Thread: DNA Test Indicates Very Green Greenland

DNA Test Indicates Very Green Greenland

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

The researchers, led by Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, say the findings are the first direct proof that there was forest in southern Greenland.

~snip~

Greenland was discovered by Vikings sailing from Iceland about 1,000 years ago. While it had an ice cap then, the climate was relatively mild and they were able to establish colonies in coastal areas. Those colonies later vanished as the climate cooled.

http://www.comcast.net/news/science/...05/707378.html

Climate is not static on the Earth.

alternative link : Oldest frozen DNA reveals a greener Greenland

imo the main thrust of the articles is not so much that climate is not static (everyone who has made a casual studies of the most recent ice age knows that), but that we might just be lucky with the stability of ice sheets, if the suggestion is true that the Greenland ones didn't disappear in an interglacial that was 3-5°C warmer than the current one

unfortunately neither of the articles spells out what dating methods were used, because we're obviously outside the range for carbon dating

Well call me a denier if you want but I think the doom and gloom is over played. I also think the sun plays the major role in our climate.

it's a big step from admitting that the increase in CO2 is man-made to the extreme doom-and-gloom scenarios - however, i don't know whether we can have the luxury of being agnostic on the issue, because if we're wrong in being complacent we're in right deep doodoo

as far as the most recent ice age is concerned, i'm not aware of an immediate influence of the sun (the brightness of the sun either varies with its 11-year cycle, or over vastly longer timescales of billions of years)
imo the main reason for ice ages is the distribution of the continents which in turn affect the heat redistribution through ocean currents
within an ice age the Milankovitch cycles explain the glacial/interglacial patterns pretty well

Originally Posted by marnixR

i don't know whether we can have the luxury of being agnostic on the issue, because if we're wrong in being complacent we're in right deep doodoo!

Yeah but how do we know? I've seen people discount the contrary studies based on their funding source. Yet as I have pointed out those pushing anthropogenic global warming and subsequent regulations are being funded through the back door by those very same funding sources. I haven't seen any evidence that convinces me that the cause is solely man or that he even plays a significant roll. And I certainly don’t see how killing the US economy will help while China and India are free to pollute at will.

Now that is not to say that we should not be environmentally conscious. And yeah maybe I am a little bit paranoid. Play on political forums as much as I do and you start to see conspiracies everywhere.

agreed that the global warming debate has become far too politicised - it's a sad state of affairs if it matters more who has said something than what they have said

having said that, if the US, China and India keep looking at each other for the other to make the first move then the only possible outcome will be business as usual

the least you can say is that it's going to be interesting to see a large-scale uncontrolled experiment on the earth's atmosphere in progress

Per capita the US polutes twenty times more than India and China. Just to put things in perspective.

The climate sysytem is chaotic: a small change can induce a large change. That said, the climate is not static and there is no overwhelming evidence (that I have seen) that catastrophic global warming will be induced by humans pumping out CO2. I still think emissions should be cut, even if I disagree with the media telling everyone what "scientists" think.

that's the moral conundrum for the western world : after we've lived it up for more than a century, can we deny other countries the possibility of achieving the same living standards, even if we know our resources can't really afford it ?

think about it : china achieving US living standards is equivalent to a 10-fold population increase

I don't see why that is true (the ten fold population thing). Anyway, I don't really think the western world has any right to tell the rest of the world whether or not they are allowed to develop - especially on the grounds of pollution, when the US are by far the biggest culprits, they have to lead the way.

on an estimate the average chinese has a living standard 1/10 of someone living in the US - hence if they achieve their ambition to reach US living standards, the resources they use wil increase tenfold, or as if their population had increased tenfold with the current standards of living

anyway, in part the moral conundrum is not ours to resolve, because countries like china and india will not let themselves be dictated by countries who can't even claim the moral highground

so whether we object or not will in reality make no difference to the final outcome

Originally Posted by marnixR

on an estimate the average chinese has a living standard 1/10 of someone living in the US - hence if they achieve their ambition to reach US living standards, the resources they use wil increase tenfold, or as if their population had increased tenfold with the current standards of living

anyway, in part the moral conundrum is not ours to resolve, because countries like china and india will not let themselves be dictated by countries who can't even claim the moral highground

so whether we object or not will in reality make no difference to the final outcome

Oh I see what you're saying, it's not quite the same really, but I'll let it slide. Would you rather the overwhelming majority of Chinese lived in poverty, or would you rather see a fairer redistribution of the Earth's wealth?

as i said, i don't think we'll have a say in the matter

Originally Posted by scpg02

Well call me a denier if you want but I think the doom and gloom is over played. I also think the sun plays the major role in our climate.

It doesn't matter what the media is saying, lets face it, if the media could find someone with a PHD claiming that we all evolved from aliens who came to earth 2 million years ago they would happily put an article in their paper, just as long as they sold more copy's. As for the sun being the major cause of the earth resent warming I'm afraid its not. There has been no change in the suns solar output over the last 25 / 30 years, some of the planets and moons in the solar system have seen temperature rises and some have seen temperature drops, what ever the reason for the earths temperature rises is, it is not the sun but something to do with the earth.

Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence
support a solar-output model for climate change

The most direct mechanism for climate change would be a
decrease or increase in the total amount of radiant energy
reaching the Earth. Because only the orbital eccentricity aspect
of the Milankovitch theory can account for a change in the total
global energy and this change is of the order of only a maximum
of 0.1% (11), one must look to the Sun as a possible source of
larger energy fluctuations. Earth-satellite measurements in the
last two decades have revealed that the total energy reaching the
Earth varies by at least 0.1% over the 10- to 11-year solar cycle
(12). Evidence of larger and longer term variations in solar
output can be deduced from geophysical data (13–17).

In an extensive search of the literature pertaining to geophysical
and astronomical cycles ranging from seconds to millions of
years, Perry (18) demonstrated that the reported cycles fell into
a recognizable pattern when standardized according to fundamental
harmonics. An analysis of the distribution of 256 reported
cycles, when standardized by dividing the length of each
cycle, in years, by 2N (where N is a positive or negative integer)
until the cycle length fell into a range of 7.5 to 15 years, showed
a central tendency of 11.1 years. The average sunspot-cycle
length for the period 1700 to 1969 is also 11.1 years (19). In fact,
the distribution of the sunspot cycles is very nearly the same as
the distribution of the fundamental cycles of other geophysical
and astronomical cycles. Aperiodicity of the cycles was evident
in two side modes of 9.9 and 12.2 years for the geophysical and
astronomical cycles and 10.0 and 12.1 years for the sunspot cycle.
The coincidence of these two patterns suggests that solar-activity
cycles and their fundamental harmonics may be the underlying
cause of many climatic cycles that are preserved in the geophysical
record. Gauthier (20) noted a similar unified structure in
Quaternary climate data that also followed a fundamental
harmonic progression (progressive doubling of cycle length)
from the 11-year sunspot data to the major 90,000-year glacial
cycle.

__________________________________________________ ________

Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does.

have a look at the following graphs from the 2001 IPCC report :

graph (a) natural forces = solar radiation and volcanic activity
graph (b) human forces = greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols
graph (c) both combined

this is pretty conclusive evidence that solar radiation cannot possibly explain the temperature increase of the last few decades

Originally Posted by marnixR

have a look at the following graphs from the 2001 IPCC report :

graph (a) natural forces = solar radiation and volcanic activity
graph (b) human forces = greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols
graph (c) both combined

this is pretty conclusive evidence that solar radiation cannot possibly explain the temperature increase of the last few decades

Ah the old 2001 report.

Politics of global warming

Assessments of climate science by the United Nations (see IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have claimed that scientists are 90% sure that over 50% of the observed global warming in recent decades is human-caused, and that continued global warming should be expected over at least the next century. Science published a literature search by Naomi Oreskes concluding that "scientific consensus" supports the IPCC reports. [8]

Several prominent scientists have pointed out the politicized science of the UN's assessment methods. The scientific reports are submitted to a panel of representatives appointed by each country in the IPCC. Several scientists whose research demonstrates that climate change is taking place have complained about their work being misrepresented by the U.N.

• In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results. That pressure has frequently been effective, and a survey of participants reveals substantial disagreement with the final report.

Originally Posted by marnixR

have a look at the following graphs from the 2001 IPCC report :

graph (a) natural forces = solar radiation and volcanic activity
graph (b) human forces = greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols
graph (c) both combined

this is pretty conclusive evidence that solar radiation cannot possibly explain the temperature increase of the last few decades

Oh I'm going to cry foul on that one. Those are graphs of computer simulations. You call that "conclusive evidence"? That proves nothing!

The Nature of Arguments for Anthropogenic Global Warming

The primary argument for the attribution of recent warming to anthropogenic increases in CO2 is
due to the Hadley Centre, the UK Met Office’s climate research group. Their argument is quite
simple. It begins with the assumption that their climate model is correct. They then subject their
model to forcing by volcanos and solar variations, and find that they can replicate the observed
global mean temperature until about 19761, but that the increase in global mean temperature of a
few tenths of a degree since then could not be reproduced without additional climate forcing.
This additional forcing, they assert, is due to man. The argument is based fundamentally on the
assertion that the model is correct. The confirmation for this assertion is that the model was
capable of replicating earlier changes in global mean temperature in the instrumental record for
the period 1880 to 1976. Hence, they are confident that the attribution of the recent warming to
man is correct, and that the forecasts for future warming are correct as well. Although this
sounds simple enough, the problems with the argument are huge, and leave one without any
logical grounds to stand on. The following are the major problems (and all of them have already
been noted by the IPCC):

1. Forcing by volcanoes and solar variability are essentially unknown. Hence, the ability to
replicate observations prior to about 1976 depends on arbitrary choices which are tantamount to
‘tuning.’ The claim that models are capable of replicating the past record is really a statement
that the models can be adjusted to replicate the record. Even with such adjustments, the models
fail to replicate regional changes in climate (such as the fact that much of the continental US has
been cooling over the past 60 years)..

2. Although it is claimed that models cannot replicate global mean surface temperature since
about 1976 without additional forcing, it is found that the model response to increasing CO2 is
so sensitive that anthropogenic greenhouse forcing leads to several times as much warming as
needed to replicate the data2. This presents a political problem. Even if the warming since 1976
were due to greenhouse gas additions to the atmosphere, it suggests relatively low sensitivity.
On the other hand, high sensitivity is needed to produce alarming scenarios. Modelers at the
Hadley Centre dealt with this by replacing anthropogenic greenhouse forcing with just plain
anthropogenic forcing which they claim includes aerosols sufficient to cancel about two thirds of
the anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. However, the community of aerosol scientists maintain
that aerosol forcing is thus far unknown. Thus, aerosols too form an arbitrary adjustment
designed to bring models and observed global mean temperature into agreement. In order to
maintain the politically crucial alarm, it is proposed that aerosols will cease cancelling
greenhouse forcing shortly.

3. Finally, in what sense does the fact that a model cannot duplicate a warming of a few tenths of
a degree constitute evidence that anthropogenic forcing is necessary? The alternative hypothesis
is that the warming is simply natural unforced internal climate variability. It is well known that
the climate does indeed fluctuate without any external forcing. There are several reasons for
this. At the most fundamental level, the atmosphere and oceans are turbulent fluids, and it is a
general property of such fluids that they can fluctuate widely without external forcing. There are
moreover specific features of the oceans and atmosphere that lend themselves to such changes.
The most obvious is that the oceans are never in equilibrium with the surface. There are
exchanges of heat on all time scales between the abyssal oceans and the near surface thermocline
region. Such exchanges are involved in phenomena like El Nino and the Pacific Decadal
Oscillations, and produce large variable forcing for the atmosphere. In addition, the turbulent
motions of the atmosphere randomly deposit heat in locations having varying water vapor and
cloudiness (the two main greenhouse substances in the atmosphere) thus potentially leading to
fluctuations in global mean temperature. In general, models simulate such phenomena rather
poorly. Thus, it should be no surprise that they might fail to replicate a natural cause for recent
warming, and this constitutes no meaningful demand for anthropogenic forcing. How do
modelers deal with this logical problem? In general, the response consists in the embarrassing
assertion that they cannot think of any alternative to anthropogenic forcing. This was explicitly
the response of Alan Thorpe, head of NERC, the main UK funding agency for climate research.

I'm going to post this again because it's on the other page now.


scpg, this information has been taken from NASA, no back-handers from environmentalists or computer simulations. There has been no increase in the suns output.

There has been no increase in the suns output.

That's not what your own graph says right there at the top. It says the same thing as the information I posted. Did you even read the information?

Edit: from my ealier post.

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

From your own graph:

+ 0.05%/decade

Originally Posted by scpg02

Oh I'm going to cry foul on that one. Those are graphs of computer simulations. You call that "conclusive evidence"? That proves nothing!

it's all a matter of opinion on how reliable you think the models are in predicting anything at all - i for one don't have a problem with them

as for politics - the latest report was indeed influenced by politics : a lot of the scientific conclusions warning of even more dire consequences were deleted once the politicians got their say about the report

Originally Posted by scpg02

Did you even read the information?

Yes.

Originally Posted by scpg02

+ 0.05%/decade

No. TSI trend between minima: = 0.05%/decade. The minima has increased over the last couple of decades, the maxima is falling. So a quote such as this.......

Originally Posted by scpg02

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

Is nothing more then a play on words based on only using certain parts of the information. Did you not look at the graph ?

No. TSI trend between minima: = 0.05%/decade.

That's not what your graph says. You have replace the + sign with and = sign. They are not interchangable and change the meaning of an equation. You didn't even read the rest of the informatiom I provided. Fine I do some more.

Ok from my source were they use the same graph you did.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ut_030320.html



The caption they have with it:

• The recent trend of a .05 percent per decade increase in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) in watts per meter squared, or the amount of solar energy that falls upon a square meter outside the Earths atmosphere. The trend was measured between successive solar minima that occur approximately every 11 years. At the bottom, the timeline of the many different datasets that contributed to this finding, from 1978 to present.

Originally Posted by scpg02

That's not what your graph says. You have replace the + sign with and = sign. They are not interchangable and change the meaning of an equation.

Your right, sorry, that should have been a + , i must have missed the shift key. Look let me put this another way. If you were driving a car which had its two front wheels pointing slightly inwards (or outwards) which direction would the car travel in ? A strait line. In the graph the minima is rising and the maxima is falling, the two are cancelling each other out, the suns TSI is not increasing.

[/quote]
That's a very nice graph you have there. If you look between 1825 and 1900 you will see that the northern hemisphere land temperature readings actually lead the solar cycle, so i'm presuming that the earths temperature has a major influence on the sun then ?

-----------

Look, the discussion we are having now is not new, and the argument that the sun is responsible for the majority of the earths recent temperature rise has already been and gone. Here is a link which has all the information needed to dismiss this argument, the graph on page two should be of particular interest to you.

Originally Posted by Cat1981(England)

Look, the discussion we are having now is not new, and the argument that the sun is responsible for the majority of the earths recent temperature rise has already been and gone. Here is a link which has all the information needed to dismiss this argument, the graph on page two should be of particular interest to you.

I love how you say the argument is settled as if that dismisses further discussion.

The article you have linked as proof seems to be an evaluation of worked published in the 90s.

I would love to see your take on the scientific information I have already linked once.

Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence
support a solar-output model for climate change

Charles A. Perry* and Kenneth J. Hsuâ€*
*U.S. Geological Survey, Lawrence, KS 66049; and â€*Tarim Associates, Frohburgstrasse 96, Zurich, Switzerland 8006
Contributed by Kenneth J. Hsu, September 5, 2000

Although the processes of climate change are not completely
understood, an important causal candidate is variation in total
solar output. Reported cycles in various climate-proxy data show a
tendency to emulate a fundamental harmonic sequence of a basic
solar-cycle length (11 years) multiplied by 2N (where N equals a
positive or negative integer). A simple additive model for total
solar-output variations was developed by superimposing a progression
of fundamental harmonic cycles with slightly increasing
amplitudes. The timeline of the model was calibrated to the
PleistoceneyHolocene boundary at 9,000 years before present. The
calibrated model was compared with geophysical, archaeological,
and historical evidence of warm or cold climates during the
Holocene. The evidence of periods of several centuries of cooler
climates worldwide called ‘‘little ice ages,’’ similar to the period
anno Domini (A.D.) 1280–1860 and reoccurring approximately
every 1,300 years, corresponds well with fluctuations in modeled
solar output. A more detailed examination of the climate sensitive
history of the last 1,000 years further supports the model. Extrapolation
of the model into the future suggests a gradual cooling
during the next few centuries with intermittent minor warmups
and a return to near little-ice-age conditions within the next 500
years. This cool period then may be followed approximately 1,500
years from now by a return to altithermal conditions similar to the
previous Holocene Maximum.

how about this one : Climate myths: Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans

It should dismisses further discussion because the argument is null and void. This is like discussing whether we will be wearing silver space suits and driving floating cars in the year 2001, it's gone, too late, bye bye now. The data used in the graph you showed earlier and in others was interpreted incorrectly mostly by two scientist named Svensmark and Friis-Christensen who used the incorrect data in their theory which suggested that through changes in solar activity, more or less cloud cover would be seen on earth. In practise though this theory has been shown to be incorrect as we should expect to see less cloud cover and there for a warmer earth, we have in fact seen more cloud cover which should have produced a cooler earth (your link earlier stated a 2% increase in cloud cover over the US in the last 100 years, this is the same as the 2% increase in cloud cover for the whole globe over the last 100 years) if anythink this adds further weight to the greenhouse gases theory.

The link i provided (which can also find in Marnix's link as well as many other arguments against a 'sun induced' extra warming idea) show's all the reasons why the sun is not the cause of our recent warming. It reviews work done right up until 2003. As for the quote in your last post i have no doubt that the sun was the main reason for any climate change over the last 9,000 years, but that does not mean that the recent rise in temperatures is due too a minor warmup as there is no evidence to support such a claim. The graph earlier showed no increase in TSI, the graph on page two of the previous link showed the true relationship between sunspot cycles and land based temperature readings. The sun is not the cause of the earths recent warming.

A very short news story about the sun's relationship with the recent warming on earth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/c...nbram=1&news=1