Guest “you can’t fix stupid” by David Middleton
The sad thing is that this was apparently written by two geoscience professors.
The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years – and that foreshadows big changes for the rest of the planet
September 30, 2020Every year, sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean shrinks to a low point in mid-September. This year it measures just 1.44 million square miles (3.74 million square kilometers) – the second-lowest value in the 42 years since satellites began taking measurements. The ice today covers only 50% of the area it covered 40 years ago in late summer.
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million – was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch. That means the Arctic hasn’t been this warm in 3 million years.
[…]
Julie Brigham-Grette
Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts AmherstSteve Petsch
The Conversation
Associate Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
“The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years“
In a lot of ways, the article isn’t that bad. It just that it’s about atmospheric CO2, not Arctic temperatures. The authors provide a a nice discussion of the Pliocene Epoch paleoclimate and an explanation of the rock weathering (carbonate-silicate) cycle, which allegedly controls atmospheric CO2 over geologic time… But the article’s title is flat out stupid.
The article conflates atmospheric CO2 with temperature. While there is a subtle relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature, they aren’t interchangeable. It’s quite possible that atmospheric CO2 hasn’t been this high since the Pliocene Epoch. It’s also possible that it could have been nearly this high for brief periods in the Early Holocene Epoch, maybe even during the Late Pleistocene Epoch Bølling–Allerød interstadial. However, this is one of the dumbest things ever written:
“The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years”
The Arctic was much warmer ~130,000 years ago, during the last Pleistocene interglacial stage (Eemian/Sangamonian), with CO2 levels probably only around 300 ppm.
Despite the Eemian warmth, the Arctic wasn’t ice-free.
The last time that Arctic temperatures were significantly higher than today was the Early Holocene Thermal Maximum9, 10. The Holocene, however, is an interglacial cycle not concluded yet. This certainly justifies climatic evaluations of older, concluded warm interglacial cycles such as the last interglacial (LIG), i.e., Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e (Eemian), lasting from about 130 to 115 ka and often proposed as a possible analog for our near-future climatic conditions on Earth11, 12. Based on proxy records from ice, terrestrial and marine archives, the LIG is characterized by an atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 290 ppm, i.e., similar to the pre-industrial (PI) value13, mean air temperatures in Northeast Siberia that were about 9 °C higher than today14, air temperatures above the Greenland NEEM ice core site of about 8 ± 4 °C above the mean of the past millennium15, North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures of about 2 °C higher than the modern (PI) temperatures12, 16, and a global sea level 5–9 m above the present sea level17. In the Nordic Seas, on the other hand, the Eemian might have been cooler than the Holocene due to a reduction in the northward flow of Atlantic surface water towards Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean, indicating the complexity of the interglacial climate system and its evolution in the northern high latitudes12, 18, 19.Stein et al., 2017
Stein et al., 2017
The Arctic was “this warm” or warmer over most of the past 10,000 years…
The Arctic was intermittently “this warm” or warmer during the past 5,000 years:
The Arctic was quite possibly “this warm” or warmer during the early-mid 20th century:
Arctic sea ice extent was also lower than it is today over most of the past 10,000 years.
Conclusions
- If you don’t want your article to be ridiculed, make sure that the title/headline isn’t dumber than schist.
- Geologists should know that atmospheric CO2 and temperature aren’t interchangeable or synonymous.
- If atmospheric CO2 actually was a primary driver of climate change, the Arctic should be much warmer now than it was over the past 3 million years. It isn’t.
The University of Massachusetts Amherst earns a Ron White Lifetime Achievement Award…
Addendum
In the comments section, commieBob noted that this sentence is not in the article posted on The Conversation:
That means the Arctic hasn’t been this warm in 3 million years.
I am fairly certain that it was there yesterday when I copied the text that I quoted. The sentence is definitely not there today. Although, I first came across the article on EarthSky, an astronomy website. It is possible, but unlikely, that I copied the text from EarthSky. The sentence is still in that version of the article.
The Conversation
EarthSky
The title hasn’t been edited (yet)…
References
Alley, R.B. 2000. “The Younger Dryas cold interval as viewed from central Greenland”. Quaternary Science Reviews 19:213-226.
Alley, R.B.. 2004. “GISP2 Ice Core Temperature and Accumulation Data”.
IGBP PAGES/World Data Center for Paleoclimatology Data Contribution Series #2004-013. NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder CO, USA.
Grosjean, Martin, Suter, Peter, Trachsel, Mathias & Wanner, Heinz. (2007). “Ice‐borne prehistoric finds in the Swiss Alps reflect Holocene glacier fluctuations”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 22. 203 – 207. 10.1002/jqs.1111.
Kinnard, C., Zdanowicz,C.M., Koerner,R ., Fisher,D.A., 2008. “A changing Arctic seasonal ice zone–observations from 1870–2003 and possible oceanographic consequences”. 35, L02507. Kinnard_2008
Kobashi, T., J. P. Severinghaus, and K. Kawamura (2008a). “Argon and nitrogen isotopes of trapped air in the GISP2 ice core during the Holocene epoch (0–11,600 B.P.): Methodology and implications for gas loss processes”. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta. 72, 4675– 4686, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2008.07.006.
Kobashi, T., Kawamura, K., Severinghaus, J. P., Barnola, J.‐M., Nakaegawa, T., Vinther, B. M., Johnsen, S. J., and Box, J. E. ( 2011). “High variability of Greenland surface temperature over the past 4000 years estimated from trapped air in an ice core”. Geophysical Research Letters. 38, L21501, doi:10.1029/2011GL049444.
Kobashi, T., Menviel, L., Jeltsch-Thömmes, A. et al. “Volcanic influence on centennial to millennial Holocene Greenland temperature change”. Scientific Reports 7, 1441 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01451-7
McKay, N., Kaufman, D. “An extended Arctic proxy temperature database for the past 2,000 years”. Scientific Data 1. 140026 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2014.26
North Greenland Ice Core Project members. 2004. “High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period”. Nature 431(7005):147-151.
Stein, R., Fahl, K., Gierz, P. et al. Arctic Ocean sea ice cover during the penultimate glacial and the last interglacial. Nat Commun 8, 373 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00552-1
Stein, R. , Fahl, K. , Schade, I. , Manerung, A. , Wassmuth, S. , Niessen, F. and Nam, S. (2017), Holocene variability in sea ice cover, primary production, and Pacific‐Water inflow and climate change in the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas (Arctic Ocean). J. Quaternary Sci., 32: 362-379. doi:10.1002/jqs.2929 stein2017
Thanks, David. I needed to smile this morning, and your post did the trick.
Sheesh….only 3 million years. Slackers!!
Regards,
Bob
The entire Eemian Interglacial, c. 129 to 116 Ka, was warmer than now, up to 5 degrees C more in the Arctic.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05314-1
As of course has been most of our current Interglacial, the Holocene, and most prior Pleistocene interglacials.
As was the rest of the world AND guess what(???) The world is still here.
Yes exactly. The poor pathetic Arctic is now the warmest it has ever been in at least 3 million years, according to major respected top-notch scienterrificals. Yet nobody but them noticed.
Despite the horror of it all, these superduper whizbang smartguys didn’t drown and roast at the same time, didn’t collapse in a heap, didn’t have to buy a new wardrobe, or even miss a meal.
The worst of the worst mega hot has already happened, and nobody noticed, except the eggheads, and then only when their spokesmodelrobots sounded the buzzer. Personally, I am less than alarmed. Yawn. So fracking what?
I predict that next year will see more AGW articles in print than have been written in the last TWO million years! There will be several garbage truck loads full of them.
Just trying to suck it up in anticipation. Biden / Harris will personally fertilize this industry.
“The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million – was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch. ”
Here is the crux of the problem. They have no solid idea of CO2 3 million years ago and even a weaker idea of 80 years ago, or they would give the latter more weight.
CO2 was as higher and probably much higher during the 1940s (and it was NOT WWII doing it). In fact it was as high or higher than now during three periods of the last 220 years. They are blowing smoke up the public’s collective butt.
What’s their point? They are trying to claim that we are on new territory and the world will collapse. In fact, our CO2 is a wonderful yawn—nothing happening with climate due to it but the planet is greening.
Remember, the 21 agendists want to lower our standard of living along with the population. Greening of the planet and thus more food is the LAST thing they want.
And sea ice extent was less only 42 years ago. (If current sea ice is the second lowest in 42 years). IMO, sea ice is a better temperature proxy than CO2.
But if we look at the last 200 Ma, the recent 3 Ma have been the coldest. So it seems to me that those last cold 3 Ma are the abnormal.
+42 x 1042
David, in Fig 5, what year is “Recent average temperature” -30 referring to?
Summit Station… Where the core was drilled.
Not where, when? The graph above looks like it ends 30 years ago, so does Fig 5. The Arctic has warmed 2C since then.
https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2019/ArtMID/7916/ArticleID/835/Surface-Air-Temperature
Try to follow along. I will type even more slowly than I did for Nick.
From the top of the Arctic:
GISP2 and GRIP were drilled at Summit Station.
The average temperature since 2008 has been about −30 °C.
Kobashi extends GISP2 into the 1990’s.
To the bottom of the Arctic:
Over most of the Holocene, >50% sea ice coverage occurred from 5.5 to 9 months each year. During the “Anthropocene”, >50% sea ice coverage has ranged from 9 to 12 months each year.
What a dick.
So having asked twice for the year of your “recent” temperature line – which makes it look like nothing much has happened since the 50’s – your answer is to cut and paste all the same graphs, but with a link to wikipedia tucked away between them;
The average temperature since 2008 has been about −30 °C.”
Since 2008, really? You didn’t just make that up did you? Because Wiki’s source is Shuman et al. 1998
…where it turns out your “recent” temperatures is a 90-95 average of one site – a single, out of date data point. Since then rapid warming very close to, if not higher than the Holocene max and going by Fig. 1 eclipsing the Eemian too. With CO2 levels not seen for 15 million years, since the mid-Miocene we can expect plenty more.
The fact that you are a fracking retard doesn’t help you understand the bleeding obvious.
Don’t get too frazzled by Loydo’s comments David.
He / she can’t comprehend what even his own comrades fallaciously assert about global warming causing more catastrophic bushfires.
“Frazzled” is the extremely wrong word.
If Griff is like a batting practice pitcher, Loydo would be a batting practice pitcher who doesn’t know in which direction home plate is relative to the pitching mound.
The average temperature at Summit station was about -30 °C from 1987-2000.
Loydo pitches with his foot
Where does “since 2008” come from?
“Since 2008” comes from the hourly temperature measurements since 2008.
Your case rests on “this warm”, but it looks like – even from a single site, on top of an ice cap – 2 or 3 degrees warmer now than your -30.
Ironically, you’re demonstrating the headline is not far off.
Your original question was about this graph:
The average temperature at Summit Station is still about -30 °C, just as it was in the 1990’s. It has been intermittently warmer than this over the past 5,000 years.
GISP2 and Summit Station provide a continuous high resolution (annual) temperature record over the entire Holocene. Unlike multi-proxy hockey sticks, there is little, if any, inconsistency in the resolution.
Arctic see ice extent has also been intermittently lower than it currently is over the past 5,000 years.
3 million years is very far off from 5,000 years.
Arctic was almost certainly MUCH warmer for the first 9000+ years of the Holocene.
Didn’t these guys do a literature review ?
If they did, how do they account for their gross INCOMPETENCE. ?
How did they possibly become professors in anything, let alone geoscience.
It absolutely hasn’t see this little ice since the end of the Milankovitch cycle caused Eemian ice free summers.
Griff. You get funnier and more fact free everyday
We keep the Griffer around for laughs…
I have a theory that griff is really Anthony Watt. He just does an occasional troll post to stir things up. I notice every griff post us followed by dozens of counter-posts. Don’t feed the trolls. 🙂
I wouldn’t call Griff a “troll.” Trolls are generally unpleasant. Griff is more like a batting practice pitcher… 😉
more like a “wack-a-mole”
except a wack-a-mole has at least 10 time the intelligence.
The fictional Grifter is the brilliant work of our beloved moderator Charles Rotten, who has driven page views here to record levels — “To the moon”, according to Mr. Rotten. He writes Grifter comments that no climate skeptic can resist while sitting his his special office chair (a reupholstered bar stool) in his favorite seedy bar (near the docks). By his side is his always present “cousin”, Bambi Galore, with a figure like an hourglass. Although Mr. Rotten seems more interested in a martini glass, than an hourglass. Ms. Galore is in charge of Mr. Rotten’s office supplies (gin, vermouth and olives), and lifting Mr. Rotten off th floor after he passes his tipping point, and has fallen to the floor. … After the bar … er … cocktail lounge … Mr. Rotten goes to the opera, where he “sleeps it off” for a few hours. At the end of the opera, Mr. Rotten, and all the other men there, wake up, and stumble towards their cars.
Moderator Bait
Arctic sea ice extent was about the same as now in the 1930s and ‘40s. It was lower in the Holocene Climatic Optimum, Egyptian, Minoan, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, the Eemian and all prior Pleistocene interglacials.
Its summer minimum was lower in 2012.
I think you meant the end of the last interglacial cycle. Since we are headed to the end of this interglacial, you would expect the arctic summer ice to be lower and decreasing. Just as arctic ice decreases the most near the end of summer not at the peak of summer.
First off… Why does Griff’s comment make me think of Pinocchio in Shrek 2?
Griff…
It most certainly am has!
Here’s an example from the Chukchi Sea:
The current sea ice condition at this location is seasonal ice extent (PIP25 0.5 to 0.7). The Chukchi Sea absolutely has seen this little ice, and less, since a few hundred years ago.
The Arctic was probably ice-free during summer for most of the Holocene up until about 1,000 years ago. McKay et al., 2008 demonstrated that the modern Arctic sea ice cover is anomalously high and the Arctic summer sea surface temperature is anomalously low relative to the rest of the Holocene.
Over most of the Holocene, >50% sea ice coverage occurred from 5.5 to 9 months each year. During the “Anthropocene”, >50% sea ice coverage has ranged from 9 to 12 months each year.
All of the sediment cores around the current summer ice edge exhibit similar patterns. The Arctic has seen less ice over most of the Holocene.
David, you know Griff doesn’t read facts.
“The Arctic was probably ice-free during summer for most of the Holocene up until about 1,000 years ago. ”
Did all the polar bears die?
They turned brown… 😉
David,
Did you realize that polar bears are the answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx?
When first born, they crawl around on all four legs.
When they get older they have to stand up on their hind legs to get milk.
From then on as adults until they die, while they are hunting they walk around on three legs, keeping one paw in front of their nose so that the black nose doesn’t give them away to their intended prey. 🙂
So… There used to be polar bears in Egypt? 😉
David
No, the bears took a Greek holiday when all the ice melted.
https://www.pitt.edu/~edfloyd/Class1130/sphinx.html
The beach remnants in the arctic circle can only be post glacial phase or formed during the Holocene so they give clear evidence of ice free periods during the last 10k years.
I think there might also be at least one sediment core near the North Pole which indicates ice free conditions in the Early Holocene.
Here we go…
https://www.pnas.org/content/117/42/26069
PS87/070-03 and PS87/079-3 were ice free during summer 5,000-7,000 years ago. PS87/079-3 only had ~4 months/yr of ice cover 5,000 yrs ago.
Griff
It absolutely hasn’t see this little ice since the end of the Milankovitch cycle caused Eemian ice free summers.
Yes, correct. That was ~125-130,000 years ago, not 3 million.
the Arctic hasn’t been this warm in 3 million years.
There’s a cynical calculation behind such statements. Those saying them either know them to be untrue, or are totally uncurious or ignorant of palaeo climate in general. They know that most of Joe Public regards scientists as autistic wierdo’s that they can afford to ignore, so they can just make up statements about past climate with no risk. “Risk statements” (lies) become no risk because the majority are pig ignorant and apathetic to scientific reality and activists can cynically exploit that fact. The “science” that activists refer to as if it validates their own extremist Khmer Vert positions is nothing remotely related to science at all, but a monstrous fabrication of wishful politicised pseudoscience. It is no more science than the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was democratic.
Those claiming to be “climate scientists” (a false claim unless they have degrees in oceanography) are extremely patchy in their knowledge. They often have exquisite knowledge of computer models of atmospheric IR photon interactions, for instance. But the casual innaccurate generalisations they fire off at will about past climate means that they have neither interest nor curiosity not any real knowledge of palaeo climate. They find it safe to just make it up.
Excellent, Phil; you should get recognition for that comment. Well said.
Antarctic sea ice yesterday was the 11th highest in the satellite record. Only two higher were in the last century, ie 1979-2000: 1998 and 1980. The other eight were all in this century: 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014 (record high summer maximum year).
Please explainn how higher CO2 causes less Arctic sea ice but more Antarctic.
Thanks!
I blame it on Guam tipping over.
How many times do I have to tell you? It’s because carbon dioxide is upside down in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s a gravitational effect.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
phil: Does co2 also swirl clockwise when it goes down the drain with the grant $ in SH?
I learned that on a tv documentary about “The Simpsons.”
@DM “Griff is more like a batting practice pitcher…” or perhaps the IIHS Crash test dummy, Griff appears to be a masochism.
Look at the growing of the last days:
10 21 5.409 #NV #NV 70
10 22 5.501 #NV #NV 92
10 23 5.640 #NV #NV 139
10 24 5.685 #NV #NV 45
10 25 5.830 #NV #NV 145
10 26 5.913 #NV #NV 83
10 27 6.017 #NV #NV 104
10 28 6.198 #NV #NV 181
10 29 6.497 #NV #NV 299
10 30 6.685 #NV #NV 188
10 31 6.872 #NV #NV 187
11 1 7.263 #NV #NV 391
11 2 7.518 #NV #NV 255
11 3 7.822 #NV #NV 304
11 4 7.967 #NV #NV 145
11 5 8.151 #NV #NV 184
Where is griff REJOICING about the rapid sea ice growth?
Griff, the current level of sea ice is far above the norm of the last 10,000 years.
When are you going to get that FACT through your empty little pee sized brain.
Arctic sea ice all year around like in the LIA and late 1970s i NOT A GOOD THING for anybody of anything.
Hey griff, did you know that Arctic sea ice just had its FASTEST weekly growth since 1988 at least !
One HECK OF A LOT of sea ice up there , isn’t there griff !!
Meanwhile, the Arctic has just has its FASTEST weekly growth in extent since at least 1988.
(NSIDC data before that is in two day steps)
It was higher yesterday than on that date in 2016.
Related – the Greenland Surface Mass Budget is tracking slightly above the 1981-2010 mean so far this season.
http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/surface/SMB_curves_LA_EN_20201105.png
What Arctic?
I thought all the Arctic ice melted.
Perfesser Albert “the climate blimp” Gore told me so.
Yeah and the ice is early this year in Hudson Bay and the rolly polly polar bears are headed out to the ice. Duh.
“Warm” in everybody’s minds is t-shirt weather, sunglasses and sunscreen, sandals, and gushing meltwater coming out of the hillsides. So, one other element of “can’t fix stupid” here is how these kinds of articles keep coming out when the Arctic sea ice at this time of the year is expanding, the sun is annoyingly dim on the horizon if it is seen at all, and pretty much everything north of the Hudson Bay isn’t likely to go over the freezing mark until next June. “Hasn’t been this warm…..” …. relative to what?
60 years ago traveling by train to London in the winter I remember that for the last 2 hour’s coming into London I could see zero ( nothing) outside of the window, it was Smog (not fog ) coal fired heating the train, coal fired industry, coal fired, blow your nose in London look at the black s*””t. In your hand yep Co2 … progress , the stupid, will kill us all not Co2.
David always a well-researched article despite the Atmospheric Bias implications. Never had the opportunity to study Geology as you have mastered, so I’m offering this as 50 year experience Prof. Chemical Engineer who specialized in energy and related fields and have been a debunker of CAGW for 27 years.
The work by J. E. Kamis indicates that the Arctic’s geological features are undergoing significant change. Critics envision these geologic features as inactive, slightly active, active within limited areas, or emitting minimal amounts of heated chemically charged fluids (HCFs). Significant amount of data by Kamis, numerous research studies and observations indicate that the Arctic’s geological features are in fact very active and emitting massive amounts of HCFs into the Artic Region oceans, bedrock, and atmosphere (Carmack 2012). Evidence supporting this idea is abundant, reliable and convincing.
Major geological features of the Artic Region:
• Greenland/ Iceland Mantle Plume
• Mid-Artic Rift System
• Baffin Bay/Labrador Rift System
• Aleutian Island/ Kamchatka Convergent Plate Boundary
All these geologic features are proven emitters of significant amounts of HCFs. Specific examples are provided in Kamis’s website plateclimatology.com along with maps which I did not provide as I don’t want to violate copyright provisions. Why are you and others ignoring this information??
It is too hot on the feet to stand in the pool at Cheena Hot Springs AK.
Two “Geoscience” professors from Amherst engaging in “Large Left-Lateral Leaps of Logic”, nothing new there. David, I saw another Ron White clip about the “14 foot grizzly”, not suitable for sensitive persons, however. Keep up the good work.
I’m “not suitable for sensitive persons”… 😉
aah come on David don’t be so modest
There can be no more than 7000 currently not even there. The Bible only corroborates it. Your Pelio timeline corroborates billions of years. That is way off. There are reasons for that that you have not and refuse to take into account. That is the huge earthquake in Peleg’s day and the flooding of the earth in Noah’s day. Where the water came from and the impact of not having it in the place that it was, and such like.
As usual, it is the “Greens” that do not know any science whatsoever!
Melanie’s first name means “Blackie”, so Anarchist as well as Enviro.
Do you think there is more than one way to interpret the Bible?
Do you believe someone who doesn’t accept your view of the age of the Earth can be saved.
Never let facts get in the way of a research grant. Or, if you prefer, choose Truth over facts.
Mid-Eemian CO2 300 ppm from leaf stomata:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818105000998
Okay, so the people who make this claim were THERE making notes, taking readings and measurements, and managing somehow to not be turned into lunch by paleo-birds and paleo-mammals?
Okay, whatever, but they could at least supply photos of their trip, couldn’t they? Did they get Dr. Who to give them a ride in the Tardis? Just askin’, because I would love a trip like that. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to their “stuff”.
It’s all a sprinkling of Low resolution Proxie dust cast over a vast expanse of archaic suppositions
Don’t forget the bone rattle. Every good witch doctor uses a bone rattle in conjunction with proxy dust to get the desired result.
Ah! As I always suspected!
1 – As far as I can tell, the wording attributed to Brigham-Grette and Petche doesn’t exist in the linked article at The Conversation. A word search for That means the Arctic gets no hits. I wonder if the wording at the top of this article was produced by some PR flack rather than the two scientists. I would also hope the title isn’t their fault.
2 – As far as I can tell, Brigham-Grette and Petche make a major mistake when they talk about why atmospheric CO2 levels were what they were three million years ago. They acknowledge that the oceans were warmer and then appear to ignore the fact that the oceans couldn’t hold as much CO2 because of that.
link It’s Henry’s Law. They should know that. I presume they do. So why do they appear to ignore it?
It was there yesterday. They must have edited it. I should have taken screenshots.
The wording is still in the version on EarthSky…
https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-warmest-3-million-years
Oh wow. No matter what they do now, this has to be a serious hit to their professional reputations. Sadly, as Dr. Mann has amply demonstrated, that could be the key to greater accolades and riches.
Many things in the west have become corrupt, science included. Global warming is no threat to civilization, corruption is. Defund the universities.
The cure for Universities:
Ensign Ripley, Aliens
David,
The Wayback Machine doesn’t record the article as ever having those words:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://theconversation.com/the-arctic-hasnt-been-this-warm-for-3-million-years-and-that-foreshadows-big-changes-for-the-rest-of-the-planet-144544
Of course, The Conversation may have added them at some stage and then removed them again, but it’s most likely the words are from the EarthSky piece.
The title is still correct.
I found the title with ordinary google, and they even have a French edition of the paper with the same 3 million year.
Maybe for Macron?
The title wasn’t changed. This sentence appears to have been deleted from the original article:
Click your snow shoes together three times and repeat:
Warmer is better, warmer is better, warmer is better.
Completely O/T:
Anyone else getting consistent “505 Internal Server Error” over at Jo’s?
Yes, but not for longer times, it’s about minutes only, but long loading time
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are higher than at any time in human history. The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations reached today’s level – about 412 parts per million – was 3 million years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch. That means the Arctic hasn’t been this warm in 3 million years.
This is a fine example of why climate science epistemology is broken.
(Epistemology means the science of logic and truth.)
It is a case of linear catholic logic and extreme inductivism.
Linear catholic logic is “if A then B, if B then C, …”. It’s an extreme form of inductivism which is contrary to the philosophy of science as expounded by Karl Popper, Hume etc.
Induction (if A then B, if B then C) is useful for hypothesis creation – they must then be tested – but actual discovery of what is true and what is not requires deduction, not induction. Do the data bear out the hypothesis or not? Can the hypothesis even be tested? If not, it’s not science. (Sorry Steve, really, it’s not.)
So here they first say CO2 is highest in several million years. Granted.
Then they assume that global temperature is directly correlated to CO2 level the way gravitation is correlated to mass. This is false.
With this implicit assumption, they then believe that the highest CO2 level in 3 million years automatically means the highest temperature in 3 million years.
Then they don’t even check this assumption against observational data (that abundantly refutes it). They just smoothly traverse from “highest CO2 in 3 million years” to “highest temperature in 3 million years” thinking that both statements are essentially identical.
That’s the cognitive and logical fallacy at the heart of this mis-statement, and it’s a serious one.
The title of the article may be dumb, but it made you read the article, didn’t it? 😉
Imagine being taught by these two Bozos. Now imagine they are all pretty much that dumb.
Education: Fail.
You’re assuming it’s stupidity, and not willful propaganda.
Both, probably.
I think we can conclude this about current day climate science on the Arctic:
“There hasn’t been this much smelly crap about the Arctic since the Wooly Mammoths were roaming there.”
I love reading arguments among scientists. As a lawyer, I thought only those in my profession were capable of causing such confusion with such self confidence. Your arguments with each other are, therefore, oddly comforting. But I am compelled to reach the same conclusion about the state of the scientific community that screenwriter William Goldman (RIP) did about people in Hollywood years ago: “No one knows anything.” Sure, there are some basic facts underlying all the arguments that are accepted by almost everyone (except Melanie), but beyond that minimum level of agreement it is a free-for-all. Maybe Melanie is right after all.
“No one knows anything.”
The Science definitely is not settled, no matter what the Alarmists say.
The alarmists do hold their opinions with self-confidence, but none of their opinions are based on facts, they are based on unsubstantiated assumptions.
The whole Human-caused Climate Change fiasco has no foundation. It’s proponents can’t even tell us how much warmth a doubling of the level of CO2 will add to the Earth’s atmosphere.
If you are going to claim that CO2 heats the Earths atmosphere, you should be required to tell us by how much. The current state of climate science can’t tell us this number. Yet, the alarmists act as though they know the number.
Mass Delusion plays a big part in all this. It is a real phenomenon fed by the Mass Media who are creating the delusions and distributing them to the masses.
Millions of people brainwashed into believing things that are not true. This causes them to do foolish things like voting against their own self interests by electing authoritarian Democrats. That being the purpose and goal of the Mass Media brainwashing the public.
We may have reached Critical Mass and hit our highest level of stupidity yet in the general population. Idiocracy and worse, to follow.
Melanie is not right that Earth is 7000 years old and suffered a global flood higher than all mountains about 4500 years ago.
Those baseless assertions are easily shown false.
But, yes, real science requires consent disagreement.
Melanie’s assertion that the earth is 7000 years old is indeed outrageous, it can’t possibly be that old. No – as the IPCC has established, the earth was created in 1850, along with the instrumental global temperature record.
David,
You remarked, “The sad thing is that this was apparently written by two geoscience professors.” I’m afraid nothing is sacred. Today’s crop of ‘scientists’ appear to have problems with thinking problems through and applying logic to their pronouncements — along with a handicap of limited experience outside of academia.
For example, see https://scitechdaily.com/past-is-key-to-predicting-future-climate-models-should-be-tested-by-simulating-past-climates/ . You might find my comments at the bottom of the article to be of interest.
The same author has a not-too-flattering photo in another recent article, showing her in her cowgirl line-dancing hat, along with a tatoo probably from when she served in the Coast Guard Reserve. 🙂
https://scitechdaily.com/how-cold-was-the-last-ice-age-researchers-have-now-mapped-the-temperature-differences-across-the-globe/
She was born the year I left teaching and started my remote sensing career.
All this science is readily available to the authors so it’s money, of course. Shameful.
“The Arctic was “this warm” or warmer over most of the past 10,000 years”
The problem is that none of your graphs or data series have an entry showing “this warm”. They are ice core data which end, for GISP2 at least, in about 1855. They do not show modern warming, and certainly not the very recent warm spell that the professors are writing about. You have added a blue line said to be a recent annual average temperature of somewhere, maybe the summit station. That air temperature would depend a lot on where you measured (eg altitude), and there is no basis for treating it as a point in the ice core series.
The blue line is the current average annual temperature at Summit Station.
Kobashi goes to up to the 1990’s and ties into Summit Station.
The Summit Station is at 72°N, and of course the highest altitude on the ice sheet. Most of the ice core data is from about 65°N and at lower altitudes. There is no reason to believe that the Summit Station can be treated as the curent value of the ice core data. It would be much colder.
Try to follow along. I will type slowly.
From the top of the Arctic:
GISP2 and GRIP were drilled at Summit Station.
The average temperature since 2008 has been about −30 °C.
Kobashi extends GISP2 into the 1990’s.
To the bottom of the Arctic:
Over most of the Holocene, >50% sea ice coverage occurred from 5.5 to 9 months each year. During the “Anthropocene”, >50% sea ice coverage has ranged from 9 to 12 months each year.
“The blue line is the current average annual temperature at Summit Station.”
No it isn’t, it’s the early ’90s average according your Wiki citation.
Shuman et al. 1998
Sea ice is generally at or near sea level. Here’s an example from the Chukchi Sea:
The current sea ice condition at this location is seasonal ice extent (PIP25 0.5 to 0.7). The Chukchi Sea absolutely has seen this little ice, and less, since a few hundred years ago.
The Arctic was probably ice-free during summer for most of the Holocene up until about 1,000 years ago. McKay et al., 2008 demonstrated that the modern Arctic sea ice cover is anomalously high and the Arctic summer sea surface temperature is anomalously low relative to the rest of the Holocene.
Over most of the Holocene, >50% sea ice coverage occurred from 5.5 to 9 months each year. During the “Anthropocene”, >50% sea ice coverage has ranged from 9 to 12 months each year.
All of the sediment cores around the current summer ice edge exhibit similar patterns. The Arctic has seen less ice over most of the Holocene.
Global warming is being pushed for one reason- Those doing so intend to gain a monopoly in the long john market.
‘Arctic (70-90N) monthly surface air temperature anomalies (HadCRUT4) since January 1920’:
“The Arctic hasn’t been this warm for 3 million years”
Who the heck cares? If it has been warmer in the past, then it was a natural process making it warm and the same natural process(es) can do so again.
The only thing constant in nature is change. Why do people become so hyper-focused on nature continuing to change? Why does ANYONE think the temperature 100 years ago (or 1,000, or 10,000) was the perfect natural temperature? I happen to think a further greening of Alaska and longer growing seasons will be good for wild animals.
So I guess that U Mass Amherst is hiring political operatives and calling them “professors of geosciences.”
I bet they haven’t a clue about real scientific geology or paleogeology, or, of course, the scientific method.
Terrible what our young people have to put up with these days. Very high tuition to learn stupidity.
I think they’re actually very good at the science… They just aren’t very good at coming up with titles for articles that aren’t dumber than schist.
Actually you can just make stuff up about the Arctic today, because nobody is going to go there to corroborate it. Is Bill McKibben ever going to go the Arctic to see for himself? I doubt it. You could tell me that there is a Ramada Inn in Tuktoyaktuk and I’d believe you.
The previous Eemian interglacial 130-120 kya, also had and early optimum then a late decline in temperature. Then at the very end of the interglacial about 123 kya it experienced a sharp warming spike. Just like we’re having now, near the end of our own interglacial. According to Hearty et al 2007:
http://350.me.uk/TR/Hansen/GlobalSeauow045009.pdf
No one knows why this end-interglacial warming spike happened near the termination of the Eemian and now close to the termination of the Holocene. It certainly is not connected with CO2. Indeed throughout deep time atmospheric CO2 concentration tends to continue increasing for several centuries or millennia after glacial inception. This even happened at the inception of the end-Ordovician glaciation:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S003101821000115X
We must choose temperature over CO2.
Come on!
Close down the warming not the virus.
No, close down the virus not the… you know the thing.
Ah yes, ‘professors’ from a Massachusetts party school. Just like manniacal is employed at a Pennsylvania party school
And here we observe the respected party school professors leap from alleged correlation right into causation.
No proof.
No evidence.
Ignores the evidence for increased water vapor in the Arctic, put there by repeated El Nino pulses.
That is, no rationale except for alarmist devotions.
Great article David!
Thanks David
CLICK BAIT TITLE is required . So the fuss over Arctic ice using data from a place called Greenland gets legs.
Read the “Glacier Girl” article. Cool.
When did large scale vineyards start in Greenland? Hello google.
The Conversation is a publication where academics get to be Marxist for a day. They can make up whatever they want provided the editing Kommissars are impressed they’re promoting the correct political line. The Conversation is full of Stalinist nonsense on climate change.