More Evidence Against The "hockey Stick"

[Gray-Wolf]

I know it's only a report of the findings but it is timely;

Palms grew in ice-free Arctic 50 million years ago: study

By Alister Doyle,

Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Sun Oct 25, 3:57 pm

(Reuters Life!)

Palms flourished in the Arctic during a brief sweltering period about 50 million years ago, according to a study on Sunday that hints at big gaps in scientific understanding of modern climate change.

The Arctic "would have looked very similar to the vegetation we now see in Florida," said Appy Sluijs of Utrecht University in the Netherlands who led an international study. Evidence of palms has never been found so far north before.

The scientists, sampling sediments on a ridge on the seabed that was about 500 km (300 miles) from the North Pole 53.5 million years ago, found pollens of ancient palms as well as of conifers, oaks, pecans and other trees.

"The presence of palm pollen implies that coldest month mean temperatures over the Arctic land masses were no less than 8 Celsius" (46.40F), the scientists, based in the Netherlands and Germany, wrote in the journal Nature Geoscience.

That contradicts computer model simulations -- also used to predict future temperatures -- that suggest winter temperatures were below freezing even in the unexplained hothouse period that lasted between 50,000 and 200,000 years in the Eocene epoch.

Palms are quickly killed by frost.

Sluijs said that it was also striking that palms, which do not lose their leaves in winter, grew in an area where the sun does not shine for about five months. Experiments with modern palms indicate that they can survive prolonged darkness.

SURPRISES

The scientists said that presence of palms -- it was not clear if they were trees or plants -- hinted that the modern climate system could yield big surprises.

Temperatures are now rising because of man-made greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, according to the U.N. Climate Panel. Arctic ice shrank in 2007 to its smallest size since satellite measurements began in the 1970s.

One possibility for the ancient spike in temperatures was an abrupt rise in carbon dioxide levels, to far beyond concentrations now. That might have been caused by volcanic eruptions, or a melt of frozen methane trapped in the seabed.

"We cannot explain this with the current knowledge of the climate system," Sluijs said. One possibility was that new types of clouds formed in the Arctic as it warmed, acting as a blanket that trapped ever more heat and accelerated warming.

"If the ocean was very warm it's possible that these clouds form at a higher latitude than now," he said. Such effects caused by new cloud formation could be an unexpected tripwire in accelerating modern climate change.

More than 190 nations are due to meet in Copenhagen from December 7-18 to agree a new U.N. climate treaty to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

Edited October 26, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[Admiral_Bobski]

One possibility for the ancient spike in temperatures was an abrupt rise in carbon dioxide levels, to far beyond concentrations now.

(My emphasis.)

And yet, GW, you seem to talk as though it is the only possibility.

CB

[VillagePlank]

I know it's only a report of the findings but it is timely - Sun Oct 25, 3:57 pm

Certainly is timely. What's the justification for your posts two weeks ago, then?

Edited October 26, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi V.P.!

'Walking with Beasts' lead to awkward questions as to our own climatic variance back then (the Hippo's unearthed whilst laying out Trafalgar Sq etc.) as Jamie had us DVD the series an occasional has mammoth (no pun) re-run sessions

EDIT: either my Pagan fumblings , or 'star wars' Jedi philiosophy,or Kung Fu Panda, or some such would have it that

"there are no such things as accidents...."

Far to Zen for me........

Edited October 26, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[VillagePlank]

Hi V.P.!

'Walking with Beasts' lead to awkward questions as to our own climatic variance back then (the Hippo's unearthed whilst laying out Trafalgar Sq etc.) as Jamie had us DVD the series an occasional has mammoth (no pun) re-run sessions

EDIT: either my Pagan fumblings , or 'star wars' Jedi philiosophy,or Kung Fu Panda, or some such would have it that

"there are no such things as accidents...."

Far to Zen for me........

I am not annoyed - I just give up.

Sorry.

[DAVID SNOW]

I LOVE THIS THREAD.Its like a game of tennis.Its two sets all in the final and we are into the final set with the score locked at 5647 games to 5647 games.

Carbon is our friend, we must love carbon

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

This puts an important part of the discussion in some sort of context.

Tom,

…

As for FOIA Sarah isn’t technically employed by UEA and she will likely be paid by Manchester Metropolitan University. I wouldn’t worry about the code. If FOIA does ever get used by anyone, there is also IPR to consider as well. Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them. I’ll be passing any requests onto the person at UEA who has been given a post to deal with them.

Cheers

Phil

The next email (1109021312) is later in 2005:

At 09:41 AM 2/2/2005, Phil Jones wrote to Michael Mann :

Mike,

…

Just sent loads of station data to Scott. Make sure he documents everything better this time ! And don’t leave stuff lying around on ftp sites – you never know who is trawling them. The two MMs have been after the CRU station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone. Does your similar act in the US force you to respond to enquiries within 20 days? – our does ! The UK works on precedents, so the first request will test it.

We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind. Tom Wigley has sent me a worried email when he heard about it – thought people could ask him for his model code. He has retired officially from UEA so he can hide behind that. IPR should be relevant here, but I can see me getting into an argument with someone at UEA who’ll say we must adhere to it !

*Thwack!*

Edited November 25, 2009 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[Pingo]

Some of the bolded quotes in the post above mine are truly disgraceful. In my line of work, I always present my data because if I have made a mistake I would rather it get spotted before rash decisions are made based on it. It seems though that the UEA types wanted those rash decisions to be made before the data could be investigated.

The question to be asked is why were they so desperate for the rash decisions to be made before the science was properly investigated.

I can't answer that yet.