Posted on 01/22/2007 10:07:29 AM PST by cogitator
Jason P. Briner is looking for an answer buried deep in mud dozens of feet below the surface of lakes in the frigid Canadian Arctic. His group is gathering the first quantitative temperature data over the last millennium from areas in extreme northeastern sections of the Canadian Arctic, such as Baffin Island. Every spring, Briner, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo, travels to the region to sample Arctic lake sediments and glaciers and analyzes them to reconstruct past climates.
"As paleoclimatologists, we want to study Earth under conditions similar to those we have today, what we call 'climate analogues,' which might tell us what to expect in the future," he said.
The Arctic as a region is an excellent harbinger of future change, Briner said, because the signals or clues that signify climate change are so much stronger in the Arctic than elsewhere on the planet.
"Yet, even when we take that phenomenon into account," he noted, "the signals we're finding on Baffin Island are huge," he said. "The temperature records, that is, the 'signal' of warmth that we're reconstructing for this part of the Canadian Arctic over the past 10,000 years seems to be higher than the global average for that period and even higher than the Arctic average."
For example, during the 'Holocene thermal maximum,' the warmest period of the past 10,000 years, the Arctic average temperature was two to three degrees warmer than it is today, while the global average was only a degree or so warmer.
"But based on lake sediments from Baffin Island, our data show that this area of the Arctic experienced temperatures five degrees warmer than today," said Briner.
Briner and his co-authors published these results last May in Quaternary Research (Vol. 65, pp. 431-442). The co-authors were N. Michelutti, formerly of the University of Alberta; D.R. Francis of the University of Massachusetts; G.H. Miller of the University of Colorado; Yarrow Axford, Briner's post-doctoral research associate at UB; M.J. Wooller of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks; and A.P. Wolfe of the University of Alberta.
Because Arctic regions show such strong seasonality, Briner explained, it's relatively easy to correlate climate changes with very fine layers in the sediments. In some lakes, each layer represents one year, with thicker sediment layers generally signaling warmer summers.
Like other paleoclimatologists, he also is finding that the warming trend that began in the 20th century is more pronounced in the Arctic than it is in the rest of the globe.
"The magnitude of warmth over the past 100 years seems pretty exceptional in the context of the past 1,000 years," he said.
"Whereas maybe an average of all of the instrument data from the globe shows just a half a degree increase in this century, in the Arctic, temperatures went up by two to three degrees in the same period."
The rapidity of the change also is exceptional, he added.
"If we look at the temperature graphs that we've generated for the past 1,000 years for this region, the temperatures wiggle back and forth, so there is a little variability in there," he said. "However, in the past 100 years, both the magnitude and the rate of temperature increase exceed all the variations of the past 1,000 years."
To do the research, Briner and his graduate students and post-doctoral associates travel to Baffin Island and other areas in extreme northeast Canada each May, while it is still winter there.
They fly to remote Eskimo villages, and then drive snowmobiles, dragging their gear behind them on sleds, for hours across the tundra and sea ice. Once they reach a good sampling site, they set up camp nearby and get to work, drilling through the ice and the water below until their equipment reaches sediments.
"The beauty of lake sediments is that they're being deposited continuously right up until yesterday," Briner said, "so by looking at them, we get clues into past climates, which we can then overlap with records from weather stations, which only cover the past 50 to 75 years."
They then send their samples -- long tubes full of mud -- back to UB, where Briner and his team analyze them.
Among the clues in the cores are isotopes, fossils and increases in organic material from the accumulation of dead organisms and algae.
"Generally, the more organic matter in sediments, the warmer the climate," said Briner.
A primary goal of the research is to account for spatial variability when reconstructing past climate records.
"Everyone knows the climate is extremely variable, spatially," said Briner. "For example, earlier this year, Colorado got slammed with snow and Buffalo didn't get a flake. It's the same when we reconstruct past climates: maybe the climate cooled by 30 degrees in Greenland but only 10 degrees in the area that's now Buffalo."
Reconstructing this spatial variability will help develop a more precise view of how past changes in climate have affected the planet, Briner says, providing a guide for how the current global warming trend may unfold.
"We can use these patterns to test climate models," said Briner. "Once models can adequately predict past climates and their spatial patterns, then we have confidence that they work and so can be used to predict the future." [*** see my comment]
Briner and members of his team will present some of their data May 2-5 at the 37th Annual International Arctic Workshop in Iceland.
You answered with an opinion, "I believe this warming is probably caused by something different."
It's not an opinion. Even discounting evidence of the prevailing cause for, the evidence against causality by the prior primary climate processes is comprehensive.
I.e., the Earth is not warming up as it has in the past (no matter what the meaning of "as"). The factors contributing to it and the climactic response to both rate and forcings are different.
Glad to hear I could amuse you.
Transmission terminated.
Right :-D, not an opinion! I guess it all depends on the meaning of 'opinion'!
Have a great day.
I think that's circular logic.
I think what he is trying to say is that it is warming up faster that earlier evidence shows, and that the reasons are different from previous warming periods.
If the sea level rises as much as it has in past warm periods, 8 feet or so, our big coastal cities are in big trouble. The last time there were not many big coastal cities, and if the warming was slower, there was more time to move without major economic and societal disruption. In the next ten years I plan to sell my beach property and encourage my son to move out of Miami. Also have bought some land in the hills to build a retirement home.
It might help things along if you can tell us:
1. The causes of the Holocene thermal maximum.
2. Which of those causes might be present now.
3. How do we know these things.
The only thing I can see as a difference is that we have Algore whining about it and the media and government stooge scientists telling horror stories.
:')
Agreed, that's what he was trying to say. Both of which are opinions, not fact.
The original poster was pointing out that it's warming now, and it's warmed in the past. He replied, "probably not", changing the topic and misleading the orginal poster. From fact, "It's warming again", to opinion, "i think this time is different".
I plan to sell my beach property and encourage my son to move out of Miami.
During the leadup to y2k, the news was full of "experts" claiming all the computers in the world were going to crash, the "grid would go down", no power, missles will launch themselves, you wouldn't be able to get money, etc.
At the time, I worked for CSC and was working on y2k updates for major financial institutions. There was not one whit of truth to any of it. Of the 50,000+ people at our company, the real 'experts', you couldn't find one single person who agreed with the press' "experts". Yet "the story" went on.
Of course then they all turned out to be wrong. And now the same folks are on to the next "crisis".
I've looked in-depth into the evidence. They appear to be very wrong. Cogitator and I have had long, drawn out discussions on the details. As I looked into the details, it became clear they're speculating wildly. And talking in this kind of double-speak.
But hey, I could be wrong. Altho with silicone breast implants, Katrina coverage, Iraq war coverage, etc . . . "the story" that the mainstream press pushes is, in my opinion, always to be assumed to be off-base.
But hey, eventually they have to get *one* thing right, so we'll see.
Basically. There have been periods during the glacial/interglacial transitions when there were very fast, very large changes (notably at the termination of the Younger Dryas). But the current rate of change within a stable interglacial appears highly unusual (bordering on unprecedented, as far as can be ascertained from data with insufficient temporal resolution to be sure), and the main forcing, increasing atmospheric CO2 during a warm interglacial phase, is indeed different than seen in the ice core record.
Note for further information on a different subject: The surprising legacy of Y2K
I can't do any better than Wikipedia's article.
2. Which of those causes might be present now.
None. We're in a low-Milankovitch influence period.
3. How do we know these things.
Examination of climate-related variables (Wikipedia indicates data from sediments) and calculation of the climatic effects of Milankovitch cycles.
So this is hardly unprecedented. :-)
Note for further information on a different subject: The surprising legacy of Y2K
My, my, my.
You're in my field of expertise, now. The 'Y2k computer crash' story was a hoax. Complete hoax. And was proven wrong. Completely.
But somehow, it is comforting to see you pushing that story too . . .
Count me as interested in seeing support for that. I will look at any resources you provide. If I am convinced, then I will cease thinking that Y2K was a problem which required addressing, and I won't ever post anything indicating that it WAS again.
From the same site that provided the link you noted, there is also this:
Excerpts:
"This project had a number of goals. First: to find out if Y2K was a success, or just hype. The answer seems to be yes and yes. The problem was very real and the consequences for doing nothing were huge. There were also news organizations, technology consultants, religious leaders, and the like, who spent lots of energy hyping the problem beyond reality, often for their own gains."
and
"The primary goal of those working on Y2K was to keep everything working. If on January 1, 2000, it looked like nothing happened, then their mission was accomplished. In the vast majority of cases, this is exactly what happened. ... And so we never noticed the programmers working through the night, the senators meeting with technology executives, the Federal Reserve inspectors combing through bank processes. Everyone did their job, and nearly on cue, the rest of us forgot they were there."
In thinking that Y2K was not a hoax, I am defining Y2K as a common software problem that needed to be fixed, or the computer system with the software problem might fail. The above paragraph says "the problem was very real" -- that is the problem that I am referring to. If the hoax you're referring to is the claims of disaster associated with this software problem, then I don't really have a problem with it being called a hoax.
I hope that's clear.
Oh, yes, very clear.
I'm an Enterprise Software Architect. Mainly Java these days (and some PHP recently), but my roots are in Cobol, which is what a lot of the y2k code problems were written in. I worked at CSC's Financial Services Group for 8 years, from 94 to 02. I was hip-deep in Y2k work. We made a lot of money.
Pretty much, all software has bugs. The reporting that there were bugs was real. There were plenty of y2k bugs, and companies needed to patch the bugs.
The predictions of global chaos were *not* real. There was zero chance of any of them being ignored to the point of causing global issues. It doesn't work that way. It was all hype. Just a 'scary story' to get people to watch their shows.
I find it very instructive, your position on this. To each their own, of course. But for me, this really speaks to the question of credibility on this kind of press 'scary story'.
I'm sorry -- I didn't mean that to come out quite so . . . rude. I don't mean it in quite that way.
I'm at work, and was typing hurriedly.
Hope you can forgive me for that.
You clarified, it makes sense, I'm fine with that.
If a longer-term horizon is employed for global warming, similar things can be said about the Y2K bug and global warming.
I.e.,
The problem is real.
Left unaddressed, there could be serious consequences.
Some/many of the most serious consequences are over-hyped and are not realistic scenarios.
That doesn't mean nothing should be done about it. The problem with global warming is identifying the most effective "fixes". With the Y2K bug, the cause was obvious, and the mitigation procedures could be clearly defined. Not so for climate.
I'm glad we could reach an understanding somewhere.
Thanks for understanding. Sometimes i don't realize how my words will come out until I read them back. Again, I apologize.
With both Y2k and GW, I'd suggest the same pattern is in effect - the press finds something that is a normal part of the system. They then over-dramatize the story to grab viewers.
Climate change is real, I agree. It is always either warming or cooling, it never stays the same. The press' insistence this is a) the end of the world as we know it and b) human caused is all hype.
The press takes a normal part of life and hype it up to mythic proportions.
"It is warming up faster."
I think this issue is answered in subsequent comments. The sediment data (varves) seems to show it among other things.
"Selling my beach property."
I am not rushing right out to do this. You should notice I said in the next ten years. By that time the trends or successful counteractions should be evident. I can then make an intelligent informed decision regarding real estate. I would want to sell before the bulk of the population realizes that low lying property might not be worth very much in the not too distant future.
Actually, as I understand it, the sediment data shows this is unusual rate of change for the last 10,000 years. But if you go back further, the temp has changed even more rapidly than it is now.
Yes, 10 years from now it should be safer to draw some conclusions, agreed. But I'll just bet you a bottle of wine that the story the press is pushing now will turn out to be 100% wrong. If past experience is any indicator!
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