…When Sea Levels Were Roughly 20 to 30 Feet Higher than Today
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
Science recently published Hoffman, et al. (2017) Regional and global sea-surface temperatures during the last interglaciation. Not too surprisingly, the study has been ignored by the mainstream media. Why? As Science writes in their summary (my boldface):
Sea surface temperatures of the past
Understanding how warm intervals affected sea level in the past is vital for projecting how human activities will affect it in the future. Hoffman et al. compiled estimates of sea surface temperatures during the last interglacial period, which lasted from about 129,000 to 116,000 years ago. The global mean annual values were ∼0.5°C warmer than they were 150 years ago and indistinguishable from the 1995–2014 mean. This is a sobering point, because sea levels during the last interglacial period were 6 to 9 m higher than they are now.
Of course, in very basic terms, that suggests today’s sea surface temperatures are still within the range of natural variability, contradicting climate model-based nonsense about current values, while sea levels still have a ways to go to catch up to the past.
The Abstract for Hoffman, et al. (2017) reads:
The last interglaciation (LIG, 129 to 116 thousand years ago) was the most recent time in Earth’s history when global mean sea level was substantially higher than it is at present. However, reconstructions of LIG global temperature remain uncertain, with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures. Here we use a network of sea-surface temperature (SST) records to reconstruct spatiotemporal variability in regional and global SSTs during the LIG. Our results indicate that peak LIG global mean annual SSTs were 0.5 ± 0.3°C warmer than the climatological mean from 1870 to 1889 and indistinguishable from the 1995 to 2014 mean. LIG warming in the extratropical latitudes occurred in response to boreal insolation and the bipolar seesaw, whereas tropical SSTs were slightly cooler than the 1870 to 1889 mean in response to reduced mean annual insolation.
And as EurekaAlert! also notes about Hoffman, et al. (2017) in their article Sea-surface temps during last interglacial period like modern temps:
…Their analysis reveals that, at the onset of the LIG 129,000 years ago, the global ocean SST was already similar to the 1870-1889 average. However, by 125,000 years ago, the global SST increased by 0.5° ± 0.3°Celcius, reaching a temperature indistinguishable from the 1995-2014 average. These results suggest that LIG global mean annual SSTs simulated with most global climate models are too low…
Many thanks to blogger “Alec aka Daffy Duck” for the heads-up here.
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The volume between the surface and tropopause ebbs and flows, and it looks like we have some hundreds of years of typical excursions before the onset toward glaciation begins. The cycles eventually merge (planetary orbital trajectory/tilt and solar output/upper atmosphere matter & EMF flux disintegration)…
WUWT readers, I need your help. I’ve recently started a post titled: Climate Bullies Gone Wild; Caught on Tape and Print. Please post in the comments any articles or videos documenting the harassment of climate realists. Thanks a million in advance.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/climate-bullies-gone-wild-caught-on-tape-and-print/
Also, check out this article and let me know what you think.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/climate-science-on-trial-the-forensic-files-exhibit-z/
This is not really good news. The last 100 years of warming is just a very short episode, so some hundred years more with the same or warmer temperatures will certainly have some consequenses. At the same time there is no accelleration of sea level rise as models predict. Perhaps 1,5 m sea level rise pr 100 years isn`t unthinkable.
Manmade warming via “correcting” past temperatures making them cooler will not cause sea rise acceleration.
I’m surprised no one has been hurt in an avalanche of garbage climate papers.
Sure it’s good news. And climate always has consequences. But the consequences of cooling are always negative , while those of warming, on balance, are positive. You can take that to the bank.
The speed of change will the biggest determinate as to whether the outcome is good or bad. The Holocene is an interglacial but we are still in an ice-age. So 10,000 years of stable cool (as opposed to cold) has been pretty good for homo sapiens. Even a 2-3 degree rise over a short time – like, in the blink of a geological eye – could prove disruptive in unpredictable ways. Or it might not, lets cross our fingers.
“tony mcleod January 23, 2017 at 12:41 am
The Holocene is an interglacial but we are still in an ice-age.”
About the only post you have made that is actually correct. Well done!
Since the proxies only resolve to centuries to millenia, it’s impossible to say with any certainty that current temperatures are rising faster than they did 10’s of thousands of years ago. You already know this.
Secondly, the current warm period is cooler than the previous warm periods of this interglacial.
Do you have any evidence that 2 or 3 degrees of warming will be on net bad? Or do you just fear change?
There’s a reason why the Optimum is called “optimum”. The term must have been coined when “warm” was more or less synonymous with “good”. Of course, now we know better and “warming” is a Very Bad Thing and we must do all in our power to prevent it. (better use /sarc – some of our commenters don’t seem to have much sense of humour, probably another negative consequence of global warming /sarc again)
There is no evidence whatsoever to support the WAG of a 2-3 degree rise in temperature, whether over a short or long period during this interglacial.
Two comments here:
First, I have seen this on the MSM, and they took it to imply that sea levels were likely (as in, we’re all doomed) to play catch-up; as in: true, maybe on 8 inches sea level rise in the last century, but we’re due for 8 meters or more this century. Based on nothing, of course, except the difference between the two different cycles.
Second: in my observation when the warmists claim warming in Antarctica they invariably are pointing at the Antarctic Peninsula. They extrapolate localized warming that has been observed there to the entire continent. The peninsula in tectonically/volcanically acitve. No one knows for sure how much activity is going on under the ice. But using my geological background (and common sense) I can assure you that extrapolating temperatures to anywhere outside the peninsula itself is simply not valid.
Corrupt climate ‘scientists’ are not content with making the Medieval, Roman, Minoan and Holocene Optimum warm periods disappear, but now want to work the same magic act on the Eemian and all other interglacials warmer than now.
Who was it that reported the Medieval, Roman, Minoan and Holocene Optimum warm periods if not the “corrupt climate ‘scientists”?
It is not a problem of corruption. The problem is when scientists become activists, like James Hansen. Without objectivity there is no science.
Who reported it? Mostly historians, geologists, etc.
Beyond that, climate scientists were corrupt 50 years ago. It’s only when big government money started flooding the system that the whores started prostrating themselves to produce what their pay masters wanted.
Those periods were identified by real climatologists and historians long ago, not by today’s crooked computer gamers. So-called climate science isn’t.
The term real climatologist has no meaning.
Yes, it does.
A climatologist collects data and practices the scientific method. A climate scientist often isn’t even a scientist but a computer programmer or mathematician who makes assumptions in the absence of actual observations.
What you say makes no sense. Scientists are those who practice science in a professional manner, usually associated with a research institution and produce research that is published in scientific journals. Most research positions have a title requirement.
A climatologist is a scientist that produces part or all of its published research in the climatology field. There are no fake climatologists and therefore there are no real climatologists. It makes no sense.
When you try to categorize climatologists you fall into a fallacy similar to when some people defend that the consensus is established by those climatologists that publish more often.
Scientists are good or bad depending on how much impact the data and results that they produce have on other scientists in the field, and how much he or she contributes to the advance of knowledge. All the rest are fallacious arguments whatever their origin.
The distinction is between climatologists, who are or used to be real scientists, and government and academic “climate scientists”, who are corrupt fiction writers.
PS:
Dunno if this is still true or not, but when I was in grad school forty years ago, there were more US scientists in industry than academia and the government, despite the huge increase in the number of Baby Boom students.
Since 2000, the number of science PhDs has exploded, without requisite jobs in public or private sectors. We are producing too many doctorates. Some postdocs have been at the same dead end for six years or more, as you may know.
I agree with Lindzen, who calls for cutting “climate change” “research” by 90%.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html
Nature article on a problem which has only gotten worse since its publication.
Offhand, I’d say a REAL climatologist is a geologist. They have studied REAL climate change over aeons, not hypothetical, computer model climate change.
Alan,
IMO climatology is interdisciplinary. Reid Bryson, the Father of Climatology, was a meteorologist, but earth, physical and life sciences, even history, all contribute. Computer modeling might even have a role to play, GIGO “climate scientists” are antiscientific charlatans. The sooner their funding is cut off, the better for humanity.
Totally off topic but my crystal ball predicts that WUWT will hit 300M views sometime this week.
You are not alone, Lew! 🙂
Here we are going off topic about it on another great Bob Tisdale thread: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/18/because-of-the-giss-and-noaa-press-conference-about-2016-global-surface-temperatures/#comment-2400023
I’m guessing it will happen on the 28th!
30 quatlos on 5pm eastern, January 28th.
Could someone please tell me what this means in layman’s terms?
If you go to the beach this year and stand where the incoming waves don’t quite touch your toes, and then go stand in exactly the same spot ten years later, the waves might touch your toes. It’s an emergency!!
Linking historical sea temperature with sea level and comparing it to the modern situation is tenuous. We don’t know how the marine bathymetry and accommodation has changed. Much of the sea floor is spatially dynamic. There is also the question of displacement through sediment influx over this period of time.
So should we spend more on research or less?
“tony mcleod January 23, 2017 at 12:44 am”
Less! When people start saying that their fizzy drinks are fizzy because of air, and some are actually smart, I wonder. Point out fizzy drinks are fizzy BECAUSE of CO2! Oh no! “CARBON POLLUTION”…lets not talk about bread aye?
Ninety percent less on “climate change” “research” and the same or more on real science, not worse than worthless, GIGO computer games.
It’s all about money, isn’t it.
I gots a question for all you physics guys. If the ocean rises but 20 feet, 1) what would be the volume of the increase? … 2) how much energy would it take to heat that volume of water … 3) how long would that take given the accepted rate of warming of the ocean from short wave energy?
It’s not clear how to interpret this finding. IF sea surface temperature during the Eemian was similar to today’s, yet sea level was 20-30 feet higher, that would seem to imply that the polar regions were warmer during this early interglacial period compared to the globe as a whole and more ice melted then.
IF so, would that imply that as the current Arctic increasingly warms, greater ice melting might produce a significant sea level increase?
1. Read the comments above (pretty sure that help you). This one of Bill Illis sort of summarizes the details above which answer what you are asking:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/22/mainstream-media-ignores-new-study-present-sea-surface-temperatures-indistinguishable-from-those-during-last-interglacial/#comment-2404362
2. More importantly, see JoelOBryan here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/22/mainstream-media-ignores-new-study-present-sea-surface-temperatures-indistinguishable-from-those-during-last-interglacial/#comment-2404543
I agree with Bill Illis’ comments about the current interglacial likely continuing for several 10s of thousands of years. Glaciation in both hemispheres begins in the Arctic when northern hemisphere (NH) TOA insolation decreases dramatically due to combination of orbital parameters (but when SH insolation is similarly increased). But that NH insolation decrease by itself is not sufficient to cause glaciers to spread and chill the whole globe. It is sufficient to permit NH winter snow to survive summers, turn to permanent ice, and increase the NH albedo and thus decrease total global insolation at the surface. That, and likely changes in NH land albedo and a decrease in warm Atlantic currents entering the Arctic could cool the Arctic dramatically, increasing ice growth. Because a large insolation decrease is required to trigger such glaciation (as occurred for past glacial cycles) and because no such large insolation increase is predicted for some time, the Earth is unlikely to soon enter a new glacial period.
So, that implies that Bill Illis’ prediction of more Greenland ice melting could be accurate.
Always listen to Janice. Clear, concise and highlighted with quotes, pertinent analogies, cogent analysis and occasionally even a well chosen musical number.
Thank you, Janice!
One big step…. agenda 21 totalitarian control TPP……….. DUMPED.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/01/22/report-u-s-announces-withdrawal-from-tpp-within-24-hours-of-trump-inauguration/
“with estimates ranging from no significant difference to nearly 2°C warmer than present-day temperatures.”
Here’s the other significant point that needs more emphasis.
Just another fact that proves there is nothing unusual about today’s temperatures.
…Their analysis reveals that, at the onset of the LIG 129,000 years ago, the global ocean SST was already similar to the 1870-1889 average. However, by 125,000 years ago, the global SST increased by 0.5° ± 0.3°Celcius, reaching a temperature indistinguishable from the 1995-2014 average. These results suggest that LIG global mean annual SSTs simulated with most global climate models are too low…
So in 129,000 years people should have same pseudo sorrows as we lived through now.
Good if they have 129,000 years old archives to accelerate problem solutions.
https://youtu.be/e9MOA_wvaLg
We are in an interglacial? Who knew? Bu … bu … bu …. but … it’s different this time. Our CO2 will defeat it! Endless interglacial!
BTW – I actually did see this in the MSM. Their spin is “well, if it’s the same SST as it was back when SL stood much higher, then by golly, this is proof that our CO2 has cooked the ocean and killlllerrrrrrr SL rise will suddenly kick in … NEXT YEAR …. meters higher by 2040!”