Hate to rain on your parade, but it looks like, despite Mann and company's insistence, that the Little Ice Age was a global phenomenon.

Want proof? Read these articles:

Antarctica:

Stenni, B., Proposito, M., Gragnani, R., Flora, O., Jouzel, J., Falourd, S. and Frezzotti, M. 2002. Eight centuries of volcanic signal and climate change at Talos Dome (East Antarctica). Journal of Geophysical Research 107: 10.1029/2000JD000317.

Domack, E., Leventer, A., Dunbar, R., Taylor, F., Brachfeld, S., Sjunneskog, C. and ODP Leg 178 Scientific Party. 2001. Chronology of the Palmer Deep site, Antarctic Peninsula: A Holocene palaeoenvironmental reference for the circum-Antarctic. The Holocene 11: 1-9.

New Zealand and Australia:

Williams, P.W., King, D.N.T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K.D. 2004. Speleothem master chronologies: combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14: 194-208.

Wilson, A.T., Hendy, C.H. and Reynolds, C.P. 1979. Short-term climate change and New Zealand temperatures during the last millennium. Nature 279: 315-317.

Winkler, S. 2004. Lichenometric dating of the 'Little Ice Age' maximum in Mt Cook National Park, Southern Alps, New Zealand. The Holocene 14: 911-920.

South America:

Goodman, A.Y., Rodbell, D.T., Seltzer, G.O. and Mark, B.G. 2001. Subdivision of glacial deposits in southeastern Peru based on pedogenic development and radiometric ages. Quaternary Research 56: 31-50.

Bertrand, S., Bo�s, X., Castiaux, J., Charlet, F., Urrutia, R., Espinoza, C., Lepoint, G., Charlier, B. and Fagel, N. 2005. Temporal evolution of sediment supply in Lago Puyehue (Southern Chile) during the last 600 yr and its climatic significance. Quaternary Research 64: 163-175.

Koch, J. and Kilian, R. 2005. "Little Ice Age" glacier fluctuations, Gran Campo Nevado, southernmost Chile. The Holocene 15: 20-28.

Valero-Garces, B.L., Delgado-Huertas, A., Ratto, N., Navas, A. and Edwards L. 2000. Paleohydrology of Andean saline lakes from sedimentological and isotopic records, Northwestern Argentina. Journal of Paleolimnology 24: 343-359.

Africa:

Holmgren, K., Lee-Thorp, J.A., Cooper, G.R.J., Lundblad, K., Partridge, T.C., Scott, L., Sithaldeen, R., Talma, A.S. and Tyson, P.D. 2003. Persistent millennial-scale climatic variability over the past 25,000 years in Southern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 2311-2326.

Johnson, T.C., Barry, S., Chan, Y. and Wilkinson, P. 2001. Decadal record of climate variability spanning the past 700 yr in the Southern Tropics of East Africa. Geology 29: 83-86.

Huffman, T.N. 1996. Archaeological evidence for climatic change during the last 2000 years in southern Africa. Quaternary International 33: 55-60.

Asia:

Esper, J., Schweingruber, F.H. and Winiger, M. 2002. 1300 years of climatic history for Western Central Asia inferred from tree-rings. The Holocene 12: 267-277.

Adhikari, D.P. and Kumon, F. 2001. Climatic changes during the past 1300 years as deduced from the sediments of Lake Nakatsuna, central Japan. Limnology 2: 157-168.

Doose-Rolinski, H., Rogalla, U., Scheeder, G., Luckge, A. and von Rad, U. 2001. High-resolution temperature and evaporation changes during the late Holocene in the northeastern Arabian Sea. Paleoceanography 16: 358-367.

This is real world data, collected and analyzed by real world scientists, and published in real scientific media unlike computer models. The climate fluctuates. It fluctuates in cycles. It's been fluctuating for not only centuries, but for billions of years. Get over it, there is no such thing as "normal".

Anecdotal evidence shows that Greenland was much greener than it currently is. This is from a history of Greenland:

"Cores taken from the ocean bottom west of Iceland show evidence that the ocean conditions between the 8th and 12th centuries were relatively calm and that little sea ice was present to hinder navigation. The build-up of sea ice beginning in the 13th century correspond with evidence from ice cores whose layers of annual snowfall show isotopic evidence that the 14th century had the coldest climate known in Greenland during the past 700 years."

Source: http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/environment.html

So what does it mean? Well, to me it just means that we are in a geologic/climate cycle, as we always are. It is as natural as the sky is blue, and the Greenland farmers are enjoying their newfound wealth (two harvests versus one).

If it is global warming, then global warming is good.

Also, when you look at weather patterns they look and act just like fluids. With that in mind here's my theory: If the Greenland ice melts causing the temperature of the water to drop around Greenland, then just like the jetstream caught between two weather gradiants, the Gulfsream will simply move farther south around the Greenland gradient until it achieves equilibrium.

Of course the chicken littles would like us to think the gulfstream will vanish causing unparalleled environmental destruction, but why would it? This kind of thing has happened before and it didn't destroy the world. It won't this time either. In addition, it is such a slow process that there is plenty of time for animals and plants to adapt to the change.

Yep, grab your umbrellas and suntan oil, the beaches of Greenland are about to open for the season. Yeehah, let's go swimming!

It seems obvious that the planet is warming. As I sit here the space heater is warming my feet quite nicely. I have long believed that the sun was the sole controller of our macro weather patterns. I recently read an article on research conducted by a Danish scientist that demonstrates clearly this is the case. Basically, cosmic rays create low level clouds which cool the earth.

The mechanism is as follows:
1) A giant star explodes in a supernova explosion and emits cosmic rays,
2) cosmic rays enter Earth's atmosphere,
3) rays release free electrons which act a catalysts for the building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei,
4) on which water vapour condenses into clouds

The sun's influence is in its magnetic field flucuation. When the sun is more stable with less spot activity the magnetic field weakens a small amount allowing more cosmic radiation to the lower atmospher and create low level clouds. The magnetic field is strong now so less cosmic radiation can penetrate the atmosphere and thus fewer low level clouds and warmer temps. His calculations are this accounts for 85% of any warming that has occured.

More can be found here;
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Cosmic_rays_and_climate.htm

Hi Paul, Lots of good links there, but I never claimed the little ice age wasn't global. The only thing I've been saying is that these warming and cooling cycles have been going on for millions of years. They are natural occurances and will happen with or without us, so we might as well kick back and enjoy it.

Is my writing so unclear? I completely agree with your last paragraph and I don't believe anything I've written says differently.

However, you may have misunderstood me when I claim global warming is a fraud, and I suppose I should be more clear on that. I think the chicken littles trying to say that any warming (that may or may not be taking place - we don't know), is human-caused is nonsense. End of story.

woodNfish:

I wasn't referring to your comment, but instead to this comment by the author of this blog:

"the period of cooling, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, which occurred between the late 16th and some say the late 17th century".

She apparently gets a lot of her information from the Michael Mann "Hockey Stick" spin machine, ie., RealClimate.

As far as your writing goes, I can find nothing wrong with it. As for the last paragraph of my comment, I feel that I can comment on computer models since I, in fact, model groundwater and the fate and transport of chemicals in the said groundwater for a living. It's amazing how you can tweak a model to get the desired outcome. You know what the used to say, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.

Hi Paul,

Yeah, GIGA - sort of describes the whole global warming hysteria movement. I know a little bit about modeling too from circuit and electrical cabinet design.

I've watched the debunking of Mann's Hockey Stick with interest because the global warmers were placing so much importance on it. Now, they are trying to do that with ice cores and polar bears. I'm sure I read somewhere today that it is difficult to determine carbon dioxide levels from ice cores because as you go deeper into the core all the "rings" become one large indistguishable mass. To determine what information that mass has, they have to use models to extract it, and thus we arrive back at GIGA.

And I read an article about a Canadian biologist who studies the polar bears and he says there are 15 groups of polar bears in the arctic and 13 of them are thriving and growing.

It seems that the global warmers like to cherry-pick their doomsday data.

Stuff to put you to sleep on ice cores and such:
http://newsbusters.org/node/8062
http://newsbusters.org/node/7972
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=77195

And polar bears thriving:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1146433819696&call_pageid=970599119419

Funny how everytime the ministers of doom mention Global Warming it's always in comparison to a climatical warming period that has happened in the past. Yes we are warming and then we will cool off again. There is nothing we are doing that is creating this warm up and there's nothing we can do to prevent it. Hello, it's nature doing her thing. You Libs replaced conservs Hell fire and Brimstone with squealing little threats of global warming and doom. Get a life

WoodNfish,

Come now, humans are having no effect on Earth climate patterns and dozens of the world's leading scientific minds are Chicken littles? And you of course are more enlightened and intelligent than these scientist who spend years and years studying this issue?

Do you hear me laughing?

Kevbo, there is a good chance you'll never read this because of the way Laura archives these discussions, but here goes anyway:

The scientists know a little about their little area of expertise, but they don't understand the entire system or even all the parts of the system that we call climate. So when they start trying to get publicity by yelling global warming catastrophe and environmental doom so that they can get more funding or scare people into giving them more money I begin to consider them liars and frauds.

Do we humans have an effect on climate? I don't know, you don't know, and neither do your pet scientists, and none of you can prove we do either. You can surmise we do because it is warmer in the city than in the countryside, but that is a localized phenomena and doesn't extend far beyond the cities limits. It does effect weather which is short term, so maybe you get a little less snow in town than out, or the snow turns to ice in town, but not outside. Again, that is weather. The fact that is is hot in the Summer and cold in the Winter, and that the winds blow in Autumn is climate.

If you look around in this site as I have you'll find a comment by Laura that she knows just how bad weather prediction modelers are, and that the predictions are only good (and not real good) for about 12 hours. Yeah, 12 hours. So, for some reason you think that a climate scientist might have modelers and data so great that they can predict climate for the next 100 years?

Sure Kevbo, go ahead and put your faith in those scientists. Like P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

WoodNfish,

Sorry, but I'm putting my chips down with the Scientists... their record speaks for itself. A sucker does not go with the highest odds but the lowest smothered in manipulative double speak. You know, like what you do on this blog.

Let's see... scientists have given us what? Hmmmm... Electricity, there's one. Advanced medical care that has saved millions and millions of lives, there's another. Hmmm...think, think, think... Oh! How about jet aircraft that get us thousands of miles in only hours? Gosh, I'm running out of ideas here....oh!!! this computer I'm writing on with which I'm sending messages at the speed of light.

You're right WoodNfish, science is a fools game.

The histroy channel is broadcasting a two hour program, Little Ice Age: Big Chill. It is a must-see for anyone with an open mind.

The UN has recently downgraded is't estimates of human influence on climate change.

Senator James Inhofe also recently published a book on the subject, interesting reading

There's no good expanation for the recent spate of mild U.S. winters other than greenhouse gas. Solar astronomers can account for no more than 30% of that warming Even Dr. Richard Lindzen whom projected a rise of only 1/100 degree F.or C.? over 100 years about 9 years ago, recently revised that to nearly 1 degree C. maximum. Apparently, the Dr did some further calculations. He has a rather abtruse view of cirrus regulating temp but I value his projections. We have seen changes from 1 degree F rise and they are significant. The changes from 2 degrees F additional warming would likely be very significant. Of course this assumes a static earth with no cooling from natural causes. We should not rely on the earth to cool naturally anymore than we should rely on it to warm; to offset our contribution. The amount of greenhouse gas we are spewing is huge!

Mann and company's insistence, that the Little Ice Age was a global phenomenon.

Want proof? Read these articles:

Antarctica:

Stenni, B., Proposito, M., Gragnani, R., Flora, O., Jouzel, J., Falourd, S. and Frezzotti, M. 2002. Eight centuries of volcanic signal and climate change at Talos Dome (East Antarctica). Journal of Geophysical Research 107: 10.1029/2000JD000317.

Domack, E., Leventer, A., Dunbar, R., Taylor, F., Brachfeld, S., Sjunneskog, C. and ODP Leg 178 Scientific Party. 2001. Chronology of the Palmer Deep site, Antarctic Peninsula: A Holocene palaeoenvironmental reference for the circum-Antarctic. The Holocene 11: 1-9.

New Zealand and Australia:

Williams, P.W., King, D.N.T., Zhao, J.-X. and Collerson, K.D. 2004. Speleothem master chronologies: combined Holocene 18O and 13C records from the North Island of New Zealand and their palaeoenvironmental interpretation. The Holocene 14: 194-208.

Wilson, A.T., Hendy, C.H. and Reynolds, C.P. 1979. Short-term climate change and New Zealand temperatures during the last millennium. Nature 279: 315-317.

Winkler, S. 2004. Lichenometric dating of the 'Little Ice Age' maximum in Mt Cook National Park, Southern Alps, New Zealand. The Holocene 14: 911-920.

Andy - do you have a source for your statement on the UN downgrading it's estimates of human influence on climate change? Everything I have read teasing the upcoming IPCC report has indicated that it will be far stronger and more convincing in it's human/climate change connection.

Laura,

Here's a story that covers what Andy mentioned in his post regarding the UN's downgrade:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/nclimate10.xml

Thanks Greg, I'd missed that one. I'll be very interested to see that IPCC report when it comes out in February.

I wonder if Andy or Greg actually read the article that Greg posted. Five years after the 2001 estimate, with five years more data, researchers have learned (and published, I might add) that the upper limit on mean sea level rise is 17 inches instead of 34.

Andy or Greg, do you find this comforting? To me, it's sort of like saying that the firing squad will only shoot with five rifles instead of ten.

Similarly, some of the thermal effects have been masked more than expected. This is "weakening?"

As Laura writes, let's discuss the report when it's published and we can all study it.

Tommy Boy,

If you had actually read my post, you'd notice I simply provided a reference link. Geez. Lighten up.

Hey Tom, shhhhh, the black helicopters can hear you!