(Featured image borrowed from http://www.hockeyministries.org/rwt-blog-52316)
Unfortunately this article is behind a pay wall. While some of the points in the abstract are reasonable, these two seem to be totally unsupported in any literature of which I am aware…
An average global temperature increase of 0.6o to 0.9oC from 1900 to the present, occurring predominantly in the past 50 years, is now rising beyond the Holocene variation of the past 14,000 years, accompanied by a modest enrichment of δ18O in Greenland ice starting at ~1900. Global sea levels increased at 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/year from 1993 to 2010 and are now rising above Late Holocene rates.
“An average global temperature increase of 0.6o to 0.9oC from 1900 to the present, occurring predominantly in the past 50 years, is now rising beyond the Holocene variation of the past 14,000 years…”
It appears that they are relying on Marcott et al., 2013 for the temperature claim.
Figure 1 from Walters et al., 2016
Here is an enlarged version of the temperature curve…
The temperature curve looks a lot like Marcott et al., 2013.
The problem is that the authors of Marcott et al., 2013 unequivocally stated that their reconstruction was not amenable to such claims
One author, Jeremy Shakun (currently at Harvard) weighed in via Skype for Dot Earth. When more questions came in, the group of authors wrote that they would respond more completely to questions about the work and now they have done so, on the RealClimate blog. Here’s a short excerpt and link to the rest:
Q.
What do paleotemperature reconstructions show about the temperature of the last 100 years?
A.
Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used. Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions. Our primary conclusions are based on a comparison of the longer term paleotemperature changes from our reconstruction with the well-documented temperature changes that have occurred over the last century, as documented by the instrumental record. Although not part of our study, high-resolution paleoclimate data from the past ~130 years have been compiled from various geological archives, and confirm the general features of warming trend over this time interval (Anderson, D.M. et al., 2013, Geophysical Research Letters, v. 40, p. 189-193).
Q.
Is the rate of global temperature rise over the last 100 years faster than at any time during the past 11,300 years?
A.
Our study did not directly address this question because the paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century. Other factors also contribute to smoothing the proxy temperature signals contained in many of the records we used, such as organisms burrowing through deep-sea mud, and chronological uncertainties in the proxy records that tend to smooth the signals when compositing them into a globally averaged reconstruction. We showed that no temperature variability is preserved in our reconstruction at cycles shorter than 300 years, 50% is preserved at 1000-year time scales, and nearly all is preserved at 2000-year periods and longer. Our Monte-Carlo analysis accounts for these sources of uncertainty to yield a robust (albeit smoothed) global record. Any small “upticks” or “downticks” in temperature that last less than several hundred years in our compilation of paleoclimate data are probably not robust, as stated in the paper.
The most complete Holocene “thermometers” are Greenland ice cores. They do not indicate that the warm up from the Little Ice Age is anomalous…
Temperature Reconstruction
I performed a GISS station search centered on 71.4 N latitude, 23.5 W longitude and downloaded the 12 GISS/GHCN instrumental records with at least 60 years of continuous data up to 2011.
Fig. 1) Station Location Map
Next I calculated a temperature anomaly relative to 1961-1990 for each of the 12 stations and then averaged them together to create a temperature reconstruction. The climate in the Warming Island area is statistically indistinguishable from that of the 1930’s.
Fig. 2) Warming Island Area: Instrumental temperature reconstruction.
Then I took that reconstruction back to 1000 AD with the GISP2 ice core d18O data (Kobashi et al., 2010)…
Fig. 3) Warming Island Area: Instrumental reconstruction combined with GISP2 ice core reconstruction.
The Modern Warming is also statistically indistinguishable from the Medieval Warm Period in the Warming Island / Greenland Sea region.
“Global sea levels increased at 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/year from 1993 to 2010 and are now rising above Late Holocene rates.”
The sea level claim is preposterous…
A Geological Perspective of Recent Sea Level Rise
All of the estimated sea level rise since 1700 is represented by the light blue blob and dark blue line inside the black oval. Sea level isn’t doing anything now that it wasn’t already doing before All Gore invented global warming. And Holocene sea level changes have been insignificant relative to the Holocene transgression…
Figure 1. Sea 1evel rise since the late Pleistocene from Tahitian corals, tide gauges and satellite altimetry.
Adaptation: “It’s déjà vu, all over again!”If mankind and our infrastructure adapted to this…
Figure 2. Northern Hemisphere temperature, atmospheric CO2 and sea level since 1700 AD.
We can adapt to this without breaking a sweat…
Figure 3. Projected sea level rise through 2100 AD.
Particularly since sea level rose just as fast from 1931-1960 as it has risen since 1985…
Figure 4. Paracyclical sea level rise since 1931.
Anyone threatened by 6-12 inches of sea level rise over the next 85 years is already being flooded by high tides and/or storm surges. The red areas on this EPA map would be threatened by 1.5 meters of sea level rise.
Figure 5. Coastal areas threatened by 1.5 meters of sea level rise along US Gulf Coast (US EPA).
Bear in mind the fact that it would take an average rate of sea level rise nearly twice that of the Holocene Transgression for sea level to rise more than 1.5 meters (~5 feet) over the remainder of this century. This caused sea level.to rise by ~10 mm/yr for about10,000 years…
Figure 6. Animatiion of Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene deglaciation (Illinois State Museum).
Approximately 52 million cubic kilometers of ice melted during that 10,000 year period.
[…]
The Holocene Highstand
There are at least two schools of thought regarding Holocene sea level changes. The view favored by the IPCC and the so-called scientific consensus is that of a rapid rise in sea level during the early Holocene followed by a static quiescence from about 6,000 years ago up until the dawn of the “Anthropocene” (generally the Industrial Revolution). The second school of thought, favored by many (if not most) sedimentary geologists, is that of a dynamic Holocene sea level and a pronounced Holocene Highstand.
Figure 8. Sea level was 1-2 meters higher than it currently is during the Holocene Highstand.
Evidence for a Holocene Highstand is global in nature, consisting of stranded beaches and other facies associated with shorelines 1-2 meters higher than present day from 4-7 kya.
Another point of contention is their claim about extinction rates. Extinctions in the geologic record are measured at the genus and family level, not the species level. Comparing modern species extinction rates to extinctions in the fossil record are nothing more than Hockey Stick factories.
While at some distant point in the future, an “Anthropocene” may be identified as stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene, Walters et al., 2016 does not make much of a case for it. This appears to be another exercise in splicing modern high resolution data onto lower resolution proxy data (AKA Hockey sticking).
Addendum
I contacted Dr. Colin Waters via email to inquire about the source of their temperature reconstruction. He replied very promptly and cordially. Dr. Colin Summerhayes and Dr. Alexander Wolfe also joined the conversation. I found our discussions to be very enjoyable and informative. Dr. Waters authorized me to post this passage from our email discussion…
“The temperature curve in Figures 1B and 6B of the Science paper on the
Anthropocene was derived from Marcott et al., Science 339, 2013.
In the abridged version of the article the figure 14,000 should be
amended to 1,400 to be consistent with what we say in the main body of the paper”.
PlasticScene maybe but not Anthropocene
It’s also the Overthetopocene and the Trialballoonocene.
One must consider also the ExecutiveOrderocene and UNocene.
From the horses mouth – re: this study =
Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used.
Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.
Author, Jeremy Shakun
The era of the super-predator, the Unprecedentasaurus.
Harry Passfield
January 8, 2016 1:23 pm
I just remarked on this in ‘Submit a story’, based on a report from the BBC who have reported it as if it is a done deal.
My take on it is, Epochs are not what they used to be.
Given the actual resolution of the data bases, instrumental or reconstructed proxies, they are blowing smoke. Mann et al seems to be an exercise in creative computer programming, not a good faith exercise in paleoclimatology.
Doesn’t matter; we’re the only people paying attention anyway. The general public has moved on, and “carbon footprint” is already sounding a little quaint.
+1 grrrr beat me to it.
There’s a state park near Marathon of a coral quarry commissioned by our FL great robber baron Henry Flagler. The quarry (now above sea level) makes it perfectly clear that sea level was once quite a bit higher. Some of the equipment is being restored and a nature trail with various plants labeled. Really cool coral fossils. If you get a chance it was donation only and self guided tours (with pamphlets)
Ok I got so excited I looked it up.
Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park
Islamorada, Florida 33036 MM 84.9
Perhaps we should start now, in anticipation of the new monicker, to show just how well humans are managing the planet: greening, greater food production, more national parks, more environmental awareness, the substitution of abundant materials for rare, and so on. The unlocking of fossil fuels and the return to better levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be one of the greatest examples of why the period from somewhen (like 1780) should be designated the Anthropocene…
Well, it’s a first attempt.
Warren Latham
January 8, 2016 1:45 pm
Anthropocene seems to get mi’ stove going quite quickly, however, it must be made of that really icky, sticky stuff because the chimney needs sweeping again.
I think the manufacturers must have melted down too many eco-tards in the mixing pot. It burns like crazy but that icky-sticky stuff gives off a really nasty smell. I think it was made in … wait a minute .. the label on the box says … made in Paris !
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
January 8, 2016 1:47 pm
Here’s link to a critique of ‘Anthropocene.’ http://www.episodes.org/index.php/epi/article/view/79720/61837
According to professional sources, the American Stratigraphic Commission has yet to take a position on this, and the publication by the working group is a RECOMMENDATION to the ICS. which has yet to take up this proposal. A forthcoming paper on this topic will appear in GSA TODAY in March or April explaining what lies ahead.
A reliable source reported via a third party that this paper is a republication of other papers by this working group. In short, it is “shingling.” to keep looking like they are getting somewhere.
Hans, I agree it is arbitrary and it is OK. Lots of things about dating are arbitrary. What we have to get correct is the extent to which mankind affects the weather and climate. If it is being overstated or over-claimed by a factor of 100 then it matters.
I am comfortable with giving a name to the period in history reflecting the capacity of us all to transform our environment. We deserve it. We should be good stewards of our common home. We don’t have to pretend that CO2 has magical powers to be responsible. In fact admitting it doesn’t is a good start at demonstrating we can be responsible.
I have just watched a TV show on the fall of Lance Armstrong followed by one on the current collapse of the reputation of Bill Cosby. Neither hold a candle to the scandal that will accompany the broad public unmasking of the global warming scam.
I am very happy with the geological term “recent”, there is no geological need for a new era yet. If we really must set a boundary, take 1950, that is already in use in radiocarbon dating.
Even an eventual sea level rise of 1.5 meters…….
Living in Holland I lived most of my life 3-4 meters BELOW sea level, just protected by dunes and dikes. What to think about countries that are not able to build 1.5 meter high dikes at some places IN NEARLY A CENTURY? In an era with a thousand times more technical possibilities than my ancestors had when they were building the dikes that protected me.
The Dutch had their own solution. They created common institutions called ‘Waterschappen’ which had the task to protect the land against water. The ‘Waterschappen’ could raise a special tax: ‘waterschapslasten’ to be paid by all people involved. Because of the dutch’ understanding of ‘common interest,’ the Dutch could become one of the big players in the world. At that time, in our ‘Golden Age’, Holland was only counting some 2 million people….. But the Dutch understood how to solve problems by looking at ‘common interest’ and by working together when necessary.
Which is why they’re trying to keep us from enjoying our booze. 😉 They will NOT succeed!
Notanist
January 8, 2016 2:15 pm
“Anthropocene” is not bad as a moniker, there is some truth to the idea that mankind is beginning to harness energy on scale that can finally be seen as progressing toward Kardashev’s Type I level of civilization. Won’t likely be seeing Dyson spheres in my lifetime 🙂 but once future historians manage to cull all this latest End-of-Days conspiracy theorizing back out of our science, then the industrial revolution won’t be a bad place to begin tracking humanity’s increasingly efficient use of energy resources as we lift off from the hunter-gatherer and plow-horse agrarian eras.
I suggest to give it the abbreviation yAP, (years After Present). After all, in carbon dating, 1950 is already called “the present”. And astronomers are also working with the stellar Epoch 1950.0
LewSkannen
January 8, 2016 3:05 pm
The new ScientificCredibilityHasLeftDaCene era is upon us.
http://oi47.tinypic.com/1zxb2vk.jpg http://www.martintingley.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PaiCo.pdf
The most pronounced warming phase in our [Arctic] reconstruction [of the last 2,000 years] occurred between 1900 and 1940, which is clearly seen in the measured meteorological records as well. In the instrumental record, positive SAT anomalies were largest in the Arctic Atlantic region during this period (Wood and Overland 2010). This early twentieth-century warming (ETCW) has been subject to many studies, yet its reasons still defies full explanation According to Chylek et al. (2009), the Arctic warming from 1900 to 1940 proceeded at a significantly faster rate than the warming during the more recent decades and was highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting that the Arctic temperature variability is highly linked to the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation at various temporal scales.
—
Esper et al., 2012 Orbital forcing of tree-ring data Nature Climate Change 2, 862–866 http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n12/images/nclimate1589-f2.jpg
—
Cook et al., 2008 Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a High Arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, Journal of Paleolimnology http://www.geo.umass.edu/grads/cook/images/lml_temps.jpg
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Mulvaney et al., 2012. Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice-shelf history Nature 489,141–144 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/images/nature11391-f3.2.jpg
..Mother Nature laughs at the feeble chains that the Liberal’s l attempt to restrain her with !! Their Fairy Dust is no match for her unpredictable power !
Man’s footprint can be gone in a flash.
Didn’t these folks here of Pompeii?
Ma nature took back large chunks of Detroit in less than a generation http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2009/07/23/150/
dp
January 8, 2016 3:49 pm
Climate science is now a meaningless endeavor ~ worse, it is a political statement no different than a bumper sticker that says “I Voted for Obama”. I would be embarrassed to let it slip that I was a climate scientist today. Hopefully scientists in other disciplines will come out and reclaim the honorable history of science and put the spotlight on the dangers of politicizing science with falsified hypotheses and brain dead models intended to support an agenda. We are in the Juxtapocene where science and data have been juxtaposed with flawed model output and political willfulness.
“paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century”
Convenient, that. They’ve gone an buggered their own research. Not to mention that all other time periods in the chronostratigraphic record have a resolution of +/- 100,000 years….essentially making the result of this study a comparison of apples and dingleberries. Leaping ahead into the distant future (AD 102016), it is doubtful that there would be any way of resolving the start of the Anthropocene. Maybe “The Earth, plus plastic”, sensu Carlin, but at what resolution?
This entire discussion is as much about the egos of the Technozoic stratigraphers as it is about actually defining a meaningful epoch. And most certainly another huge waste of grant money.
I guess they didn’t notice that the Antartic ice core data uses various intervals of much less than 100 years and temperature changes of over a degree happens regularly over ten year periods.
But then that might invalidate their predetermined result.
They handle this by splicing a high resolution instrumental time series onto a very low resolution multi-proxy time series which has been heavily smoothed.
The instrumental data have monthly resolution.
The multi-proxy data have decadal to multi-century scale resolutions. Each proxy series has a different margin of error on both axes (date and temperature). So, the multi-proxy time series winds up having no better resolution than its lowest resolution component.
Unless the resolution of the instrumental time series is degraded to match that of the multi-proxy time series, the result will always be a Hockey Stick.
James at 48
January 8, 2016 3:59 pm
The concept of the Holocene is being something distinct from the Quaternary was already a crock of steaming …… now this. Enough already!
Technically the Holocene was never distinct from the Quaternary (Pleistocene and Holocene).
Green Sand
January 8, 2016 4:10 pm
The Anthropocene Has Arrived!!!”
What has more likely arrived is homo superbus – ‘Arrogant Man’
John F. Hultquist
January 8, 2016 4:11 pm
If an “Anthropocene” is to be named it should start when the human race sufficiently altered landscapes such that major and lasting sedimentation began. Many studies have been done. All one needs to do is find an early date and go with it. This is a simple case of geological science and not Climate ScienceTM .
I always thought that when an area of study has to allude to science in its title, general rule of thumb is,….its not real science. You never have to say Chemistry science
—
“An average global temperature increase of 0.6 to 0.9C from 1900 to the present, occurring predominantly in the past 50 years . .”
—
Glancing at NOAA’s Climate at a glance. The warming trend from 1911 through 1944 shows the anomaly going from -0.43C to 0.29C; warming of 0.73C.
Marcus
January 8, 2016 4:18 pm
That’s why they hide it behind a ” Pay Wall ” ! You have to pay for it before you can read it !! Once you pay for it, you can’t admit that it was a waste of money, so you have to agree with it, otherwise you will look like an idiot for paying for it ! Wow, what a money maker !
P.S. When did taxpayers have to start paying for studies they already paid for ???
We are no longer in the age of enlightenment, but the age of stupid.
I like the description: idiocene.
Marcos
January 8, 2016 4:22 pm
If the paleotemperature records have an average resolution of 120 years, what would the graph look like with the most recent 120 period as one data point?
‘Extinction rates have been far above background rates since 1500 and increased further in the 19th century and later’
Some people theorize that unobserved extinctions have been increasing. Like, we have 27,000 a year or so. I personally think we’re seeing between 571 and 589 – not that I made it up, mind you.
Observed extinctions, well… http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/extinctions_birds_mammals_historical.jpg
Leaving the recent decline in extinctions out of the abstract is as misleading as it gets.
I miss the link of the source, but when the information in the graphic is correct: could the recent ‘greening of the world by CO2’ have diminished the rate of extinctions?
If so, how to look at the periods of diminishing CO2, the ‘glacials’? Less plants – less animals?
The source is this excellent Willis article, later turned into a paper by Willis himself and Craig Loehle. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/
The waves of extinctions, if you can call them that, are caused mostly by the human or Western discovery of islands. A typical pattern is that humans introduce a species that wipes out an endemic species in the following years or decades – and after that first contact, well, extinctions in said island go back to whatever the background rate is. Almost all mammal and bird extinctions happened in islands – in the continents, species simply migrate when the situation in their habitat deteriorates. Notice that even though non-Western peoples may have been inhabiting islands for thousands of years, the arrival of Westerners would still introduce species which could in turn out wipe.
In fact, extinctions prior to 1500 are almost certainly wildly underestimated. It’s just that we Westerners started to explore the world around that period, but if you think about it, the arrival of for instance Arabs to whatever island in the Indian ocean would’ve had a similar effect. So if a species introduced by the Arabs in Tuvalu in the XII century wiped out some local bird or mammal species, that isn’t shown in the records. The low rate in the first three centuries of Western exploration isn’t believable either – most likely people simply weren’t keeping track of which species disappeared.
No more islands left without contact to Westerners –> no more waves of extinctions. That should’ve been the end of story, but still in 2016 we’re hearing these claims about increased rates.
To sum up: all this talk about the sixth great extinction is ideologically-loaded speculation and delusion from biologists; the absurdity of the estimates has been pointed out again and again for four decades and still the nonsense continues. The extinction scam has now been subsumed into CAGW, which is quite striking because, well, for the first 20 years or so biologists made those extinction estimates *without* referencing global warming. So the latter is really a Swiss knife of sorts for every pet cause you might have.
I could say a lot more, but I’d be repeating what Willis says in the article. I will just add that it’s hard to think of a better example of science gone wrong.
“Extinction rates have been far above background rates”
In my opinion, it isn’t so much an increase in the extinction rates, as a massive increase in the creation rates. Specifically, the traditional definition of a species is an animal that can’t viably interbreed with other species. Examples of different species includes lions and tigers. Yes, you occasionally find ligers, the product of a lion with a tiger, but they are infertile.
If they can interbreed, they are the same species, but different races. However, there are no naming rights on a new race. So if my mate the biologist finds a new turtle that has an extra spot on it’s rump, he isn’t going to call it a new race of turtle – it has to be a new species because that lets him name it after his wife, PHD supervisor, etc. Bragging rights in other words.
This has led to a massive deterioration in the standard required to label a new species. An example is the dingo, an animal which quite freely interbreeds with other dog races. Recently a “scientist” decided to label it as a new species on the grounds that the much degraded standard for a new species was so low, you could simply look at a specimen and decide that it should be called a new race.
There has been a massive increase in the rate of new species being found because of the corrupted standard required. So, when we have a series of small ponds on Mount Snowy, disconnected except in unusual rainfall conditions, it is no surprise that a new race evolves. If that pond dries up, it is claimed that a species has become extinct. Far from the truth, but very convenient for the activist science fraternity.
The bastardization of the word, “species,” is mind-boggling.
Polar bears and Grizzly bears are distinct species in the same way that our Pomeranians and wolves are distinct species.
This Marcott paper constituted academic misconduct. I guest posted the forensic proof (h/t in part only to S. McIntyre) at CE, then in ebook essay A High Stick Foul. Nothing more need be said about it or its misbegotten sequelae.
The authors were at least honest aboUT their hockey stick not having climatologiCal significance.
Gary in Erko
January 8, 2016 5:53 pm
What an amazing thought this is. I have played a small part in altering Earth far more than, for instance, Alexander the Great, or Vesuvius, or any of the wars, floods, famines, etc of the past. None of these caused the coming of a new geological epoch. It’s an exciting time, isn’t it. It’s comparable to surfing across the mantle on a drifting continent.
u.k(us)
January 8, 2016 6:04 pm
Talk to me in 5,000 years.
Till then I’ll just plod along.
I mean, is there any other choice ?
John Robertson
January 8, 2016 9:47 pm
Once upon a time students would study geology before branching off into speculating about the weather, as climatologists.
Now they seem to skip geology all together.
If the great periods of history are defined by the geological layers, what evidence of mann the magnificent will be found in the geological evidence?
A thin smear of glass fragments in a few spots?
Some lead pipe?
Mike McMillan
January 9, 2016 1:11 am
Stratigraphically, the Anthropocene will be identified by its landfills.
Back in college, I thought it would be pull tabs from beers cans. I imagined that future paleontologists would try to reconstruct them into extinct critters.
Well preserved telephone books in land fills will let folks figure out how the extinct anthropods lived. But I suppose they might find the numbers confusing.
William McClenney
January 9, 2016 4:23 am
As with many of the arguments used to sustain the notion of anthropogenic climate change, if you carry the argument far enough you end up with a real mess on your hands, often a logical absurdity. The Anthropocene is one of my favorites in this regard. The earth has two predominate climate states, the warm interglacial state and the cold glacial state. We don’t tend to spend all that much time in-between with the exception of Dansgaard-Oeschger events. So the Holocene began 11,719 years (+/-99 years) ago. The precession cycle varies between 19kyrs and 23kyrs and we are at the 23kyr part of the cycle now. Seven of the last 8 interglacials have each lasted about half a precession cycle, which right now makes 11,500 half. So the Holocene, naturally, is a tad long in the tooth now. In Ruddiman’s Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis, the Holocene would naturally already have ended and we are living in the Anthropocene extension of it today. In fact a great many scholarly papers state that the Holocene is already over.
So the stunning conundrum here is that if the Holocene is kaput, or should be, and we are living in the Anthropocene extension of it via our climate security blanket GHG emissions, then what climate state is left if we decide to end the Anthropocene?
Well, er, ah, the cold glacial state, of course.
Given that the past 8 climate cycles have been paced by the ~100kyr eccentricity cycle, and that half a precession cycle varies between 9,500 and 11,500 years, that means that MIS-0, the next glacial (in all probability) would probably last about ~90kyrs. So if we want to end the Anthropocene, what we are really saying, as good environmentalists, is that we want to remove the only postulated speedbump to glacial inception so that Gaia can go about her next ~90kyr ice age.
Did somebody bump their collective heads?
Their is a vast literature dealing with whether or not the Holocene will “go long” like MIS-11 did, it being the one of the past eight interglacials that lasted longer than about half a precession cycle. Within that literature one soon becomes acquainted with the fact that MIS-11, the Holsteinian interglacial, was composed of two precession driven insolation peaks, with many thousands of years with very cold climate conditions in between. So even if the Holocene were to “go long”, like MIS-11 did, we would have a not so little ice age before insolation ticks up again to full interglacial conditions.
Meaning that if the warmists are right about GHGs, we would therefore be very wrong to reduce their concentration in the late Holocene atmosphere, whether or not MIS-1, the Holocene, goes long or not.
Here’s a great link to an open access paper dealing with the Anthropocene: http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/395/1/255.full.pdf+html
From Lisiecki and Raymo (“A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic D18O records”, Paleoceanography, Vol. 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071, 2005) we have this:
“Recent research has focused on MIS 11 as a possible analog for the present interglacial [e.g., Loutre and Berger, 2003; EPICA community members, 2004] because both occur during times of low eccentricity. The LR04 age model establishes that MIS 11 spans two precession cycles, with 18O values below 3.6 o/oo for 20 kyr, from 398-418 ka. In comparison, stages 9 and 5 remained below 3.6 o/oo for 13 and 12 kyr, respectively, and the Holocene interglacial has lasted 11 kyr so far. In the LR04 age model, the average LSR of 29 sites is the same from 398-418 ka as from 250-650 ka; consequently, stage 11 is unlikely to be artificially stretched. However, the June 21 insolation minimum at 65N during MIS 11 is only 489 W/m2, much less pronounced than the present minimum of 474 W/m2. In addition, current insolation values are not predicted to return to the high values of late MIS 11 for another 65 kyr. We propose that this effectively precludes a ‘double precession-cycle’ interglacial [e.g., Raymo, 1997] in the Holocene without human influence.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004PA001071/full
Here’s a link to an excellent analysis by Tzedakis dealing with the MIS-11 – MIS-1 conundrum and the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis: http://www.clim-past.net/6/131/2010/cp-6-131-2010.pdf
And here is a tasty quote from a landmark paper on the end-Eemian all should read:
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades (see the core photograph in Fig. 4), demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416Wm22, which is the 658N July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428Wm22. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.” http://seelos-translate.info/LEAP_Nature__Sirocko+Seelos.pdf
Engaging the much vaunted Precautionary Principle, if you are really, really worried about GHGs, the Anthropocene, whatever, you may want to include in your calculus doing nothing about it for at least the next 4,000 years, at least until insolation increases again.
Just sayin…….
As Tzedakis and others have demonstrated, MIS19 is a much better analog to MIS1 than MIS11. The astronomical signature is much closer. Indeed the closer since Mid-Pleistocene transition.
Present interglacial could end in as little as 2000-5000 years.
They can slice and dice in any way they want but we’d still be in an Ice Age named the Quaternary Period and have been for about 2 1/2 million years noted for it’s glaciations followed by warmer interglacials. The Holocene is merely the latest of the interglacials. Someone queue up Joe Biden “Big….”
All it’s meant to do is to confuse, deceive and promote the alarmists.
skeohane
January 9, 2016 5:19 am
Somehow the ‘cryocene’ seems appropriate, with multiple implications.
How presumptuous to attempt to critique a paper you never actually read. Marcott 2013 is not a source for any of the temperature data and the sea level info is directly quoted from AG5 WR1.
Next time better to read the paper first.
David – you really should read the paper for yourself. I’d encourage Anthony and the WUWT community to spring for subscriptions for all scientific papers that are critiqued, or to find access via an academic subscription.
An average global temperature increase of 0.6° to 0.9°C between 1906 and 2005 CE, with a doubling of the rate of warming over the past 50 years, is beginning to exceed Holocene natural variability
from J. R. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, K. Lo, Global surface temperature change. Rev. Geophys. 48, RG4004 (2010). doi: 10.1029/2010RG000345
“Global sea levels increased at 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/year from 1993 to 2010 and are now rising above Late Holocene rates.”
from J. A. Church, P. U. Clark, A. Cazenave, J. M. Gregory, S. Jevrejeva, A. Levermann, M. A. Merrifield, G. A. Milne, R. S. Nerem, P. D. Nunn, A. J. Payne, W. T. Pfeffer, D. Stammer, A. S. Unnikrishnan, “Sea level change,” in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, T. F. Stocker et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013), (Summary for Policy Makers page 11) and also page 1150 (multiple references given)
Thank you for the references.
I have the the Church paper (AR 5 WG 1, full technical sumnary). Nothing in it supports the narrative that recent sea level rise is anomalous relative to the Holocene.
Jerejeva (one of Church’s coauthors) 08 clearly demonstrates that 3.2 mm/ yr is not anomalous.
The Hansen paper doesn’t feature a Holocene reconstruction. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00510u.html
So… The two Walters assertions which I found troubling are based on unsupported narratives… One of which was sourced from the IPCC summary for policymakers. I doubt these are the sources.
Gary Pearse
January 9, 2016 1:45 pm
I can go along with the idea of the Anthropocene as a distinct sub-unit based on the sedimentary and fossil ‘record’ and the impact of the species on the land and sea – we are living on the deposition plane and we have altered the landscape in permanent ways. The “Age of the Dinosaurs” didn’t end up making the cut, though. We used Mesozoic and broke this into Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic – no mention of the dinosaurs. My big problem is all the other “evidence” they use to add a pejorative meaning to the term. A synonym would be Thugocene or Dastardliocene or some other mean and evil ocene.
We should not allow this progressiste demagoguery incursion into our science. Geologists should make it known to their organizations that the physical and geochemical should be treated factually and neutrally instead of allowing it to be used as a club to beat evil humans with. Do you want Naomi Oreskes naming geological time units for you? That would be the end of science.
Take a look at the angry faces of these folks: It looks more like the Misanthrope era.
Ric Werme
January 8, 2016 at 4:21 pm
Felflames
January 9, 2016 4:13 pm
Perhaps Technocene would be appropriate. The point where our technology advanced to the point where we could have major impacts on the planet.
[Rather, Technoscene. The point where those who truly desire to see the influence of technology can publish about it.. .mod]
Figure 1. Sea 1evel rise since the late Pleistocene from Tahitian corals, tide gauges and satellite altimetry.
PlasticScene maybe but not Anthropocene
It’s also the Overthetopocene and the Trialballoonocene.
One must consider also the ExecutiveOrderocene and UNocene.
New Geologic era: ‘Plastocene’?
Carbonefarious period of the fantacene era ; )
oooooo…. excellent, JohnKnight!
From the horses mouth – re: this study =
Our global paleotemperature reconstruction includes a so-called “uptick” in temperatures during the 20th-century. However, in the paper we make the point that this particular feature is of shorter duration than the inherent smoothing in our statistical averaging procedure, and that it is based on only a few available paleo-reconstructions of the type we used.
Thus, the 20th century portion of our paleotemperature stack is not statistically robust, cannot be considered representative of global temperature changes, and therefore is not the basis of any of our conclusions.
Author, Jeremy Shakun
The era of the super-predator, the Unprecedentasaurus.
I just remarked on this in ‘Submit a story’, based on a report from the BBC who have reported it as if it is a done deal.
My take on it is, Epochs are not what they used to be.
I’m afraid it’s just a matter of time before the ICS designates an Anthropocene.
http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/anthropocene/
The authors of Walters et al., 2016 are essentially the ICS Anthropocene Working Group.
Given the actual resolution of the data bases, instrumental or reconstructed proxies, they are blowing smoke. Mann et al seems to be an exercise in creative computer programming, not a good faith exercise in paleoclimatology.
Doesn’t matter; we’re the only people paying attention anyway. The general public has moved on, and “carbon footprint” is already sounding a little quaint.
It’s the hubriscene.
Or maybe the Frauducene that will abruptly transition into the Lamentocene.
The best name I have seen for it is the Idiocene.
+1 grrrr beat me to it.
There’s a state park near Marathon of a coral quarry commissioned by our FL great robber baron Henry Flagler. The quarry (now above sea level) makes it perfectly clear that sea level was once quite a bit higher. Some of the equipment is being restored and a nature trail with various plants labeled. Really cool coral fossils. If you get a chance it was donation only and self guided tours (with pamphlets)
Ok I got so excited I looked it up.
Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park
Islamorada, Florida 33036 MM 84.9
Perhaps we should start now, in anticipation of the new monicker, to show just how well humans are managing the planet: greening, greater food production, more national parks, more environmental awareness, the substitution of abundant materials for rare, and so on. The unlocking of fossil fuels and the return to better levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be one of the greatest examples of why the period from somewhen (like 1780) should be designated the Anthropocene…
Well, it’s a first attempt.
Anthropocene seems to get mi’ stove going quite quickly, however, it must be made of that really icky, sticky stuff because the chimney needs sweeping again.
I think the manufacturers must have melted down too many eco-tards in the mixing pot. It burns like crazy but that icky-sticky stuff gives off a really nasty smell. I think it was made in … wait a minute .. the label on the box says … made in Paris !
Here’s link to a critique of ‘Anthropocene.’
http://www.episodes.org/index.php/epi/article/view/79720/61837
According to professional sources, the American Stratigraphic Commission has yet to take a position on this, and the publication by the working group is a RECOMMENDATION to the ICS. which has yet to take up this proposal. A forthcoming paper on this topic will appear in GSA TODAY in March or April explaining what lies ahead.
A reliable source reported via a third party that this paper is a republication of other papers by this working group. In short, it is “shingling.” to keep looking like they are getting somewhere.
Once the ICS adopts Anthropocene, it will be enshrined. Hopefully NACS will remain sane.
The problem with the antropocene is that the advent of man is extremely diachronous. So when it does start is a completely abitrary decision.
Hans, I agree it is arbitrary and it is OK. Lots of things about dating are arbitrary. What we have to get correct is the extent to which mankind affects the weather and climate. If it is being overstated or over-claimed by a factor of 100 then it matters.
I am comfortable with giving a name to the period in history reflecting the capacity of us all to transform our environment. We deserve it. We should be good stewards of our common home. We don’t have to pretend that CO2 has magical powers to be responsible. In fact admitting it doesn’t is a good start at demonstrating we can be responsible.
I have just watched a TV show on the fall of Lance Armstrong followed by one on the current collapse of the reputation of Bill Cosby. Neither hold a candle to the scandal that will accompany the broad public unmasking of the global warming scam.
I am very happy with the geological term “recent”, there is no geological need for a new era yet. If we really must set a boundary, take 1950, that is already in use in radiocarbon dating.
Don’t you know that since the paper has been published, it MUST be true!!! All published papers are gospel truth!
Idiocene is more apt.
http://carbon-sense.com/2015/12/13/the-new-geological-era/
Even an eventual sea level rise of 1.5 meters…….
Living in Holland I lived most of my life 3-4 meters BELOW sea level, just protected by dunes and dikes. What to think about countries that are not able to build 1.5 meter high dikes at some places IN NEARLY A CENTURY? In an era with a thousand times more technical possibilities than my ancestors had when they were building the dikes that protected me.
Humans are helpless and need big government to protect them.
The Dutch had their own solution. They created common institutions called ‘Waterschappen’ which had the task to protect the land against water. The ‘Waterschappen’ could raise a special tax: ‘waterschapslasten’ to be paid by all people involved. Because of the dutch’ understanding of ‘common interest,’ the Dutch could become one of the big players in the world. At that time, in our ‘Golden Age’, Holland was only counting some 2 million people….. But the Dutch understood how to solve problems by looking at ‘common interest’ and by working together when necessary.
Which is why they’re trying to keep us from enjoying our booze. 😉 They will NOT succeed!
“Anthropocene” is not bad as a moniker, there is some truth to the idea that mankind is beginning to harness energy on scale that can finally be seen as progressing toward Kardashev’s Type I level of civilization. Won’t likely be seeing Dyson spheres in my lifetime 🙂 but once future historians manage to cull all this latest End-of-Days conspiracy theorizing back out of our science, then the industrial revolution won’t be a bad place to begin tracking humanity’s increasingly efficient use of energy resources as we lift off from the hunter-gatherer and plow-horse agrarian eras.
I don’t really have a problem with the term Anthropocene. I’d be fine with renaming the Holocene the Anthropocene. However, I would demote it to a Stage from an Epoch.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/ElephantEvolution.png
Definitely, since it’s no different climatically from prior Pleistocene interglacials.
excellent appraisal David
I posted about this absurd story on the “Filling in the sparse Arctic weather data” thread. See:
I suggest to give it the abbreviation yAP, (years After Present). After all, in carbon dating, 1950 is already called “the present”. And astronomers are also working with the stellar Epoch 1950.0
The new ScientificCredibilityHasLeftDaCene era is upon us.
…ScientificCredibilityHasLeftDaCene…
lololol good one!
LOL Love the broken hockey stick in the photo!
I think we should call it the “Misanthropocene”, although “Ego-scene” does have its good points …
w.
+1000
Some Anthropocene signatures at the poles…
http://www.climate4you.com/images/70-90N%20MonthlyAnomaly%20Since1920.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20ArcticAndAntarctic%20MonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/graphics/tlt/plots/RSS_TS_channel_TLT_Southern%20Polar_Land_and_Sea_v03_3.png
http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0806/images/climate.2008.51-i1.jpg
http://oi47.tinypic.com/1zxb2vk.jpg
http://www.martintingley.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/PaiCo.pdf
The most pronounced warming phase in our [Arctic] reconstruction [of the last 2,000 years] occurred between 1900 and 1940, which is clearly seen in the measured meteorological records as well. In the instrumental record, positive SAT anomalies were largest in the Arctic Atlantic region during this period (Wood and Overland 2010). This early twentieth-century warming (ETCW) has been subject to many studies, yet its reasons still defies full explanation According to Chylek et al. (2009), the Arctic warming from 1900 to 1940 proceeded at a significantly faster rate than the warming during the more recent decades and was highly correlated with the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) suggesting that the Arctic temperature variability is highly linked to the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation at various temporal scales.
—
Esper et al., 2012 Orbital forcing of tree-ring data Nature Climate Change 2, 862–866
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n12/images/nclimate1589-f2.jpg
—
Cook et al., 2008 Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a High Arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada, Journal of Paleolimnology
http://www.geo.umass.edu/grads/cook/images/lml_temps.jpg
—
Mulvaney et al., 2012. Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice-shelf history Nature 489,141–144
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7414/images/nature11391-f3.2.jpg
The North Atlantic Anthropocene signal…
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NODC%20NorthAtlanticOceanicHeatContent0-700mSince1955%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
Better late than never.
Who are we to think the planet cares?
..Mother Nature laughs at the feeble chains that the Liberal’s l attempt to restrain her with !! Their Fairy Dust is no match for her unpredictable power !
OK, where did that extra ” l ” come from ??
Man’s footprint can be gone in a flash.
Didn’t these folks here of Pompeii?
Ma nature took back large chunks of Detroit in less than a generation
http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2009/07/23/150/
Climate science is now a meaningless endeavor ~ worse, it is a political statement no different than a bumper sticker that says “I Voted for Obama”. I would be embarrassed to let it slip that I was a climate scientist today. Hopefully scientists in other disciplines will come out and reclaim the honorable history of science and put the spotlight on the dangers of politicizing science with falsified hypotheses and brain dead models intended to support an agenda. We are in the Juxtapocene where science and data have been juxtaposed with flawed model output and political willfulness.
“paleotemperature records used in our study have a temporal resolution of ~120 years on average, which precludes us from examining variations in rates of change occurring within a century”
Convenient, that. They’ve gone an buggered their own research. Not to mention that all other time periods in the chronostratigraphic record have a resolution of +/- 100,000 years….essentially making the result of this study a comparison of apples and dingleberries. Leaping ahead into the distant future (AD 102016), it is doubtful that there would be any way of resolving the start of the Anthropocene. Maybe “The Earth, plus plastic”, sensu Carlin, but at what resolution?
This entire discussion is as much about the egos of the Technozoic stratigraphers as it is about actually defining a meaningful epoch. And most certainly another huge waste of grant money.
I guess they didn’t notice that the Antartic ice core data uses various intervals of much less than 100 years and temperature changes of over a degree happens regularly over ten year periods.
But then that might invalidate their predetermined result.
They handle this by splicing a high resolution instrumental time series onto a very low resolution multi-proxy time series which has been heavily smoothed.
The instrumental data have monthly resolution.
The multi-proxy data have decadal to multi-century scale resolutions. Each proxy series has a different margin of error on both axes (date and temperature). So, the multi-proxy time series winds up having no better resolution than its lowest resolution component.
Unless the resolution of the instrumental time series is degraded to match that of the multi-proxy time series, the result will always be a Hockey Stick.
The concept of the Holocene is being something distinct from the Quaternary was already a crock of steaming …… now this. Enough already!
Technically the Holocene was never distinct from the Quaternary (Pleistocene and Holocene).
What has more likely arrived is homo superbus – ‘Arrogant Man’
If an “Anthropocene” is to be named it should start when the human race sufficiently altered landscapes such that major and lasting sedimentation began. Many studies have been done. All one needs to do is find an early date and go with it. This is a simple case of geological science and not Climate ScienceTM .
I was trying for the Trademark symbol, superscript TM. Failed again. Time to go feed animals.
Climate Science™ (The character entity ™)
You can try things out on the test page, see the top nav bar.
That would make the Holocene vanish.
Better so than the current nonsense.
I always thought that when an area of study has to allude to science in its title, general rule of thumb is,….its not real science. You never have to say Chemistry science
—
“An average global temperature increase of 0.6 to 0.9C from 1900 to the present, occurring predominantly in the past 50 years . .”
—
Glancing at NOAA’s Climate at a glance. The warming trend from 1911 through 1944 shows the anomaly going from -0.43C to 0.29C; warming of 0.73C.
That’s why they hide it behind a ” Pay Wall ” ! You have to pay for it before you can read it !! Once you pay for it, you can’t admit that it was a waste of money, so you have to agree with it, otherwise you will look like an idiot for paying for it ! Wow, what a money maker !
P.S. When did taxpayers have to start paying for studies they already paid for ???
It’s worse than we thought!
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/the-idiocene.jpg
The children of the future will never forgive us for allowing this to happen !!
If they become stratigraphers, they probably won’t be able to fine the Holocene-Anthropocene boundary.
They wont even know. Sharia law will destroy all the past records of it.
You left out Canada’s chief stratigrapher and the 393 clasts (allocthons) he shipped over there.
President Camacho is waiting in the wings.
We are no longer in the age of enlightenment, but the age of stupid.
I like the description: idiocene.
If the paleotemperature records have an average resolution of 120 years, what would the graph look like with the most recent 120 period as one data point?
I reviewed the book: THE ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN ERA AND HOW IT SHAPES OUR PLANET by Christian Schwägerl on my blog. I found the argument unconvincing. See the post:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/book-review-the-anthropocene-the-human-era-and-how-it-shapes-our-planet/
‘Extinction rates have been far above background rates since 1500 and increased further in the 19th century and later’
Some people theorize that unobserved extinctions have been increasing. Like, we have 27,000 a year or so. I personally think we’re seeing between 571 and 589 – not that I made it up, mind you.
Observed extinctions, well…
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/extinctions_birds_mammals_historical.jpg
Leaving the recent decline in extinctions out of the abstract is as misleading as it gets.
Liberals simply cannot be honest, it goes against their nature !!!
I miss the link of the source, but when the information in the graphic is correct: could the recent ‘greening of the world by CO2’ have diminished the rate of extinctions?
If so, how to look at the periods of diminishing CO2, the ‘glacials’? Less plants – less animals?
The source is this excellent Willis article, later turned into a paper by Willis himself and Craig Loehle.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/04/where-are-the-corpses/
The waves of extinctions, if you can call them that, are caused mostly by the human or Western discovery of islands. A typical pattern is that humans introduce a species that wipes out an endemic species in the following years or decades – and after that first contact, well, extinctions in said island go back to whatever the background rate is. Almost all mammal and bird extinctions happened in islands – in the continents, species simply migrate when the situation in their habitat deteriorates. Notice that even though non-Western peoples may have been inhabiting islands for thousands of years, the arrival of Westerners would still introduce species which could in turn out wipe.
In fact, extinctions prior to 1500 are almost certainly wildly underestimated. It’s just that we Westerners started to explore the world around that period, but if you think about it, the arrival of for instance Arabs to whatever island in the Indian ocean would’ve had a similar effect. So if a species introduced by the Arabs in Tuvalu in the XII century wiped out some local bird or mammal species, that isn’t shown in the records. The low rate in the first three centuries of Western exploration isn’t believable either – most likely people simply weren’t keeping track of which species disappeared.
No more islands left without contact to Westerners –> no more waves of extinctions. That should’ve been the end of story, but still in 2016 we’re hearing these claims about increased rates.
To sum up: all this talk about the sixth great extinction is ideologically-loaded speculation and delusion from biologists; the absurdity of the estimates has been pointed out again and again for four decades and still the nonsense continues. The extinction scam has now been subsumed into CAGW, which is quite striking because, well, for the first 20 years or so biologists made those extinction estimates *without* referencing global warming. So the latter is really a Swiss knife of sorts for every pet cause you might have.
I could say a lot more, but I’d be repeating what Willis says in the article. I will just add that it’s hard to think of a better example of science gone wrong.
Shhhh. Thou speaketh as if CO2 is not evil.
“Extinction rates have been far above background rates”
In my opinion, it isn’t so much an increase in the extinction rates, as a massive increase in the creation rates. Specifically, the traditional definition of a species is an animal that can’t viably interbreed with other species. Examples of different species includes lions and tigers. Yes, you occasionally find ligers, the product of a lion with a tiger, but they are infertile.
If they can interbreed, they are the same species, but different races. However, there are no naming rights on a new race. So if my mate the biologist finds a new turtle that has an extra spot on it’s rump, he isn’t going to call it a new race of turtle – it has to be a new species because that lets him name it after his wife, PHD supervisor, etc. Bragging rights in other words.
This has led to a massive deterioration in the standard required to label a new species. An example is the dingo, an animal which quite freely interbreeds with other dog races. Recently a “scientist” decided to label it as a new species on the grounds that the much degraded standard for a new species was so low, you could simply look at a specimen and decide that it should be called a new race.
There has been a massive increase in the rate of new species being found because of the corrupted standard required. So, when we have a series of small ponds on Mount Snowy, disconnected except in unusual rainfall conditions, it is no surprise that a new race evolves. If that pond dries up, it is claimed that a species has become extinct. Far from the truth, but very convenient for the activist science fraternity.
The bastardization of the word, “species,” is mind-boggling.
Polar bears and Grizzly bears are distinct species in the same way that our Pomeranians and wolves are distinct species.
What comes next? The androidocene? Virusocene? I suppose it doesn’t matter if the anthropomorphs are extinct.
This Marcott paper constituted academic misconduct. I guest posted the forensic proof (h/t in part only to S. McIntyre) at CE, then in ebook essay A High Stick Foul. Nothing more need be said about it or its misbegotten sequelae.
The authors were at least honest aboUT their hockey stick not having climatologiCal significance.
What an amazing thought this is. I have played a small part in altering Earth far more than, for instance, Alexander the Great, or Vesuvius, or any of the wars, floods, famines, etc of the past. None of these caused the coming of a new geological epoch. It’s an exciting time, isn’t it. It’s comparable to surfing across the mantle on a drifting continent.
Talk to me in 5,000 years.
Till then I’ll just plod along.
I mean, is there any other choice ?
Once upon a time students would study geology before branching off into speculating about the weather, as climatologists.
Now they seem to skip geology all together.
If the great periods of history are defined by the geological layers, what evidence of mann the magnificent will be found in the geological evidence?
A thin smear of glass fragments in a few spots?
Some lead pipe?
Stratigraphically, the Anthropocene will be identified by its landfills.
Back in college, I thought it would be pull tabs from beers cans. I imagined that future paleontologists would try to reconstruct them into extinct critters.
Well preserved telephone books in land fills will let folks figure out how the extinct anthropods lived. But I suppose they might find the numbers confusing.
As with many of the arguments used to sustain the notion of anthropogenic climate change, if you carry the argument far enough you end up with a real mess on your hands, often a logical absurdity. The Anthropocene is one of my favorites in this regard. The earth has two predominate climate states, the warm interglacial state and the cold glacial state. We don’t tend to spend all that much time in-between with the exception of Dansgaard-Oeschger events. So the Holocene began 11,719 years (+/-99 years) ago. The precession cycle varies between 19kyrs and 23kyrs and we are at the 23kyr part of the cycle now. Seven of the last 8 interglacials have each lasted about half a precession cycle, which right now makes 11,500 half. So the Holocene, naturally, is a tad long in the tooth now. In Ruddiman’s Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis, the Holocene would naturally already have ended and we are living in the Anthropocene extension of it today. In fact a great many scholarly papers state that the Holocene is already over.
So the stunning conundrum here is that if the Holocene is kaput, or should be, and we are living in the Anthropocene extension of it via our climate security blanket GHG emissions, then what climate state is left if we decide to end the Anthropocene?
Well, er, ah, the cold glacial state, of course.
Given that the past 8 climate cycles have been paced by the ~100kyr eccentricity cycle, and that half a precession cycle varies between 9,500 and 11,500 years, that means that MIS-0, the next glacial (in all probability) would probably last about ~90kyrs. So if we want to end the Anthropocene, what we are really saying, as good environmentalists, is that we want to remove the only postulated speedbump to glacial inception so that Gaia can go about her next ~90kyr ice age.
Did somebody bump their collective heads?
Their is a vast literature dealing with whether or not the Holocene will “go long” like MIS-11 did, it being the one of the past eight interglacials that lasted longer than about half a precession cycle. Within that literature one soon becomes acquainted with the fact that MIS-11, the Holsteinian interglacial, was composed of two precession driven insolation peaks, with many thousands of years with very cold climate conditions in between. So even if the Holocene were to “go long”, like MIS-11 did, we would have a not so little ice age before insolation ticks up again to full interglacial conditions.
Meaning that if the warmists are right about GHGs, we would therefore be very wrong to reduce their concentration in the late Holocene atmosphere, whether or not MIS-1, the Holocene, goes long or not.
Here’s a great link to an open access paper dealing with the Anthropocene:
http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/395/1/255.full.pdf+html
From Lisiecki and Raymo (“A Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic D18O records”, Paleoceanography, Vol. 20, PA1003, doi:10.1029/2004PA001071, 2005) we have this:
“Recent research has focused on MIS 11 as a possible analog for the present interglacial [e.g., Loutre and Berger, 2003; EPICA community members, 2004] because both occur during times of low eccentricity. The LR04 age model establishes that MIS 11 spans two precession cycles, with 18O values below 3.6 o/oo for 20 kyr, from 398-418 ka. In comparison, stages 9 and 5 remained below 3.6 o/oo for 13 and 12 kyr, respectively, and the Holocene interglacial has lasted 11 kyr so far. In the LR04 age model, the average LSR of 29 sites is the same from 398-418 ka as from 250-650 ka; consequently, stage 11 is unlikely to be artificially stretched. However, the June 21 insolation minimum at 65N during MIS 11 is only 489 W/m2, much less pronounced than the present minimum of 474 W/m2. In addition, current insolation values are not predicted to return to the high values of late MIS 11 for another 65 kyr. We propose that this effectively precludes a ‘double precession-cycle’ interglacial [e.g., Raymo, 1997] in the Holocene without human influence.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2004PA001071/full
Here’s a link to an excellent analysis by Tzedakis dealing with the MIS-11 – MIS-1 conundrum and the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis:
http://www.clim-past.net/6/131/2010/cp-6-131-2010.pdf
And here is a tasty quote from a landmark paper on the end-Eemian all should read:
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades (see the core photograph in Fig. 4), demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416Wm22, which is the 658N July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428Wm22. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”
http://seelos-translate.info/LEAP_Nature__Sirocko+Seelos.pdf
Engaging the much vaunted Precautionary Principle, if you are really, really worried about GHGs, the Anthropocene, whatever, you may want to include in your calculus doing nothing about it for at least the next 4,000 years, at least until insolation increases again.
Just sayin…….
As Tzedakis and others have demonstrated, MIS19 is a much better analog to MIS1 than MIS11. The astronomical signature is much closer. Indeed the closer since Mid-Pleistocene transition.
Present interglacial could end in as little as 2000-5000 years.
I left out another valuable link to another landmark paper (an oft-quoted and cited paper). This one establishing the age of the Holocene. You will have to do some simple math to reach 11,719 as the paper references the year 2000, so you must add 16 to 11,703.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anders_Svensson3/publication/251435280_A_new_Greenland_ice_core_chronology_for_the_last_glacial_termination/links/0a85e53c7c1255ff78000000.pdf
They can slice and dice in any way they want but we’d still be in an Ice Age named the Quaternary Period and have been for about 2 1/2 million years noted for it’s glaciations followed by warmer interglacials. The Holocene is merely the latest of the interglacials. Someone queue up Joe Biden “Big….”
All it’s meant to do is to confuse, deceive and promote the alarmists.
Somehow the ‘cryocene’ seems appropriate, with multiple implications.
How presumptuous to attempt to critique a paper you never actually read. Marcott 2013 is not a source for any of the temperature data and the sea level info is directly quoted from AG5 WR1.
Next time better to read the paper first.
What was the source of AG5 WR1’s (did you mean AR5 WG1?) temperature data? The only Holocene reconstruction which resembles Walters is Marotta
AR5, like all AR’s is sourced from elsewhere. The IPCC doesn’t do any original work.
David – you really should read the paper for yourself. I’d encourage Anthony and the WUWT community to spring for subscriptions for all scientific papers that are critiqued, or to find access via an academic subscription.
from J. R. Hansen, R. Ruedy, M. Sato, K. Lo, Global surface temperature change. Rev. Geophys. 48, RG4004 (2010). doi: 10.1029/2010RG000345
from J. A. Church, P. U. Clark, A. Cazenave, J. M. Gregory, S. Jevrejeva, A. Levermann, M. A. Merrifield, G. A. Milne, R. S. Nerem, P. D. Nunn, A. J. Payne, W. T. Pfeffer, D. Stammer, A. S. Unnikrishnan, “Sea level change,” in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, T. F. Stocker et al., Eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013), (Summary for Policy Makers page 11) and also page 1150 (multiple references given)
Thank you for the references.
I have the the Church paper (AR 5 WG 1, full technical sumnary). Nothing in it supports the narrative that recent sea level rise is anomalous relative to the Holocene.
Jerejeva (one of Church’s coauthors) 08 clearly demonstrates that 3.2 mm/ yr is not anomalous.
Regarding the Hansen paper… that’s the source of the quote. Not the reconstruction depicted in Figure 1.
The Hansen paper doesn’t feature a Holocene reconstruction.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00510u.html
So… The two Walters assertions which I found troubling are based on unsupported narratives… One of which was sourced from the IPCC summary for policymakers. I doubt these are the sources.
I can go along with the idea of the Anthropocene as a distinct sub-unit based on the sedimentary and fossil ‘record’ and the impact of the species on the land and sea – we are living on the deposition plane and we have altered the landscape in permanent ways. The “Age of the Dinosaurs” didn’t end up making the cut, though. We used Mesozoic and broke this into Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic – no mention of the dinosaurs. My big problem is all the other “evidence” they use to add a pejorative meaning to the term. A synonym would be Thugocene or Dastardliocene or some other mean and evil ocene.
We should not allow this progressiste demagoguery incursion into our science. Geologists should make it known to their organizations that the physical and geochemical should be treated factually and neutrally instead of allowing it to be used as a club to beat evil humans with. Do you want Naomi Oreskes naming geological time units for you? That would be the end of science.
Take a look at the angry faces of these folks: It looks more like the Misanthrope era.
Ric Werme
January 8, 2016 at 4:21 pm
Perhaps Technocene would be appropriate. The point where our technology advanced to the point where we could have major impacts on the planet.
[Rather, Technoscene. The point where those who truly desire to see the influence of technology can publish about it.. .mod]