While government science and media begin the ramp-up to claim 2014 as the “hottest year ever” China’s Sea’s biggest bivalve shows that the Middle Ages were warmer than today, when Carbon Dioxide was lower.
From the Chinese Academy of Sciences:
Two recent papers, one is in Earth-Science Reviews and the other is in Chinese Science Bulletin, have studied key chemical contents in micro-drilled giant clams shells and coral samples to demonstrate that in the South China Sea the warm period of the Middle Ages was warmer than the present.
The scientists examined surveys of the ratio of strontium to calcium content and heavy oxygen isotopes, both are sensitive recorders of sea surface temperatures past and present. The aragonite bicarbonate of the Tridacna gigas clam-shell is so fine-grained that daily growth-lines are exposed by micro-drilling with an exceptionally fine drill-bit, allowing an exceptionally detailed time-series of sea-temperature changes to be compiled – a feat of detection worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself.
By using overlaps between successive generations of giant clams and corals, the three scientists – Hong Yan of the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Yuhong Wang of Fudan University, Shanghai – reconstructed a record of sea-surface temperature changes going back 2500 years.
The Roman and Mediaeval Warm Periods both showed up prominently in the western Pacific and East Asia. Sea surface temperatures varied considerably over the 2500-year period.
Changing patterns of winter and summer temperature variation were also detected, disproving the notion that until the warming of the 20th century there had been little change in global temperatures for at least 1000 years, and confirming that – at least in the South China Sea – there is nothing exceptional about today’s temperatures.
Dr. Yan said: “This new paper adds further material to the substantial body of real-world proxy evidence establishing that today’s global temperature is within natural ranges of past changes.” Dr. Soon added: “The UN’s climate panel should never have trusted the claim that the medieval warm period was mainly a European phenomenon. It was clearly warm in South China Sea too.”
I’ve been wondering: The “acidification” argument is due to the increased CO2 content (all the way from 285 ppm to 397 ppm or so) dissolving into the oceans, decreasing its pH, and wreaking untold damages upon everything that lives there. Surely there must be calculations that could be done to see how much, if any, extra CO2 dissolves into the seawater. What would the change be in the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere as it went from 285 to 397 ppm? If the oceans are warming then their capacity for dissolving gases decreases; what effect would that have in combination with the changed partial pressure?
I don’t even know for sure if I’m using the proper terms, but I know my two physics classes in university explained that there are equations for these things. Have any of them been applied by the alarmists, or are they just doing their usual “if X then MUST BE Y” science?
lively discussion and go info for you here –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/23/touchy-feely-science-one-chart-suggests-theres-a-phraud-in-omitting-ocean-acidification-data-in-congressional-testimony/
If you believe in CO2 driven warming then you’ve got a consistency problem — warmer ocean will have less solubility for gases such as CO2
A few years ago, when I first heard the ocean acidification being used as an alternate argument for reducing carbon dioxide, I had a person tell me that the increased acidity of ground water could make the water burn the mouths of animals who drank the water. I asked him if he’d ever had a carbonated beverage, in which carbon dioxide is forced into the water under pressure, and if it burned his mouth.
Lloyd Bridges used to get his leg caught in one of those things almost every week!
(Showing my age again…)
And he went on to become a typical American President. 😉
This seems at first glance to be some elegant and beautiful science, and true scientists will likely use it to expand their understanding of the past.
However those who have sold their souls cannot look back. To think any evidence can change their minds is an Impossible Dream. You might as well sing, “Clam every mountain…”
Good to see Willie Soon back in action.
want some grapes to go with your clams?
5 Jan: BBC: Phil Mercer: Why Australians are using sunblock to protect grape crops
Slip, slop, slap. It was a cartoon seagull wearing shorts, t-shirt and a hat that famously urged sun-loving Australians in the 1980s to protect themselves from damaging ultraviolet rays.
While sunblock has shielded generations from harm, it is also being used to safeguard the health and vitality of Australian grapes as the nation reflects on another scorching year when temperature records continued to tumble…
“You put sunscreen on your kids when they go out in the sun, so we put it on our grapevines. That just goes on like a normal spray,” says Bruce Tyrrell, the chief executive of Tyrrell’s Wines.
“Your vineyard gets this funny white-blue colour, and you look on the berries and there is a little coating on them. It is just like putting sunscreen on and it gives it some protection.”…
Prof Christopher Wright from the University of Sydney Business School explains that many industries would have to heatproof their operations, including agriculture, retail and insurance companies…
“Heatwaves are becoming longer, and they are becoming more severe, and that becomes hard to manage depending in which business sector you are in. …
Heatwaves cause more deaths each year in Australia than any other natural disaster, and they pose particular risks to the bedrock of the economy: the workforce…
Yet, this is a land of extremes. And while there is disagreement about man’s influence on the climate, there is a shared belief that Australia has thrived in the face of unrelenting environmental challenges, from drought to floods, to bushfires and a burning sun…
“The ***tyranny of extreme climate has shaped us,” says Tim Harcourt from the University of New South Wales Business School…
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30660063
***so it is a tyranny now?
Sunscreen on grapes? Ugh. Think of the chemicals that could leach into the wine! I’m so avoiding Tyrrell’s Wines from now on.
It won’t be on many of the grapes, but on the leaves..The weight of the bunch pulls the bunch down into the shadowed area under the leaves.
You spray the leaves so that they don’t shrivel up and expose the grapes.
Besides, with all the spiders, snakes and other things that go into the bins why would you notice the spray?
Speaking of Tyrrell’s wine, I live near Newcastle NSW, Australia, which is in the Hunter Valley where these wines are made. It was only last week that Bruce Tyrrell was on the local news stating that because of last years weather (climate), the 2014 vintage (both red and white) will be the best produced within the past 20 years.
Good comments, guys. Very amusing, I have been feeling depressed lately but it really made my morning to read this one and have a chuckle!
mpainter
Obviously you are unlikely to take anything I say at face value – so here it is from Dr Roy Spencer:
“Since 1979, NOAA satellites have been carrying instruments which measure the natural microwave thermal emissions from oxygen in the atmosphere. The intensity of the signals these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies is directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere. Every month, John Christy and I update global temperature datasets (see here that represent the piecing together of the temperature data from a total of fourteen instruments flying on different satellites over the years.
As of June 2013, the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite has been removed from the processing due to spurious warming and replaced by the average of the NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19, and Metop-A AMSUs. The graph above represents the latest update; updates are usually made within the first week of every month. Contrary to some reports, the satellite measurements are not calibrated in any way with the global surface-based thermometer records of temperature. They instead use their own on-board precision redundant platinum resistance thermometers (PRTs) calibrated to a laboratory reference standard before launch.”
Patrick
Thanks for confirming what I said – standard temperature measurements by thermometer are close to the surface – which is where we live. Although the UK standard is actually 1.25m, not 2m as you claim.
xyzzy11
You claim
“Reliable applies to RSS and UAH, or haven’t you been paying attention. CET used to be reliable, until homogenization kicked in.”
Really ? See what Dr Roy Spencer says about reliability and the need for adjustments (above). I suspect you don’t like CET because it gives you the wrong answer and you do like satellites (especially RSS) as it gives the smallest warming trend. Real science is about looking at all the reliable data, not cherry picking the bits that suits a pre-determined view. That is anti-science.
James Abbott
Can’t let you dodge the question so easily.
At 3:34 pm you say ” the satellites do not measure surface temperature”
Here is your chance to retract that statement.
Let’s see what you do.
Satellites do not directly measure the surface temperature.
They measure the “brightness” of microwave emissions.
http://www.remss.com/measurements/brightness-temperature
…
So they technically are measuring the power of the received microwave energy, and not measuring temperature directly. There are a lot of processing steps necessary to convert the received microwave energy into “temperatures” requiring a “model” of the air column intervening. This is the reason that RSS and UAH give different values, their “models” are different, even though they are using the same raw data.
Additionally the microwave energy they are tuned to is the emission from atmospheric oxygen (O2) molecules.
Well, go explain that to Christy and Spencer and that fellow Mears, who all say they measure surface temp. Be prepared to answer lots of questions.
(A wasted posting effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod)
I took James Abbott to mean that the satellites do not measure temperature in the lower troposphere, at or very near the surface, which data is commonly referred to as “surface temperature”.
I have already asked this question and he has not addressed it.
Let Abbott explain himself or let Abbott cease making false statements forthwith.
[More wasted effort by a banned sockpuppet. Comment DELETED. -mod]
It is minor mistake. Add ” true” and consider the quote corrected.
I stand on the whole of my statements made in this regard.
Thermometers do not measure temperature, nothing measures temperature.
Clearly, you missed the point. CET, along with all other land-based measurements, only measure temperatures where people are (well almost all of them). The point of that is that people generate local heating, usually as UHI but sometimes by poor site placing (ask Anthony about that).
Not only that, but the number of measurement sites is actually decreasing, and a wide variety of black box adjustments are made to “guess” the temperature for locations up to 600 km away where no measurement stations exist. Hell, they even do that for stations that DO exist (well in Oz at least).
Satellite measurements, on the other hand, are truly global (well almost – they don’t cover the extreme north and south regions that well). Nevertheless, for all intents and purposes, they are way more representative of global temperatures than land-based stations.
None of the systems for measuring temperatures is perfect, but RSS and UAH are way better than GISS, BOM etc. CET doesn’t give “wrong” answers, it gives “adjusted” answers. I could say that you don’t like RSS and UAH because they give the wrong answer. The difference is that data generates via satellite is data – a temperature recorded by satellites 20 years ago remains unchanged today. That cannot be said for NOAA/GISS/BOM etc. So, I say you are cherry-picking by ignoring the more reliable data. That’s not even science.
The difference is that data generates via satellite is data – a temperature recorded by satellites 20 years ago remains unchanged today.
Not true, the data generated 20 years ago, the microwave emissions from atmospheric O2, will remain unchanged but the temperatures calculated from it will not! When the UAH MSU temperatures were first produced they were discovered to be incorrect due to errors and omissions in the method of calculation. Mears set up RSS in order to do the calculations ‘correctly’, the early days showed a negative trend in temperature, when the corrections were done it turned out to be positive.
Far too much anthropomorphising of clamdom going on here.
At least they all look shaved……
There seem to be some social clammers here…..
Rosenthal et al 2013 and now this new paper show very compelling evidence the Medieval Warming Period was a global event and warmer than now….
The Hockey Stick has been busted to smithereens, there hasn’t been a global warming trend in 18+ years, severe weather trends have been flat for the past 50~100 years, oceans rising at a paltry 6″ per century, polar ice extents are growing, ocean pH stuck at 8.1 and yet here we are….
Governments are still wasting $trillions on a hypothesis that doesn’t work, and implementing economically and socially destructive CO2 sequestration policies that will have no discernible effect even IF the CAGW hypothesis were true…
The world has gone insane…
Its a clam-dunk.
Clamit Disruption
The Roman and Medieval Warming Periods are clearly indicated in the inverted plot of the scalar sum of the angular momentum of the Sun and all the planets, as seen here.as is the expected cooling after the year 2059.
here.
We all know their claims are BS. It`s very difficult to consider any of these people as “scientist”.
Follow the clams!
Show me your clams, and I’ll show you mine.
When the clam dies, is the clamometer broken?
How many of these giant clams do we have to work with?
First, the polar vortex, and now these Chinese researchers muddying the waters.
Why can’t they just stick to the story, clammit!
Gosh, I can purchase both of these original papers for under $80. Isn’t it wonderful how non-publisher funded research which is peer-reviewed for free (the reviewers undertake it as part of their academic duties) provides income for said publisher who merely prints it in a journal? If you’re an independent researcher you’d better have deep pockets.
Now, don’t get crabby.
Or go to the library.
Phil. says:
…the early days showed a negative trend in temperature, when the corrections were done it turned out to be positive.
Funny how those ‘corrections’ always end up supporting the Narrative.
Funny how making a sign error in a term in your equations, positive instead of negative will give incorrect results. Also omitting to include the orbital decay of the satellite didn’t help!
Said the oyster to the clam……Denier !!!!!!!
Does a giant clam ever experience the feeling of ‘getting clammy’? Or is that their normal condition?
If they do feel clammy, does it cause them to get goose pimples also???
Inquiring minds need to know…..
Pearls before swine (Gore, et al).
Like the proof offered by the giant clam. So do you think the heat is from the deep earth?
I like the idea that Sol, our sun, is behind this heating via the core. Perhaps by neutrinos?
What kind of thermometer does the giant clam have?? Is it better than tree rings?
Mike, from the beginning of this thread/post, you are the most entertaining writer to ever have graced these boards. Congratulations. Great stuff!!
Yet more evidence that the claim that the Medieval Warm Period was regional and confined to Europe or the North Atlantic area and was not global is nonsense.
Who claims what? Lets check Mann:
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Mann-et-al-2009-Journal-of-Science.gif
China..
Is this another confirmation of Mann?