Astonishing finds by a group of Scandinavian scientists have placed a number of animal species living north of the Arctic Circle 9,000 years ago including African wildcats, dogs and frogs. The area in northern Norway is much further north than where these wild animals would survive today and indicates, yet again, that temperatures in what is known as the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM) were much warmer than today. And of course it makes a nonsense of climate alarmists’ claims that current temperatures are higher than periods going back thousands if not millions of years.
The scientists analysed the DNA bone fragments found in the sealed high-latitude Storsteinhola cave system. The DNA record stretches over a substantial period of climate warming, at a time when carbon dioxide levels were at dangerously low levels of around 260 parts per million, from around 13,000 to 5,000 years ago. Other scientists have also found proxy evidence that suggests temperatures may have risen around 5°C during this period to levels much higher than today. The science blog No Tricks Zone recently noted scientific findings that suggested the early Holocene was so warm that 10,000 years ago, boreal forests expanded northwards to Arctic regions in places that are today too cold to support anything but tundra.
The Scandinavian scientists identified species with expanded northern ranges “far outside their current geographic distribution”. The identification of African wildcats is said to be ”remarkable” and the researchers go out of their way to dismiss an explanation based on human presence. The sites show no evidence of human activity, and the introduction of domestic cats into Fennoscandia is said to date to the Late Roman Iron Age. The finding of wildcat remains is said to be the “highest latitude location for this species ever”.
No Tricks Zone has also commented on the findings of this paper, noting that wildcat species became extinct in northern Europe after the HTM ended, and “snow cover increased above the wildcat threshold of 20cm over a 100-day period”. Dogs (wolves), ducks, geese, prairie chickens, gulls, brown bear and several species of frogs also found the Arctic climate in northern Norway warm enough to reside there during the period. Amberjacks (Seriola) – a fish species only found in temperate to tropical Pacific and Atlantic waters (Gulf of Mexico, Brazil) today – also lived north of the Arctic circle during the early Holocene, notes the blog.
Findings such as this no longer have a place in mainstream media, since they detract from the political fearmongering driving Net Zero. As regular readers know, the Daily Sceptic often points out that the tragedy of politicised ‘settled’ science is that diverse opinions and large areas of inquiry and knowledge are out-of-bounds in both political and media discourse. But climate has always been driven by natural cyclical variation, whether it be long-term orbital changes, or any number of short-term movements. All of this must be put to one side these days to promote the idea that most if not all changes in the weather and climate are caused by humans burning hydrocarbons. Every bad weather event is cue for hysterical warnings of climate Armageddon. Whenever the Arctic or Antarctic sea grows, or coral accumulates in record amounts on the Great Barrier Reef, the scare is quietly dropped, until a propitious, if natural, melt or bleach takes place. Then the whole racket roars back into action again.
The Arctic sea ice has always waxed and waned, whether it be the massive lifting of the ice sheets in the early Holocene, or the more modest cyclical rises and falls seen today. There is always a risk of attracting an allegation of ‘cherry-picking’ from a silly Reuters ‘fact check’, but we can report on the current pattern. The latest April sea ice figures from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) show that the current cyclical rise continues. The sea ice extent in April was only the 16th lowest extent recorded since modern satellite records began in 1979. In fact, the month had the highest sea ice extent for the month in 12 years.
The significant April recovery, replicated in the annual record, can be clearly seen with a large upturn since 2020. But on a moving average of four years, the recovery dates back at least 10 years. The year 1979 started the modern record and was a high point for Arctic sea ice extent, with much lower levels recorded back to the 1950s and beyond. The NSIDC continues to draw a linear line downwards from this point, a ‘cherry pick’ that seems to escape all known mainstream fact checkers
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, another wall of silence greets the news of the current Antarctic sea ice extent. The latest figures, not to be broadcast out loud, show that in April, the month of most rapid growth, the sea ice grew significantly above the average rate between 1981-2010.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
So far I like the cut of Milei’s jib. A breath of fresh air and common sense.
Billing the head of JSO would certainly be appreciated. A pay up or porridge deal should do the trick.
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
Although, of course, the state has no income. It’s income cones from shaking down the public.
It didn’t take Milei long to act like a hypocrite.
You are total granite Stewart always totally consistent.
JSO can protest and I would not charge them for security, but I would certainly charge them or jail them for damaging art works, buildings etc.—- Damaging things is not legitimate protest. ———I would expect no leniency if I had a JUST START OIL T short on and threw paint at my bank window, and I don’t think I would get any.
Its that thing that the left don’t do terribly well. Consequences for their actions…
I strongly disagree.
“Security” is an imposition by the state. Its the state that wants to deploy police officers to provide “security” so it should foot the bill itself.
That’s not really true. In 2017, there was a G20 meeting in Hamburg. These are traditionally also gathering points of the (so-called) anticapitalist/ anarchist hard left who’ll stage ‘protests’ against them. The city was essentially stripped of police in order to ensure the safety of all the meeting politicians. Because of this, the protestors went rioting in several city districts, smashing up and looting shops, torching cars etc.
Milei’s argument still doesn’t hold water, though: The largest parts of these costs will have been paying all the security-related government employees who would have needed to be paid come rain or shine, ie, regardless of the demonstration. And the actual numbers deployed were chosen by the government for some reason only known to it. People have freedom of assembly, however, should they actually assemble, fines in the order of thenthousands of dollars will be issued to people not guilty of any criminal conduct effectively means There’s no freedom of assembly.
I tend to agree
My starting point would be that the right to peaceful public mass protest is sacrosanct and charging people for it isn’t appropriate. If people are engaging in deliberate obstruction then they should be moved on or arrested. The greyer area is when the obstruction is a natural result of a lot of people being in the same place at the same time. I think it’s reasonable to encourage protestors to choose where they go in order to minimise inconvenience to others without losing the impact of the protest but I don’t feel that coercion is warranted
I like the idea of charging JSO for any damage done, then passing that on to donors. Never happen though
What a Christmas gift, that headline really did make me laugh out loud
Good for Milei, if I’m not mistaken a similar principle applies to football matches and pop concerts, so why not.
If you truly believe in what you’re protesting, you’ll be happy to foot the bill, in the knowledge that you will be safe while protesting and as a taxpayer you will not get further burdened.
Merry Christmas everyone, have a good one.
Yep, we are on the same page Jane.
Have a lovely Christmas
There’s a very real danger that this could end up being the thin end of the wedge. Once a government charges protesters blocking roads during a protest it’s a very small step to charging other protests for the policing costs involved and before we know it protest is the preserve of the well off.
The best solution would be to massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law during a protest to help cover the cost of dealing with their law breaking rather than simply charging groups who organise a protest.
“massively increase the fines given to people who have been found guilty of breaking the law”
I largely agree with your comments but the problem is that the legal system is now largely corrupted. JSO routinely break the law with their pathetic vandalism and deliberate road closures. Bill the tw#t funding this crap and things might change. If he doesn’t pay send him down.
Looking forward to the day when Extinction Rebellion are charged for the disruptions they cause. 10,000 motorists on the M25 x £10.42 an hour…. A few days of that will soon drain ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ the George Soros funded twats of funds.
Damn right.
“a heavy deployment of police, paramilitary officers and anti-riot forces, cost 60 million pesos, or about £57,500, at the official exchange rate.”
We should employ Argentinian police. At those prices we could fly them over here to deal with protests and riots and fly them back and it’d still cost less than using ours.
Yes that’s 1,043 pesos to the pound if my calculator is correct.
They will also strip protestors of Welfare. That’s going to hurt.
No. Just those protesters who block streets – if I understood that correctly.
Mind you that also means they expect to be able to identify these people.
—
Have a peaceful Christmas everyone.
In order to do this they must be closely surveilling the event and have the technology to trace the protesters they have identified. Its easy to applaud the concept of charging the protesters but the mechanics involved in that process are part of the apparatus of the surveillance state which, I think, most here would be against.
Correct. Trudeau tried it against the Canadian trucker protest during Covid. Not just cutting off welfare payments but freezing their bank accounts. I don’t think many on here would have supported that action.