re-7: global warming – status of investigation

I’m not trying to have an argument, just trying to understand where you’re coming from.  You say: “current temperatures and trends are nothing to be alarmed about”.  By “trends” I understand islands submerged by the ocean, glaciers melting rapidly, severe long drouts, and much more.  Why no alarm?  Also, you didn’t actually answer my question, which was: Do you mean to imply that the climate change we’re now experiencing is not due to an increase in man-made greenhouse gasses but is due to a natural cyclical variation?  Or are you saying that we’re not experiencing any significant climate change?

Based on all the reports I’ve looked at, from both sides, my current impression is that we are not experiencing significant climate change, and temperatures are not particularly warm compared to historical norms. Also, I have seen no evidence that Co2 has a determinative effect on temperature, let alone the small fraction of Co2 generated by human activity. If this is true then the predictions of the models are completely meaningless, as they would be based on totally wrong assumptions.

This chart, derived from the official NOAA ice-core data from Greenland, is the most important piece of information I’ve seen on climate. It gives temperatures since 3,000 BC, covering the whole period of human civilization:

This shows we were in a natural period of rising temperature prior to massive quantities of human-generated Co2. And it shows we can expect the natural upward trend to continue a bit longer, probably reaching the -31.0 line by about 2010 (ie, now). This would not be particularly warm on an historical basis. It would also indicate we have nothing to fear from permafrost melting or islands disappearing, as that would have already occurred in the Medieval Warm Period or earlier, when it was much warmer.

What I want to do next is get the raw data for the modern period, and see how it connects to this graph, to verify there hasn’t been some kind of huge recent spike. I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence that there is no such spike, but I want to check it for myself.

If the above graph doesn’t show up in your email, please let me know. And it can be found at these URLs:

https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/cyberjournal/2009-12/msg00009.html

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newslog/message/2562 (Rusty)

cheers

rkm

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