Guest essay by Andy May
The Holocene Thermal Optimum ended at different times in different parts of the world, but it had ended everywhere by 4,000 BP (BP here means the number of years before 2000) and the world began to cool. The timeline shown in Figure 1 shows the GISP2 Central Greenland ice core temperature proxies in blue and the HadCRUT 4.4 surface temperature estimates for the same area in red.
Figure 1 (click on the figure to download in full resolution)
Major events in human civilization are noted on the graph. If you download the pdf it prints well on 8.5×11 inch paper. This timeline provides more detail for the last 4,000 years than I could fit on my previous timeline to 18,000 years. The principle reference for the ice core study can be seen here. At the top of the graph the Blytt and Sernander climate periods are noted, these periods are based on their studies of Danish peat bogs and the names are still used in the literature.
Of necessity, this post covers the climate and human events in the northern hemisphere. Some of the climatic events described, like the Medieval Warm Period, were worldwide events. But, some may have only occurred in the northern hemisphere. Nearly all of the historical notes are from Professor Wolfgang Behringer’s excellent book A Cultural History of Climate. The book was suggested to me by Dr. Ronan Connolly and I highly recommend it. It was originally published in German in 2007, I read the 2010 English translation by Patrick Camiller. The translation is quite good and the book is very readable, even addicting.
The GISP2 temperature record covers the interval from 95 years ago to 50,000 years ago. I pulled a Michael Mann “trick” and spliced measured Greenland (HadCRUT 4.4) surface temperatures onto the ice core record to bring the graph up to the year 2000. That way it shows the modern warm period. The spliced measured temperatures are smoothed with a 20 year moving average. The HadCRUT 4.4 worldwide gridded temperature anomalies were read from a NetCDF dataset. The R script for reading and mapping the data can be seen here. The script is in a Word file due to WordPress restrictions, save it as an “.R” text (ascii) file if you want to run it.
The worldwide HadCRUT temperature anomaly grid is a 5° by 5° grid and many of the points over Greenland are unpopulated (null). The populated points near the GISP2 ice core site were averaged over the 166 year span of the record (since 1850). The points used and the location of the GISP2 ice core are shown in Figure 2 (made with Google Earth) below. The smoothed anomalies were added to the ice core temperature average in the overlapping interval, from 1850 to 1905.
Figure 2
Ice core data from this far north are very useful. It has long been known that ocean and atmospheric temperatures at or near the equator have not changed much for millions of years, but temperature changes at the poles have been large, especially near the North Pole. This has often been called “polar amplification.” As global temperatures rise, evaporation increases in the tropics keeping tropical temperatures steady. As temperatures are “evaporatively buffered” in the tropics, global energy balance constraints force temperatures to increase in the high latitudes during a global warming event. So data from this far north show larger temperature swings than the world at large and they are easier to see.
Newell and Dopplick computed that the maximum temperature of the atmosphere over the ocean is 303K or 30°C (see also Hoffert, et al ). This is very similar to the equatorial sea surface temperature today (see Figure 3) and going back to the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago. In the Cretaceous the higher sea surface temperatures covered much more of the oceans and there was no polar ice. They conclude that 30°C is the limiting temperature based on the balance between radiative input energy and energy lost due to the evaporation of sea water. Because the world ocean heat capacity is 1,000 times the heat capacity of the atmosphere, this is a very reasonable conclusion. For the details of the heat capacity calculation see the spreadsheet here. One should also consider that while the equatorial ocean surface temperature is about 30°C (Figure 3), the temperature of the world ocean at 2000 meters depth is only about 2°C. For this reason, the oceans are a huge temperature dampener, making the idea of a runaway atmospheric temperature increase unlikely.
Figure 3, Modern Ocean surface temperatures, whole year average, Deg. C (NOAA MIMOC)
Comparing northern hemisphere human history to the Greenland ice core record, it is apparent that large swings of temperatures in Greenland are related to European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and American events. Thus, we can safely assume these temperature swings affected most, if not all of the northern hemisphere. Behringer discusses this relationship in rich detail in his book. Comparing Antarctic ice core temperature proxies to the Greenland ice core records shows that the shorter events are different, or occur at different times in the southern hemisphere. The major events, for example the last glacial maximum and the Holocene Thermal Optimum (when human civilization began, the so called Neolithic Revolution) are apparent in both records.
The timeline begins at 4,000 BP and it shows steady cooling to the Little Ice Age (roughly 1250 to 1850 AD). It is easy to see that the Roman Warm Period was cooler (at least in Greenland) than the Minoan Warm Period and the Medieval and Modern Warm Periods are cooler than the Roman Warm Period. The Little Ice Age was a horrible time for mankind according to Behringer. Glaciers advanced in the Alps and destroyed homes, it was a time of perpetual war, famines and plagues. Horrible persecutions of Jews and “witches” were common. Society was suffering from the cold and lack of food and they needed to blame someone. They chose Jews and old unmarried women unfortunately. Over 50,000 witches were burned alive. Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred. Not because there was any proof, just because someone had to suffer for the bad climate. Some people, the masses mainly, seem to need to blame someone or humanity’s sins for natural disasters. Behringer notes that in The Little Ice Age: “In a society with no concept of the accidental, there was a tendency to personalize misfortune.”
Today environmental zealots assume that climate change is not only man-made but dangerous. They have no proof of either assertion, of course, but they “believe” with religious fervor in both ideas. Then we see, in Behringer’s book, the following quote from Archbishop Agobard of Lyons (769-840 AD) in his sermon “On Hail and Thunder:”
“In these parts nearly everyone – nobles and common folk, town and country, young and old – believe that human beings can bring about hail and thunder…We have seen and heard how most people are gripped by such nonsense, indeed possessed by such stupidity…”
Behringer offers up a 1486 woodcut of a sorceress conjuring up a hailstorm, I show this below in Figure 4. Behringer labels this woodcut “Anthropogenic Climate Change.” This is on page 129.
Figure 4: Anthropogenic Climate Change
One needs to ask “Have we, as a society, learned anything since 1486?” Why do some need to assume that certain people must be to blame for natural disasters?
Conclusions
There are several lessons to be learned from Behringer’s book and the timeline. First, there is no perfect temperature. Man, even in pre-industrial times, adapted to a variety of temperatures and he has always done better in warm times and worse in cold times. Second, why would anyone want to go back to the pre-industrial climate? The Washington Post says the goal of the Paris Climate Conference was get the world to agree to limit global warming to less than two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. Pre-industrial times? That’s the Little Ice Age, when it snowed in July, a time of endless war, famine and plague. According to the Greenland ice core proxy data, temperatures 180 years ago were the nearly the coldest seen since the end of the last glacial period 10,000 years ago! Why measure our success in combating anthropogenic warming, if there is any such thing, from such an unusually cold time? It makes no sense, those times were awful.
As Behringer explains, the Neolithic (new stone age) revolution and the rise of ancient civilization became possible when temperatures were one to two degrees warmer than today. At the current rate of warming, even in polar amplified Greenland, this will take at least 200 years to reach. Why not set the limit at two degrees above the temperatures in the Holocene Thermal Optimum? That was the temperature that allowed civilization to begin after all. I, for one, would like to go back to that period much more than the Little Ice Age. Why have a limit? Evaporation limits the maximum temperature to 29-30 degrees anyway, we go to places with that temperature for a winter vacation all the time.
Currently temperatures are evaporatively buffered in the tropics at 29°-30°C. The rest of the planet could rise to nearly this temperature over many thousands of years, but it isn’t likely and it isn’t a catastrophe. Further, the Earth has already been there in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago and in the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago when the Earth was ice free and palm trees grew in both Alaska and Antarctica. If warming continues, man-made or not, the ice at the poles will melt over time; but we can move to higher ground, we can adapt. It will not happen quickly but over many generations, most will not even notice it is happening. We are much more advanced today can adapt more easily than our ancestors and they adapted to even more extreme climatic events.
The last part of Behringer’s book is a good summary of the climate change debate in 2007. We have to admire the way he presents both sides of the debate in a “just the facts” manner. The following quote is from the penultimate page of the book:
“…cooling has always resulted in major social upheavals, whereas warming has sometimes led to a blossoming of culture. If we can learn anything from the history of culture, it is that, even if humans were ‘children of the Ice Age’, civilization was a product of climatic warming.”
“The future is hard to foresee. Serious scientists should refrain from slipping into the role of Nostradamus. Computer simulations cannot be better than the premises that guided the input of data: they show what is expected to happen, not the actual future. The history of the sciences is also a history of false theories and wrong predictions.”
Not much to add to that.
HadCRUT4 is a work of science fiction.
This is an interesting article but the idea of presenting themometer records on the same graph as a proxy remains as dubious as when Mann, Jones or Marcott do it.
As well as I can tell from the graph ( since we do not get a link to any data ), the GISP proxy data seems tohave a time resolution of about 10 years. It appears that the time resoluiton of the HadCRUFT4 data is presented at 2 year intervals.
ie they are not comparable datasets and should be presented on the same graph in a way which FORCES them to be compared.
If you have a ten year resolution proxy then decimate the themometor record by taking ten year averages ( NOT a running average “smoother” but an average ).
Then you need to consider whether the ice core proxy is compatible with a land+sea “mean temperature” which is dubious in itself.
If the GISP proxy is d18O then it is more properly compared to SST than land+sea “average”.
This will provide a more realistic comparison. Then we need to consider diffusion in the firm which further smooths out the extrema in the proxy record.
This is the whole problem with presenting data of different sources. Some careful thought needs to be give to whether they are at all comparable before presenting them in a form which compares them.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/19/debunking-the-vikings-werent-victims-of-climate-myth/
HadCRUT is obviously a bogus, ideologically-motivated construct.
Greenland was clearly warmer 1000 years ago than today.
I don’t really disagree with what you are saying. But, I wanted to show the Modern Warm Period on the same graph as the Medieval, Roman and Minoan warm periods and this was the best I could come up with. I only used HadCRUT grid points from the Greenland area and I used anomalies, not actual temperatures. Here is the spreadsheet I used. Give it a go, I’d love to see your results. Some of your ideas sound promising. https://andymaypetrophysicist.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/central_greenland_temp.xlsx
Andy, why do you think the Greenland proxy is local? Isn’t it based on the O18/O16 ratio which should reflect the average global ocean temperature.
“Dubious” as in of doubtful reliability? Maybe. Could be. Maybe not.
But he’s not being duplicitous. He’s not trying trying to hide anything. He made it very clear what he was doing.
Technically, because of polar amplification and the way Richard Alley calibrated the GISP2 dO18 isotope to temperature, …
The GISP2 temperatures changes need to be dampened down by a factor of four to be comparable to Hadcrut4. The global temperature change was only about 25% of the change that Alley’s GISP2 reconstruction shows.
I’ve worked with all the dO18 proxies a lot and this is just a fact.
“they are not comparable datasets and should be presented on the same graph in a way which FORCES them to be compared.”
A version of “Mikes Nature trick”
You know what they say… Crud In, HadCRUD Out.
By the way… the graph clearly shows that those lazy Greenlanders should have been farming their own food for the last 100 years. They have better equipment today than the Vikings after all! 😉
That’s the whole problem with this presentation, it suggests that current temperatures are warmner than MWP and that probably is not the case. Thus the above issues need to be looked at.
MWP must have been warmer significantly warmer than today in Greenland. FJ Shepherd had an interesting post on this topic here a while ago.
Andy… Great post, thanks.
Fig. 3) Warming Island Area: Instrumental reconstruction combined with GISP2 ice core reconstruction.[/caption]
Regarding HadCRUT4, it’s the best of several bad options. I prefer it over any of the NOAA/NASS-GISS products.
Regarding the Medieval Warm Period and early 20th century warming relative to today…
There is a GISP2 Ar-N2 Isotope reconstruction which covers 960 AD up to 1950…
Kobashi, T., J.P. Severinghaus, J.-M. Barnola, K. Kawamura, T. Carter, and T. Nakaegawa. 2010. Persistent multi-decadal Greenland temperature fluctuation through the last millennium. Climatic Change, Vol. 100, pp. 733-756.
I was able to tie Kobashi into an average of 12 long record length GISS stations in the region…
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="479"]
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/29/warming-island-greenland-sea-regional-climate-and-arctic-sea-ice-reconstruction/
While the resolutions of the instrumental and proxies are totally different, it appears to me that the modern warming is quite unremarkable. Thankfully, the climate started to warm in the 1600’s. The coldest phase of the Little Ice Age was just about the coldest phase of the Holocene, rivaling Late Pleistocene interstadials.
If you want some really impressive and rapid warming, check out the early 18th century, as the world came out of the depths of the Maunder Minimum. Its amplitude and duration were greater than both the early 20th century and late 20th century warming intervals. But then of course the LIA was still in effect, so this warming cycle was followed by renewed cold, cooling being the secular trend. But even the Dalton Minimum or the late 18th and early 19th centuries didn’t return to the lows of the Maunder in the late 17th and earliest 18th centuries.
Thanks!
Substitute “political” for “science.
Two Greenland stations up to 2003:
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/godthaab.gif
Daly had a lot of others, too.
Gabro – spot on.
The graph [and I haven’t yet read the article] does rather smack of comparing Apples and Anchovies . . . .
Auto.
Leaping to conclusions again.
Predictions are hazardous, especially about the future.
Thank you Andy for this refreshing and well balanced essay……
Can not even nitpick there as it will be completely insignificant in the light of the impressive main body of your essay. 🙂
Hopefully others like it too.
cheers
Something doesn’t add up…
We’re warmer than grapes in Britain and Germany…
…and warmer than Vikings in Greenland
I expect there will be a new study coming out shortly that proves it was a different species of grape grown back then. Used exclusively for ice wine production no doubt.
For $50,000 I’ll do the study myself.
You are obviously not up to the job. No credible climatologist would do it for less than $500k. Please get with the program and stop trying to undercut everyone’s living standards !!
For $750,000, I’ll do it and even go to Great Britain and Germany to sample heirloom grapes and wines.
Need to verify the women are a constant 37C first to make sure they are not influencing the results. Some women can be fridged. Of course you would be compensated for this on your trip.
Current wine vineyard in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire where I was born.
http://www.holmfirthvineyard.com/
Don’t know how good it is though.
THis is more for Duncan But I could not reply.
Beware some can also be volcanic
“We will introduce you to our carefully selected modern varieties, all planted by hand, red and white varieties. The varieties have been chosen because they’ve been specially developed to thrive in cooler climates. They’re disease resistant and ripen mid to late October.”
One wonders if they had “specially developed” grapes in Roman times…
“Dendroecological studies indicate enhanced conifer recruitment during the twentieth century. However, conifers have not yet recolonized many areas where trees were present during the Medieval Warm period (ca AD 800–1300) or the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM; ca 10 000–3000 years ago) …” Climate change and the northern Russian treeline zone, G.M MacDonald et al. 2008.
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2283
@Duncan: True, but a thorough investigation would include not just wine and women, but also a study of (folk) songs. I am upping the ante, and will do it for a million … pounds.
They’ve got very good wine in England now:
https://www.chapeldown.com/
However, still agree with Latitude that Greenland today is not as warm as it was back then
Sorry but the world is only 200 years old, you are wrong i am right, 97% scientists on my side
[needs a /sarc tag -mod]
Yes! You take a jaw of a Black Stallion and wave it at a cloud and voila: heavy rain! Now why doesn’t that work in deserts? Seems to only work where it rains a lot.
Actually, the horse business is all about ancient gods that represented weather which were replaced with gods that get angry and flood the entire planet killing nearly everything except a few who get on this boat run by a drunkard (yes, the Torah mentions Noah indulging).
Actually, emsnews? Don’t you mean you imagine?
(But don’t let me ruin your self worship buzz, seer of all time and space ; )
Noah is credited in the Bible as the first vintner, and yes, Yahweh punished not Noah for being drunk, but his sons for viewing and covering up his nakedness while passed out.
Yahweh got His start as the Canaanite storm god Ba’al or El, preserved in Hebrew as Elohim, a grammatically plural form, and cognate with Arabic Allah.
See Genesis 9 for the story of how Canaan, descended from Ham, who beheld his father’s nakedness, became cursed. The other two brothers backed into the tent to cover their passed out drunk dad, Noah.
Drunk or not, he was an outstanding sailor and navigator. Getting all those animals on board required a thorough circumnavigation – how else could he get the three-toed sloths, the kangaroos, the white tigers and the grizzly bears in his ark to prevent them from drowning? And keeping the white tigers from eating the kangaroos must have been a bit of a chore too. After that, he would have needed a few glasses of Mogen David just to calm down of an evening.
I have talked to people who actually believe that stuff.
From that perspective, believing in anthropogenic global warming seems grounded in reality.
(Uncovering thy father’s nakedness, was a euphemism for having sex with his wife, Gabro . . not viewing his genitals.)
“Yahweh got His start as the Canaanite storm god Ba’al or El, preserved in Hebrew as Elohim, a grammatically plural form, and cognate with Arabic Allah.”
Or, as the Book explains, Ba’al was a false god . . It’s not like that Book doesn’t discuss such things, over and over again. The existence of false gods/beliefs/religions is not in the least contradictory to the narrative we can read in it . . they are mandatory if it is what it presents itself as.
One, hopefully, does not dismiss all ideas/concepts because some are wrong headed . . or all scientific theories because some are eventually falsified . . and I suggest one not assume that the existence of multiple potential “gods” somehow renders it falsified that any are true.
Even harder to keep the carnivores from eating the herbivores after the ark grounded on dry land and Noah let them all go.
Not to mention the millions of species that lived before 4500 years ago which creationists imagine had to be on the ark too. Nor how to feed all these creatures for five months (or whatever).
Even more amazingly, creationists have to imagine extremely rapid evolution to get from 50 to 90 “kinds” (an undefined, imaginary taxon) to the c. 1200 known valid non-avian dinosaur genera (not species, as in this laughable link). And that’s just dinosaurs. There are millions of other animal, not to mention fungal and plant species that would have needed saving.
https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/when-did-dinosaurs-live/arks-dinosaurs/
John,
Wrong. Like so many creationists, apparently you don’t bother to read what the Bible actually says.
Genesis 9 says nothing at all about Mrs. Noah. Two sons backed into his tent to cover his nakedness. King James is not a good translation, but will suffice:
“18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:
21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.”
BTW, this chapter also includes the mythical explanation for the rainbow.
After brushing up on the Bible, you might check out the Ugaritic texts, which make clear the connection between the Hebrew chief god El and the Canaanite storm god Ba’al. Of course one tribe would consider the other tribe’s gods to be false. The Hebrew god Yahweh was like the Greek sun god Apollo. There are coins with an anthropomorphic Yahweh riding in a chariot across the sky.
SmartRock,
” Getting all those animals on board required a thorough circumnavigation – how else could he get the three-toed sloths, the kangaroos, the white tigers and the grizzly bears in his ark to prevent them from drowning? ”
They came to him . . and a Creator of Universes could arrange such trivial things, IF real, any rational person would grant, I suspect . .
John,
How did the animals from the Americas, Australia and oceanic islands get to the Holy Land? Or even those from across deserts and mountain wastes?
Were all the continents conjoined only 4500 years ago?
If God just magically transported them there, then why the need to build an ark and flood the earth?
BTW, where did all that water come from and where did it go? Was Mt. Everest lower then? If not, then we’re talking about three times as much water as on earth today (my rough calculation; could be off).
Besides which, Genesis 7 contradicts itself.
In 7:2, God tells Noah: “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.” But later in the chapter, He orders all two by two, without the cleanliness distinction.
So the ark was even more crowded if Noah obeyed God’s first instruction instead of the later one.
Gabro,
“The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness.”
(Leviticus 18:8 KJV)
Please note the heay emphasis on a particular son of Ham in what you quoted;
“22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.
23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.
24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.
25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.
27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”
John,
The rules of behavior in Leviticus have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the incident in Genesis. Leviticus lists the women with whom men may have sex and those with whom they may not, under Hebrew law. In that case, uncovering the nakedness of a woman does mean having sex with her. But that says nothing at all about viewing the nakedness of your father, whether passed out drunk, as was Noah, or not.
I would have thought that distinction obvious.
Lady,
The Bible is riddled with such absurd excuses for cursing this, that or the other people, or all people.
It’s just a bunch of stories, some more lame than the others. Some are pretty good stories, often well written, but seldom up to the literary and meaningfulness standards of Greek mythology.
John,
Unless you suppose that “uncovering his father’s nakedness” implies that Ham had sex with Noah while the old man was passed out drunk.
That might warrant cursing. Or worse.
Gabro,
“How did the animals from the Americas, Australia and oceanic islands get to the Holy Land? Or even those from across deserts and mountain wastes?
Were all the continents conjoined only 4500 years ago?”
Possibly . . I saw a paper just last year which found that there is roughly twice as much water below ground on this planet, as above, even now . . The Book speaks of “the fountains of the deep” being opened as the flood commenced, so perhaps “land bridges” were more ubiquitous then . .
“If God just magically transported them there, then why the need to build an ark and flood the earth?”
Well first, when a Creator God does something, it’s not “magic” . . no more than when a computer programmer introduces something into his creation. It is necessary, it seems to me, to let that sort of Power sink in, so to speak, in order to make sense of that Book and what it says of Him/us. Not an old man in the sky, but something of (to us) unimaginable capabilities. Total access and control over anything at all, as He pleases . .
The flood was to deal with something that “infested” the Earth, it seems rather obvious to me, since it is spoken of quite clearly in Genesis six, where the account is given. Biological contamination (GMOs in modern jargon ; ) was instigated by rebellious “sons of God”, who . . well, uncovered some nakedness, and corrupted virtually all life on Earth . . Hence, the “perfect in his generations” quality of Noah, spoken of in the account. He was the last remnant of the per-contamination race of humans. Those critters that arrived, by implication, perhaps were of a similar pedigree . .
The Great Prophet Arlo Guthrie on father rapers:
http://www.lyricsty.com/arlo-guthrie-alices-restaurant-lyrics.html
John,
Where to begin?
We’re not talking about the magic of creating living things, but about magically transporting already extant creatures thousands of miles, whether two or seven of each. Again I ask, why would God do that, instead of just wiping out everything and starting over, since He was so ticked off?
Creating creatures ex nihilo is magical enough, without then also having them defy His own rules of physics by supernatural transportation.
Besides which, the Bible itself shows that “after its own kind”, refers to what would now be considered species or at most genera, not families, as implied in the ludicrous YEC link I supplied.
The water deep, deep down of which you speak is in a mineral called ringwoodite, previously known only from meteorites, but recently found in volcanic ejecta. If you imagine that this is the supposed source or subsequent hiding place of the Flood waters, then please explain how the H2O got out of the mineral and then back into it. Thanks.
Besides which, Genesis mentions both the fountains of the deep and rain. If you were a student of the Bible, you’d know that these alleged fountains are the “waters below”, into which the “pillars of the earth” sink, and that rain falls from the storehouses of rain, snow and other precipitation, the levers of which are personally operated by God.
Sorry, but it is to laugh that anyone over the age of six can take these myths for reality. Not that there’s anything wrong with myths. They just aren’t science.
The delicious irony is that to get hundreds of thousands of species from hundreds of “kinds” requires impossibly rapid evolution, while getting all those “kinds” to Mesopotamia also requires land bridges impossible for tectonics to achieve in the same mere 4500 years.
Only the totally delusional can possibly regard the biblical Flood myth as literal truth.
Gabro,
“Where to begin?
We’re not talking about the magic of creating living things, but about magically transporting already extant creatures thousands of miles, whether two or seven of each.”
I don’t understand how one could doubt a Being that can Create animals “from scratch”, could manage somehow to transport them . . His options would be numerous, just based on what we can see of His powers in that Book , , I don’t know how to express it any clearer, than to say He does as He pleases in terms of the physical as we know it. Raise the dead, heal the lame, cause a donkey to speak . . total control at the quantum level . . Like a computer programmer could do in a simulated world, basically. He wrote the “laws” of nature, and can amend/alter them at will . . (according to that Book).
He might even have generated some of those critters for the occasion, as i read the texts. Consider please, these words from Genesis 2;
~ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.~
Every plant of the field before it was in the earth? Every herb of the field before it grew? That says, to me, that the Creating was the “writing” of the code . . not the physical manifestations in the flesh, so to speak. So one option was to generate more . . for Noah to take into the ark.
I realize this approach renders anything in the time-space continuum possible . . for Him. That’s why we call Him a God . . That’s what I, once upon a time, realized was dealing with me, which turned me from a strong agnostic as we used to say, into a strong believer.
“Sorry, but it is to laugh that anyone over the age of six can take these myths for reality.”
I witnessed things that I thought were impossible . . and your not witnessing them does nothing to convince me they did not happen, naturally. But now I understand how all those Christians could allow themselves to be tortured to death, rather than deny Him. I will too, if it comes to that. It’s not even a big deal to me . .
Smart Rock
http://themetapicture.com/something-here-looks-pretty-suspicious/
Worked his way up from nothing to become an inspiration to us all!
This website has just exceeded its allowed number of Johns.
“I have talked to people who actually believe that stuff.”
If you can get one of those people to read, “The Jesus Mysteries” by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy they might look at religion entirely differently. I think that the believers in any of the three abrahamic religions would do well to read the above mentioned book.
Knowing the real story behind the Jesus Myth will not kill your religious beliefs but rather free you from believing the myths literally and hence believing utterly stupid stuff. The whole world would be better off if they knew the truth of the origins of these 3 religions. Especially today.
Perhaps being a bit too literal, eh?
Seek the lesson being offered to uncover the actual truth of the writings.
John Knight,
But the fact is that no such supernatural sky spirit made any creatures from scratch, nor did he, she or it magically fly them by twos or sevens through the night from far flung continents and islands to Noah’s doorstep. The story is a myth, just as the special creation of species extinct and extant is a myth. There is zero evidence in favor of either myth and all the evidence in the world against them.
But even if you are gullible enough to imagine that some divine being makes new animal species out of thin air or clay, and that there was a global flood burying the planet under 30,000 feet of water (the freshening effect of which would kill many saltwater species and so dilute their food that others would starve), you can’t answer why this deity would not just kill all the people it wanted to kill and save two or seven of the species it wanted to survive, rather than going to such laughable lengths. The reason is that the phenomenon of the rainbow needed a myth to explain it, and there was a Sumerian-Babylonian-Assyrian myth with a long history already out there which could be adapted to meet Hebrew mythical needs.
The standard interpretation of this event is far too literal. You have to remember where these traditions came from – Egypt.
And in Egypt there was a well known boat that carried pairs of animals – the great Solar Barque (or Ark) of Ra. This great cosmic boat sailed the ‘sea’ of the cosmos, just as a modern space-ship might do. And it carried the animal-headded gods of Egypt, which were all depicted as male and female pairs. Two by two. And the great cosmic sea they sailed upon was called Nu, from which later traditions would derive the name Nuah or Noah.
The animal-gods in the Ark of Ra.
The ark story owes more to Mesopotamian myth than to Egypt, but everywhere in the ancient Near East and in many other places around there world there are similar myths. Flooding is common in river valleys like the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates.
The Noah tale in Genesis clearly derives from the millennia older Mesopotamian flood stories found in the epics of Ziusudra, Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. The Sumerian King List relies on a flood motif to divide its history into pre-flood (antediluvian) and post-flood periods. Just as in the Old Testament, the pre-flood kings lived for centuries, while post-flood lifespans were much shorter. The Sumerian flood myth found in the Deluge tablet was the epic of Ziusudra, who heard the Divine Counsel plan to destroy humanity, in response to which he constructed a vessel that delivered him from great waters.
There is archaeological evidence of some river floods bigger than usual. A Sumerian herdsman might well have gathered his family and its fowl, sheep, goats and donkeys onto a raft to survive such a flood.
JohnKnight
June 22, 2016 at 5:40 pm
“He might even have generated some of those critters for the occasion, as i read the texts. Consider please, these words from Genesis 2;
~ These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,’
————————————————————–
Hello John.
Just for the sake of the argument, and a chance to show that there is many ways to interpret information…
In this case is The Book and a passage or .a selected paragraph,,,,,short one indeed..
But if you look carefully there is a lot of information that can be generated even from such a short selection, if one tries to have a deeper approach and a lees self selectively orientated one.
Now the selection you refer to, actually mentions the creation and the making respectively of living creatures and the earth and heavens.
That selection is from Genesis 2 as you state, but the reference from it is to the Genesis 1, where actually the creation and the making is explained according to the Biblical account.
In Genesis 1 there is 3 stages, that of creation (the first), that of making (second), and that of the full completing in their all vast array of the earth and heavens (the third).
There is a very specific difference between creating and making,,,,,,, for example we humans today make and produce energy or even life forms, but we can not create either. We can effect evolution to a degree but we can not create life.
Bible actually claims that when it comes to life there is no any more there to be possible in the terms of the creation as the “basic slots” already taken long long time ago.
According to the BIble, plants as we know were created and evolved, so were the sea creatures and the flying creatures, the three “basic slots” of creation.
Any other living creature in this earth is a product and a making through evolution originating from one of these “basic slots”, not created actually but evolving, so is for humans too, you and me.
None of the three basic life forms of creation has any evolutionary connection to each other in terms of genetic and life evolution.
The main contradiction that the Biblical account has with science is that it does not consider the plant life form, water life form and air life form as a product from another form of life prior to it through evolution, like from a singular cell life form or even a more primitive multi cellular form.
According to Genesis 1, plant life form was created in the third “day” and the water and air life forms were created in the fifth day and fully evolved by the end of the fifth “day”,(produced ,”fruitful and increased in numbers” aka evolved)
Any other life creatures (the specific new land ones for example) were produced (evolved from the other 3 main life forms,,,, not created actually,,,,,,,,, the human life species too……….. in the sixth day.
So, according to Bible, earth and heavens were created in the beginning, before time and “day” and night (not through a “process” of making, or a process in terms of evolution), then in the fifth ” the creation of life completed (with the creation of sea creatures and air creatures) and also fully made or evolved accordingly in the three basic paths set by creation…….by the end of the fifth day.
The earth at the end of the fifth day stands as made at that point, an evolved earth………..But not yet completed in its vast array, till man was made (evolved and became as a species) and also till man “created” as a civil creature, through the last ever possible creation, that of human Civilization……..in the sixth day.
Seems like Bible claims that there was the end of creation at the end of the sixth “day”, terminated with the creation of human Civilization (human Civilization can’t be claimed as evolved from a prior primitive form)/
No any room for other creations,,, lots of evolution to go through but still in the already set paths of the already created.
After all this said, please do not “jump the gun”, the main only purpose of my reply to you was simply to show how many more ways can there be to interpret and argue information, regardless which of the ways could be considered as correct or appropriate.
Trying to show that even when 2 lines of text that may seem as very dry or with no much sense, can generate a long interpretation and argument if properly referred and considered with no any preemtive biases.
cheers
whiten
June 23, 2016 at 11:11 am
The two creation myths in the first two chapters of Genesis are completely and irreconcilably incompatible.
The “Six Days” story is Mesopotamian in origin. The “Adam and Eve” story is also, although it’s similar to Egyptian myth as well.
But both bear no relation whatsoever to the actual development of the universe, earth and life upon it. However the Six Days story can be made to fit into evolution better than the Bible can be made to jibe with modern astronomy, geology, chemistry, physics, biology or any other science.
Here’s the order of creation in the Six Days myth (Genesis 1):
Preexisting: Waters
1. Light and dark (day and night)
2. Sky (a solid dome over the flat earth)
3. Seas, dry land, green plants
4. Stars, the sun and the moon (never mind how there could be day and night and plants without the sun)
5. Sea creatures and flying creatures
6. Land animals and then humans.
This stands in stark contrast to the order in the Adam and Eve myth (Genesis 2):
1. Streams watering the earth
2. A man
3. Plants
4. Land animals and birds at the same time
5. A woman.
While they contradict each other in every detail, both stories also conflict with the actually observed order of appearance of objects in the universe and of living things on earth. This was:
1. Stars older than the sun
2. The sun
3. The earth and the moon
4. The earth’s atmosphere and oceans
5. Sea creatures (Precambrian)
6. Green plants (Late Cambrian or Ordovician Period, but not on land until Silurian)
7. Land creatures (Late Ordovician or Silurian)
8. Flying creatures (Devonian)
9. Humans (Pleistocene Epoch)
The Bible is not scientific; it’s a pre-scientific work. After about 800 BC, parts of it are more or less historical, but before that it’s mythical and at best legendary.
Logic is a tricky thing, it seems to me . . the idea that the account in Genesis “comes from” earlier accounts makes fine sense . . assuming the account in Genesis isn’t legit. If it is legit, then other accounts are human accounts several hundred years after the events.
John Knight,
The Sumerian originals of the biblical creation and flood myths predate the Old Testament by thousands of years. Some versions the Hebrews picked up directly from Mesopotamia during the Babylonian Captivity, but other versions came to them previously, filtered through Assyria and Ugarit (Canaan).
Gabro,
“But the fact is that no such supernatural sky spirit made any creatures from scratch…”
If you say fact, when it is what you imagine but cannot possibly know to be a fact, I become skeptical of your ability to reason rightly, naturally. That’s where I came in here (in response to someone else using the term ‘actually’) and I can only implore people to avoid treating what they imagine to be true as if fact/actuality . . The Book speaks of this potential source of error/folly many times, and indeed I feel it is a major theme, beginning in the Garden, when the people are provoked to imagine God is lying to them, essentially, and they bite, so to speak ; )
Gabro,
“The Sumerian originals of the biblical creation and flood myths predate the Old Testament by thousands of years.”
I cannot treat what you imagine as if fact . . please be careful to think the matter through. IF one assumes God did not generate the account in Genesis, then it makes sense to speak of accounts recorded earlier as “originals” . . but NOT if He did generate the account in Genesis. In that case, the others are just humans telling about what remained of an account their ancestors (Noah, Ham, etc) passed down to them through word of mouth/story telling.
John Knight,
It is you who have the imagination problem.
The time at which the Sumerian and Babylonian myths were written down is known, as is the approximate age of the OT.
There is zero evidence that this entity which you imagine to exist and call “God” created the originals of the creation and flood myths. That’s only your baseless belief on blind faith and contrary to all the actual evidence.
It is an observed fact that species do not arise from scratch, created ex nihilo by your imaginary sky spirit father. Rather, they have been observed to evolve from previously existing species.
In your magical, supernatural fairly world, it may be that one instant there were no chickens, but in the next, “Poof!”, chickens, but that’s not how chickens or any other organism actually arose.
There is no scientific basis for believing in the existence of a creator or flood spirit. That is a matter of choice on your part. You’re free to live in a magical, imaginary realm, but sorry, that is not in fact the real world.
Gabro
June 23, 2016 at 11:36 am.
————————————
Hello Gabro.
I think you missed the whole point in my reply to john.
It was not actually an argument theology versus science perse, even when I have to accept that it may have shown some kind of such as “colors”.
The main point was about what actually some text may claim and state, contrary to what one may believe or think that it does.
And I am not going to argue with you now also about your understanding or interpretation of the same text.
From where I stand yours in that regard seems also too superficial and rushy.
But let me say this, there was no any relation or mentioning of Adam and Eve, or of Egyptians or any other ancient text of religion or otherwise. Only two simple lines of text that do not reference, or at least do not seem to reference to such as ( Adams Eves or Egyptians, Fairies, or pink unicorns)……. in the main subject stated.
Besides you completely seem to have missed the repetitive phrase “according to” which simple meant that i was not about theology or science but more about what actually the claim could be about, regardless of it been wrong true or what ever……
Now i do not understand how some one can have such wild and BS claims as:
“While they contradict each other in every detail, both stories also conflict with the actually observed order of appearance of objects in the universe and of living things on earth. This was:
1. Stars older than the sun
2. The sun
3. The earth and the moon
4. The earth’s atmosphere and oceans
5. Sea creatures (Precambrian)
6. Green plants (Late Cambrian or Ordovician Period, but not on land until Silurian)
7. Land creatures (Late Ordovician or Silurian)
8. Flying creatures (Devonian)
9. Humans (Pleistocene Epoch)”
—————————————-
Apart from number 1, all other steps of the order mentioned, from 2 to 9, either true or falls or whatever are not established through observation. Even number 1 is very questionable in principle when considered in the point of observation, as we have not observed actually our sun’s creation
And unless you claim to be God (the Biblical One, the Truth itself, the all knowing and the all observing, the ultimate authority, as according and claimed in the Bible) then you can not even claim such as to be taken other than a guff or a rush. (which actually seems these days the very mental orientation of many celebrity “academics” ).
We can not even claim in our sane mind that the 100 k years of last glacial period is a claim based in observations, and you some how claim knowledge based in observations that go millions and billions of years ago……..Probably I must have missed that great news of the super flashy time-machine, yesterday at the news……….was it American or North Korean?!
Is not much else we can really argue at this point……….as we are drumming a completely different drum here.
I really sorry for offending your god-science.
cheers
Gabro,
“JohnKnight…It is you who have the imagination problem.”
Again . . you leaving out the “I think” there, does not make what you write fact. It’s still what you think is going on.
If what is described in Genesis really happened, then it is logical to think that remnants of the events it describes would remain in the storytelling of humans, right? Those remnants being recorded before God Inspires someone to write out His version of the events , does not render those recorded earlier the “originals”. God’s would be a First Hand account ; ) and the others would be hearsay, in legal speak.
John Knight,
It’s not my opinion. It’s a fact.
We know for a fact that the events described in both of the contradictory Genesis creation myths and the flood myth did not happen.
There were not day and night before there was the sun. There were not waters over the land before there was day and night. Plants did not exist before the sun. The sky is not a solid dome with doors and windows in it through which the the sun and moon pass, nor are the stars hung from it, nor do rain and snow fall from storehouses, the levers of which God operates. To name but a few impossibilities.
Nor was there a global flood 4500 years ago that covered the tallest mountains. No ship is capable of housing and feeding for months on end all the land and flying animal species which ever lived. For starters.
How any person of normal intelligence can possibly believe that these fables are literally true is beyond me.
Gabro,
“It’s not my opinion. It’s a fact.”
So you say . .
“We know for a fact that the events described in both of the contradictory Genesis creation myths and the flood myth did not happen.”
So you (and a frog in your pocket apparently ; ) say. Many say *We know for a fact that human generated CO2 is a great threat to the world* . . and they say there is vast heaps of scientific evidence, bestowed by many leading scientists, and accepted by virtually all scientists, which renders it anti-scientific myth to say otherwise . .
And many here can “see” the potential deceptions regarding the latter . . but, it seems to me, cannot objectively approach the potential for deceptions regarding the prior . . applying what they (ostensibly) have learned of the depths of falsehood and foolishness an . . interested “scientific community” et al, is capable of.
I suggest one be consistent . . and refrain from speaking of hearsay a fact.
John Knight,
It is not hearsay that there is zero evidence for global flood 4500 years ago. Zilch. Nada.
Your childlike faith is based upon nothing. Or do you imagine there is some evidence?
It is similarly a fact that day and night on earth result from our planet turning on its axis. In Genesis, that is not the case. What makes you so sure that Genesis is right and the observations of astronomers and space craft are wrong?
To take Genesis literally, you have to reject not just biology but astronomy, physics, geology, chemistry and every other science.
Gabro,
“It is not hearsay that there is zero evidence for global flood 4500 years ago. Zilch. Nada.”
Are there not vast beds of fossils, which could not (theoretically) be preserved unless they were rapidly buried? (just as there would logically be if a global flood happened) Are there not very many “great flood” stories, recounted in various ways by peoples all over the world? (just as there would logically be if a global flood happened) . . You may not find such evidence convincing, but that doesn’t render it non-existent . . whether it really happened or not. Alternative explanations exist, no doubt, but so does the alternative in question here . . To believe either way requires faith in what one cannot directly observe of the matter.
And I can imagine some here now reading this, standing before God, saying;
*But, but there was all that scientific evidence . . how can you hold me accountable for believing it was valid?* . . and Him responding; *Did I not demonstrate to you, that so called scientific evidence can be bullshot, with that ridiculous global warming fable? . . Why would I wish to preserve a creature so easily led to disregard what they themselves observe first hand? Didn’t you read about what happened in the Garden? Didn’t I have that imbecile JohnKnight point out the folly of treating hearsay as fact? . . I can pull it up, if you want . . * ; )
John Knight,
Yes, there are flood myths all over the world because floods occur in many places. Yes, there are fossil beds formed by flash floods or by mass drowning of river-crossing herds, as happens with migrating gregarious animals today. But there is no such fossil bed anywhere from 4500 years ago, nor could there possibly be such a thing, since it takes longer than that for fossils to form.
There is no evidence whatsoever that a global flood occurred 4500 years ago, as I said. Had it happened, it would leave evidence everywhere on the planet, yet nowhere is there the least shred of such evidence. Nary a trace or a sign. It didn’t happen.
Nor could there ever have been night and day on earth without the sun, as in Genesis. It’s not only scientifically wrong but a theological error to imagine that the Bible is telling some kind of truth about the natural world. The whole point is to take religion on faith, not evidence. Mixing science and religion destroys both.
Comparing AGW to observed scientific facts like the rotation of the earth and evolution is as laughable as imagining that Genesis 1 and 2 record actual events.
whiten,
The term ‘evolution’ just means change over time, and as you seem to me to imply, we can fairly easily understand it must occur, for indeed living things contain within themselves mechanisms that essentially “force” a variety of offspring to arise, and under various circumstances some would naturally “fit” better than others. And, as “domestic” critters demonstrate, significant “evolution” can occur over relatively short spans of time, and relatively few generations.
That some degree of divergence from/among an initial stock of “kinds” might have occurred before man was generated is plausible to me, but man is spoken of as in some sense being specifically made “in the image” of God, after (at least some) plants were created, but before they where “in the earth”, “grew” . . which to me, as I said, implies it was what we call the “genetic coding” (and perhaps more that we don’t yet recognize as critical “order”), which is being spoken of as having been created, yet not manifested before there was a “man to till the ground”.
In the Genesis 2 account, there is a persistent “qualifier” used; “of the field” associated with each “kind” mentioned . . which I interpret, in combination with the “to till the ground” wording I noted, to indicate what we call “domestic” plants and animals. Which is to say, I believe, the stuff Adam and Eve etc, would eventually cultivate/raise. In short, I think Gen 2 is detailing the creation of that “class” of living things, and is not simply restating what was discussed in Gen 1.
And again, regarding the animals mentioned in Gen 2, there is the talk of “out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field …” similarly used of Adam’s “forming” . . which leads me to (tentatively) believe He made them “from scratch” so to speak. God seems to me, therefor, not to have “evolved” at least some creatures, regardless of whether some were anticipated but not yet in actual existence specifically, at the moment their predecessors of “kind” were first generated.
I certainly agree with your comments on the richness and “density” of the Texts . . there seems no end to the meaning of His Word . . to this worm of no account or wisdom of his own . .
Gabro,
“There is no evidence whatsoever that a global flood occurred 4500 years ago, as I said. Had it happened, it would leave evidence everywhere on the planet, yet nowhere is there the least shred of such evidence. Nary a trace or a sign.”
I haven’t the slightest idea what you would consider a shred of evidence . . a trace or sign . . You seem to think rocks would cry out, or something ; )
JohnKnight
June 23, 2016 at 7:23 pm
Hello Again John.
thank you for your reply.
Now consider again, the two lines that you your self asked to be considered in the comment of yours at which I commented at.
It clearly shows, as far as I am concerned, that Genesis 2 references to genesis 1 as per clarification and a further explanation on the understanding of the claims and description offered in the text.
Further more Genesis 2 is far much longer and descriptive than Genesis1, where actually Genesis 1 is just a little more than 2 pages when in the same time Genesis 2 is much much longer.
If considered as per the detail and resolution genesis 2 is much much detailed and higher in resolution versus the Genesis 1 which is very basic specific but not high resolution or very detailed.
Maybe the problem and the confusion in addressing Genesis 2 in the light of Genesis 1 as per creation is the wrong assumption that Genesis 2 must be a rerun or a second explanation of the Genesis 1.
Seems that Genesis 2 is a human affairs orientated account mostly, and it starts with humans so to speak, It is a claim in the account of the human Civilization and its impact in life or otherwise in the environment.
Any life form there and its evolution is in the context of Civilization force, something like in terms of domestic selection versus natural selection, that is why it keeps referring to Genesis 1.
MAYBE I AM COMPLETELY WRONG (most probably) IN THIS, BUT IF IT COULD HELP, MY UNDERSTANDING, WHICH CAN BE STILL TOO SUPERFICIAL IS THAT Genesis1 is an account in describing a very long period, in a simple basic way and not much detailed with very low resolution in principle, when the Genesis 2 seems like an account in describing a very much much shorter period in a much higher resolution and more detail, a period mentioned in the Genesis 1, the period of the moment of Civilization’s creation up to the time the record has taken place.
While the Genesis 1 seem to give an account of six “days” +, the Genesis 2 seems to give an account of the very last moment, the very end of the sixth “day” and the beginning of the seventh, the time of human Civilization,
Again please do not jump the gun, is only a superficial interpretation,does not mean much really, as there no much to rely on for validation of any kind of interpretation of what actually the text in the Bible may actually claim or not…..too complex and also easy to confuse the reader..:)
But for whatever it is worth.
Again, thanks for your reply and your time.
cheers
whiten,
“While the Genesis 1 seem to give an account of six “days” +, the Genesis 2 seems to give an account of the very last moment, the very end of the sixth “day” and the beginning of the seventh, the time of human Civilization”
I have “seen” this sort of perspective too, in the Text, though I didn’t put a word to it, but I think Civilization works rather well . . I sensed it as the stage being set, one might say, right before the curtain opens on what we can see clearly of our own past. And in a way I think it is important to bear in mind (as I sense you are) that He “knows the end from the beginning”, and He’s well aware all along just what we would be able to see clearly of our past . . which is to say our Civilizations.
Thank you for the thoughtful comments, I’ve been considering your words and their “offspring” in my mind, quite a bit since I read them. You triggered me ; )
Well, if you’re going to mention the drunkenness of Noah, you have to answer the puzzle here as well. Why was ONE of Noah’s sons so specially singled out for cursing? It makes no sense that such intense cursing came about because a grown man giggled like a four-year old at seeing his father in the raw.
Protestants search the scriptures like their salvation depends on being clever enough to find something nobody else has understood, and one of them achieved that objective here. As far away as possible in the Torah is the answer in Leviticus 18, the incest section. The Hebrew idiom for the sex act is ” uncover the nakedness of.” Many Bibles translate that as “marry,” and the most popular Jewish translation uses “cohabit.” But sexual intercourse occurs outside either of those things. Even if you are going to sin with someone not your wife (women are expected to be smart enough to figure out how these rules apply to themselves), you shall not have sex with your mother, sister, first cousin, etc.
And the nasty one: “you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife, for it is your father’s.” The whole family must have been drunk as a skunk. Else Ham would have known what he was doing, and so would Noah’s wife and they would never have conceived Canaan. Poor Noah–his whole life was ruined that day, for how could he look on his wife the same way again? Poor Canaan! What infant deserves the total horror he existence evoked even before he was born and received throughout his life.
The consequences reverberate down to our own time, for the descendants of Abraham married Canaanites and the squabbling of those folks is one of the major concerns of our time.
I thought Michael Mann disproved the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm 🙂
He did. It’s beyond debate.
His next hurdle is disproving the rest of the Holocene plus the entire Eemian. Personally I think he can do it although recent legal problems may delay the research.
You’re joking, right?
😉
Whew!
Thank the stars. I can already feel my anal gland relaxing…
The rise at the end of the LIA also starts around 1900 on the “hockey stick”
So the top of that tick is around 1940,
Now, un-gissed regional temperatures at such places such as Nuuk, Reykjavik show the current temp as pretty much the same it was in 1940.
So IFF you “believe” in the hockey stick, you must accept that current temps are about the same as the top of the blue tick on the GISP graph.
😉
Nobody believes the hockey stick. Not even Michael Mann! That’s the inside joke of the AGW crowd. They make up this crap with a Ouija board or something. Something like Noah and his crowd.
The idea that this is “polar amplification” is a myth propagated by it being misnamed as polar. It does NOT happen at both poles, so it is not a “polar” phenomenon. It _may_ be “Arctic amplificaiton” but that remains to be established.
The whole discourse about this being increased evaporation in the tropics is what should be leading to the mid tropospheric tropical “hot spot” produced in models which is in reality little more than a slight warm spot.
Polar amplification : false; tropical hot-spot false: this whole mythology needs to be reviewed in the light of observable data , and model based fairy tales need chucking out.
Greg, you are observationally correct about possible Arctic amplification. But climate models had amplification at both poles, hence the original polar amplification. It was not until the discrepancy between the Arctic and Antarctic became painfully obvious that this hemispheric distinction was drawn. The fact that it has been says ‘per se’ that the science isn’t settled, and that a lot of things other than CO2 have a major influence on climate. More climb down to come.
Greg, that’s a different effect. The thing is that at the equator, the temperature doesn’t change much, even in ice ages it’s roughly the same as today. Call it equatorial buffering if you don’t like the term polar amplification (in fact, I think that’s a much better description of what’s happening). However, it’s very much a real phenomenon.
“It makes no sense, those times were awful.”
That is perhaps the worst part of the entire warmista meme…it defies logic, common sense, and even our everyday experience and preferences.
People love Summer, flock to warmer places in Winter, and in general prefer to be warm rather than cold.
How did they manage to brainwash everyone into forgetting that people like it better when it is warmer?
Or make everyone forget that much of the planet is a perpetually frozen wasteland, and much of the rest is seasonally too cold to survive without shelter, specialized clothing, and a large store of preserved foodstuffs?
How can it be that so many people are so incredibly uncritical of a bunch of malarkey?
Thank you Andy, I always enjoy reading your stuff, and I love the graphics.
Not only do people go to warmer places in winter, they also go to warmer places in summer
Down here, the exodus from Sydney to the north coast of NSW at holiday time is humungous.
Menicholas commented: ‘….How did they manage to brainwash everyone into forgetting that people like it better when it is warmer? Or make everyone forget that much of the planet is a perpetually frozen wasteland, and much of the rest is seasonally too cold to survive without shelter, specialized clothing, and a large store of preserved foodstuffs? How can it be that so many people are so incredibly uncritical of a bunch of malarkey?…”.
Because the MSM was bought specifically to spread the propaganda. Over, and over, and over until the people became believers. It’s worked for the most part wouldn’t you say?
I vote for that the next IPCC should be held somewhere in the Arctic or Antarctic, let’s see how many people will attend… Maybe they all get stuck in the ice and they have to call an icebreaker?
The usual misuse of Alley’s GISP plot. Firstly BP does not mean before 2000 in normal scientific work, including Alley. It means before 1950.
But second, you can’t just paste HADCRUT4 on the end. It’s obviously absurd scaling – HADCRUT was never -30°C. But also one is a single point, the other is a global average. You could add HAD4 onto London (or CET) and it would be a complete mismatch. Individual locations are far more variable than the global average.
I averaged the points on the map of Greenland (Figure 2), I did not use a global average. Further, I averaged the Greenland anomalies and then added them to the average temperature in the overlap from 1850 to 1905.
“the overlap from 1850 to 1905”
There is essentially no overlap. Alley’s last data point is 1855; Hadcrut starts in 1850.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
So as I supected the Alley 2000 proxy is “stable isotope” this almost certainly means dO18, which is primarily an SST proxy of where the water evaporated from.
It would be more appropriate to compare to regional SST. Land temps are more volatile in general so the graph really is a Mickey Mann ‘trick’.
The first datum is at 0.0951409 ka = 95 “BP”
As Nicl correctly says this often refers to 1950 but this rather sloppy term is not defined along with the data , which is very poor. Needs digging the paper.
OK, I see reading further down that what is called HADCRUT4 is actually compiled from grid cells near Greenland. That is better than the usual graft of HAD global. But the misuse of BP as before 2000 is still wrong.
Nick…the link “HadCRUT 4.4” goes to Greenland
I have always defined “BP” in my posts as before 2000, it is stated clearly in each one. I detest 1950 as it makes the AD/BC/BP math unnecessarily complex. Personal preference, I doubt I will change anyones mind on the subject, but I’m not going to switch to 1950 either.
Andy,
While your logic is sound, 1950 is the standard “present” in radiometric dating. It’s confusing. So I always try to use calendar years.
But the calendar years require adjustments due to C14 fluctuations.
Nick’s right … wrong in wrong. AND those thumbtacks on Greenland in figure 2 are in the wrong place .. they should be a couple miles over the other way 🙂
(Nit picky… Nick picky … pick one)
Goodness me, what difference does it make if BP is assumed to 2000 or 1950 given the range of thousands of years in the graph. Stokey your splitting hairs as usual.
“what difference does it make if BP is assumed to 2000 or 1950 “
It doesn’t make much difference to the historic part. But the plot attaches the red curve at the end, which is clearly intended to show modern temperatures in that context. Now that is Hadcrut (actually CRUTEM), derived from coastal points far away, which are obviously nowhere near -30°C average. So matching to anomaly is done, over a supposed common period from 1850 to 1905. But that common period doesn’t exist. The ice data ends in 1855 (and has very coarse resolution anyway). So the placement of the red curve is arbitrary. Could be anywhere. I’m not convinced by the averaging of those intermittent stations anyway, but at least you need some rational base to align it to.
Nick – you are right. Splicing “observed” temperatures onto a proxy record is not a good idea now and it wasn’t a good idea when Mann invented the hockey stick. You are also probably right about BP meaning 1950 or 2000 (isn’t it weird how the present keeps moving?).
Neither of these points invalidate Andy’s main arguments which are that the Earth has a built-in thermostat and that warm times seem to suit people better than cold times.
That makes you a mumpsimus.
Before Present is kind of stupid because Present keeps changing.
Maybe Before Physics will make you feel better.
Of course, you could come up with your own abbreviation. How about B2K?
@Gabro,
It’s usually not too difficult to convert radiometric years BP into calendar years. However, there is the fact that “years BP” always have a significant margin of error, whether radiometric or varve/ice layer counts.
Andy May,
The ten year average temperature (2001-2010) is -29.9 °C at the GISP2 site. Its from the Kobashi (2011) study.
Your use of HadCRUT data seems like reasonable to me.
To avoid confusion it is better to convert date from BP to AD.
Kobashi study:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011GL049444/pdf
NS, as your downthread/probably now upthread comment proves, you misrepresent slightly. Alley stops in 1855, not 1950. This has been well hashed in the blogosphere re temp record splicing.
Now your mininimal overlap point is valid, but still in no way excuses Mann’s Nature trick.
Nick and Ristvan, Thanks for pointing this out. I have been thinking all along that Alley’s record ended in 1905. If it is actually 1855, then I will try and find another record to splice to. The Kobashi one mentioned above looks promising. It actually has dates AD in it, so it is very clear.
The population of Europe doubled from about 75 million to 150 million during the Medieval Warming Period. It was starting to be under some degree of pressure starting in 1300 due to the weather. The Chronicles in Britain record that in the year 1348 it rained continuously from about july till the end of that year. The crops were devastated and the plague did the rest. Population recovery in some places took until the 17th century or later.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315%E2%80%9317
One interesting note there is that: “The onset of the Great Famine coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period. Between 1310 and 1330, northern Europe saw some of the worst and most sustained periods of bad weather in the entire Middle Ages, characterized by severe winters and rainy and cold summers.” The ratio of seeds harvested to seeds planted began to drop in about 1280.
To the category of horrors of the terrible 14th century, add the Hundred Years War in Europe and Tamerlane in Asia. Even the disastrous Mongol conquests might well have been influenced by climatic changes in the previous century.
In those days, there were more than four horsemen of the apocalypse.
The plague spread west from Asia and started in China. The global weather of the early 13th century may have had an impact on its spread. The proximate cause of the entry into Europe was on of the Khans attempting to take a trading outpost at Caffa that was manned by Genoa. When the plague decimated his army, he used trebuchants to launch the corpses over the walls of the city. When the Italians pulled out after the plague broke out there. They brought it back to Italy and Sicily. A couple of observations do not a theory make, but it appears that plague pandemics appear to happen when gerbil breeding weather is at its optimum in Asia. One reason the 100 years war lasted so long is that England was hard pressed to raise taxes. Lots of folks died so funding it through a head tax just did not cut it. Overall nasty time to be sure.
I continue to wonder at the fact that the Escathological Cargo Cult of the CAGW gets away with denying history. Their overfitted models do not predict the recent past well, much less the distant past and the near future.
The Peasants’ Revolt of 1380 was because after the Death, the price of labor should have gone up due to so many fewer workers and rent of land down, but the landlords wanted to keep pay low and rents up.
The fits and starts of the Hundred Years’ War also involved the Iberian Peninsula and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the split Papacy, not just England, France and the Low Countries.
I suggest a timing issue with the GISP data.
?w=404&h=312
If you look at the be all and end all of climate reconstructions (by MIckey Mann) you will see that the bottom if that rise at the end of the LIA is actually in about the year 1910.
That puts the top of the blue tick as about 1930-1940.
Now looking at actually temperatures from Reykjavik
We see that the 1940 peak, the tip of the blue section, is actually warmer than now.
——–
Another alternative is to say, ok the top of the blue tick is 1850ish (which some well meaning person tried to insist a couple of weeks ago), then apply the AMO cycle to that point.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/AMO%20GlobalAnnualIndexSince1856%20With11yearRunningAverage.gif
Giving a rise of about 0.4C-0.6C after the tip of the blue data to get to the real current temperature.
I suspect this is latter one is certainly more correct than tacking a tacky, much manipulated HadCrud series onto the end.
——-
All in good fun.. make of it what you will. 🙂
AG55, a separate indicator that gives a different (My view, more accurate) North Atlantic temp indicator is Reykjavik Iceland (ditto the other Iceland stations). Right in the middle of the north North Atlantic, and not subject to all the sampling biases and measurement errors of ocean ship data. Those weather stations show the 1940s as warm/warmer than today after IMO ( not Giss) homogenization. And show the 1970’s cold as worse, which is confirmed by Iceland harbor ice reports of that decade. Something for you to consider.
http://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Reykjavik-2011-2016.gif
Rob, how in this world would you be able to tell?
…here’s what they said the temp history was in 2011
..and here’s what they say now in 2016….they cooled the past a whole degree
I do mention that in an earlier post, Rob.
I even use the term “un-gissed” 🙂
I think I have posted this “ice around Iceland” history graph before.
Soon the Gatekeepers will get around to adjusting the ice data, too, to make the despite rising CO2 chilly postwar decades disappear.
AM, terrific post. As much as have studied this stuff you highlight two fundamental newish things (well, to me) plus a must read book (another to do). The fundamentals are (1) the polar amplification discrepancy, per subcomment above (another GCM fail), and (2) the thermoevaporative limit on tropical delta T, which relates to the missing tropical troposphere model hot spot (another GCM fail). The more skeptics have sound bite counters, the better we will do in whatnis mainly a political rather than scientific battle. Polar amplification asymmetry and tropical thermoevaporative temperature regulation are two new soundbites. Both are observation v. model theory. Both sound bites ‘bite’. Highest regards.
Ristvan, thanks. I’ve read the model versus model debates about polar amplification with some interest. I don’t believe any of the models are very accurate. But, the geological record and the ocean fossil record support the idea that most warming takes place at high latitudes. The record also supports the idea of a maximum temperature (over oceans) of 29-30 degrees and a constant temperature (more or less) at the equator for many 10’s of millions of years. Can we model this? Probably not. But, I don’t think there is any doubt that the changes take place at high latitudes and the equator stays relatively constant. That was the point I wanted to make.
“the idea that most warming takes place at high latitudes.”
I guess if you consider the Antarctic as a negative latitude, the cooling trend down there makes sense.. 😉
AG55, I like your sense of ‘Down Under’ humor. It is a perfect explanation for warmunist confusion. Regards from ‘up over’.
BTW, spent two delightful weeks some time ago in Sidney/Melbourne on business, Hosts took me to the (Melbourne stadium) Aussie rules football final, your equivalent to Superbowl. You guys are CRAZY! Rugby with forward pass, no helmuts/ pads, no linear field. Half of both teams carried off injured! Not minor injuries: Stuff like broken collar bones and legs. Crocodile Dundee crazy.
Some Arctic amplification is to be expected because of enthalpy: temperatures of dry air will rise higher than moist air for the same thermal input.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/arctic-amplification/
On the other hand, records from weather stations around the Arctic circle don’t show higher warming than at lower latitudes.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/arctic-warming-unalarming/
The earth has been in a gradual cooling period of the last 8000 years as Milankovitch Cycles have become not as favorable as they were back then due to the fact that N.H summers now occur when the earth is farthest from the sun.
The gradual trend to cooler conditions over the last 8000 years ,(Holocene Optimum to present) has been punctuated by periods of warmth such as the Minoan , Roman , Medieval and Present warm periods but each period for the most part has been cooler then the warm period previous to it. These warm periods seem to be consistent with active solar activity while the cooler periods seem to correlate with low solar activity.
Superimposed on the above is volcanic activity and ENSO , which makes the pattern even more irregular.
In summary the climate for the past 8000 years seems to tie in with Milankovitch Cycles, with solar activity superimposed upon that item and volcanic activity and ENSO , further superimposed upon the climatic trend, the volcanic activity and ENSO seemingly linked to solar activity.
In addition the earth’s magnetic field strength is a moderator for solar activity in that the weaker the field the more impact changes in solar activity will be able to exert upon the earth.
[snip -over the top -mod]
…… much more details on causes and climate drivers on
Joachim Seifert – KnowledgeMiner Software
https://www.knowledgeminer.eu/climate/papers.html
Features and application of the Climate Pattern Recognition method for evaluating temperature evolution in Holocene time series are explained.
…. one mistake in the graph: To splice Hadcrut onto the GISP2 borehole temp scale, you must apply
the conversion factor to get from one scale to the other.
“you must apply the conversion factor to get from one scale to the other.”
You must also remove the artificial warming trend built into HadCrut.
The C14 Hallstat plateau problem is interesting. It’s probably due to an increase in C14 during that period, so it’s not due to unidentified coal use. But it lasted for thousands of years… probably an astronomical event, but any echoes of it are now 4,500 light years away so are probably hard to detect.
Can UAH data for Greenland be separated out from the rest of the area ? That would make a better assessment than HadCRU 4.
The only valid comparison would be to obtain the d18O ratio for later snow. Is there any such data for the last 10 years of snow on the Greenland ice Plateau ?
As the author points out without the CO2 bogey none of this would suggest anything portentous, but rather welcome.
As the polar regions is where the warming effect of CO2 ought to be most apparent, the graph suggests either that effect is becoming weaker (as theoretically it should) or the rising trend has perhaps forestalled a deeper plunge in the GAT.
Great post AM. I have a question maybe you can answer. Why is it that no one has run the ice core data out to the present so we can compare it to HadCRUT?
There is a post above by David Middleton that identifies one by Kobashi. I will use it to remake Figure 1 when I get a chance. I was unaware before, Here is the link: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo/f?p=519:1:1384685320170601::::P1_STUDY_ID:9973
This is an interesting and well written piece.
Many researchers have pointed to CET as being reasonably indicative of the trend and size of temperature changes in the northern hemisphere and perhaps globally.
I have never seen similar research from a variety of scientists whereby Greenland ice cores have been shown to have significant relevance to temperature trends over a much wider area.
Does it exist?
Tonyb
It appears that global warming has arrived just in the NIck of time;
If not for our ability to adapt (fire, clothing, shelter, etc), humans would not be able to survive in any climate outside tropics.
“Comparing northern hemisphere human history to the Greenland ice core record, it is apparent that large swings of temperatures in Greenland are related to European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and American events.”
Yes they are the inverse with Europe and the Near/Middle East. The best examples being the very cold dry period for the mid latitudes that caused the demise of the Minoans and many other cultures at around 1200 BC, where GISP2 is very warm, and in the warmest part of the MWP for Europe in the 8th century, where GISP2 is at its second coldest for the Holocene.
You see where they have the “European Dark Age” on the chart, that’s the warmest part of the MWP for Europe. The Antique Little Ice Age aka Dark Ages is mainly two colder periods between roughly 350 and 540 AD, where GISP is relatively warmer.
We are people who mow our lawns in the Summer and prefer warm temperatures, rather than being hoodwinked by a bunch of malarkey, as a post above put it. We have our own prejudices, making a history like this impossible to do objectively (one of many things I hate the warmunistas for). The prejudice can be seen at the low point in the graph chosen as “the end of the bronze age.” This would have been a phenomenon of hundreds of years, not that sharp pinpoint. And this was not a civilizational collapse, but the gradual replacement of bronze for most things by iron, a superior metal for many things. This is a positive, a breakthrough.
The collapse started from around the high point of the graph, see the post below.
The Minoans flourished from around 2700 BC, as did many other cultures globally, around 1200 BC would be better named the Minoan Warp Period.
Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse: New Evidence from the Southern Levant:
http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Langgut_et_al_LB_Collapse_2013.pdf
ulrichlyons,
Thanks for the link. Interesting paper – I’ve always wondered what happened to cause the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
I would regard the Greenland warming as a symptom and not a cause.
I also recommend David Goldman’s “How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)”. Mr Goldman documents four major collapses of civilization in the past 4000 years; two of which line up with the graph (the Classical Greek collapse and the collapse of Rome), one of which is off of the left side, and we’re currently in the fourth. He attributes different causes, but ultimately describes the same phenomena.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Civilizations-Die-Islam-Dying/dp/159698273X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466649982&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=David+Goldman+why+Civilizatioms+die
Thanks Andy M for a very interested, thought-provoking article. I will share it around and will look forward to future posts by your good self.
“Why would the Anasazi leave — potentially for good — pueblos it had taken them decades to construct? Scientists have found one possible answer by looking at tree rings (a study called dendrochronology) in the Sand Canyon area. In the period between A.D. 1125 and 1180, very little rain fell in the region. After 1180, rainfall briefly returned to normal. From 1270 to 1274 there was another long drought, followed by another period of normal rainfall. In 1275, yet another drought began. This one lasted 14 years.
When this cycle of drought began, Anasazi civilization was at its height. Communities were densely populated. Even with good rains, the Anasazi were using their land to its limits. Without rain, it was impossible to grow enough food to support the population. Widespread famine occurred. People left the area in large numbers to join other pueblo peoples to the south and east, abandoning the Chaco Canyon pueblos and, later, the smaller communities that surrounded them. Anasazi civilization began a long period of migration and decline after these years of drought and famine. By the 1300s, it had all but died out in Chaco Canyon.
Was drought alone the only factor in the mass abandonment of the pueblos? Some archaeologists now believe that other factors — religious upheaval, internal political conflict, or even warfare — may have combined to exacerbate the effects of the drought. Whatever the root causes of the famine were, the archaeological evidence clearly shows it was devastating to the Anasazi”
Source http://www.learner.org
I found this story interesting. It appears that there is a degree of controversy relating to it with certain parties insisting that natural climate change was not the reason behind the exodus. Communities do not exist in the absence of water and going on some video coverage on the location there looks to be very little water there now, if any. As a general rule people do not build houses any further than around 15 minutes walk from water. In this climate I suspect they would have need water for irrigation too. Records of historical agriculture can teach us a lot
What is the water situation there now? – Over to you in the US
From Mesa Verde National Park.
A placard at the Far View reservoir for caching rain water built by the Anasazi.
http://i68.tinypic.com/hv59uw.jpg
Greenland i s fine. I was trying to find the temps at Summit Greenland , but couldn’t. or any extended period…
see Tony Heller’s RealClimateScience.com for reguylar Greenland updates.
or directly at the link he uses to debunk the Greenland icemelt scam.
http://www.summitcamp.org/status/weather/
http://www.summitcamp.org/static/images/status/weather/weather-tempout-lastweek.png
There are six good reasons not to fear melting of Greenland’s ice sheet.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/greenland-is-melting-really/
what happened? my last post makes no sense…Words left out, etc.
Personally, I cannot agree with the sweeping statement that ‘warmer is good –or-colder is good” We have to ask the question: “for who, what and where?”
Spare a thought for the high percentage of mankind who still work outdoors. When compared with the tropics the subtropical and temperate zones display higher output/labour unit and health status than the tropics. Those that have worked outdoors – or even lived in the tropics – will know why. There have been times when I have slept with a number of coke bottles of frozen water during my work in tropical countries. In a cold climate one can always put on more clothing but in extreme heat one can do zilz
There is also the important question relating to the requirements of subtropical and temperate crops. Many subtropical and almost all temperate fruit need winter chilling. A critical rise in temperature would require a migration towards higher latitudes
This applies to livestock too. Just as there are wheat belts and corn belts in the US there are sheep and cattle belts in the great livestock countries of the world. Sheep perform best in the cooler regions. In New Zealand if we bring sheep bred in the deep south up 10 degrees of latitude north they suffer from many health and breeding issues – dropping lambing percentages by as much as 50%. In Australia the cattle breeds change as one goes from south to north
Admittedly, global mean temperatures would probably have to change by a number of degrees to make any significant impact. Taking everything into account Change would not be better or worse, only different, yet good and bad depending who you are – a frog maybe
Personally I am happy for things to stay pretty much the same and would place my bet that this is exactly what we have in store i.e. within 1c/century
Exactly. Whenver someone says to me or I hear the phrase must reverse climate change/global warming. I ask how far back should we go, 20 years, 200 years, 2,000 years, 20,000 years find out what the climate was like then and let me know?
If I had to choose, and I’m quite happy as it is, would be 2,000 years.
That’s the whole problem with this presentation, it suggests that current temperatures are warmner than MWP and that probably is not the case.
ristvan
June 22, 2016 at 2:48 pm
Willis Eschenbach did a fine job with Ceres data showing empirically this ocean temperature limit with one of his signature color graphs. I don’t have the link handy but it is worth using in discussion of sea surface temperatures. The ridiculous bottom up of “physics” construction of the climate models don’t only fail to predict temperatures or much of anything else (they ignore negative feedbacks the existence of which is decidedly obvious – we wouldn’t be here today if not), but they are also unnecessary. I would like to see a study (I’m not very adroit at graphics and the like) that explored the full range of temperatures possible by calculating ever wider bands from the equator of 30C ocean, its atmospheric warming effect and toying with polar amplification. I can’t help but believe the empirical data is already available or there for the picking to nail down this science.
Perhaps being a geologist who must use detective-like logical methods to tease out details of events and conditions of millions of years ago gives me this certainty for the present! A wonderful example of geologic detective work being grandly corroborated with no uncertainty:
“….evaporatively buffered in the tropics at 29°-30°C. …. the Earth has already been there in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum 55 million years ago….”
Here is a photo of redwood tree chunks found by miners at the 300m level of the Ekati diamond mine in 53million year old rock just south of the present day arctic circle. The continents were still moving but it is clear there was a California climate over a very broad area.
http://www.livescience.com/23374-fossil-forest-redwood-diamond-mine.html
How’s that for empirical data
For a longer time-line look, there is this post by Joanne Nova, gathering various sources:
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/02/the-big-picture-65-million-years-of-temperature-swings/
Depending on the accuracy of the timeline, the larger Egyptian destabilisation and decline visible in this graph is the Hyksos civil war in approx 1580 BC. And this is coincident with the great Thera-Santorini eruption near Crete, which covered the eastern Med with ash and pumice.
And we know the Hyksos Egyptian civil war was caused by Thera, because the Tempest Stele of Pharaoh Ahmose I declares that there was darkness and hail for three days, and many Egyptians died – as a prelude to the Hyksos civil war. And Theran ash has been discovered in the Egyptian Delta.
It is clear that the Thera eruption caused a great temporary change in the weather and possibly climate, that was coincident with a large tsunami that caused the sea to retreat and advance again. And this eruption and civil war resulted in the great Hyksos Exodus, a historical event where some 500,000 people were exiled from Egypt, and travelled from Avaris (Pi Ramesse) to the Levant region.
Ralph
Just curious how a drought was identified in the US in 1200 BC?
That is the first time I’ve ever seen YA and BP pinned down like that! When you clipaleogeo folk are tossing time back and forth with links to graphs all saying YABP and one of them is from… gads, the 80s!, I get a little nervous. Will we all get together some day and have a massive ‘leap-present” event? Who will nudge all those graphs?? Will it hurt?
Kid: Mister, how old are these dinosaur bones?
Guide: 65,000,004 years!
Kid: And 4 years? How do you know that?
Guide: When I started working here they said the bones were 65 million years old.
Thanks, especially the detailed timelines!
As population grows, deforestation increases due to need for grazing and agricultural land; The iron and bronze ages created massive deforestation due to the need for fuel; Here in South Africa we are removing “invasive” plants due to their extreme “thirst”. These plants act as pumps, drawing moisture up from the soil and into the air as water vapour, invasive species being more efficient. Has this effect being taken into consideration when studying climate change? after all, the moisture introduced by the plants returns as precipitation elsewhere; One tree is cut here, elsewhere there will be less moisture available as rain. I understand the difficulty in testing the system, as water molecules cannot be tagged, but surely common sense dictates that there must be some effect? A wine farm here in South Africa cut down a whole grove of bluegums, and a stream that had not flowed for years started flowing again. Surely that water would have gone elsewhere as rain? Here in Johannesburg, Witwatersrand we had what was once the largest man-made forest in the world, we also had a climate that was cooler and wetter than the surrounding Highveld; We have now been removing invasive species (read as efficient water pumps) at a tremendous rate, and we have just experienced the most serious drought we’ve had for a long time. Surely this merits investigation?
So, someone possessed by stupidity berates others possessed of a different kind of stupidity. Priceless.
Priceless?
Planck, Faraday, Kelvin, Mendel, Pascal, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Boyle, Bacon …
A different kind of stupidity . . Priceless stupidity ; )
“I pulled a Michael Mann “trick” and spliced measured Greenland (HadCRUT 4.4) surface temperatures onto the ice core record to bring the graph up to the year 2000. ”
The GISP2 record is not the same as the HadCRUT 4.4 record. The HadCRUT 4.4 record does not bring the ice core record up to the year 2000. You created a graph of two different not comparable measurements which makes your graph misleading and wrong. The GISP2 record can’t be compared without some kind of adjustment to other non ice records. The adjustment needed would be very difficult to determine. Also, the HadCRUT 4.4 record is updated in a way that was influenced by politics and is not a trustworthy temperature record. But even if it were, it could not be directly compared to the GISP2 record.
Andy May
Your hockey stick is dubious. There’s no hockey stick in Kobashi et al (2010)
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/studies/l1_gisp2.php
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0133f1a5356f970b-pi
http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/grafiken/klima/groenland_temp.jpg
GISP2 ice core site is in the middle of Greenland. HadCRUT points are in the coasts and on sea. The sea is warmer than the ice sheet that’s why you got a hockey stick.
I should have liked to see the main volcanic eruptions marked; some had major, if short term, effects.