Quaternary Geology is now climate “misinformation.”

Guest rant by David Middleton

The climate change misinformation at a top museum is not a conservative conspiracy

A sign at the American Museum of Natural History has outdated information about climate change

By Alessandra Potenza@ale_potenza Jan 8, 2018

Over the weekend, Twitter users — including some climate scientists — were upset by a plaque at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, which seems to be spreading misinformation about climate change. The panel, titled “Recent Climatic Changes and Extinctions,” misstates the role that human emissions of greenhouse gases play in causing global warming. It also says that, although we’re currently living in one of Earth’s warm periods, “there is no reason to believe that another Ice Age won’t come.” But it turns out, the panel was put up 25 years ago, according to the museum, so it contains outdated information that reads very differently today.

Images of the sign were first tweeted by environmental economist Jonah Busch, and were shared over 2,000 times. Busch tweeted that the panel is at the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing, which was funded by right-wing philanthropist and fossil fuel magnate David H. Koch, and asked the museum to “separate this panel from its donor’s interest.” The tweet sparked outrage among scientists and the general public: “Dear @AMNH I bring my young kids to visit regularly because science & natural history is fascinating, inspiring and fun,” one tweet read. “Please do not misguide their curious minds. If we can’t even trust the AMNH to give us the facts who can we? Very sad.”

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

I am shocked and saddened to see the American Museum of Natural History @amnh promoting misinformation on climate change in its David M. Koch-funded Dinosaur Wing 1/

[…]

The Verge

Here is one of the Tweets from a “climate scientist”…

So… David Koch funded the Dinosaur Wing (really good with Buffalo sauce), the Ice Age exhibit has a plaque which says, “there is no reason to believe that another Ice Age won’t come”… And this is some sort of climate denier “misinformation on climate change” and a “breach of the firewall that is supposed to stand between the agenda of the donor and the objectivity of scientific content”???

Do these people not understand that the Dinosaur Wing and Ice Age exhibit are two different exhibits, separated by over 60 million years of geologic time?  Setting aside the fact that we are living in an interglacial stage of an ice age… How is it misinformation to state that  “there is no reason to believe that another Ice Age (glacial stage) won’t come”?  Maybe we’ll get lucky and anthropogenic CO2 will forestall or mitigate the onset of the next Quaternary glacial stage… But I wouldn’t bet on it.

FORECASTING THE FUTURE. We can now try to decide if we are now in an interglacial stage, with other glacials to follow, or if the world has finally emerged from the Cenozoic Ice Age.  According to the Milankovitch theory, fluctuations of radiation of the type shown in Fig. 16-18 must continue and therefore future glacial stages will continue.  According to the theory just described, as long as the North and South Poles  retain their present thermally isolated locations, the polar latitudes will be frigid; and  as the Arctic Ocean keeps oscillating between ice-free and ice-covered states,  glacial-interglacial climates will continue.

Finally, regardless of which theory one subscribes to, as long as we see no fundamental change in the  late Cenozoic climate trend, and the presence of ice on Greenland and Antarctica indicates that no change has occurred, we can expect that the fluctuations of the past million years will continue.

Donn, William L. Meteorology. 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill 1975. pp 463-464

Even though the plaque is supposedly 25 years old, it clearly says that “human pollutants may also have an effect on Earth’s climatic cycles”… Well, they might have an effect.

Is their issue the phrase “recent climatic changes and extinctions”?  In a layman’s sense, there is very little evidence that recent climatic changes have caused any extinctions.  In a geological sense, “recent” generally refers to the Holocene.   Although, more strictly, the “Cen” in Cenozoic means recent.

It really boggles the mind that so many people frequenting the geological exhibits of the AMNH could be so ignorant of basic Quaternary geology, particularly the alleged climate scientists who chimed in on this Twitter-storm.

Addendum: Cenozoic Temperatures and CO2

The Earth’s climate rapidly cooled about 34 million years ago.  This cooling marks the transition from the Eocene to the Oligocene…

cenozoic
Cenozoic temperature anomaly. Older is to the right, x-axis is millions of years before present (1950 AD).  Earth’s climate rapidly cooled about 34 million years ago.

Whereas atmospheric CO2 appears to have remained elevated for about 2 million years after the sudden drop in temperature…

cen_co2_zps49992aaf
Cenozoic atmospheric CO2. Older is to the left, x-axis is in millions of calendar years AD (BC). The Mauna Loa instrumental record  is depicted by the solid black line at year 0.  Oligocene CO2 levels drop from about 800-1,000 ppmv to about 600 ppmv from 32.5 to 30 MYA.

My apologies for the different x-axes.  I made these graphs several years ago and don’t recall where I saved the Excel files.

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tomwys1
January 9, 2018 7:10 am

Looks like absolute accuracy!

rh
Reply to  tomwys1
January 9, 2018 11:10 am

The sign says “human made pollutants may have an effect on Earth’s climatic cycles”. Maybe that is what they object to. Surely no credible climate scientist would think human activity is going to stave off the next ice age. Milankovitch must be turning in his grave.

Reply to  rh
January 9, 2018 11:13 am

Bill Nye does…no joke.

Bill Nye The Science Guy; Catastrophic Ice-Age Averted, Man-Made CO2 Saved Mankind
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/bill-nye-the-science-guy-catastrophic-ice-age-averted-man-made-co2-saved-mankind/

Bill Nye “Is Not The Right” Guy Would Prefer an Ice Age Over the Current Warming
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/04/29/bill-nye-is-not-the-right-guy-would-prefer-an-ice-age-over-the-current-warming/

phaedo
Reply to  rh
January 9, 2018 2:11 pm

co2islife, Bill Nye has no credibility, scientific or otherwise.

Duster
Reply to  rh
January 9, 2018 2:49 pm

Arrhenius actually speculated that human CO2 emmission might save the planet from another ice age. I believe he thought that a good thing. Of course, Arrhenius did not accept the argument that the Michelson Morley experiment had demonstrated that there was no evidence of a luminiferous aether either.

Jim Berkise
Reply to  rh
January 9, 2018 6:21 pm

Take a look at Plows. Plagues and Petroleum by William Ruddiman from 1995. Based on the data available at the time, he makes an interesting case for the thesis that agriculture and associated standing water methane is the reason we’re not in an ice age now. The alternate title of his book is How Humans Took Control of Climate.

rogerthesurf
Reply to  tomwys1
January 9, 2018 1:08 pm

It is very one eyed to complain that the Koche Foundation is funding climate science in a negative fashion or otherwise.

In my blog I have an article on the Rockefeller Bros website who conveniently have a search option on their dispersion of grants.

https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2015/08/15/the-rockefellers-who-they-fund-from-their-web-site/

I have listed some search results, but I suggest that the readers do their own search on the Rockefellers website, like “Global Warming” or “Climate Change”, “sea level” or similar and see how much cash is forwarded to advocates of AGW.

Cheers

Roger

http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com

RockyRoad
Reply to  tomwys1
January 10, 2018 9:27 am

Indeed. And Michael Mann’s PhD in geology needs to be rescinded. That, or it was from some diploma mill that’s no longer in business.

Joe
January 9, 2018 7:12 am

I am quite surprised to see an allegedly scientific institution put that plaque up. Seriously, how does a plaque about ice ages get put in a dinosaur exhibit? Very concerning, and something that should be corrected.

schitzree
Reply to  David Middleton
January 9, 2018 7:43 am

Any word on who, if anyone, is ‘Funding’ the Ice Age exhibit?

I’m assuming it ISN’T koch. This is just another example of the Climate Faithful playing Six Degrees of Fossil Fuel Funding, where anything the don’t want to hear is just ‘misinformation’ from the Climate denial machine.

Joe
Reply to  David Middleton
January 9, 2018 7:43 am

But person on Twitter says it’s in the dinosaur exhibit, which is funded by Koch dollars. How can you get more definitive than that? Clearly scandalous! Besides, if it’s not in the dinosaur exhibit, how can we possibly create the link to Big Oil that is it takes to make the official narrative have the necessary impact? (Sorry, the sarc font has been disabled on my computer)

Colorado Wellington
Reply to  David Middleton
January 11, 2018 12:10 am

How could they put the ice age and dinosaur exhibits on the same floor? That’s indefensible.

Do they know nothing about stratification?

Alan D McIntire
Reply to  Joe
January 10, 2018 5:09 am

Joking aside, there WAS at least one ice age during the Jurassic.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151211124428.htm

Joe
Reply to  Alan D McIntire
January 10, 2018 10:11 am

Thanks for the link, Alan. Very fascinating! Quickly scanning through the original journal article your linked story is based on, it’s not clear that there’s strong evidence for a true “ice age”, but I’m sure the earth residents of the time weren’t too thrilled about such a dramatic cool-down, regardless of whether it was accompanied by ice sheet formation. I’ll have to read it more in depth later. Thanks again!

January 9, 2018 7:15 am
Reply to  Steve Case
January 9, 2018 12:30 pm

“1890 to 1945 was abnormally warm” …

OMG I am shocked and saddened to see the Smithsonian promoting misinformation on climate change blah blah blah.

My friends at the Smithsonian need to explain and act on this travesty. It suggests a breach of the firewall that is supposed to stand between Common Sense and the Agenda of the CAGW member church.

The Reverend Badger
Reply to  DonM
January 10, 2018 12:12 am

It’s no good saying it here, get out on TwitBook my friend.

January 9, 2018 7:28 am

There is no better indication of the prominent role of statist media in the CAGW scam than Mann retaining any credibility after a career of 390x fraud, data hiding, FOIA/PR subjugation and ad hom attacks on real scientists. The systemic omission of reality has kept this massive statist gravy train intact while billions of dung-reliant humans live without clean water. Sad…

Reply to  JRPort
January 9, 2018 9:53 am

Well, if we had commercially developed thorium molten salt reactors, which we pioneered at Oak Ridge in the 60’s and 70’s instead of developing uranium water cooled reactors, the world might not be in a state of energy poverty. Instead we went with the reactors good for making bombs and fossil fuels, good for making wars.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 10:24 am

“…reactors good for making bombs and fossil fuels, good for making wars.”
——————
So far, reactors have only made bombs good for stopping wars.

Other than that, what fossil fuels do reactors make?

John Harmsworth
Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 11:23 am

We are not in a state of “energy poverty! We are in a state of energy stupidity!
If thorium reactors are safe, reliable and cost effective- bring ’em on! But that won’t cure the self promoting b.s. that oozes out of likes of Al Gore or Michael Mann.

Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 12:34 pm

pretty good for powering subs, ships ….

will the thorium process be able to be scaled for portability … boats, space, etc?

notfubar
Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 1:27 pm

I like the molten salt/molten fuel reactor designs for safety and potential cost savings (ability to operate at atmospheric pressure has a lot to do with both), and the ability to tremendously extend the nuclear fuel supply (that’s why Th is part of the mix). They don’t actually run on Thorium – they have to start up with some U235 (or another fissionable isotope such as Pu 239) – the Th232 is used to breed U233 which because of its smaller beta fraction is actually a bit jumpier fuel than U235. They can still be used to create bomb material, so I don’t count that as a selling point.
The water filled reactors got a head start because they were a practical solution for use on naval submarines and large ships – sailors had to be able to operate them safely and reliably under a variety of conditions – other proposed designs were harder for ship designers to adapt and meet requirements using the available 1940s/1950s tech. Once a good track record was established with PWRs and BWRs, it was easier use the available design and operating experience base to scale those up and get a commercial industry going. We have a very hard time getting non-water designs thru the regulatory approvals because of a lack of experience with other designs (CO2 GCR and Helium HTGR being the exceptions, and those were tough sledding initially – eventually those fell by the wayside).

Janice The American Elder
Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 6:01 pm

Space program uses Pu238 for heat pellets. Can’t make Pu238 in a thorium molten salt reactor. Have to use a conventional water-cooled reactor, and uranium, to make it.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Beijing
Reply to  davidgmillsatty
January 9, 2018 7:39 pm

Speaking of safe and reliable, I spoke yesterday to Dr Thomas Qu, a member of the China-Canada team that is designing a new generation of CANDU reactors that uses plutonium-contaminated waste from high pressure light-water reactors as fuel. This design is now complete and bidding can start.

The new CANDU will take the leftovers from others and generate energy from it. Brilliant.

Where there’s muck, there’s brass.

January 9, 2018 7:33 am

We’re entering a new Dark Ages if the Ignorati like Michael Mann have their way with the minds of our children.

I spent Monday (yesterday) wandering around Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas with my dog on the trails and the Paluxy River. (The park is about 3.5 miles west as the crow flies from the Glen Rose nuclear generating station, another bonus visit-trip awaits)

There are places where the dino tracks in the river bed rock look like they were made yesterday. In the early 1940’s, some of the best specimens (huge slabs of rock) were cut out of the river bed and hauled to NYC for the AMNH dino exhibit there. According to the park placards, the discovery of sauropod tracks there shocked the world’s paleotologists as only theropods were then believed to have existed at that time in dino history.

Very cool to see that and realize how the Earth’c geology and climate has convulsed and changed over the intervening 100 million years since those tracks were made in an ancient muddy shoreline during the early-Cretaceous.

Joel Snider
Reply to  Joel O’Bryan
January 9, 2018 12:08 pm

‘We’re entering a new Dark Ages if the Ignorati like Michael Mann have their way with the minds of our children.’

See: Bill Nye.

billk
Reply to  Joel Snider
January 10, 2018 11:20 am

The Apocalypse draws Nye — he is immanentizing the Exxschiton.

January 9, 2018 7:34 am

Rewriting history is what ‘1984’ warned us about, but these climate scam merchants use ‘1984’ as their bible.

Severian
Reply to  Phillip Bratby
January 9, 2018 8:35 am

“1984” was meant to be a cautionary tale, unfortunately too many people seem to see it as a how to manual, “Totalitarianism For Dummies.”

He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.

Alan Robertson
Reply to  Severian
January 9, 2018 10:28 am

The same could be said for Niccolò Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
His indictment of those who seek power over the rest of us has been viewed as a how- to handbook.

Duster
Reply to  Severian
January 9, 2018 2:53 pm

The Chinese and the Egyptians both edited history in an effort to present a preferred narrative as the current usage goes.

January 9, 2018 7:34 am

The main assumption at the heart of the CO₂ hypothesis is that CO₂ does not only control climate now, but it has done so also in the past. Given its dominance this assumption is contaminating our traditional understanding of past climates as climate history is being rewritten to make it depend on CO₂.

Regarding the end of the interglacial the dominant hypothesis states that it is not going to end in at least 50,000 years. This is based on three assumptions without enough supporting evidence.

1. No glacial period in the Pleistocene has started with CO₂ levels above 350 ppm.

But that doesn’t say anything about the capability of CO₂ of preventing glaciations. It speaks of the very low CO₂ levels during the Pleistocene.

2. CO₂ levels are expected to rise further and won’t decrease below 350 ppm for thousands of years.

The long decay of atmospheric CO₂ is hypothetical. We really don’t know how fast CO₂ levels can decrease, as the biological response from the biosphere is unknown. Atmospheric CO₂ levels have raised much slower than expected, as the airborne fraction has been decreasing.

3. By the time CO₂ levels are low enough Northern summer insolation will be increasing preventing a glaciation.

Increasing Northern summer insolation has never prevented a glaciation. Glaciations take place due to decreasing obliquity (axis tilt), and obliquity is going to continue decreasing for the next 10,000 years.

However saying that our interglacial is due to end in the next few millennia has become a climate deni@r statement. That museum sign is accurate but offensive.

After studying the issue I have come to the conclusion that there is a good window of opportunity for the next glaciation to start in ~2000 years, around 4,000 AD. Perhaps humans will be able to prevent it, or perhaps not. I would not count on it. The Earth axis is a huge climate forcing.

paqyfelyc
Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 7:50 am

“We really don’t know how fast CO₂ levels can decrease”, indeed, but we do know that currently ~half anthropic CO2 is eaten up by sinks, meaning if we stopped sending C2 in the atmosphere, pCO2 would plummet as fast as they currently rise, so that in a century it would be back to preindustrial level. Or even quicker, depending on the delay needed for the biological response (photosynthesis) to take advantage of the boon CO2.

Reply to  paqyfelyc
January 9, 2018 8:05 am

meaning if we stopped sending C2 in the atmosphere, pCO2 would plummet as fast as they currently rise, so that in a century it would be back to preindustrial level.

No, that is an assumption too. You assume that sink rates will continue elevated even if we curtail emissions, but we don’t know that either.

The most logical interpretation is that sinks are proportional to atmospheric levels all else being equal, so as atmospheric levels decrease sinks should decrease too.

However it is more complex. During glaciations temperatures decrease while CO₂ levels remain sustained. Possibly because the vegetation dying from the cooling keeps releasing CO₂.

Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 8:05 am

After reading your series at Climate Etc, I think I agree. But none of us will be around in 2K yrs to see…. 🙂

The Reverend Badger
Reply to  beng135
January 10, 2018 12:17 am

Alcor is still a thing, is it not?

climatereason
Editor
Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 8:46 am

Javier

I have obviously studied this matter much harder than you have.. the next glaciation will start at 10am on 15th July 3276 AD.

unfortunately none of us will be around to prove me wrong but I am robustly certain of my predictions.

tonyb

R Shearer
Reply to  climatereason
January 9, 2018 9:20 am

Did you take day light savings time into account?

Kevin Schurig
Reply to  climatereason
January 9, 2018 10:49 am

Better check my calendar. Ahh, it needs to be moved to next week, I have a timeshare meeting that day. The time is fine.

Reply to  climatereason
January 9, 2018 1:50 pm

Leap years?

Reply to  climatereason
January 9, 2018 3:37 pm

and as we say in Canada – “10:30 in Newfoundland“

Mick
Reply to  climatereason
January 9, 2018 8:57 pm

I Heard a newfie say ” Go Ahead, Back up!”

paul courtney
Reply to  climatereason
January 10, 2018 1:00 pm

tonyb: Your prediction looked like a hoax, but then a robust certainty arose, so it must be science! Would say more, but I gotta get my broker to order mitten futures.

AGW is not Science
Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 9:32 am

Good summary. As for the first item, I always like to point out that 450 mya, four THOUSAND ppm CO2 couldn’t stop the Earth from going into a full blown glaciation. So the mythical climate driving ability of CO2 is just that – mythical.

Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 9:57 am

Excellent summary Javier, and kudos for being one of the only people in this debate who is comfortable with the (often correct) answer “we don’t know that.”

The vast gulf between long-accepted paleo geology and the “climate consensus” is really fascinating, in much the same way as a train wreck.

Sheri
Reply to  talldave2
January 10, 2018 8:36 am

Agreed. People tend to be uncomfortable saying “we don’t know”. Well done, Javier.

Editor
Reply to  Javier
January 9, 2018 12:20 pm

Javier – OK, I’m a bit slow at times, but I can’t see why “That museum sign is [..] offensive.“.

Reply to  Mike Jonas
January 9, 2018 2:38 pm

Mike,
It is offensive to consensus supporters because it contradicts their hypothesis main assumption. It is like questioning the virginity of Mary to a Catholic, the divinity of Jesus to a Christian, or the authorship of the Quran by Muhammad to a Muslim. Very offensive. You don’t mess with people’s core beliefs.

schitzree
January 9, 2018 7:35 am

When your religion or political movement requires the rewriting of history, especially GEOLOGICAL history, to avoid being proven wrong, then it has become a joke.

And not the funny kind.

~¿~

Griff
January 9, 2018 7:47 am

since dinosaurs evolved into birds, I’m willing to bet that dinosaur wing – and dinosaur generally – would taste pretty good with barbecue sauce.

Launch that Jurassic park project right now!

schitzree
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 8:01 am

I can’t help thinking about the giant ribs in the intro for The Flintstones.

8 to 10 inch Pterodactyl hot wings, and they’re one of the smaller flyers. I’m going to need a lot of blue cheese dressing.

^¿^

Reply to  schitzree
January 9, 2018 8:08 am

It’s funny. For a long time I thought that giant rib was some kind of chair……

Bryan A
Reply to  schitzree
January 9, 2018 8:55 pm

Bronto Burgers…YUMMY

Lance of BC
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 8:01 am

I think I’m starting to understand why they went extinct…and taste like chicken!

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 2:30 pm

Griff,
Where I come from barbecue suggests, indeed requires, burning carbon-based fuel.
Are we to understand that you do that?
Uff da!

Griff
Reply to  John F. Hultquist
January 10, 2018 4:46 am

I get my charcoal from coppiced UK woodland… regrows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing

Phil R
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 3:38 pm

Griff,

Glad to see you do have a sense of humerus.

I’ll get my coat…

AndyG55
Reply to  Phil R
January 9, 2018 7:24 pm

Yep, That is probably griff’s most sensible comment in , like 10 years. ! 🙂

Still absolutely zero science to back it, though

Just like AGW…. an unprovable supposition, just requiring “belief” and “gullibility”.

Bryan A
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 5:41 pm

For dinosaurs to have evolved into birds, would require that some dinosaurs survived the KT event. Since none did, birds came from someplace else

Sheri
Reply to  Bryan A
January 10, 2018 8:41 am

I thought the birds were there before the KT event and while the dinosaurs died, the birds were able to adapt and survive. The evolution to birds occurred before the event, I believe.

Crispin in Waterloo but really in Beijing
Reply to  Griff
January 9, 2018 7:50 pm

Griff

Birds came first. There was a great presentation by the Royal Ontario Museum on Flight which traced the evolution of birds into dinosaurs. They were also the first I know of to show large dinosaur replicants covered in feathers. The velociraptor was one. It looks like a big chicken, not a plucked one as in Jurassic Park.

Flight evolved at least twice – with and without feathers. Non-feathered dinosaurs came after the feathered ones.

catweazle666
Reply to  Griff
January 10, 2018 2:01 pm

Apologised yet, you little liar?

Russ Wood
Reply to  Griff
January 14, 2018 6:30 am

Years ago, there was a humour article in (I think) Analog SF magazine. Entitled “Survival of the tastiest”, it explained that Kentucky fried pterodactyl just didn’t work, and similar problems. I guess that Ice Age mammoth must have tasted pretty good (‘cos they’ve gone), but just couldn’t be domesticated!

January 9, 2018 7:51 am

“a breach of the firewall that is supposed to stand between the agenda of the donor and the objectivity of scientific content”

He clearly meant.

“a breach of the firewall that we have worked so hard to achieve between the agenda of the IPCC and the objectivity of scientific content”

AGW is not Science
Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 9, 2018 9:34 am

Good translation!

Reply to  co2isnotevil
January 9, 2018 9:54 am

When the government does it, it’s objective.

commieBob
January 9, 2018 7:54 am

My WAG is that we will continue to have glaciations as long as the continents are in their current configuration. link

Duster
Reply to  commieBob
January 9, 2018 3:15 pm

The “continent” argument is logical, just as arguing that CO2 may effect planetary temperature based on a laboratory property of the gas. But, like the climate-CO2 linkage, there are empirical facts that at least raise some questions about the full adequacy of the idea that the joining of the Americas resulted in in the Pleistocene. The last time the planet was this cold and this impoverished with respect to carbon (as an average across both glacial and interstadial periods) was 250 million years ago at the end of the Permian. The final stages of the Permian were an ice age similar to the Permian. CO2 levels recovered following the Permian extinction and rose gradually for roughly half the Mesozoic before beginning another long downward trend to the present. We have no really good explanations for the end of the Permian or the extinction. However, what little evidence we do have suggests that the last gasp of the Permian was an ice age, an idea based on increased evidence of continental environments around marine margins. That indicates a significant drop in sea levels easiest explained by increased ice sheets. My own suspicion is that Permian extinction was triggered by low levels of CO2 leading to an ecological collapse. I believe this is supported by the extinctions during the last glacial. Instead of the abrupt event commonly presented in popular accounts, large mammal species gradually failed over a span of at least 10,000 to 20,000 years. Those extinctions occurred as CO2 was at its absolute lowest levels, very close to the point where primary production fails. Another line of evidence that supports the argument that CO2 is biologically rather than climatically critical is found in plant evolution. The appearance of C4 and CAMS cycle plants provides for a more efficient carbon cycling by these plant under conditions of drought and lower carbon availability. Older C3 plant forms such as coniferous trees lack this adaptability. Its worth note especially that grasses appeared about 40 million years ago and that Wikipedia (of all sources!) goes so far as to state:
… The grasses, as well as many other groups, evolved new mechanisms of metabolism to survive the low CO2 and warm, dry conditions of the tropics over the last 10 million years. [emph. added].

Reply to  Duster
January 11, 2018 1:57 am

Duster
January 9, 2018 at 3:15 pm

Very thought provoking comments. But…could you Please put some paragraphs into your comments..they’re really hard to read otherwise and I suspect many won’t bother they way they are.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Duster
January 12, 2018 5:39 pm

“Very thought provoking comments. But…could you Please put some paragraphs into your comments..they’re really hard to read otherwise and I suspect many won’t bother they way they are.”

You would be correct.

Andy Pattullo
January 9, 2018 7:58 am

I find it very encouraging that the dissembles of global warming crap leap at every opportunity to display publicly their lack of scientific credentials.

Andy Pattullo
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
January 9, 2018 7:59 am

Sorry “dissemblers” -Apple likes to “correct” appropriate spelling to something other.

Walter Sobchak
January 9, 2018 8:00 am

It is just droll how crazy the Name Koch makes the leftist borg units. The Koches have been very philanthropic and have made major contributions to a number of important institutions in New York City beyond AMNH, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, home of the New York City Ballet was renamed the David H. Koch Theater in 2008 following a gift of 100 million dollars for the renovation of the theater.

Each of those contributions has been followed by a leftist temper tantrum. It is to be noted that George Soros and Tom Steyer have kept their hands in their pockets.

Sheri
Reply to  Walter Sobchak
January 10, 2018 8:45 am

Steyer spend millions trying to get liberals elected. Soros has Open Society, that he is said to have dumped billions into. They spend—on their own causes. The “right” causes, which is why no leftist objections.

January 9, 2018 8:02 am

Koch or no Koch another glaciation of the N. America will come sooner or later, Boston could be the harbinger of the ‘icing-up’. Boston mayor said the other day it’s due to global warming (?!) and now Russians may be on the way to rescue his citizens from freezing up.
“Russian gas that was imported to Britain late last year could be coming to the rescue of ice-bound Americans as freezing weather in the northeast of the US sends prices soaring.
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from storage facilities in Kent appeared yesterday to be heading to Boston, according to shipping data reported by Bloomberg, although its destination could yet change.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/russian-gas-heads-for-frozen-boston-via-isle-of-grain-907dqqplq

Reply to  vukcevic
January 9, 2018 8:14 am

all the way from Yamal (M. Mann’s tree ring) peninsula
comment image

Winnipeg boy
Reply to  vukcevic
January 9, 2018 8:54 am

Needed because those idiots closed down and destroyed perfectly good coal plants, and now rely heavily on NG. But… they refused to increase pipeline capacity, so the NE is running out of NG.
Well played morons.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  vukcevic
January 12, 2018 5:42 pm

Yamal was Briffa’s baby, not Mann’s.

ResourceGuy
Reply to  vukcevic
January 9, 2018 10:52 am

Since we can’t seem to stop tankers getting oil to the NK regime, maybe we can stop this one and let the “Bostonians freeze in the dark.”

RWturner
January 9, 2018 8:18 am

This guy exemplifies the type of moronic and zealous cult behavior that we’ve come to expect from the pseudoscience environmental economists.

January 9, 2018 8:24 am

Micheal Mann’s profile is looking more like Vlad Lenin than diquc that he is

Sara
Reply to  Scott Frasier
January 9, 2018 9:07 am

I think he’s more like Trofim Lysenko than Lenin. Lysenko did more damage than Lenin ever dreamed of with fraudulent science. Look him up.

TDBraun
January 9, 2018 8:38 am

I think what happened is this professor saw the sign that Koch was funding the museum and, full of prejudice for the guy, he went around looking for something politically incorrect that he could use to puff up his own ego by drumming up a controversy, and this innocent little paragraph was the best he could find. Pathetic but typical.

milwaukeebob
Reply to  TDBraun
January 9, 2018 10:56 am

+1

Curious George
January 9, 2018 8:41 am

The Inquisition has always been very concerned with heretics. They burned heretical books, in some cases heretics themselves. Some things never change.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
January 9, 2018 8:56 am

Since others have introduced a religious note you may all be slightly amused by the news that when it comes to making a fast buck the Church of England makes Wall Street’s Bank of Evil look slow off the mark amateurs . The CofE has just written to people who have purchased formerly church lands that they have no right to any minerals or fracked gas underneath “their” property.
Never mind planetary stewardship, eco responsibilities, or any of that right on crap, when it comes to money the church that likes to say yes will steamroller over anyone or anything that stands between it and money in the coffers like a steamroller flattening kippers (ok I just made that analogy up, but you get the idea).
None of this saveing the planet piffle for the CofE then!

Annie
Reply to  Moderately Cross of East Anglia
January 9, 2018 5:20 pm

Was this in the original contracts when the land was sold or is it a later money-making idea?

Sara
January 9, 2018 9:05 am

This tantrum of Mann’s looks like an episode of obsessive compulsive disorder manifested as angry tweets and bitter attempts at recrimination. If someone would just put the choke chain on that fat little dweebie, it would help.

This is another episode of ridiculous behavior by a set of control freaks who want to be the first in finger-pointing at NOTHING. Their credibility is rapidly diminishing. I can’t take anything they say seriously any more. Mann is the manifestation of idiotis supremis, in spades.

Can I get extra crispy dinosaur wings, potato wedges, and one of those fake ice cream sundaes with fake chocolate sauce?

Reply to  Sara
January 9, 2018 1:05 pm

Perhaps Mann can be muzzled by the Koch organisation providing him or his university (then indirectly to him) with research funds.

Sheri
Reply to  John in Oz
January 10, 2018 8:49 am

The funds will more than likely be refused. Others have refused donations from the Koch brothers. The liberal club does not allow direct donations, though selling one’s TV station to an oil-rich country is apparently OK. Qutar is not the evil Koch Brothers, I guess…

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  John in Oz
January 12, 2018 5:45 pm

“Qutar is not the evil Koch Brothers, I guess…”

Neither is Qatar.

Ricdre
January 9, 2018 9:30 am

Definition of “misinformation”: any fact that that disproves CAGW. Definition of “information”: anything (fact or not) that proves CAGW.

MarkW
Reply to  Ricdre
January 9, 2018 9:45 am

Definition of “expert”: Anyone who agrees that CO2 is gonna kill us all.

JBP
Reply to  MarkW
January 9, 2018 1:35 pm

so there is a massive lack of expertise on this website. Just as I thoughted.

Reply to  Ricdre
January 9, 2018 2:46 pm

Ricdre

“anything (fact or not) that proves CAGW.”

Nothing so far has proven it.

In fact, as far as I can gather, the only observable manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the planet has greened by 14% in the last 30 years.

Rick C PE
January 9, 2018 9:33 am

So now the geological record regarding ice ages and glacial/interglacial cycles is misinformation? Talk about deni@l of “settled science”.

It would be interesting to see how these bozos (Busch & Mann) react if they discover the David H. Koch “Hall of Human Origins” at the National Museum of Natural History in DC. Trigger Warning: Don’t go if you’re a Creationist.

Curious George
Reply to  Rick C PE
January 9, 2018 9:47 am

They’ll go and demand to close the exhibit.

John Bell
January 9, 2018 9:47 am

Funny how some alarmists claim CC is here now but some say it is still in the future.

John Mason
January 9, 2018 9:50 am

Similar desires to Stalinize well known but inconvenient scientific facts have actually been accomplished in regards to Glacier National Park. Their web site used to state the glaciers in the park all are about 3000 years old, which is still true. Just like the ice man that melted out of the Alps receding glaciers, both are obvious indicators it’s been much warmer in the past within this current inter glacial.

And most proxies agree that in this inter-glacial it’s been warmer than now 5 times and our current blip out of the little ice age is the least warm of this total set of 6 warming periods.

That little key phrase ‘warmest year on record’ is quite deceptive. (and at most we are the 3rd warmest in the Satellite record for 2017)

All is well within, in fact swamped, in naturally variability. CO2 is not the thermostat of the planet. That’s the primary tenant of this religion and it’s false.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  John Mason
January 12, 2018 5:49 pm

“That’s the primary tenant of this religion and it’s false.”

Does that tenant have tenets?

January 9, 2018 9:53 am

So Orwellian… completely accurate claims must be replaced by largely speculative claims. For Science!

Kieran O'Driscoll
January 9, 2018 10:06 am

Mann calling the kettle black…. when thos is all over the oublic should demand his an gores head…

Michael Jankowski
January 9, 2018 10:06 am

Mann’s reaction is priceless, as usual.

Gary
Reply to  Michael Jankowski
January 9, 2018 10:41 am

For someone who claimed to have won a Nobel Peace prize he sure picks a lot of fights.

John in L du B
January 9, 2018 10:12 am

Busch and Mann are artifacts belonging in the dinosaur exhibit.

Reply to  John in L du B
January 9, 2018 1:22 pm

You forgot the hockey shtick!

Robert
January 9, 2018 10:34 am

Busch and Mann should just double Mr. Koch’s donation, receive their own wing and set the record straight!

ResourceGuy
January 9, 2018 10:41 am

Okay, right after they take down the plaque at Rocky Mountain NP that speculates that pine beetle infestation is caused by climate change.

Griff
Reply to  ResourceGuy
January 10, 2018 4:43 am

Well it is: if there had been no shift to warmer winters, the beetles wouldn’t be surviving the winter in such numbers

Reply to  Griff
January 10, 2018 8:36 am

Griff, they have been surviving Canadian winters for a long time.

Reply to  Griff
January 10, 2018 10:15 am

if there had been no shift to warmer winters, the HUMAN RACE wouldn’t be surviving the winter in such numbers

(of course my comment relates to a long long time ago. your comment relates to the last 20 years and the term “shift” is used incorrectly-dishonestly)

catweazle666
Reply to  Griff
January 10, 2018 2:05 pm

Apologised yet?

January 9, 2018 10:54 am

This episode is another reason to ignore twitter except for Trump. The placque in question is over 25 years old, is factually correct, and is not part of the separate dinosaur exhibit funded by Koch. Snowflakes melted on the disinformation.

Brian McCandliss
January 9, 2018 11:04 am

I think we’re putting the cart before the horse by even dignifying agw with a response, rather than pointing out the “elephant in the room” that it does not followed the scientific method… and therefore cannot be properly called science.
Therefore refuting it scientifically, likewise abrogates the scientific method by allowing it to skip those requirements before simply observing the null hypothesis remains in place, rather than having to prove it as if agw is a null hypothesis and we are trying to establish an alternative that is wrong.

Taylor Ponlman
Reply to  Brian McCandliss
January 9, 2018 11:37 am

Brian,
Good point re null hypothesis in danger of being morphed into treating AGW as what must be disproved. Does anyone have a concise statement of the true null hypothesis re: AGW/Climate Change?

Reply to  Taylor Ponlman
January 9, 2018 1:13 pm

I would go with something along the lines of “What is observed in the climate system is a result of naturally occurring drivers.” It is incumbent on those promoting the AGW hypothesis to refute this null by demonstrating conclusively, repeatably and uniquely that anthropogenic GHG’s are the only factor which can account for the observed climate behaviour. It is clear that after getting on for half a century of frantic effort and astronomically vast funding the AGW proponents have yet to even made the smallest glint in the eye of such a null refutation.

Rhoda R
Reply to  Taylor Ponlman
January 9, 2018 5:15 pm

At this point, I’d be happy to see the AGW crowd identify what would falsify their ‘hypothesis’.

DCA
January 9, 2018 11:18 am

There should be a counter tweeter campaign with scientific evidence to show these clowns are wrong.

I would but I don’t tweet. Anybody care to start one? Let the museum know the real truth before any action is taken.

Ed Bo
January 9, 2018 12:41 pm

With the present eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, the top-of-atmosphere solar flux density at aphelion (currently July) is about 1320 W/m2. At perihelion (currently January) it is about 1410 W/m2. (So the average is about 1365 W/m2.)

So as the earth’s tilt precesses, the TOA change at a particular season is 90 W/m2. Even dividing this by 3 for typical daily average change at key latitudes (~65N), this 30 W/m2 change is still an order of magnitude greater than the 3 W/m2 “forcing” from anthropogenic CO2.

But we’re supposed to believe this 3 W/m2 overrides seasonal effects 10 times greater!

And the earth’s eccentricity is quite low now. During the last interglacial (Eemian), the eccentricity was 2.5 times greater, so these variations were also about 2.5 times greater.

On a related note, the last time I looked through the source code for NASA’s GISS climate model, I was surprised and appalled to realize they used a constant insolation value over the course of a year, in effect assuming a circular, not elliptical orbit. That was quite a few years ago; I don’t know if they have improved this.

jeanparisot
Reply to  Ed Bo
January 9, 2018 3:47 pm

I found issues with ovoid vs sphere assumptions as well, but why fix the headlights on a lemon.

Svend Ferdinandsen
January 9, 2018 1:26 pm

I wonder what they complain about. If the climateers have their will, and reduces the CO2 contend, we will sure have a glaciation sooner than else.
All the effort goes to prevent rising temperature, if it works as promised, even if they now call it to prevent climate change, but you can not have it both ways that the same effort also prevents falling temperature.

Gary Pearse
January 9, 2018 1:43 pm

Ignorance of 97% of today’s scientists! The 135million to 65million yrs ago age of dinosaurs should even be known by an economist who considers himself educated, but I’m afraid that could be asking too much these days. But is it asking too much for the Chair of the State Penn Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Center to not know? Walk down the hall and talk to a geologist over 50 before exposing that you are an ignoramus. He’s probably also grappling with the strangeness of having a whole section dedicated to a dinosaur wing.

ptolemy2
Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 10, 2018 2:03 pm

I think you meant 235 million to 65 million years ago reign of the dinosaurs.

Jeanparisot
January 9, 2018 3:43 pm

If the Koch Brothers are funding Climate Skeptics, where do I send my invoice?

Joe
January 9, 2018 3:54 pm

Could someone remind prof Mann that he chose to protect the proprietary nature of his hockey stick algorithm over contributing to objective science?

Joe Shaw
January 9, 2018 4:04 pm

Regarding the comment on the plaque that “Human-made pollutants may also have an effect on the Earth’s climactic cycles”, based on the time frame it is likely that the statement is not referring to CO2 at all, but rather to actual pollution such as sulfate aerosols from coal plants and other particulates.

January 9, 2018 4:44 pm

I am both a geologist (with Quaternary instruction by Dreimanis) and an experienced hiker in the Alberta Rocky Mountaains. I can show you the LIA advance (and retreat) at several locations near Calgary and Edmonton. Incontrovirtible inner/outer lateral moraines. Significant climatic variations happen without warning all the geologic time. Only the socio-ideologue activists can (and do) deny that.

Maybe the problem we face is that ee shouldn’t expect a cat to act like a bloodhound regardless of how much we try to help him.

Dennis Sandberg
January 9, 2018 5:55 pm

25 years ago we still believed in geologic facts….seems like the climate alarmist fraudsters have been around “forever”. I worked for a Koch Company for 10 years. The plaque won’t be coming down anytime soon. Bravo for them!

Edwin
January 9, 2018 5:59 pm

Yet their point, their tactic, is far more evil. They cannot have any statements old or new that even dares question their orthodoxy. This is “1984” in real life. We have watched it on college campuses. We have watched the attempts at controlling thinking stretch into the public. Now it is fully entrenched in the scientific community. For the USA it is far more than the First Amendment be damned. Academia should be teaching critical thinking and Scientific Method, instead are teaching “total unity of speech and thought.”

January 9, 2018 7:03 pm

Let me put the role of greenhouse gases that Busch and IPCC 1990 push. This group of pseudo-scientists maintains that imcreasing greenhouse gases in the air will increase global air temperature, Nothing can be more wrong as Dr. Ferenc Miskolzi has shown. He studied NOAA radiosonde records of atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide content that covered a sixty were preserved by BOAA for sixty one years when Miskol;czi had access to them. This is what the radiosonde record tells us. During these sixty one years the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by slightly over twenty percent. This should not greatly surprise climate workers who keep telling us about the human-caused increase of greenhouse gases. But the second observation from the microsonde work should put an end to the prevalent claim that the greenhouse effect causes global warming. The radiosonde record hows clearly that during sixty one years no atmospheric temperature incresase took place. This is completely against everv dogma about global warming by the greenhouse gases. Tjis is the current dogma of Bush and other we3arnists. The effect of the greenhouse gases on global temperature raise uis clearly sero, or nothing, justplain, non-existent. You will find this fact documented in the peer-reviewed scientific article called “The stable stationary value of the earth’s global atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness” that appeared in the peere=reviewed journal “Energy and Environment”, volume 21, issue 4, pp. 243-262 in 2010. Further data from his observations was also shpwn as a poster display at the EGU meeting in Vienna in April 2011. Clearly if there is no greenhouse effect the huge sums of money spent on emission control are monies stolen from the public under false premi laes. This fact also falsifies Hansen;s statement un 1988 that started the greenhouse madness, He said that “…the global warming is now laarge enough that we can describe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and the observed warming.”Totally unscientific.but it carried the dasy for estanlishing IPCC as it is.

Reply to  Arno Arrak
January 11, 2018 1:59 am

Arno Arrak
January 9, 2018 at 7:03 pm

Good comment…but could you (like Duster) please put some paragraphs in your comments. Otherwise they’re very hard to read and I suspect many readers just won’t bother. Thanks.

SteveT
Reply to  Alastair Brickell
January 11, 2018 4:03 am

Alastair Brickell
January 11, 2018 at 1:59 am

Arno Arrak
January 9, 2018 at 7:03 pm

Good comment…but could you (like Duster) please put some paragraphs in your comments. Otherwise they’re very hard to read and I suspect many readers just won’t bother. Thanks.

I agree, it is a shame that all the effort is wasted by lack of paragraphs and lots of careless spelling which requires pausing and re-reading of words to try and work out what was meant. I gave up half way, I usually read the whole thread and this makes it very time consuming.
It doesn’t take long to re-read and correct errors before posting.
SteveT

January 9, 2018 7:49 pm

I went to the Natural History Museum.
But it was closed for the Quartenary.

Keith J
January 9, 2018 10:01 pm

Does any benefactor ever get to put editorial content into museum exhibits, much less an entire wing? What does this say about the museum board of directors?

Of course finger wagging is coming from prostitutes of CAGW. “We’ve already established what you are. We are just haggling over the price”…punching from a raunchy joke that just seems fitting.

fretslider
January 10, 2018 3:13 am

Crap like that deserves a good rant

I feel like that about the BBC with every news bulletin

Pamela Gray
January 10, 2018 6:53 am

The plaques appear to be correct. Only snowflakes come up with this kind of garbage complaint. Tell them to spend time studying the subject before commenting least they prove themselves fools.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/2015RG000482/asset/rog20091.pdf;jsessionid=1208414C6224D79AADC16294B7567651.f01t03?v=1&t=jc968zwl&s=9ea17350eb4a2373819abf0826ac87ccca751097

Sheri
January 10, 2018 8:43 am

Good point. People tend to forget that detail.

ptolemy2
January 10, 2018 11:13 am

I’ve been saying repeatedly for years that the Climagesterium are shaping up to deny ice ages. Now it’s beginning.

Bill J
January 10, 2018 11:18 am

It’s actually kind of comical. All this fake outrage simply because Jonah Busch thought that the exhibit was funded by the Koch Brothers and therefore anything on the plaque that he disagreed with had to be part of a vast rightwing conspiracy of climate change denial. Only it wasn’t. Of course that didn’t stop the fake news from going viral. Did Jonah Busch apologize? Of course not! Does he even realize how silly he looks? Nope. I’m pretty sure he’s proud of his misinformation campaign.

All that outrage over nothing. That’s the left for you.

Don
January 11, 2018 7:34 am

It seems to me that there isn´t any reason for optimism concerning humanity´s climate future! The Holocene has been a rare gift indeed! As from the stats above can be seen Earth’s mean temperature has been dropping for the past 50 MILLION years and no AGW in the world will change this trend. Furthermore, the last grand ice age, the Karoo Ice Age, ended 260 million years ago. This was an ice age that lasted (with interruptions) over 80 MILLION years. So considering that the present Quartenary ice age only started 2,5 million years ago -and the freeze deepened considerably in the last 800 thousand years- we are only at the beginning of an icy period that will extend in the future many 10s of millions of years! Thank you very much, but THAT should be our real concern as a species.