As best I can tell, the only constant in climate is change, As an example, the record of northern temperatures for the last 10,000 years, below, shows nothing but major ups and downs following the end of the last ice age 9500 years ago. The only pattern, if you call it a pattern, is fractal chaos. Anti-change politicos like to concentrate on the near-recent 110 years from 1890 to 2000. This is the small up line at the right, but they ignore the previous 10000 or more, ignore the fact that the last 17 years show no change, and ignore the variation within the 100 years (they call it weather). I find I can not spot the part of the change that’s man-made.
10,000 years of northern climate temperatures based on Greenland ice cores. Dr. Ole Humlum, Dept. of Geosciences, University of Oslo. Can you spot the part of the climate change that’s man-made?
Steven Colbert makes his case for belief: If you don’t believe it you’re stupid.
Steven Colbert makes the claim that man-made climate change is so absolutely apparent that all the experts agree, and that anyone who doubts is crazy, stupid, or politically motivated (he, of course is not). Freeman Dyson, one of the doubters, is normally not considered crazy or stupid. The approach reminds me of “the emperor’s new clothes.” Only the good, smart people see it. The same people used to call it “Global Warming” based on a model prediction of man-made warming. The name was changed to “climate change” since the planet isn’t warming. The model predicted strong warming in the upper atmosphere, but that isn’t happening either; ski areas are about as cold as ever (we’ve got good data from ski areas).
I note that the climate on Jupiter has changed too in the last 100 years. A visible sign of this is that the great red spot has nearly disappeared. But it’s hard to claim that’s man-made. There’s a joke here, somewhere.
Jupiter’s red spot has shrunk significantly. Here it is now. NASA
As a side issue, it seems to me that some global warming could be a good thing. The periods that were warm had peace and relative plenty, while periods of cold, like the little ice age, 500 years ago were times of mass starvation and plague. Similarly, things were a lot better during the medieval warm period (1000 AD) than during the dark ages 500-900 AD. The Roman warm period (100 BC-50 AD) was again warm and (relatively) civilized. Perhaps we owe some of the good food production of today to the warming shown on the chart above. Civilization is good. Robert E. Buxbaum January 14, 2015. (Corrected January 19; I’d originally labeled Steven Colbert as Jon Stewart)
In which year does your first graph end?
The Greenland core temperatures are from 1997, the Antarctica core temperatures from 2006. An impressive new core was just announced, going back 2.4 million years, but the temperature data is unavailable to me currently.
Pixel counting says it’s 80 years before present – i.e. before 1950.
https://imgur.com/a/d5Gbzoa
Highly accurate, ofc, but far off the anthropocene. On the off chance it does go that far, the source data would need to say so.
I don’t think I used the graph you show, but one of more recent vintage that went back further, anothetwher 10,000 years. This doesn’t mean that the data on my graph avoided the problem that’s bothering you. Thegraph I sed was also of ice core data, and it takes a while for snow to become ice-core. I didn’t pixel count on my graph, but the present of the graph might well have been 1950 like in the graph you show. The point of of it all was to show the massive temperature changes of the past, and also that we are over-due for another ice age. One of my issues is the normal assumption that colder is better. I disagree, but you are free to disagree with me.
Pingback: if everyone agrees, something is wrong | REB Research Blog
I think your credibility would improve if you correctly identified Steven Colbert. You identify him as Jon Stewart. They are both admitted “fake” new correspondents on Comedy Central.
Sorry about that. You are right, of course. I’ll fix it, but wish to leave your comment intact. For one reason or another, I don’t watch the comic news, and don’t know one comedian from the other. I’m given to understand that most Americans get their news this way, though.