Greenland Ice Core Analysis Shows Drastic Climate Change

[ben_meyers]

Near End Of Last Ice Age!

This is certainly inconvenient if true. Could it possibly mean that Global Climate Change can occur suddenly and independent of human activity? I can hear Joeseph Romm's head spinning from here.

ScienceDaily (June 19, 2008) — Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago were tied to fundamental shifts in atmospheric circulation.

The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago. Startlingly, the Greenland ice core evidence showed that a massive "reorganization" of atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with each temperature spurt, with each reorganization taking just one or two years, said the study authors.

"We have analyzed the transition from the last glacial period until our present warm interglacial period, and the climate shifts are happening suddenly, as if someone had pushed a button," said Dahl-Jenson.

According to the researchers, the first abrupt warming period beginning at 14,700 years ago lasted until about 12,900 years ago, when deep-freeze conditions returned for about 1,200 years before the onset of the second sharp warming event. The two events indicate a speed in the natural climate change process never before seen in ice cores, said White, director of CU-Boulder's Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research.

"We are beginning to tease apart the sequence of abrupt climate change," said White, whose work was funded by the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. "Since such rapid climate change would challenge even the most modern societies to successfully adapt, knowing how these massive events start and evolve is one of the most pressing climate questions we need to answer."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619142112.htm

[phantom power]

1. Dupe:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=156309&mesg_id=156309

[kestrel91316]

2. Oy. YOU again?

[tom_paine]

3. The usual squid ink from Ben. Here Ben, let me respond as you would wish me to.

(slaps forehead) My gosh, I never thought of that! Earth experienced natural rapid climate change in the past, so it is IMPOSSIBLE, 100% IMPOSSIBLE for anthropogenic causes to be effecting the earth's natural cycles!

Sorry, Ben. I can't do that. Science has been my profession for two decades and my passion for all of my life.

If I were to pretend that your juvenile misdirection, the only note you ever play by the way, resembles scientific thinking, then I would betray everything the Scientific Method stands for. Don't you know any new tricks besides this sixth-grade juvenile reverse-psychology bullshit? I am guessing PR is NOT your profession because your attempts are uniform in their approach and childish in their intent.

You are an amatuer at manipulation, and if you are a PR troll (which I am not accusing you of, your stuff is not the sophisticated sophistry that multi-billion dollar industry usually produces) you aren't very good at it.

One last thing, Benny. As a scientist, and given the non-"100% provability" of complex, relatively new sciences compared to physics and chemistry (as in: "when I boil water at X atm. pressure, the boiling point is the same 100% of the time!"), I would also be remiss in saying you might be right.

In spite of your juvenile nonsense designed to evoke forehead-slapping in 10 year olds, you might be right.

And while the hard data continues to mount, while the graphs grow longer along the x-axis with "span of time" data, while the evidence in support of anthropgenic global warming goes from 10% certain to 50% certain to 90% certain to 99% certain to 99.9% certain and so forth, I would not be true to the Scientific Method if I failed to acknowledge that a 0.1% uncertainty may yet turn out to be the scientific truth of the situation.

That's the best you'll get out of me. Uncertainty still exists. It's shrinking rapidly and thoroughly, but it still exists.

Can you make the same claim about my side, even WITH the growing preponderance of evidence suggesting you are wrong? Can you? Or are you 100% certain?

Feh! You know, I want to hear from everyone on DU, and thus I try to be sparing with the "Ignore" function.

The only people I put on Ignore are those who have nothing relevant to say, nothing to add to the conversation. Those who play one-note and know no others. And I never put anyone on ignore until they have had many chances to prove that this is the case.

You, sir (though I am sure you could care less) are perilously close to being put on Ignore.

My God, think of something NEW to say, and some new way to say it! If you can't figure it out yourself, go to the multi-billion dollar Climate Change Denial Industry and they will teach you the kind of sophistry you need to not be so damned boring and one-note. It's only a click away.

[ben_meyers]

5. Thanks for the effort

I guess I should have expected a personal attack in a reply to a scientific study that may not comport to your “one note” view of the world.

Having never read any of your peer reviewed, published work from your "two decades" of scientific research, I can’t comment on your credibility except to say you seem to buy into the “settled science” assertion advanced by many "Global Warming" advocates. Don't bother us with any contrary point of view.

I find that when someone resorts to name calling, Tommy, that they have effectively lost the argument.

As to the ignore function, not to worry. My wife and I have raised 5 children and have been through kids sticking their fingers in their ears and going “naa naa naa” and kicking their little feet when they don’t want to hear something. I fully understand that "juvenile nonsense", and actually find it amusing.

[tom_paine]

6. Wow, a staggering misdirection and missing the point!

Nice rhetorical judo flip, though.

Did you read my post? How is admitting that you might be right (which I did...twice) a dogmatic accepting of "settled science"?

NO science is fully settled, not even Newtonian Physics, as Einstein showed. Nor Einstein's Relativity, as Quantum Theory shows. Sigh. But you ignored the parts of my post that didn't suit your straw-man reply, didn't you?

Also, the scientific study you cited has little to do with today other than it shows that Earth's natural cycles sometimes causes abrupt climate shifts in the past. Yes, I agree with that. The evidence certainly does support it.

You are embracing a logical fallacy here. By assuming that, because rapid climatological shifts have occurred on the Earth previosuly from "natural causes", you thereby dismiss the notion (or will you admit, as I have done, that the opposing view to yours has a chnace of being correct and you incorrect) that human activity can exacerbate the cycle or influence it.

What purpose, other than making your usual one-note juvenile "nothing new under the sun" comment, could you have had for posting it? Even after hatrack had ALREADY posted it.

Please explain in detail and with logical bolstering how that article relates to today's climate OTHER than, "See? the climate rapidly heated before so there's NO WAY that what is happening now could be have ANYTHING to do with anthropogenic causes!"

No, really. Please explain. Show us what you've got. WHY is this article relevant? And remember, no using the logical fallacy, your favorite one, that I outlined in the previous paragraph.

C'mon. Show us.

Finally, as to your skepticism as to my profession...fine. I am not so stupid as to advertise my name and general location (from which all my other information can be gleaned) on a public forum which anyone can read.

I would love to show you my contributions to peer-reviewed journal articles, though I don't have a huge CV in that regard yet, but then I would reveal my name to any Freeper who wanted to spend 200 bucks and post my address, etc. for any lunatic to see on Free Republic, Conservative Underground or Lucianne.com.

Now you can say that is a cop-out, or erroneously cite it as "proof" that I am a liar and really a longshoremen (they get paid better than most biologists, and are unionized, so maybe that wouldn't be such a bad profession to be in), but I know who I am and that is all that matters.

[stuntcat]

4. I'm sure

I'm sure global change has occurred all kinds of ways in this cute lil' planet's time :) The obvious difference right now is the tons of trash we're pumping into the atmosphere every day, the fact that the only species who's ever plundered the entire Earth has just quadrupled, and the many other species we're obliterating as we rush on like lemmings.