There has been no significant warming in one of the most climate-sensitive parts of the planet, analysis of Greenland ice core data shows, casting further doubt on the alarmist climate narrative.
We are all familiar with the climate change scare narrative. Red coloured maps of the globe, polar bears stranded on ever diminishing ice floes, extreme weather events etc. When you read a climate change related article or scientific paper it nearly always opens with a statement underlining the severity of the situation facing mankind. What is usually lacking is perspective.
I am not interested in ‘expert’ opinion unless it is supported by empirical data and perspective. Selected sources must be reliable and have ample past data to encompass solar cycle variation. Ideally these data need to come from a region of the planet that is sensitive to global warming. What data from the world of paleoclimatology fit that criteria?
When snow falls, it contains a mix of oxygen isotopes. During warm periods, more heavy oxygen isotopes are found in the snow, while cold periods have more light oxygen isotopes. By analysing these ratios in ice cores, scientists can learn about past temperatures and climate conditions. The ice is laid down in annual layers which can be dated accurately. Consequently, we can construct an accurate temperature record where sufficient ice accumulation exists, such as in polar regions.
If anthropogenic climate change is a real threat, due primarily to the burning of fossil fuels, then we are expecting to see a clear rise in temperature above and beyond the normal variation. This was attempted and published by Michael Mann et al. and is widely known as the hockey stick graph. The main problem with this graph is that it was constructed using 12 sets of proxy measurements which included three sets of ice core data. The ice core data went back only 500 years and the remaining extrapolation relied on tree ring data. There was considerable uncertainty of measurement which was highlighted in his original paper (Figure 1), and a period of 1,000 years provides us with limited perspective in relation to the impact of solar cycles.
Note the light grey area is an estimate of the uncertainty of measurement and extrapolation.
There seems to be a dearth of records that provide temperature proxies for recent times that are relevant to the sudden rise in carbon dioxide levels (1860 to current). However, I did locate data from two overlapping periods from Renland peninsula in Eastern Greenland. The two studies that reported the results from these ice core measurements had quite different themes. The first, which covered the period from 1960 to 10,000 BC, commented on the high temperatures in the Holocene period and the impact on the ice sheet. The second covering 1801 to 2014 examined local site variability. The creation of these datasets was a gargantuan effort. It remains a mystery why these papers did not comment on the temperature trends or indeed try and link the two datasets. Below is a graph combining these two isotope ratio data sets (Figure 2). The black line (far right) is the key as it is a 20 year rolling average of the more recent dataset (brown dots). The first dataset (blue dots) has data points every 20 years, so this rolling average enables a more valid comparison.
These data tell us we’re in one of the coldest spells in the approximately last 9,000 years. Was the only way up? Virtually all global records indicate a steady warming in recent times. I have added green lines to help visualise the ‘normal’ variation in the last 9,000 years. Clearly recent warming is within this normal variation.
I have added another graph (Figure 3) with linear trend lines to each of the datasets to demonstrate how important perspective is in assessing climate change. If we take the trend from 1801 to 2014 (purple dashed) and compare it with that from the last 10,000 years (green line) it seems alarming. But from the longer trend the reader can see that variation in both sets of data is quite normal.
There is also a serious lack of agreement between the Mann hockey stick graph (Figure 1) and these data. It should be borne in mind when making this comparison that the Mann graph attempted to reconstruct temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere whereas the data I have cited here are from a specific area of Eastern Greenland.
The next graph (Figure 4), focusing on the overlap period (1800 to 2014), provides the degree of validity of aligning these two datasets. There appears to be excellent correlation when comparing the black and red lines, implying the data are good proxies for temperature.
In summary, these data indicate there is no significant global warming signal coming from one of the most sensitive parts of the planet. Any warming may be latent, but this seems to be a bit of a stretch.
This absence of a signal could be explained by the fact that the relationship of carbon dioxide to global temperature is logarithmic and above a certain concentration there is minimal direct impact relative to solar cycles.
There are many climate scientists who have devoted their lives to saving mankind but unless these data are invalid, they need to return from the chill winds of the polar regions. Is it game over for the climate change scare narrative?
First published on Stephen’s Substack page. Subscribe here.
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Just this article?
Not just this article I suspect, but it concerns the most important commodity of all———-Energy, and how our access to cheap abundant energy is being removed under false pretences of a climate emergency that has no basis in science
The planet has been cooling for c7k years, after 2 or 3k years of warming. Ille est, the STANDARD process in recent interglacials. The cooling is interspersed with warm periods, each COOLER than the preceding one.
Here’s an excellent article on the Holocene climate
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/2015/06/01/the-holocene-context-for-anthropogenic-global-warming-2/
And whilst I am here, there is no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, long OR short term. Periods, such as the 30 years at the end of the last century (which followed cooling of c0.5 degrees C from 1940 TO 1970 with RISING CO2 levels), have no statistical significance whatsoever. Indeed, CO2 levels are close to an historic low. And the small rise in temperature since 1850 is nothing to do with CO2 (maybe just a tiny bit), rather leaving the Little Ice Age, the coolest period in some thousands of years.
Odd, innit, that the planet has warmed since leaving an ice age?
According to geologists, for almost 70% of the Earth’s existence there have been no Polar ice caps, and having two is rare.
Therefore we must be in a rare cold period for Planet Earth.
Thanks for your very good comment, but ofcourse while we can argue all day about “science”, western governments under their International Treaties like the Paris Agreement, Net Zero etc are getting on with the politics all based on the “official science” that gets preached from podiums at COP events and on bought and paid for mainstream news that has simply become a climate activist mouthpiece spouting the narrative the Global Government at the UN wants it to.
Off territory dump:
I have this morning been on the TCW site. Kathy Gyngell is celebrating ten years of TCW and I commend what she and Laura Perrins have done and achieved. Anyway, as they have reached a tenth birthday they have decided to give the site a makeover. I wish they hadn’t bothered. What an absolute Mess. It looks tatty, disorganised and cluttered. The previous layout was simple, column-like and functional. Now it’s awful.
Although I subscribe to TCW I do not use the comments sections because they use a filtering system called Disqus so my wrath cannot be aired over there.
The bottom line – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I am sorry to hear that about TCW. ——I have not visited myself except to occasionally look at some of your links. It is frustrating that you cannot express your “wrath” and I would imagine you have kept it clean so as to not break any of their rules, like the kind of thing you get with Mailonline where even using particular words like “terrorist” or “black” can often mean your comment not accepted. I have even had a comment declined for using “Africa”. But often the comment will not appear at all for no reason, and then ofcourse you articles where only 5 comments will appear when it is obvious that it is not just 5 people that have decided to attempt to pass comment. ——–I can only hope DS does not descend into this politically correct censorship type of nonsense.
And another Off – T dump:
“I see Rishi has finally buckled and appointed an official Sharia Compliance Minister for Britain, Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Faith Matters.”
Just posted in the comments section at TCW.
WTF?
This is how the DT is reporting it:
“Michael Gove is to appoint a new adviser to tackle Islamophobia as he prepares to unveil a crackdown on Islamist and Right-wing extremism. Fiyaz Mughal, an outspoken critic of extremism and a campaigner for closer links between Muslim and Jewish communities, is understood to be a leading contender for the post.”
https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/gallery/maidenhead/195180/maidenhead-mp-theresa-may-to-stand-down-at-next-election.html
This will be very sad loss to Maidenhead and British politics.
Fortunately.
No loss at all ——-This is the silly woman that gave us the absurd Net Zero Amendment in 2019. Ofcourse had it not been her it would have some other UN lackey moron.
Thanks varmint but did you not get the sarcasm?
I did——I was agreeing with you.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-its-time-for-the-starving-polar-bears-again-trouble-is-theyre-thriving/
And here’s Paul Homewood’s useful accessory to this article.
Polar bears are thriving.
Polar Bears are doing nicely, not that you will hear that on the BBC or see it in the Guardian.
Galileo expressed his frustration that his accusers just wouldn’t look at his evidence, his calculations, sketches or even look at the Moon’s surface down his telescope.
When it is about authority, power, control and the attendant wealth that brings, evidence no matter how compelling, truth no matter how evident are irrelevant – to be ignored and those presenting it discredited and vilified.
This article is ofcourse informative and welcome as are the many articles on DS, but personally and I suspect many readers here will not have had their opinions changed by it for we already knew that climate change is a smidgeon of the truth elevated into a planetary emergency purely for political purposes. ——Notice how climate change true believers accept the whole shebang. They accept the narrative of a climate emergency and that the world is on fire, but they also fully support every absurd alleged solution to that manufactured crisis. Every turbine, solar panel, heat pump, electric car, carbon capture, banning of coal and gas, banning of petrol and diesel, daft hydrogen projects, and are totally unconcerned at the astronomical cost of all of this or even if it will have any effect on global climate. They will also mostly not want to embrace Nuclear Energy despite it causing virtually zero CO2 emissions, which means it is not likely the CO2 they were concerned about in the first place. It is cheap abundant energy they are opposed to —-Why? Because it is the driver of Capitalism. Climate Change and its polices then are an anti capitalist package.
Notice the red thumbs down person has nothing to say about why they gave a thumbs down.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you think things are going to get warmer in the next few decades quite the contrary. There is a great deal of warming coming from under the sea but if you think the British climate is going to improve then you are very mistaken. It isn’t just that the British pioneered weather modification it is the fact that the dampness of the British climate means that we have perfect weather conditions for them to employ their favourite new technologies and they haven’t even warmed up yet. They have got these islands set up to become the harbour and welcoming port of the new Satanic energy that their machinations are bringing into being.You can feel it in the air. Ask the insects. Leave your window open and see how few insects come in compared to ten years ago. Don’t be foolish in thinking that the fate of such small critters means nothing.
Looking at the big picture events I think awarenss of the global warming scam gives the best cause for optimism. You could say it took a very long time but when you consider that this agenda only kicked into high gear in the early 1990s and just thirty years later it has been defeated, that really isn’t that long .And I think its demise will work as a fillip and an emblem in the battle against other more recalcitrant orthodoxies. A few years ago I thought this agenda would take hold of the world and would enslave it. It shows that there is way for the light to seep in.
We have the number 25920. This number cannot be escaped it represents stages in the cosmos and breaths in our body. This is the great year or true year, It is the time it takes in years for the sun to move through the Zodiac. Every 12600 years or so something big happens. Last time it happened by water and we had to start again like children with no recollection of what went before. We are ripe for such an event. We should not only continue our legacy but by discovering what went before we can break the spell. Those events have profound importance for our times.
Don’t lose faith in feet and inches and what not. These are far older than Egypt or Sumeria, It is within us and also within us is the dreadful trauma that occurrerd at that time when they used their science with disastrous results, The mystery schools don’t hoard this knowledge out of a sense of vanity or covetousness it is simply an acknowlegemnt of the disaster that occurred before and a conecern about who might obtain the technology. This period from 2020-2040 will be a period of great revealing.