If Greenland was warmer with less, what was the driver?

"Alexander Wolfe notes that these warm spells occurred with greenhouse gas emissions 30% lower than they are today."

I wish to be the first to say it. "OH SNAP!"

Ok so Greenland was a nice camping destination 125,000 years ago or so. What does this story have to do with the climate? I mean Tahiti was part of a desert then perhaps and the Grand Canyon was being carved out by glaciers? Is this supposed to support some kind of theory? Oh, like the planet will go under water when this warming occurs again in the next 20-50 years or so? And what about man causing this? Did GM manufacture too many SUV's back then to cause this incredible warming that made Greenland a vacation paradise? This story supports the fact that manmade global warming is a cruel oppresion being forced upon the masses! Open your minds. Look at the facts!

"...Alexander Wolfe notes that these warm spells occurred with greenhouse gas emissions 30% lower than they are today."

So what?

It would be nice to include some examples of fauna that survived this dramatic change!

Warmth w/out greenhouse gases. Imagine that!

> Alexander Wolfe notes that these
> warm spells occurred with greenhouse
> gas emissions 30% lower than they are
> today

Perish the thought greenhouse gases had nothing to do with past warmings

ps Brett: are you sure he mentioned "emissions"? I think he meant "concentration"

Reply: The article said emissions, natural of course.

Several warm periods? Millions of years ago? In Greenland? Fern-like vegetation? Bu-Bu-Bu-But HOW? I mean man wasn't around to spew CO2 (Plant Food) emmissions to melt the ice, and be made to feel guilty about it. He wasn't around to excell the break up the glaciers. To raise the oceans to unprecedented dangerous levels. This is impossible! Just ask the "experts" at the IPCC. And Al Gore. And James Hansen. Why this is preposterous! This must be propaganda put forth by those looney America Loving, Gun Toating, Racist, Sexist, Capitalist, Greedy Corporate, Xenophobic, Bible Beating, Philisitine, Right Wing Zealot Extremists and Oil Companies! GASP!!!!! Yep. That's what it is. LOL!!!!

DENY DENY DENY THE GLO-BULL WARMING LIE!!!!!!

And Antarctica was once free of ice and green as well.

A 20,000 year warm period that had a lot of the ice in southern Greenland gone? According to current wisdom this should have resulted in the loss of bio-diversity on a grand scale, massive flooding, heat waves, cold waves, killer hurricanes, F6 Tornadoes, massive sea level rise, and a positive feedback cycle that should have left the earth looking like Venus. We had to pass some 'tipping point' during that 20,000 year period.

Wonder why it didn't happen?

So another paper indicates that NATURE is the cause for sudden and drastic climate change WITHOUT Human influence.
Just what part of "it’s not our fault" can’t the politicians and NASA understand?
Science be damned, it's now all about money power and fame

First Off...

Anybody heard anything out of BT? I miss his comments and debates, hope he is OK.

So, am I to understand that the 20,000 year clock has begun since CO2 levels are 30% higher now then they were when the ice melted? And more importantly, is the clock really only 14,000 years because of the higher CO2?

In that case, I think we should stop making CO2 immediately.

Seriously, I'm only concerned about our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great,
great grandchildren. I probably missed a great there somewhere.

Can we all say AGENDA driven theory.

I would surmise the moral of this story is that if it could happen before without AGW, it can happen now without AGW.

This is yet more scientific evidence to refute the hypothesis that atmospheric CO2 triggers warming. As scientists search for answers to explain past climate anomolies, they find that CO2 isn't much of a player. It is more likely that other forces such as the sun or the earth's orbit produced these changes.

I'm glad to know that we aren't to blame for Greenland's melting ice sheet since it has happened before for reasons not attributable to mankind. Looks like the hypothesis that climate change is gradual and natural is the more likely scenario.

Thanks for the post and pictures Brett. My folks returned some years back to the paternal ancestral farm (they were tenants) outside Oslo, and the maternal side's Sogne fjord.
They ate a lot of potatos, fish and raisin soup, at breakfast no less. I may settle for the pictures.

Reply: I would love to visit Scandinavia some day, or just somewhere in Europe.

but paleoclimatologist and co-author Alexander Wolfe notes that these warm spells occurred with greenhouse gas emissions 30% lower than they are today.

No worries AGW'ers, this falls under one of the 500 or so exceptions where GHG's don't cause warming.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

This is gorgeous. I hope an Oil Exec takes the invitation. This will be quite public and an opportunity to show what a scam AGW is.

Is Hansen still a Gub-Ment employee?

Brett, no word on a debate huh? Yes or no, I doubt you could find one AGW Advocate to defend this house of cards anyway.

Reply: I mentioned it, but have not heard anything back. I will follow up again and let you know. Sorry for the delay.

Steve

Studying past climate can give us valuable insight and perspective on today's climate, and the most important lesson may be the climate changes all the time and it changes naturally.

I hope this allays some global warming fears. It won't make a difference to people who have closed their minds. It's clear that last century's warming was not 'unprecedented' and it should also be evident that the Carbon Dioxide hysteria is just that -- hysteria.

The climate has always changed and is always changing. While it's true the climate can (and has) changed rapidly in the past, a few years of warming at the end of last century is not a scientific basis for alarm. The true basis for most AGW alarmism are the climate models which are being shown time and time again to be inaccurate and unreliable.

We should focus on real problems, such as hunger and poverty. Affluent nations can adjust to whatever climate change happens in the future.

The recent posts have been very interesting. Understanding the historical variation in climate is very important when one is trying to place recent climate changes in context.

Is there anyone else out there who thinks that pouring vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere without any thoughts about the consequences is a really dumb idea but who also believes that the claims of AGW go far beyond what can be supported by sound science?

Anyone else miss PH? It was kind of fun to see the lengths he/she would go to when looking for some place on earth with below normal temperatures.

BTW, Brett should be canonized for moderating this forum.

Re the emissions, during glaciations CO2 levels are at about 180 ppm, then in the course of the deglaciations the level increases via natural emissions to about 280 ppm. We have now added another approximately 100 ppm.

The concern is that the increase in insolation in Greenland during that interglacial was enough to melt much of the ice, and that even 100 ppm extra CO2 is enough to do the same (and much more since it's not seasonally localized to high latitudes like the insolation was). The big unknown is how rapidly the melting process can proceed, although based on the other Greenland study the answer would seem to be very rapidly.

News flash!!!!!!!!!!!Hansen claims bumper of suv found in Greenland ice sheet.(Ha Ha)... Global warming is dead. The sun and the oceans control the earth's climate,not co2.

I read this on the ICECAP.US web site yesterday and did a double take on what Dr. Roger Pielke said, in particular in the last sentence in the paragraph:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001462what_the_ccsp_extrem.html

"First, let me emphasize that the focus of the report is on changes in extremes in the United States, and not on climate changes more generally. Second, my comments below refer to the report's discussion of observed trends. I do not discuss predictions of the future, which the report also covers. Third, the report relies a great deal on research that I have been involved in and obviously know quite well. Finally, let me emphasize that anthropogenic climate change is real, and deserving of significant attention to both adaptation and mitigation."

Is it me or did he just say that anthropogenic climate change is real? This from one of the leading skeptics? I am surprised that ICECAP.US did not delete that statement before they reprinted the story. Maybe they will after this post.

Brett - any articles we can have fun with from Dr Hansen's testimony yesterday in front of Congress where he was call pathetic oops I meant prophetic? (my bad)

Thanks,
Mark

Reply: Something about his testimony is coming soon after I look through it..

Most of the skeptics have been saying that Greenland WAS green back in the days of Eric the red...the hysterics say it was named 'Green'land as a joke. Well, looks like the joke is on them. Data without an AGW spin continues to support the skeptics.

off subject: Looks like old Hansen is preparing to done the sackcloth and hairshirt as, according to this hysteric, the end of the world is at hand.....actually already we are past the point of no return.....sheesh....he and Miss Heidi make a very nice couple....

Temperatures on the Greenland Ice sheet are averaging -15 to -10C this summer. It is likely to be an exceptionally low melt year.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html

I doubt the Earth Observatory will make a press release though.

Similarly, with the record snowpack in Montana and Wyoming we are likely to see significant glacial expansion in the northern Rockies. Montana is averaging 400% of normal snow for the end of June. Reply: I hope you are right.
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/snotelanom/snotelbasin

All we hear from the press is nonsense about Greenland melting and alpine glaciers melting. Nothing but lies and stupidity - any more.

Fred Nieuwenhuis: Your statement makes the assumption that AGW is more than a localized temperature increase due to UHI and more than regional climate perturbations due to variations in land use that cause changes in albedo. The areas most effected by recent temperature rises (1975 to present) are the Arctic and Northern Hemisphere high-latitudes. Those changes can be explained by responses to multidecadal ocean oscillations and ENSO. Based on GCM studies, for greenhouse gases to have caused those changes, CO2 would have had to have doubled. That hasn't happened.

FYI, an El Nino has the same impact on equatorial stratospheric and high-latitude Northern Hemipshere tropospheric temperatures as a doubling of CO2. I have found no studies that say that La Ninas work the same in reverse, and the historical temperature record doesn't indicate that they do. What caused the cycle in polar amplification to reduce in the past, and actually reverse to where the Arctic and NH high latitudes warmed less than mid and low latitudes? The longer-term ocean oscillations.

Regards

The climate on this planet, is always in circle of 10.000 years and more. Due to the "green politics" they don`t say a word regarding the rotation of the earth.
Some 10.000 years ago, the equator line, whent over Svalbard, north of Norway. The evidence has been palms and different animals. What we see today, is nothing more to worry than the lifes circle of our earth.
I don`t say, we can pollute more. I say to our politichants that by giving us more "green taxes" Has no affect on our planet. They don`t use the green taxes to what they should be used to. An example. Norway: green tax on gasoline about $1,5 pr. litres has not been used to develope co2 free cars or athor green technologies. Just str8 to their pockets. There has been NONE effective sollution towards decrease our polution.
So on Greenland, I see that our earth is comming back to start of its circle, all over again.
Question: When will the proffesors in enviroments and so on, take a look on the earth`s circle!?!

Steve, your 280 ppm figure for CO2 is based on fictitious assumptions.

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=25526754-e53a-4899-84af-5d9089a5dcb6

Furthermore, the first 40 ppm CO2 absorbs as much IR as the next 400 ppm, so an increase from 180 ppm to 280 ppm wouldn't mean much in terms of warming or ice melting.

Steve bloom;
Excuse my English, but this reminds me of a paper I just read on Rapid Climate Change.
"The good news was, nobody had yet found a mechanism that, outside Ice Age conditions, could plausibly bring a massive global climate change in a decade or so. Unless scientists had completely overlooked something essential (which was possible but far from likely), whatever changes happened would be spread out over several decades or longer.The bad news was... well, there were several items. The feedbacks long anticipated were kicking in, so that large changes were already seen to be happening within the timescale of a human lifetime. By 2005 climatologists had established,that the decades since 1980 had seen rapid global warming on a scale unlike anything known in human history". The CO2 in the atmosphere is now 377 PPM. When it gets warmer, we will cause the famous Snowball effect. More melting ice, less reflectivity of the IR. Biomass warming,and methane bubbling. Then what do we do. Watch thirty percent of our ecosystems die. Than It's like changing seats on the Titanic. Use nuclear power, try switch grass!
Stop denying, and delaying. Smearing your local scientists. Read the IPCC report. Today.
KIPP

paminator:
"...Alexander Wolfe notes that these warm spells occurred with g