From the fear and self-loathing in Capetown department, Josh had this take on it awhile back.
Phys.org reports:
The Anthropocene, or “new age of man,” would start from the mid-20th century if their recommendation—submitted Monday to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa—is adopted.
That approval process is likely to take at least two years and requires ratification by three other academic bodies.
But after seven years of deliberation, the 35-strong Working Group has unanimously recognised the Anthropocene as a reality, and voted 30-to-three (with two abstentions) for the transition to be officially registered.
“Our working model is that the optimal boundary is the mid-20th century,” said Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester.
“If adopted—and we’re a long way from that—the Holocene would finish and the Anthropocene would formally be held to have begun.”
Scientists refer to the period starting from 1950 as the “Great Acceleration”, and a glance at graphs tracking a number of chemical and socio-economic changes make it obvious why.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-08-anthropocene-scientists.html#jCp
From the Times:
The Working Group on the Anthropocene (AWG), which is meeting in Cape Town this week, is proposing that the starting date for the new epoch should be set for around 1950.
The group’s committee of 35 members voted by a majority of 20 to recognise the new time division as an epoch, rather than the lower ranked age, such as a subdivision of the Holocene, or a higher ranked period like the Jurassic or Cretaceous.
The search is now on to find what geologists call a “golden spike”, a physical reference point that can be dated and taken as a representative starting point for the Anthropocene epoch.
A river bed in Scotland, for example, is taken to be the representative starting point for the Holocene epoch.
Prof Jan Zalasiewicz, a palaeobiologist at the University of Leicester and a member of the working group, said carbon and nitrogen levels in the atmosphere had remained reasonably steady before the “great acceleration” of the 20th Century.
“Human action has certainly left traces on the earth for thousands of years, if you know where to look,” he said.
“The difference between that and what has happened in the last century or so is that the impact is global and taking place at pretty much the same time across the whole Earth.
“It is affecting the functioning of the whole earth system.”
The concept of an Anthropocene epoch was first proposed by Nobel-prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen and colleague Eugene Stoermer in 2000.
This week’s AWG vote is scientific endorsement that the epoch is geologically real and of a sufficient scale to be considered for formal adoption as part of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart.
More here
From their website:
What is the ‘Anthropocene’? – current definition and status
- The ‘Anthropocene’ is a term widely used since its coining by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer in 2000 to denote the present time interval, in which many geologically significant conditions and processes are profoundly altered by human activities. These include changes in: erosion and sediment transport associated with a variety of anthropogenic processes, including colonisation, agriculture, urbanisation and global warming. the chemical composition of the atmosphere, oceans and soils, with significant anthropogenic perturbations of the cycles of elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and various metals. environmental conditions generated by these perturbations; these include global warming, ocean acidification and spreading oceanic ‘dead zones’. the biosphere both on land and in the sea, as a result of habitat loss, predation, species invasions and the physical and chemical changes noted above.
- The ‘Anthropocene’ is not a formally defined geological unit within the Geological Time Scale. A proposal to formalise the ‘Anthropocene’ is being developed by the ‘Anthropocene’ Working Group for consideration by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, with a current target date of 2016. Care should be taken to distinguish the concept of an ‘Anthropocene‘ from the previously used term Anthropogene (cf. below**).
- The ‘Anthropocene’ is currently being considered by the Working Group as a potential geological epoch, i.e. at the same hierarchical level as the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, with the implication that it is within the Quaternary Period, but that the Holocene has terminated. It might, alternatively, also be considered at a lower (Age) hierarchical level; that would imply it is a subdivision of the ongoing Holocene Epoch.
- Broadly, to be accepted as a formal term the ‘Anthropocene’ needs to be (a) scientifically justified (i.e. the ‘geological signal’ currently being produced in strata now forming must be sufficiently large, clear and distinctive) and (b) useful as a formal term to the scientific community. In terms of (b), the currently informal term ‘Anthropocene’ has already proven to be very useful to the global change research community and thus will continue to be used, but it remains to be determined whether formalisation within the Geological Time Scale would make it more useful or broaden its usefulness to other scientific communities, such as the geological community.
- The beginning of the ‘Anthropocene’ is most generally considered to be at c. 1800 CE, around the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Europe (Crutzen’s original suggestion); other potential candidates for time boundaries have been suggested, at both earlier dates (within or even before the Holocene) or later (e.g. at the start of the nuclear age). A formal ‘Anthropocene‘ might be defined either with reference to a particular point within a stratal section, that is, a Global Stratigraphic Section and Point (GSSP), colloquially known as a ‘golden spike; or, by a designated time boundary (a Global Standard Stratigraphic Age).
- The ‘Anthropocene’ has emerged as a popular scientific term used by scientists, the scientifically engaged public and the media to designate the period of Earth’s history during which humans have a decisive influence on the state, dynamics and future of the Earth system. It is widely agreed that the Earth is currently in this state.
The stratigraphers have already registered their loathing of signing onto what is really a political statement.. Stratighers tend aparently to be a much more critcal thinking bunch than today’s climastrologists.
Some non-stratigraphers want radioisotopes as the marker in sediments. But as correctly pointed up, they decay and then the daughter isoptopes if radioactive decay. Finally left with no marker. For example, the use of plutoniium (Pu-239) can be found in sediments, but Pu-239 has a 1/2-life of 24,100 yrs. So within half a million years, such a signal is undetectable. Contrast that to the eternal thin iridium layer from the Yucatan bolide impact that exists from 66 Mya to mark the KP boundary.
Others have suggested fly ash from coal burning as a stratigraphy marker. The problem there is coal has been being burned in Europe for almost 200 yrs, where in other places only since after WW2. So that doesn’t necessarily provide the distinct 1950-ish marker those with a political agenda desire.
In the final analysis, a critical examination shows this “anthropocene” effort is merely a thinly disguised political statement. No science needed.
Hmmm. I was planning on simply tacking this on to a previous comment. Anyway, a look at the history of the term “Holocene” will reveal that historically, one of the things that stood out for the namers was that the Holocene was “our” – modern humanity’s – time. That is, the Holocene has always been considered an “anthropic” period and in that sense, the Anthropocene seems superfluous.
I expressed a similar sentiment, however geologic time intervals are named for the share of life which is like modern life, or on its visibility.
The suffix “-cene” comes from the Greek word for “new”, and “holo” from “whole”. So Holocene means “entirely new (or recent)” life. Pleistocene and Pliocene mean in effect “most new” and “more new”, compared to the Miocene (less new) Epoch of the Neogene Period of the Cenozoic (new life) Era, which followed the Mesozoic (middle life) and Paleozoic (old life) Eras of the Phanerozoic (visible life) Eon.
Gabro, “… however geologic time intervals are named for the share of life which is like modern life, or on its visibility…”
Not exactly. Or at least, that is not how I read the ICS guidelines. Essentially, the Anthropo”cene” would be a “biostratigraphic” subunit or substage of the Holocene based on the emergence of a significant biological signal (us) within the stratigraphic unit. As the original article says this is by no means settled. Since there are still arguments about whether the Holocene is a genuine epoch or if it should really be considered a “stage” or “age” within the Pleistocene, the legitimate status of the “anthropocene” is also open to question. It could be dealt with either as a stage or substage but . All that really settled is that humans, like coral, leave some very distinct traces that will remain geologically visible for a long time.
This:
http://www.stratigraphy.org/upload/bak/princ.htm
explains some of that, and this is useful too:
http://www.stratigraphy.org/index.php/ics-chart-timescale
The historical aspect that I mentioned is simply how the original term was adopted. That was before there was an ICS of the IUGS.
The post clearly states that the working group wants to recognize the end of the Holocene and start of the Anthropocene, thus the neologism would be a new epoch, not a stage or age of the Holocene.
Which is the difference between the “proposers” and the committee that makes the decisions. The guidelines pretty much eliminate the possibility of a new epoch without some serious special pleading. That is almost certainly why the article says that the discussion is not settled. They have to decide whether they can change the rules, or just how to justify the new period within the rules. A stage or substage is reasonably supportable. An epoch, not so much.
Last bullet point in the paper:
“It is widely agreed that the Earth is currently in this state.”
Links?
Citations?
No, didn’t think so.
So they simply are suggesting to relabel the “recent” to “antropocene”. I can live with that. The first occurrence of the coke bottle would then be the trace fossil horizon.
I can picture future paleontologists reconstructing extinct Anthropocene animals from fossilized pull tabs of 1970s beer cans… /sarc
Anthropocene? .. Maybe Manncene, better!
Yes, that’s when synthetic science first appeared on a large scale. Prior to that you just had isolated instances like Piltdown Man.
This is good. It will make impossible future denial of the dystopian folly of belief in AGW. In the 70’s they didn’t quite get round to establishing a period called the “Lookwesinnedanditsgotcoldocene”. Now half a century later we have the “Lookwesinnedanditsgotwarmocene”.
A better name for this new reality is the “Letsfaceitwerenotrocketscientistsocene”.
Climate Change Warriors?
In case everyone-else missed it?
‘Scientists refer to the period starting from 1950 as the “Great Acceleration” …’:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/CentralEnglandTempSince1659%201100pixel.gif
Reminds me of a ’58 VW beetle I once owned.
That’s just temperature, there are other things that leave markers in the geologic record.
For example, CO2 levels have risen from the near starvation levels of before the Industrial Revolution. The availability of all that extra plant has produced visible changes, and will produce more. While it may not show up clearly in the geologic record, it will likely show up in the sedimentary records in ponds and bogs as different sorts of pollen. And few widely scattered Coca Cola bottles.
Anyone who follows the link from which Anthony had captured the definitions above, will quickly realize – as I did five years ago when the U.K. Economist was doing the heavy flogging – that in addition to crusader-primo, Creutzen (who is not a geologist, btw), the committee that’s been flogging this particular ‘cene is rampantly riddled with non-experts.
Unless, of course you happen believe that Andy Revkin, Naomi Oreskes and/ Will Steffen should be deemed as “experts” in such matters 😉
+1
I recommend the following paper which puts the issue into a geological and scientific perspective:
http://episodes.org/index.php/epi/article/view/79720/61837
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
I completely agree that “Anthropocene” has no geologic relevance or meaning.
It is merely a political statement, put forward for political agendas.
Stratigraphers would be wise to steer well clear of political entanglements.
Nitrogen? Some 79% for quite a while. Or is he talking about about nitrate, as in fertilizer runoff and oceanic “dead zones?” No, the quote clearly says “in the atmosphere.” That might be worth following up on to hear what he really meant to say or what the reporter screwed up.
Also, “carbon”? CO2 surely! The two are completely different substances!
I have no problem with the term. Just look at the impact we’re having:
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
I vote for the Pseudosciencene or the Propagandacene.
You will need to identify geologically or paleontologically visible markers to justify your proposal. Have fun with that.
You don’t need proof in science just consensus !
Well you can’t get proof in science. You can in mathematics (sometimes) but that’s because we made the rules on what constitutes proof.
Was it Kurt Gödel who said you can’t prove every conjecture in any branch of mathematics, even though the conjecture is valid within that discipline.
Or something close to that. I think it’s called the Principle of Undecidability.
Which is not the same as Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty.
This one basically says that every system of mathematics has questions that are perfectly valid under the rules of that discipline, but it may not be possible to decide the answer (within the bounds of that system ).
But since mathematics is all fiction anyhow (a form of art) we can make up our own new math any time we don’t like what we have.
For example, statistics only works with a finite set of real finite numbers that are known (exactly); so it doesn’t work with variables; nor does it work with complex numbers.
But I could define a new statistics of complex numbers. So for example, I could define that the average of the set of ( n ) complex numbers: X(i) + jY(i) is given by:
(sigma X(i)) / n + j(sigma Y(i)) / n
I have no earthly idea what that means or what use it is; but I define it to be that. Notice that I do not assume any kind of relationship whatsoever, between any members of the set of complex numbers (elements of the set).
Well that’s also true of ordinary statistics. It doesn’t mean anything either, except what we have defined it to mean in the textbooks of statistics algorithms.
G
Yep, it was Kurt Gödel’s two incompleteness theorems. I believe they are restricted to “non-trivial” systems.
Kevin Trenberth turned the null hypothesis upside down in 2011, claiming it is now human activity not natural variability that drives the climate. That is the supposed basis for naming this epoch after mankind. It is completely false. There is truly no scientific justification for naming this or any future climate epoch after mankind, because man via CO2 doesn’t drive the weather or climate.
The climate epoch from the start of the current warming trend up to now is due to the solar modern maximum warming period. Beyond this Holocene lies the next ice age. I see no reason to come up with a new name for where we are right now.
Mankind did not cause the climate to change, the sun did that. First of all, on first principles alone,
No additional long-term warming is/was ever possible without an increase in energy to the earth system.
CO2 cannot add any additional energy to the earth than was already delivered by the sun, and it cannot add more heat into the ocean, so manmade CO2, if it is the reason for the linear increase of it, does not drive the weather or climate. It has no power to do that because there isn’t enough of it for one thing.
We know that that extra energy needed to warm up the earth slightly since the last century came from the sun because of one simple to understand reason, as illustrated in part by these facts discerned from here – http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_y_tot_V2.0.txt
The 70 year-long solar maximum warming period actually had it’s highest annual TSI peaks (other than cycle 19) during the cycle maximums, according to the PMOD TSI annual ranking (23 of 39 years shown), providing the energy for the step change in temperatures into the 21st century:
1. 2002
2. 2000
3. 1980
4. 1981
5. 2001
6. 1989
7. 1979
8. 1990
9. 1991
10. 1999
11. 1992
12. 1983
13. 1982
14. 2015
15. 2003
16. 1998
17. 2013
18. 2012
19. 2014
20. 1988
21. 2016
38. 2009
39. 2008
People have forgotten the cold weather and winters from the last solar minimum in 2008/9. People don’t readily realize how impactfull the lower or higher levels of TSI are over the years. Look at TSI when the global warming scare started in post-1978 – it was super high! It hadn’t been that high since the 1950s.
Fast forward to this solar cycle, where the SORCE TSI data rankings indicate we had many years in a row of increasing TSI to get us to record temps again – that’s all changed as TSI dropped below my warming level of 1361.25 in mid-March this year, where it has stayed except for a few days, with 2016 already dropping five places in the rankings this year, and will end up dropping one more notch to go between the years 2003 and 2004. SORCE TSI annual rankings:
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2016
2003
2004
2010
2005
2006
2007
2009
2008
Consider this one piece of ocean heat content data as evidence that my TSI warming/cooling level of 1361.25 works, in that the OHC went negative as daily TSI was dropping below my threshold in March, and has followed TSI very closely since March.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
SORCE TSI has averaged 1360.9647/day since mid-March and is slowly ramping down. This year so far is one of the top annual drops in the 39 year TSI record and the year isn’t over yet.
Others have explained the solar-climate connection in other ways, like Girma Orrsengo, here https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/27/open-thread-18/#comment-1800834.
Girma’s essay came after I had determined in 2014 that the earth warms and cools at 120 solar flux in F10.7cm solar radio flux on longer term scales, which lead me to analyze when the OHC runs out, which lead to me ultimately generate a graphic of heat accumulation that looks very much like the N. Atlantic OHC data of today, and it was the basis for determining the TSI warming/cooling threshold of 1361.25 w/m2.
The heat is running out right now as the sun’s TSI is dropping.
My main point today is there has been major misunderstandings regarding the real role the sun plays in warming and cooling the earth as it’s activity level changed over time. The earth’s weather and climate ride between the normal variations of solar activity, whereby excess heat is delivered at depth into the ocean during times of higher TSI, and is depleted eventually when TSI is low long enough. Heat in the ocean accumulates as TSI stays high enough long enough, driving El Ninos eventually.
The SUN causes warming, cooling, and extreme events, not CO2!
The deepening La Nina is just the oceanic response to lower solar activity, coming after the ENSO peak that was driven by the SC24 TSI ramp-up. It’s really that simple.
While I completely agree with you on Trenberth’s dishonest attempt to subvert the null hypothesis on AGW for a political agenda and also to some degree on the solar influence of climate, this epoch re-naming is another beast altogether.
This attempt to name an Anthropocene Epoch is larger than climate change. It goes to making man’s activities in toto the causitive agent for every observed impact or change on species extinctions, coral reef changes, fisheries depletions, droughts, riverine floods, coastal rainfall flooding, human immigration crises, dandruff, and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
Some of course are real anthropogenic impacts, like fisheries exhaustions, and loss of top predators and depletion middle food chain pelagic species in the oceans.
But others, like species extinctions unfortunately happened well before the 1950’s, which is the date the climatists want to pin Anthropocene moniker.
You had me at “No additional long-term warming is/was ever possible without an increase in energy to the earth system.”…
It seems appropriate that the literal meaning of the “anthropocene” is the “in a man’s face present time” (Anthropos is a compound of Greek aner and opos).
However, given the name of the present epoch, the Holocene, literally means the “the whole recent and present time”, I wonder what the Holocene should be renamed.
Anthropocene (def.) — That period of the earth’s history wherein the hubris of homo sapiens reached such an apogee that he decided to name a geological epoch after himself.
“That approval process is likely to take at least two years and requires ratification by three other academic bodies.”
Well, we’ll just multiply all that by 100,000 and we’ll all be in geologic time!
That was awfully easy. Do I get an honorary PhD or something?
A “PayDay” bar would do.
You know; one of those peanut covered caramel candy bars. That’s it. You can keep the PhD.
The Geological Time Scale has developed gradually over the last 250 years. In the late 1700s geologists recognised that fossils appeared in a more or less orderly fashion in stratigraphic units allowing relative dating of geologic units. Absolute dating became possible with the development of radiometric techniques in the 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
Currently we are in the Holocene Epoch which is defined as beginning 11,700 years ago.
Some people use Anthropocene interchangeably with Holocene and Crutzen and his mates have been pushing for a seperate Anthropocene [ beginning yet to be defined] since around 2000.
The Holocene has already been divided into smaller subdivisions, or chronozones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene
If Crutzen and Co can convince enough people that there is something distinct about the period that they wish to call the Anthropocene, that there are recognisable markers that can be distinguished world wide then so be it.
In my opinion the period since the beginning of the 20th century, marked by the widespread use of plastics and their appearance as fragments in the sedimentary record, should be termed the Plasticene.
Plastics are a wonderful sedimentary marker.
Any sediment that contains plastic is less than 109 years old and more likely less than 70 years old.
If a new epoch is required then for mine it’s the Plasticene starting in 1907
Plasticine…Brilliant!
Eeehhhhhh! Try again.
Even plutonium-239 has a much longer half-life than plactics.
Plastic Water Bottle – 450 years
Disposable Diapers – 500 years
Plastic 6-Pack Collar – 450 Years
Extruded Polystyrene Foam – over 5,000 years
Pu-239 : 24,100 yrs.
And the stratigraphers (one of the 3 international bodies that must approve epoch namings) have rejected Pu.
OK, then, the Plutonocene, starting in 1940.
Got my vote.
Is modeling play dough, (plasticine) a real plastic ??
g
Sorry…Plasticene.
What a crock!
It’s time to rename the “Information Age” to the “DISinformation Age”!
The Anthropocene; about as significant as a fart in a sandstorm. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.
This is insane. The Holocene is the Anthropocene. Only two things distinguish the Holocene from previous Quaternary interglacial stages:
1) The rise of human civilization and it’s dominance of the Earth.
2) It’s happening now… Which makes it unprecedented to paleobotanists, with feeble comprehension of geologic time and it’s filtering effect on resolution of the past.
Word from an insider from the International Committee on Stratigraphy, the organisation that makes the final decision on these things suggests that the Anthropocene will be discussed ‘sometime in the future’ with a decision even more vaguely set in the far future. Essentially, they will be sidelining it, so no real problem for genuine scientists.
We should define a new species, the ‘anthropoid’.
Looking like anthropogenic, behaving like anthropogenic, pure mimicra – anthropoid.
With a reduced data processing aka thinking, solely answering machines.
On reflex building sentences with minuscels
climate change
global warming
unprecedented
arctic
melting
mass
extinction
………..
Pure deaf, dumb and blind anthropoids, walking talking like real man everready prompting a ‘greenland-runaway-ice melting mass extinction global unprecedented warm/coldest ever unseen catastrophic [ fill in here ] – we process the political correct dogmatic answere.
The period/epoch of the anthropoid -indistinguishable mimicking real people.