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Every year, new temperature records are breathlessly announced as though the planet is plunging into uncharted climate chaos. Mainstream headlines proclaim things like "Humanity just lived through the hottest 12 months in at least 125,000 years" or "This year virtually certain' to be warmest in 125,000 years, EU scientists say". We’re told, often without context or qualification, that the warming we’re experiencing is unlike anything seen in hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of years. But is that really true? Or have climate authorities, especially the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), built their entire narrative on the selective memory...

"Leafy moss dated to the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) has been found embedded in Antarctic glacier ice that today is “permanently snow-covered” with “no evidence of meltwater....This affirms a warmer MWP and that summer melt during the MWP was greater than today...The leafy moss samples have been dated to about 1,000 years ago"

What do you know? The Medieval Warm Period, which either “didn’t exist” or “only happened in Europe”, also hit Western Antarctica.Booth Island and Mount Scott are also on the Antarctic Peninsula. Photo: Stan Shebs. The climate models don’t know why the world was warmer 1000 years ago. They don’t know why it cooled into the Little Ice Age either. The models don’t do regional projections well, and they don’t do seasonal projections with any skill, and they (in the last ten years) don’t work on short decadal timeframes either, but surely when it comes to big global temperature changes the...

Reference Vinther, B.M., Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Clausen, H.B., Andersen, K.K., Dahl-Jensen, D. and Johnsen, S.J. 2010. Climatic signals in multiple highly resolved stable isotope records from Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 29: 522-538. Background The authors introduce the report of their new study by writing that "during the past 10 years studies of seasonal ice core δ18O records from the Greenland ice sheet have indicated, that in order to gain a firm understanding of the relationships between Greenland δ18O and climatic conditions in the North Atlantic region, it is important to have not only annually resolved, but seasonally resolved ice...

There has been a considerable amount of speculation over the past few years about which “leading” climate scientist told David Deming that we have to “get rid of” the Medieval Warm Period, including speculation (e.g. ukweatherworld) that it was Jonathan Overpeck (recently one of two Coordinating Lead Authors of AR4 chapter 6). While the identity of Deming’s correspondent remains uncertain, a Climategate letter from January 13. 2005, written as an instruction from Overpeck as Coordinating Lead Author to IPCC Lead Authors Briffa and Osborn (cc Jansen, Masson-Delmotte), states that Overpeck wants to “deal a mortal blow” to the MWP (and...

Here is just one more indication that despite what some would like you to believe, the MWP was not a regional “non event”.Top: Mann/IPCC view, bottom historical view From a University of Arizona press release,Giant Sequoias Yield Longest Fire History from Tree RingsCalifornia’s western Sierra Nevada had more frequent fires between 800 and 1300 than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a new study led by Thomas W. Swetnam, director of UA’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. This cross-section of a giant sequoia tree shows some of the tree-rings and fire scars. The numbers indicate the year...

A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message. Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post's Lawrence Solomon reports. The warming period is said to have improved agriculture and increased life spans, but scientists at...

Global Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism This is a Guest Post by Dr David EvansThe big temperature picture. Graph and insight from Dr Syun Akasofu(2009 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 2009).The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since the end of the little ice age in the 1700s (when the Thames River would freeze over every winter). On top of the trend are oscillations that last about thirty years in each direction:1882 – 1910    Cooling1910 – 1944    Warming1944 – 1975    Cooling1975 – 2001    WarmingIn 2009 we are where...