21 replies to this topic

[Solar Cycles]

More evidence to suggest that the MWP and LIA where more than just some regional event.

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•  Another indication of MWP and LIA being global « Watts Up With That .htm   126.64K   20 downloads

[Captain_Bobski]

You might want to put that up as a link rather than a file, SC!

http://wattsupwithth...a-being-global/



(I'm not having a go at you or anything - you should have seen the state of my maths this morning!)

CB

Better yet, full paper here:

https://darchive.mbl....pdf?sequence=1

Edited by Captain_Bobski, 21 April 2010 - 09:08 .

[Solar Cycles]

Captain_Bobski, on 21 April 2010 - 09:11 , said:

You might want to put that up as a link rather than a file, SC!

http://wattsupwithth...a-being-global/



(I'm not having a go at you or anything - you should have seen the state of my maths this morning!)

CB

Better yet, full paper here:

https://darchive.mbl....pdf?sequence=1

I though I had! Thanks CB, it's Google Chrome I blame!!

Edited by Solar Cycles, 21 April 2010 - 09:24 .

[Captain_Bobski]

Solar Cycles, on 21 April 2010 - 09:23 , said:

I though I had! Thanks CB, it's Google Chrome I blame!!

Ah - Google Chrome.

nuff said!

CB

[noggin]

Google Chrome? Dunno what that is, but never mind, eh?

Anyway, re the LIA and the MWP.....I grew up understanding that these were global things.

I could make one of three comments....

1) Advances in science mean that we are always getting a better understanding of things and so, therefore, we can come to what we consider to be a better understanding/conclusion of things past, or

2) Some clever clogs or other wants to appear "better" (wrong word really, but I'm struggling for a more appropriate one) than his or her predecessors and so declares that whatever it was that we thought to be the case previously was wrong and so, therefore, this clever clogs is able to cover him/herself in glory in order to inflate their own ego, or

3) Mistakes can be genuinely made.


I shall ponder this matter whilst I am making the tea, which tonight is bacon pudding, new potatoes and carrots.

Love and peace to all, except Gordon Brown.

Edited by noggin, 21 April 2010 - 16:37 .

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Solar Cycles, on 21 April 2010 - 09:23 , said:

I though I had! Thanks CB, it's Google Chrome I blame!!

Bin it!!!! I uninstalled within a day.

Anyway, great find and looks like a very good study too....some will claim though [to account for MWP and LIA being regional] that maybe London is twinned with Kuching!!!!?

BFTP

[Solar Cycles]

BLAST FROM THE PAST, on 25 April 2010 - 21:48 , said:

Bin it!!!! I uninstalled within a day.

Anyway, great find and looks like a very good study too....some will claim though [to account for MWP and LIA being regional] that maybe London is twinned with Kuching!!!!?

BFTP

Looks like this study as finally put to bed that the MWP and LIA where regional. As most of us have insisted all along!

[Gray-Wolf]

Yes S.C. , to think that man's early messing with the carbon cycle could drive global events back then with both the increases of CO2, driven by Meso American/Cambodian/Indian/European Deforestation (and the associated warming) and then the sequestration of CO2, post the black death/collapse in Meso-American Societies/Cambodian/Indian societies, bringing us the cold.

Goodness only knows what this latest 'experiment' with Carbon Cycle manipulation will bring!!!

[jethro]

Gray-Wolf, on 29 April 2010 - 12:36 , said:

Yes S.C. , to think that man's early messing with the carbon cycle could drive global events back then with both the increases of CO2, driven by Meso American/Cambodian/Indian/European Deforestation (and the associated warming) and then the sequestration of CO2, post the black death/collapse in Meso-American Societies/Cambodian/Indian societies, bringing us the cold.

Goodness only knows what this latest 'experiment' with Carbon Cycle manipulation will bring!!!

How can you possible reach that conclusion from the linked study? This study makes absolutely no links between carbon cycles, warming or cooling, in fact I read it through twice and I cannot even see the word 'carbon' mentioned.

Have we been reading different papers?

[Gray-Wolf]

jethro, on 29 April 2010 - 14:23 , said:

How can you possible reach that conclusion from the linked study? This study makes absolutely no links between carbon cycles, warming or cooling, in fact I read it through twice and I cannot even see the word 'carbon' mentioned.

Have we been reading different papers?

I didn't mention reading the paper above (which I have read by the way) I was referring to the linking ,by some climate scientists, of man's land use changes and their impact's upon the Carbon cycle. It would be interesting to see how much we altered Britain's abilities to 'soak up' CO2 by stripping away the Forrest's (that ran from coast to coast with only the uplands free of it) over the past 8,000yrs.

If we accept that we reduced a 'carbon sink' then would we not expect to see alterations in CO2 levels?

Surely since man first employed fire to manipulate the hunting grounds (40,000yrs ago in Oz and our own flag fen in the Neolithic) we altered the 'settled' natural order of things?.... or is it as some christians would have us believe and the planet is 'laid on' for our use?

Man either impacts 'nature' or he is incapable of 'damaging it (seems they're set to 'burn' the oil spill in the Gulf before it 'engulfs' the wildlife there).......if he changes it then we'd be well served (I believe) to see how far his 'damage' impacts.

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 29 April 2010 - 14:47 .

[jethro]

I see, apologies - this thread started with that study, I assumed you were talking about that.

The paper shows there is no need to invoke a change in carbon cycle to account for both the warm and cool periods.

I think the only way to assume a change in CO2 levels would be if the trees were the only carbon sink. They were felled gradually, the agriculture which replaced them would have been a carbon sink too, plus in the previous cooler period the oceans would also have been cooler and thus more able to absorb CO2. Added to which only a small proportion of the felled trees would have been used for something other than fuel (buildings, ships etc) going by modern standards, wood is considered to be a carbon neutral fuel.

[Gray-Wolf]

jethro, on 29 April 2010 - 14:59 , said:

I see, apologies - this thread started with that study, I assumed you were talking about that.

The paper shows there is no need to invoke a change in carbon cycle to account for both the warm and cool periods.

I think the only way to assume a change in CO2 levels would be if the trees were the only carbon sink. They were felled gradually, the agriculture which replaced them would have been a carbon sink too, plus in the previous cooler period the oceans would also have been cooler and thus more able to absorb CO2. Added to which only a small proportion of the felled trees would have been used for something other than fuel (buildings, ships etc) going by modern standards, wood is considered to be a carbon neutral fuel.

I'm quite 'old stream' about my trees.

'As above ,so below' in fact with root spread matching Canopy spread (or it was when we were protecting them on 'new build' sites) and as much leaf surface area in contact with the air as root surface in contact with the ground.

That being so I feel a bigger 'exchange' occurs with a mature oak's interactions with the atmosphere than a few bushels of wheat's interactions?

So much so that I'd imagine the vegatations ability to 'lock up' the carbon released by burning a felled tree is pretty limited really?

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 29 April 2010 - 15:13 .

[jethro]

I get your point but there's a couple of important things to consider. Mature trees consume far, far less CO2 than young trees, mature trees run on tick-over mode, growing trees consume more energy (think of the volume of food eaten by an athletic, sport playing teenage boy compared to a sedate 70 year old).

The land clearance where the forests were cleared didn't result in instant agricultural land, it was a steady process whereby the mature trees were felled first, a lot of young saplings would have resulted from this; as it's such a labour intensive process to completely clear land for planting crops, many of these would have been left to grow, both through lack of time and wanting to ensure a continued supply of wood. Young trees consume lots of CO2.

Without felling, a natural wood or forest will loose a proportion of mature trees annually, these would release their stored carbon as they rot; whether the trees were felled and burnt or died and rotted, the carbon content released would be the same.

Yes, we lost lots of our forested land but it was such a gradual process I suspect any impact this may have had would have been minimal in terms of altering the carbon balance.

[songster]

jethro, on 29 April 2010 - 15:32 , said:

I get your point but there's a couple of important things to consider. Mature trees consume far, far less CO2 than young trees, mature trees run on tick-over mode, growing trees consume more energy (think of the volume of food eaten by an athletic, sport playing teenage boy compared to a sedate 70 year old).

Rather than trying to count the inputs and outputs based on an large number of unknowns, isn't it far simpler to look at the total size of the reservoir?

Grass is shorter than a tree, this much is obvious. If you replace <i>n</i> acres of trees with <i>n</i> acres of grass, all the carbon that used to be in the trees has to go somewhere. Unless all the wood got made into buildings (and preserved with Neolithic anti-rot treatments?), that carbon ended up in the atmosphere. Possibly even more carbon was released, depending on whether forest soils are thicker/deeper reservoirs than grassland soils.

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Songster!

I'd always been confused by the way some folk 'deny' our 'invisible pollution' (GHG releases) whilst accepting we need to stop destroying the rainforest's.

We destroyed our Forrest's thousands of years ago and surely that had altered the natural balance that used to exist here?

Through the 80's we were destroying our remaining trees (mainly hedges) at a greater rate than the destruction in the rainforest's yet we campaigned to stop the destruction there whilst allowing our own devastation to continue without bating an eye lid!!???


If our altering the carbon cycle today is such an issue what of the changes we have wrought to it across the globe over human history???

We look at the changes to climate that the collapse of the laurentide ice sheet brought to the world but do not link anomalous climate swings with our own past interference???

If we can alter climate today we could alter it in the past.

[Solar Cycles]

Gray-Wolf, on 01 May 2010 - 12:43 , said:

Hi Songster!

I'd always been confused by the way some folk 'deny' our 'invisible pollution' (GHG releases) whilst accepting we need to stop destroying the rainforest's.

We destroyed our Forrest's thousands of years ago and surely that had altered the natural balance that used to exist here?

Through the 80's we were destroying our remaining trees (mainly hedges) at a greater rate than the destruction in the rainforest's yet we campaigned to stop the destruction there whilst allowing our own devastation to continue without bating an eye lid!!???


If our altering the carbon cycle today is such an issue what of the changes we have wrought to it across the globe over human history???

We look at the changes to climate that the collapse of the laurentide ice sheet brought to the world but do not link anomalous climate swings with our own past interference???

If we can alter climate today we could alter it in the past.

One problem with that, prove that we are altering the climate GW? It's easy just to assume that the science is correct, when there is no evidence to suggest this. We can only ASSUME, because that's the best evidence we have at this present time!

[Gray-Wolf]

Solar Cycles, on 01 May 2010 - 14:40 , said:

One problem with that, prove that we are altering the climate GW? It's easy just to assume that the science is correct, when there is no evidence to suggest this. We can only ASSUME, because that's the best evidence we have at this present time!

I think it's safe to assume that if you change things then things change (in a closed system).

You explain why things should not change S.C., give me the scientific basis why , when you make such sweeping changes to the carbon cycle that things stay 'still'. Whilst you are there show me other examples of eccosystems being ravaged and then no change following on hot at it's heels.

From the Aborigional peoples driving Megolania into extinction from their 'fire manipulation of N and N.E. Australia 35 thousand years ago to the dying of the last of our Great Elk in the Isle of Man 8 thousand years ago where we change the eco system we drive change (what about the sea cows in the G.O.M. at the mo? , nice oil bath eh?)

[Solar Cycles]

Gray-Wolf, on 01 May 2010 - 16:29 , said:

I think it's safe to assume that if you change things then things change (in a closed system).

You explain why things should not change S.C., give me the scientific basis why , when you make such sweeping changes to the carbon cycle that things stay 'still'. Whilst you are there show me other examples of eccosystems being ravaged and then no change following on hot at it's heels.

From the Aborigional peoples driving Megolania into extinction from their 'fire manipulation of N and N.E. Australia 35 thousand years ago to the dying of the last of our Great Elk in the Isle of Man 8 thousand years ago where we change the eco system we drive change (what about the sea cows in the G.O.M. at the mo? , nice oil bath eh?)

Again this proves what exactly? It's all good and well being a self hater GW, but none of the above shows AGW to be a causation. Assume yes, but take as fact NO!

[Gray-Wolf]

We aren't at "AGW" yet we are just looking at man's abilities to change his environment S.C. and whether we cause 'greater change' from the immediate change we implement (de-forrestation, monoculture planting, irrigation, dams etc.). From there we might explore just how wide an impact man can drive (extinction of critters we share our world with, desertification from over use of land, flooding of ecosystems, drift minig etc.) and from there whether we can change our world (and not just move it off it's axis whilst weapons testing).

EDIT: and whilst we're at it just how much did we alter the Earths Axis/orbit through our testing programmes from the 40's through 80's? Could we be making our own Milankavich forcings? I mean , over time ,a little adds up to a lot doesn't it?

Edited by Gray-Wolf, 01 May 2010 - 16:53 .

[Solar Cycles]

Gray-Wolf, on 01 May 2010 - 16:51 , said:

We aren't at "AGW" yet we are just looking at man's abilities to change his environment S.C. and whether we cause 'greater change' from the immediate change we implement (de-forrestation, monoculture planting, irrigation, dams etc.). From there we might explore just how wide an impact man can drive (extinction of critters we share our world with, desertification from over use of land, flooding of ecosystems, drift minig etc.) and from there whether we can change our world (and not just move it off it's axis whilst weapons testing).

EDIT: and whilst we're at it just how much did we alter the Earths Axis/orbit through our testing programmes from the 40's through 80's? Could we be making our own Milankavich forcings? I mean , over time ,a little adds up to a lot doesn't it?

No arguments with you regarding the first paragraph, however your second one is like something out of the x-files!