Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Tallbloke; According to researchers working in the Paracel Islands, the modern warming period began in 1825, before anthropogenic CO2 could possibly have had any effect on the global climate.
Climate change: global warming may have started before industrial revolution, Chinese study says
Investigation of coral reefs in the Paracel Islands suggest the South China Sea began warming up in 1825, researchers sayUranium dating shows samples have a continuous climate record going back to 1520
Stephen Chen in Beijing
Published: 9:30pm, 7 Feb, 2021
Why you can trust SCMPStudies of coral reefs in the Paracel Islands suggest that the South China Sea started warming up in 1825, at the start of the industrial revolution, according to a study by Chinese scientists.
That was the year the world’s first railway began operating in England and most ocean-going ships still used wind power.
Man-made carbon dioxide emissions could not fully explain such an early rise in the warming trend, they said in a peer-reviewed paper published in Quaternary Sciences on Friday.
The Paracel coral record “will fill in some important gaps in global high resolution marine environment records and help us better understand the history of environmental change in tropical waters”, said the researchers, led by Tao Shichen from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology.
…
Read more: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3120897/climate-change-global-warming-may-have-started-industrial
I can’t find a link to the study so if anyone finds one please post it in the comments.
The Paracel Islands, like the better known Spratly Islands, are a contested territory in the South China Sea and a potential future geopolitical flashpoint.
If Tao Shichen’s team is correct, this study adds to the evidence that the modern warming has a significant natural forcing component.
Perfect – science is settled – go get those drilling rigs and let’s get back to work towards energy independence (again)
Whoa there Nelly! “Chinese study says …”. The PLA are playing 3-dimensional chess and y’all fired the 4-dimensional Chess Master. Beware of Chinks bearing gifts, it may be just more PLANdemic.
Beware the communist-socialist-fascist axis bearing gifts.
This is likely about right. The last Thames Ice Fair in London was in 1814, something I have used to anchor the end of the LIA and the beginning of the modern warming out of it. This new finding is half a world away in a very different climate, but only a decade later.
As posted here before, even AR4 in SPM1 fig4 admitted there was natural variability, as the warming prior to 1950 (especially ~1920-1945) cannot be explained as anthropogenic. There simply was not enough rise in CO2. The IPCC problem is they cannot now claim natural variability stopped in 1975, when the most recent rise (indistinguishable from 1920-1945) started.
I fully agree. It should be bleeding obvious.
Rud, as an acknowledged polymath, you know mountains of stuff, but as a born-and-bred Londoner, I feel the need to add some details that even you might not know.
The Thames ice fairs were, as we all know, due to the Little Ice Age climate allowing the river to freeze in cold winters. But there’s another reason why they were possible – old London Bridge, which was built in 1176 and finally replaced by the “new” London Bridge, with its three graceful arches in 1825 (the “new” London Bridge was taken down in about 1970 and shipped to Arizona, where it was rebuilt and now crosses Lake Havasu).
The old bridge had multiple narrow arches, and the piers had these platforms around them, made of timber pilings filled with gravel, presumably to protect them against ice. The Thames is about 700 feet wide, but the actual combined width of channel was a fraction of that. The Thames is a tidal estuary throughout London, and the constriction of the narrow arches allowed the upstream part of the river to retain more fresh water, while downstream was more saline. Once the old bridge was removed, tidal currents were unrestricted, the water was more saline, and the tidal rise and fall were greater. All of which made the formation of stable thick ice unlikely.
The Thames still freezes over on the coldest winters, but it’s never thick enough to hold a fair on.
I have known about yourThames counter assertion since forever.
Does not matter, since I only referenced the last ice Fair at that point in time, NOT as its later bridges may have changed the flow.
Yes. The Thames in central London was a lot wider in earlier times, as the sides were reclaimed through the 19th century the tidal flow was faster as well.
There are photos of frozen parts with people walking on Thames from the early 1960s
The modern warming is entirely man made. The adjustments are highly correlated with CO2. Remove the adjustments and there is ZERO trend over the last century on any reliable record.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=085096&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13
One of the long records in Australia without the data fiddling. BoM do not publish anything before 1920 because they claim it was unreliable – the arrogance to make such a claim shows their disdain for the pioneers of their profession.
Global warming in Australia got a comprehensive boost with the change to electronic instruments that could capture the exhaust temperature of jet engines.
Alpine glaciers suggest similar time frame beginning their stepwise retreat about 1856
Atlantic Ocean is a very delicate balance from an energy perspective. It is constantly on the verge of not making it to the 30C set point. Today the maximum is a lousy 28C.
Any claim of global cooling or warming needs to include the Indian Ocean as well as the Pacific.
I hardly count a little river on a little island in the north Atlantic as representative of anything to do with the globe. Likewise a few mountain ranges surrounding the North Atlantic.
In fact the whole of the northern hemisphere is near insignificant when it comes to the global energy balance. 89% of the Southern Hemisphere is water – that counts from an energy perspective.
So tell me what the temperature was at 45S, 179E on 8 Feb 1850. If you can verify a record for that showing it is cooler than the last decade then I will agree that the earth’s surface has warmed since 1850.
Show any record that it’s not.
It’s the climate scientologists making wild claims, it’s you that needs to prove it.
Rickwill calls BS
It’s up to you to prove him wrong
Pat from Kerbob,
How do you disprove someone when doing so requires finding a temperature record from a single day in 1850 at a specific a point in the South Pacific ocean that is over 300 miles offshore from Christchurch New Zealand? Setting such a standard of proof is a logical fallacy that discredits his claim.
SH surface is 81% liquid water; NH 61%, yielding global mean of 71%. If you add in the water ice on Antarctica, glaciers and winter snow, maybe 89% is right.
I presently live a few blocks from the subtropical, western South Pacific.
Global glacier retreat data show this to be true. Glaciers retreated from as early as 1840 – 1860, sea level rise (Jevrejeva 2014) also agrees. IPCC forcings are net negative until the start of the C20th. They have to be to drive the low frequency climate model response to agree with the temp record which only warms from around 1910. There is a serious discrepancy between sea level and glacial retreat data (suggesting warming onset as early as 1840 – 1860 and temp data (which shows warming post-1900).
In 2006 we visited 65 mile long Glacier Bay in Alaska and were handed a chart showing the melting of the 65 mile long glacier which originally completely occupied it as documented by the early mariners who kept updating their charts of the area. The melting had started by the year 1800 when transportation was by horse, foot and wooden sailing vessel and the population of the earth was 1/7 or less of that today. So if we caused that melting back then, tell me how we can stop it today, with 7 times or so population plus airplanes and autos, etc., which were essentially non-existent prior to the year 1900.
If global warming is a problem, as claimed, we are doomed.
Reality – it is NOT a problem and is naturally caused. See “Unstoppable Global Warming” by Singer and Avery. I have read that book, checked their references, found additional references, and spent the 14 years since that visit studying the matter and listening to what both sides have been claiming. Also see “Climate Change in Prehistory” by Burroughs, with an appendix containing about 270 scientific references.
I saw a similar receding glacier description (from the 1800s) at the Athabasca Glacier in Canada several years ago.
It is Mann made
Rick, I think most of the warming over the past couple hundred years has been centered around the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, it is real and part natural and part due to human agricultural factors. The driver of that warming has been increases in ocean salinity.
Take a look at the physics of water you’ve been hyping for months now. It changes as the salinity changes. Also add in a little positive feedback from the Arctic. CO2 is not a factor.
I think this article may be BS.
The article is supposed to be published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, but I can’t find evidence on their website of this paper. It may be they just haven’t published the paper yet.
Before embracing this study, we need more information
It might just be they haven’t updated their website yet, had that happen before. I think it is unlikely SCMP would completely fabricate a story like this.
Before Hong Kong fell, you’d be right. They are now a CCP mouthpiece. Of course they will make up information saying that humans don’t contribute to global warming when the party wants to poison water, earth, and air without international scrutiny.
Possibly, I just think a little caution is called for.
Their mouths claim the heavens and their tongues claim the earth …
But I have seen their final destiny
Psalm 73
That is a biblical reference I had never met before.
Interesting to read the whole psalm in both King James and the more modern form…
…I am more familiar with modern vernacular.
Jack Brabham, motor racing driver and team manager
“When the flag drops, the bullshit stops”.
Without any more info, this is simply another ‘tree-ring’ study
Trees are not thermometers and why should coral be.
How long did this this growth spurt last for?
There have got to be, there are, myriad things that would influence coral growth
Are you really sure there were no volcanoes? Especially as small ones local to these islands would pump the water full of fertiliser.
Wouldn’t even have needed to be a ‘classic’ volcano – how’s about an epic blast of sulphurous stuff mixed (surely Shirley) with Iron that never even broke the surface or created any visible/obvious atmospheric smut.
Lets face it, Parcel Island is less than miniscule, blink and you miss it.
and four samples. is that it?
Parcel island really is small
I could do Climate Science like this. I do it all the time in fact
Being extremely brave and selfless, I will take off and out into my exotic far-flung garden paradise, right now.
Straight into into the teeth of the hideous horrendous Amber Snow Warning Ice Storm Abandoned Cars Trashed Pedestrians Broken Mobiles Failed Bus Services (so what’s new) Actual Train Wrecking Storm Stormy-MacStormface and find a couple of
pebblesGolden Nuggets of Prehistory, carefully previously excavated from Great Depths (more than 6 inches. maybe) below The Surface, by my friendly local mowdy.(I’ll make that four pebbles to be really sure of my 15 minutes of fame)
Careful examination will reveal traces of Obtanium and thus clearly demonstrate ‘Climate Change’
Maybe whisper me first so I know what sort of climate you want – we gotta get this right.
This is Real Science we’re doing here 😀
I think a little investigation will show you that temperatures from coral are in no way comparable to temperatures from tree rings. Very different basis, very different physics.
Trees respond to differences in water years. Corals are surrounded by water, unless sea level drops.
there are more proxies suggesting that the warming up started earlier. in fact, the ice core data is one of the “latest proxies” pointing out it was really global. but that it is recorded at it’s latest there may be a result of “lag”. There are quite a few regions that suggest it’s start around the 1830’s
There has been no warming for over 120 years. If you select locations controlled for water vapor and UHI, you will find no warming. Here is a list of 175 Stations that show no warming.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/02/uah-global-temperature-update-for-january-2021-0-12-deg-c-new-base-period/#comment-609730
Here is one of my favorite examples: Use the Unadjusted Data
Alice Springs (23.8S, 133.88E) ID:501943260000
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show_v3.cgi?id=501943260000&dt=1&ds=5
Nice to know that the Chinese interest in these islands is purely for scientific research.
I love it when modern science breathlessly discovers what we’ve always known to be true!
No sh1t, Sherlock!
So, it’s worse than we though…
Its bloody obvious – that it never was about climate!
Global Warming started whenever it started getting warmer – regardless of the CO2 in the air. And it will end when the next cooling period begins, and start again sometime after that again independent of the CO2 in the air.
This is how natural cycles work. It is incredible that so-called “climate scientists” think everything is so simple and controlled by a trace atmospheric gas.
Now…Global greening on the other hand, that IS dramatically impacted by the amount of free CO2 in the atmosphere, and it’s a good thing.
Human beings are plants’ solution to their own waste problem. All those dead trees and stuff locking up all that that carbon! How to get it back from where it was under ground? Invent Humans! We labour to liberate CO2 to serve our Plant Masters. Greta Thunberg is Godless and against the Great Chlorophyll’s Plan! She should be sacrificed and made into fish, blood and bone fertilizer, Praise the Green Man!
I question the claim since 80% of the solution to all of life’s problems back then was “burn it”.
Massive wood cooking fires, burning crops, burning garbage, etc. None of it done anywhere near efficiently either.
Would be interesting to see a work-up done on the per-person carbon footprint from 1824 vs today.
There was maybe 1 billion people on earth and carbon footprint was basically some wood and cow dung, all carbon neutral by the way
So footprint was mostly zero compared to today
“That was the year the world’s first railway began operating in England “
Now we know who to blame. It’s all the fault of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
(Not actually the first.
https://www.railserve.com/stats_records/railroad_firsts.html )
I thought global warming started sometime near the half way mark of this ice age?
If global warming started in 1825 why is there a cooling trend over the first 70 years of the HadCRUT global temperature record, 1850-1930?
https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/to:1930/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl
80 years, even. Tut.
roflmao
What is truly hilarious , is that you think HadCrud global temperatures have any sort of accuracy..
…. when before 1950 there was very little thermometer coverage of 70% of the globe’s surface.
Heck even by 2003 they only had <20% of the southern oceans covered !
Think it was Phil Jones who admitted that SH ocean temperature are basically just “MADE UP” !
Okay Freddie, we’ll dismiss a peer reviewed global temperature data set and instead rely on this ‘Chinese study’ that we can’t even find a link to.
You can make up any story you are happy with, corroded one.
FACTS are meaningless to you anyway. !
Jones admitted to heating SSTs so that they’d jibe with the artificially warmed land surface temperatures.
Because it’s wrong. Intentionally.
The year 1930 was in the middle of the strong, early 20th century warming, which ended around 1945. The warming cycle has been cooled in the adjusted “data”.
That early 20th century warming was preceded by a turn of the century cooling, which made up for the warming cycle of c, 1850-80.
Well firstly your plot and the line show zero slope over the perid you choes – not cooling! Eyeballing the chart you linked to, the warming commences around 1910.
But here are four issues to answer:
Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs
Gray 2004 reconstruction of the AMO tends to agree
I’m not sure but I believe the paper was published in April 2020:
Coral δ18O-based reconstruction of El Niño-Southern Oscillation from the northern south China sea since 1851 AD
And can be downloaded here
Cue “It’s a local phenomenon”?
Here are 175 Stations that show no warming since 1900. If you control for the Urban Heat Island and Water Vapor, you get no warming. The only warming you find is if it is created by non-CO2 sources.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/06/the-problem-with-climate-models/#comment-3178323