Ice Core Data

Certainly an excellent way to convince people you haven't even learned the basic information used by either side of the debate, keep up the good work! But hey, no one who wants to see warming ever wants to look at ice core data anyway, goodness knows it keeps showing those pesky past warmings and has actual science in it, versus just picking and choosing a favorite set of tree ring data until a "scientist" gets the answer they want.

 

The graph in the video ends in 1900 and misses out all the 20th century warming! didn't anyone spot that?? I would have thought people criticizing scientists about graphs would be careful to not make mistakes themselves!

Here's the same data which someone has kindly added the instrumental record at the end:


Quite a different picture. Climate skeptic blogs have been caught many times doctoring the ice core data and hiding the true extent of warming like this.

 

No it does not.

 

Past warmings are generally irrelevant to a discussion on the effects of the current warming on humans because:
1) most past warmings were slower allowing the environment to adapt.
2) when the warmings that did occur rapidly, 7 billion humans did not have to adapt to the rapid temperature change. It's a lot easier for 300,000,000 people to adapt to sudden climate change than is is for 7,000,000,000 to adapt to climate change.

 

I believe that even the shady Dr. Mann agreed that grafting high resolution data onto low resolution data was unethical.

 

How so ? You said you ignored such graphs when the research supporting them was unavailable. I just made that research available for you ? Care to discuss the implications of its findings ?

 

You make an excellent point. I am currently researching the entire Easterbrook situation, it appears to be its own catfight within a catfight, and dependent upon the number, and quality of the temperature data available in the same location, and who does the stitching together. I've found two different versions of this same argument as of now, and am trying to determine who appears to have fought the battle more honestly.

Thank you for the reference.

 

Mixing proxy data with instrumental data is a common distortion use to help promote this agenda. Whos to say for instance that if we had instrumentation 4000 years ago when the proxy data was far higher that the red line would have been far higher still ? Graphs like this are made by activist bloggers and obviously dont pass peer review

 

That is certainly one of the criticisms I am running into. So I spent an hour trying to track down what some scientist or another said is the right way to do it, haven't found that yet, but did bump into those who say that the instrument temperature coverage isn't sufficient to be able to match up the way the provided graph implies, can't be sure they are measuring the same thing, that kind of stuff. But it is fascinating and I'm sure sooner or later I'll bump into someone acting objective rather than the brickbat throwing which appears to be the normal form of discourse between those who only want to use instruments and show warming to match to the hockey stick, versus those who only want to use ice core data and show that the world has quite a bit more, and rapid, variability that the instrument folks don't want to talk about.

This is all just cool stuff.

 

OK. Now I see your link in post # 18.
From your the paper:
"This conclusion differs somewhat from the result of a recent reconstruction of Arctic summer air temperature over the past 2000 years, which indicates that a long cooling trend over the last 2000 years ended with a pronounced warming during the twentieth century [Kaufman et al., 2009]. Possible reasons for the differences are numerous, and include at a minimum 1) our record is a mean‐annual temperature, not a summer temperature, and variability is minimal in summer but highest in winter [Box, 2002]; 2) differences between air and snow temperature may be influenced by changes in cloud cover and wind speed, which affect the strength of the near‐surface inversion; and 3) our site is not necessarily representative of the whole Arctic, and may respond in opposite ways to annular mode fluctuations."
Implications are that more research needs to be done before Kobashi, et al is the definitive work on Greenland temperatures. Even the authors state:
"The average reconstructed Summit temperature of the 1970–1999 period is −31.4°C so that the values of 2–4°C above the 1970–1999 period at Greenland Summit are −29.4°C to −27.4°C, indicating a possibility of exceeding the upper bound (−28.7°C) of the natural variability by 2100."
So, according to their paper, natural variability accounts for current Greenland warming, but by 2100 the warming will exceed natural variability.
The paper is a good example of research being done to increase our understanding of climate but by no means undermines previous research. It's another example of the mainstream consensus that warming is occurring but we don't yet know how fast.

 

That does not appear to be the conclusions drawn from ice core data, showing some pretty short term, wild swings in temperature.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/24/easterbrook-on-the-magnitude-of-greenland-gisp2-ice-core-data/

So what? The argument is not about the adaptability of humans, when you can carry an environment around with you, the entire concept of adapting to a claimed 1C+ in warming pales to ridiculousness. As you imply, we have ALREADY adapted to larger changes in temperature already, running around playing chicken little over much smaller changes seems almost comical.

 

The resolution issue is about as bad as it gets. The scientists on all sidez recognize that it is dishonest to graft instrumental and proxy data but that doesn't stop them from doing it for effect.

 

Apparently BillyGee didn't get that memo. But just tooling through the debate on it is a wonderful learning experience.

 

Surely it's obvious that You can't put recent warming into perspective if your graph doesn't show it

Yet the comments here and the WUWT post and video linked claim to do just that. For example someone earlier wrote: "The ice cores from both poles show that there really isnt anything remarkable about todays conditions in either level nor rate of change". The ice cores don't cover today's conditions. they must be comparing them to the instrumental record! which is exactly what people, including that person themselves ("Mixing proxy data with instrumental data is a common distortion use to help promote this agenda.") is now saying don't do!

The GISP2 ice core resolution is high enough to allow it to be compared with instrumental data.

 

The GISP2's resolution is about 120 years at best. It goes to the 1000s when you get deeper. While that might be considered high for an ice core that is very low relative to the instrumental record.

 

I certainly haven't found anyone but you making that claim.

Also, we need to discuss some of the practical aspects of warming. Before the instrument record started, the entire northern end of North America was covered in glaciers, and then there was a bursst of warming which apparently made it all go bye-bye in a short period of time. The warming talked about now doesn't come close to the magnitude of change seem from that episode of warming. And there is quite an argument to be made that using temperatures starting at the most recent cooling period (LIA) is designed to show warming through sheer coincidence, which the correlation with CO2 tries to enforce, even though said correlation didn't exist prior, even with temperatures bouncing around all by themselves.

These pieces of information simply do not compute.

 

"The warming talked about now doesn't come close to the magnitude of change seem from that episode of warming."

How do you know that if you can't compare instrumental data to proxy temperature?

You compare two things

1) "the warming talked about now".
How much is this warming and how is it measured?

2) "Before the instrument record started, ... there was a bursst of warming".
How much was that warming and how was it measured?

You claim 2) was greater than 1) but it's not clear how you determined this. I only think such a comparison is possible if you are able to compare ice core records with instrumental data...but apparently I am the only one here who thinks that can be done, so what's the alternative?

Or should we just conclude we don't know and so it's possible that recent warming is unprecedented?

 

I don't need to compare the two datasets to each other, I can use each independently to determine relative differences, and then compare relative differences. Ice core data shows natural variability of about 4C max, cold to warm, after the last ice age, and the increase since the end of the LIA looks to be about +1C?

The present warming can only be unprecedented if your time scale is 150 years. The instant you begin to examine the range of natural variability in the system, you bump into 4C real quick. I assume this is why the anti-warmer challenge for modelers to run their models into the past, and then those models fail, is because they obviously don't understand why. Hooking estimates of temperature to CO2 correlations makes sense, particularly if you focus on only two trends, one of temperature, the other of CO2. But it doesn't take 60 seconds on the internet to discover that this correlation doesn't exist in the past the way it is being used today, which is as a causal factor. It makes sense as a causal factor, to those only using the instrument record, but it makes no sense the instant you bring in historical information.

Because this discrepancy can't be explained, neither side can disprove a negative and therefore neither side can prove they are correct, or the other guy wrong. It strikes me that as of today, those using the distant past have a much stronger case. Reality beats bad temperature predictions most any day of the week. This doesn't mean the current idea of warming is completely wrong, hell, they could still be right, or right only a little bit, the problem lies more with the costs they demand without adequate proof.

It is like saying, "the odds of you dying from testicular cancer is 1 in 1000, so you better cut off yours nuts to save yourself now"....I mean come on, please already! This issue then goes from a scientific issue to some huge scare mongering exercise because true believers (pick your cause, eco-fascists, human-haters, those scared of change, whatever) jump in and poclaim we can only save ourselves by doing what THEY tell us to do. Tax this, stop that, ban SUVs, if they didn't run to social control issues so darn fast I might listen to them a little longer, but the instant you try, you realize they don't CARE what the cause is, only that they can hyperventilate it into a mechanism to scare people into living the way they want them to live.

 

Lets say the chance of the earths warming is 1 in 1000. Lets say the chance of mercury ending up in the streams and rivers is 1 in 10. Lets say the chance that oil prices will rise is 1 in 5. Lets say the chance of heavy metals and acid water in streams and rivers is 1 in 3. Lets say that the chance of food prices rising is the same as oil prices rising 1 in 5. Lets say the chance of lung diseases and other sickness from fossile fuel pollution is 1 in 1000.

And with the chances of all the other problems (such as spills etc.) you better cut off your testicles now.

 

How do you "carry an environment around with you"?

 

What a wonderful way to arrive at just as nonsensical answer as some others do! Shut down human activity even though it won't slow down temperature much even if we could predict it correctly, which we obviously can't! Quick! Start a company planting tree's, knowing that your political party is going to require carbon offsets and you want to get in on the new government mandated taxation system on the ground floor!

 

Oh give me a break, not wanting to talk about data or at least a scientific reference, that I understand, but you haven't been struck totally silly otherwise have you?

One of these will do:



or maybe one of these:



or you could even argue that anytime after we wandered off the savanna we began toting around enough to keep ourselves comfortable in uncomfortable areas.

 

I was confused on what carrying "an environment around with you" has to do with adapting to a changing climate. I was confused on how carrying "an environment around with you" will solve the problem of sea level rise.

The problem of is most certainly about adaptation. And once again, humans living in villages of 1000 or even in towns of 10,000 people can adapt to a changing climate. Humans living in villages of 1000 or even in towns of 10,000 people can feed themselves. Humans living in villages of 1000 or even in towns of 10,000 people can move their villages and towns to adapt to a changing climate. Humans living in cities of 10,000,000 people do not have the resources to feed themselves in a changing climate. Humans living in cities of 10,000,000 people cannot move their cities away from weather extremes caused by AGW. A global population of 3,000,000 humans can adapt to a rapidly changing climate; a global population of 7,000,000,000 cannot.

What's to discuss about previous warmings? I've never denied they exist. I've stated they are irrelevant in dealing with the current warming.

 

That is not what it said. You've been doing a bit of selective editing here I see. I like the way you missed out the opening line 5.4 Future Context 'although somewhat speculative. Meaning this tiny part of the study was speculating on IPCC computer model constructs outwith the scope of the study itself.

What about the actual findings of the study, showing how todays temperatures fit patterns of natural variability ? Things like '72 decades being warmer than the present one with mean temperatures 1.0-1.5C higher than today'? How can that be ?

I'm guessing you'll still zero in on the speculation rather than the empirical content though

 

There is no problem with sea level rise. The seas have been rising for 15,000 years and the last century has been nothing special

Absolute nonsense. We have the technology to adapt like we never had before . The problem will come if we give environmentalists thier head and they leave us without the resources to adapt, thats by far the biggest concern in my view.

Of course they are relevant ! Everything can be made to seem unprecedented if you choose to simply ignore the precedents