What Do We Think About Climate Change

Reducing IPCC's global warming is much easier than reducing global CO2 emissions.

http://www.john-daly.com/carbon.htm

Little Warming
with new Global Carbon Cycle Model

by

Peter Dietze

For Review Comments on this paper, click here

Summary

A new global Carbon Cycle Model with a realistic CO2 e-fold lifetime of 55 years (half-life time: 38 years) reveals that the temperature will increase by ~0.3 degC only if the present global CO2 emission is kept constant until 2100. In IPCC scenarios it is assumed that far more fossil reserves would be burnt than is physically recoverable. Using an eddy diffusion ocean model, the IPCC has grossly underestimated the future oceanic CO2 uptake. Hardly coping with biomass response and taking a double to treble temperature sensitivity, all this has led to an IPCC error factor of up to an order of magnitude. So the projected reduction claims need complete revision. The temperature reduction effect of CO2 and energy taxes planned in Europe will only be ~0.005 degC.

Introduction

One of the main reasons for an assumed future CO2 disaster has been the assumption that this greenhouse gas is accumulating in the atmosphere - leading to the frequently repeated 60% Toronto reduction demand.

It is known that the oceans contain about 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and may take up to nearly 6 times more CO2 at equilibrium and the photosynthesis of land biota may increase up to 18 Gt C/yr for a concentration doubling (three times the present emission). At present, the oceans are still mostly on a pre-industrial level.

The IPCC's "accumulation" hypothesis needs to be firmly contradicted. Suppose we pour water into a bucket that has a hole. Nobody will state from observation that "about half accumulates in the bucket". This fully depends on the hole, the water level and how much we are pouring.

The problem is easily solved when the global carbon cycle is understood as a dynamic system in the manner of control engineering. The atmosphere has a CO2 decay function with a half-life time of about 38 years as will be shown in the following. If the input function is doubling within the same time span the system response would simply be a linear concentration increase. The increase was misunderstood as a nearly irreversible accumulation - one reason that led to hasty conclusions for negotiating an unnecessary global reduction treaty.

The Lifetime of CO2

A simple waterbox model can be used to explain the atmospheric CO2 lifetime and to find a plausible value (figure 1). The atmosphere is represented by a waterbox, filled up to a level of 350 ppm (in 1988) with 750 Gt carbon (2750 Gt CO2 ). This box is placed in a larger waterbox, representing the ocean.

Fig.1: Waterbox Model for the atmospheric CO2 lifetime

The atmosphere box has an outlet, releasing about 2.4 Gt C/yr into the ocean. The level decreases according to an e-function if we postulate the transition flow is roughly proportional to the water level difference or pressure. The lifetime T can be defined as the time lapse until the level goes down to 1/e (37%) against the equilibrium. The value for T can be defined dividing the amount of present excess by the present outflow, yielding 55 years:

(130 Gt + 33%) / (2.4 Gt/yr + 33%) = 55 yr

The 33% stands approximately for extra-atmospheric buffers (fast rotting biomass and surface waters) and extra-oceanic sinks (e.g. trees, polar ice) respectively. For the time interval considered, the small ocean response and the long time for distribution can be neglected.

Multiplication of T by ln 2 yields a half-life time of about 38 years. So any CO2 impulse injected into the atmosphere will take about 38 years to reduce itself to half the original value. Surprisingly this half-life time perfectly matches one remark in a paper published by F. Joos and J. Sarmiento in the German Phys. Blaetter, May 1995 where they say "The oceanic CO2 pickup is slow in comparison to the rate of emission. So for example only half of the CO2 emitted in 1957 is dissolved in the ocean till today". Indeed 1957+38 is 1995...

The Oeschger eddy diffusion ocean model suggestion that the decay will work faster at the beginning and take much longer at the end (363*ln 2 = 251 years), is illogical. Such impulses are continuously injected into the atmosphere and nature treats them all equally, as it cannot distinguish between 'old' and 'new' CO2. Thus this half-life time of 38 years has to be considered as an operational overall value from observed sink flows at present conditions, assuming the reservoirs are big enough and the system behaves in a roughly linear/proportional manner within the operating regime.

If we apply the new carbon model and consider a constant CO2 emission of 7 Gt C/yr (i.e. no reduction) we find that there is not enough carbon to impose a climate problem. This is mainly caused by the atmospheric CO2 lifetime of 55 yr, but also by a smaller temperature sensitivity as well. Another limiting factor is that beyond 2100 we will have to slowly migrate to non-fossil energies (mostly fusion and/or thorium breeders, water power) as conventional fuel reserves become depleted.

Lacking a proper carbon model and ignoring the fact that CO2 lifetime is closely related to sink flows, greenhouse scientists have arbitrarily manipulated this key parameter in the past, stating that no definite value exists or can be defined (see answer of Sir John Houghton on April 2, 1997 at http://members.aol.com/HZingel3/Index.html, section Klima). The IPCC SAR says it is "variable". The question arises as to how the IPCC has calculated future concentrations at all. Often a mean airborne fraction was assumed [1].

In figure 1, some of the lifetime values are shown that have been used. In 1987 the e-fold time was 400 years in Germany (e.g. H. Grassl, E. Maier-Reimer, W. Bach). In 1989 Grassl published 100 years and by 1995 it was 50 to 200 years. The IPCC mentioned 100 and 120 years - but their scenarios mostly used about 360 years for stabilization.

Grassl (WMO) stated, a single lifetime value cannot be defined because of different sinks. This doesn't hold up. Suppose the atmosphere box in figure 1 has three different outlets representing small, medium and large lifetimes. The resulting value is equal to the sum of stored carbon excess, divided by the sum of sink flows. So the value for parallel sinks is

1 /T = 1/T1 + 1/T2 + 1/T3

The 120 years which had been gained by the arithmetic mean from different sinks of the Bern model, are incorrect. The smallest T is leading and a small additional sink flow (large T) does not increase, but decreases the resulting T.

At the low end of the CO2 lifetime we find a value of about 5 years matching the turnover time, published by C. Starr [2] and T. Segalstad [3] - though measurements of the carbon tracer isotope 14C suggest a 1/e lifetime of ~16 years (acc. to GEOSECS surveys, Broecker & Peng, 1993). The turnover time is about an order of magnitude less than if a CO2 mass excess is reduced. For a 5-year lifetime the anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 fraction would be only 4% and the increment stabilized now at 14 ppm. Yet it is unclear how the "calibration" of eddy diffusion ocean models with a radiocarbon lifetime a factor 3.4 less than 55 years has led to missing sinks.

The coupled Waterbox Model

To develop a new global Carbon Cycle Model, the waterbox model was extended (figure 2). Net photosynthesis of land biota amounts to about 60 Gt C/yr, marine photosynthesis is roughly 20 Gt C/yr. The three boxes represent the land biota (700 Gt C), the atmosphere (750 Gt C) and the mixed ocean layer (800 Gt C) which is closely coupled with the atmosphere by precipitation and gas diffusion, exchanging about 100 Gt C/yr with the atmosphere. In high latitudes the icy cold salt water takes up large amounts of CO2 . This is taken into the deep sea and mixing via the conveyor belt into all oceans. The central link is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Fig.2: Coupled Waterbox Model with proportional sink flows
(reservoirs in Gt C, flows in Gt C/yr)

In figure 2 the lower box contains all sinks. A reservoir that takes up CO2 for more than a few centuries is considered as a sink because we need to model no more than 150 years. These sinks are detrius, polar ice, deep sea and sediments including shells and corals. Figure 2 has no missing sinks. These are to be allocated to carbon-fertilized biomass, solubility in the mixed layer, polar water and ice as well as decreasing degassing of upwelling pre-industrial water against the increasing atmospheric concentration. The upwelling water is degassing in tropical latitudes with a time delay of 400 to 1000 years.

The deep sea is still mostly on a preindustrial CO2 level. This means the sink flows will be, in rough approximation, proportional to the atmospheric difference to the CO2 ocean bulk equilibrium [4]. Any greenhouse science statement that the surface water limits the CO2 uptake, thus becoming independent of concentration level (or even reducing with increasing concentration as in IPCC's HILDA model), cannot be verified. So far, a vivid deep water formation has been observed.

Ocean and biota uptake are controlled by the atmospheric CO2 concentration without "knowing" how much CO2 is the human emission. But the HILDA model [5, 6] exactly splits the excess of this emission into the ocean and biota. So in spite of increasing concentration, the ocean and biomass uptake are decreasing in proportion to the emission in IPCC's stabilization scenario S550. This behaviour is absolutely implausible. After the concentration has doubled, the IPCC ocean returns to normal duty taking less than 1.8 Gt/yr. The IPCC biomass returns to about zero net uptake even though photosynthesis probably increases by 30%, i.e. 18 Gt more. The sink flows at 550 ppm are supposed to be about 12 Gt C/yr, that is 6 times more than assumed by the IPCC.

The reason for IPCC's very small stabilization fluxes is the Oeschger/Siegenthaler eddy diffusion ocean model [6, 7, 8]. To support a flux, the diffusion needs a concentration gradient from the mixed layer down to the deep ocean. Because increasing back-pressure builds up, even a constant flux needs a permanently increasing concentration in the air. So to avoid a climate disaster, future emissions have to be reduced considerably with this model - even using a high vertical eddy diffusion coefficient of 7,685 m2/yr - chosen about double the measurement and 3*105 times the original value for diffusion. But in reality the CO2 uptake of the ocean requires an eddy transport and deep water formation model. Here an uptake flux can be maintained rather at a constant difference to the ocean bulk concentration.

The global Carbon Cycle Model with constant emission

Sink flows that are likely to be proportional to increasing concentration, allow a constant global emission at the present rate for another 100 years with minor temperature effect and thus no reduction necessary (figure 3).

The unit decay or Gain Function is G(t) = e-t/T. For the linearized system with an arbitrary emission input E(t), given in Gt C/yr, the concentration in ppm can be computed with the Convolution Integral

where 0.34 means 100 ppm for every total excess of 294 Gt C (that is, 220 Gt buffered in the atmosphere and 74 Gt in surface water and fast-rotting biomass). Considering the constant emission case we get Delta p = 0.34 ET (1-e-t/T) ppm. Setting E=7 Gt/yr and T=55 yr the concentration increases by 130 ppm for large t.

In figure 3, emission and concentration start with the preindustrial equilibrium to perform a clean cold-start. To match the actual concentration of 350 ppm in 1988 (with a sink flow of 3.2 Gt) the constant emission of 7 Gt C/yr is started in 1950. The concentration increases according to curve (a) as an e-function with a T value of 55 years. The right hand vertical axis shows the proportional sink flow reaching 7 Gt at a maximum concentration of no more than 420 ppm [9].

The temperature scale relative to 1988 shows an equilibrium increment of only ~0.3 K for the next 100 years. This is based on a (logarithmic) sensitivity of 1.4 K for doubling - taking the Hamburg MPIM ocean coupled model value for 100 years after a one-step doubling.

Fig.3: Concentration and equilibrium temperature response of the global Carbon Cycle Model (a) at constant emission, (b) after reduction to 50% in 1988 and (c) after stopping emission

The dashed line at the upper part of curve (a) is a hypothetical ocean equilibrium reaction when taking up nearly six times more CO2 than the atmosphere, caused by the Revelle buffer factor (50/9 = 5.6). But in fact this ocean response can be neglected as it will be mostly delayed by several hundred years. The straight cumulation line shows how an assumed airborne fraction of 50% would yield an increase up to 525 ppm - 75% more than in reality.

Figure 3 presents two further scenarios. Curve (b) shows the response on half the emission beyond 1988. As the emission equals the actual sink flows, concentration and temperature remain quite constant. There is no increment of 2 K as has been claimed in IPCC scenarios and forcing a reduction by 60% until 2050 as documented by Greenpeace [10]. Curve (c) shows a hypothetical stop of emissions in 1988. The concentration decays according to the e-fold lifetime of 55 years, the oceans absorbing most of the CO2 excess within 120 years.

Conclusions

In figure 3 the total temperature increment (caused by CO2) for a constant 7 Gt C/yr emission from pre-industrial times to 2100 is ~0.7 degC. Discussing the effect of the planned carbon and energy tax in Europe, an emission reduction of 4 to 5% has been estimated - this means 0.7% worldwide. The temperature effect will be ~0.7% of 0.7 degC, ie. 0.005 degC. But the EU taxation will be about US$660 billion within 12 years. This seems absurd as the effect is absolutely unnoticible. Moreover the available fossil fuels will be mostly depleted after 120 to 150 years anyway.

Greenhouse scientists have been using a constant airborne fraction of about 50% instead of a realistic CO2 lifetime, arriving at a nearly doubled concentration increment until 2100. Then, taking over twice the real temperature sensitivity and burning much more than the available carbon, the climate impact is boosted by up to a factor of 9. The same holds true in reverse for reduction claims to stay within a given temperature threshold.

The IPCC burns about 2300 Gt C for scenario S750, though the available fossil reserves are 720 Gt conventional or 1.000 Gt including unconventionals as in the IPCC 1995 WG II Energy Primer [11]. The IPCC reference scenario IS92a burns about 1500 Gt C until 2100. Here IPCC's concentration rises up to 680 ppm [12] - far above the 500 ppm that could be reached at maximum if we assume all the conventional fossil fuel reserves are burnt and 40% of the emission remains in the air for a long time.

Considering a total error factor of an order of magnitude, costly activities for `climate stabilization' and high-end model computing become obsolete. Eddy diffusion and HILDA models fail to produce realistic future sink flows. Observations show that solar variability [13] and associated cloud coverage [14] had significant influence and the IPCC may have overestimated anthropogenic forcing up to a factor of 3. Governments, industries and power utilities should carefully check the IPCC climate models before planning costly measures to solve problems that may be irrelevant.

On the IPCC's present shaky base of knowledge it is irresponsible to alert all nations to sign on to an FCCC reduction treaty that may, for example, cost Germany alone DM765 billion and 275.000 primary jobs (acc. to a study by the renowned RWI Institute, Essen, for the projected 25% reduction till 2005).

So IPCC scientists should in future be more circumspect in their claims to avoid the prospect of millions of people suffering from carbon taxes, lack of energy, unemployment and putting the blame back onto them. There is no doubt: -

Reducing IPCC's global warming is much easier than reducing global CO2 emissions.

References

This paper is an abridged excerpt of ESEF Vol. II, 1997 (http://www.esef.org).

[1] Bolin, B.; Döös, B.; Jäger, J.; Warrik, R.: SCOPE 29. The Greenhouse Effect, Climatic Change and Ecosystems. John Wiley & Sons 1988
[2] Starr, C.: Atmospheric CO2 Residence Time and the Carbon Cycle. Energy Dec 1993
[3] Segalstad, T.: The Distribution of CO2 between Atmosphere, Hydrosphere and Lithosphere; Minimal Influence from Anthropogenic CO2 on the Global Greenhouse Effect in European Science and Environment Forum: "The Global Warming Debate", London 1996
[4] Dietze, P.: Klimaschutz: Play Bach by Enquête - Falsche Zeitkonstanten und bis zum Faktor 8 überhöhte Reduktionsforderungen. Fusion 16 (1995) 3
[5] Enting, I.; Wigley, T.; Heimann, M.: Future Emissions and Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide: Key Ocean/Atmosphere/Land Analyses. CSIRO 1994 Technical Paper No. 31
[6] Siegenthaler, U.; Joos, F.: Use of a simple model for studying oceanic tracer distributions and the global carbon cycle. Tellus 44 B, 186-207 (1992)
[7] Oeschger, H.; Siegenthaler, U. et al: A box diffusion model to study the carbon dioxide exchange in nature. Tellus 27, 168-192 (1975)
[8] Siegenthaler, U.; Sarmiento, J.: Atmospheric carbon dioxide and the ocean. Nature 365, Sept 9, 1993
[9] Dietze, P.: Bei konstanter CO2-Emission keine Klimakatastrophe. Ein neues globales Kohlenstoffmodell. Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, Leipzig, Nov. 1995 conference papers.
[10] Leggett, J. (edt): Global Warming. The Greenpeace Report. Oxford Univ. Press NY, 1990
[11] IPCC WG II Vol. Impacts, Adaptions and Mitigation: Energy Primer, 1995
[12] IPCC Climate Change 1995. WG I Vol. The Science of Climate Change
[13] Calder, N.: The Manic Sun, 1997
[14] Svensmark, H.; Friis-Christensen, E.: Variation of Cosmic Ray Flux and Global Cloud Coverage. A Missing Link in Solar-Climate Relationships. Report 96-6, DMI Copenhagen (http://www.dmi.dk)

Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze D 91094 Langensendelbach, Germany
August 11, 1997
Phone&Fax
email 091335371-0001@t-online.de
http://members.aol.com/HZingel3/Index.html (select Klima & P. Dietze items)

Peter Dietze studied electrical and control engineering. Professional work was in software development for power system control. Special interest in natural sciences, energy and energy politics led to over ten years of intensive private (non-sponsored) work in global warming science with focus on carbon models. Results were published in a dozen of articles and several presentations.

 

I've searched now IPCC's AR4 report for CO2 "lifetime" instead of "residence time" as I had done before, and I have found NOTHING in none of these pages:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-3.html#2-3-1
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-1-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-1-3.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-2-2.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-2-3.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-2-4.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3-3.html


But they clearly state lifetimes for the other GHGs. Why they DO NOT mention CO2 lifetime or residence time?

Where the hell did the CDIAC (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html) got their "accepted" +/- 100 years lifetime?

Perhaps at any of the other IPCC reports, but not in this last one, unless I have missed something.

 

How come the conditions on the Antarctic peninsula are such that a lot of snowfall is replaced by rain nowadays?

And why are penguin chicks not adapted to that?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...-penguins-frozen-death-freak-rain-storms.html

Cheers!
Angel

 

The traditional land holders in Australia speared Kangaroos years ago.
Now they shoot them but Kangaroos havn't become buillet proof have they and we have more then ever...
They are professionally culled now
Do we have more grass so more Kangaroos thanks to more Co2?

 

Jimbo1490
Don't sall me silly, I don't apreciate.
Your article are just against the WWF. And do you know the tendency of this magazine?

Biaised and political.
The English version agree the MELTING, and goes on since it melt the polar bear thrieve.
This is a band of genius.

Who is reading the wrong magazine?
Perhaps you saw a Polar Bear in Miami, who knows.
But you didn't read well my post: I wrote multiple time I DON'T CARE
So keep you fabulous reading for yourself
Daniel

 

Troy2000
I appreciate your slant on stats, I am an Australian so I do understand Vietnam.
If the IPCC has proven to be an unreliable/politically biased source of data where would I go?
Being Australian I have an in built regard of the environment but the global warming story seems to be full of truths/half truths and fabrications
who should I believe?

 

The deforestation for sheep farming gave you the grasslands that are also ideal for the larger kangaroos.

Cheers!
Angel

 

thats true

 

Unfortunately, we don't have a solid-gold, 100% reliable source that speaks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We're talking science here, not religion, and there's no Infallible Word of God concerning climate change to guide us. As people who aren't directly involved in the research, the best we can do is try to look at the preponderance of evidence.

I don't think we'll learn much from this thread. The folks on each side have been throwing charts, graphs, links, references and quotes at each other for several hundred pages now, and no one's mind has changed an iota as far as I can tell. I don't have the expertise (or the time) to sort through all the conflicting claims, so I've fallen back on a pretty basic principle: where is each side coming from? Who has more credibility?

And I honestly believe the debate greatly resembles the one on evolution vs young-Earth creationism, in that it's largely manufactured from one side. Over here we have the majority of scientists who are completely past any question of whether it's true or not, and have incorporated it into into their work and their world view. Over there is a relatively small minority of conspiracy-minded activists, who are convinced that scientists and politicians are engaged in some sort of world-wide plot to foist false science off on us for the sake of power, money, Satan or whatever.

Frankly, the conspiracy viewpoint makes no sense to me. I don't think you could get that many scientists in that many countries working together to advance any political agenda, no matter how much money and influence you spread around. Not to mention that you'd have to have politicians from all over the world working together for a common goal, when in reality most of them can't get past their own local politics.

Also, a lot of what the skeptics like to quote and reference does seem to be bought-and-paid-for advocacy funded by the oil industry, rather than genuine research. Look at the Oregon Petition, headed by a guy who formerly made his living inventing phony science for the tobacco industry. Look at its position paper, which deliberately masqueraded as a peer-reviewed, published scientific paper -- complete with a phony publication date and edition number.

So....bottom line? Until further notice, I'm going to go with the IPPC report. It isn't perfect, but its flaws don't seem to be numerous enough or important enough to invalidate its general conclusions. I'm not the OJ jury, and I'm not going to get so hung up on a handful of details and questions that I lose the big picture.

Of course, I also reserve the right to change my mind at any time, with no apologies to anyone.

 

It is the ESA that is biased and political.

Jimbo

 

Ummmm.....Jimbo, it's been millions of years since the Arctic had a tropical climate, not thousands of years. About 55 million years, according to sediment cores collected by the Arctic Coring Expedition (Acex) in 2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/5034026.stm

Nor is climate theory built on only a handful of erroneous or doctored papers, as you claim. Although contrary to your last sentence, I believe it gives you great pleasure to say it...

 

If you had bothered to read the scientific summary from the OISM page you would have noted that they cited hundreds of peer-reviewed papers by many scientists published over a long period. Your assertion that all the skeptical arguments are funded by an oil industry conspiracy is far less plausible than a conspiracy of an agency (The UN) which is demonstrably power hungry, and whose leaders (Maurice Strong) have made numerous tacit admissions to their long-term political goals.

Once again, Troy, it's not the absolute number of errors that matters but whether the errors are in the foundation of the arguments. In the case of AGW, that is exactly the problem.

CO2 simply can't accumulate in the atmosphere as a result of 'incidental' sources, because the residence time is too short to allow this. The IPCC itself apparently lacks sufficient confidence in its "50-200 years" figure to actually use it in their calculus. Furthermore, they offer absolutely no residence time study to support this claim; it is just a Wild *** Guess based on their assumption that human emissions have caused the CO2 rise. But isotopic mass-balance studies don't corroborate this, as the 'expected' fraction of 'fossil' CO2 is missing from the atmosphere.

On the climate front, there simply is no more credible support for the idea that 20th century climate was anomalous in any way. Only the works of 'The Team' really ever asserted this. The IPCC used graphs that showed the prominent MWP just like the skeptics did until 'The Team' published their 'made to order' findings. Those assertions have fallen and can't get up again.

With these two foundational arguments crushed, there is nowhere left for the AGW bogeyman to hide.

Jimbo

 

I never said all the skeptical arguments are funded by an oil industry conspiracy. Please don't change, stretch and distort my words until they're unrecognizable. what I said was: "a lot of what the skeptics like to quote and reference does seem to be bought-and-paid-for advocacy funded by the oil industry, rather than genuine research." And I'll stand by that. For example, the Oregon Petition gets dragged in sooner or later every time global warming is discussed, and it was nothing but a propaganda project--headed by a man who made his living selling his scientific credentials to the highest bidder.

I'll ask again: if the whole theory of AGW is built on a handful of disputed papers by a handful of discredited scientists, why did almost the entire field swallow it and start churning out papers and research based on their "crushed" arguments?

Climatologists aren't just a bunch of Talmudic scholars, sitting around trying to parse the meaning and truths hidden within some esoteric theological writings by others; a lot of them are out doing their own scientific research and collecting data. Why haven't they noticed that the facts don't match?

You can't tell me they're all either incompetent or bought off. Well, I guess you not only can; you probably will. But you won't make me believe it.

And why is not a single legitimate scientific association or agency in the world standing up and saying what you're saying? Do you really expect me to believe that every last one of them has somehow been cowed into submission?

 

you have as usual

just keep looking and you will eventually be eating crow
again

your latest responces are not really worthy of spending much time on other than to repeat something you guys obviously ignored (denied) the first time around

blindly following one ancient data set in the face of countless modern studies of numerous data sets, the vast majority trending towards longer and longer residency times is classic of the denialist camps version of logic

cheerio
B

the essence of ignorance is never admitting when your wrong
and you guys are so schooled on never admitting anything you even earned a name
denier's

 

A 25-member CAPE-Last Interglacial Project Members team recently (2006) published an article that characterizes the Arctic warmth during the time of the last interglaciation (LIG) around 125-130.000 years ago. The group found evidence that the LIG persisted for 10,000-12,000 years and that Arctic summer air temperatures during the LIG were 4-5ºC above present for much of the region, which was well above the LIG average temperature for the rest of Earth. The warming seems to have occurred rapidly, peaking in the early portion of the LIG. The group contends that Arctic summer temperatures were warm enough “to melt all glaciers below 5 km elevation, except the Greenland ice sheet, which was reduced by ca 20-50%.” In regard to Arctic Ocean sea ice, the group states that the margins of the permanent ice “retracted well into the Arctic Ocean basin” and the ice was of an extent that was smaller than during the ice retreat of the early Holocene.

The CAPE researchers explain that the dramatic surface changes in the Arctic during the LIG would have reduced the albedo (reflectivity to solar radiation) and altered the transfer of energy among the land, atmosphere, and oceans. The changes in the general energy budget seemed to amplify the incoming solar radiation-driven warmth of the LIG through positive feedback. The researchers conclude that the feedback in the Arctic accounts for the greater LIG summer warming (5ºC above today) in the Arctic than across the rest of the Northern Hemisphere (0-2ºC above today). So, the idea of modern polar warming in excess of that of the rest of Earth is not new or unnatural – it clearly defined the climate of the LIG those many years ago. The amount of Arctic warming today relative to the remainder of Earth is much less than with the LIG. As the CAPE researchers note, “During the 20th century, the planetary temperature increased 0.7ºC, whereas most regions of the Arctic record warming of 1–3ºC over the same interval.” The global climate models that produce 21st century climate change scenarios upon which alarmists hang their hats have trouble replicating the Arctic warming. The Cape researchers explain that most of the 20th century warming in the Arctic occurred in summer months, as with the LIG, but model projections indicate winter warming should dominate. The LIG did not experience the increase in greenhouse gases that is projected for the remainder of the 21st century, but still, the model-reality discrepancy is troublesome.

During the LIG hippopotamus and the water tortoise were widespread as far north as Great Britain and birch forests reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Then, as now, the Arctic naturally warmed more dramatically than the rest of the world, and our modern global climate models – those that sit next to the panic button – are stumbling around that reality.

Find the paper at: http://chubasco.fis.ucm.es/~montoya/cape_lig_qsr_06.pdf