Climategate and the Migrating Arctic Tree Line

American Thinker ^ | January 07, 2010 | Dexter Wright

[neverdem]

One of the more enlightening e-mails to spill out of the Climategate scandal is a report on the progress of Siberian fossilized tree ring work. The report, dated October 9, 1998, focuses on some two thousand samples of fossilized trees thirty-three nautical miles north of the present-day Arctic Circle. The report attempts to correlate the migration, north and south, of the tree line with annual tree ring dating so that an actual year can be assigned to a certain location of the Arctic Circle. The report correctly states that there has been migration of the polar tree line over the past several thousand years, but the investigators attribute this migration singularly to the cold tolerances of tree species.

Although the botanists are correct that cold tolerance does affect the northern limit of trees, they incorrectly attribute the migration solely to variation in climatic temperatures. This is only part of the answer. The other part lies in the in the geographic fact that creates the Arctic Circle in the first place. 

The location of the Arctic Circle is a function of the tilt of the Earth's axis, which is approximately twenty-three and a half degrees (23.5^o) from the orbital plain of our planet. This is why the Arctic Circle is at sixty-six and half degrees (66.5^o) north latitude, exactly 23.5^o south of the North Pole, which is at ninety degrees (90^o) north latitude. But this angle of axis tilt has not always been 23.5^o.

The Earth's axis has been calculated to "wobble" on a 40,000-year cycle. This "wobble" is known as "precession," and this phenomenon is well-documented by astronomical observations throughout history. As the axis wobbles, it points toward different parts of the heavens. There is even an entry in Christopher Columbus's log where he admonishes his officers that the star Polaris (the North Star) is not located due north at the center of the celestial sphere but is off by one degree. That is not the fact today, but five hundred years ago, Polaris was off by one degree. Calculations have revealed that the tilt of the Earth's axis has been as much as twenty-four degrees (24^o) and little as twenty-two and a half degrees (22.5^o). These variations in the tilt of the axis over time have been linked to the onset and end of ice ages simply because the size on the arctic would expand and contract correspondingly to the angel of tilt resulting in a migration of the Arctic Circle tree line.

The now-discredited Dr. Jones of East Anglia University would like us to believe that the migration of the tree line along the Arctic Circle eliminates what is known as the Medieval Optimum, a warm period one thousand years ago when the Vikings were growing grapes in Greenland. Dr. Jones fails to take into account the "wobble" of the Earth's axis, which just three thousand years ago was pointing toward the star Kochab in the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper) so that it was fixed at the center of the celestial sphere. The measurements of this "wobble" over the last hundred years reveal that in 1900, the tilt was 23.45229 degrees; in 1977, the tilt was 23.44229 degrees; and in the year 2000, the tilt was 23.43928 degrees.

The e-mail report does conclude that "[t]here are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the north during last century." By establishing that there has been no northern migration of the Arctic Circle tree line, this might suggest that global temperatures have remained stable over the last one hundred years. However, keep in mind that this observation is consistent with the fact that the tilt of the Earth's axis has not shifted appreciably over that last century, either. The bigger question is this: Why was this small piece of the puzzle omitted from the reports generated by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that Dr. Jones helped compile? Is it possible that it is because this fact completely contradicts the "prevailing scientific view" that Dr. Jones would have us believe?

These types of "errors" and "omissions" seem to be indicative of the entire "Global Warming" investigation conducted through, or in collaboration with, Dr. Jones. Perhaps the best conclusion to come to is that the entire body of work compiled by the IPCC is tainted and therefore unreliable for any policymaker.

[ZULU]

Climate changes. It always does, always will.

But there is no way these poltroons can use that argument to logically conclude humans change climate.

These people are not practicing science - they are practing a weird new religious cult called “Political Correctness”.

[SideoutFred]

Interesting

[Irenic]

Oh, so I take it Dr.Jones isn’t a Darwinist? lol

[screaminsunshine]

Anyone who still thinks Global Warming is real is insane. It is setting a record cold since 1898 in Tampa tonite. Global Warming is a Communist Scheme.

[Fred Nerks]

thanks for posting, NOW THAT’S SCIENCE!

[neverdem]

Why Jews Hate Palin FReebie, go to the source.

The Wheels Come Off the Biodiesel Wagon Energy Tribune has the article with sources linked.

The Divine Right of Intellectuals (Review of Thomas Sowell's "Intellectuals and Society")

Very sobering message from Golda Meir's personal bodyguard. Links at comments 41 & 45

Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[mosesdapoet]

Thanks for the post
For other scientific observations refuting MMGCW (man made global climate warming) checkout
http://www.theusmat.com/

[kathsua]

It’s more than that they want to believe that humans can control climate because they have no faith in God.

[Right Wing Assault]

the angel of tilt

In charge of watching over the direction of the earth's axis.

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[muawiyah]

The "fosil trees" are only "fossil" in the sense they are DEAD DEAD DEAD.

They used to be alive.

More importantly, the most critical trees in the collection were alive as late as 1850 (before the invention of a standardized thermometer) and lived on the tops or sides of nearby hills along the Lena river.

The tops of those hills present a kind of prevailing microclimate for hilltops and hillsides in that area. It is today a very harsh microclimate and NO TREES OF THAT KIND live on those hillsides or the tops of those hills now.

They just don't. The violent storms that ripped these trees out and tossed them in the valleys below were so nasty they even removed the soil.

There are also signs that the hillsides and hilltops are COLDER now than they were 160 years ago!

Yes, it's clearly colder in that area than it was when the trees were alive.

[Condor51]

ANY 'climate' scientist who does not take the Earth's wobble into account isn't doing 'science'.

He's basically doing ... Alchemy, and trying to fool the sheeple into believing he's discovered The Philosopher's Stone and can turn lead into gold!.

In English -- utter 'Bullcarp'.

[ZULU]

That’s true.

My point is that the climate has fluctuated over the eons getting warmer and colder and it did it without the intervention of any human agency and it is doing it still.

Yet the global warming nuts continue to infer this is due to human activities - which is nonesense.

Its not possible to take a window of time only about a century or so in duration and extrapolate the observed fluctations within that time frame to indicate human agency is responsible for it.

But liberals never let facts get in the way of preconceived politically correct opinions.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Fred Nerks]

The "fosil trees" are only "fossil" in the sense they are DEAD DEAD DEAD.

Right you are! The trees are not fossilized:

[muawiyah]

Neat pictures. There's a report on the net (search for 538 years) that pins down exactly what these trees are about.

None of them were alive as late as 160 years ago. What that meant was that Mann and his cronies had to come up with yet "other" trees to use to gin up "proxy data" for temperatures from 1850 to about 1998. So, they used "other" trees that'd grown in protected river valleys. The result was the EARLY data has to do with trees growing exposed to Siberian wind, the stuff from 1850 to 1960/1998 from trees growing in sheltered groves, and data from 1960/1998 to present (whatever present he wanted I suppose) "actual data" from "somewhere" "more or less" "probably".

You trick those samples enough, and pick this tree rather than another, and next thing you know you have a hockey stick graph!

The way Mann and his cronies selected the data means that they did so with malice aforethought ~ which means fraud when it comes to the government contracts they justified ~ which means that ol'boy ain't gonna' leave prison for a darned long time!

[muawiyah]

BTW, the reason no trees of that size grow along the Kolmya river any longer is quite simple ~ IT GOT COLDER, the storms got stronger, the trees and the dirt they grew in was washed right off the sides of the hills, and new trees of the same type cannot thrive there.

[Fred Nerks]

...which means that ol'boy ain't gonna' leave prison for a darned long time!

I certainly HOPE SO!

[Fred Nerks]

thanks, found it.

Abstract
A 538-yr tree-ring chronology and reconstruction of June temperatures were developed from living and dead Larix dahurica trees. The samples were obtained near the lower Lena River in northern Siberia. Dendrochronological techniques were used to estimate the ages of establishment and mortality of Larix dahurica on the presently treeless uplands and to determine the establishment dates of living trees in the lowlands. The 20th century may have experienced the greatest prolonged period of high June temperatures over the past 538 yr. In contrast the greatest prolonged period of cold appears to have occurred during the first half of the 19th century. It was during the 19th century that the uplands lost much of their tree and soil cover. Recruitment of trees occurred in the lowlands during the 20th century, but trees have not been able to recolonize the uplands, possibly due to the lack of suitable soil.

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1552005