Statement and Paleo climate problems.

[Andre]

It has been observed lately that I'm a bit passionate fighting the global warming myth. Before starting the paleo climate business in this thread, I think it's good to explain why.

I used to be a fighter pilot and as such I had no issues with climate whatsoever. That job is a bit demanding so there was little excess brain power available to ponder about it. So after flying I got a boring desk job and needed diversion. That came soon enough with this:

http://www.learnersonline.com/weekly/archive99/week43/index.htm

The discovery documentary about the Jarkov mammoth said that the animal, found in the northernmost part of Siberia was 20,000 old. Now, I happened to remember that this was about the coldest part of the Last Glacial Maximum, and here was an animal grazing fodder just next to the North Pole. Certainly something definitely did not add up and I decided to solve that riddle.

The quest had started and soon two friends joined. It became clear that modern ice age interpretation of the Greenland ice cores are highly incompatible with the mammoth reality. So if that reality is real then the ice core interpretation of temperatures must be wrong. It is, I know why and how and I can proof it.

The problem is that this erratic ice core interpretation is also the fundament, the basis of global warming. So we have a big conflict here and the peer review arena ensures that there is no chance for competing truths. That ensures one to become a sceptic. It's simply impossible to sort out the mammoth steppe, the extinctions and the ice ages with the wrong premisses.

I'd like to tell the story of the problem of the ice cores. Problem is that it is rather technical. So I'll try to elabrate. The idea is that if it is not comprehensable, then it's the fault of the narrator. So, please give me feedback if it is understandable.

Back later

 

[Andre]

So let's start off with something that looks like an abstract.

Here you can see the interpretation of the Greenland ice cores in terms of temperature. It has also been the cause of the climate panick. 10 to 15 degrees temperature changes in a mere few years. Incredible and a big warning what can happen if you pass the tipping point or whatever triggered these sudden flip flops.

I will demonstrate that this intepretation is wrong along several lines. We will see that actual temperature changes around the Northern hemisphere happened much earlier, we will also see that the sudden drop known as the Younger Dryas does not show up as such an explicite temperature change elsewhere. We will also see a distinct change in aridness.

We will investigate the science behind this temperature graph and we will see that some errors and wrong choices have been made.

What first? The evidence or the faulty logic?

 

[sneez]

for me logic...

 

[Pythagorean]

The discovery documantary about the Jarkov mammoth said that the animal, found in the northernmost part of Siberia was 20,000 old. Now, I happened to remember that this was about the coldest part of the Last Glacial Maximum, and here was an aminal grazing fodder just next to the North Pole. Certainly something definitely did not add up and I decided to solve that riddle.

My skepticism here comes out of ignorance of geology and is not necessarily an argument, but how do we know the mammoth wasn't migrating and starving to death or didn't have some sort of cold-weather sustenance? How many other mammoths have been found in the area?

I appreciate you explaining the basis of your passion for the subject, and in return I will tell you why I am skeptical about it: because it sound like a conspiracy theory (not particularly this thread, just your overall posting scheme). I don't know if that's your intent or not, but that's the way it rubs on me, and I know you haven't explicitly said that (that I've read) so I admit this is just the way I 'feel', and not anything about what I 'know'

 

[Andre]

My skepticism here comes out of ignorance of geology and is not necessarily an argument, but how do we know the mammoth wasn't migrating and starving to death or didn't have some sort of cold-weather sustenance? How many other mammoths have been found in the area?

I appreciate you explaining the basis of your passion for the subject, and in return I will tell you why I am skeptical about it: because it sound like a conspiracy theory (not particularly this thread, just your overall posting scheme). I don't know if that's your intent or not, but that's the way it rubs on me, and I know you haven't explicitly said that (that I've read) so I admit this is just the way I 'feel', and not anything about what I 'know'

Don't you remember the Alaskan horses post I made a just short of a year ago? Funny, I do:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127303

Also I'd recommend a search with my username, search word "mammoth". Furthermore, I have a reference list here of the submitted but obviously rejected paper:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/ext-refs-new.pdf

Our knowledge of the Siberian paleo climate has bloomed in the last few years. I'd recommend especially Ager et al, Andreev et al, 2002,2004, Aptroot, van Geel, and that's only on the first page under the A, Key publications are Mol et al 2004, 2006, (that's my pal, "Sir Mammoth"), furthermore Schirrmeister et al 2002 and Zazula et al 2006.

But you could also browse the abstracts here:

http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/progabst.htm

Highly recommended to take notice of a completely different glacial world. No, The ice age cartoons are way off and the biotope of the Mammoth was highly comparable to the prairies of the Bison.

No conspiracy, just frustration to be unable to change the heading of the global warming hype one micro meter.

 

[Andre]

Okay the logic first. I hope to be understandable for everyone, so I pretend I'm explaining it for my 12 year old nephew, hoping not to offend anyone.


Explaining the isotope fractionation in the water cycle:

The same sort of atoms come with different atom numbers or weights, caled isotopes. Normal Oxygen has 16 particles in the nuclei (¹⁶O) but some have 17 or 18 particles, known as ¹⁷O and ¹⁸O isotopes. ¹⁷O is extremely rare but about every 500th atom is ¹⁸O. Also hydrogen (H) is most abundant with a single proton (¹H) but some have also a neutron (²H) also called Deuterium (D). So water can have several isotopes H₂O, DHO, H₂ ¹⁸O, etc.

It's also percievable that the heavier water molecules have slower speeds with the same amount of impulse (mv). That's why they prefer the lower energy states just like the fat boys in class. So they evaporate more difficult and condensate more easily than the light, agile atoms. However this is temperature dependent, the higher the temperature, more fat boys get on higher energy states and the difference is reduced.

So this behavior changes the amount or ratio of heavy isotopes (known as d¹⁸O or dD for deuterium) during evaporation and condensation, depending on the temperatures. So if you'd analyze the dD and d¹⁸O ratio in the ice core it tells something about the temperature.

That's the easy part. More elaboration here:

http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/period/h_iig.html

Note especially:

The two main factors that control the isotopic signature of precipitation at a given location are 1) the temperature of condensation of the precipitation and 2) the degree of rainout of the air mass (the ratio of water vapor that has already condensed into precipitation to the initial amount of water vapor in the air mass)

Assuming that #2 is impossible to control and should be fairly constant for a given fixed location, averaging out, we remain with the main variable: temperature of condensation, controling the isotope "signature" of the precipitation and hence the ice in the ice cores.

Now we revert to the main scholar study about the validity of the temperature reconstructions of water isotopes in ice cores:

http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/GLACIO/hoffmann/Texts/jouzelJGR1997.pdf

Unfortunately I don't get it OCR'd but I recommend especially para's 2.5 and 4.3.

Anybody getting a bit suspicious now?

 

[Andre]

Intermezzo

..., but how do we know the mammoth wasn't migrating and starving to death or didn't have some sort of cold-weather sustenance?

Detailed analyses of the life agenda of Mammoths is being done by Prof Daniel Fisher at Ann Harbor New Michican.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1122_051122_mammoth.html

Unfortunatey I have not seen the publication yet on the tusk analysis of the Jarkov mammoth, but it has been suggested from the combinations of isotopes in the dentine that migration was irregular. Females appeared to migrate biannually. Bulls did not seem to migrate a lot. There was little reason to migrate/ Winter snow was sparse (Zazula) and the fodder remained available througout the year on top of the snow. And migrate to where? Most of the area was uniformly mega fauna steppe.

Back to the main issue. Hint: at what temperature does water vapor condensate?

 

[Pythagorean]

Don't you remember the Alaskan horses post I made a just short of a year ago? Funny, I do:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127303

Oh man, I totally forgot about that. There were horses in Alaska. That's so crazy every time I think of it.

So, to sum it up:

you're saying a mammoth and horses existed at the same time in the same place that is being analyzed as an ice core that claims they couldn't be living at the time?

 

[Andre]

Oh man, I totally forgot about that. There were horses in Alaska. That's so crazy every time I think of it.

So, to sum it up:

you're saying a mammoth and horses existed at the same time in the same place that is being analyzed as an ice core that claims they couldn't be living at the time?

That's the idea. If we refuse to live with cognitive dissonance, we have to face that it is impossible that the current permafrost tundra areas, unable to support many grazers, was 10-15 degrees colder around the Last Glacial Maximum and supported mega fauna herds like bisons, camels, lions, giant sloths and mammoths of course.

But we were pondering about the ice cores. Back to the isotopes. Why were those large isotope excursions translated to temperature. Perhaps because of this?

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/GISP3.GIF

See how the methane concentration also mimmicks the isotopes and the accumulation? And methane is a greenhouse gas of course and greenhouse gas is temperature, so isotopes are temperature? NOT!

Since the isotope ratios of the precipitation are primarily dependent on temperature at condensation, I asked at what temperature would water vapor condensate. That temperature is known as "dew point". It's an important element of the meteorology.

http://www.kfor.com/Global/story.asp?S=254598. The dew point temperature is the temperature to which the air must be cooled to reach saturation (assuming air pressure remains the same). The dew point is a direct measure of the amount of moisture present in the air, and directly affects how you feel... or in other words... measures the amount of humidity in the air. ...

So :
IF "the dew point is a direct measure of the amount of moisture present in the air"

AND "the temperature of condensation of the precipitation (dew point) controls the isotopic signature of precipitation"

THEN the isotopes measure humidity, not temperature.

ENDIF;

Right?

In other words, it's not the heat, it's the humidity (Non Calor Sed Umor).

 

[Pythagorean]

To be honest, I don't understand how you could calculate what isotopes existed in what ratios for elements with simplicity, so I couldn't judge any of this data. It's even harder to imagine how such isotopes would populate the atmosphere based on data from the earth... but I'm not a geologist or a geophysicist... or a climatologist. I could make a conclusion and then find things in the data to support it, but any good arguer can do that. So I still remain at the so-called middle-ground fallacy on the subject.

What's the harm in researching alternatives to oil products and reducing emissions anyway? I'm not so concerned about the whole wide world as I am about myself.

When it gets -40 here, we get an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_layer" (basically, everything gets trapped in a soup of low energy in town. All the smoke from smoke stacks pile up against lower atmospher, polluting the town.

At this point it becomes painfully obvious that that all sorts of petroleum exhaust are unhealthy for biological system. I commend the advanced in cleaner burning coal and safer systems, but I don't feel any reason to criticize alternative power and further emission control (as much as getting my IM tags can be a pain, I like breathing cleaner air)

 

[Andre]

I could make a conclusion and then find things in the data to support it, but any good arguer can do that. So I still remain at the so-called middle-ground fallacy on the subject.

It may be noted that we are following the scientific method here. We observe an abnormality which we try to explain using physics only with the additional handycap that previous erratic explanations have distorted the view on the reality.

What's the harm in researching alternatives to oil products and reducing emissions anyway? I'm not so concerned about the whole wide world as I am about myself.

Please, do understand that this is not an issue at all. We have a mystery to solve here. How did the Mammoth live and die out.?In the course of the solution we find out that previous science messed up. That is the issue here.

More than happy to think in solutions of nowadays problems and hey I'm driving a super efficient diesel doing 52,5 miles per gallon (US). But I repeat once more, science must not be messed up to enforce adaptation of behavior. That's junk science, preventing us from working those things out.

 

[Pythagorean]

Please, do understand that this is not an issue at all. We have a mystery to solve here. How did the Mammoth live and die out.?In the course of the solution we find out that previous science messed up. That is the issue here.

Well, here's a good place to look for that... right here at my own institute:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/772.html"

By analyzing the layers of seasonal laminations that build up each year on mammoth and mastodon tusks and molars, Fisher and Koch were able to identify the time of year that an animal died to within an accuracy of two weeks to a month. They found that the animals that died in the fall had been butchered, and that those that died in the spring had died of natural causes.

Having survived the winter, there was no reason for healthy animals to die in the fall when they were fat and conditions were good. This was probably the hunting season (as it generally is today). The healthy animals, well-fed on the summer's bounty, provided crucial fat the humans needed for metabolizing protein during the winter months. It was probably at this time that the hunters amassed their winter stores. The animals that died in the spring were probably sick and stressed after the hard winter.

There is another reason that giant mammals are exceptionally vulnerable to hunting pressure--they replenish their stock very slowly. Modern elephants do not bear their first young until age 10 or 12, and their gestation period is nearly two years. Fisher believes that, once the human population began to increase rapidly, extinction may have taken place in only 100 to 1000 years.

More than happy to think in solutions of nowadays problems and hey I'm driving a super efficient diesel doing 52,5 miles per gallon (US). But I repeat once more, science must not be messed up to enforce adaptation of behavior. That's junk science, preventing us from working those things out.

There will always be junk science around. If you're really interested in supporting science, get in an contribute with your own experiments and theories and work on getting published. Junk science is as unstoppable as religion, crime, and government.

We're most productive when we ignore it (unless of course, it affects us personally, beyond recourse) and contribute to the positive aspects.

look at these gems:

http://www.theflatEarth'society.org/
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/hollow-earth.html

 

[Andre]

Well, here's a good place to look for that... right here at my own institute:

Please say hallo to prof Dale Guthrie a good friend of Dick Mol.

There will always be junk science around.

But it's getting annoying when junk science is the basis of policy making

If you're really interested in supporting science, get in an contribute with your own experiments and theories and work on getting published. Junk science is as unstoppable as religion, crime, and government.

So we wrote this article, showing that the current interpretation of ice cores is wrong and that it's all about aridness and moist periods. Theory and evidence match. Also we demostrate that genuine warming signals are not observed in the ice cores. So this goes to the peer reviewer who understands that everything he had believed in and had advocated and had written numerous articles about was totally wrong all of a sudden. What do you think would happen (has happened)?

 

[Pythagorean]

But it's getting annoying when junk science is the basis of politicy making

tell me about it... "reefer madness" was my personal favorite. A scientist can hardly be a politician, and politicians can't be very scientific in a competitive (and especially capitalistic) democracy. The masses don't follow scientific theory, they generally base their decisions off of the way they feel emotionally about something (fear passed through society and negative reinforcement I assume with uncertainty) and politicians care about the masses: people are their resource.

Physical scientists tend to be more into things: how they work, what causes them, all the different mechanisms; but science is so complex nowadays that you can't learn everything in your lifetime, not even in your own branch of physics, let alone the mathematical techniques behind expressing the applications of all these techniques (and furthermore getting a calculator sufficient in crunching the numbers).

As a result, scientists are somewhat disconnected from each other. I don't care much for technocracy but it dominates science.

So we wrote this article, showing that the current interpretation of ice cores is wrong and that it's all about aridness and moist periods. Theory and evidence match. Also we demostrate that genuine warming signals are not observed in the ice cores. So this goes to the peer reviewer who understands that everything he had believed in and had advocated and had written numerous articles about was totally wrong all of a sudden. What do you think would happen (has happened)?

it gets red marks, you revise it, and try again next year. Shouldn't always go back to the same peer reviewer, right? I'm in no position to judge a peer-review decision, but this one of the weaknesses of skepticism. Once a skeptic has accepted something, their skeptical about letting it go (I'm not pointing at you here, but at the peer review process)

I can't make enough sense of the system to even judge whether the peer review process does more good than bad, but this is what I know:

There's a hodgepodge of information out there: some of it's good, some of it's bad (whether it has the marks of prestige or not). If you're interested in learning something, because you want to do something then you test the information that seems most practical until you get it to do what you want it to do (i.e. fly people around, help with communication, protect you from hostiles, keep people alive, entertain people, entertain yourself), then the scientific process has served it's purpose.

If you take all that data and start preaching to people about what it means, then you don't seem as personally interested in it, and I tend to ignore it like I ignore television news (it seems to represent persuasive/political arguments more often than not).

You're expecting perfection out of the scientific community, but it's made up of humans. Boltzmann committed suicide over the scientific community denying him, and is now he's a household physics name. Get the papers to the right people, they'll eventually be submitted to the endless database of informations out there... if they prove correct and useful in the future, they will be reinforced when someday somebody searches by subject matter and finds something that they're either a) interested in or b) want to use to make an argument.

 

[Andre]

Okay, let's try and get back on topic.

I tried to demonstrate that the isotope signature of the precipitation (like in ice cores) resembles the dew point or absolute moisture in the air.

here you can play with the numbers.

http://www.dryfast.nl/algemeen/algemeen/luchtvochtigheid.html

Don't worry, instructions in English. i hope you all have studied http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/GLACIO/hoffmann/Texts/jouzelJGR1997.pdf very closely to see if they have covered this element. Cloud temperature is mentioned once. But obviously with moist weather cloud temperature is high whilst with dry weather clouds must be cold due to the dew point mechanism.

Therefore when the climate is moist, the isotope signature looks like warm and under arid conditions isotope signature looks like "cold" and what do we see:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/GISP3.GIF

Annual snow accumulation (top) and isotopes (middle) correlate neatly especially during the spikes. So actually it appears that we are looking at two forms of the same information. Arid periods and dry periods. No more.

We need more data to confirm what we see, but before that some more reasoning, the seasonality next.

 

[Andre]

Seasonality of precipitation.

We have seen that the isotope signature is a function of the dewpoint, nevertheless, dewpoints tend to be higher in summer time than in winter time. Also on Greenland, summer is the snowing season as in winter it is too cold to snow. So, if you'd probe the uncompressed top part of the ice sheet for several samples a year, you'll clearly see the yearly cycle in isotope values like this:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/GISP-2-site-15.GIF

Also very tempting to call that seasonal temperatures changes, but it's still seasonal dew point changes. Anyway you can also see that the youngest snow/ice has the highest amplitude since deeper down the snow gets compressed and mixed and the seasonal extremes fade away. At about 10,000 years the seasonal fluctuation is no longer visible and the main value has regressed to the weighted annual average. So the ratio of the amount of snowing in winter and summer gets very important. Hence, the more snowing in summer time, the warmer it seems.

Now look again at
http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/GISP3.GIF

See once more that the isotope ratio and the annual snowfall correlates tightly, so if the snow fall spikes were mostly about summer snow, then seasonality in itself could explain the isotope ratio as well. The researchers are aware of this. See para 4.3 of Jouzel et al:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/jouzeletal97.GIF

See that they realize that reality proves the seasonality dependence, nevertheless they prefer to believe a model loaded with suppositions, to decide that isotopes are temperature. Models right, reality wrong.

How about some empirical evidence:

http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/seb/Geology.pdf.pdf

The analyzed sequence covers the time span between 14 400 and 10 500 calendar yr B.P., and the data imply that the conditions in southernmost Greenland during the Younger Dryas stadial, 12 800–11 550 calendar yr B.P., were characterized by an arid climate with cold winters and mild summers, preceded by humid conditions with cooler summers. Climate models imply that such an anomaly may be explained by local climatic phenomenon caused by high insolation and Föhn effects.

There you are; reality exactly as expected: arid summer, hence low dewpoints, appears as 'cold' isotopes. Arid summer is also seasonal distortion of the weighted average also appearing as 'cold'. Abnormal warm summers? Nope it's reality, the only thing that is wrong, is the interpretation of the ice cores, which actually show little summer snow compared to winter snow with low dewpoints, instead of low temperatures in the Younger Dryas.

But they found a way out not to rock the boat, climate models and some vague fohn effect. Again, reality wrong and models right

At this point, Pythagorean, I formed my opinion that models should be banned by law.

 

[Pythagorean]

At this point, Pythagorean, I formed my opinion that models should be banned by law.

Models have been very useful to those of us actually doing practical things and not trying to make big assumptions.

I think a model is just like any paper, though. If you have honesty and integrity behind, it can be helpful in understanding systems. If you're just programming it to make a point, then of course it will fail to adhere to reality. Papers can be written persuasively too, though, and can be just as misleading if you take them to heart. Data can be hand-picked, interpretations can be supportive, etc, etc.

 

[Andre]

Models have been very useful to those of us actually doing practical things and not trying to make big assumptions.

Certainly true and the legislation would need some fine tuning, but speculation, proof claiming and decision making with models without empirical evidence should be the main elements.

Anyway, this thread could continue along a few lines. My http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/ext-refs-new.pdf contains dozens of examples, which show that:

1: Actual Northern hemisphere warming started around 17,500 Cal years ago, without the Greenland ice cores noticing it.

2: No additinial warming is apparent at the onset of the first big spike of the Bolling Allerod event, but on lots of places it got soaking wet.

3: At the onset of the Younger Dryas, there was some local cooling which could be explained by increased seasonality (extreme cold winters) but sudden Northern Hemisphere aridness was widespread (with one exception: Polyak et al 2004, dating problems?). This is a real wow since just about every publication about the last glacial transitions proclaims the extreme coldness of the Younger Dryas but many of them also encounter some "not understood" mysteries, generated by the misunderstandig of the Younger Dryas.

4: Finally, the end of the Younger Dryas, the prelude to the Holocene, again shows widespread sudden wetness rather than strong temperature increases, .

We could go over them one by one but first some more observations.

Does it help if we realize that much of the paleoclimatologic research is centered around how bad the global warming will be? That would garantee some bias, steering the decisions. So how important are these isotopes in the climate business? Spencer Weart has registrated that painstakenly http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm

...Swings of temperature that scientists in the 1950s believed to take tens of thousands of years, in the 1970s to take thousands of years, and in the 1980s to take hundreds of years, were now found to take only decades. Ice core analysis by Dansgaard's group, confirmed by the Americans' parallel hole, showed rapid oscillations of temperature repeatedly at irregular intervals throughout the last glacial period. Greenland had sometimes warmed a shocking 7°C within a span of less than 50 years. For one group of American scientists on the ice in Greenland, the "moment of truth” struck on a single day in midsummer 1992 as they analyzed a cylinder of ice, recently emerged from the drill hole, that came from the last years of the Younger Dryas. They saw an obvious change in the ice, visible within three snow layers, that is, scarcely three years! The team analyzing the ice was first excited, then sobered — their view of how climate could change had shifted irrevocably. The European team reported seeing a similar step within at most five years. "The general circulation [of the atmosphere] in the Northern Hemisphere must have shifted dramatically," Dansgaard’s group eventually concluded...

Ominously, data showed that sudden climate shifts did not happen only during a glacial period. In 1993, Dansgaard and his colleagues reported that rapid oscillations had been common during the last interglacial warm period — enormous spikes of cooling, like a 14-degree cold snap that had struck in the span of a decade and lasted 70 years. The instability was unlike anything the ice record showed for our current interglacial period. The announcement, Science magazine reported, "shattered" the standard picture of benign, equable interglacials.(64) ...


First scientists had to convince themselves, by shuttling back and forth between historical data and studies of possible mechanisms, that it made sense to propose shifts as "rapid" as a thousand years. Only then could they come around to seeing that shifts as "rapid" as a hundred years could be plausible. And only after that could they credit still swifter changes. Without this gradual shift of understanding, the Greenland cores would never have been drilled. The funds required for these heroic projects came to hand only after scientists reported that climate could change in damaging ways on a timescale meaningful to governments. In an area as difficult as climate science, where all is complex and befogged, it is hard to see what one is not prepared to look for.

It may be clear now that the Greenland Ice Cores played a key role in the development of the image of global warming. Too bad that this major isotope error played the key role in the key role. With unbiased science and without models it would have stopped the latest in 2002 with the exploration of Bjorck et al's Greenland lake proxies.

We can also analyse in detail why things went so wrong. The key role for that is calibrating problems with carbon dating.

Questions? There should be lots.

 

[billiards]

So how could the arid period show up in the ice core record, when presumably that would be when there was no precipitation?

 

[Andre]

Then I have a wrong idea of arid, as in less precipitation, not zero precipitation. The accumulation rate of snow during the arid/dry period was 2.5-5 times less than during the wet periods.

 

[Skyhunter]

So :
IF "the dew point is a direct measure of the amount of moisture present in the air"

AND "the temperature of condensation of the precipitation (dew point) controls the isotopic signature of precipitation"

THEN the isotopes measure humidity, not temperature.

ENDIF;

Right?

In other words, it's not the heat, it's the humidity (Non Calor Sed Umor).

Since humidity is product of the moisture and temperature of the air, the above If statement is false.

 

[Skyhunter]

Interesting but your not looking at the entire precipitation cycle.

The ratio of O-18 in water vapor is an indicator of temperature of the body of water in which it evaporated from, as well as the condensation point. Dew points are condensate points of water vapor. All of these processes are a proxy for temperature.

To confirm the conclusions of the scientists studying the ice cores, O-18 is measured in the calcium carbonate that collects on the ocean floor.

There may be a conflict with your mammoth studies and climate history. If so it is a mystery to be solved.

I am not a paleoclimatologist, and even I can see there are serious flaws in your reasoning here.

I am not disagreeing the arid and moist conditions effect O-18 ratios, I am just pointing out that temperature is key part of the whole precipitation cycle and is therefore reflected in the ratio of O-18 to O-16.

 

[Andre]

Interesting but your not looking at the entire precipitation cycle.

The ratio of O-18 in water vapor is an indicator of temperature of the body of water in which it evaporated from, as well as the condensation point. Dew points are condensate points of water vapor. All of these processes are a proxy for temperature.

Well you may want to recheck my post #8, where it says:

That's the easy part. More elaboration here:

http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/period/h_iig.html

Note especially:

The two main factors that control the isotopic signature of precipitation at a given location are 1) the temperature of condensation of the precipitation and 2) the degree of rainout of the air mass (the ratio of water vapor that has already condensed into precipitation to the initial amount of water vapor in the air mass)

Assuming that #2 is impossible to control and should be fairly constant for a given fixed location, averaging out, we remain with the main variable: temperature of condensation, controling the isotope "signature" of the precipitation and hence the ice in the ice cores.

Notice that temperature during evaporation is not a main factor controlling the isotope signature of precipitation.

To confirm the conclusions of the scientists studying the ice cores, O-18 is measured in the calcium carbonate that collects on the ocean floor.

I know, if you take a week or two and check my threads here, you'll fiond out that I refer to that every once and a while. perhaps it's an idea to start another thread on that.

a conflict with your mammoth studies and climate history. If so it is a mystery to be solved.

Normally mysteries emerge when several diverting research areas are cross checked again. Then the awfull mismatch means that at least one of them is totally off track. That's the case here. Ice core interpretation is for sure.

I am not a paleoclimatologist, and even I can see there are serious flaws in your reasoning here.

I am not disagreeing the arid and moist conditions effect O-18 ratios, I am just pointing out that temperature is key part of the whole precipitation cycle and is therefore reflected in the ratio of O-18 to O-16.

There are two elements here that need to match, the theory and the evidence. We can proof that the main warming preceded the first ice core isotope spike with 2000 years. We can also proof that the spike at 14,500 years also codated with large scale glacier advances. it's also the time that the Kilimanjaro glacier emerged. Need some?

 

[sneez]

Go on andre, I am totally swamped with my work these days to post questions but this looks like thread with coherent perspective on your views. i would like you to keep developing your argument as you do so far... Once I have some time I will sit down and go through it all.

 

[Skyhunter]

Notice that temperature during evaporation is not a main factor controlling the isotope signature of precipitation.

Note it says the two main factors for a given location.

These are factors in the analysis. But the temperature of the air when the precipitation fell is not what is being measured. And like I said, the amount of moisture in the air is a feedback of temperature. In the southern hemisphere the air and sea are in close contact so the humidity is relatively constant.
In other words, the amount of moisture in the air is a measure of the temperature of the air.

The ice core isotope signature is used as a proxy for the temperature of the southern ocean, not the temperature of the air when the snow fell. Therefore the temperature of the ocean is the key factor in determining the isotopic ratio of the water vapor when it formed.

There are two elements here that need to match, the theory and the evidence. We can proof that the main warming preceded the first ice core isotope spike with 2000 years. We can also proof that the spike at 14,500 years also codated with large scale glacier advances. it's also the time that the Kilimanjaro glacier emerged. Need some?

There was a lot going on with climate 14,000 years ago.

Is your proof global or local?

 

[Skyhunter]

I am interested to see this evidence since:

http://www.newsandevents.utoronto.ca/bin4/030313a.asp

Sea level changes recorded in corals and organic material from places like Barbados and Vietnam indicated that roughly 14,000 years ago, the world's sea level rose by an average of 20 metres over the course of about 200 years - roughly 100 times faster than today's rate of sea level rise.

With sea levels rising that fast there must have been a lot of melting going on.

 

[Andre]

Note it says the two main factors for a given location.

Indeed it does since it is no use to compare changes of glacier d18O with ice sheet d18O. You have to stay at fixed locations to say something abouit the isotope changes.

In the southern hemisphere the air and sea are in close contact so the humidity is relatively constant. In other words, the amount of moisture in the air is a measure of the temperature of the air.

No that's too simple, especially when we are discussing the Greenland isotopes on the Northern hemisphere.

The ice core isotope signature is used as a proxy for the temperature of the southern ocean, not the temperature of the air when the snow fell. Therefore the temperature of the ocean is the key factor in determining the isotopic ratio of the water vapor when it formed.

No, still too simple. http://isohis.iaea.org/userupdate/description/Precip6.html is thought to be a measure for the temperature at evaporation. However also here, the fallacy is affirming the consequent.

Michel Helsen has several publicartions here showing that isotopes corrolate more with precipitation than with temperature also in Antarctica, the main conclusion being, that when it is snowing, the temperature is above average. Hence there is a warm precipitation bias in the antarctic cores

There was a lot going on with climate 14,000 years ago.

Definitely. Make that from 19,000-11,000 years. We have to find the missing player to understand what happened.

Is your proof global or local?

There is a distinct variation in northern and soutern hemisphere evidence, especially about the isotopes, not other temperature proxies. The evidence is about early warming before the sudden Bolling Allerod spikes 14,500 years ago not noticed by isotopes, cooling and glacier advance during the alleged warm Bolling Allerod and warm signals and receding glaciers during the alleged could Younger Dryas.

I am interested to see this evidence since:

With sea levels rising that fast there must have been a lot of melting going on.

That's melt water pulse 1A. Been there, done that.

The idea is that there is no source for all that melt water at that time. Hence it is probably not a melt water pulse but tectonics on a global scale and this was the very reason why the missing player got identified.

More later

 

[BillJx]

At this point, Pythagorean, I formed my opinion that models should be banned by law.

I hope that's a joke.

 

[Andre]

I hope that's a joke.

Well, suppose that Georg Ohm had computer models available in the 1820ies to model and simulate the behavior of the individual charched particles, would he ever have derived his law from that? It was long before the invention of electrons and models, but that didn't keep him from figuring out the relationship between voltage, currents and resistance.

Models and specialism stimulate deductive (bottom up) thinking at the cost of (top down) inductive thinking. And there are still big things to discover which is only possible by inductive methods. You'll never find them if you put your limited knowledge in a model, working bottom up and claim it to be predicting the future.

Models are only good to simulate processes of the reality and see if your hypothesis makes sense. They will not help figuring out what is going on from empiric evidence. Models lack creativity and imagination for that.

 

[BillJx]

So you were not joking. I guess that's the end of any serious discussion then. You would outlaw theoretical physics and confine scientists to nineteenth century methods that can be understood by any intelligent student.

 

[Andre]

That's not the point. The point is that deductive reasoning appears to be death due to the far too popular inductive model approach.

We need less models and more thinking about the big picture. For instance, How are planets really behaving under the dynamics of orbital and spinning perturbations, being a complex multi layered complex gyroscope with brittle, ductile and fluid shells and test your ideas on paleo-evidence instead of gazing at the most unexplained behavior of the Earth and trying to explain it using only a limited scope of specialities and models, disregarding others.

Highly unlikely to solve that with sophisticated circulation models