Posted on 03/01/2010 11:43:37 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Editor's Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum. Before that came the "Medieval Warm Period", in which temperatures were about the same as they are today. Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent. Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily "global".
However, "Global Warming" in recent historical times has been an undisputable fact, and no one can reasonably deny that.
But we're hearing far too often that the "science" is "settled", and that it is mankind's contribution to the natural CO2 in the atmosphere has been the principal cause of an increasing "Greenhouse Effect", which is the root "cause" of global warming. We're also hearing that "all the world's scientists now agree on this settled science", and it is now time to quickly and most radically alter our culture, and prevent a looming global catastrophe. And last, but not least, we're seeing a sort of mass hysteria sweeping our culture which is really quite disturbing. Historians ponder how the entire nation of Germany could possibly have goose-stepped into place in such a short time, and we have similar unrest. Have we become a nation of overnight loonies?
Sorry folks, but we're not exactly buying into the Global Hysteria just yet. We know a great deal about atmospheric physics, (bio) and from the onset, many of the claims were just plain fishy. The extreme haste with which seemingly the entire world immediately accepted the idea of Anthropogenic ( man-made ) Global Warming made us more than a little bit suspicious that no one had really taken a close look at the science. We also knew that the catch-all activity today known as "Climate Science" was in its infancy, and that atmospheric modeling did not and still does not exist which can predict changes in the weather or climate more than about a day or two in advance.
So the endless stream of dire predictions of what was going to happen years or decades from now if we did not drastically reduce our CO2 production by virtually shutting down the economies of the world appeared to be more the product of radical political and environmental activism rather than science. Thus, we embarked on a personal quest for more information, armed with a strong academic background in postgraduate physics and a good understanding of the advanced mathematics necessary in such a pursuit.
This fundamental knowledge of the core principles of matter and its many exceptionally complex interactions allowed us to research and understand the foundations of many other sciences. In short, we read complex scientific articles in many other scientific disciplines with relative ease and good understanding - like most folks read comic books.
As our own knowledge of "climate science" grew, so grew our doubts over the "settled science". What we found was the science was far from "settled".. in fact it was barely underway.
Good find Ernest...Thanks.
If a “Little Ice Age” isn’t good enough for the AGW hype artists humanity may just get to try a serious ice age in the next 1 or few thousand years....... that will be vastly more difficult to cope with than anything that has been suggested by even the most committed AGW fanatics.
Really, really great post - thanks!
Ping 4 Later
They could of course use the historical record to estimate temperature. The Romans used to grow grapes just south of Hadrians wall, not possible today. Even pictorial records of earlier dress styles give clues to a much warmer early period.
Saving in my ever-growing file!
Thanks you, Ernest.
ping for later
Here's the basic "hockey stick". I'm showing it because, contrary to popular skeptical belief, it did have an MWP, diluted because it attempted to be a global compilation and the MWP was most strongly felt in Europe and North America (the LIA was more evenly global). There's a lot more variability in the GISP2 core data, because Greenland is subject to a lot more variability due to the influence of the surrounding polar ocean waters. You can see in the lower plot that temps are higher from 1000-1400 than from 1400 to 1850. There was a big eruption (Kuwae) in 1452 that may have caused a pre-sunspot minimum cooling -- that dip is easy to see.
I tried to figure out what is represented by the "IPCC 1995 data", but I couldn't find it. Not a lot of information is provided at the linked Web site.
Great article.
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