previously been referred to as ‘Recent’ (Lyell, 1839) or ‘Post-Glacial’ (Forbes, 1846). It was formally adopted by the International Geological Congress (IGC) in 1885 to refer to this episode and to the appropriate unit in the stratigraphic record. Along with the preceding Pleistocene, the Holocene is now formally defined as a Series/Epoch within the Quaternary System/Period (Gibbard et al, 2005).
“Epoch” is pretty arbitrary, anyway. The reduced Pliocene now lasts only 2.75 million years, while the preceding Miocene about 17.7 million.
“It isn’t. It was elevated to Epoch status before science knew as much about Ice Ages as now.”
Periods, Epochs and Stages are under continuous review, it never stops. The years are continually adjusted and definitions continually tweaked but always based strictly on hard data not whimsy or theoretical fashion-sense. The Holocene is an Epoch because it’s needed as a discrete reference Epoch. It is not a mistake, nor a premature action which was not later rectified. It is perfectly correct as it now stands and it serve an indispensable intended role, and it isn’t going away.
Holocene translates to mean, “Entirely Recent”. The other interglacials are not entirely recent. We have nothing even resembling the direct knowledge of them which we have for the entirely recent. Which makes the geological context of the Holocene plenty different from all the other interglacials. Geology largely isn’t the slightest bit interested in the fact that human civilization arose in the Holocene, that is not what we study, it is the rocks and sediments of the Holocene that tell us a detailed story that no other period does and it is most definitely the Rosetta-Stone to decoding and understanding the past. And there is no other period that does that to anything like the same extent.
To moronically propose to call it the “Anthropocene” misses the entire point of why it is a geologically defined Epoch in the first place, it pertains entirely to the study of the rocks and sediments of the whole earth during that period.
So why the hell would we ever call it the fricken Anthropocene?! ROFLMAO!
No if people in the Humanities disciplines of Anthropology and Archaeology want to call it the Anthropocene I have no objection whatsoever. They can do anything they like as no one cares what they do in the humanities studies. No one in science will probably even notice if they use a different term for the Holocene. Who cares?
But the warmer/alarmist clowns can shutup about proposing to rename a geological Epoch after something which has nothing whatsoever to do with geology. Maybe we can then rename evolutionary biology studies “Alternate Creationism” to make the Church-goers happier?
We don’t care if people are not happy with our terms, it’s none of they damned business what terms geologists professionally use.
It will have everything to do with geology. All studies, measurements, and empirical observations will be found to support human-caused “tipping points” in earth systems in the Anthropocene Age.
The following should be understood as the decision of the “community of practitioners” for the new Paradigm:
“Remove the Holocene Epoch from the geologic timescale. Whereas any timescale change is a contentious issue, let alone changes to an existing epoch, modern human society’s interactions with its planet and ecosystems, embodied by the Anthropocene, are sufficiently large to produce a lasting geologic marker that supports such modification. This new boundary would remain visible in the geologic record of oceans and continents (see also Corcoran et al., 2014 on plastics), meeting the stratigraphic requirements that ultimately underlie the timescale and marking a shift from the Pleistocene…”
Those who wrote your text books can perfectly well re-write them.
Zeke
You wrote
Does that mean your real name is Winston Smith?
Richard
Good luck to them making it stick zeke, that are not playing in the kiddies end of the pool this time.
“We don’t care if people are not happy with our terms, it’s none of they damned business what terms geologists professionally use.”
—————–
And therein is the “root” of the problems that are responsible for 90+% of all the “heated” discussions about climate, weather and science in general.
When the pre-1970/80s professionals in/of all the science disciplines “didn’t care” what the terminology was that was being printed in the textbooks …. and subsequently being taught to all the younger generations of students, …. the results of the teaching of “science illiteracy” is now self-evident throughout the populace.
And worse yet, when 80+% of the currently employed Educators are the “product” of the aforesaid “science illiteracy” education ….. it is highly improbable that the “problem” can easily be corrected because it has now become “self-perpetuating”.
Absurdity at the highest level. The past 100 years being one of the most unchangeable(STABLE ) climate period since the end of the last major glaciation some 20000 years ago..
The “community” of “researchers” are just “structuring” a little “scientific revolution.” The new scientific paradigm is so shocking and different from the previous interpretations of data that new vocabulary and language is required, indicating a complete split from the previous prevailing paradigm.
One of the perks of Kuhn’s paradigm shifts is that researchers rewrite history to fit the paradigm. The new Anthropocene Age paradigm shift was announced by the NSF years ago and is proceeding in top-down lock-step fashion. This is an “inter-disciplinary” and “holistic” paradigm, so of course the arts and social sciences will be included, history will be revised, and the messaging will be every where.
This is how progressive scientists roll. In short, the Anthropocene Age is clearly not a religion, but a scientific paradigm shift.
Correction, “In short, the Anthropocene Age, with its human induced “climate change” and ubiquitous human-caused “tipping points,” is clearly not a religion at all, but a scientific paradigm shift.
Zeke
You wrote
Correction, “In short, the Anthropocene Age, with its human induced “climate change” and ubiquitous human-caused “tipping points,” is clearly not a religion at all, and not a scientific paradigm shift.
It is an attempt to bolster a failing political scam which is pretending to be ‘scientific’.
Richard
RSC, I have used terminology from the “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” to show that the re-writing of history, and introducing completely novel language, meanings, and interpretations of data to conform to the new paradigm, is expected in Kuhn’s model. If you want to defend Kuhn, than do so.
What I am trying to show is that Climate Change and the Anthropocene Age are perfect examples of Scientific Paradigm Shifts.
You really do need to learn to be more courteous, and dispense with the name calling
beckleybud@gmail.com
No, I need to reduce my natural inclination to be kind to trolls like you.
I will try harder to fulfill this need.
Richard
http://www.aol.com/article/2014/09/15/global-warming-likely-to-cause-colder-and-snowier-winters/20962706/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl10%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D529696
Anthony this came out today about the decline in Arctic Sea Ice being tied into the behavior of the polar vortex and thus winter weather.
I think this should be exposed it being so absurd. If one goes back to the 1970’s one would see a similar atmospheric pattern while Arctic Sea Ice was extensive which blows this theory in the water.
Just a suggestion to expose this kind of nonsense without collaboration of data.
If geologists are to do anything with the Holocene, the sensible move would be to demote it from Epoch to Stage/Age status within the Pleistocene (recently adjusted at its other end, correctly IMO), since it’s no different from all prior interglacials. Indeed, so far it has been cooler than many if not most of them.
Sturgis, this is what I intended to write, but you put it much better.
It already does fit into the Stage category, it’s used as both a Stage or an Epoch, but what difference does it make anyway? We’re still going to call it the Holocene and know what it means.
Yes, but my point is that we should keep calling whatever it is the Holocene, since its onset had nothing whatsoever to do with humanity, but is merely the latest in a long line of interglacials. Nor is there enough of a human effect to label even the past century the “Anthropocene”, let alone the whole Stage or Epoch.
IMO science has a lot of good data on the Eemian and previous recent interglacials, too, back as far as the ice and sediment cores and other paleo proxies reach.
The people dreaming up the justification of markers should realize that forests, reefs, jungles, deserts, sea level, climate patterns and glaciers all migrated massively at the beginning of the Holocene.
To try and compare the puny human impact to the natural impact over the Holocene deserves a term like Egomaniocene, to reflect the absurd hubris and perceptual imbalance of significant global change. What it has to do with geology escapes me. Any human or cultural layer or marker sequence is the province of Archaeology and always will be, geology is not the slightest bit interested in it. We deal with silicate minerals not with plastic crap and used hairspray pressure packs. If the Archaeologists want a new term for the scrap piles and human coprolites on cave floor who even cares. The climate alarmers can borrow their second-hand jargon from them and everyone’s happy.
Sounds more like the “Lysenkocene” to me.
CACA is indeed Stalinesque.
OK, lemme see here. The Holocene, ostensibly the most recent post Mid Pleistocene Transition interglacial, was essentially declared over by noted professor William Ruddiman (“The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago.”, Climate Change 61, 261–293).
Generally speaking, most paleoclimatologists suggest that Gaia has two primary climate states, interglacial warmth and ice age cold. So in ending the Holocene (interglacial warmth) by extending interglacial warmth as the Anthropocene inevitably means that there is just one climate state left.
An ice age. Which, as it turns out, should have started thousands of years ago if we are indeed correct about GHGs, which necessarily implies Ruddiman’s Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis is also correct.
So let’s hop to it hominids! We need to remove the climate security blanket RIGHT NOW, so as to not further delay Gaia’s next glacial inception!
Did we bump our heads?
Actually the idea of changing the Holocene to a Stage/Age instead of Series/Epoch makes sense to me and always has. There is no remarkable change at the beginning of the Holocene that separates it from changes that occurred within the Pleistocene.
The designation of a new Epoch/Series at ca. 1900 is asinine though, ESPECIALLY if you are arguing global climate change for the reasoning behind the designation. If you were to argue that there should be an Anthropocene based on lithostratigraphy then you would be flat out wrong as well. There are places where human remnants comprise a significant part of the sediments, e.g. landfills, cities, but the vast majority of sediments deposited over the past 100 years would show no signs of anthropogenic activity. What would be they type section of the Anthropocene and what would be its exact definition? Why would 1,000 year old rocks with brass or other human remnants be considered part of the Pleistocene but 100 year old rocks with steel be considered Anthropocene? The bottom line is that it’s far too early to designate a new Epoch based on human influence because we don’t know yet exactly how our influence will manifest itself on the lithostratigraphic record.
As noted, it is already a Stage/Age, too, so all that would be needed would be to de-Epochize it.
Of which action I would approve, as I did for switching the Gelasian Age from Pliocene to Pleistocene. Also, with the Holocene back in the Pleistocene, the latter would be the same as the Quaternary.
Basic problem is one of scale. As you’d know the anthropocentric ape generally has zero practical grasp of time and if you view the geological timescale as printed on a landscape A4 sheet of paper, the Anthropocentric Period would be the last row of atoms on the bottom far right edge of the page. Which no one will ever be able to see, because anthropocentric humans simply haven’t been around long enough time to get two rows of atoms yet. It’s actually more like about an 1/8th of one wayward electron at this point. But let’s try and squeeze a new Period with the over blown text label Anthropocene on the bottom of the page and pretend humans rate such a mention in geological time. the time scale only fits on to an A4 page now because its plotted massively not to scale so that the Quarternary can even be seen on the page. If we stick an Anthropocene Period on it we’ll may have to ditch the Archean side of the page, but that’s only 2.04 billion years long, or about 45% of Earth’s geological history. But given the significance of the hairless ape which is full self importance, this is but a small price to pay.
Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if one sunny day a starship descends to earth and a noble ancient race of beings alights and greets us and does the ‘take us to your leader’ thing, and after the confusion dies down, and Ban-Ki-Moon and Legarde are told to sit down and keep quiet, and Putin is tasered into submission in front of the General assembly, big-ears walks over to them with all the dignity he can muster, to introduce himself and humanity. The Aliens ask in perfect global English, “what do you call yourselves?” After a short delay Barry proudly reads a teleprompter and announces, “We call ourselves Homo-sapiens-sapiens and we live in a time which we call the Anthropocene”. So the Aliens follow this by asking what Homo-sapiens-sapiens means? And after an uncomfortably long silence Barry says it translates to mean that man is the wisest of the wise on Earth. At which point the aliens begin to make sound rarely emitted, but after they quickly settle they continue; “And what does Anthropocene mean?” After a gruelling 15 second delay and more strange noises blurting forth from the back row of aliens, Bazza takes an upbeat tone and says that, “It means the age of Man, who is wiser than wisest, and who has full control of the planet and its environment, and is the greatest of all living species.” The aliens go dead-pan and slowly back away as one of them in the second row makes a quick but suppressed gesticulation of some kind as they re-enter the spaceship, and depart in an impressive display of not inconsiderable alacrity.
Let’s see now, Eocene means ‘Dawn of the Recent”, and Miocene means “Partly Recent”, so Anthropocene means “Man Recent”. Right? Is this geo-babble? Or did I miss something??
Careful, the nomenclature committee will see this and decide we are in a new Era called the Exituszoic.
How about the Manerozoic Eon?
Or Homocene Epoch, dated from the Stonewall Riots?
I think the reason of getting done with holocene seems simple.
Problem in question is LIA.
Till some time ago, few years ago (when still shouting about unprecedented warming while in reality only a pause at the best) they could ignore LIA like it was not there, enough warming up to that time allowing to ignore LIA to a point of considering it as non existent, but with the heat loss and no any warming anymore to show, ignoring LIA means no any warming can be shown, or any warming trend of any significance.
And with how things are going they can’t go further in past to lower the warming because with the LIA obstacle there is no much further allowed or possible to lower the warming in the past, and besides it will show that we still at the moment in the LIA if they stubbornly tried.
So to erase only the LIA part from Holocene is no good actually, makes things even worse for AGW, there will be no warming trend at all in one or two years from now if hiatus persist, and with the way data has been tortured thus far. .
With the LIA there they soon run out of room with data fudging and in no long time with the hiatus persisting they have to accept no significant warming trend, as next to none.
So why not cancel-out the whole Holocene and be done with the LIA problem,no problems after to keep fudging the data and desperately postpone the truth to be seen.
Is no way ACC-AGW can afford or tolerate LIA, if it has still to be for some time more as a scientific certanty or even as a louse scientific conclusion of some strange kind.
Besides from the LIA begining till now the climate has been not in the equilibrium, a rather long time to explain under AGW.
cheers
.
I suppose we’ll have to endure this anthropocene crappola and climate nonsense until all the real deniers are screaming at us through the icicles hanging out of their noses. My only hope is that I’m still around to see it so I can ROFLMAO.
In your heavily debunked graphic of GISP2 you show modern temperatures only .7C above the end of the GISP2 temperature series. This graphic (found here: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/d1a5b-interglacial2btemperatures.jpg ) shows that the end of the temperature series stops around -31.5C so if you add .7C to that you get about -30.8C as our modern temperature.
However you also showed a graphic from this peer reviewed journal article http://www.leif.org/EOS/2011GL049444.pdf
the graphic you showed was here, it is a version of the figure 1 from the paper:
Except you cut away the recent temperature data and only allowed the decadal average temperature to be shown. The current average shown in your average is about -29.8C which would be an ADDITIONAL .7C warmer than your previous graphic.
But you also decided not to show the graphic from the actual paper that has the 2010 temperature value of -27.5C. This value of -27.5C is higher than the Minoan warming period on the original GISP2 graphic.
what are you afraid of?
jai mitchell,
You have never made much sense, but right now it’s even harder to understand your comment. Who are you trying to communicate with? The voices in your head?
The graph you claim is ‘debunked’ is from R.B. Alley data. Go argue with him if you don’t like it. Unless, of course, you’re ‘afraid’ of something.
The version of the GISP2 graph that is here, has an annotation “years before present (2000AD)”. This means Alley must have had a time machine. The GISP2 ice core took 5 years to drill and finished in July 1993. When the graph was originally published “years before present” was conventionally taken to be 1950. Perhaps it is time to remove the misleading caption?
Debunked by who? By AGW trough-feeders whose academic business model is threatened by palaeo records like GISP2. That is the problem with the scientific system currently. A debunking does not count if the debunker has a direct financial interest in the science being discussed. Otherwise the sound that we might think is the sound of a debunking narrative is in fact just the sound of a pig squealing as it is pulled by its tail away from the trough.
Science is going to have to find a way of providing impartial review, if it is going to be taken seriously.
There should be a Hansenocene (pronounced han-SEN-o-cene) and it started in 1977.
Isn’t that the Hansen-Obscene period starting in 1977?
Or was it the Hansen-Obsolescence (Obsolescience ?) starting in 1977.
The names of the epochs in the Cenozoic era should now be,
Paleocene, Eocene, Oligicene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and the current epoch- OBscene.
If the Holocene is now the Anthropocene and it is defined as the era where we influenced climate by twiddling the climate control knobs, it would be very interesting to know for future reference which “knob” we played with to pull the earth out of the Ice Age. We may need to find this knob sooner than we think.
Just call it the “Obscene” for what has happened to science.
– – – – – – – – –
Zeke,
Redefining away the Holocene does lead to thinking of Kuhn alright. Thanks for offering it up.
Kuhn’s scientific paradigm shifts as he described them seem to describe the behavior of pseudo-science development also. The question for you and I is: ‘Has observation challenged CAGW theory and its assorted un-established hypotheses development been more pseudo-science than science? Corollary question is: ‘What are the clear demarcation criteria between pseudo-science and science?’
I suggest the clear demarcation criterion is in the use of precisely applied reasoning versus mimicking applied reasoning.
John
Good questions, all, and thank you for your fair remark. Someone brought up pathological science as well, which also describes many trends in science.
In particular, we often see incredibly precise measurements – in parts per million or thousandths of a degree, for example – and these precise measurements are then extrapolated out and used to make sweeping claims about how the whole system originated and how it operates. And naturally these scientific claims have profound implications for energy, agriculture, and education. Of course.
But the conflict between Kuhn and Karl Popper is instructive for us today in the way that science is carried out, and by whom. Popper showed plainly that agreement by experts on a paradigm was not necessary for scientific discovery, and more often would hinder and destroy scientific advancement. He was right, and we could not ask for a more perfect illustration than Climate Science. Popper should be recognized for having seen this coming, and for his refutation of Kuhn.
Zeke
Actually, there is a “clear demarcation” between science an pseudoscience: they are antitheses.
Science attempts to obtain the closest possible approximation to ‘truth’ by seeking evidence to falsify existing idea or ideas and amending the existing ideas in light of new evidence and/or new understanding of existing evidence.
Pseudoscience accepts an existing idea or ideas as being ‘truth’ and seeks evidence to support that accepted ‘truth’.
Richard
Zeke said “In particular, we often see incredibly precise measurements – in parts per million or thousandths of a degree, for example – and these precise measurements are then extrapolated out and used to make sweeping claims about how the whole system originated and how it operates.”
Climate scientists are experts in statistical error analysis, however it is not intuitive for some folks to appreciate the power of globally positioned >3000 Argo buoys (each having a precision of ± 0.002 deg C) and multiple sampling. Studies have shown a statistically significant heat energy trend upwards, while giving a energy budget value that is not far from the radiation imbalance at TOA.
I think we can all agree that larger data sets reduce uncertainty. So when I see an uncertainty ± 0.1 W/m^2 and an ocean heat trend of +0.55 W/m^2 over the 2005-2010 Argo collection timeframe, I can quite comfortably rule out ‘hiatus’ and ‘cooling’.
“Von Schuckmann & Le Traon (2011) also estimate the errors in global trends from the period analysed, and also future error uncertainty. For the 2005-2010 period the error uncertainty is plus/minus 0.1 watt per square metre; quite large considering the global trend over the period is 0.55 watts per square metre. However, after 15 years of observations the uncertainty drops considerably, down to ± 0.02 watts per square metre. This demonstrates how longer periods of observation, along with the complete ARGO network, are critical to derive more accurate long-term ocean trends.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/08/11/286636/sorry-deniers-the-ocean-is-still-warming/
For folks who have some statistics background, this link is a nice demonstration in error analysis and shows how you can detect a change in a quantity that, for each measurement, is smaller than the uncertainty in each measurement.
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/illustrating-error-analysis/
Hanzo
Hanzo says:
Climate scientists are experts in statistical error analysis…
Hanzo, go back to bed. You’re delirious.
Hanzo continues with his crazy talk:
I can quite comfortably rule out ‘hiatus’ and ‘cooling’.
I can quite comfortably rule out your sanity.
Just about every alarmist organization, including the granddaddy of them all, the IPCC, has stated that global warming has “paused”, and/or is in a “hiatus”.
Those words mean that global warming has stopped.
Who should folks believe? Your iconoclastic nonsense? Or what Planet Earth is plainly telling us?
I’m prescribing you 30 mg of Xanax and a pint of cheap vodka.
Can’t hurt. Might help.
Dbstealey said “Those words mean that global warming has stopped.”
There are many lines of evidence to show that the rise of climate heat energy didn’t cease during this temporary plateau of surface temperatures, which has been seen before in the temperature record.
As long as the following four phenomena is happening, it would be premature to safely conclude that climate change had ceased. Additionally, I require an alternative explanation for this putative cessation after so many years of temperature rise. And it is insufficient to make a general and amorphous assertion of some natural forcing without defining it. As scientists we have a responsibility to explain, not merely to obfuscate and to generate unsupported doubt as if it were a work product.
1) no pause in radiative imbalance at top of the atmosphere
2) no pause in increasing ocean heat content (0-2000 m)
3) no pause in sea level rise
4) no pause in accelerating ice mass loss in the Arctic and in Antarctica.
I offer the following evidence and I challenge anyone to refute any of the following studies and without ad hominem assertions or conspiracist ideation.
COMPUTER MODELS: The Risbey paper linked below showed that any model-run discrepancy between calc’d and obs’d mean global SATs are minimized when the emergent stochastic ENSOs in the model are in phase with the observed ENSOs.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2310.html
STAT ANALYSES: “Statistical analysis of average global temperatures between 1998 and 2013 shows that the slowdown in global warming during this period is consistent with natural variations in temperature, according to research by McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy.”
http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/global-warming-pause-reflects-natural-fluctuation-237538
Yes, this is yet another line of evidence that further reinforces the understanding that there exists a continual GHG forcing that is causing a net upward long term trend in the heat content of the climate system that is either augmented or dampened by shorter term, natural, stochastic, and lower magnitude, heat redistribution events such as ENSO.
NO PAUSE-ICE: There was no pause in ice mass declines in the Arctic and Antarctic.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL040222/abstract;jsessionid=5CC63C213C94CF82C29D3519069FF8C7.f03t03
NO PAUSE-OCEAN HEAT: There was no pause in the ocean heat content trend (0-2000 m)
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index.html
NATURAL VS GHG FORCINGS: In the last 18 years, the temperature record shows excellent correspondence with short term well documented short-term cooling and heating events (natural variations). The link below illustrates the quality of the correspondence in the last ~30 years of volcanic activity (El Cinchon, Pinatubo) El Nino, La Nina and the very small solar effects.
If you remove the temperature skew by known natural variations, the upward trend is the same as the last ~30 years. No pause in the greenhouse gas forcing.
TRADE WINDS: The trend usually cited starts with an 1998 El Niño (heat transfer from ocean to air) and ends with La Nina (heat transfer from air to ocean). This artificially gives the impression of a lower trend. Evidence is put forward for the origin of the natural air/ocean heat transfer mechanisms (Anomalous trade winds) explaining the short ‘hiatus’
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2106.html
Hanzo
Hanzo says:
I challenge anyone to refute any of the following studies and without ad hominem assertions or conspiracist ideation… COMPUTER MODELS…
“Studies” are opinions; conjectures. So are computer models, where GI = GO. The scientific evidence shows that global warming has stopped. And not for just a little while, but for many, many years now. Planet Earth is busy debunking your belief system.
And: “conspiricist ideation”?? Any follower of the wretched Lewandowski has zero credibility.
100,000,000 years from now, the archeologists will encounter in the geologic record the period from Hansen’s testimony to congress to 2100. It will be so thick that it can be distinguished from the adjacent strata. They will call it…the blipocene.
Yes the previous inter glacial was 8 degrees warmer than this one AND we don’t know why. So when we do see more warming during this one, the nut jobs will scream “AGW!”
What is over is the Renaissance, the age of reason. This was the age where experimental inquiry of free-thinkers overturned dogma received from authority. Galileo challenged orthodoxy going back to classical times, exchanging authority of the ancients with observations from the telescope he made and experimental tests such as dropping stones of unequal size from the leaning tower of Pisa.
Likewise Andreas Vesalius was able to escape religious and superstitious restraint and accepted myths about the human body and dissected corpses and took a look for himself, establishing the structure and role of the blood vessel circulation and nervous system.
With acceptance of AGW dogma against evidence by corrupt politicians and trough-feeding academics and business people together with a servile uncurious craven and newly superstitious general public, free and honest inquiry is becoming outlawed again. Observation and experiment – the key of the scientific renaissance – could again become marginslised, even dangerously taboo activities.
In a nutshell, this misleading article on WUWT depicting GISP2 graphs with correct Greenland ice core temperatures…
…but the x-axis is offset by 145 years. Yes, the x-axis datapoint in far right of the graph labelled “2000” or “today” is not the year 2000, but is the year 1855, just prior to AGW. The GISP2 ice core temperature ends at 95 years before present (BP).
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-spgm2W9i4po/UWZMSlho3cI/AAAAAAAAFdQ/jvp-6ir2zgE/s1600/Figure5.jpg
Ice core data graphs are commonly presented in BP’s or years Before Present where ‘present’ is 1950 by common paleoclimate convention.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present
Let me show you how the mistake was made. The actual tabulated ice core data is available in the following link. This data was published by Prof Richard Alley (Penn State) in 2000 and this date was incorrectly defined by climate contrarians as “present”
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Column 1 shows the ice core ages in 1000xBP and Column 2 shows the corresponding temperature in Celsius.
The most recent datapoint in the graph is at Age 0.09514 (1000 x BP) and at -31.6 deg C. That’s 95.1 years BP or 1950-95.1 = 1855 AD (pre-AGW).
This misleading mistake has been discussed here…
http://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2013/04/easterbrooks-messed-up-graphs-corrected.html
and here…
http://hot-topic.co.nz/easterbrooks-wrong-again/
If WUWT can mislead you here, is it possible that they can mislead you in other areas?
Hanzo
Hanzo, Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful analysis. Please address “Almost all of the past 10,000 years was warmer than the present.”
Thank You.
Lawrence
The statement you wish to discuss can neither be proven nor disproven using the GISP2 graph, and that is all I am talking about.
What can be disproven is the version of that graph quoted by Easterbrook.
Thank you for your honesty. I must admit that my concern for the truth tends to override my interest in Graph labeling. I’m a bit of a realist that way. Enjoy your world of graphs and models. I’ll be cutting firewood and looking out my window.
Peace.
[Someone] murders a child. His trial lawyer gains his acquittal by finding a small administrative error in the prosecution team’s sharing of witness details with defence lawyers.
That is is what is going on here. AGW believers will never address palaeo data that shows that most of the Holocene was warmer than the present. For them it is sufficient to find in a graph spanning 10,000 years an error of endpoint labelling of a century or so. Then purr in pedantic complacency imagining that the issue of abundant and irrefutable data showing most of the Holocene was warmer than the present, has simply vanished with the sleight of hand and wink of an eye of a corrupt judicial process.
A lot of confusion has arisen from Alley’s reference to ‘present’ in 2000 and just what that means–when Alley refers to ‘present,’ does he mean 2000, or before 1950, the beginning of the top of the core. I have the original data set from Stuiver and Grootes (1997), which I use for all my isotope plots. BP in the ice core is “AD 1950 summer to AD 1949 summer.” and the first oxygen isotope measurements were made 2.135 m from the core top at -36.88 years. Both the oxygen isotope curve and the temp curve show the same thing but based on different data. It’s interesting to compare the Cuffy and Clow (1997)original temperature reconstruction (Temperature, accumulation, and ice sheet elevation in central Greenland: Jour of Geophysical Research, 1997) with the Alley curve. According to Alley , his “temperature interpretation is based on stable isotope analysis, and ice temperature data, from the GISP2 ice, core, central Greenland. Data are smoothed from original measurements published by Cuffy and Clow (1997), as presented in Figure 1 of Alley (2000).” He says “Period of record: 45 kYrBP – present.” So what did Alley mean by ‘present?’ HIs data set says 0.095 x 1000 yrs before ‘present’ but did he mean ‘present’ to be 1950 (top of the core) or 2000 when he published the data? Only Alley knows that and I tell people if they really want to know to ask him, not me –it’s not my data! All that Alley did was smooth the Cuffy-Clow curve so it’s important to look at that data–I’ll post more on that later.
The misleading label was addressed on this very site
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/13/crowdsourcing-the-wuwt-paleoclimate-reference-page-disputed-graphs-alley-2000/
The graph’s most recent date is 1855.
Any other suggestion is misleading (not my words – see the link)
Your addressing a span of 50 years. Please address “Almost all of the past 10,000 years was warmer than the present”. Thank You.
If the difference is important to you please feel free to address the statement “Almost all of the past 10,000 years was warmer than the present.” from the standpoint of 1950 being P present and also from the standpoint of 2000 being P.
I’ll wait.
Correction : Span of 150 years. 1855 BP.
Sorry. Nap time.
Lawrence,
I do not know what the present day temperature of that part of the ice cap is. Do you?
What the graph actually shows is : one part of the Greenland ice cap has varied in temperature between -32C and -29C
How you relate that to present day world temperatures is up to you. I am simply pointing out that Easterbrook’s graph is not correct, and has been known to be incorrect due to the work of various contributors to this site, particularly ‘justhefacts’ – see the link.
…”What the graph actually shows is : one part of the Greenland ice cap has varied in temperature between -32C and -29C
How you relate that to present day world temperatures is up to you.”…
————————————————————————————————————————————————
I don’t. I relate it to a 10,000 year history.
It’s a graph… it misses a blip in that history.
Can you address for me : “Almost all of the past 10,000 years was warmer than the present.”
Thank You.
[Comment to moderator deleted. ~mod.]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Objecting to that graph is not a technicality – the graph is wrong and being used to mislead, and if sceptics do not stick to the rules and present data accurately they just let their case down. To draw any conclusion from that graph you need to compare paleoclimate measurements against present day temperatures, not those from 1855. If that is not done it is meaningless.
Hanzo,
So what? The point is that the alarmist cult, of which you appear to be a charter member, is trying to deceive the public by erasing the Holocene. Your long-winded complaint about the starting year for a graph is nothing by comparison.
The Holocene is an interglacial. That can be clearly seen here. We are in it, and we are fortunate that it is so beneficial for the biosphere. It is really a “Goldilocks” climate. Why does the alarmist clique hate that fact so much?
The fact is that you have lost the debate. Planet Earth is the arbiter, and she has ruled in favor of skeptics. Try being a stand-up guy for once and accept that you were wrong. There is no climate catastrophe. It didn’t happen. You were wrong.
Now, what is your opinion regarding the blatant propaganda of trying to get rid of an inconvenient epoch like our current interglacial? Is that A-OK with you, just because it supports the repeatedly debunked runaway global warming narrative?
Dbstealy says “So what”
So what indeed. I propose that we let future paleoclimatologists debate the end of the Holocene and the proper name of the next era. I think we need to be at least consistent with past practice. Did we rename the Triassic era based on the species (Methanosarcina) that may have been a key contributor to the Permian-Triassic extinction event?
https://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/ancient-whodunit-may-be-solved-microbes-did-it
After we filter out all the snark, ad hominems and conspiracy theory, we are left with he key scientific question that is continually debated at WUWT: What is the degree of natural vs anthropogenic attribution to climate change?
If that’s the context then:
So what, if GISP2 shows a variations in temperature in GREENLAND may have been higher than contemporary mean GLOBAL temperature? We all realize that climate variations are governed by both GHG and non-GHG-forcings and feedbacks and that REGIONAL effects may be different from GLOBAL mean effects.
Let’s not always get stuck in comparing some past solar or orbital-forced warming to contemporary GHG-forcing. They are not equivalent with respect to cause.
Would it not be more useful to compare the current GHG-forced warming to other natural GHG-forced warmings in the past? How were they similar, and how did they differ? We can confirm that the GHG is forcing, rather than feedback, by evidence of ocean acidification. You don’t have to go far. Just look at the mass extinction events.
For example, in a century, the global mean temp increased about 0.8 degrees during a relatively stable time for other known forcings. That’s 1 deg C over 125 years for a global mean. I’m not talking about any regional abrupt variation (although they are very interesting). Is that rate of global temperature rise precedented or unprecedented? Let’s examine this.
The PETM extinction event represents a “case study” for global warming and massive carbon input to Earth’s surface. In this event, the global mean temp rose 6 deg C within 20,000 years according to our latest chronology. That’s 1 deg C over 3333 years.
Sources: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETM#Evidence_for_global_warming
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETM#Comparison_with_today.27s_climate_change
If we compare the temp effect of GHG emissions from a massive NATURAL event (1 deg C over 3333 years), with the temp effect from our anthropogenic GHG emissions and land use (1 deg C over 125 years), we find that the effects of our industrial activities are 27x faster than the effects from the worst mass extinction event in history.
I find that fascinating and more important than any conspiracy theory.
Hanzo
katatetorihanzo
You say
Well, if we accept that nonsense as being true then it demonstrates there is no evidence for “GHG is forcing” because there is no “evidence of ocean acidification”.
Richard
@Hanzo:
After we filter out all the misdirection, and the refusal to answer simple questions, and the refusal to stay on the article’s topic, we are left with the key fact in the entire debate: gloabl warming has stopped. It did not stop recently; it stopped many, many years ago.
That single fact deconstructs the entire “carbon” scare, which you have woven into your entire being to the point that ‘runaway global warming’ becomes one with you. If you admitted that you were wrong about that central fact, your ego could not accept it. Therefore, you continue to flog the dead horse of climate catastrophe.
What is being observed now is simply natural climate variability. The climate Null Hypothesis has never been falsified. Thus, the default position for rational scientists is that the *very* minor, 0.7ºC fluctuation in global T over the past 150 years is entirely natural. In fact, it is an amazingly unchanging global temperature, which is unusual during the Holocene. In fact, it is indistinguishable from noise.
You find really big numbers, which is indicative of all alarmists, who thrive on scary numbers:
…we find that the effects of our industrial activities are 27x faster than the effects from the worst mass extinction event in history.
The implication is that the ‘worst mass extinction’ happened due to rising CO2, and now it is rising at an astonishing twenty seven times faster! So the obvious conclusion is that we are just minutes from climate catastrophe. Right? Why else would you write nonsense like that?
The fact is that the biosphere is greatly benefiting from the rise in harmless CO2. More CO2 is better: the planet is GREENING as a direct result. Poor folks are being fed, who would otherwise starve. But everything you see is bad, bad, bad. Only bad. Do you ever wonder if you’re not just plain crazy?
You look at our wonderful climate and conclude that it is going over a cliff. Why would you believe that nonsense? To normal folks, that sounds crazy. We have been enjoying an excellent climate since the LIA ended. But all you see is a glass half full. Worse: you see catastrophe, when there is no indication or reason whatever for that strange belief.
Hanzo, global warming has stopped. The facts have changed since the 1990’s. When the facts change, you are supposed to change your mind, but you don’t. Get with the program, and deal with reality. The real world is leaving you behind.
An amorphous “climate null hypothesis” has been put forward as a strawman
In my opinion, any proper null hypothesis needs to be precise enough so that it can be tested.
Therefore, it is insufficient to propose a null hypothesis asserting that some ill-defined natural forcing predominately governs global mean temperature rise.
Why? Because that null hypothesis would not be specifically testable. What natural forcing would you specifically test to reject or fail
-to-reject the null hypothesis? No one ‘accepts’ a proposed null hypothesis on faith based on Occam’s razor. A particular well-designed experiment may only reject or fail to reject the null.
Any claim that the natural forcing is present but unknown is a fallacious argument from ignorance.
Hanzo
Smokey…..“global warming has stopped”
…
Did you see the news from NOAA today?
..
“The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was record high for the month, at 0.75°C (1.35°F) above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F), topping the previous record set in 1998.”
…
Reference: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/8
..
Mother Nature is not helping you out
Bud Durant,
According to your NOAA link, global T is as high as it’s ever been.
I am 6’2″ tall. Amazingly, I am now the tallest that I have ever been!
For some needed perspective, see here [click in image to embiggen]. And read my comment above to Hanzo. It will do you good.
Hanzo says:
An amorphous “climate null hypothesis” has been put forward as a strawman
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer states that “the [climate] null hypothesis has never been falsified.”
That’s good enough for anyone but the most extreme religious climate cult True Believers. You, for example. All that has to be done is to show that current climate parameters, like temperature, have measurably exceeded past parameters, and the null hypothesis is falsified. So instead of arguing with pointless rhetoric, try to find something that falsifies the null hypothesis.
We’ll run it by Dr. Spencer, and he can arbitrate. In the mean time, the climate null hypothesis has never been falsified. That means your belief in runaway global warming and climate catastrophe fails. But we knew that already.
All in all, the state of politicized climate science today is a pretty Hollow Scene.
If the Holocene is going to be renamed the “Anthropocene” then what name will we give to the glacial period after the Holocene ends?
The “what-a-load-of-crap-it’s-all-been”.