Monday, May 10, 2010

No evidence that it was hotter when Jesus was alive?

No evidence? You'd have to wonder what rock Professor Kurt Lambeck has been hiding under.

What we are talking about here is a phenomenon so well attested to by not only geological evidence, but also by way of historical writings, that it has its own name: the Roman Climate Optimum. Even the IPCC acknowledged as much prior to the third assessment report.

So no evidence?

Age environment reporter Adam Morton has never heard anything so crazy, and asks the usual suspects to back him up:

In a question-and-answer session on Friday, the Opposition Leader said it was warmer “at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth” than now.

Leading scientists said there was no evidence to suggest it was hotter 2000 years ago.

The president of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Kurt Lambeck, said true scepticism was fine, but required looking at published data with an open mind…

Tas van Ommen, who as principal research scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division collects climate data from ice cores, said any definitive statement about temperatures 2000 years ago was “completely unfounded”.
“No evidence”? How long would it have taken Morton to discover this was false - had he been of a mind to check?

Here’s just some of the evidence suggesting Tony Abbott may well be right - and that those claiming he has “no evidence” are decidedly wrong:

“We were simply lucky”, say Peter Suter. The boss of the department of pre- and early history of the archaeological service of the canton Berne (and his colleagues) ... found approximately 300 further articles at the edge of the ice (in the Swiss Alps): Stone Age articles of clothing and arrows, garb needles from the Bronze Age and shoe nails from the Roman period.

All this the archaeologists owe to the retreat the glacier in the upper Bernese country, which continues for decades and was accelerated by the particularly hot summer of 2003. However it was still hotter in the third millennium BC. At that time the temperatures in the Swiss Alps were up to two degrees over the today’s…

After a climatic degradation around 850 BC. then the Romans used this (pass over the Alps) again. Starting from 150 BC ... over 100 nails of their (sandals were left) in the ice-free mountain rubble.

Working with a core of 2.5 meters length, which they sampled at intervals of 2 cm in the upper 1 meter and at intervals of 5 cm below that depth, Martinez-Cortizas et al. (1999) derived a record of mercury deposition in the peat bog of Penido Vello in northwest Spain that extends to 4000 radiocarbon years before present, which they analyzed for a number of parameters.... This protocol revealed that the mean temperature of the Medieval Warm Period in northwest Spain was 1.5°C warmer than it was over the 30 years leading up to the time of their study, and that the mean temperature of the Roman Warm Period was fully 2°C warmer…

Desprat et al. (2003) studied the climatic variability of the last three millennia in northwest Iberia via a high-resolution pollen analysis of a sediment core retrieved from the central axis of the Ria de Vigo in the south of Galicia. In doing so, they learned that over the past 3000 years there was “an alternation of three relatively cold periods with three relatively warm episodes.” In order of occurrence, these periods are described by the three researchers as the “first cold phase of the Subatlantic period (975-250 BC),” which was “followed by the Roman Warm Period (250 BC-450 AD),” which was followed by “a successive cold period (450-950 AD), the Dark Ages,” which “was terminated by the onset of the Medieval Warm Period (950-1400 AD),” which was followed by “the Little Ice Age (1400-1850 AD), including the Maunder Minimum (at around 1700 AD),” which “was succeeded by the recent warming (1850 AD to the present).” ...

Further to the east in European Georgia, Kvavadze and Connor (2005) focused their attention on Zelkova carpinifolia (a Tertiary-relict mesophilous tree that requires warm growing conditions), noting that “the discovery of fossil remains in Holocene sediments can be a good indicator of optimal climatic conditions."… Based on these observations, therefore, it would appear that the Medieval Warm Period and especially the Roman Warm Period likely were significantly warmer than what it was in European Georgia during the latter part of the 20th century.
A promising new technique to reconstruct past temperatures has been developed by scientists at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and Durham University, England, using the shells of bivalve mollusks. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the scientists say that oxygen isotopes in their shells are a good proxy measurement of temperature and may provide the most detailed record yet of global climate change…

Between 230 BC and 40 AD there was a period of exceptional warmth in Iceland that was coincident with the Roman Warm Period in Europe that ran from 200 BC to 400 AD. This Icelandic shell data series suggests that the RWP had higher temperatures that those recorded in modern times.
Melting mountain snow in the Canadian Mackenzie Mountains has uncovered ancient weapons used by early hunters. In the Canadian Mackenzie Mountains scientists have found weapons up to 2400 years old, reports Tom Andrews of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife and his colleagues in a press release from the Arctic Institute of North America…

The findings and their dates of origin undercut warmists’ claims that the Medieval Warm Period did not exist, or was localised in Europe, and that today’s warm period is unprecedented. The age of the found artefacts correspond to the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period.  Ancient artefacts recovered in the Alps tell the same story.
UPDATE
Global warming alarmism is so 2009. Today’s alarm - the seas are falling:
During the past few weeks, the Fiji Meteorological Service has been alerted to abnormally low sea levels in Rotuma. This is after sea creatures were marooned on coral reefs.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

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