Question for Man-Made Global Warming Folks?

Question

Every time we skeptics point out that certain parts of the world have actually gotten colder or that there are extended cold periods or new record cold temperatures in certain locations, your uniform response is "it's a global average temperature increase, that produces fluctuations rather than uniformly warmer temperatures everywhere at every time."

But whenever we bring up the Medieval Warm Period, you make the opposite argument - that the sum of the parts does not make the whole. We point out that the broader trend when you take into consideration the whole earth was warmer temperatures. But because there was one area in the Pacific where it cooled and because there were a few cool years, it wasn't uniformly warm, therefore the MWP wasn't a true period of global warming.

How do you reconcile these two contradictory arguments?

Erinn where are you getting your info? 4 degrees warmer? Where'd you get that?

Cosmo they're not refuted, refute means to show that they're wrong, not to say that they're wrong. The MWP and LIA were the universally accepted climate history until 1998, when they got in the way of man-made global warming. There's no evidence that they didn't happen - the physical evidence INCLUDING tree rings and ice cores - all of them rather than a few cherry picked samples - show the MWP and the LIA quite clearly.

Tree lines were higher, crop yields increased, glaciers retreated, plant and animal species domestic and wild alike thrived where it is too cold for them to thrive today, areas now mostly permafrost were farmed, harbors and inlets now iced over for most of the year were sailed in wooden boats - - it was warmer.

Trevor these examples are from around the world. The ones most people in the US have heard about are from the North Atlantic since that relates to US history but the examples are from around the world - the tree lines were higher from the Sierra Nevadas to the Alps. For Chrissake the Alps have been ice free at least twice since the last Ice Age.

It was 1000 years ago. We do not have evidence from every corner of the earth the way we do now. But to the extent that we do have the evidence, the evidence is as uniform for the MWP as it is for today - it was warmer.

For the MWP to not have happened the way the history books (at least those not edited since 1998) say, every part of the world for which we have scant or no evidence must have had an equal and opposite cooling.

What are the odds of that?

Dana again, it's not a few isolated areas - tree lines were higher in the Sierra Nevadas and the Alps. Around the world, trade routes flourished in mountain passes now glaciated. What is now the American Southwest suffered severe drought like that now predicted with another 100 years of warming. The plains buffalo migrated 500 miles north. Farming expanded into northern Norway. The Vikings settled and farmed Iceland and parts of Greenland. England was wine country. They grew fig and olive trees in Germany. Similar examples abound worldwide - what grew when and where. In the 1200s ship traffic in the North Atlantic was greatly reduced because of a dramatic increase in drift ice. Where'd that ice come from? Same place it comes from now - right? There's no other logical explanation.

But because there's a movement afoot that gets buried / edited.

I'm not saying AGW isn't real.

I'm saying that the MWP is.

I'm saying that the MWP isn't something Senator James Inhofe came up with in response to AGW.

I'm saying that the MWP isn't what a couple of graybeards came up with in some obscure passages based on scant evidence.

I'm saying that the MWP was the universally accepted climate history up until 1998, that it was just dropped in an instant based on what we now know to be a flawed model applied to cherry-picked proxy data, that it was well-supported based upon the physical evidence of what grew when and where and the contemporaneous observations of these phenomena and of a warming climate as the driving factor, and that no contrary physical evidence exists - - nobody's discovered the Viking Greenland settlement to have been forged by right wingers with time machines.

And I'm saying that absent tangible evidence of causation, this dishonesty is not the way to win intellectually rigorous people over.

Trevor again, yes there was a long buildup - - the agricultural records show this - - but the ensuing descent into the LIA involved a drop of 1.5 degrees C in about 120 years - - no less rapid a shift than today.

Again - this is about the selling of AGW.

AGW might be real but the means of selling it involve a lot of deception and that's not how to convince people. Today's temperatures are NOT unprecedented. The rapidity of the WARMING is unprecedented in the last 1000 years but not in the last 5000 years, and the rapidity of climate shift is not unprecedented in the last 1000 because today's warming is no more abrupt than the LIA's cooling.

I'm just saying that if you're going to sell this thing absence concrete proof of causation - and it is absent concrete proof of causation - you should be straight with the comps, and they haven't been.

Social what makes me so skeptical is that it's a bunch of folks TODAY rewriting what several bunches of folks have written over the last 1000 years without ever showing any of the evidence of the prior understanding to be false.

Don't you think that, even if we're to believe one man's model applied to cherry picked proxy data (because when you use a broader sample of proxy data the MWP and LIA do show up), you're obligated to come with an alternative explanation of how the evidence that since it happened 1000 years ago has been taken to be evidence of a warmer climate happened? If it wasn't warmer, why did tree lines increase and why were they 300 feet higher than today? Why did glaciers retreat? How did they grow what they grew and where? Again, you've heard about the Vikings and Brits but the rice paddies on the other side of the world show the same patterns - just starting about 50 years after it started in Europe, and hanging your hat on that seems tenuous....

Keith, so.... the Sierra Nevada range is in the North Atlantic region, eh?

Son, buy yourself a map.

Cosmo, what's this "signature" - that's a new one. Something happens - that doesn't indicate a cause. It's warmer than it was 100 years ago. There's nothing about the warming that indicates that mankind caused it - it's warmer. That is all.

Erinn honestly look at your argument - first, it's 1.2 degrees F not C, second, the extrapolation, you have got to be joking. 9 degrees C? From .7 degree C in 120 years yo get 9 degrees C in the next 100?

You're falling prey to the "if this doesn't scare them, we'll up the ante" tactic. There is no basis for that prediction - - and given that all the other predictions have gone the way of Dr. Z's Superbowl pick.....

Han I've seen the global dimming show - I still don't see how it's probative on global warming. The earth has been rotating around the sun for 6.5 billion years, right? The sun is 93 million miles away, right? OK you know how when you shut the oven off after 3 hours, the turkey's still cooking inside 10 minutes, 20 minutes later? Multiply that by tens of billions, folks - we have no idea of the cumulative effect of solar heat / radiation. We can't possibly. We can't even measure the entire spectrum of solar energy. Solar flares are a multiple the size of the planet and we don't understand THOSE. This notion that because solar output in one or two wavelengths was X and then the next year was Y and that we can correlate that to the warming - - it's like saying the movement of a stock price over 10 minutes is more important than the closing price relative to the 200 day or 50 day moving average.

Keith most of the evidence is NOT confined to the North Atlantic region, I've already pointed out the Sierra Nevadas. The evidence if global. And the fact remains, even in the North Atlantic, what grew when and where, and what mountain passes and waterways were ice bound, indicate that it was warmer then.

So-called "unprecedented" glacial melting is revealing artefacts left by traveling traders in mountain passes during the MWP and the Roman period - makes you wonder how these people define "unprecedented."

Social, that's a cop-out. "If we in the aggregate treat the earth the way we do, how can you say there's no impact" - I'm not. But you're saying that my specific activities, otherwise free, are causing a specific phenemenon, and there isn't a tangible case for that assertion, and until there is one you have no cause to limit the activities in question.

Answer 1

Propaganda doesn’t have to reconcile anything . No evidence is necessary. Something can just be made up an put forth as fact. Make it sound good and the fools flock to it. Along with the fools comes power. Read up on Adolph Hitler. He used these types of tactics to perfection. Take something that you can scare people with and they give you power. That is all there is to it.

Answer 2

I understand what you're saying and there are sensible explanations to the points you raised.

Earlier today I uploaded a graphic showing which parts of the world have cooled, this was in response to another question on Answers. The graphic is here - http://profend.com/global-warming/temporary/page1.html

As you can see, almost all the world has warmed up (note that this isn't based on predictions but actual measurements over a period of several years). Whilst it's true to say that certain parts of the world have cooled these are very much the exception, the reality is that upwards of 95% of the world has warmed.

I firmly beleive in global warming (I've studied it first hand so I'm not relying on anybody elses reports for information) and I never make reference to record breaking temperatures in specific locations as this is clearly a very unscientific approach. There will always be anomolies and to point to a few anomolies is to ignore the larger picture. You may like to know that there have been substantially more record breaking highs than there have been record breaking lows.

If we only look at anomolies it's like pointing out a person in a group who is 6 foot 6 tall and concluding that the entire group is tall. To get an accurate assessment means measuring the height of everyone in the group and finding an average. And so it is with global warming. Thousands (millions in fact) of temperature readings taken across the globe are averaged out to give an overall picture of what's happening. This way eveything is taken into account and not a few isolated instances. It's the skeptics who are making the mistakes when they point to specific events, years, countries etc as to do so ignores the majority of the rest of the data.

As for the MWP, it was not, as some people will tell you, warmer than it is now. If you have a look at this graph which accuratley depicts the MWP http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png you'll see that it was a comparatively warm period that was the culmination of a warming trend that began over 1000 years previously. During this 1000 year period temperatures rose by 0.6 degrees Celsius - about the same that temperatures have risen in the last 30 years. To put it into context, temperatures are rising 30 times as fast now as they were in the build up to the MWP.

Answer 3

The first statement is true - isolated cold areas don't disprove global warming, and you have to look at overall global temperatures.

The second statement is false - either the "Man-Made Global Warming Folks" you've been talking to are confused/mistaken, or you misunderstood what they were saying. As stated in the link provided by Cosmo, the Medieval Warm Period was also only in isolated regions and not on a global scale. As the link states -

"The idea of a global or hemispheric 'Medieval Warm Period' that was warmer than today, however, has turned out to be incorrect."

Or from Wikipedia, if you prefer -

"The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or Medieval Climate Optimum was a time of unusually warm climate in the North Atlantic region, lasting from about the tenth century to about the fourteenth century."

So these are in fact not contradictory arguments, but essentially the same argument. You have to look on a global scale, not a local scale.

Answer 4

I'm not that familiar with the Medieval Warm Period, but I believe that the problem with using that period to promote the natural climate change theory, is that it was a change of 1 degree either way between the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period (Wikipedia), whereas we are now approximately 4 degrees warmer. This is a considerable difference, and it seems to be continuing to increase.

The argument against each part is not necessarily the same.

EDIT: Sorry, tried to simplify. We have increased about 1 degree in the last hundred years, which is very similar to the MWP. However, that can be compounded with smaller increases, and, by 2100, if it continues as is, it is expected to reach around a 9 degree increase, because the changes are now occuring more rapidly. These are all, of course, measured in Celsius. (EPA, Wikipedia, and the UNFCCC)

Answer 5

It is global average that counts, in both cases, and I don't know anyone who says otherwise. But global averages have to be (a) global; and (b) average. That means one is fully justified in discounting individual single day records, either hot or cold. It also means that one is justified discounting long-term averages that are regional in scope.

The best evidence we have indicates that the MWP was warm, but most of that warmth was confined to the North Atlantic region, and may have been due to changes in the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation system. There is no evidence of excess warmth for the tropics or the southern hemisphere. So globally, the MWP was about as warm as the mid-20th century. But not as warm as today.

Answer 6

what makes you skeptical about hundreds of scientists from all different areas of study, from all over the world unanimously agreeing to the wording of an extensive three part report on global climate change? it says humans are "very likely", with "very likely" being defined as 90% chance or higher, the cause of unprecedented warming. read the report and realize these are scientists basing their conclusion on mountains and mountains of scientifically gathered data. my question is, how do you think that it is possible that we, humans can treat the earth the way we do, a way that has never occurred before in history, and not expect to impact it? how is it possible that we can flood the atmosphere with all of the extra greenhouse gases we do that have otherwise not existed in all of history and not cause some type of change? read the reports.

Answer 7

You're combining two refuted "skeptical" arguments into one:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/31/214357/31

and

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/13/221054/33


The important thing is the long-term, global average temperature, which shows a clear signature of anthropogenic warming:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/26/20495/240

Answer 8

You are correct. And if ''global warming'' is melting the polar caps then how did they find a squadron of aircraft that landed in 1940's under 250 feet of ice in the 1980's?

http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/glacier-girl.htm

Answer 9

Heretic!

Burn the witch!

The 'Global Warming' Doctrine is the 'Earth is the center of the universe' Doctrine of our time. The clergy of the Holy Environmentalist Empire may have to order their faithful subjects to burn you at the stake.

All the scientists on the list of signers of the Global Warming Petition must be dealt with as well.

Answer 10

our planet needs to be recognised as living. Its got its cycles of change as we do. Global warming is a natural earth cycle and the ice age will once again appear.
For your interest in the next few monts and onwards, Astological interpretation predicts freezing unusual conditions from time to time.