A Simple Science Quiz

A science quiz. Science’s answer to each of the following questions concerning climate in the past 10,000 years is “yes.” 

 

Has Earth been significantly warmer?

 

Sea levels higher?

 

 Glaciers much smaller?

 

This is a link to many studies that show that during the past 10,000 years glaciers were predominantly smaller than they are now. 

 

 

Below is a US government chart of glacier retreat at Glacier Bay, Alaska, which shows that there was over 60 miles of glacier retreat from 1760 through 1900, and less than six miles of retreat since 1948.

 

 

 Was the Little Ice Age (1300-1800 AD) the coldest period?

 

 

 Has Earth had a cooling trend for 8,000 years?

See above.

 

 Were wildfires more frequent and burn far more acreage before 1900 than now?

 

Fire ecologists say that far more land burned each year during the 1800s and earlier, than in recent years. In the preindustrial era, from 1500 to 1800, an average of 145 million acres burned every year nationwide — about 10 times more than the nation’s recent annual burns. In the West, it was estimated that 18 to 25 million acres burned each year, as recently as the 1800s. 

Click this link to go the study.

 

Globally, more recently NASA satellite systems have been able to determine a decreasing trend in global burned area.

 

 

Source: Nasa Earth Observatory 
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-long-term-record-of-fire

 

 

 Were there megadroughts that lasted over 200 years in North America 1,000 years ago?

 

This Bjorn Lomborg article succinctly describes the California wildfire problem and why, even if California, even if all the United States were suddenly carbon neutral, the wildfire problem would just get worse. Logic and critical thinking demands that the forests be managed regardless of climate. Just 200 years ago a lot more of California (and the US) burned annually when average temperature was over a degree lower.

 

 Has the Greenland icecap grown?

 

These diagrams determined from ice core and satellite studies show it has.

 

 

 

Have temperature increases preceded CO2 increases?

 

“Ice core analysis does reveal that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels did lag behind increasing temperatures at the end recent ice ages. Although there is a certain degree of uncertainty regarding the lag time, it is generally accepted that at the end of an ice age, temperatures began to increase, and then carbon dioxide levels began to increase.”

 

Of note, during all the times this has happened there has never been a single case of unstoppable global warming. In fact, at each temperature and CO2 maximum, cooling began and the next 100,000-year glacial period was launched.

 

 

This chart below shows that for the past 600 million years, CO2 at times was over 15 times the current level and that cooling oceans absorbed CO2 as temperature fell. It also shows that for most of the past 100 million years, temperature was 10C (18F) higher than now, even as vast numbers of photosynthesizing organisms removed CO2 from the atmosphere. 

 

 

 

 Is food production setting record highs?

 

 

This article has links to studies showing global record harvests.

 

Do wind and solar combined only produce three percent of total energy consumption?

 

Was half of current warming before the rapid increase in CO2 after 1950?

 

The NOAA chart below shows no temperature trend. The temperature spikes are in El Niño years.

 

 

The chart below shows that 11 of 12 hottest years were before 1960.

This NOAA chart shows Santa Rosa average annual temperature, a cooling trend, for over 100 years. 

 

The answer to the following questions is “no.” 

 

During the Eemian interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were up to 30 feet higher and global temperature eight degrees Fahrenheit warmer, was there runaway warming?

 

Obviously not, or we wouldn’t have had a 100,000-year glacial period following it. 

 

Is carbon dioxide the most significant greenhouse gas (hint: water vapor at 96-99% is)?

 

Both water vapor at 0.4% of the atmosphere and CO2 at 0.04% are trace gases. Temperature changes resulting from orbital variations periodically (every 100,000 years) cause temperature to increase with resulting increases in both water vapor and CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The pattern of the past million years show that the Sun – via its position relative to the Earth – drives climate change and that CO2 and water vapor changes are a result, not a cause, of the climate change.

 

Is a colder Earth more productive?

 

It wasn’t for the 100,000-year period glacial period that lasted from the end of the Eemian interglacial until the current interglacial began 11,700 years ago. At one point atmospheric CO2 was at 180ppm, barely above the level of plant starvation of 150ppm.

 

Are storms more frequent and powerful?

 

From 2006 through 2014 no Category 3 or stronger hurricane struck the continental United States, the longest such period since the Civil War.

 

The science behind each of these questions is robust and irrefutable. Climate change is natural and unstoppable. 

Earth is an Anthropogenic Climate Change Denier

It’s worth revisiting NASA’s Gavin Schmidt’s claim, as reported in your ICO Editor’s Reply, that now “…could be the warmest period since the dawn of civilization.” In my two previous letters on this subject I referenced studies of trees growing in far northern latitudes 9,000 to 5,000 years ago where they can’t grow now, and of coral mounts from the same period that are several feet above present sea level. Both are obvious signs that we couldn’t be in a warmer period now.

For other examples that totally debunk Schmidt’s statement that now is probably the hottest period in the Holocene – the past 11,500 years - we should add Alpine glaciers and tree lines. Prof. Gernot Patzelt, an internationally renowned glaciologist with numerous publications and lectures, authored (title translated from the German) “Glaciers: Climate Witnesses from the Ice Age to the Present.” Patzelt found that for 70% of the past 10,000 years, glaciers were smaller that now. This finding supports studies of Greenland ice cores (“The Two-Mile Time Machine,” Richard Alley) and a variety of ocean and lake sediment cores that indicate that 90% of the past 10,000 years were warmer than the present.

Concerning tree lines, Patzelt noted: “Around (10500 BP - Before Present) the temperatures were lower, from (10200 BP) they were already above the level of the present temperature conditions… the postglacial warm period reached a first peak shortly after (8000 BP), followed by a second peak around (6200 BP). During this time … the timberline was 100-130 meters (328-426 feet) higher than what is currently possible, which means that a summer temperature of 0.6-0.8 °C (1.0-1.3 °F) higher can be derived…” (Bolding added by me for emphasis; dates changed from BC to BP for clarity)

Trees, corals, glaciers, ice sheets – we can learn from them.

Earth's Experiment Continues

The Editor’s Reply to my “Earth’s experiment” letter emphasized the lack of precision and uncertainty of scientists’ estimates of ancient global temperatures. While I would strongly differ with you alleging imprecision in the two-mile Greenland ice cores that indicate that we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000, the purpose of my letter was to show that tree-rings and other proxies of temperature are not relevant to the determination that Earth was much warmer and sea levels significantly higher during the Holocene Climatic Optimum (9,000 to 5,000 years before present). 

However, since you quoted NASA’s Gavin Schmidt speculating that “…the Earth as a whole is probably the hottest it has been during the Holocene – the past 11,500 years or so…”, so I Googled “Holocene Climatic Optimum” and clicked on the Wikipedia link. There I found many references to hotter periods than the present without the use of Schmidt’s “probably” to convey Holocene climate change. 

Getting back to the Earth’s experiment, many signs of earlier hotter periods in the last 10,000 years are scattered all over the Earth’s surface. In Northern Europe, Asia, and Canada scientists found and carbon-dated tree stumps that proved that forests advanced to or near the current arctic coastline between 9000 and 7000 years ago and retreated to their present positions by between 4000 and 3000 years ago as Earth cooled.

Changes in sea level serve as Earth’s thermometer. Studies of fossil corals worldwide show that sea levels were much higher during warmer periods. During the most recent past interglacial period (125,000 years ago), sea level was over 26 feet higher than now, proof that temperature was also much higher. 

The NOAA U.S Climate Reference Network shows no significant warming since NASA created it in 2005. Mr. Schmidt “probably” doesn’t want to know.

The Earth's Natural Climate Change Experiment

The Earth conducted an experiment over the past three million years that charted climate change against atmospheric CO2. After comparing glacial and interglacial periods to CO2 levels, Earth’s finding was that there was no correlation. Several interglacials were noted that were warmer with much higher sea levels than the Holocene interglacial with atmospheric CO2 levels of 280ppm. Slightly lower CO2 levels were noted during glacial periods which ended before CO2 levels increased moderately. For the past three million years interglacials began when CO2 was low and ended when CO2 was higher. 

The same proved true for shorter periods since 1900; temperature rose rapidly from 1920 to 1940 with little or no change in CO2 from 280ppm. Then as CO2 rose rapidly after 1940, global temperature fell rapidly until 1980. The rise in both temperature and CO2 from 1980 to 2000 was followed by a pause in temperature increase that persisted almost twenty years while CO2 continued to steadily rise. 

Looking at just the past 10,000 years, Greenland ice core and lake and ocean sediment cores show we now live in the coldest 1,000-year period of the past 10,000 years, and that the greatest warming and corresponding higher sea levels were found 6,000 to 8,000 years ago during the Holocene Climate Optimum. The following three warming periods before the present – Minoan, Roman, and Medieval – were each cooler than its predecessor and current warming is the coolest of all. 

Proof of warmer periods in the past 10,000 years are also evidenced by ancient tree lines further north and at higher altitudes, coral mounts several feet above current sea level, and ancient beaches above present ones. 

Thousands of studies exist that prove earlier warming was significantly higher and globally distributed. The Earth gives evidence that none of the models can refute.

"Homogenizing" the Way to Global Warming

Less than a decade ago I found some NOAA temperature charts for nearby cities in Northern California - where I've lived off and on since 1949. The cities are Santa Rosa and Ukiah, and  i remember old timers in the 1950s talking about how much hotter they had been in the 1930s and 1940s. The NOIAA temperature charts substantiated the old timers' memories - for awhile.

This was the Santa Rosa chart showing the hotter 1930s and 1940s:
This is the Santa Rosa chart that replaced it after "homogenization." The early years suffered a cold snap that lowered temperatures about one degree C for four decades and then raised later temperatures gradually.

How about Ukiah? Not surprisingly, Ukiah also found that its cooling trend became warming.

Before homogenization:

After homogenization.

It's funny that after over half a century since they passed on, the old timers were made liars about their memories of the hotter olden days.

Pacific Tide Gauge Charts Show No Acceleration in Sea Level Rise

Californians are constantly bombarded with apocalyptic articles on sea level rise. A reporter, Sarah J. Black, for our local weekly newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer, had a very long article, "Studies show climate change could transform Mendonoma (Mendocino and Sonoma counties)," in their June 9, 2017 issue. In a section on sea levels, the ICO averred that: "The 20th Century saw sea levels rise at 1.2 to 1.7 mm per year, and those rates doubled after 1990, 'and the rise continues to accelerate,' researchers found."

"Currently rates are at 3.4 mm per year,' greater than anytime over the past thousand years,' the report reads."

Concerning the 3.4mm/year,  I had previously looked at 108 tide gauge records worldwide, and found a mean of 0.9mm/year and median of 1.1mm/year. Seventy-three of the records were at 1.8mm/year or less, and only 10 at 3.4mm/year or more. The average length of each tide gauge record was 90 years.

Besides my study using readily available resources open to all on the internet, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem study (https://tinyurl.com/y8u9983s) found mean sea levels rising by 1mm/year. For 35 percent of tide gauges, sea levels rose on average by 3.8mm/year. However, sea levels were stable for 61 percent of tide gauges, and fell on average by almost 6mm/year for 4 percent of tide gauges.

NOAA keeps records on 199 tide gauges which have been active this century. The average sea level rise rate is 1.08 mm/year for that set of gauges – one third of the claimed University of Colorado 3.2mm/year trend. Eighty-six percent of the tide gauges show sea level rise slower than 3.2mm/year.

Sea level, according to the GRACE gravitational anomaly satellites, has been falling (Peltier et al., 2009). During the eight years of ENVISAT’s operation, from 2004-2012, sea level rose at a not very scary 1.3 inches per century, or 0.33 mm/year.

Nicola Scafetta of Duke University found that sea level is subject to 60-year cycles and concludes that the human impact on sea level is too small and is statistically insignificant.

Another study found primarily that unsustainable groundwater use contributed a sea-level rise of about 0.77mm /year between 1961 and 2003.

Armed with all these studies, including the US government NOAA one, showing sea level rise at a rate less than a third of the rate posited in the ICO, I then decided to look for signs of acceleration in rates. Again, the NOAA provided convincing proof that they were not in the form of tide gauge graphs for cities worldwide. I selected twenty-five tide gauges scattered over the pacific, and found only two that had rates higher than 3.4mm/year. 

I have posted all twenty-five charts below for two purposes. One: each chart shows the rate of sea level rise in mm per year for its location. Two: you can visually determine for each chart if there is a doubling of the rate after 1990, as claimed in the report cited by the ICO. There is none. If you doubt this, look closely at each straight line fitted to the observations. A doubling after 1990 would appear as a cluster of observations above the line, not as observations both above and below the line.

The San Francisco chart below is interesting at several levels. It is the longest tide gauge record in the Western Hemisphere, began in 1854. Its highest level was third-four years ago in 1983, over two inches higher than in 2015, and 2016 is lower than 2015. Does it look like the rate of sea level rise doubled after 1990?