Climate Cycles in China as Revealed by a Stalagmite from Buddha Cave(Journal Review)

CO2 Science Magazine ^ | July 08, 2003 | Staff

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Reference
Paulsen, D.E., Li, H.-C. and Ku, T.-L. 2003. Climate variability in central China over the last 1270 years revealed by high-resolution stalagmite records.
Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 691-701.

What was done

In the words of the authors, "high-resolution records of ð13C and ð18O in stalagmite SF-1 from Buddha Cave [33°40'N, 109°05'E] are used to infer changes in climate in central China for the last 1270 years in terms of warmer, colder, wetter and drier conditions."

What was learned

Among the climatic episodes evident in the authors' data were "those corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and 20th-century warming, lending support to the global extent of these events." Specifically, their record begins in the depths of the Dark Ages Cold Period, which ends about AD 965 with the commencement of the Medieval Warm Period, which continues to approximately AD 1475, whereupon the Little Ice Age sets in and holds sway until about AD 1825, after which the warming responsible for the Modern Warm Period begins.

With respect to hydrologic balance, the last part of the Dark Ages Cold Period was characterized as wet, followed by a dry, a wet, and another dry interval in the Medieval Warm Period, which was followed by a wet and a dry interval in the Little Ice Age, and finally a mostly wet but highly moisture-variable Modern Warm Period. Some of this latter enhanced variability is undoubtedly due to the much finer 1-year time resolution of the last 150 years of the record as compared to the 3-4-year resolution of the prior 1120 years. This most recent improved resolution thus led to the major droughts centered on AD 1835, 1878 and 1955 being very well delineated.

The authors' data also revealed a number of other cycles superimposed on the major millennial-scale cycle of temperature and the centennial-scale cycle of moisture. They attributed most of these higher-frequency cycles to cyclical solar and lunar phenomena, concluding that the summer monsoon over eastern China, which brings the region much of its precipitation, may thus "be related to solar irradiance."

What it means

Earth's climate is determined by a conglomerate of cycles within cycles within cycles within … cycles, nearly all of them totally independent of the air's CO2 concentration. Hence, to do as climate alarmists do, and call the warming of the 20th century outside the bounds of natural variability (and thus due to the concurrent rise in the air's CO2 content) is just not valid. There is nothing unusual about the Modern Warm Period, it being no more nor less than simply the most recent warm node of the millennial-scale climatic oscillation that has been operating for as long as we can determine.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

More solar corelation, less CO2 corelation.

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[Libertarianize the GOP]

ping

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.

[Carry_Okie]

More scientists who disagree with you.

IIRC CO2 Science Magazine was organized by a couple of retired scientists from the USDA/USFS. It's a reasonably reliable source.

[Leo Carpathian]

Back in medieval times it was all fault of SUVs (ooops, horses)

It is the SUN stupid! Sun is our energy source and its output fluctuates and we can do nothing about it (besides sending shipload of enviromentablists there).

[FreeTheHostages]

V-O-S-T-O-K settled this in the 90s, people

CO2 levels at a dramatic, historical high climb since the 1850s

380 ppm, as opposed to max in previous ice ages of 280 over the last half million years

those are the numbers

those are the facts

[ASOC]

But SOHO reports output of sun inceasing .05% a year for last many years, I lean to solar as explination of climate changes.

BTW - we could use more global warming up here in Alaska, I want to grow tomatoes w/o a greenhouse.

[tet68]

See, it's not Coal's fault.

[Hunble]

CO2 levels at a dramatic, historical high climb since the 1850s

AMAZING!

Obviously you have the RAW DATA to share with us? Those of us who understand the physics and have the computer skills to evaluate the information would be most interested.

Please, where can I download this raw data?

[FreeTheHostages]

BTW - we could use more global warming up here in Alaska, I want to grow tomatoes w/o a greenhouse

Good. I'm not saying global warming is definitely bad. I don't think anyone knows that.

[FreeTheHostages]

It's the Vostok ice core sample. It goes back 450,000 years. It's accepted science. Look it up anywhere on the web or in a science journal.

[razorback-bert]

Scientists: Ice core sample attests to warming climate
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
June 10, 1999

(AP) -- A 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) ice core laboriously drilled out of an Antarctic ice sheet shows that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are higher now than at any time in the past 420,000 years.

As the longest ice core record of Earth's weather history obtained to date, the core also shows that those gases -- carbon dioxide and methane -- play a big role in warming the planet when ice ages end.

But how this icy record will influence current theories about global warming blamed on human activity isn't clear, the researchers said.

"The ice core gives us the past, not the future. But it adds to our thinking about the future, about the future of our climate," said Jean-Robert Petit, director of research at the National Center for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France. "It's clear that greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented compared with the previous 400,000 years."

Coldest spot on Earth

The core was extracted from 1992-98 by a U.S.-Russian-French team at Russia's Vostok research station, the coldest spot on Earth. Petit and team members endured readings as cold as minus 70 Fahrenheit (minus 57 Celsius), though the station holds the world record low of minus 129 (minus 89 Celsius).

They stopped drilling about 120 yards (109 meters) short of a subterranean lake the size of Lake Ontario that's been trapped for perhaps millions of years beneath the ice sheet. Scientists want to send sterilized robots to explore the pristine lake and are protecting it from contamination until then.

Each cylinder-like chunk of ice drilled out of the ice sheet contains a record of snowfall, atmospheric chemicals, dust and bubbles of air. Those clues, trapped in icy layers like tree rings, enable scientists to reconstruct past climates.

The lengthy Vostok ice core is particularly significant because previous cores taken from Antarctica and Greenland dated back only about 150,000 years and showed just two ice age cycles. The new core reveals four ice ages at roughly 100,000-year intervals, shedding new light on how the icy interludes end.

'Some really large changes'

All four appear to have given way to balmier times after levels of the heat-trapping gases carbon dioxide and methane rose by amounts smaller than the increase blamed on human industry in the past century.

The multinational team reported its findings in the June 3 issue of the journal Nature.

Petit and colleagues found carbon dioxide levels rose from about 180 parts per million during each ice age's height to 280-300 ppm in the subsequent warm periods -- far below the current CO2 levels of 360 ppm.

Methane levels, meanwhile, rose from 320-350 parts per billion during the icy interludes to 650-770 ppb during the warm spells. Current methane levels are 1,700 ppb.

The levels of both greenhouse gases are expected to continue their rise in the next century due to continued burning of fossil fuels such as coal and other human activities.

"This study is probably the most convincing evidence to date that humans are making some really large changes to Earth's climate system," said Jonathan Overpeck, head of the paleoclimatology program at the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Beyond natural variation

"What this says is we're going well beyond the bounds of natural variation." Petit estimates that the rising greenhouse gas concentrations contributed to about 50 percent of the post-ice age warming; he attributes the remaining heat to periodic shifts in Earth's orbit that increase the amount of sunlight warming the planet.

The natural rise in the gases was attributed to a variety of factors, including changes in oceanic processing of C02, increased plankton activity and the return of methane-producing swamps.

But the core also appears to call into question previous research suggesting a 500- to 1,000-year lag time between the post-ice age temperature increase and the CO2 increase.

Instead, the core suggests temperatures rose in step with rising C02 levels, a finding of interest to scientists studying global warming.

"This core is telling us to get busy and understand the climate system because it really could change," said Richard Alley, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

[Hunble]

Again, can we obtain the RAW DATA?

I do not need someone to tell me how to think. Usually, if they are not willing to share the RAW DATA, they are trying to hide something.

Having published a few scientific research results over the years, I understand the importance of peer review. I am also painfully aware of how you are required to slant the last summary paragraph to please the people who funded your research.

Most people only read the summary and ignore the technical details. This is where you use phrases like "perhaps", "it is possible", "this may indicate", and other weasel words.

A scientist will never risk his reputation by falsifying the actual raw data. However, because of political reasons, that same scientist may imply the results that the funding organizations desired.

Understand?

[razorback-bert]

For more scare tactics


http://www.climateark.org/

[FreeTheHostages]

no, actually, i do not understand why you'd need to research the raw data on the Vostok ice core

but if you want to go look for it, be my guest

if you don't trust scientists to accurately measure the CO2 levels in the ice core, i can't really help you

even if you get the raw data, if you're that skeptical that you need the raw data, maybe they fudged the measurements, huh?

so no, I'm not going to play "fetch" for you. what you can't find is any respectable scientist who questions the integrity of the Vostok or other ice core samples showing CO2 levels at that point which are at historical highs for the last half million years.

[Carry_Okie]

Excuse me idiot, no one, especially me, has argued that we don't have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. YOU argued that we have global warming caused by humans. We do have global warming, but not caused by increased carbon dioxide from the combustion of petrochemical fuels. Whatever warming we are experiencing is caused by the sun.

[FreeTheHostages]

"Excuse me idiot"

Sorry, but I won't find the time to read further in your post

[Carry_Okie]

It is the SUN stupid!

Are you addressing this to me? If so, you've got it wrong; I totally agree that the climatic variations we have seen over the centuries is due to cyclic variation in the intensity of solar radiation, with the addition of a few asteroid hits and major volcanos.

[Hunble]

Again, were is the raw data.

For example, what is the CO2 vs O2 ratio? Plants convert CO2 into O2, and if things are in balance, that ratio would remain the same.

If humans are influencing the environment faster than the biomass can process, then the CO2 vs O2 ratio will change.