This is an actual submission and not an attempt to hijack your blog. To be more clear, I don't believe it is possible to disprove man-made climate change. The average person puts out as much heat as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. So the mere existence of a single person putting out that much heat over the course of their lifetime would change the temperature of the earth. One gazillionth of one gazillionth of one degree, perhaps. But would that not count as man-made climate change?
What I am challenging is the assumption that humans, by means of CO2 could significantly change the climate of the earth, and buck the much larger climate cycle of which the ice core records only show a small part (because they are incomplete). I will add to this that in those sections of ice which remain, CO2 is shown to follow changes in temperature by roughly 800 years. The ice core records alone show that changes in CO2 are the effect of changes in temperature and not the cause.
As to other proxies, I provided you a link to the best of those proxies, "speleothem encrustations from coastal caves on the island of Mallorca" to back up my claim. That proxy data matches what I have put forward as the larger cycle, filling in the gap when the earth was much warmer and the ice sheets were melting away.- Also, you state:
"If you were correct in your assertions (and I am most certainly not saying you are) the best you could do is confuse the issue of paleoclimatology."
No Mr. Keating, what I am pointing out is that paleoclimatology is already deeply confused due to a single wrong assumption that ice cores can be used as continuous records of past climate. I am attempting to end that confusion and make sense of it all. Isn't the point of studying past climate to better understand climate of the present and future? Isn't that why ice cores have always been central to this debate?- You make several bad assumptions. We do not just get a single ice core and be done. Thousands of ice cores are collected and compared to each other to ensure they are consistent. That record is then compared to the record from other proxies, such as cores from the ocean floor, lake bed sediments, coral reef depositions, etc. All of these proxies must be consistent with each other. In other words, we cannot have sea floor cores say one thing and ice cores say something completely different. Your work would have to be able to explain all of that data from different sources that gives the same results.
But, still, what does any of this have to do with man made climate change of today. If you want to make the claim that past natural cycles shows this is just a natural cycle, that claim has been made and debunked (many times, even). You can see my posting on that issue here:
http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/2014/06/naturally-occurring-cycles-are-not.html
Now, about the issue of CO2 lagging temperature increase. First, you say the ice core data is not good, then you use it as evidence. Which is it? If you are going to claim it isn't any good, then you can't use it as evidence for anything. But, as it turns out, the CO2 record strongly supports the man made global warming scenario. Something triggered an initial temperature increase in the natural cycles of the past. As the temperature increased, CO2 was released and that led to additional temperature increases. But, today, the CO2 level is actually leading the temperature increases. Something is different. The naturally occurring trigger did not occur. Instead, we did. Our efforts were what led to increased CO2 levels, and that led to increased temperature.
This has all been discussed in previous submissions. If you have anything additional to add that would provide a proof that AGW is not real, I will consider it a new submission. But, I have already received over 50 submissions. Even if you take away the really crazy ones, just about everything you can think of has already been submitted. - I am well aware that there are many different proxies. But the various ice core records don't even match each other, let alone ocean sediments or anything else. It sounds as if you are trying to fall back on some mythical consensus. If these proxies did match, you would be able to answer my original question. When did the last ice age come to an end? When did that process start? When was the "trigger" pulled as you put it? How long did it last, and when did it end? The various ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland show this to have started anywhere from 18,000 to 11,000 years ago, and occurred over several thousand years, or as little as one year. There is no consensus. Richard Alley claims it occurred over as little as 10 years. Read about it here:
http://earthsky.org/earth/richard-alley-on-abrupt-climate-change
A Danish team drilling on Greenland claims it took only one year! Read about that here:
http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE611464/danish-arctic-research-dates-ice-age/
Paleoclimatology as it is today is a field of science in total chaos. Its main focus is trying to reconcile why none of its proxy data matches. But now the warmists want to add another level of absurdity and claim that CO2 was somehow the cause of the earth coming out of an ice age.
The earth did not shoot out of an ice age. It gradually warmed and gradually cooled, and when it was warmer part of the ice sheet melted away. Eventually it cooled enough for new ice to form over much older ice formed at much colder temperatures, giving the illusion of a massive spike in temperature. I have given you a link to the proxy data that proves this, and you have responded with yet more vague answers.
So, your argument is that a news reporter wrote an article that was wrong, therefore climate science is not valid. Tell me something, when you need to see a doctor about cancer are you going to ignore him because some reporter for Newsweek wrote a story about cancer in the 1970s that was wrong?
The truth is, climate scientist were not predicting a new ice age. It was all a reporter, not the scientists. So, why are you pulling this out? What point are you trying to make, other than that you didn't do your homework?
The truth is, climate scientist were not predicting a new ice age. It was all a reporter, not the scientists. So, why are you pulling this out? What point are you trying to make, other than that you didn't do your homework?
- No, that is not my argument at all. I was merely highlighting the fact that it cooled for several decades into the 1970s. Nobody disputes that. It wasn't just made up by some reporter. And it was cooling over those decades while CO2 was rising.
The idea that there is such a thing as modern warming requires that you cherry pick your date of past climate to compare it with. So of course you would want to use the bottom of the Little Ice Age, or the Ice Age scare of the 1970s as your starting point and ignore the bigger picture. It simply doesn't work if you use the Medieval Warm Period, or the Roman Warm Period, or the 1930s, or even the 1990s. Your argument falls apart and there is no such thing as modern warming.
Your claim that the temperature is somehow pulling away from the natural cycle is also absurd. There isn't enough data to know what is or isn't the natural cycle. The greenhouse theory and CO2's affect on temperature has also proven a grand failure. Not a single climate model predicted the flat temperatures over the past 16 years. What you believe to be undeniable fact is really a failed hypothesis. - Absolutely false and that is a poor indicator of how much you have done your homework. If you will check, climate scientists look at the performance of the temperature average over the entire database. What has been found is that the temperature record changes in accordance with known climatic factors throughout the historical record - up to the late-1970s when it began to diverge. This divergence continues to this day and the global average heat index is moving contrary to what it should be doing if natural causes were the only thing involved. There is most definitely no cherry picking by scientists, only by deniers who choose 1998 as a starting point and try to make the case that there has been no global warming. Try starting with 1997 or 1999 and do the same exercise and you get an entirely different result, and that is just the surface average without including the ocean warming.
Again, you still have not shown how any of your claims about ice cores relates to the issue of modern man-made global warming. - When your climate scientists look at the "historical record", I can only assume you are talking about the thermometer records covering the past 150 years that have been thoroughly tortured by James Hansen. Or is it perhaps Michael Mann's fraudulent Hockey Stick graph, put together from tree rings, bubble gum and spit. Or is it the ice core delusion that Al Gore blew up to fifty feet long before he got on that lift that took him up to the ceiling for dramatic effect. Just what historical record are you talking about that makes you think anyone has a clue what the climate "should" be doing?
If any of your climate scientists actually knew what the climate "should" be doing you'd think at least one of them might have put together a climate model that wasn't a total failure.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/ - As soon as you start saying things like that you lose all credibility. Once again, I ask you to do some homework before you start discrediting people and their work. As for Roy Spencer, I did my homework on him and you can see what I found here:
http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/2014/07/30000-challenge-submission-roy-spencer.html
I assure you, I researched him quite well and stand by everything I said in that posting. If you are basing any of your work on his, then your work is in error. - Yet every climate model did fail. Can you point to a single climate model that got anything right? No. Garbage in, garbage out.
And if you need me to explain how ice cores relate to issues of man-made global warming, then I would ask why you have used them in your response to challenge submissions? You clearly think they relate or you wouldn't post them. - You continue to prove you just won't do your homework. You really are a denier. Anything that might contradict you preconceived conclusion just isn't within your radar horizon. Try these to start with, then do you own homework from there.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/27/climate-change-model-global-warming
http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/2013/climate-modeling.html
As for me using ice core data, I am pretty sure the only time I refer to ice core data is when I state that there were changes in the climate in the past. I cannot think of anytime I have used it other than that. There may be, but that is the only thing I can think of.
Now, this conversation is done. You have evolved into a troll that just wants to waste my time and take over the blog. If you have a submission that you think proves man made global warming is not real, then fine. If you have something relevant to the issue of global warming, that is fine. But, I am not here to debate paleoclimatology or to do your homework. You reject the hockey stick and cite Roy Spencer. That is enough by itself to show you have rejected science.
Now, please go away. - Mr. Keating, you are the one who offered this "challenge". I merely responded.
Regarding the ice core data; You wrote in response to a challenge submission "Greenhouse Gasses", dated July 10: "Yes, there have been times in the past where the CO2 level was higher than today, but not within the last 800,000 years." Under that you posted a graph of ice core data.
http://dialoguesonglobalwarming.blogspot.com/2014/07/30000-challenge-submission-greenhouse.html
I have directed you to the proxy data that refutes this as evidence, and explained why you cannot make such claims.
In any case, I am now convinced that this is not and never was a real challenge. It is akin to a religious fanatic offering up $10,000 to anyone who can disprove the existence of God. You would have as much luck disproving the existence of God as I or anyone would have in disproving the existence of the Manbearpig (who's true believers now say is hiding at the bottom of the ocean).
Good day, sir.Mr. Keating,
as you get closer to formulating a response to my challenge submission “Ice Core Issues”, I would like to clarify just what I am submitting and add a little more data as evidence. My submission is not simply an ice core issue, but a new theory as to what is happening in our climate.
I am not calling for the ice core records to be thrown out as evidence, I believe they have useful data that simply has not been interpreted correctly. In short, they are not continuous records, but the fragmented sections of a larger ice age/glacial cycle lasting over 300,000 years. That being the case, we would expect sea levels to reach a highstand near the top of this cycle 80-90k years ago. That is exactly what sea level data shows.(link provided in a previous post)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/860.abstract
We would also expect to see another sea level highstand at the top of this cycle 400k years ago. Again, that is exactly what sea level data shows, at +21 meters above the present level. (also a contradiction to the ice core if read as continuous records.)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379108003144
If you look at further data for sea level highstands, you will find they also occur every 300k+ years, as expected. Marine Isotope Stages(MIS) 17-19 at 700kya-776kya, and MIS 31 at 1,072kya.
The comparison of past sea level data as continuous record, and the ice core data as non-continuous records together reveal the true cycle of past climate being over 300,000 years with a temperature swing of +9 degrees C to -9 degrees C.
Also, if we extrapolate CO2 content from the ice core records, which show concentrations at close to 200ppm at the bottom of the cycle, and concentrations close to 300ppm at the “Interglacials” which we now know to be closer to the middle of the cycle, we could guess that CO2 levels at the top of that cycle would have been closer to today’s 400ppm.
So the statement that “the earth has not seen CO2 levels this high in 800,000 years” cannot be backed up with evidence. It is more likely the earth has seen CO2 levels close to today’s level 8 times in the last 2.5 million years, and each of those times despite the increased level, it did not stop the earth from going back into a glacial stage right on schedule. Thus CO2 is not driving the climate and the theory of man-made global warming is proven false.
I would also like to add, the closest fit shows the larger glacial/iceage cycle to be about 327,000 years. This is interesting because the diameter of the galaxy has been calculated to be 104,000 light years across. Multipliying by Pi puts the circumference of our galaxy at 327,000 light years. Perhaps a better name for my submission would be “The Galactic Climate Cycle”, since our climate is governed both by Milankovitch insolation factors, and what I believe to be an overriding galactic cycle.
Response:The basic premise of this submission is that there are problems with the ice cores, therefore manmade global warming is not real. And, Mr. Iceman himself stated, " I don't believe it is possible to disprove man-made climate change."So, this submission is already a done deal.
Let's be clear, the ice cores are very important to our study of climate science. They tell us a lot about the past and provide us with air sample from past periods that we couldn't get otherwise (or, at least, they would not be as good). Having said that, just let me say that if there were issues with the ice cores, it would be irrelevant to the issue of today's recent global warming.
But, to put this to rest, let's look at the claim that there is a problem with the ice cores.
Mr. Iceman begins by providing a link to a blog of his that purports to show a new ice age is imminent. The first issue with this claim is his statement about paleoclimatology, "which relies almost entirely on ice core data." This, of course, is simply false. Paleoclimatology relies on data from many sources, including ice cores, mud cores, coral cores, tree rings and even lake sediments. Take a look at this NOAA website here or this one here.
He then goes into making false and irrelevant statements about global warming.
He then makes a monumentally false statement:The ice core record as a continuous record of past climate is, of course, based on the assumption that the ice is all there and none of it ever melted.
Why would he make such a glaringly false statement? Does he really think he is the first person to think that ice melted over the years? Does he really think that he's the first person to think that some of the ice core might be missing? Is this an example of his thought processes?
Of course scientists address these issues. What they do is to take many cores and correlate them together. They will get a series of data from one core and then, when they compare it to the other cores, they can see if there is a gap in the data. But, that isn't all. They can compare the ice core data to data obtained from other sources. Again, the data from one should match the data from the other. Gaps in the data would indicate if some of the data sample has been removed. Look at this quote from a American Geophysical Union paper on ice cores:The chronology of the Vostok ice core is also supported by a glaciological model. Southern Ocean temperature variations correlate with those at Vostok. Also, because photosynthesis transmits seawater variations to atmospheric O2, the variations in 18O of O2 in air trapped in the Vostok ice roughly coincide with variations in 18O of seawater reflected in the isotopic content of the forams in deep-sea sediments. There is also a correlation between the Vostok dust concentration and the record of mass accumulation rate in a core taken from the Indian Ocean.
As you can see, there are many sources of data and they are all compared to each other to ensure we are not encountering exactly the kind of situation Mr. Iceman claims no one else has ever thought of.
So, Mr. Iceman bases his entire claim on the assumption that ice core data is missing, and it is missing at exactly the right times in history most convenient for his claim. In other words, without any supporting evidence and contrary to the mountain of existing evidence, Mr. Iceman claims the data that is missing is the data necessary to make his claim valid. This leads him to the following conclusion:If the temperature reconstruction is accurate it means the Earth was not covered in ice 20-30,000 years ago, but in fact warmer than it is today and cooling rapidly. The sea level was higher than it is today, not lower. It means the Earth has been in a cooling phase for at least 50,000 years, and will probably continue for another 100,000 years.
The amount of scientific evidence that he has simply thrown out is so monumental that I can't express it. I will point you to just one of countless sites that refute this entire conclusion. This one is from the American Museum of Natural History.
Mr. Iceman also cites the work of Richard Alley, a climate scientists that has done work leading to the conclusion that the last ice age ended in just three years. This is very curious, because Dr. Alley says the last ice age ended 20,000 years ago, while Mr. Iceman claims it ended some 50,000 years ago. Also, Mr. Iceman says the next ice age is imminent, while Dr. Alley states,There’s no danger of an ice age popping in now,” says Penn State glaciologist Richard Alley. “I believe that most people studying this field think that, without any human intervention,…a new ice age should arrive 20,000 years into the future.”
So, Mr. Iceman is using Dr. Alley when it fits his theories and ignores him when it doesn't. That continues the trend he established with his data set.
So, the conclusion is that Mr. Iceman's article on his blog is scientifically invalid, a conclusion I am sure he will hotly disagree with, but you have to go where the science leads you and he didn't.Continuing with his submission above, Mr. Iceman cites a paper about sea levels. Here is the abstract from that paper:
As you can see, they state their work shows the sea level on the island of Mallorca was about 1 meter higher 81,000 years ago than it is today. Note, they did not say it didn't change between now and then. Mr. Iceman is somehow making the conclusion that the change was linear and there is no evidence to support that. The sea level could have been higher and lower than that 81,000 year ago level several times and the record shows that it was.Global sea level and Earth’s climate are closely linked. Using speleothem encrustations from coastal caves on the island of Mallorca, we determined that western Mediterranean relative sea level was ~1 meter above modern sea level ~81,000 years ago during marine isotope stage (MIS) 5a. Although our findings seemingly conflict with the eustatic sea-level curve of far-field sites, they corroborate an alternative view that MIS 5a was at least as ice-free as the present, and they challenge the prevailing view of MIS 5 sea-level history and certain facets of ice-age theory.
Also, note that they said it challenges "certain facets of ice-age theory." They did not say they challenge ALL of ice age theory, as Mr. Iceman is trying to do. This is part of the normal scientific process. New details are discovered and we adjust what we understand accordingly. That does not mean we are throwing out all that we have learned. This paper does nothing to support Mr. Iceman's claims.
Part of Mr. Iceman's claim is that CO2 cannot be causing global warming because there is an 800-year lag in the temperature versus the CO2 level. This statement is almost laughably funny that I wonder if he meant it on purpose. Mr. Iceman is saying that there is an 800-year lag in the ice core data that proves CO2 cannot be causing climate change, but his entire premise is based on his claim that there are gigantic gaps in the ice core data. So, the data is missing when it is convenient for Mr. Iceman, but then it is complete when it is convenient. Hmmm!
By the way, the issue of the "800-year lag" has been addressed pretty thoroughly.
So, what we have is a claim that the ice core record is wrong because it fits his hypotheses, but isn't supported by any scientific evidence. But, then the ice core is right when he wants to make some other claim. The little bit of scientific evidence he cited did not support his conclusions.
Mr. Iceman did not prove man made global warming is not real. But, he admitted that himself. More to the point, Mr. Iceman did nothing to show the ice core data is flawed.
HERE IS MR. ICEMAN'S COMMENT TO MY RESPONSE, WHICH I AM CONSIDERING AS AN ADDENDUM TO HIS SUBMISSION AND WILL RESPOND AT THE END.
Source: SIO Keeling Curve
As you can see, today's CO2 level (that enormous spike on the right side) is far in excess of anything recorded in the last 800,000 years.
What Mr. Iceman will claim is that the ice core record is not valid, but we have already covered that. He has no scientific evidence to support that claim and the scientific evidence showing it is highly accurate is very large. So, that claim would not be valid.
Here is a plot of CO2 levels with temperature:
In this plot, today is on the left side and 800,000 years ago is on the right. You can follow the plots and see how the temperature has changed over the millenia and so has the CO2 level. The CO2 level did not initiate the warming trend. The trends were initiated by naturally occurring cycles, mostly Milankovitch cycles. However, those cycles with the resulting solar influx did not provide enough energy to cause the resulting warming. But, once the warming trend started, CO2 was released, which provided positive feedback and resulted in more warming. This also resulted in an increase in water vapor, another potent greenhouse gas. When the natural cycle came to an end and the atmosphere began to cool, the water vapor would be precipitated out and removed the CO2.
I have covered this many times on this blog and it is well documented for anyone that wants to do their homework. Here is nice little summary for starters.
So, Mr. Iceman's contention is shown to be false.
Mr. Iceman then states:You have an entire field of study in conflict with itself because nobody dares question the holy measuring stick that is the ice core record.
This is all false. The ice core record is questioned all the time and I showed that in my first response. The ice core data must correlate to the data from other sources. This is constantly being checked and nothing is ever assumed (except, apparently by Mr. Iceman who has filled his submission with assumptions). New cores of all types are being collected every year and integrated into the data base. Any discrepancy must be accounted for and the very fact that they are looking for discrepancies shows how false Mr. Iceman's claim is. So, that part of his statement is false.
They cannot reconcile why sea level data and ice core data do not match. They cannot reconcile why radiocarbon dating of coral reefs do match sea level predictions. They cannot tell you how the woolly mammoths died out and were found with tropical plants still in their stomachs. And scientists are still trying to twist their data and explain why nothing seems to fit.
Why did the woolly mammoth die out? Beats me. I'm not a biologist. But, I see nothing to suggest it is nothing more than irrelevant. Here is a posting pointing out that the mammoth in question was known to be preyed upon by scavengers before it was found. That sounds like a very likely source of contamination. By the way, the tropical plants were found in the mouth, not the stomach. Also, it is pointed out that one researcher called the plants 'tropical' but they are actually plants found in the Siberian tundra even today. Wikipedia states the plant material found in the mouth (not in the stomach) was grass. Hardly tropical.
As I said, I am not a biologist, but it seems to me Mr. Iceman once again failed the credibility test on his scientific 'evidence.'
And, actually, I did address your claim about ice age cycles. I provided you with some links showing how the last ice age was 20,000 years ago, completely debunking your claim. But, look at the temperature record I provided above. You can clearly see the ice ages (they are the low points in the graphs) and you can see that it is not a 300,000 year record. By your logic, there would be two, maybe three, low points in that graph. There is a gigantic amount of scientific evidence showing the periods of the ice ages. The only bit of evidence you presented is that it would fit your hypotheses if all of that science was invalid. Do you really expect the world to just throw out such an enormous amount of science simply because it is convenient for you?
By the way, 'highstand' does not mean the sea level was the highest level in all of history. It means it was the highest level during some period of time. So, 81,000 ago was the high sea level mark for that climatic cycle. Maybe it was the highest ever recorded (some point had to be) and maybe it wasn't. Here is a paper on the subject. Based on the graph provided in it, it is possible the 81,000 year highstand was the highest in the last 800,000 years, although it isn't really clear based on the quality of the graph. In any case, there is no relevance to that point because we know the sea level has gone up and down since then.
So, having addressed Mr. Iceman's complaints, I can still categorically state that he has failed to prove man made global warming is not real. And, I can also still state without hesitation that he has shown no evidence what ever that the ice core data is not valid.
IcemanJuly 14, 2014 at 6:44 PM
www.theiceageishere.blogspot.com
I also offer proof as corroborative evidence, a sea level highstand over the past 100,000 years, at 81,000 years ago. This evidence directly refutes the ice core data as currently interpreted and backs up my claim.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5967/860.abstract