The Holocene Deniers

[grmorton]

It has been a while since I have been on this forum. I will stay a while.


First came the holocaust--a horrible mass-murder, a genocide, in that day condemned by one and all. Then came the holocaust deniers, people who were rightly condemned for denying the obvious killing of 6 million people.

Then came the idea of global warming; and in the rush to shut up anyone who doubted what the global warming community, with its political allies, said, the term 'global warming denier' was coined. Besides denigrating the severity of opprobrium which should be given to holocaust deniers, the term attempts to transfer some of that opprobrium to those who would dare disagree with this political, not science, movement. Such things are done in political movements, not in scientific movements--or it should be that way, unfortunately such terminological predjudices are used everywhere. Since I can't stop it, I will join in the fun.


Thus, I will define my own term, Holocene deniers. What is a Holocene denier? It is a global warming advocate who refuses to deal with the geological data showing that all of the things they fear have already been visited upon the earth, in the Holocene, the geologic epoch which occupies the last 10,000 years of earth history. What are the predictions ? Well, everything that comes from higher temperatures. The predictions of temperature rise this century hover around 2-3 deg C warming. That will melt some of the glacial ice causing the oceans to rise by 18-59 cm, about half a meter. (Wikipedia) The IPCC2007 says that the present temperatures, which everyone fears greatly is the highest temperatures in the past 1300 years.

"Palaeoclimatic information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 m of sea level rise. {6.4, 6.6}" (IPCC, 2007)

But this is the most amazing statement. If all we can say about the present climate is that we are no warmer than 700-800AD, that clearly argues that the present warmth is in no way unprecedented nor scary. But, everyone loves a good scary story, which is why the horror genre sells so well.

Given the above statement from the IPCC, anyone who says that the current warmth is unprecedented in human history is a Holocene denier. They are denying what happened in the last 10,000 years.

The above information, from the IPCC implies strongly that if we have seen this before, as well as before the Holocene, why should we consider the present temperature increase as anything other than a natural fluctuation.

Now it is interesting that the figure 1300 years is used, because 1000 years ago, the forests grew higher up the hills in Siberia than they do now. That means it was warmer then than now.

"While the decomposition rate of Pinus sibirica and Picea obovata remnants in the cold and dry Siberian climate is unknown, stumps and logs of Larix sibirica can be preserved for hundreds of years [Shiyatov, 1992]. Above the treeline in the Polar Urals such relict material from large, upright trees were sampled and dated, confirming the existence, around AD 1000, of a forest treeline 30 m above the late 20th century limit [Shiyatov, 2003]. This previous forest limit receded around 1350, perhaps caused by a general cooling trend [Briffa, 2000; Esper et al., 2002]." (Esper and Schweingruber, 2004, p. L06202)

Using the adiabatic lapse rate, the rate at which the air gets cooler as one goes up, one can calculate that Siberia was at least .2 deg C warmer then than it is now. Those who think we are the warmest time in history are Holocene deniers--denying what has happened in the past 10,000 years.

Not only that, the Siberian treeline was further north then

"The migration of trees into the region is expressed at our site by the macrofossil pattern of larch (Larix siberica) and birch (Betula pubescens) arrival, followed by spruce (Picea obovata). About six thousand years ago, spruce trees moved even further northward. Climate at that time was warmer than today. Since that time, however, the treeline retreated to its present position, and tundra replaced the old trees. The redevelopment and spread of peatland resulted in increases in moisture and acidity. This vast spread of tundra within the last few millennia indicates that climate cooled after the mid-Holocene warming." (Anonymous, NASA,)

And this is from NASA. It seems that the 'consensus' that the modern temperature should be a danger isn't as consensual as it is often claimed.

If one goes back to a time before the Holocene, to that of the last interglacial, one finds that the trees were 600 km north and west of their present location and some studies say that the trees were at the arctic coast line. (But more importantly, there is one fact that is true. Trees don't grow in permafrost. So, if the trees were further north a few thousand years ago, that means that the permafrost, of which Holocene deniers fear is melting, wasn't there a few millennia ago. That means that the permafrost they fear melting is NEW permafrost. It isn't primordial. Indeed one source says that much of it is only 300-400 years old. They call it Little Ice Age permafrost. That means it formed since 1300 AD, just when those older forests in Siberia were dying.

" Thawing of the Little Ice Age permafrost is going on at many locations and there are some indications that the late-Holocene permafrost started to thaw at some specific undisturbed locations in the European North-East, in the northwest of West Siberia, and in Alaska. Some projections of possible changes in permafrost during the current century based on application of calibrated permafrost models will be provided in our presentation. The possible consequences of permafrost degradation will also be discussed.” (Romanovsky et al, 2008, p. 397)

The hysterical Holocene deniers are worried that the permafrost will melt, giving off huge quantities of methane and tipping the world into a runaway greenhouse. But, this permafrost they fear melting wasn't frozen 700 years ago at the time that the IPCC implies had a warmer temperature than the present.

What about the glaciers? Well, if the temperature rises, the glaciers will melt. But, once again, the Holocene deniers deny that this all happened before but it has. In mid-Norway, there are glaciers today. Before 6400 years ago, there were no glaciers there. This knowledge can be used to infer how much warmer it was then than it is now. It was 1 deg C warmer then than now.

“Neoglaciation began as early as Ca. 6400 yr B.P. at Gjuvvatnet, ca. 3400 yr B. P. At Midtivatnet, and later than ca. 1000 yr B. P. At Storevatnet. These differences in glacierization provide a key to reconstructing the fluctuating decline in mean summer temperature (relative to the present) from at least +1 o C during the mid-Holocene to below -2o C in the ‘Little Ice Age.” (Matthews and Karlen, 1992, p. 991)

In the picture below, the glaciers (in black) weren't there 5000 years ago or so.

And what of sea level then? Well, because it was warmer than now, the seas were higher. Below is the band of possible sea levels along the Paraguayan coast over the mid- to late-Holocene. Note that the seas were higher

All along the east coast of the US is the Silver Bluff strandline that sits a few meters above current sea level. (Colquhoun, 1969). Blum et al note that the Texas coast showed that during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, the seas were 2 meters higher

"These models provide plausible explanations for much of the observed variability in Pirazzoli’s (1991) global compilation of Holocene sea-level curves, including observations of middle Holocene sea-level positions at 2 to 3 m above present for many low-latitude sites outside of North America" (Blum et al, 2001, p. 581)

Namibia, likewise shows evidence of this highstand.

The radiocarbon ages of mollusc shells from the Bogenfels Pan on the hyper arid southern coast of Namibia provide constraints on the Holocene evolution of sea level and, in particular, the mid-Holocene highstand. The Bogenfels Pan was flooded to depths of 3 m above mean sea level (amsl) to form a large subtidal lagoon from 7300 to 6500 calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal yr BP). " (Compton, 2006, p. 303)

Australia also shows evidence of higher seas at this time. There are beaches sitting a couple of meters above sea level there as well, dated to the same time

The catastrophe? Nada. There was no catastrophe, even with the seas 2 meters higher then than now. But the Holocene deniers keep trying to say that all these coming changes are due to man, that they are outside of the natural variation, which means, they are denying the Holocene.

Reefs, not reefers, anyone? Holocene deniers worry about the rising seas killing off the reefs. But, of course, this too has happened and the Holocene deniers deny it.

" I have recently shown that modern breakwater reefs around Grand Cayman lie at a uniform distance (300+ or -50 m) from a mid-shelf slope break, and have suggested that this distance is proportional to the power and carrying capacity of hurricane waves (Blanchon et al. 1997; J. Sed. Res. 67, p. 1-16). During the summer of '96, I tested this prediction by drilling 300 m back from the shelf edge with the hope of finding relict breakwater reefs associated with the mid-Holocene sea-level lowstand from ca. 11.0 to 7.6 cal. ka. Here I confirm that prediction and report the successful discovery of the crest of a relict Acropora palmata reef off the eastern shelf of Grand Cayman. Ten short cores drilled at 4 localities along the feature show that the crest of the relict reef lies in 21.3 m of water and consists not of in-place coral framework but of cobbles of A. palmata in a cemented matrix of skeletal sand. The surface of the relict reef, which slopes seaward to 23.5 m, is encrusted by a cm-thick layer of coralline algae and is abruptly overlain by up to one metre of mixed-coral framework containing stumps of in-place A palmata and other corals. Although dating (U/Th TIMS) is still in progress, the depth of the relict breakwater reef is close or identical to the depth of relict reefs reported from other Caribbean islands. Dating of those reefs indicates that they ceased accreting between 7.6 and 7.5 cal. ka ago and had backstepped to new positions 6.5+ or -2.5 m up slope by at least 7.5 cal. ka. This abrupt backstepping, and the discovery of yet another relict reef around Grand Cayman, further indicates that Caribbean reefs were drowned by a rapid, metre-scale, sea-level rise event (CRE-3) during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum. " (Blanchon, 1997, p. 112 )

The Holocene highstand drowned many reefs around the world, and guess what? the reefs re-established themselves in the warmer world with higher sea levels. That is what reef polyps do--they figure out how to survive in changing conditions just like every other organism. There is no sign that they will die either with higher seas or higher CO2. If the seas warm, the reefs will move northward as they have in the past when the seas warmed. Given the fear among the Holocene deniers, one would think they believe in the fixity of species.

Holocene deniers always criticise others for not paying attention to science, while, they deny the science of geology, especially the Holocene science of geology. Unfortunately, Holocene deniers will deny this

References at The Migrant Mind: Holocene Denial Syndrome

This post would be too long otherwise

 

[Gracchus]

But of course, when the tree-line was farther north, so were the deserts.

And before a new equilibrium is established there will be chaotic weather, crop failures, famine, plagues, and volkerwanderung. It has happened before. The collapse of the Mycenaean culture was caused by a far less serious climate disruption than the present changes.

Will life survive? Almost certainly.

Will human life survive? Probably, but there will be lots of dying, and lots of misery, and nations and cultures will vanish. Recovery will be slow, because we have wasted and destroyed so much.

Think of the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous. Think of narrow coastal strips of forest surrounding huge continental deserts. Think of the great plains of Asia and North America as barren as the Gobi and the Sahara. Think of oceans that will take hundreds or thousands of years to purge themselves of the poisons we have dumped in them.

But it is useless to enjoin you to think. You have probably never gotten the trick of it.

 

[Baggins]

Straw man argument.

As Gracchus has already pointed out no geologist denies that dramatic climate change has occurred in the past.

Is there any evidence that any geologists deny the climatic changes in the Holocene it was the end of an ice age of course there was climate change.

This is one of the largest straw men I have ever seen constructed.

 

[grmorton]

But of course, when the tree-line was farther north, so were the deserts.

Well, during this time the Sahara was very wet and harboured a very interesting biota and flora.

"
The Neolithic Subpluvial — sometimes called the Holocene Wet Phase — was an extended period (from about 7,000 BC to about 3,000 BC) of wet and rainy conditions in the climate history of northern Africa. It was both preceded and followed by much drier periods.
The Neolithic Subpluvial was the most recent of a number of periods of "Wet Sahara" or "Green Sahara" during which the region was much moister and supported a richer biota and human population than the present-day desert." Neolithic Subpluvial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Europe was not a desert at this time, so I think you are quite wrong in your assertion.

And before a new equilibrium is established there will be chaotic weather, crop failures, famine, plagues, and volkerwanderung. It has happened before. The collapse of the Mycenaean culture was caused by a far less serious climate disruption than the present changes.

Well, even without global warming there will be chaotic weather (ever live through a hurricane? I have. a tornado? I have), famines pllagues and wandering people. So, you are conflating normal events for something abnormal.

Will life survive? Almost certainly.

Will human life survive? Probably, but there will be lots of dying, and lots of misery, and nations and cultures will vanish. Recovery will be slow, because we have wasted and destroyed so much.

Geemany! There will be lots of dying anyway. 100 years from today most of us will have died. Lots of dying. I can't believe you think this is a serious argument.

Think of the Jurassic, Triassic and Cretaceous. Think of narrow coastal strips of forest surrounding huge continental deserts. Think of the great plains of Asia and North America as barren as the Gobi and the Sahara. Think of oceans that will take hundreds or thousands of years to purge themselves of the poisons we have dumped in them.

What nonsense.

But it is useless to enjoin you to think. You have probably never gotten the trick of it.

Let's see. Who actually cited scientific literature? You or me? I think it was me, not you. Maybe you should actually read some of the scientific literature.

 

[grmorton]

Straw man argument.

As Gracchus has already pointed out no geologist denies that dramatic climate change has occurred in the past.

Is there any evidence that any geologists deny the climatic changes in the Holocene it was the end of an ice age of course there was climate change.

This is one of the largest straw men I have ever seen constructed.

Of course it isn't a strawman argument. You say we should all be scared of rising sea levels. But they were already high and are lower now than in the past. You say we should worry about the melting of the permafrost, yet it was melted 5000 years ago without destroying the world. You say we should worry about Antarctic ice shelves melting, yet that too has already happened.

Please tell me why on earth I should worry about global warming when all the things y'all say to scare us have already happened during the times of human civilizations.

 

[Drekkan85]

The problem is that when they were higher in the past we didn't have, oh, Miami. Or the entire nation of Holland. Or Bangladesh. Plus, I'm fairly sure the holocene wasn't seeing high temperatures, and temperature increases, during times of relative solar minimum and a quiet sun cycle.

 

[Baggins]

Of course it isn't a strawman argument. You say we should all be scared of rising sea levels. But they were already high and are lower now than in the past. You say we should worry about the melting of the permafrost, yet it was melted 5000 years ago without destroying the world. You say we should worry about Antarctic ice shelves melting, yet that too has already happened.

Please tell me why on earth I should worry about global warming when all the things y'all say to scare us have already happened during the times of human civilizations.

It is an enormous straw man, no one in the Earth Sciences denies extreme climate variations in the past or climate change in the Holocene, so your whole premise is mendacious.

Of course we should be worried about rising sea levels, the fact that they have been both much higher and much lower in the past has absolutely no bearing on that, the reason that we should be worried about rising sea levels is that hundreds of millions of people live close to sea level and will be displaced by rising sea levels.

Just because these things have happened in the past before human civilisation existed or before humans existed doesn't mean they can't destroy or have detrimental effects on our present civilisation, your whole argument is ludicrous and attempting to say that Earth Scientists reject these things happening in the past is dishonest.

Your OP is an entirely dishonest straw man, you should know better, you should be ashamed of yourself.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Clearly Glenn is not getting enough traffic over at his blog The Migrant Mind

(And, by the way, to tell earth scientists that they are somehow in denial of climate change in the past, and then use it to lambaste the generally accepted current science is indeed a strawman "by-the-book" type construction.)

It is possible that current warming may be quite differently caused from prior warmings. Perhaps you'd like to slip into a post hoc ergo propter hoc type logic fallacy as well?

Let's see how many logic fallacies can be generated in the first 10 pages of this thread.

AND, let's ignore the majority of climate science professionals.

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise"(2005 SOURCE)

emphasis added.

 

[Naraoia]

*Goes to get pop corn*

 

[thaumaturgy]

*Goes to get pop corn*

SPOILER ALERT:

Here's how the plot plays out:

1. Glenn will start posting examples of local station data showing errors and disagreements between stations. Regardless of how closely the stations correspond over long periods of time he'll blow the differences up into large scale questions about the integrity of the entire meteorological system in place since the 1800's. (prime examples will include comments kind of like: "how can a 20 degree difference exist between these two stations without a giant hurricane forming in the middle of Texas and no one recording it?"-type argumentum ad absurdum coupled with strawman arguments. He'll ignore the fact that data contain errors or that climatologists have been working to track down and deal with errors in a very open and well-publicized manner, and that many of these station "couplets" have a median difference of just about 0 degrees over the course of 40+ years.)

2. People will attempt to refute individual points until it becomes literally a debate about two neighboring stations in backwoods Georgia with some errors.

3. This will cause Glenn to call into question all of climatology regardless of the fact that this isn't how the data itself is used in the assessment of global climate change topics.

4. Then everyone will get snarky and nasty and hurl invective at each other

5. Glenn will remind us that
5a. He's been the director of technology for a major oil company
5b. He's lived in China
5C. He speaks some mandarin
5d. He knows a lot of people with PhD's and he's been their boss
5e. He's published a paper that uses statistics
5f. You likely don't understand the depth of the science he does
6. Everyone loses

Roll credits. (Save the popcorn money).

 

[ArnautDaniel]

First came the holocaust--a horrible mass-murder, a genocide, in that day condemned by one and all. Then came the holocaust deniers, people who were rightly condemned for denying the obvious killing of 6 million people.

That's 6 million Jews.

Once again we forget about the 5 - 6 million other people.

It is like most people deny half of the holocaust and some people deny all of it.

 

[grmorton]

The problem is that when they were higher in the past we didn't have, oh, Miami. Or the entire nation of Holland. Or Bangladesh. Plus, I'm fairly sure the holocene wasn't seeing high temperatures, and temperature increases, during times of relative solar minimum and a quiet sun cycle.

Like King Canute, you seem to think you can stop natural cycles. Why don't you set a chair by the ocean and command the tides to cease?

Man better learn to adapt to nature rather than always thinking he is a God who can command nature to do his bidding.

 

[grmorton]

It is an enormous straw man, no one in the Earth Sciences denies extreme climate variations in the past or climate change in the Holocene, so your whole premise is mendacious.

And you keep missing the entire point. I find few in the geoscience world who actually believe that we should be worried about global warming. Most of us (for I am a geophysicist) think the world has gone daft because we have been there. The point you are utterly missing is that it isn't the geoscientists who deny the Holocene, it is the climate wackos.

Of course we should be worried about rising sea levels, the fact that they have been both much higher and much lower in the past has absolutely no bearing on that, the reason that we should be worried about rising sea levels is that hundreds of millions of people live close to sea level and will be displaced by rising sea levels.

They will have to adapt to the world, just like everyone else, and every other species. If humanity gets to the point that it can't adapt, we will go extinct. The global warming hysteriacs seem to think that we are god-like creatures who can control the weather. We can't. You are not that big of a deal.

Just because these things have happened in the past before human civilisation existed or before humans existed doesn't mean they can't destroy or have detrimental effects on our present civilisation, your whole argument is ludicrous and attempting to say that Earth Scientists reject these things happening in the past is dishonest.

I am sorry but you are just uneducable. I never said that earth scientists denied these things. Global warming hysteriacs are the ones who deny the Holocene. As I said above, that is why most geoscientists are not very worried about global warming. We know it is merely a natural variation and we haven't even gone outside of the band of natural variation yet. And yet, hysteriacs are all worked up in a lather about something that happened before.

As to your laughable claim that this all happened before civilization, 5000 years ago, there was something called the Sumerian civilization. What a risible claim you make when you say all this happened before civilization. Are global warming advocates that uneducated?

Your OP is an entirely dishonest straw man, you should know better, you should be ashamed of yourself.

And you seem not to know when civilization started--it started even before the Sumerians. What a laugh. Thanks for the laugh.

 

[Thistlethorn]

And you keep missing the entire point. I find few in the geoscience world who actually believe that we should be worried about global warming. Most of us (for I am a geophysicist) think the world has gone daft because we have been there. The point you are utterly missing is that it isn't the geoscientists who deny the Holocene, it is the climate wackos.

Oh, and here I thought it was a majority of scientists in the relevant field who accept the huge amounts of peer-reviewed papers supporting the global warming scenario. Perhaps you could show us some evidence for this majority of geo-scientists who doubts man-made global warming?

They will have to adapt to the world, just like everyone else, and every other species. If humanity gets to the point that it can't adapt, we will go extinct. The global warming hysteriacs seem to think that we are god-like creatures who can control the weather. We can't. You are not that big of a deal.

You realize that it's us humans who are changing the climate this time, right? Not nature, right? All the "global warming hysteriacs" want is for us to stop pumping tremendous amounts of green-house gases into the atmosphere in order to halt the man-made global warming.

I am sorry but you are just uneducable. I never said that earth scientists denied these things. Global warming hysteriacs are the ones who deny the Holocene.

Why have you come to the ridiculous conclusion that anyone denies the Holocene? It seems to me that this is a huge straw man as well as a serious case of projection. Grmorton denies man-made global warming, but he doesn't like it when people tell him that, so he'll make up a story about them denying something completely irrelevant. Am I getting warm?

As I said above, that is why most geoscientists are not very worried about global warming. We know it is merely a natural variation and we haven't even gone outside of the band of natural variation yet. And yet, hysteriacs are all worked up in a lather about something that happened before.

Again, please show some evidence for this being a majority opinion amongst anyone but reality-deniers?

As to your laughable claim that this all happened before civilization, 5000 years ago, there was something called the Sumerian civilization. What a risible claim you make when you say all this happened before civilization. Are global warming advocates that uneducated?

Are you going to bring up the Medieval warm period next?

And you seem not to know when civilization started--it started even before the Sumerians. What a laugh. Thanks for the laugh.

Please remain here and tell this to our creationist friends. Seems they disagree with you here.

In conclusion I would like for you to provide some actual peer-reviewed evidence of what you're talking about. You know, peer-reviewed papers, what real scientists deal with? You made a quite laughable assertion earlier about global warming being a political movement, which is yet more projection on your part. It seems what we have here is a global-warming denier who's extremely insecure in his beliefs, so he'll assert a majority opinion (which is false) and that his opponents are the one's being politically sponsored.

 

[grmorton]

Clearly Glenn is not getting enough traffic over at his blog The Migrant Mind

(And, by the way, to tell earth scientists that they are somehow in denial of climate change in the past, and then use it to lambaste the generally accepted current science is indeed a strawman "by-the-book" type construction.)

It is possible that current warming may be quite differently caused from prior warmings. Perhaps you'd like to slip into a post hoc ergo propter hoc type logic fallacy as well?

Let's see how many logic fallacies can be generated in the first 10 pages of this thread.

AND, let's ignore the majority of climate science professionals.

emphasis added.

Well, one always wants more traffic but that isn't why I am back, Thau. Lets see if you will defend the raw data, which is said to be capable of proving that the world has warmed. Lets look at two towns merely 20 miles apart or so and see if the temperature they measure is similar. Lets take something I did tonight on the blog. I compared Coldwater Kansas with Ashland Kansas. I checked the forecast for the next 3 days between these two towns. Coldwater is forecasted to be 1 deg F cooler than Ashland, a few miles away. This is the way it normally is.

But, the measured temperature between these two cities is vastly different. I downloaded the raw daily temperature records for both towns from U.S. Historical Climatology Network - NDP-070

I then aligned the dates, which in the case of these two towns is not too tough as only a few gaps in the data set exist. I then averaged each year's temperature. The first plot is of the two yearly temperature averages. You can see how inept the government is at measuring the average yearly temperature.

Thaumaturgy, a question. Do you believe that the annual average temperature in Coldwater is actually 5 deg F hotter than that in Ashland? Do you really beleive this crap? Please confirm your sanity by saying you don't believe this temperature difference.

The second plot is a plot of the daily temperatures merely subtracted from each other. You can see that Coldwater is hotter than Ashland in this. When I put a 365 day moving average on the chart I get the last picture. Two towns on the prairie only a few miles apart can't be that different in temperature.

What all this means is that you guys are trusting these crap measurments of daily temperature to prove that the world is warming. Statistically from this data you can't do that.

Thaumaturgy, why do you think science is a mindless sheeple groupthink? Are all scientists supposed to march in lockstep? Your comment about ignoring all the professionals, makes me think you are the mind-numbed robot here. Can you think for yourself or do you have to have someone tell you what to think?

 

[Thistlethorn]

It seems your predictions are coming true, thaumaturgy, only it isn't Texas, but Kansas.

 

[grmorton]

SPOILER ALERT:

Here's how the plot plays out:

1. Glenn will start posting examples of local station data showing errors and disagreements between stations.

Wow, what clairevoyance. All that took was a look at my blog. You seem to think that you will get some grand kudos for looking at my blog before the others do. A kewpie doll for you, Thaumaturgy.

Now answer my question. Why should I worry about Antarctic Ice shelves melting when they were melted 80 kilometers further south 5000 years ago than they are today?

Regardless of how closely the stations correspond over long periods of time he'll blow the differences up into large scale questions about the integrity of the entire meteorological system in place since the 1800's.

So, give me a number beyond which you think that two stations can't be measuring the same thing? The problem here Thaumaturgy is that you can't ever let the system be wrong. You are like a young-earth creationist here who can't possibly allow his precious world view to be doubted. You will beleive that the government can measure the temperature correctly even when it can't and you will squeal like a pig that it is inappropriate to actually look at the raw data.

(prime examples will include comments kind of like: "how can a 20 degree difference exist between these two stations without a giant hurricane forming in the middle of Texas and no one recording it?"-type argumentum ad absurdum coupled with strawman arguments. He'll ignore the fact that data contain errors or that climatologists have been working to track down and deal with errors in a very open and well-publicized manner, and that many of these station "couplets" have a median difference of just about 0 degrees over the course of 40+ years.)

At least we can agree that the data contains errors. Thaumaturgy, is there any level of error that would make you actually doubt that a station is doing what it should be doing? Any temperature at all? Would a 60 degree difference be something that you would admit means that the station isn't being measured correctly? I bet you won't answer that.

You know, a scientist must always be thinking about how bad data must be before one thinks that the equipment must be fixed. You, though, are not acting like a scientist because you won't give any number beyond which you would acknowledge a failure of equipment. Am I wrong in this?

2. People will attempt to refute individual points until it becomes literally a debate about two neighboring stations in backwoods Georgia with some errors.

And what pray tell is your beef with back woods Georgia? Either the equipment there measures temperature correctly or it doesn't. What utter condescension you show with your contempt for Georgians.

3. This will cause Glenn to call into question all of climatology regardless of the fact that this isn't how the data itself is used in the assessment of global climate change topics.

Well then you take the Coldwater and Ashland data and SHOW US HOW IT IS DONE MR. KNOW IT ALL. I want to see how you would correct the data and ensure that you correct it correctly. Please show us. I told you where I got the data, now go through the steps to show how it is fixed. I am awaiting this eagerly.

4. Then everyone will get snarky and nasty and hurl invective at each other

No, you have already started that.

5. Glenn will remind us that
5a. He's been the director of technology for a major oil company
5b. He's lived in China
5C. He speaks some mandarin
5d. He knows a lot of people with PhD's and he's been their boss
5e. He's published a paper that uses statistics
5f. You likely don't understand the depth of the science he does
6. Everyone loses

Roll credits. (Save the popcorn money).

What so I am supposed to ignore what I have done in my life? I am proud of it. Maybe you are a slinky sort of person who only gets his kicks bullying people on insignificant internet boards but I am not.

By the way, Thaumaturgy, if you think global warming is such a threat then stop being a hypocrite. PCs take 15% of home power useage and are using 5% of world energy. Get off the web if you think the world needs to be saved and thereby save that energy. But of course, you won't because you really don't beleive what you spout, at least you don't believe it enough to do anything about it.

 

[grmorton]

That's 6 million Jews.

Once again we forget about the 5 - 6 million other people.

It is like most people deny half of the holocaust and some people deny all of it.

I stand corrected. You are correct that the socialists in Germany (National Socialists) killed about 13 million people of which 6 million were Jews.

 

[Lilandra]

What so I am supposed to ignore what I have done in my life? I am proud of it. Maybe you are a slinky sort of person who only gets his kicks bullying people on insignificant internet boards but I am not.

By the way, Thaumaturgy, if you think global warming is such a threat then stop being a hypocrite. PCs take 15% of home power useage and are using 5% of world energy. Get off the web if you think the world needs to be saved and thereby save that energy. But of course, you won't because you really don't beleive what you spout, at least you don't believe it enough to do anything about it.

I don't know if it is your intent to sound snarky or like a bully, but at times you do Mr. Morton.

Many of the posters here, myself included admire your contributions to the debate. Your "Morton's Demon" post on Talk Origins was brilliant IMO.

However, your writing at times oozes contempt for anyone that disagrees with you.

 

[grmorton]

Oh, and here I thought it was a majority of scientists in the relevant field who accept the huge amounts of peer-reviewed papers supporting the global warming scenario. Perhaps you could show us some evidence for this majority of geo-scientists who doubts man-made global warming?

All you have to do, is to do a google scholar search on the Holocene Climatic Optimum and you will see that most of these papers talk about the world being 2-3 degrees warmer then than now. Conclusions are simple after that. Of course, you won't do the research for yourself. You will expect that I spoon feed you.

You realize that it's us humans who are changing the climate this time, right? Not nature, right? All the "global warming hysteriacs" want is for us to stop pumping tremendous amounts of green-house gases into the atmosphere in order to halt the man-made global warming.

No, I am not aware of that. As the seas warm, it degasses CO2. In the little Ice Age the CO2 rose AFTER the temperature. See picture below.

Forty years ago, the winds in Antarctica shifted causing upwelling, which in turn caused degassing of CO2. To disbelieve this means that you must argue with the article in Nature--you know Nature, that rag of anti-global warming stuff.

[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']"The westerlies are the prevailing winds in the middle latitudes of Earth’s atmosphere, blowing from west to east between the highpressure areas of the subtropics and the low-pressure areas over the poles. They have strengthened and shifted poleward over the past 50 years, possibly in response to warming from rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). Something similar appears to have happened 17,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age: Earth warmed, atmospheric CO2 increased, and the Southern Hemisphere westerlies seem to have shifted toward Antarctica (5, 6). Data reported by Anderson et al. on page 1443 of this issue suggest that the shift 17,000 years ago occurred before the warming and that it caused the CO2 increase. The CO2 that appeared in the atmosphere 17,000 years ago came from the oceans rather than from anthropogenic emissions. It was vented from the deep ocean up to the atmosphere in the vicinity of Antarctica. The southern westerlies are important in this context because they can alter the oceanic circulation in a way that vents CO2 from the ocean interior up to the atmosphere. The prevailing view has been that the westerlies shifted 17,000 years ago as part of a feedback: A small CO2 increase or small warming initiated a shift of the westerlies toward Antarctica; the shifted westerlies then caused more CO2 to be vented up to the atmosphere, which led to more warming, a greater poleward shift of the westerlies, more CO2, and still more warming (5). But Anderson et al. show that the westerlies did not shift in response to an initial CO2 increase; rather, they shifted early in the climate transition and were probably the main cause of the initial CO2 increase." J. R. Toggweiler, "Shifting Westerlies," Science, 323(2009, March 13, 2009, p. 1434[/font]


This same shift happend 40 years ago and the Keeling Curve shows a dog-leg at that time.

Why have you come to the ridiculous conclusion that anyone denies the Holocene? It seems to me that this is a huge straw man as well as a serious case of projection. Grmorton denies man-made global warming, but he doesn't like it when people tell him that, so he'll make up a story about them denying something completely irrelevant. Am I getting warm?

I came to that conclusion because every time you global warming hysteriacs talk about what will happen to the earth, higher sea levels, melting permafrost, melted ice shelves, none of you all actually mention the fact that it all happened before without a single automobile or coal fired plant. You all are the ones who are ignoring the Holocene and denying it by never ever ever mentioning it and what happened then. Shame on you for ignoring scientific evidence that should have been presented as possibly not supportive of your position, i.e. that we should all spend lots of money to stop something that has happened before.

Again, please show some evidence for this being a majority opinion amongst anyone but reality-deniers?

Are you only able to be a sheeple? I have no doubt about the minority opinion I have here. But truth is NOT determined by vote. What lunacy it is for you to ask me to say that truth is determined by majority opinion. There was a time when the majority of geologists denied continental drift. There was a time when geologists denied thrust faults in the gulf of mexico. There was a time when doctors denied that H. pylori caused ulcers. And there were sheeple people like you in each of those cases who couldn't think apart from the group think of their age either. What insecurity you must feel never to be able to stand on your own two feet.

Are you going to bring up the Medieval warm period next?

I would suggest that you brought it up. What do you want to know about it?

Please remain here and tell this to our creationist friends. Seems they disagree with you here.

I already told them via correcting the previous bad post.

In conclusion I would like for you to provide some actual peer-reviewed evidence of what you're talking about. You know, peer-reviewed papers, what real scientists deal with?

What a crock. You haven't even looked at the references I provided on my blog for the facts I cited. They were all peer reviewed. I guess you don't think THE HOLOCENE, or Geology, or Nature are peer reviewed. Get real. When you actually know what you are talking about then we can have a real discussion. For the record here are the references for the OP.

Other than Wiki would you please tell me which reference isn't peer reviewed? If you can't, then your apology will be accepted when it is actually given.

references
Anonymous, NASA, "The Ancient Treeline and the Carbon Cycle in the Siberian Arctic"
NASA GISS: Science Briefs: The Ancient Treeline and the Carbon Cycle in the Siberian Arctic

Blanchon, Paul, "Mid-Holocene reef-drowning event; new evidence from Grand Cayman" (in Geological Society of America, 1997 annual meeting, Anonymous,)
Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America (1997), 29(6):112

Blum, Michael, et al, “Middle Holocene Sea-Level rise and Highstand at +2 m, Central Texas Coast, “JOURNAL OF SEDIMENTARY RESEARCH, VOL. 71, NO. 4, JULY, 2001, P. 581–588, p. 581

Cape Last Interglacial Project Members, “Last Interglacial arctic warmth confirms polar amplification of climate change”, Quaternary Science Reviews Volume 25, Issues 13-14, July 2006, 1383-1400, p. 1385-1387

Colquhoun, D.J., 1969, Coastal plain terraces in the Carolinas and Georgia, U.S.A.: in Wright, H.E., Jr., editor, Quaternary Geology and Climate: Volume 16 of the Proceedings of the VII Congress of the International Association for Quaternary Research, v. 16, p. 150-162


Compton, John S. The mid-Holocene sea-level highstand at Bogenfels Pan on the southwest coast of Namibia Quaternary Research (September 2006), 66(2):303-310

Esper, Jan and Fritz H. Schweingruber, “Large-Scale Treeline Changes Recorded in Siberia,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 31, no. 6, March 16, 2004., p. L06202,
http://www.wsl.ch/staff/jan.esper/publications/GRL_2004.pdf

IPCC, 2007: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. , p. 9


Matthews, John A. “Asynchronous Neoglaciation and Holocene Climatic Change Reconstructed from Norwegian Glaciolacustrine Sedimentary Sequences,” Geology, 20(1992):991

Romanovsky, Vladimir, and Guido Grosse, and Sergei Marchenko Past, present, and future of permafrost in a changing world (in Geological Society of America, 2008 annual meeting, Anonymous,) Abstracts with Programs - Geological Society of America (October 2008), 40(6):397

Wikipedia: IPCC Fourth Assessment Report - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You made a quite laughable assertion earlier about global warming being a political movement, which is yet more projection on your part. It seems what we have here is a global-warming denier who's extremely insecure in his beliefs, so he'll assert a majority opinion (which is false) and that his opponents are the one's being politically sponsored.

[/quote]

Of course it is a political movement. Are you telling me that there is nothing that global warming hysteriacs want the governments to do?