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FIGURE 1: GLACIATION EXTENT SINCE THE EEMIAN INTERGLACIAL

FIGURE 2: TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER FALLACY

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THE NASA STATEMENT THAT PROVES HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE SINCE PRE-INDUSTRIAL TIMES AS A DIRECT RESULT OF FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.[LINK TO SOURCE DOCUMENT]

The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia. Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate. The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2 Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. The evidence for rapid climate change is compelling. Global temperature rise. The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century. The planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year from January through September, with the exception of June were the warmest on record for those respective months. Warming oceans. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Shrinking ice sheets:  The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 119 billion tons during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. Glacial retreat: Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Decreased snow cover:  Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier. Sea level rise: Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year. Maldives vulnerable to sea level rise. Declining Arctic sea ice: Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Extreme events: The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. Ocean acidification: Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.

COMMENTS

1. “The abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era and of human civilization”: The last ice age ended more than 2.5 billion years ago. Since then we have been in the Quaternary Ice Age marked by an intact Antarctic ice sheet for its duration. The ice age is punctuated by cycles of long periods of glaciation and brief periods of interglacial warmth. The Last Glacial Period ended about 11,700 years ago and initiated the Holocene warm period in which we live. As for human civilization, it got started with the Neolithic Revolution some 8,000 years ago. Not sure what the 7,000 year figure refers to in this context.
2. With reference to glaciation/interglacial cycles, NASA says “Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives“. This earth warming dynamic is the Milankovitch theory of glaciation cycles at 100,000-year time cycles . It has no relevance to the millennial millennial scale warming and cooling cycles of interglacials one of which is the issue under consideration.
3. Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is a UN committee charged with recommending climate change mitigation options to the United Nations. It is not a climate science organization and it does not carry out climate research. Therefore it is not a source of climate science information and can’t be cited to establish scientific evidence. Also, the use of words like “unequivocal” (leaving no doubt) is an unscientific attempt to discourage discussion on the substance of the issue.
4. The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia. The theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is that the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration and the corresponding rise in temperature since pre-industrial times is due to fossil fuel emissions of the industrial economy. It is generally agreed that the demarcation between industrial times and pre-industrial times lies somewhere between 1850 and 1900. The theory should be tested in that time frame. To hunt and find a period of convenience where the data are more agreeable to theory is a form of circular reasoning and can be described as the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy shown in Figure 2.
5. Extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia.  The argument has been made repeatedly by NASA that the rate of warming is unprecedented and that therefore it must have a human cause. This claim is flawed. Even if it were true, that the rate of warming is unprecedented does not prove human cause.
6. Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a changing climate.  AGW serves as the rationale for an overhaul of the world’s energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels to renewable energy to reduce and eliminate fossil fuel emissions as a way of attenuating the rate of warming. That NASA satellites have seen signals of a changing climate does not address this central issue. That the climate is changing in one of more than eight violent warming and cooling cycles of the Holocene does not proves that it is human caused and that it can and must be attenuated by human intervention in the form of moving from fossil fuel energy to renewables.
7. The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.  This statement is false. The works of Arrhenius, Hogbom, Tyndal, Langley, and others were a failed attempt to explain glaciation cycles over long periods at time scales of  around 100,000 years. That relationship was never demonstrated and it ultimately failed. Our current theory of glaciation cycles is that of Milankovitch that has to do with orbital anomalies and not carbon dioxide.
8. There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.  There may be no question among climate scientists and NASA scientists and there is no question that it is found in climate models where it is programmed in, but “unequivocal” empirical evidence for this relationship has yet to be presented. More importantly, if NASA rocket scientists know the causation phenomena for the eight or more warming and cooling cycles of the Holocene we have endured so far, they should explain all of them and not pick one of them to explain. Please see: HOLOCENE TEMPERATURE CYCLES  
9. Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence can also be found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. With reference to the previous comment in item #8, if these relationships can explain Holocene warming and cooling cycles, NASA rocket scientists should be able to explain all of them and not just pick one to explain.
10. Not only was 2016 the warmest year on record, but eight of the 12 months that make up the year from January through September, with the exception of June were the warmest on record for those respective months.  Only long term trends in temperature and not temperature events, however dramatic they may seem, may be used as evidence to support a warming climate. More to the point, the issue is not whether it is warming but whether the proposed overhaul of the world’s energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels and to renewable sources will produce the desired changes. It should also be mentioned that the year 2016 (like the year 1998 before it) is noted for a monster ENSO event and the high temperatures reported here should have been presented in that context. The omission of this piece of critical information in the presentation of 2016 temperatures is a form of scientific fraud.
11. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. What is the theoretical significance of the year 1969? If none, then its use is a form of circular reasoning and the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. Also the observation that oceans have warmed in itself does not serve as evidence that the warming was caused by fossil fuel emissions and that it can be attenuated by cutting emissions; as explained in a related post [LINK] .
12. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 119 billion tons per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. The Greenland ice sheet is losing  0.0084% of its ice per year and at that rate will be gone in the next 11,000 to 12,000 years. Antarctica is losing 0.00045% of its ice per year and at that rate will be gone in 20,000 years or so. Although these statistics are cited by climate science as a evidence of anthropogenic global warming, no data or analysis is provided to discriminate the causation of ice melt in these geologically active areas between geothermal heat and anthropogenic global warming.  Related post on geological activity in the polar regions:  LINK TO POLAR ICE DYNAMICS  
13. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Decreased snow cover: Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier. Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier.  The only information in these changes is that we are in one of many Holocene warming periods. They do not require an explanation in terms of human cause.
14. Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year. Maldives vulnerable to sea level rise. The only information in these changes is that we are in one of many Holocene warming periods. They do not require an explanation in terms of human cause.  That human activity in terms of fossil fuel emissions plays a role in these changes can only be established by showing a relationship between emissions and sea level rise such that the relationship has a causation interpretation. This was done in Peter Clark’s 2018 paper (Clark, Peter U., et al. “Sea-level commitment as a gauge for climate policy.” Nature Climate Change 8.8 (2018): 653) but the correlation used in the paper is spurious as shown in a related post [LINK] . When this statistical flaw in the paper is corrected no correlation between emissions and sea level rise remains as shown in another related post [LINK] . There is no evidence that these changes in this interglacial are abnormal and that climate action in the form of reducing or even eliminating fossil fuel emissions will moderate these changes.
15. Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades. Sea ice decline is also normal in interglacials. Human cause is not necessary to explain such phenomena in interglacials. A notable issue with sea ice in this interglacial is the difference between the Arctic where summer sea ice is declining and the Antarctic where it is not. This difference may imply a role for other causes of sea ice decline in the Arctic not considered or studied because of the obsession with human caused climate change. This issue is discussed more fully in a related post [LINK] .
16. The number of record high temperature events in the United States has been increasing, while the number of record low temperature events has been decreasing, since 1950. The U.S. has also witnessed increasing numbers of intense rainfall events. The issue here is long term trends in global mean temperature. Localized temperature events are constrained in time and geography and have no interpretation in terms of global warming. Please see: LINK TO INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY Extreme weather events happen anyway naturally without the use of fossil fuel emissions as seen in thousands of years of weather records kept by the Chinese government in the Fang-Zhi, in ancient Egyptian records, in the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and in the meticulous weather records of the British colonial government in India where devastating extreme weather events on record include the Bengal droughts of 1770, 1783, 1866, 1873, 1892, 1897, and 1943, the Calcutta cyclone of 1737, and lastly the Bhola cyclone that occurred during a time of global cooling in 1970. Therefore, the occurrence of droughts, floods, extreme storms, and heatwaves in this period of warming does not establish a causal connection to fossil fuel emissions. It  must be shown that there are long term trends related to fossil fuel emissions or that a distinction can be made in the aggregate events in the post industrial era compared with a corresponding pre-industrial era. No such evidence exists. In fact all studies of long term trends have failed to find a trend imposed by the use of fossil fuels in the post industrial era. See for example, the trend in tropical cyclones presented in a related post [LINK] . The only evidence presented is in terms of what is called “Event Attribution Science” where selected weather events are examined after the fact in climate models to compare the probability of the event in a world with fossil fuel emissions with that in a world without fossil fuel emissions and then to use the ratio of these probabilities to make a determination that that particular event was or was not caused by fossil fuel emissions. This procedure is derived from the so called “Warsaw International Mechanism” (WIM) devised by the United Nations for the allocation of climate change impact compensation funding to poor countries deemed “vulnerable” to climate change impacts. The elevation of this procedure to empirical evidence by giving it a different name that includes the word “science” does not make it science because climate models are an expression of theory and empirical evidence must be independent of theory to be free of circular reasoning and confirmation bias. Related Posts: [LINK] [LINK]
17. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30 percent. This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the oceans. The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.  The statement that the increase in acidity “is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere” requires empirical evidence. None is provided possibly because no such evidence exists. Kindly note that a simple correlation between rising acidity and rising emissions suffers from a statistical issue with respect to time scale as explained in a related post at this site:  [LINK]
18. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years. What is the significance of that in terms of proving the theory that the use of fossil fuels in the industrial economy has caused the world to be warmer than pre-industrial times? The human caused global warming hypothesis is tied to this pre-industrial time reference and to the consequences of the industrial economy. To shift over to arbitrary time spans depending on the data is circular reasoning and an appeal to the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. Besides, if this 35-year period is the key to human caused climate change, one should consider the absence of empirical evidence for human cause in the last 40 years from 1979 to 2018 as shown in two related posts [LINK]  [LINK]  .

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THE CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR OF GLACIATION CYCLES

RELATED POSTS ON CHAOS THEORY: 

HISTORY OF CHAOS THEORY: [LINK]

A CHAOS THEORY OF GLACIATION CYCLES: [LINK]

FIGURE 1: THE LAST GLACIATION

What we see in the chart above is that warming of the current interglacial (the Holocene) at the end of the deglacaition of the Last Glaciation Period proceeded by way of a series of abrupt returns to glacial climate.  The most intense and most studied of these unstable brief glaciation events is the Younger Dryas which drove temperatures at the summit of Greenland to ≈15 °C colder than today. This brief and unstable glaciation event that started abruptly also ended abruptly, over a period of about 50 years. Soon thereafter, a second warming begins that sustains and takes earth to the current Holocene interglacial.

The video clip above is from Youtube [LINK] . The Younger Dryas is seen in this video as an animation. The video shows the Last Glaciation cycle with glacial growth from ≈115,000 years ago to ≈12,000 years ago, but with a brief and violent return to glaciation and an abrupt end ≈11,000 years ago that we now know as the Younger Dryas. The Younger Dryas, serves as a well known example of the violent and unstable nature of the glaciation and deglacation cycles that is apparent in the animation above.

Here we find that all three phases of the glaciation cycle, glaciation, deglacaition, and interglacial,  exhibit millennial scale chaotic behavior. This chaotic behavior is described in the Bond paper included in the bibliography below. {Bond, Gerard“A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates.” science278.5341 (1997)}, where the all three phases of the glaciation cycle are described in terms of “pacings” that are statistically the same. Together, they make up a series of climate shifts with a period close to 1470 ± 500 years“.

That is, although glaciation and interglacials are entirely different states of the earth’s surface climate system, both are subject to the same underlying chaotic volatility at the same time scale. In that sense glaciation, deglaciation, and interglacials all exhibit identical back and forth chaotic behaviof movements toward icing and melting with the only difference being that in the glaciation phase, there is a slight bias for cooling and ice formation, in the deglaciation phase, there is a slight bias for warming and ice melt, and in interglacials, though the same warming and cooling cycles are seen at the same pacing (time scale), there is no bias for either warming or cooling. 

Thus in the chaotic sense the only difference between glaciation, deglaciation, and interglacial is that the glaciation leg contains a slight probability advantage to icing and the deglaciation leg enjoys a slight prob ability advantage to melting, with the interglacial having no bias for either cooling or warming. 

1997: Bond, Gerard, et al. “A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates.” science278.5341 (1997): 1257-1266.  Evidence from North Atlantic deep sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly. Pacings of the Holocene events and of abrupt climate shifts during the last glaciation are statistically the same; together, they make up a series of climate shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 ± 500 years. The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climate cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state.

Therefore, Younger Dryas is not an unnatural oddity that requires a unique explanation interms of the abrupt climate change theory of Dansgard-Oeschger but a product of the chaotic nature of the glaiation cycle seen in the video above. The mechanism that drives this chaotic behavior is likely a Hurst Persistence like dynamic in which ice formation favors icing and water formation favors melt.  

THE CHAOTIC NATURE OF THE GLACIATION CYCLE IS DESCRIBED IN A RELATED POST ON THIS SITE: [LINK]

WHERE WE NOTE THAT : {

The Milankovitch theory of the glaciation cycle attempts to link the earth’s precession, tilt, and eccentricity to glaciation cycles. The theory implies that the length of glaciation cycles is fixed at integer multiples of the precession cycle of 26,000 years. But this is not what we see in the data where we find a more random and chaotic time scale of glaciation cycles where icy periods last from 20,000 to 100,000 years and interglacials 7,000 to 20,000 years. These time scales are not integer multiples of the precession period. The chaotic and non-periodic nature of the phenomenon has not been adequately addressed in the Milankovitch theory.} 

Yet, what we find in the literature is that although the Dansgaard-Oeschger abrupt climate change theory by way of the North Atlantic overturning circulation that was formulated for the specific purpose of explaining the Younger Dryas, and although we show above that this explanation is unnecessary when the Younger Dryas is understood in terms of the chaotic nature of glaciation cycles, the Dansgaard-Oeschger abrupt climate change theory has become embedded into the climate change literature and is fequently used in various circumstances that have nothing to do with the Younger Dryas but with new fears that can be created with the new science of “abrupt climate change” by way of changes in the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation caused by AGW.

Further support for the explanation of the Younger Dryas as simply part of the chaotic nature of glaciation cycles is the paper by Carl Wunsch that has severely weakened the case for “abrupt climate change due to changes in the North Atlantic Overtyrning Circulation. It is feared that freshwater discharge from glacial melt in the current warming period will cause a slowdown of the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation portion of the Thermohaline circulation and cause abrupt and dangerous climate change analogous to the Younger Dryas as described in the papers tagged with ACC in the Bibliography below. Outside of the Younger Dryas, these abrupt climate change scenarios are found only in climate models and with large uncertainty in terms of differences from model to model and for different simulations with the same model. A high level of uncertainty is acknowledged by most authors. It implies a low level of information content in the climate model simulation results. In this post we present the case that the high level of interest in the slowdown caused by meltwater in the current warming period is an attempt to insert Younger Dryas realities into AGW without the assumed correspondence between these two climate events.

Changes to the Thermohaline Circulation due to fresh water discharge from de-glaciation and Abrupt Climate Change: The Younger Dryas events are derived from Greenland ice core data and they were primarily a feature of the North Atlantic region. One interpretation of the extreme rapidity of these changes is that they may have been responses to some kind of trigger in the North Atlantic climate system. These rapid changes in the Younger Dryas may have been the creation of changes in North Atlantic Ocean circulation triggered by very large volumes  of glacial meltwater. During periods of intense deglaciation meltwater discharge rates exceeded 13,000 cubic kilometers per year. These observations serve as the rationale for the hypothesis that meltwater discharge weakens the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and associated northward heat flux. Concerns about abrupt climate change in the current AGW warming period due to perturbations of the THC are likely derived from its apparent role in the Younger Dryas. The meridional overturning circulation was slowed to a crawl in the North Atlantic region by way of catastrophic iceberg and meltwater discharge. Following these meltwater events, there was a rapid accelerations of the meridional overturning circulation particularly so in the two strongest regional warming events during deglaciation. These results are thought to confirm the significance of variations in the rate of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation for abrupt climate change”. These fears of abrupt climate change in the current warming period, derived from similar events in the Younger Dryas, is described in seven papers listed in the Bibliography. They are (Rahmstorf 1995), (Manabe 1995), (Clark 2002), (Vellinga 2002), (McManus 2004), (Zhang 2005), (Stouffer 2006).

The essence of all seven papers is that coupled ocean-atmosphere climate models appear to indicate an effect of meltwater in the North Atlantic Thermohaline circulation and that therefore AGW warming may turn out to be much more catastrophic than previously thought. 

An alternative view is presented by Carl Wunsch who argues that “Suggestions that Dansgaard–Oeschger (D–O) events in Greenland are generated by shifts in the North Atlantic Ocean circulation seem highly implausible, given the weak contribution of the high latitude ocean to the meridional flux of heat. A more likely scenario is that changes in the ocean circulation are a consequence of wind shifts. “The ocean is best viewed as a mechanically driven fluid engine, capable of importing, exporting, and transporting vast quantities of heat and freshwater. Although of very great climate influence, this transport is a nearly passive consequence of the mechanical machinery. In its original form, the term “thermohaline circulation” explicitly provided a source of mechanical energy in the form of mixing devices. These devices disappeared in subsequent discussions and extensions of this influential model. For past or future climates, the quantity of first-order importance is the nature of the wind field. It not only shifts the near-surface wind-driven components of the mass flux, but also changes the turbulence at depth; this turbulence appears to control the deep stratification. The wind field will also, in large part, determine the regions of convective sinking and of the resulting 3D water properties. Fluxes and net exports of properties such as heat and carbon are determined by both the mass flux and spatial distribution of the property, and not by either alone. Tidal motions were different in the past than they are today, owing to lower sea level during glacial epochs, and moving continental geometry in the more remote past. The consequent shifts in tidal flow can result in qualitative changes in the oceanic mixing rates, and hence in the mass and consequent property fluxes. The term “thermohaline circulation” should be reserved for the separate circulations of heat and salt, and not conflated into one vague circulation with unknown or impossible energetics. No shortcut exists for determining property fluxes from the mass circulation without knowledge of the corresponding property distribution. His views on paleo climate in general may be found in a related post at this site [LINK] .

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YOUNGER DRYAS & ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Featured Authors

Willi Dansgaard, Richard Fairbanks, Richard Alley, Wally Broecker

1. 1988: Broecker, Wallace S., et al. “The chronology of the last deglaciation: Implications to the cause of the Younger Dryas event.” Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 3.1 (1988): 1-19.  It has long been recognized that the transition from the last glacial to the present interglacial was punctuated by a brief and intense return to cold conditions. This extraordinary event, referred to by European palynologists as the Younger Dryas, was centered in the northern Atlantic basin. Evidence is accumulating that it may have been initiated and terminated by changes in the mode of operation of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Further, it appears that these mode changes may have been triggered by diversions of glacial meltwater between the Mississippi River and the St. Lawrence River drainage systems. We report here Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon results on two strategically located deep‐sea cores. One provides a chronology for surface water temperatures in the northern Atlantic and the other for the meltwater discharge from the Mississippi River. Our objective in obtaining these results was to strengthen our ability to correlate the air temperature history for the northern Atlantic basin with the meltwater history for the Laurentian ice sheet.
2. 1989: Dansgaard, W. H. I. T. E., J. W. C. White, and S. J. Johnsen. “The abrupt termination of the Younger Dryas climate event.” Nature 339.6225 (1989): 532.  PREVIOUS studies on two deep Greenland ice cores have shown that a long series of climate oscillations characterized the late Weichselian glaciation in the North Atlantic region¹, and that the last glacial cold period, the Younger Dryas, ended abruptly 10,700 years ago². Here we further focus on this epoch-defining event, and present detailed heavy-isotope and dust-concentration profiles which suggest that, in less than 20 years, the climate in the North Atlantic region turned into a milder and less stormy regime, as a consequence of a rapid retreat of the sea-ice cover. A warming of 7 °C in South Greenland was completed in about 50 years. 
3. 1989: Fairbanks, Richard G. “A 17,000-year glacio-eustatic sea level record: influence of glacial melting rates on the Younger Dryas event and deep-ocean circulation.” Nature 342.6250 (1989): 637.  Coral reefs drilled offshore of Barbados provide the first continuous and detailed record of sea level change during the last deglaciation. The sea level was 121 ± 5 metres below present level during the last glacial maximum. The deglacial sea level rise was not monotonic; rather, it was marked by two intervals of rapid rise. Varying rates of melt-water discharge to the North Atlantic surface ocean dramatically affected North Atlantic deep-water production and oceanic oxygen isotope chemistry. A global oxygen isotope record for ocean water has been calculated from the Barbados sea level curve, allowing separation of the ice volume component common to all oxygen isotope records measured in deep-sea cores.
4. 1990: Fairbanks, Richard G. “The age and origin of the “Younger Dryas climate event” in Greenland ice cores.” Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology 5.6 (1990): 937-948.  ²³⁰Th/²³⁴U and ¹⁴C dating of Barbados corals has extended the calibration of ¹⁴C years B.P. to calendar years B.P. beyond the 9200 year tree ring series (Bard et al., 1990). This now permits the conversion of ¹⁴C chronozones, which delimit major climate shifts in western Europe, to calendar years. The Younger Dryas chronozone, defined as 11,000 to 10,000 ¹⁴C years B.P., corresponds to 13,000 to 11,700 calendar years B.P. This calibration affects the interpretation of an intensely studied example of the “Younger Dryas climate event,” the δ¹⁸O anomaly between 1785 and 1793 m in Dye 3 ice core. The end of the δ¹⁸O anomaly in Dye 3 ice core has been dated by measurements of ¹⁴C in air bubbles (Andree et al., 1984, 1986) and by annual layer counting (Hammer et al., 1986). The older ¹⁴C dates fall out of the range of the tree ring calibration series but can now be calibrated to calendar years using the Barbados ²³⁰Th/²³⁴U calibration. The ¹⁴C_correctedage for the end of the δ¹⁸O event is 10,300 ± 400 calendar years B.P. compared to the annual layer counting age of 10,720 ± 150 years B.P. Thus, the “Younger Dryas” event in the Dye 3 ice core ends in the Preboreal chronozone (11,700 to 10,000 calendar years B.P.) and is not correlative with the end of the Younger Dryas event identified in pollen records marking European vegetation changes. The end of the Dye 3 δ¹⁸O event is, however, correlative with the end of meltwater pulse IB (Fairbanks, 1989), marking a period of intense deglaciation with meltwater discharge rates exceeding 13,000 km³/yr.
5. 1993: Alley, Richard B., et al. “Abrupt increase in Greenland snow accumulation at the end of the Younger Dryas event.” Nature362.6420 (1993): 527. THE warming at the end of the last glaciation was characterized by a series of abrupt returns to glacial climate, the best-known of which is the Younger Dryas event¹. Despite much study of the causes of this event and the mechanisms by which it ended, many questions remain unresolved¹. Oxygen isotope data from Greenland ice cores^2–4 suggest that the Younger Dryas ended abruptly, over a period of about 50 years; dust concentrations^2,4 in these cores show an even more rapid transition (≲20 years). This extremely short timescale places severe constraints on the mechanisms underlying the transition. But dust concentrations can reflect subtle changes in atmospheric circulation, which need not be associated with a large change in climate. Here we present results from a new Greenland ice core (GISP2) showing that snow accumulation doubled rapidly from the Younger Dryas event to the subsequent Preboreal interval, possibly in one to three years. We also find that the accumulation-rate change from the Oldest Dryas to the Bø11ing/Allerød warm period was large and abrupt. The extreme rapidity of these changes in a variable that directly represents regional climate implies that thalleye events at the end of the last glaciation may have been responses to some kind of threshold or trigger in the North Atlantic climate system.
6. 1994: Bard, Edouard, et al. “The North Atlantic atmosphere-sea surface 14C gradient during the Younger Dryas climatic event.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 126.4 (1994): 275-287. We attempt to quantify the ¹⁴C difference between the atmosphere and the North Atlantic surface during a prominent climatic period of the last deglaciation, the Younger Dryas event (YD). Our working hypothesis is that the North Atlantic may have experienced a measurable change in ¹⁴C reservoir age due to large changes of the polar front position and variations in the mode and rate of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production. We dated contemporaneous samples of terrestrial plant remains and sea surface carbonates in order to evaluate the past atmosphere-sea surface ¹⁴C gradient. We selected terrestrial vegetal macrofossils and planktonic foraminifera (Neogloboquadrina pachyderma left coiling) mixed with the same volcanic tephra (the Vedde Ash Bed) which occurred during the YD and which can be recognized in North European lake sediments and North Atlantic deep-sea sediments. Based on AMS ages from two Norwegian sites, we obtained about 10,300 yr BP for the ‘atmospheric’ ¹⁴C age of the volcanic eruption. Foraminifera from four North Atlantic deep-sea cores selected for their high sedimentation rates ( > 10 cm kyr⁻¹) were dated by AMS (21 samples). For each core the raw ¹⁴C ages assigned to the ash layer peak is significantly older than the ¹⁴C age obtained on land. Part of this discrepancy is due to bioturbation, which is shown by numerical modelling. Nevertheless, after correction of a bioturbation bias, the mean ¹⁴C age obtained on the planktonic foraminifera is still about 11,000–11,100 yr BP. The atmosphere-sea surface ¹⁴C difference was roughly 700–800 yr during the YD, whereas today it is 400–500 yr. A reduced advection of surface waters to the North Atlantic and the presence of sea ice are identified as potential causes of the high ¹⁴C reservoir age during the YD.
7. ACC 1995: Rahmstorf, Stefan. “Bifurcations of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to changes in the hydrological cycle.” Nature 378.6553 (1995): 145.  The sensitivity of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation to the input of fresh water is studied using a global ocean circulation model coupled to a simplified model atmosphere. Owing to the nonlinearity of the system, moderate changes in freshwater input can induce transitions between different equilibrium states, leading to substantial changes in regional climate. As even local changes in freshwater flux are capable of triggering convective instability, quite small perturbations to the present hydrological cycle may lead to temperature changes of several degrees on timescales of only a few years.
8. ACC 1995: Manabe, Syukuro, and Ronald J. Stouffer. “Simulation of abrupt climate change induced by freshwater input to the North Atlantic Ocean.” Nature 378.6553 (1995): 165.  Temperature records from Greenland ice cores^1,2 suggest that large and abrupt changes of North Atlantic climate occurred frequently during both glacial and post glacial periods; one example is the Younger Dryas cold event. Broecker³ speculated that these changes result from rapid changes in the thermohaline circulation of the Atlantic Ocean, which were caused by the release of large amounts of melt water from continental ice sheets. Here we describe an attempt to explore this intriguing phenomenon using a coupled ocean–atmosphere model. In response to a massive surface flux of fresh water to the northern North Atlantic of the model, the thermohaline circulation weakens abruptly, intensifies and weakens again, followed by a gradual recovery, generating episodes that resemble the abrupt changes of the ocean–atmosphere system recorded in ice and deep-sea cores⁴. The associated change of surface air temperature is particularly large in the northern North Atlantic Ocean and its neighbourhood, but is relatively small in the rest of the world.
9. 1997: Bond, Gerard, et al. “A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates.” science278.5341 (1997): 1257-1266.  Evidence from North Atlantic deep sea cores reveals that abrupt shifts punctuated what is conventionally thought to have been a relatively stable Holocene climate. During each of these episodes, cool, ice-bearing waters from north of Iceland were advected as far south as the latitude of Britain. At about the same times, the atmospheric circulation above Greenland changed abruptly. Pacings of the Holocene events and of abrupt climate shifts during the last glaciation are statistically the same; together, they make up a series of climate shifts with a cyclicity close to 1470 ± 500 years. The Holocene events, therefore, appear to be the most recent manifestation of a pervasive millennial-scale climate cycle operating independently of the glacial-interglacial climate state. Amplification of the cycle during the last glaciation may have been linked to the North Atlantic’s thermohaline circulation.
10. 1997: Alley, Richard B., et al. “Holocene climatic instability: A prominent, widespread event 8200 yr ago.” Geology 25.6 (1997): 483-486.  The most prominent Holocene climatic event in Greenland ice-core proxies, with approximately half the amplitude of the Younger Dryas, occurred ∼8000 to 8400 yr ago. This Holocene event affected regions well beyond the North Atlantic basin, as shown by synchronous increases in windblown chemical indicators together with a significant decrease in methane. Widespread proxy records from the tropics to the north polar regions show a short-lived cool, dry, or windy event of similar age. The spatial pattern of terrestrial and marine changes is similar to that of the Younger Dryas event, suggesting a role for North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Possible forcings identified thus far for this Holocene event are small, consistent with recent model results indicating high sensitivity and strong linkages in the climatic system.
11. 1998: Severinghaus, Jeffrey P., et al. “Timing of abrupt climate change at the end of the Younger Dryas interval from thermally fractionated gases in polar ice.” Nature 391.6663 (1998): 141.  Rapid temperature change fractionates gas isotopes in unconsolidated snow, producing a signal that is preserved in trapped air bubbles as the snow forms ice. The fractionation of nitrogen and argon isotopes at the end of the Younger Dryas cold interval, recorded in Greenland ice, demonstrates that warming at this time was abrupt. This warming coincides with the onset of a prominent rise in atmospheric methane concentration, indicating that the climate change was synchronous (within a few decades) over a region of at least hemispheric extent, and providing constraints on previously proposed mechanisms of climate change at this time. The depth of the nitrogen-isotope signal relative to the depth of the climate change recorded in the ice matrix indicates that, during the Younger Dryas, the summit of Greenland was 15 ± 3 °C colder than today.
12. 1997: Broecker, Wallace S. “Thermohaline circulation, the Achilles heel of our climate system: Will man-made CO2 upset the current balance?.” Science 278.5343 (1997): 1582-1588.  During the last glacial period, Earth’s climate underwent frequent large and abrupt global changes. This behavior appears to reflect the ability of the ocean’s thermohaline circulation to assume more than one mode of operation. The record in ancient sedimentary rocks suggests that similar abrupt changes plagued the Earth at other times. The trigger mechanism for these reorganizations may have been the antiphasing of polar insolation associated with orbital cycles. Were the ongoing increase in atmospheric CO₂ levels to trigger another such reorganization, it would be bad news for a world striving to feed 11 to 16 billion people.
13. 1999: Marchal, O., et al. “Modelling the concentration of atmospheric CO2 during the Younger Dryas climate event.” Climate Dynamics 15.5 (1999): 341-354.  The Younger Dryas (YD, dated between 12.7–11.6 ky BP in the GRIP ice core, Central Greenland) is a distinct cold period in the North Atlantic region during the last deglaciation. A popular, but controversial hypothesis to explain the cooling is a reduction of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) and associated northward heat flux as triggered by glacial meltwater. Recently, a CH₄-based synchronization of GRIP δ¹⁸O and Byrd CO₂ records (West Antarctica) indicated that the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ (CO^atm₂) rose steadily during the YD, suggesting a minor influence of the THC on CO^atm₂ at that time. Here we show that the CO2^atm change in a zonally averaged, circulation-biogeochemistry ocean model when THC is collapsed by freshwater flux anomaly is consistent with the Byrd record. Cooling in the North Atlantic has a small effect on CO2^atm in this model, because it is spatially limited and compensated by far-field changes such as a warming in the Southern Ocean. The modelled Southern Ocean warming is in agreement with the anti-phase evolution of isotopic temperature records from GRIP (Northern Hemisphere) and from Byrd and Vostok (East Antarctica) during the YD. δ¹³C depletion and PO₄ enrichment are predicted at depth in the North Atlantic, but not in the Southern Ocean. This could explain a part of the controversy about the intensity of the THC during the YD. Potential weaknesses in our interpretation of the Byrd CO₂ record in terms of THC changes are discussed.
14. ACC 2002: Clark, Peter U., et al. “The role of the thermohaline circulation in abrupt climate change.” Nature 415.6874 (2002): 863.  The possibility of a reduced Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations has been demonstrated in a number of simulations with general circulation models of the coupled ocean–atmosphere system. But it remains difficult to assess the likelihood of future changes in the thermohaline circulation, mainly owing to poorly constrained model parameterizations and uncertainties in the response of the climate system to greenhouse warming. Analyses of past abrupt climate changes help to solve these problems. Data and models both suggest that abrupt climate change during the last glaciation originated through changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to small changes in the hydrological cycle. Atmospheric and oceanic responses to these changes were then transmitted globally through a number of feedbacks. The palaeoclimate data and the model results also indicate that the stability of the thermohaline circulation depends on the mean climate state.
15. ACC 2002: Vellinga, Michael, and Richard A. Wood. “Global climatic impacts of a collapse of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation.” Climatic change 54.3 (2002): 251-267.  Part of the uncertainty in predictions by climate models results from limited knowledge of the stability of the thermohaline circulation of the ocean. Here we provide estimates of the response of pre-industrial surface climate variables should the thermohalinecirculation in the Atlantic Ocean collapse. For this we have used HadCM3, an ocean-atmosphere general circulation model that is run without flux adjustments. In this model a temporary collapse was forced by applying a strong initial freshening to the top layers of the NorthAtlantic. In the first five decades after the collapse surface air temperature response is dominated by cooling of much of the Northern Hemisphere (locally up to 8 °C, 1–2 °C on average) and weak warming of the Southern Hemisphere (locally up to 1 °C, 0.2 °C onaverage). Response is strongest around the North Atlantic but significant changes occur over the entire globe and highlight rapid connections. Precipitation is reduced over large parts of the Northern Hemisphere. A southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone over the Atlantic and eastern Pacific creates changes in precipitation that are particularly large in South America and Africa. Colder and drier conditions in much of the Northern Hemisphere reduces oil moisture and net primary productivity of the terrestrial vegetation. This is only partly compensated by more productivity in the Southern Hemisphere.The total global net primary productivity by the vegetation decreases by 5%. It should be noted, however, that in this version of the model the vegetation distribution cannot change, and atmospheric carbon levels are also fixed. After about 100 years the model’s thermohaline circulation has largely recovered, and most climatic anomalies disappear.
16. 2003: Alley, Richard B., et al. “Abrupt climate change.” science299.5615 (2003): 2005-2010.  Large, abrupt, and widespread climate changes with major impacts have occurred repeatedly in the past, when the Earth system was forced across thresholds. Although abrupt climate changes can occur for many reasons, it is conceivable that human forcing of climate change is increasing the probability of large, abrupt events. Were such an event to recur, the economic and ecological impacts could be large and potentially serious. Unpredictability exhibited near climate thresholds in simple models shows that some uncertainty will always be associated with projections. In light of these uncertainties, policy-makers should consider expanding research into abrupt climate change, improving monitoring systems, and taking actions designed to enhance the adaptability and resilience of ecosystems and economies.
17. ACC 2004: McManus, Jerry F., et al. “Collapse and rapid resumption of Atlantic meridional circulation linked to deglacial climate changes.” Nature 428.6985 (2004): 834. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is widely believed to affect climate. Changes in ocean circulation have been inferred from records of the deep water chemical composition derived from sedimentary nutrient proxies¹, but their impact on climate is difficult to assess because such reconstructions provide insufficient constraints on the rate of overturning². Here we report measurements of ²³¹Pa/²³⁰Th, a kinematic proxy for the meridional overturning circulation, in a sediment core from the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. We find that the meridional overturning was nearly, or completely, eliminated during the coldest deglacial interval in the North Atlantic region, beginning with the catastrophic iceberg discharge Heinrich event H1, 17,500 yr ago, and declined sharply but briefly into the Younger Dryas cold event, about 12,700 yr ago. Following these cold events, the ²³¹Pa/²³⁰Th record indicates that rapid accelerations of the meridional overturning circulation were concurrent with the two strongest regional warming events during deglaciation. These results confirm the significance of variations in the rate of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation for abrupt climate changes.
18. ACC 2005: Zhang, Rong, and Thomas L. Delworth. “Simulated tropical response to a substantial weakening of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation.” Journal of Climate 18.12 (2005): 1853-1860.  In this study, a mechanism is demonstrated whereby a large reduction in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) can induce global-scale changes in the Tropics that are consistent with paleoevidence of the global synchronization of millennial-scale abrupt climate change. Using GFDL’s newly developed global coupled ocean–atmosphere model (CM2.0), the global response to a sustained addition of freshwater to the model’s North Atlantic is simulated. This freshwater forcing substantially weakens the Atlantic THC, resulting in a southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone over the Atlantic and Pacific, an El Niño–like pattern in the southeastern tropical Pacific, and weakened Indian and Asian summer monsoons through air–sea interactions.
19. ACC 2006:  Stouffer, Ronald J., et al. “Investigating the causes of the response of the thermohaline circulation to past and future climate changes.” Journal of climate 19.8 (2006): 1365-1387.  The Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC) is an important part of the earth’s climate system. Previous research has shown large uncertainties in simulating future changes in this critical system. The simulated THC response to idealized freshwater perturbations and the associated climate changes have been intercompared as an activity of World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project/Paleo-Modeling Intercomparison Project (CMIP/PMIP) committees. This intercomparison among models ranging from the earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs) to the fully coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) seeks to document and improve understanding of the causes of the wide variations in the modeled THC response. The robustness of particular simulation features has been evaluated across the model results. In response to 0.1-Sv (1 Sv ≡ 10⁶ m³ s⁻¹) freshwater input in the northern North Atlantic, the multimodel ensemble mean THC weakens by 30% after 100 yr. All models simulate some weakening of the THC, but no model simulates a complete shutdown of the THC. The multimodel ensemble indicates that the surface air temperature could present a complex anomaly pattern with cooling south of Greenland and warming over the Barents and Nordic Seas. The Atlantic ITCZ tends to shift southward. In response to 1.0-Sv freshwater input, the THC switches off rapidly in all model simulations. A large cooling occurs over the North Atlantic. The annual mean Atlantic ITCZ moves into the Southern Hemisphere. Models disagree in terms of the reversibility of the THC after its shutdown. In general, the EMICs and AOGCMs obtain similar THC responses and climate changes with more pronounced and sharper patterns in the AOGCMs.

SUMMARY: The Eemian interglacial started 130,000 years ago and ended about 115,000 years ago when the Last Glacial Period got started. Despite the usual claim that the intensity of “post industrial anthropogenic global warming” is unprecedented, it is generally agreed that the Eemian, at times, was warmer than the the present by as much as 5ºC. In general, the Eemian is described as hotter than today with January temperatures 3ºC to 5ºC higher and July temperatures 2ºC to 4ºC higher but with large fluctuations in temperature between conditions hotter than today and colder than today. The Eemian is characterized by rapid fluctuations between warm and cold periods in multi-decadal time scales. Fluctuations in winter temperatures correlate with rise and fall of sea level. The changes are described as abrupt climate change over decades with great regional variability but with rapid recovery from these changes. It is generally agreed that Eemian climate was more unstable than the Holocene with multiple cold periods lasting from decades to centuries. A remarkable shift occurred about 5,000 years into the Eemian when it cooled by 6ºC to 10ºC before rising again to warm conditions.

A significant feature of the Eemian is sea level rise and fluctuations in sea level caused by fluctuations in temperature. Sea level rise of 3 to 6 meters are reported by some authors and 5 to 9 meters by others and is generally attributed to a complete disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and it was likely the main source of the dramatic sea level rise found in the data. Some authors cite sudden warming of 5ºC to 10ºC and “massive surges of icebergs into the North Atlantic” as a perturbation of ocean circulation that was responsible for abrupt climate change in the Eemian. Details of these findings may be found in the Eemian Bibliography presented below.
CONCLUSION: We propose in this post that the fear of ice sheet collapse and devastating sea level rise in the current warming episode described by James Hansen and by other climate scientists can be related to events in the Eemian but not to the post LIA period of the Holocene. 

FIGURE 1: JAMES HANSEN ON EEMIAN SEA LEVEL RISE

FIGURE 1: LANDSCAPE, ANIMALS, AND HUMANS OF THE EEMIAN

FIGURE 2: SINCE THE EEMIAN: THE LAST GLACIAL AND THE HOLOCENE

FIGURE 3: THE GLACIATION AND INTER-GLACIALS IN THE LAST 400,000 YEARS

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. A principal feature of the effort by climate science and the UN to motivate an overhaul of the world’s energy infrastructure away from hydrocarbon fuels has been a repeated invocation of the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and of the devastation by sea level rise that the melting ice sheets would cause. Some examples of the obsession of climate science with the collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, even when the details in the data are at odds with this assessment, are listed in paragraph#7 to paragraph#28 below. James Hansen, a high profile climate scientist and activist, has been the primary spokesman for the ice sheet collapse and sea level rise scenarios and of the necessity of attenuating these changes by cutting emissions. Figure 1 is a clip from a Youtube video [LINK]  in which Hansen describes his sea level rise fears. His reference to the Eemian Interglacial period to describe the horror of ice sheet collapse and sea level rise is noteworthy. The fear of “extreme weather” and of “abrupt climate change” also plays a significant role in the case for “climate action” to curtain the current warming trend; and we show here that they too may have their roots in the Eemian. In this post we present the case that much of the most dramatic and catastrophic fears of human caused global warming and climate change “since pre-industrial times” ostensibly by way of fossil fuel emissions from the industrial economy, derives from prior natural events. In a related post, a case was presented that the fear of ocean acidification by carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and its species extinction possibilities derive from an ocean acidification and extinction devastation in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)  [LINK] . Other oft repeated alarms about the current warming, that of rising ocean heat content and a runaway positive feedback of methane hydrate decomposition may also have been inspired by the PETM. 
2. We live in an ice age in which the world is mostly an ice planet during glacial periods (about 90% of the time) but with brief balmy interglacial periods between them (about 10% of the time). We are currently in one of these brief balmy interglacials but strangely fearful of the warmth as an unwanted and dangerous impact of a misalignment between human activity and nature. Our interglacial is  called the Holocene. It evolved about 11,700 years ago (YA) when the Last Glacial Period (115,000YA – 12000YA) receded. The interglacial prior to the Last Glacial Period is called the Eemian. These transitions are depicted in a video clip in Figure 2 taken from a Youtube video [LINK] . It shows transitions in the degree of glaciation from the Eemian interglacial through the glaciation of the Last Glacial Period to its end in the balmy warmth of the Holocene interglacial where we are now. Figure 3 is a video clip of three glaciation-interglacial cycles over a period of 400,000 years. This post is a description of the Eemian interglacial and its relevance to the widespread fear of anthropogenic global warming since the 1980s apparently sparked by rising temperatures since the brief glaciation of the Little Ice Age (LIA) described in a related post [LINK] .
3. The Eemian interglacial started 130,000 years ago and ended about 115,000 years ago when the Last Glacial Period got started. Paleo climate research on the Eemian interglacial is presented below as a bibliography. The data are mostly from Greenland ice cores and pollen and the geographical areas most studied are Europe and the Arctic. An interesting feature of this line of research, missing in the study of AGW is that winter and summer temperatures are studied separately as their trend behavior can be very different. Despite the usual claim that the intensity of “post industrial anthropogenic global warming” is unprecedented  [LINK] , it is generally agreed that the Eemian, at times, was warmer than the the present by as much as 5ºC (an opposing view in (Hansen 2015) is that it was never more than 1ºC warmer). In general, the Eemian is described as hotter than today with January (boreal winter) temperatures 3ºC to 5ºC higher and July (boreal summer) temperatures 2ºC to 4ºC higher but with large fluctuations in temperature between conditions hotter than today and colder than today. However, three stages of the Eemian are described by most authors as warmer than today, colder than today, and about the same as today over decades and centuries. Rapid fluctuations between warm and cold periods in multi-decadal time scales are found. Fluctuations in winter temperatures correlate with rise and fall of sea level. These changes can be described as abrupt climate change over decades with great regional variability but with an ability of nature for rapid recovery from abrupt changes. It is generally agreed that Eemian climate was more unstable than the Holocene with multiple cold periods lasting from decades to centuries. A remarkable shift occurred about 5,000 years into the Eemian when it cooled by 6ºC to 10ºC before rising again to warm conditions. There is some disagreement in this regard with some authors presenting evidence of a more stable Eemian (Kukla 2000).
4. A significant feature of the Eemian is sea level rise and fluctuations in sea level caused by fluctuations in temperature. Sea level rise of 3 to 6 meters are reported by some authors and 5 to 9 meters by others and is generally attributed to a complete disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. (It is noted that global mean sea level would rise by 6 to 7 meters today if either of the two ice sheets melted completely but it is generally agreed that the Greenland ice sheet was smaller at that time and its complete melt could not have contributed more than 5 meters of sea level rise. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet was likely the main source of the dramatic sea level rise found in the data. Some authors cite sudden warming of 5ºC to 10ºC and “massive surges of icebergs into the North Atlantic” as a perturbation of ocean circulation that was responsible for abrupt climate change in the Eemian. Details of these findings may be found in the Eemian Bibliography presented below.
5. CONCLUSION: We propose in this post that the fear of ice sheet collapse and devastating sea level rise in the current warming episode described by James Hansen and by other climate scientists  (see “AGW COLLAPSE OF ICE SHEETS” bibliography below) can be related to events in the Eemian but not to the post LIA period of the Holocene. The concern we raise in this post is that there is not a sufficient correspondence between these two events, i.e., the Eemian and the post Little Ice Age warming usually attributed to the use of hydrocarbon fuels by humans, to draw conclusions about one from the details of the other.
6. EXAMPLES OF EEMIAN NIGHTMARES IN THE HOLOCENE
7. 1999: An article in the Journal Science says that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is a natural event not related to global warming contrary to claims by climate scientists. The WAIS is indeed melting quite rapidly receding at the rate of 400 feet per year but it has been doing so for thousands of years long before human activity and greenhouse gas emissions, having receded 800 miles since the last ice age. If the process continues unchecked it will melt completely in another 7000 years.Therefore it seems unlikely that the event is linked to human activity or that the time frame of a collapse of the ice shelf could fall within 100 years.
8. 2001 ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE: A report by the National Research Council (USA) says that global warming may trigger climate changes so abrupt that ecosystems will not be able to adapt. Look for local or short term cooling, floods, droughts, and other unexpected changes. A growing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels is to blame. Some regional climates have changed by as much as 10C in 10 years. Antarctica’s largest glaciers are rapidly thinning, and in the last 10 years have lost up to 150 feet of thickness in some places, enough to raise global sea levels by 0.4 mm. Global warming is a real problem and it is getting worse.
9. 2002, ICE SHELF COLLAPSE: A piece of ice the size of Rhode island broke off the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica and within a month it dissipated sending a huge flotsam of ice into the sea. At about the same time an iceberg the size of Delaware broke off the Thwaites Glacier. A few months ago parts of the Ross ice shelf had broken off in a similar way. These events serve as a dramatic reminders that global warming is real and its effects are potentially catastrophic and underscores the urgent need for a binding international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
10. 2004: An unprecedented 4-year study of the Arctic shows that polar bears, walruses, and some seals are becoming extinct. Arctic summer sea ice may disappear entirely. Combined with a rapidly melting Greenland ice sheet, it will raise the sea level 3 feet by 2100 inundating lowlands from Florida to Bangladesh. Average winter temperatures in Alaska and the rest of the Arctic are projected to rise an additional 7 to 13 degrees over the next 100 years because of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. The area is warming twice as fast as anywhere else because of global air circulation patterns and natural feedback loops, such as less ice reflecting sunlight, leading to increased warming at ground level and more ice melt. Native peoples’ ways of life are threatened. Animal migration patterns have changed, and the thin sea ice and thawing tundra make it too dangerous for humans to hunt and travel.
11. 2004: A meltdown of the massive Greenland ice sheet, which is more than 3km-thick would raise sea levels by an average seven meters, threatening countries such as Bangladesh, certain islands in the Pacific and some parts of Florida. Greenland’s huge ice sheet could melt within the next thousand years if emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and global warming are not reduced.
12. 2004: The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report says: increasing greenhouse gases from human activities is causing the Arctic to warm twice as fast as the rest of the planet; in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia winter temperatures have risen by 2C to 4C in the last 50 years; the Arctic will warm by 4C to 7C by 2100. A portion of Greenland’s ice sheet will melt; global sea levels will rise; global warming will intensify. Greenland contains enough melting ice to raise sea levels by 7 meters; Bangkok, Manila, Dhaka, Florida, Louisiana, and New Jersey are at risk of inundation; thawing permafrost and rising seas threaten Arctic coastal regions; climate change will accelerate and bring about profound ecological and social changes; the Arctic is experiencing the most rapid and severe climate change on earth and it’s going to get a lot worse; Arctic summer sea ice will decline by 50% to 100%; polar bears will be driven towards extinction; this report is an urgent SOS for the Arctic; forest fires and insect infestations will increase in frequency and intensity; changing vegetation and rising sea levels will shrink the tundra to its lowest level in 21000 years; vanishing breeding areas for birds and grazing areas for animals will cause extinctions of many species; “if we limit emission of heat trapping carbon dioxide we can still help protect the Arctic and slow global warming”.
13. 2007: A comparison of Landsat photos taken on 8/11/1985 and 9/5/2002 shows that global warming caused by our use of fossil fuels is melting the massive Greenland ice sheet and exposing the rocky peninsula beneath the ice previously covered by ice.
14. 2007: Climate scientists say that the current rate of increase in the use of fossil fuels will melt the Greenland ice sheet and cause sea levels to rise by 7 meters in 100 years and devastate low-lying countries like Bangladesh. When these estimates were challenged and their internal inconsistencies exposed, the forecast was quietly revised downward 100-fold from 7 meters to 7 centimeters on their website but the news media alarm about 7 meters continued unabated with “thousands of years” inserted in place of “100 years. 
15. 2008: IMMINENT COLLAPSE OF PETERMANN GLACIER IN GREENLAND
    Climate scientists looking through satellite pictures found a crack in the Petermann glacier in Greenland and concluded that it could speed up sea level rise because huge chunks of ice the size of Manhattan were hemorrhaging off. Yet, scientists who has been travelling to Greenland for years to study glaciers say that the crack in the glacier is normal and not different from other cracks seen in the 1990s.
16. 2008: When there was a greater focus on Antarctica climate scientists said that global warming was melting the West Antarctic Ice Shelf; but the melting was found to be localized and with an active volcano underneath the melting and the attention of “melt forecast” climate science shifted to Arctic sea ice after the an extensive summer melt was observed in September 2007.
17. 2008: Climate scientists have determined that Adelie penguins in Antarctica are threatened because climate change is melting Antarctic glaciers although it is not clear whether the melting is caused greenhouse gas emissions or by volcanic activity underneath the ice.
18. 2008: Mt. Erebus along with most of the mountains in Antarctica are volcanic mountains and it is now known with certainty that volcanic activity under the ice there is causing great amounts of ice to melt and to cause glaciers to flow faster. The attempt by climate scientists to represent these events as climate change phenomena is inconsistent with this reality.
19. 2008: THE FIRE BELOW: A volcano under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, that last erupted 2000 years ago, is now active and responsible for melting ice and for retreating glaciers in that part of the continent (The fire below, Bangkok Post, April 28, 2008). Yet, climate scientists claim that these changes are man-made and that they are caused by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels as predicted by their computer model of the earth’s climate.
20. 2009: Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have caused the Wilkins Ice Shelf to break up. If all of the land based ice in Antarctica melted it would raise the sea level by 80 meters. 
21. 2009: Human caused global warming is causing havoc in Antarctica with potentially incalculable results. Over one hundred icebergs broke off and a huge flotilla of them are floating up to New Zealand. 
22. 2009: Our carbon dioxide emissions are causing the East Antarctic ice shelf to lose 57 billion tonnes of ice per year and that if CO2 emissions are not reduced this process could raise sea levels by 5 meters.
23. 2009: Temperature data 1957-2008 show that the whole of Antarctica including Western Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula, and Eastern Antarctica, is warming due to CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
24. 2009: Man-made global warming is causing Greenland’s glaciers to melt at an alarming rate. By the year 2100 all the ice there will have melted causing a calamitous rise in the sea level that will inundate Bangladesh, the Maldives, Bangkok, New Orleans, and atolls in the Pacific. 
25. 2009: Climate scientists say that the melting of Antarctica is more severe than “previously thought” because the melt is not limited to the Antarctic Peninsula but extends to West Antarctica as well. The melt could cause devastating sea level rise. (although new data show that the West Antarctic ice shelf collapses every 40,000 years or so and that this cyclical process has been regular feature of this ice shelf for millions of years (Antarctica ice collapses were regular, Bangkok Post, March 19, 2009). These melting episodes can raise the sea level by as much as 5 meters but the process takes a thousand years or more.
26. 2009: Climate scientists say that the Wilkins Ice Shelf collapse is caused by warming of the Antarctic Peninsula due to man-made “global climate change”.
27. 2009: In 2005 two glaciers in Greenland were found to be moving faster than they were in 2001. Scientists concluded from these data that the difference observed was a a long term trend of glacial melt in Greenland and that carbon dioxide was the cause of this trend. The assumed trend was then extrapolated forward and we were told that carbon dioxide would cause the land based ice mass of Greenland to be discharged to the sea and raise the sea level by six meters. They said that the only way out of the devastation was to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. However, in 2009, just before a meeting in Copenhagen where these deep cuts in emissions were to be negotiated, it was found that the glaciers had returned to their normal rate of discharge.
28. 2009: Some glaciers on north and northeast Greenland terminate in fiords with long glacier tongues that extend into the sea. It is found that the warming of the oceans caused by our use of fossil fuels is melting these tongues and raising the specter of devastation by sea level rise.

EEMIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Featured Authors

Katrine Andersen, Michael Field, Eugene Karabonov, Willem Vandeberg, Andrew Weaver, Waldo Zagwijn

1. 1993: Dansgaard, Willi, et al. “Evidence for general instability of past climate from a 250-kyr ice-core record.” Nature 364.6434 (1993): 218.  RECENT results^1,2 from two ice cores drilled in central Greenland have revealed large, abrupt climate changes of at least regional extent during the late stages of the last glaciation, suggesting that climate in the North Atlantic region is able to reorganize itself rapidly, perhaps even within a few decades. Here we present a detailed stable-isotope record for the full length of the Greenland Ice-core Project Summit ice core, extending over the past 250 kyr according to a calculated timescale. We find that climate instability was not confined to the last glaciation, but appears also to have been marked during the last interglacial (as explored more fully in a companion paper³) and during the previous Saale–Holstein glacial cycle. This is in contrast with the extreme stability of the Holocene, suggesting that recent climate stability may be the exception rather than the rule. The last interglacial seems to have lasted longer than is implied by the deep-sea SPECMAP record⁴, in agreement with other land-based observations^5,6. We suggest that climate instability in the early part of the last interglacial may have delayed the melting of the Saalean ice sheets in America and Eurasia, perhaps accounting for this discrepancy.
2. 1994: Field, Michael H., Brian Huntley, and Helmut Müller. “Eemian climate fluctuations observed in a European pollen record.” Nature 371.6500 (1994): 779. Recent ice-core data from Greenland^1,2 suggest that the climate during the last interglacial period the Eemian was more unstable than that of the Holocene (about 10,000 years ago to the present), being characterized in particular by a series of cold episodes each lasting about 70 to 750 years. Subsequent analysis of a second Greenland ice core^3,4, however, failed to corroborate the details of these Eemian climate fluctuations, a result that may be attributable to the effects of ice flow⁴. To resolve this discrepancy, it is imperative to seek alternative sources of information about the Eemian climate. Here we present climate reconstructions from pollen data from the annually laminated Eemian lake-sediment record at Bispingen⁵ and from the Eemian and Holocene peat records at La Grande Pile⁶. The former record indicates that an initially warm period of 2,900 yr was followed by cooling and a series of colder episodes, one of which had winter temperatures comparable to those at the end of the preceding cold stage. The latter records show greater climate instability during the Eemian than the Holocene. These results are in broad agreement with those from the GRIP ice core, but contrast both with the GISP2 core^3,4 and with recent high-resolution marine records from the North Atlantic^7,8.
3. 1994: Weaver, Andrew J., and Tertia MC Hughes. “Rapid interglacial climate fluctuations driven by North Atlantic ocean circulation.” Nature 367.6462 (1994): 447. RECENT data from the GRIP ice core^1–3 in Greenland suggest that the climate of the last Eemian interglacial period was much less stable than that of the present interglacial. Rapid transitions between warm and cold periods were found to occur on timescales of just a few decades. The North Atlantic climate during the Eemian period was also shown to be characterized by three states, respectively warmer than, similar to and colder than today^1,2. Recent data from the nearby GISP2 ice core have revealed some discrepancies with these findings, which remain to be resolved^4,5. Here we present simulations using an idealized global ocean model, which suggest that the North Atlantic ocean has three distinct circulation modes, each of which corresponds to a distinct climate state. We find that adding a simple random component to the mean freshwater flux (which forces circulation) can induce rapid transitions between these three modes. We suggest that increased variability in the hydrological cycle associated with the warmer Eemian climate could have caused transition between these distinct modes in the North Atlantic circulation, which may in turn account for the apparent rapid variability of the Eemian climate.
4. 1994: Keigwin, Lloyd D., et al. “The role of the deep ocean in North Atlantic climate change between 70 and 130 kyr ago.” Nature371.6495 (1994): 323.  THE suggestion¹ that changes in North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production are linked through surface heat flux to the atmospheric temperature over Greenland is supported by earlier indications^2,3 that NADW production decreased during glacial times, and by the subsequent finding^4–6 that it declined during the Younger Dryas cool period at the end of the last glaciation. Changes in North Atlantic surface temperatures have been found⁷ to mirror high-frequency temperature changes recorded in Greenland ice cores over the past 80 kyr, but the connection to abyssal circulation has yet to be established, except for one or two isolated oscillations^8,9. Here we present carbon and oxygen isotope analyses of benthic foraminifera in a high-resolution North Atlantic deep-sea sediment core for the period ^70–130kyr ago. These data allow us to reconstruct the history of NADW production, which shows a close correlation with Greenland climate variability for much of this time interval, suggesting that the climate influence of NADW variability was widespread. We see no evidence, however, for changes in NADW production during substage 5e (the Eemian interglacial period), in contrast with recent ice-core data¹⁰which suggest severe climate instability in Greenland during this time period. Our results may support suggestions, based on data from a second ice core, that this apparent instability is an artefact caused by ice flow¹¹. Alternatively, the Eemian climate instability may have had a different origin from the subsequent climate events.
5. 1995: Blanchon, Paul, and John Shaw. “Reef drowning during the last deglaciation: evidence for catastrophic sea-level rise and ice-sheet collapse.” Geology 23.1 (1995): 4-8.  Elevations and ages of drowned Acropora palmata reefs from the Caribbean-Atlantic region document three catastrophic, metre-scale sea-level–rise events during the last deglaciation. These catastrophic rises were synchronous with (1) collapse of the Laurentide and Antarctic ice sheets, (2) dramatic reorganization of ocean-atmosphere circulation, and (3) releases of huge volumes of subglacial and proglacial meltwater. This correlation suggests that release of stored meltwater periodically destabilized ice sheets, causing them to collapse and send huge fleets of icebergs into the Atlantic. Massive inputs of ice not only produced catastrophic sea-level rise, drowning reefs and destabilizing other ice sheets, but also rapidly reduced the elevation of the Laurentide ice sheet, flipping atmospheric circulation patterns and forcing warm equatorial waters into the frigid North Atlantic. Such dramatic evidence of catastrophic climate and sea-level change during deglaciation has potentially disastrous implications for the future, especially as the stability of remaining ice sheets—such as in West Antarctica—is in question
6. 1996: Zagwijn, W. H. “An analysis of Eemian climate in western and central Europe.” Quaternary Science Reviews 15.5-6 (1996): 451-469. On the basis of 31 pollen diagrams and additional data for botanical macrofossils an analysis is made of the Last Interglacial Eemian climatic history in Western and Central Europe. The main tool for this analysis is the climatic indicator species method. Only selected woody species are used for the quantification of data. Partial climatic range diagrams are presented for: Abies alba, Acer monspessulanum, Acer tataricum, Buxus sempervirens, Tilia tomentosa. The problem of time correlation and pollen zonation of the Eemian is discussed. The climatic analysis itself is based on an improved version of the indicator species method. In this version not every site is analysed for its climatic values. Instead maps and tables on the migrational history of Hedera, Ilex, Buxus, Abies and species of Acer, Tilia and Abies are the basis for climatic maps showing respectively January and July isotherms for the periods of the Corylus zone (E4a) and the Carpinus zone (E5). It is concluded that mean January temperatures were as much as 3°C higher at Amsterdam (The Netherlands), than at present, and mean temperatures in July were 2°C higher. However, the thermal maximum in winter was later (zone E5) than the summer thermal maximum (zone E4a). Winter temperatures changed parallel to rise and fall of global sea-level. Precipitation changes are more difficult to estimate. In the first part of the Eemian precipitation must have been relatively low, but from zone E4b onward it increased to higher values, reaching 800 mm and probably substantially more in zones E5 and E6. Hence the Eemian climate was in its beginning relatively more contintental, and later (from E4b onward) more oceanic. However, as compared with the Holocene, the Eemian climate was, generally speaking, more oceanic.
7. 1996: Litt, Thomas, Frank W. Junge, and Tanja Böttger. “Climate during the Eemian in north-central Europe—a critical review of the palaeobotanical and stable isotope data from central Germany.” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 5.3 (1996): 247-256.  This paper reviews the evidence from terrestrial palaeoenvironmental records in north-central Europe and, in particular, central Germany, which relates to the controversial proposition that there were strong climate oscillations during the last interglacial (oxygen isotope substage 5e). In contrast to the evidence from the GRIP ice core at Summit, Greenland, and a recent palaeoclimate reconstruction based on the pollen profile from Bispingen, Germany, the evaluation of the palaeobotanical and the stable isotope data presented here strongly suggests relatively stable temperature for most of the Eemian and with instability confined to the beginning and end of the interglacial. High amplitude temperature variations can be seen in both the Early Weichselian pollen and isotope records. It is argued that this pattern of climate development is applicable to most of continental north-central Europe.
8. 1997: Johnsen, Sigfús J., et al. “The δ18O record along the Greenland Ice Core Project deep ice core and the problem of possible Eemian climatic instability.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 102.C12 (1997): 26397-26410.  Over 70,000 samples from the 3029‐m‐long Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) ice core drilled on the top of the Greenland Ice Sheet (Summit) have been analyzed for δ⁸O. A highly detailed and continuous δ⁸O profile has thus been obtained and is discussed in terms of past temperatures in Greenland. We also discuss a three‐core stacked annual δ⁸O profile for the past 917 years. The short‐term (<50 years) variability of the annual δ⁸O signal is found to be 1‰ in the Holocene, and estimates for the coldest parts of the last glacial are 3‰ or higher. These data also provide insights into possible disturbances of the stratigraphic layering in the core which seems to be sound down to the onset of the Eemian. Spectral analysis of highly detailed sequences of the profile helps determine the smoothing of the δ⁸O signal, which for the Holocene ice is found to be considerably stronger than expected. We suggest this is due to a process involving diffusion of water molecules along crystal boundaries in the recrystallizing ice matrix. Deconvolution techniques were employed for restoring with great confidence the highly attenuated annual δ⁸O signal in the Holocene. We confirm earlier findings of dramatic temperature changes in Greenland during the last glacial cycle. Abrupt and strong climatic shifts are also found within the Eem/Sangamon Interglaciation, which is normally recorded as a period of warm and stable climate in lower latitudes. The stratigraphic continuity of the Eemian layers is consequently discussed in section 3 of this paper in terms of all pertinent data which we are not able to reconcile
9. 1998: Cheddadi, R., et al. “Was the climate of the Eemian stable? A quantitative climate reconstruction from seven European pollen records.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 143.1-3 (1998): 73-85. The aim of the present study is to estimate the range of the climatic variability during the Eemian interglacial, which lasted about 10,000 years (marine isotopic stage 5e). The modern pollen analogue technique is applied to seven high resolution pollen records from France and Poland to infer the annual precipitation and the mean temperature of the coldest month. The succession of pollen taxa and the reconstructed climate can be interpreted coherently. The warmest winter temperatures are centred in the first three millennia of the Eemian interglacial, during the mixed oak forest phase with Quercus and Corylus as dominant trees. A rapid shift to cooler winter temperatures of about 6° to 10°C occurred between 4000 and 5000 years after the beginning of the Eemian, related to the spread of the Carpinus forest. This shift is more obvious for the reconstructed temperatures than for precipitation and is unique and irreversible for the whole Eemian period. Following this climatic shift of the Eemian, variations of temperature and precipitation during the last 5000 years were only slight with an amplitude of about 2° to 4°C and 200 to 400 mm/yr. The estimated temperature changes were certainly not as strong as those reconstructed for the stage 6/5e termination or the transition 5e/5d. This is consistent with the constantly high ratio of tree pollen throughout the Eemian, indicative of a succession of temperate forest types. This gradual transition between different forest landscapes can be related to intrinsic competition between the species rather than to a drastic climatic change.
10. 1998: Aalbersberg, Gerard, and Thomas Litt. “Multiproxy climate reconstructions for the Eemian and Early Weichselian.” Journal of Quaternary Science: Published for the Quaternary Research Association 13.5 (1998): 367-390. Palaeobotanical, coleopteran and periglacial data from 106 sites across northwestern Europe have been analysed in order to reconstruct palaeoclimatic conditions during the Eemian and Early Weichselian. Three time slices in the Eemian and four in the Early Weichselian have been considered. In the Pinus–Quercetum mixtum–Corylus phase of the Eemian, summer temperatures were probably at their highest and the botanic evidence suggests a southeast to northwest gradient for both the warmest and coldest month. Coleoptera indicate that the summers in southern England were several degrees warmer than those of present day. The climate during theCarpinus–Picea phase was uniform and oceanic without obvious gradients. In the final time slice of the Eemian, the Pinus–Picea–Abies phase, temperatures of the warmest month seem to drop slightly with some indication of a shift towards a more boreal and suboceanic climate. The reconstruction of the palaeoclimate in the Herning Stadial and Rederstall Stadial is hampered by the limited number of sites, but botanical evidence suggests a gradient in temperature of the coldest month from east to west. Coleoptera from the Herning Stadial in central England and eastern Germany suggest similarly cold and continental climates. During the Brørup Interstadial and the Odderade Interstadial the botanical evidence suggests that the minimum mean July temperatures rose to 15–16°C but during the coldest month these temperatures show a gradient between −13°C in the east and −5°C in the west. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
11. 2000: Cuffey, Kurt M., and Shawn J. Marshall. “Substantial contribution to sea-level rise during the last interglacial from the Greenland ice sheet.” Nature 404.6778 (2000): 591.  During the last interglacial period (the Eemian), global sea level was at least three metres, and probably more than five metres, higher than at present^1,2. Complete melting of either the West Antarctic ice sheet or the Greenland ice sheet would today raise sea levels by 6–7 metres. But the high sea levels during the last interglacial period have been proposed to result mainly from disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet³, with model studies attributing only 1–2 m of sea-level rise to meltwater from Greenland^4,5. This result was considered consistent with ice core evidence⁴, although earlier work had suggested a much reduced Greenland ice sheet during the last interglacial period⁶. Here we reconsider the Eemian evolution of the Greenland ice sheet by combining numerical modelling with insights obtained from recent central Greenland ice-core analyses. Our results suggest that the Greenland ice sheet was considerably smaller and steeper during the Eemian, and plausibly contributed 4–5.5 m to the sea-level highstand during that period. We conclude that the high sea level during the last interglacial period most probably included a large contribution from Greenland meltwater and therefore should not be interpreted as evidence for a significant reduction of the West Antarctic ice sheet. [FULL TEXT PDF]  
12. 2000: Karabanov, Eugene B., et al. “Evidence for mid-Eemian cooling in continental climatic record from Lake Baikal.” Journal of Paleolimnology 23.4 (2000): 365-371. The discussion on climatic instability observed in Greenland ice cores during the Eemian period (substage 5e) resulted in discovery of a pronounced mid-Eemian cooling event. We report that the mid-Eemian cooling is found for the first time in the biogenic silica climatic record and microfossil abundance record of Lake Baikal. Timing of this event in Lake Baikal correlates well with timing of the European pollen records and marine sedimentary records. The presence of the mid-Eemian cooling signal in the Lake Baikal record suggests a much closer link between Asian climate influenced by strong pressure fields over the vast land masses and the climate-controlling processes in the North Atlantic during interglacial periods, than what was generally believed. Furthermore, the Lake Baikal record suggests that after the mid-Eemian cooling, the climatic conditions returned close to the warmth of the 5e optimum and thus argues that the warm conditions of the last interglacial persisted in Siberia throughout 5e, and did not end with the mid-Eemian cooling as suggested by several published marine records.
13. 2000: Kukla, George J. “The last interglacial.” Science 287.5455 (2000): 987-988.  Climate during the last 10,000 years, the Holocene, has been relatively mild and stable. In contrast, the climate during the last interglacial is often portrayed as more variable. But, as Kukla discusses in this Perspective, evidence for a more stable last interglacial is emerging. Furthermore, the transition to the next glacial proceeded in stages and was not uniform across Europe.
14. 2002: Rahmstorf, Stefan. “Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120,000 years.” Nature 419.6903 (2002): 207. Oceans cover more than two-thirds of our blue planet. The waters move in a global circulation system, driven by subtle density differences and transporting huge amounts of heat. Ocean circulation is thus an active and highly nonlinear player in the global climate game. Increasingly clear evidence implicates ocean circulation in abrupt and dramatic climate shifts, such as sudden temperature changes in Greenland on the order of 5–10 °C and massive surges of icebergs into the North Atlantic Ocean — events that have occurred repeatedly during the last glacial cycle.
15. 2002: Cane, Tim, et al. “High-resolution stratigraphic framework for Mediterranean sapropel S5: defining temporal relationships between records of Eemian climate variability.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 183.1 (2002): 87-101. A high-resolution stratigraphic framework is presented for sapropel S5, which represents the low-mid latitude climate optimum of the previous interglacialperiod (Eemian). The framework is based on three sites along a transect from west to east through the eastern Mediterranean, and is further validated using a fourth site. This method allows expression of S5-based proxy records of Eemianclimate variability along a standardised depth scale that offers unprecedented possibilities for assessment of spatial gradients and signal leads and lags in an interval where high-resolution (radiocarbon-style) dating cannot be performed. Our lateral comparison of S5 sapropels suggests that the onset of S5 in ODPsite 967C (Eratosthenes seamount) was 1–6 centuries delayed relative to the onsets in more westerly sites.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
16. 2003: Klotz, Stefan, Joel Guiot, and Volker Mosbrugger. “Continental European Eemian and early Würmian climate evolution: comparing signals using different quantitative reconstruction approaches based on pollen.” Global and Planetary Change36.4 (2003): 277-294. Analyses of Eemian climate dynamics based on different reconstruction methods were conducted for several pollen sequences in the northern alpine foreland. The modern analogue and mutual climate sphere techniques used, which are briefly presented, complement one another with respect to comparable results. The reconstructions reveal the occurrence of at least two similar thermal periods, representing temperate oceanic conditions warmer and with a higher humidity than today. Intense changes of climate processes become obvious with a shift of winter temperatures of about 15 °C from the late Rissian to the first thermal optimum of the Eemian. The transition shows a pattern of summer temperatures and precipitation increasing more rapidly than winter temperatures. With the first optimum during the Pinus–Quercetum mixtum–Corylus phase (PQC) at an early stage of the Eemian and a second optimum period at a later stage, which is characterised by widespread Carpinus, climate gradients across the study area were less intense than today. Average winter temperatures vary between −1.9 and 0.4 °C (present-day −3.6 to 1.4 °C), summer temperatures between 17.8 and 19.6 °C (present-day 14 to 18.9 °C). The timberline expanded about 350 m when compared to the present-day limit represented by Pinus mugo. Whereas the maximum of temperature parameters is related to the first optimum, precipitation above 1100 mm is higher during the second warm period concomitant to somewhat reduced temperatures. Intermediate, smaller climate oscillations and a cooling becomes obvious, which admittedly represent moderate deterioration but not extreme chills. During the boreal semicontinental Eemian Pinus–Picea–Abies phase, another less distinct fluctuation occurs, initiating the oscillating shift from temperate to cold conditions.
17. 2004: Andersen, Katrine K., et al. “High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period.” Nature 431.7005 (2004): 147. Two deep ice cores from central Greenland, drilled in the 1990s, have played a key role in climate reconstructions of the Northern Hemisphere, but the oldest sections of the cores were disturbed in chronology owing to ice folding near the bedrock. Here we present an undisturbed climate record from a North Greenland ice core, which extends back to 123,000 years before the present, within the last interglacial period. The oxygen isotopes in the ice imply that climate was stable during the last interglacial period, with temperatures 5 °C warmer than today. We find unexpectedly large temperature differences between our new record from northern Greenland and the undisturbed sections of the cores from central Greenland, suggesting that the extent of ice in the Northern Hemisphere modulated the latitudinal temperature gradients in Greenland. This record shows a slow decline in temperatures that marked the initiation of the last glacial period. Our record reveals a hitherto unrecognized warm period initiated by an abrupt climate warming about 115,000 years ago, before glacial conditions were fully developed. This event does not appear to have an immediate Antarctic counterpart, suggesting that the climate see-saw between the hemispheres (which dominated the last glacial period) was not operating at this time.  [FULL TEXT PDF] 
18. 2006: Peltier, W. R., and Richard G. Fairbanks. “Global glacial ice volume and Last Glacial Maximum duration from an extended Barbados sea level record.” Quaternary Science Reviews25.23-24 (2006): 3322-3337.  Fundamental characteristics of the climate system during the most recent precessional cycle of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun consist of the final expansion of land ice to its maximum extent, the subsequent episode of deglaciation, and the variations of global sea level that accompanied these events. In order to address the important issue of the variation of continental ice volume and related changes in global sea level through the late glacial period, we employ an extended set of observations of the pre-glacial and postglacial history of sea-level rise at the island of Barbados, together with a refined model of continental deglaciation and an accurate methodology for the prediction of postglacial sea-level change. Although our results provide unambiguous evidence that the post LGM rise of eustatic sea-level was very close to the widely supported estimate of 120 m, the data also provide evidence that LGM must have occurred 26,000 years ago, approximately 5000 yr earlier than the usually assumed age.
19. 2007: Tarasov, Pavel, et al. “Vegetation and climate dynamics during the Holocene and Eemian interglacials derived from Lake Baikal pollen records.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252.3-4 (2007): 440-457. The last interglacial (LI) and Holocene changes in annual precipitation (P_ann), the mean temperature of the warmest (T_w) and coldest (T_c) month and the moisture index (α) were reconstructed from continuous pollen records from Lake Baikal. The Holocene core (52°31′N, 106°09′E) presented in this study was recovered from a depth of 355 m in the 25-km wide underwater Buguldeika saddle separating the southern sub-basin of Lake Baikal from its central sub-basin. The biome reconstruction shows that tundra and steppe biomes have highest scores during ca. 15,000–13,300 cal. years B.P. and that taiga becomes a dominant vegetation type after ca. 13,300 cal. years B.P. Our quantitative reconstruction indicates an onset of relatively warm and wet conditions soon after ca. 10,000 cal. years B.P. The warmest and wettest climate with T_w ∼ 16 °C, P_ann ∼ 480 mm and α ∼ 0.9–1 has been reconstructed for ca. 9000–7000 cal. years B.P. In the Lake Baikal region this interval is characterized by the appearance and spread of hunter communities (Kitoi culture). Consistently a hiatus in the regional archaeological record (4900–4200 years B.C. or 6850–6150 cal. years B.P.) coincides with the interval of a major climate deterioration which followed the ‘climatic optimum’. An attempt to find a relationship between the archaeological record and a spread of steppe and meadow communities in the Lake Baikal region demonstrates that despite a long habitation of the area the human impact on vegetation was local rather than regional and likely did not affect the pollen record from Lake Baikal. The reconstructed peaks in the steppe biome scores during the last 9000 years are consistent with short (one to five hundred year) episodes of weak Pacific (summer) monsoon supporting our interpretation that the Holocene vegetation changes around Lake Baikal are associated with large-scale circulation processes controlling regional water balance rather than with human activities. Thus, our study proves the suitability of Lake Baikal pollen data for the reconstruction of natural vegetation and climate dynamics through the whole period from the onset of the LI to the present. Comparison of the recent and the last interglacial suggests that the Holocene ‘climatic optimum’ was less pronounced (e.g. lower summer and winter temperatures and annual precipitation sums) than that of the LI. On the other hand, pollen records demonstrate that the Holocene ‘forest phase’ already lasts some thousand years longer than that of the LI. The interglacial vegetation dynamics derived from the Lake Baikal pollen records can be satisfactorily explained by reconstructed changes in summer and winter temperatures and in available moisture. The interglacial vegetation around Lake Baikal is dominated by the boreal forests, which are associated with a generally warm and wet climate. The high sea level associated with decreased ice volume appears to have had a greater impact on the Siberian environments during the last and the recent interglacial than the direct effect of lower-than-present winter insolation. Reconstructed changes in the winter temperature correlate well with changes in the sea level and global ice volume, while the summer temperatures derived from the Lake Baikal pollen records track changes in the summer insolation.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
20. 2007: Schurgers, Guy, et al. “The effect of land surface changes on Eemian climate.” Climate dynamics 29.4 (2007): 357-373. Transient experiments for the Eemian (128–113 ky BP) were performed with a complex, coupled earth system model, including atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial biosphere and marine biogeochemistry. In order to investigate the effect of land surface parameters (background albedo, vegetation and tree fraction and roughness length) on the simulated changes during the Eemian, simulations with interactive coupling between climate and vegetation were compared with additional experiments in which these feedbacks were suppressed. The experiments show that the influence of land surface on climate is mainly caused by changes in the albedo. For the northern hemisphere high latitudes, land surface albedo is changed partially due to the direct albedo effect of the conversion of grasses into forest, but the indirect effect of forests on snow albedo appears to be the major factor influencing the total absorption of solar radiation. The Western Sahara region experiences large changes in land surface albedo due to the appearance of vegetation between 128 and 120 ky BP. These local land surface albedo changes can be as much as 20%, thereby affecting the local as well as the global energy balance. On a global scale, latent heat loss over land increases more than 10% for 126 ky BP compared to present-day.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
21. 2008: Brewer, S., et al. “The climate in Europe during the Eemian: a multi-method approach using pollen data.” Quaternary Science Reviews 27.25-26 (2008): 2303-2315. The Last Interglacial period, the Eemian, offers a testbed for comparing climate evolution throughout an interglacial with the current warm period. We present here results from climatic reconstructions from 17 sites distributed across the European continent, allowing an assessment of trends and regional averages of climate changes during this period. We use a multi-method approach to allow for an improved assessment of the uncertainties involved in the reconstruction. In addition, the method takes into account the errors associated with the age model. The resulting uncertainties are large, but allow a more robust assessment of the reconstructed climatic variations than in previous studies. The results show a traditional three-part Eemian, with an early optimum, followed by slight cooling and eventually a sharp drop in both temperatures and precipitation. This sequence is however, restricted to the north, as this latter change is not observed in the south where temperatures remain stable for longer. These variations led to marked variation in the latitudinal temperature gradient during the Eemian. The difference between the two regions is also noticeable in the magnitude of changes, with greater variations in the north than the south. Some evidence is found for changes in lapse rates, however, a greater number of sites is needed to confirm this.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
22. 2009: Kopp, Robert E., et al. “Probabilistic assessment of sea level during the last interglacial stage.” Nature 462.7275 (2009): 863.  With polar temperatures ∼3–5 °C warmer than today, the last interglacial stage (∼125 kyr ago) serves as a partial analogue for 1–2 °C global warming scenarios. Geological records from several sites indicate that local sea levels during the last interglacial were higher than today, but because local sea levels differ from global sea level, accurately reconstructing past global sea level requires an integrated analysis of globally distributed data sets. Here we present an extensive compilation of local sea level indicators and a statistical approach for estimating global sea level, local sea levels, ice sheet volumes and their associated uncertainties. We find a 95% probability that global sea level peaked at least 6.6 m higher than today during the last interglacial; it is likely (67% probability) to have exceeded 8.0 m but is unlikely (33% probability) to have exceeded 9.4 m. When global sea level was close to its current level (≥-10 m), the millennial average rate of global sea level rise is very likely to have exceeded 5.6 m kyr^-1 but is unlikely to have exceeded 9.2 m kyr^-1. Our analysis extends previous last interglacial sea level studies by integrating literature observations within a probabilistic framework that accounts for the physics of sea level change. The results highlight the long-term vulnerability of ice sheets to even relatively low levels of sustained global warming.
23. 2010: Fischer, N., and J. H. Jungclaus. “Effects of orbital forcing on atmosphere and ocean heat transports in Holocene and Eemian climate simulations with a comprehensive Earth system model.” Climate of the Past 6 (2010): 155-168. Orbital forcing not only exerts direct insolation effects, but also alters climate indirectly through feedback mechanisms that modify atmosphere and ocean dynamics and meridional heat and moisture transfers. We investigate the regional effects of these changes by detailed analysis of atmosphere and ocean circulation and heat transports in a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice-biosphere general circulation model (ECHAM5/JSBACH/MPI-OM). We perform long term quasi equilibrium simulations under pre-industrial, mid-Holocene (6000 years before present – yBP), and Eemian (125 000 yBP) orbital boundary conditions. Compared to pre-industrial climate, Eemian and Holocene temperatures show generally warmer conditions at higher and cooler conditions at lower latitudes. Changes in sea-ice cover, ocean heat transports, and atmospheric circulation patterns lead to pronounced regional heterogeneity. Over Europe, the warming is most pronounced over the north-eastern part in accordance with recent reconstructions for the Holocene. We attribute this warming to enhanced ocean circulation in the Nordic Seas and enhanced ocean-atmosphere heat flux over the Barents Shelf in conduction with retreat of sea ice and intensified winter storm tracks over northern Europe. [FULL TEXT PDF]
24. 2011: Nicholls, Robert J., et al. “Sea-level rise and its possible impacts given a ‘beyond 4 C world’in the twenty-first century.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 369.1934 (2011): 161-181.  The range of future climate-induced sea-level rise remains highly uncertain with continued concern that large increases in the twenty-first century cannot be ruled out. The biggest source of uncertainty is the response of the large ice sheets of Greenland and west Antarctica. Based on our analysis, a pragmatic estimate of sea-level rise by 2100, for a temperature rise of 4°C or more over the same time frame, is between 0.5 m and 2 m—the probability of rises at the high end is judged to be very low, but of unquantifiable probability. However, if realized, an indicative analysis shows that the impact potential is severe, with the real risk of the forced displacement of up to 187 million people over the century (up to 2.4% of global population). This is potentially avoidable by widespread upgrade of protection, albeit rather costly with up to 0.02 per cent of global domestic product needed, and much higher in certain nations. The likelihood of protection being successfully implemented varies between regions, and is lowest in small islands, Africa and parts of Asia, and hence these regions are the most likely to see coastal abandonment. To respond to these challenges, a multi-track approach is required, which would also be appropriate if a temperature rise of less than 4°C was expected. Firstly, we should monitor sea level to detect any significant accelerations in the rate of rise in a timely manner. Secondly, we need to improve our understanding of the climate-induced processes that could contribute to rapid sea-level rise, especially the role of the two major ice sheets, to produce better models that quantify the likely future rise more precisely. Finally, responses need to be carefully considered via a combination of climate mitigation to reduce the rise and adaptation for the residual rise in sea level. In particular, long-term strategic adaptation plans for the full range of possible sea-level rise (and other change) need to be widely developed.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
25. 2011: Krzysztof, Bińka, and Nitychoruk Jerzy. “Cyclicity in the Eemian climate? A case study of the Eemian site at Czaple, Eastern Poland.” Review of palaeobotany and palynology164.1-2 (2011): 39-44. The newly discovered lacustrine deposits from Czaple, Eastern Poland, examined by means of pollen analysis, revealed an undisturbed, continuous sequence of vegetational development of the Eemian/Early Vistulian age. We tried to trace the secondary climatic trends, cyclic in part on the basis of plant taxa — representing the second league in the spectra, as to frequency, but forming an important group of the index plants. Their appearance becomes more pronounced and reliable when extraordinarily high numbers of pollen are analyzed. The oscillations of curves of these taxa are more clearly expressed than by traditional counts, revealing the hidden picture in the palynological background. It is interesting that some taxa – e.g. Hedera – form a distinctive intermittent pattern reflecting cyclicity of climatic condition or additional factors which are responsible for it. Pollen curves of other index plants do not show such regular variation. This cyclicity can be traced in many European Eemian diagrams. Especially interesting is the sudden decline of ivy as well as of other indicator plants in the subzone E4b such as the Corylus which marks some increase in a continentality of climate. We can also trace this trend in other sequences. In addition, extra counts allow us to estimate the exact timing of the migration of rarely noted exotic taxa and their range of distribution in the sequence. Buxus, Osmunda cinnamomea and Lycopodium lucidulum types are the best examples illustrating this.
26. 2011: Van de Berg, Willem Jan, et al. “Significant contribution of insolation to Eemian melting of the Greenland ice sheet.” Nature Geoscience 4.10 (2011): 679.  During the Eemian interglacial period, 130,000 to 114,000 years ago, the volume of the Greenland ice sheet was about 30–60% smaller than the present-day volume^1,2. Summer temperatures in the Arctic region were about 2–4 K higher than today^3,4,5, leading to the suggestion that Eemian conditions could be considered an analogue for future warming⁶, particularly for the future stability of the Greenland ice sheet. However, Northern Hemisphere insolation was much higher during the Eemian than today, which could affect the reliability of this analogy. Here we use a high-resolution regional climate model with a realistic ice-sheet surface representation to assess the surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet during the Eemian. Our simulations show that Eemian climate led to an 83% lower surface mass balance, compared with the preindustrial simulation. Our sensitivity experiments show that only about 55% of this change in surface mass balance can be attributed to higher ambient temperatures, with the remaining 45% caused by higher insolation and associated nonlinear feedbacks. We show that temperature–melt relations are dependent on changes in insolation. Hence, we suggest that projections of future Greenland ice loss on the basis of Eemian temperature–melt relations may overestimate the future vulnerability of the ice sheet.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
27. 2013: Nikolova, Irina, et al. “The last interglacial (Eemian) climate simulated by LOVECLIM and CCSM3.” Climate of the Past 9.4 (2013): 1789-1806. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the climate of the last interglacial simulated by two climate models of different complexities, CCSM3 (Community Climate System Model 3) and LOVECLIM (LOch-Vecode-Ecbilt-CLio-agIsm Model). The simulated surface temperature, hydrological cycle, vegetation and ENSO variability during the last interglacial are analyzed through the comparison with the simulated pre-industrial (PI) climate. In both models, the last interglacial period is characterized by a significant warming (cooling) over almost all the continents during boreal summer (winter) leading to a largely increased (reduced) seasonal contrast in the Northern (Southern) Hemisphere. This is mainly due to the much higher (lower) insolation received by the whole Earth in boreal summer (winter) during this interglacial. The Arctic is warmer than PI through the whole year, resulting from its much higher summer insolation, its remnant effect in the following fall-winter through the interactions between atmosphere, ocean and sea ice and feedbacks from sea ice and snow cover. Discrepancies exist in the sea-ice formation zones between the two models. Cooling is simulated by CCSM3 in the Greenland and Norwegian seas and near the shelves of Antarctica during DJF but not in LOVECLIM as a result of excessive sea-ice formation. Intensified African monsoon is responsible for the cooling during summer in northern Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula. Over India, the precipitation maximum is found further west, while in Africa the precipitation maximum migrates further north. Trees and grassland expand north in Sahel/Sahara, more clearly seen in LOVECLIM than in CCSM3 results. A mix of forest and grassland occupies continents and expands deep into the high northern latitudes. Desert areas reduce significantly in the Northern Hemisphere, but increase in northern Australia. The interannual SST variability of the tropical Pacific (El-Niño Southern Oscillation) of the last interglacial simulated by CCSM3 shows slightly larger variability and magnitude compared to the PI. However, the SST variability in our LOVECLIM simulations is particularly small due to the overestimated thermocline’s depth.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
28. 2015: Dutton, A., et al. “Sea-level rise due to polar ice-sheet mass loss during past warm periods.” science 349.6244 (2015): aaa4019.  We know that the sea level will rise as climate warms. Nevertheless, accurate projections of how much sea-level rise will occur are difficult to make based solely on modern observations. Determining how ice sheets and sea level have varied in past warm periods can help us better understand how sensitive ice sheets are to higher temperatures. Dutton et al. review recent interdisciplinary progress in understanding this issue, based on data from four different warm intervals over the past 3 million years. Their synthesis provides a clear picture of the progress we have made and the hurdles that still exist.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
29. 2015: Hansen, James, et al. “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2° C global warming is highly dangerous.” Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics Discussions 15.14 (2015).  There is evidence of ice melt, sea level rise to +5–9 m, and extreme storms in the prior interglacial period that was less than 1C warmer than today. Human-made climate forcing is stronger and more rapid than paleo forcings, but much can be learned by 5 combining insights from paleoclimate, climate modeling, and on-going observations. We argue that ice sheets in contact with the ocean are vulnerable to non-linear disintegration in response to ocean warming, and we posit that ice sheet mass loss can be approximated by a doubling time up to sea level rise of at least several meters. Doubling times of 10, 20 or 40 years yield sea level rise of several meters in 50, 100 or 200 years. Paleoclimate data reveal that subsurface ocean warming causes ice shelf melt and ice sheet discharge. Our climate model exposes amplifying feedbacks in the Southern Ocean that slow Antarctic bottom water formation and increase ocean temperature near ice shelf grounding lines, while cooling the surface ocean and increasing sea ice cover and water column stability. Ocean surface cooling, in the North Atlantic 15 as well as the Southern Ocean, increases tropospheric horizontal temperature gradients, eddy kinetic energy and baroclinicity, which drive more powerful storms. We focus attention on the Southern Ocean’s role in affecting atmospheric CO2 amount, which in turn is a tight control knob on global climate. The millennial (500–2000 year) time scale of deep ocean ventilation affects the time scale for natural CO2 change, thus the time 20 scale for paleo global climate, ice sheet and sea level changes. This millennial carbon cycle time scale should not be misinterpreted as the ice sheet time scale for response to a rapid human-made climate forcing. Recent ice sheet melt rates have a doubling time near the lower end of the 10–40 year range. We conclude that 2C global warming above the preindustrial level, which would spur more ice shelf melt, is highly dangerous. Earth’s energy imbalance, which must be eliminated to stabilize climate, provides a crucial metric.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
30. 2016: DeConto, Robert M., and David Pollard. “Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise.” Nature 531.7596 (2016): 591.  Polar temperatures over the last several million years have, at times, been slightly warmer than today, yet global mean sea level has been 6–9 metres higher as recently as the Last Interglacial (130,000 to 115,000 years ago) and possibly higher during the Pliocene epoch (about three million years ago). In both cases the Antarctic ice sheet has been implicated as the primary contributor, hinting at its future vulnerability. Here we use a model coupling ice sheet and climate dynamics—including previously underappreciated processes linking atmospheric warming with hydrofracturing of buttressing ice shelves and structural collapse of marine-terminating ice cliffs—that is calibrated against Pliocene and Last Interglacial sea-level estimates and applied to future greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500, if emissions continue unabated. In this case atmospheric warming will soon become the dominant driver of ice loss, but prolonged ocean warming will delay its recovery for thousands of years.  [FULL TEXT PDF]

AGW COLLAPSE OF ICE SHEETS:  BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. 1983: Zwally, H. Jay, et al. “Surface elevation contours of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 88.C3 (1983): 1589-1596. Surface elevations of the ice sheets are contoured at 50‐m intervals for the region of Greenland covered by SEASAT radar altimetry south of 72°N and at 100‐m intervals for a region of East Antarctica north of 72°S. The surface elevations were obtained from computer retracking of the radar altimeter waveforms, which were recorded at 0.1‐s intervals corresponding to 662‐m spacings on the surface. The precision of the elevation measurements before adjustment for radial orbit errors is 1.9 m as shown by analysis of elevation differences at orbital crossover points. This precision is partly determined by radial errors of approximately 1.0 m in orbit determination and partly by noise due to ice surface irregularities. Adjustment of the radial components of the orbits to minimize the differences in elevations at crossovers over a small, relatively flat region reduces the rms difference to 0.25 m, which is indicative of the optimum precision obtainable over the ice sheets. However, the precision degrades as the slope of the surface or amplitude of the undulations increases, yielding an overall precision of ±1.6 m. The preliminary contour maps are not corrected for slope‐induced displacements. A 2‐m contour map in a region of highest data density illustrates the three‐dimensional characteristics of some surface undulations.
   
2. 1999: Huybrechts, Philippe, and Jan de Wolde. “The dynamic response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to multiple-century climatic warming.” Journal of Climate 12.8 (1999): 2169-2188.  New calculations were performed to investigate the combined response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to a range of climatic warming scenarios over the next millennium. Use was made of fully dynamic 3D thermomechanic ice sheet models, which were coupled to a two-dimensional climate model. The experiments were initialized with simulations over the last two glacial cycles to estimate the present evolution and were subsequently forced with temperature scenarios resulting from greenhouse emission scenarios which assume equivalent CO₂ increases of two, four, and eight times the present (1990 a.d.) value by the year 2130 a.d. and a stabilization after that. The calculations brought to light that during the next century (short-term effect), the background evolution trend would dominate the response of the Antarctic ice sheet but would be negligible for the Greenland ice sheet. On that timescale, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would roughly balance one another for the middle scenario (similar to the IPCC96 IS92a scenario), with respective contributions to the worldwide sea level stand on the order of about ±10 cm. On the longer term, however, both ice sheets would contribute positively to the worldwide sea level stand and the most important effect would come from melting on the Greenland ice sheet. Sensitivity experiments highlighted the role of ice dynamics and the height–mass-balance feedback on the results. It was found that ice dynamics cannot be neglected for the Greenland ice sheet, not even on a century timescale, but becomes only important for Antarctica on the longer term. The latter is related to an increased outflow of ice into the ice shelves and to the grounding-line retreat of the west Antarctic ice sheet, which are both found to be sensitive to basal melting below ice shelves and the effective viscosity of the ice shelves. Stretching parameters to their limits yielded a combined maximum rate of sea level rise of 85 cm century⁻¹, of which 60 cm would originate from the Greenland ice sheet alone.
3. 2005: Zwally, H. Jay, et al. “Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and contributions to sea-level rise: 1992–2002.” Journal of Glaciology 51.175 (2005): 509-527.  Changes in ice mass are estimated from elevation changes derived from 10.5 years (Greenland) and 9 years (Antarctica) of satellite radar altimetry data from the European Remote-sensing Satellites ERS-1 and -2. For the first time, the dH/dt values are adjusted for changes in surface elevation resulting from temperature-driven variations in the rate of firn compaction. The Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (–42 ± 2Gta¯1 below the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA)) and growing inland (+53 ± 2Gta-1 above the ELA) with a small overall mass gain (+11 ± 3Gta–1; –0.03 mma–1 SLE (sea-level equivalent)). The ice sheet in West Antarctica (WA) is losing mass (–47 ± 4Gta–1) and the ice sheet in East Antarctica (EA) shows a small mass gain (+16 ± 11 Gta–1) for a combined net change of –31 ± 12 Gta–1(+0.08mma–1 SLE). The contribution of the three ice sheets to sea level is +0.05±0.03mma–1. The Antarctic ice shelves show corresponding mass changes of –95 ± 11 Gta–1 in WA and +142 ± 10Gta–1 in EA. Thinning at the margins of the Greenland ice sheet and growth at higher elevations is an expected response to increasing temperatures and precipitation in a warming climate. The marked thinnings in the Pine Island and Thwaites Glacier basins of WA and the Totten Glacier basin in EA are probably ice- dynamic responses to long-term climate change and perhaps past removal of their adjacent ice shelves. The ice growth in the southern Antarctic Peninsula and parts of EA may be due to increasing precipitation during the last century.
4. 2009: Pollard, David, and Robert M. DeConto. “Modelling West Antarctic ice sheet growth and collapse through the past five million years.” Nature 458.7236 (2009): 329.  The West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), with ice volume equivalent to ∼5 m of sea level¹, has long been considered capable of past and future catastrophic collapse^2,3,4. Today, the ice sheet is fringed by vulnerable floating ice shelves that buttress the fast flow of inland ice streams. Grounding lines are several hundred metres below sea level and the bed deepens upstream, raising the prospect of runaway retreat^3,5. Projections of future WAIS behaviour have been hampered by limited understanding of past variations and their underlying forcing mechanisms^6,7. Its variation since the Last Glacial Maximum is best known, with grounding lines advancing to the continental-shelf edges around ∼15 kyr ago before retreating to near-modern locations by ∼3 kyr ago⁸. Prior collapses during the warmth of the early Pliocene epoch⁹and some Pleistocene interglacials have been suggested indirectly from records of sea level and deep-sea-core isotopes, and by the discovery of open-ocean diatoms in subglacial sediments¹⁰. Until now¹¹, however, little direct evidence of such behaviour has been available. Here we use a combined ice sheet/ice shelf model¹² capable of high-resolution nesting with a new treatment of grounding-line dynamics and ice-shelf buttressing⁵ to simulate Antarctic ice sheet variations over the past five million years. Modelled WAIS variations range from full glacial extents with grounding lines near the continental shelf break, intermediate states similar to modern, and brief but dramatic retreats, leaving only small, isolated ice caps on West Antarctic islands. Transitions between glacial, intermediate and collapsed states are relatively rapid, taking one to several thousand years. Our simulation is in good agreement with a new sediment record (ANDRILL AND-1B) recovered from the western Ross Sea¹¹, indicating a long-term trend from more frequently collapsed to more glaciated states, dominant 40-kyr cyclicity in the Pliocene, and major retreats at marine isotope stage 31 (∼1.07 Myr ago) and other super-interglacials.
5. 2009: Pritchard, Hamish D., et al. “Extensive dynamic thinning on the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.” Nature 461.7266 (2009): 971.  Many glaciers along the margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are accelerating and, for this reason, contribute increasingly to global sea-level rise^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7}. Globally, ice losses contribute ∼1.8 mm yr^-1(ref. 8), but this could increase if the retreat of ice shelves and tidewater glaciers further enhances the loss of grounded ice⁹ or initiates the large-scale collapse of vulnerable parts of the ice sheets¹⁰. Ice loss as a result of accelerated flow, known as dynamic thinning, is so poorly understood that its potential contribution to sea level over the twenty-first century remains unpredictable¹¹. Thinning on the ice-sheet scale has been monitored by using repeat satellite altimetry observations to track small changes in surface elevation, but previous sensors could not resolve most fast-flowing coastal glaciers¹². Here we report the use of high-resolution ICESat (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite) laser altimetry to map change along the entire grounded margins of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. To isolate the dynamic signal, we compare rates of elevation change from both fast-flowing and slow-flowing ice with those expected from surface mass-balance fluctuations. We find that dynamic thinning of glaciers now reaches all latitudes in Greenland, has intensified on key Antarctic grounding lines, has endured for decades after ice-shelf collapse, penetrates far into the interior of each ice sheet and is spreading as ice shelves thin by ocean-driven melt. In Greenland, glaciers flowing faster than 100 m yr^-1thinned at an average rate of 0.84 m yr^-1, and in the Amundsen Sea embayment of Antarctica, thinning exceeded 9.0 m yr^-1 for some glaciers. Our results show that the most profound changes in the ice sheets currently result from glacier dynamics at ocean margins.
6. 2009: Velicogna, Isabella. “Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE.” Geophysical Research Letters 36.19 (2009).  We use monthly measurements of time‐variable gravity from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass‐loss for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that the GRACE observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one, implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time. In Greenland, the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −30 ± 11 Gt/yr² in 2002–2009. In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −26 ± 14 Gt/yr² in 2002–2009. The observed acceleration in ice sheet mass loss helps reconcile GRACE ice mass estimates obtained for different time periods.
7. 2011: Rignot, Eric, et al. “Acceleration of the contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea level rise.” Geophysical Research Letters 38.5 (2011). Ice sheet mass balance estimates have improved substantially in recent years using a variety of techniques, over different time periods, and at various levels of spatial detail. Considerable disparity remains between these estimates due to the inherent uncertainties of each method, the lack of detailed comparison between independent estimates, and the effect of temporal modulations in ice sheet surface mass balance. Here, we present a consistent record of mass balance for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past two decades, validated by the comparison of two independent techniques over the last 8 years: one differencing perimeter loss from net accumulation, and one using a dense time series of time‐variable gravity. We find excellent agreement between the two techniques for absolute mass loss and acceleration of mass loss. In 2006, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets experienced a combined mass loss of 475 ± 158 Gt/yr, equivalent to 1.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr sea level rise. Notably, the acceleration in ice sheet loss over the last 18 years was 21.9 ± 1 Gt/yr² for Greenland and 14.5 ± 2 Gt/yr² for Antarctica, for a combined total of 36.3 ± 2 Gt/yr². This acceleration is 3 times larger than for mountain glaciers and ice caps (12 ± 6 Gt/yr²). If this trend continues, ice sheets will be the dominant contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century.
   
8. 2012: Pritchard, HDx, et al. “Antarctic ice-sheet loss driven by basal melting of ice shelves.” Nature 484.7395 (2012): 502.  Accurate prediction of global sea-level rise requires that we understand the cause of recent, widespread and intensifying^1,2 glacier acceleration along Antarctic ice-sheet coastal margins³. Atmospheric and oceanic forcing have the potential to reduce the thickness and extent of floating ice shelves, potentially limiting their ability to buttress the flow of grounded tributary glaciers⁴. Indeed, recent ice-shelf collapse led to retreat and acceleration of several glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula⁵. But the extent and magnitude of ice-shelf thickness change, the underlying causes of such change, and its link to glacier flow rate are so poorly understood that its future impact on the ice sheets cannot yet be predicted³. Here we use satellite laser altimetry and modelling of the surface firn layer to reveal the circum-Antarctic pattern of ice-shelf thinning through increased basal melt. We deduce that this increased melt is the primary control of Antarctic ice-sheet loss, through a reduction in buttressing of the adjacent ice sheet leading to accelerated glacier flow². The highest thinning rates occur where warm water at depth can access thick ice shelves via submarine troughs crossing the continental shelf. Wind forcing could explain the dominant patterns of both basal melting and the surface melting and collapse of Antarctic ice shelves, through ocean upwelling in the Amundsen⁶ and Bellingshausen⁷ seas, and atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula⁸. This implies that climate forcing through changing winds influences Antarctic ice-sheet mass balance, and hence global sea level, on annual to decadal timescales.
9. 2014: Joughin, Ian, Benjamin E. Smith, and Brooke Medley. “Marine ice sheet collapse potentially under way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica.” Science 344.6185 (2014): 735-738.  Resting atop a deep marine basin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has long been considered prone to instability. Using a numerical model, we investigated the sensitivity of Thwaites Glacier to ocean melt and whether its unstable retreat is already under way. Our model reproduces observed losses when forced with ocean melt comparable to estimates. Simulated losses are moderate (<0.25 mm per year at sea level) over the 21st century but generally increase thereafter. Except possibly for the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations indicate that early-stage collapse has begun. Less certain is the time scale, with the onset of rapid (>1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse in the different simulations within the range of 200 to 900 years.

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RELATED POST:  AN EXCLUSIVE RELIANCE ON FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS OVERLOOKS NATURAL CARBON FLOWS. [LINK]  

FIGURE 1: FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS AND ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION

FIGURE 2: EMISSIONS AND CHANGE IN ATMOS-CO2 AT FIVE TIME SCALES

FIGURE 3: CORRELATION BETWEEN  ΔCO2 AND EMISSIONS

FIGURE 4: SUMMARY OF AIRBORNE FRACTION

FIGURE 5: SUMMARY OF DETRENDED CORRELATION ANALYSIS

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1. Figure 1 shows that atmospheric CO2 concentration as measured at Mauna Loa has been rising steadily since 1958 while at the same time post industrial humans have been injecting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels into the atmosphere. It is in this context that the usual assumption is made that observed changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration (ΔCO2) are driven by fossil fuel emissions. This assumed relationship appears to be visually validated in the left panels of the five charts in Figure 3 where changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (ΔCO2) appear to be strongly correlated with the rate of emissions.
2. The correlation was tested in a related work [LINK] where it was shown with detrended correlation analysis that there is insufficient evidence to claim that atmospheric CO2 concentration is responsive to fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale and that therefore the attribution of rising atmospheric CO2 to emissions is without empirical support. Detrended correlation analysis extracts the portion of the observed source data correlation that derives from responsiveness at the chosen time scale by removing the portion that derives from shared trends. The motivation for this procedure is described in a related post [LINK] . Briefly, the trend is removed from the data so that only the regression residuals remain and a correlation between these residuals is used to measure the responsiveness of ΔCO2 to emissions.
3. This work is a further investigation into the relationship between changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and fossil fuel emissions. The failure of the prior study to find a responsiveness of atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale leaves open the possibility that a responsiveness may exist at longer time scales. Five time scales from one year to five years in increments of one year are studied. The data for the five time scales are displayed in Figure 2 which contains five charts one for each time scale. Each chart consists of three frames. The left frame shows emissions at the time scale of the chart in gigatons of carbon equivalent (GTC). The middle frame displays the corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2 converted from parts per million in volume (ppmv) to GTC equivalent. The last frame contains the ratio of ΔCO2 to emissions. This ratio, called the “Airborne Fraction (A/F)” is considered to be a constant with a value of approximately 50%. It describes the portion of emissions that end up in the atmosphere. The spread of the Airborne Fraction appears to include the value of A/F = 0.5 and the spread appears to narrow as the time scale is increased. Curiously, a slight downward trend is seen in the A/F at all time scales. The Airborne Fraction concept appears to assume a causal relationship between emissions and change in atmospheric CO2 concentration. The results are summarized in Figure 4. The volatility of the Airborne Fraction decreases sharply from Range=0.8 to Range =0.29 as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5 and at the longer time scales the median A/F converges nicely to the original IPCC figure of A/F=0.5. Later claims to reduced figures of A/F=0.42 seems arbitrary and perhaps a case of circular reasoning as explained in a related post [LINK]
4. The correlation analysis is presented in Figure 3. There are five charts one for each time scale. Each chart consists of two frames, a left frame that displays correlation in the source data and a right frame that shows the correlation between the detrended series. Both of these correlations rise as the time scale is increased from one to five years. At all five time scales we find a significant loss in correlation when the data are detrended. The correlation that survives into the detrended series serves as evidence of responsiveness at each of the five time scales. The survival fraction also rises as the time scale is increased from annual to five years. The results are summarized in Figure 5. Here we see that the source correlation rises from CORR=0.742 to CORR=0.921 as we increase the time scale from T/S=1 to T/S=5. The corresponding detrended correlation also rises from DETCOR=0.145 to DETCOR=0.314 with the survival fraction rising sharply from 19.5% to 34.1%.
5. The higher and higher detrended correlations and survival fractions at longer time scales raise the intriguing possibility that the failure to find a responsiveness of atmospheric composition to the rate of fossil fuel emissions was an inappropriate choice of an annual time scale. Perhaps a longer time scale will resolve the issue. To test that hypothesis we present one tailed hypothesis tests for each of the five detrended correlations at the five selected time scales. Here the alternate hypothesis is that the detrended correlation is positive or HA: DETCOR>0. The corresponding null hypothesis is that is not positive or H0: DETCOR<=0. The maximum false positive error rate is set to α=0.001, much lower than the usual values of α=0.01 to α=05, in accordance with Revised Standards for Statistical Significance (Johnson, 2013) published by the NAS to address an unacceptable rate of irreproducible results in published research (Siegfried, 2010). Since five comparisons are made for the five different time scales, the probability of finding at least one significant correlation in random data is increased by a factor of five to 0.005 (Holm, 1979). The results of the hypothesis tests are presented in Figure 5. Here EFFN=effective value of the sample size corrected for time scale which decreases from EFFN=60 to EFFN=12 as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5 to account for residual unique information in the time series. The procedure and rationale for this computation are described in a related work [LINK] . Along with the effective sample size, the degrees of freedom also falls since in this case degrees of freedom is computed as DF=EFFN-2. Thus, although the T-statistic rises somewhat as the time scale is increased from T/S=1 to T/S=5, none of the five PVALUEs is low enough to reject H0 even at alpha=0.05 where with the Holm adjustment for multiple comparison, a p-value of pval=0.01 would be required. We therefore fail to reject H0: DETCOR<=0  and conclude that the data do not provide evidence that atmospheric CO2 concentration is responsive to fossil fuel emissions at any of the time scales studied. Thus the interpretation of the Airborne Fraction in terms of the contribution of fossil fuel emissions to ΔCO2 requires the use of circular reasoning with an assumed responsiveness that is not found in the data. This issue is described in greater detail in a related post.  [LINK] .
6. A rationale for the inability to relate changes in atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions is described by Geologist James Edward Kamis in terms of natural geological emissions due to plate tectonics [LINK] and by Viv Forbes in terms of the natural Henry’s Law equilibrium with much larger store of CO2 in the ocean [LINK] . The essential argument is that, in the context of much larger natural flows of carbon dioxide and other carbon based compounds, it requires circular reasoning to describe changes in atmospheric CO2 only in terms of fossil fuel emissions. It is shown in a related post, that in the context of large uncertainties in carbon cycle flows, it is not possible to detect the presence of fossil fuel emissions without the help of circular reasoning  [LINK] . 
7. Carbon cycle flows cannot be directly measured and they must therefore be inferred. These inferred carbon cycle flows contain large uncertainties. The essence of this argument is that the in climate science mass balance of the carbon cycle with and without fossil fuel emissions, the declared uncertainties in carbon cycle flows are ignored. In the related post cited above [LINK] it is shown that when the declared uncertainties are taken into account, the much smaller fossil fuel emissions cannot be detected net of uncertainties in the much larger carbon cycle flows because the carbon cycle balances with and without fossil fuel emissions within its uncertainty bounds.
8. Circular reasoning in this case can be described in terms of the “Assume a spherical cow” fallacy [LINK] which refers to the use of simplifying assumptions needed to solve a problem that change the context of the problem so that the solution no longer answers the original research question. In the case of climate science the corresponding spherical cow assumption is “assume that there are no uncertainties in carbon cycle flows and no geological flows of carbon” [LINK] . 
9. The results of detrended correlation analysis at five time scales shows that the failure to find a responsiveness of atmospheric composition to fossil fuel emissions in a related work  [LINK] cannot be ascribed to the annual time scale used in the study as the result is validated at longer time scales to the point of diminishing returns.
10. We conclude that atmospheric composition specifically in relation to the CO2 concentration is not responsive to the rate of fossil fuel emissions. This finding is a serious weakness in the theory of anthropogenic global warming by way of rising atmospheric CO2 attributed to the use of fossil fuels in the industrial economy; and of the “Climate Action proposition of the UN that reducing fossil fuel emissions will moderate the rate of warming by slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2. The finding also establishes that the climate action project of creating Climate Neutral Economies, that is Economies that have no impact on atmospheric CO2, is unnecessary because the global economy is already Climate Neutral. 

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

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GEOLOGICAL CARBON BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. 2015: James Edward Kamis, Deep Ocean Rock Layer Mega-Fluid Flow Systems  [LINK]  Fluid flow of chemically charged seawater through and within very deep ocean rock layers is virtually unknown until recently. It is here proposed that the flow rate, flow amount, and flow duration of these systems is many orders of magnitude greater than previously thought. As a result the affect these systems have on our climate has been dramatically underestimated. It is proposed that Deep Ocean Rock Layer fluid Flow Systems are quite possibly an extremely important factor in influencing earth’s atmospheric climate, earth’s ocean climate, and earth’s ocean biologic communities. The mechanism for these relationships are strong El Nino’s / La Nina’s, altering major ocean currents, locally altering polar ice cap melting, infusing the ocean with needed minerals, affecting ocean fish migration patterns, acting to maintain huge chemosynthetic communities, acting to spread new species, and acting to eliminate weak species. It is possible that these systems will be proved to be unique/ different from land based hydrodynamic systems in many ways, and if proven correct this would be an extremely important new concept. Scientists have assumed that land based fluid flow / hydrologic systems would be a good analogy. It is here contended that this is an incorrect assumption. These deep ocean systems do not act like land based systems. The major difference of deep ocean fluid flow systems is that they likely flow significantly greater amounts of heat and chemically charged fluid than previously realized. Deep ocean hydrothermal vents and cold seeps are here hypothesized be a just a small part of these here-to-for unrecognized and much larger deep ocean fluid flow systems. This is a very different way of perceiving fluid flow through deep ocean basin rock and sediment layers. To date most scientists have thought of deep ocean rock and sediment layers as basically bottom seals that largely did not and do not interact with the overlying ocean. It is here contended that these systems will be some day be proven to be immense, many of them covering huge regions and extending to great depths of many thousands of feet into ocean rock and sediment layers. In essence they will be found to be part of a continuum between the ocean crust, which they are part of, and upper mantle. Some of the perceived important differences between deep ocean fluid flow systems and land hydrologic systems are as follows
2. 2016: James Edward Kamis, How Geological Forces Rock the Earth’s Climate [LINK]  Geological forces influence the planet’s climate in many specific and measurable ways. They melt the base of polar glaciers, abruptly change the course of deep ocean currents, influence the distribution of plankton blooms, infuse our atmosphere with volcanic sulfur rich ash, modify huge sub-ocean biologic communities, and generate all El Niño / La Niñas’ cycles. Given all of this very convincing information, many of today’s supposedly expert scientists still vehemently insist that our climate is completely / exclusively driven by atmospheric forces. This work challenges that orthodoxy. Three new game-changing pieces of geological information have been revealed: the discovery of an extensive field of active seafloor volcanoes and faults in the far western Pacific, iron enrichment of a huge ocean region off the coast of Antarctica, and the timing of western Pacific Ocean earthquakes vs. El Niños. A significant portion of the Earth’s climate is driven by massive fluid flow of super-heated and chemically charged seawater up and out from major fault zones and associated volcanic features. New geological information is changing the way we view long term climate variability. The data covers significant areas of the ocean measured in hundreds of miles laterally and thousands of feet vertically, and lastly the data is clearly related to geological forces and rather than the exclusive domain of the atmosphere.
3. 2017: James Edward Kamis, Global Warming and Plate Climatology Theory [LINK] The Plate Climatology Theory was originally posted on Climate Change Dispatch October 7, 2014. Since that time other information in the form of several relatively new publications has been incorporated into the theory, and as a result key aspects of the theory have been strengthened. Not proven, but strengthened. This new information does prove one thing, that this theory should be given strong consideration by all scientists studying Global Climate. I am in no way attempting to prove the other guys wrong. Rather Plate Climatology is intended to be additive to the excellent work done to date. It may open the way to resolving the “Natural Variation” question currently being debated by Climate Scientists. What could be more natural than geological events influencing Climate? It is expected that this work will act as a catalyst for future research and provide a platform to join what are now several independently researched branches of science; Geology, Climatology, Meteorology, and Biology. The science of Climate is extremely complex and necessitates a multi-disciplinary approach.
4. 2018: James Edward Kamis, The influence of oceanic and continental fault boundaries on climate [LINK] Another giant piece of the climate science puzzle just fell into place, specifically that geological heat flow is now proven to be the primary force responsible for anomalous bottom melting and break-up of many West Antarctica glaciers, and not atmospheric warming. This new insight is the result of a just released National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Antarctica geological research study (see here). Results of this study have forever changed how consensus climate scientists and those advocating the theory of Climate Change / Global Warming, view Antarctica’s anomalous climate and climate related events. In a broader theoretical sense, results of the NASA study challenge the veracity of the most important building block principle of the Climate Change Theory, specifically that emissions of CO2 and carbon by humans is responsible for the vast majority of earth’s anomalous climate phenomena. This article will provide evidence that geological forces associated with major oceanic and continental fault boundaries influence and in some cases completely control a significant portion of earth’s anomalous climate and many of its anomalous climate related events.
5. 1983: Garrels, ROBERT M. “The carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle and its effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 100 million years.” Am J Sci 283 (1983): 641-683. [FULL TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD]
6. 1992: Raymo, Maureen E., and William F. Ruddiman. “Tectonic forcing of late Cenozoic climate.” nature 359.6391 (1992): 117. Global cooling in the Cenozoic, which led to the growth of large continental ice sheets in both hemispheres, may have been caused by the uplift of the Tibetan plateau and the positive feedbacks initiated by this event. In particular, tectonically driven increases in chemical weathering may have resulted in a decrease of atmospheric C0₂concentration over the past 40 Myr.
7. 1995: Keeling, Charles D., et al. “Interannual extremes in the rate of rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1980.” Nature375.6533 (1995): 666. OBSERVATIONS of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, and at the South Pole over the past four decades show an approximate proportionality between the rising atmospheric concentrations and industrial CO₂ emissions¹. This proportionality, which is most apparent during the first 20 years of the records, was disturbed in the 1980s by a disproportionately high rate of rise of atmospheric CO₂, followed after 1988 by a pronounced slowing down of the growth rate. To probe the causes of these changes, we examine here the changes expected from the variations in the rates of industrial CO₂emissions over this time², and also from influences of climate such as El Niño events. We use the¹³C/¹²C ratio of atmospheric CO₂ to distinguish the effects of interannual variations in biospheric and oceanic sources and sinks of carbon. We propose that the recent disproportionate rise and fall in CO₂ growth rate were caused mainly by interannual variations in global air temperature (which altered both the terrestrial biospheric and the oceanic carbon sinks), and possibly also by precipitation. We suggest that the anomalous climate-induced rise in CO₂ was partially masked by a slowing down in the growth rate of fossil-fuel combustion, and that the latter then exaggerated the subsequent climate-induced fall.
8. 1995: Kerrick, Derrill M., et al. “Convective hydrothermal C02 emission from high heat flow regions.” Chemical Geology121.1-4 (1995): 285-293.In addition to volatiles released from volcanoes, the flux of CO2 to the atmosphere from other sources (e.g., metamorphism and subsurface magmatism) represents an important aspect of the global carbon cycle. We have obtained a direct estimate of the present-day atmospheric CO2 flux from convective hydrothermal systems within subaerial, seismically-active, high heat flow regions. Geothermal systems of the Salton Trough (California, U.S.A.) and the Taupo Volcanic Zone (New Zealand) provide benchmarks for quantifying convective hydrothermal CO2 fluxes from such regions. CO2 fluxes from the Salton Trough ( ∼ 109 mol yr−1) and the Taupo Volcanic Zone (∼ 8·109 mol yr−1) were computed using data on convective heat flow and the temperatures and CO2 concentrations of reservoir fluids. The similarity in specific CO2 flux ( ∼ 106 mol km−2 yr−1) from these two disparate geologic/tectonic settings implies that this flux may be used as a baseline to compute convective hydrothermal CO2 emission from other areas of high heat flow. If this specific flux is integrated over high heat flow areas of the circum-Pacific and Tethyan belts, the total global CO2 flux could equal or exceed 1012 mol yr−1 Adding this flux to a present-day volcanic CO2 flux of ∼ 4·1012 mol yr−1 the total present-day Earth degassing flux could balance the amount of CO2 consumed by chemical weathering ( ∼ 7·1012 mol yr−1).
9. 1996: Sano, Yuji, and Stanley N. Williams. “Fluxes of mantle and subducted carbon along convergent plate boundaries.” Geophysical Research Letters 23.20 (1996): 2749-2752. The potential impact of increases in atmospheric CO₂ is a topic of considerable controversy. Even though volcanic emission of CO₂ may be very small as compared to anthropogenic emissions, evaluation of natural degassing of CO₂ is important for any model of the geochemical C cycle and evolution of the Earth’s atmosphere. We report here the mantle C flux in subduction zones based on He and C isotopes and CO₂/³ He ratios of high‐temperature volcanic gases and medium‐ and low‐temperature fumaroles in circum‐Pacific volcanic regions. The calculated volcanic C flux of 3.1 × 10¹² mol/a from subduction zones is larger than the flux of 1.5 × 10¹² mol/a from mid‐ocean ridges, while contributions from the mantle in subduction zone is only 0.30 × 10¹² mol/a, equivalent to about 20% of the C flux in mid‐ocean ridges. Since the estimated mantle C flux in hot spot regions is insignificant, 0.029 × 10¹² mol/a, we propose that the global mantle C flux is 1.8 × 10¹² mol/a in total. The flux, if accumulated over 4.5 billion year of geological time, amounts to 8.3 × 10²¹ mol which agrees well with 9 × 10²¹ mol of the present inventory of C at the Earth’s surface. This may support a continuous degassing model of C or the idea that subducted C is recycled into the lower mantle.
10. 1998: Marty, Bernard, and Igor N. Tolstikhin. “CO 2 fluxes from mid-ocean ridges, arcs and plumes.” Chemical Geology 145.3 (1998): 233-248. Estimates of CO₂ emissions at spreading centres, convergent margins, and plumes have been reviewed and upgraded using observed CO₂/³He ratios in magmatic volatiles, ³He content estimates in the magmatic sources, and magma emplacement rates in the different tectonic settings. The effect of volatile fractionation during magma degassing, investigated using new rare gas and CO₂ abundances determined simultaneously for a suite of Mid-Ocean Ridge (MOR) basalt glasses, is not the major factor controlling the spread of data, which mainly result from volatile heterogeneity in the mantle source. The computed C flux at ridges (2.2±0.9)×10¹² mol/a, is essentially similar to previous estimates based on a more restricted data base. Variation of the C flux in the past can be simply scaled to that of spreading rate since the computed C depends mainly on the volatile content of the mantle source, which can be considered constant during the last 10⁸ a. The flux of CO₂ from arcs may be approximated using the CO₂/³He ratios of volcanic gases at arcs and the magma emplacement rate, assuming that the ³He content of the mantle end-member is that of the MORB source. The resulting flux is ∼2.5×10¹² mol/a, with approx. 80% of carbon being derived from the subducting plate. The flux of CO₂from plumes, based on time-averaged magma production rates and on estimated contributions of geochemical sources to plume magmatism, is ≤3×10¹² mol/a. Significant enhancements of the CO₂ flux from plumes might have occurred in the past during giant magma emplacements, depending on the duration of these events, although the time-integrated effect does not appear important. The global magmatic flux of CO₂ into the atmosphere and the hydrosphere is found to be 6×10¹² mol/a, with a range of (4–10)×10¹² mol/a. Improvement on the precision of this estimate is linked to a better understanding of the volatile inventory at arcs on one hand, and on the dynamics of plumes and their mantle source contribution on the other hand.
11. 2001: Kerrick, Derrill M. “Present and past nonanthropogenic CO2 degassing from the solid Earth.” Reviews of Geophysics 39.4 (2001): 565-585. Global carbon cycle models suggest that CO₂ degassing from the solid Earth has been a primary control of paleoatmospheric CO₂ contents and through the greenhouse effect, of global paleotemperatures. Because such models utilize simplified and indirect assumptions about CO₂ degassing, improved quantification is warranted. Present‐day CO₂ degassing provides a baseline for modeling the global carbon cycle and provides insight into the geologic regimes of paleodegassing. Mid‐ocean ridges (MORs) discharge 1–3 × 10¹² mol/yr of CO₂ and consume ∼3.5 × 10¹² mol/yr of CO₂ by carbonate formation in MOR hydrothermal systems. Excluding MORs as a net source of CO₂ to the atmosphere, the total CO₂ discharge from subaerial volcanism is estimated at ∼2.0–2.5 × 10¹² mol/yr. Because this flux is lower than estimates of the global consumption of atmospheric CO₂ by subaerial silicate weathering, other CO₂ sources are required to balance the global carbon cycle. Nonvolcanic CO₂ degassing (i.e., emission not from the craters or flanks of volcanos), which is prevalent in high heat flow regimes that are primarily located at plate boundaries, could contribute the additional CO₂ that is apparently necessary to balance the global carbon cycle. Oxidation of methane emitted from serpentinization of ultramafics and from thermocatalysis of organic matter provides an additional, albeit unquantified, source of CO₂ to the atmosphere. Magmatic CO₂degassing was probably a major contributor to global warming during the Cretaceous. Metamorphic CO₂ degassing from regimes of shallow, pluton‐related low‐pressure regional metamorphism may have significantly contributed to global warming during the Cretaceous and Paleocene/Eocene. CO₂ degassing associated with continental rifting of Pangaea may have contributed to the global warming that was initiated in the Jurassic. During the Cretaceous, global warming initiated by CO₂ degassing of flood basalts, and consequent rapid release of large quantities of CH₄ by decomposition of gas hydrates (clathrates), could have caused widespread extinctions of organisms.
12. 2008: Zachos, James C., Gerald R. Dickens, and Richard E. Zeebe. “An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics.” Nature 451.7176 (2008): 279. By the year 2400, it is predicted that humans will have released about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon (Gt C) to the atmosphere since the start of the industrial revolution if fossil-fuel emissions continue unabated and carbon-sequestration efforts remain at current levels¹. This anthropogenic carbon input, predominantly carbon dioxide (CO₂), would eventually return to the geosphere through the deposition of calcium carbonate and organic matter². Over the coming millennium, however, most would accumulate in the atmosphere and ocean. Even if only 60% accumulated in the atmosphere, the partial pressure of CO₂ (pCO2pCO2) would rise to 1,800 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) (Fig. 1). A greater portion entering the ocean would decrease the atmospheric burden but with a consequence: significantly lower pH and carbonate ion concentrations of ocean surface layers¹
13. 2010: Dasgupta, Rajdeep, and Marc M. Hirschmann. “The deep carbon cycle and melting in Earth’s interior.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 298.1-2 (2010): 1-13. Carbon geochemistry of mantle-derived samples suggests that the fluxes and reservoir sizes associated with deep cycle are in the order of 10^12–13 g C/yr and 10^22–23 g C, respectively. This deep cycle is responsible for the billion year-scale evolution of the terrestrial carbon reservoirs. The petrology of deep storage modulates the long-term evolution and distribution of terrestrial carbon. Unlike water, which in most of the Earth’s mantle is held in nominally anhydrous silicates, carbon is stored in accessory phases. The accessory phase of interest, with increasing depth, typically changes from fluids/melts → calcite/dolomite → magnesite → diamond/Fe-rich alloy/Fe-metal carbide, assuming that the mass balance and oxidation state are buffered solely by silicates. If, however, carbon is sufficiently abundant, it may reside as carbonate even in the deep mantle. If Earth’s deep mantle is Fe-metal saturated, carbon storage in metal alloy and as metal carbide cannot be avoided for depleted and enriched domains, respectively. Carbon ingassing to the interior is aided by modern subduction of the carbonated oceanic lithosphere, whereas outgassing from the mantle is controlled by decompression melting of carbonated mantle. Carbonated melting at > 300 km depth or redox melting of diamond-bearing or metal-bearing mantle at somewhat shallower depth generates carbonatitic and carbonated silicate melts and are the chief agents for liberating carbon from the solid Earth to the exosphere. Petrology allows net ingassing of carbon into the mantle in the modern Earth, but in the hotter subduction zones that prevailed during the Hadean, Archean, and Paleoproterozoic, carbonate likely was released at shallow depths and may have returned to the exosphere. Inefficient ingassing, along with efficient outgassing, may have kept the ancient mantle carbon-poor. The influence of carbon on deep Earth dynamics is through inducing melting and mobilization of structurally bound mineral water. Extraction of carbonated melt on one hand can dehydrate the mantle and enhance viscosity; the presence of trace carbonated melt on other may generate seismic low-velocity zones and amplify attenuation.

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

FIGURE 1: ATMOSPHERIC METHANE CONCENTRATION 1983-2014

FIGURE 2: ANNUAL INCREASE IN METHANE CONCENTRATION

FIGURE 3: ANNUAL COAL PRODUCTION

FIGURE 4: ANNUAL NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION

FIGURE 5: ANNUAL OIL PRODUCTION

FIGURE 6: ANNUAL HYDRO-POWER GENERATION

FIGURE 7: ANNUAL INDEX OF ENTERIC FERMENTATION ACTIVITY

FIGURE 8: ANNUAL METHANE EMISSIONS FROM RICE CULTIVATION

FIGURE 9: MULTI-COLLINEARITY

FIGURE 10: DETRENDED CORRELATION: COAL AND NATURAL GAS

FIGURE 11: DETRENDED CORRELATION: OIL AND HYDROPOWER

FIGURE 12: DETRENDED CORRELATION: ENTERIC FERMENTATION & RICE

FIGURE 13: DETRENDED CORRELATION AT DIFFERENT METHANE LIFETIMES

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. The so called greenhouse effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide is based on the theory that solar irradiance reaches the surface of the earth relatively unhindered but the longer wavelength radiation by the warmed surface does not escape to outer space unhindered but is absorbed by carbon dioxide and re-radiated such that much of it is returned to the surface causing the surface temperature to be higher than it would have been without this absorption effect (Anderson, 2016) (Arrhenius, 1896) (Callendar, 1938) (Tyndall, 1861). The modern version of the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) holds that atmospheric CO2 is “the control knob” that determines surface temperature at an annual time scale such that there is a direct logarithmic relationship between atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature that can be expressed in the form of an Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity or ECS to compute the rise in temperature expected for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration (Charney, 1979) (Hansen-Lacis, 1984) (IPCC, 2013) (Lacis, 2010) (Manabe, 1975).
2. It has been speculated since the 1930s that man’s use of fossil fuels in the industrial economy has introduced an extraneous and unnatural source of carbon dioxide that acts as a perturbation of the current account of the carbon cycle that sustains life and the climate system on the surface of the earth (Callendar, 1938) (Revelle, 1957). When consistent, accurate, and continual measurements of atmospheric CO2 uncontaminated by local conditions became available at the remote Mauna Loa station, the observed persistent and sustained increase in atmospheric CO2 year after year was interpreted as an alarming and unprecedented trend caused by man’s use of fossil fuels (Revelle, 1983) (Keeling, 1977) (Hansen, 1981) (Hansen, 1988).
3. A compound feedback relationship between atmospheric CO2 and temperature was solved with computer climate models and it is claimed that the overall ocean-atmosphere climatology is driven completely by the greenhouse effect of CO2 on surface temperature to the point that atmospheric CO2 acts as the control knob that determines surface temperature (Lacis, Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature, 2010). The greater greenhouse effect of water vapor depends directly on the amount of warming created by CO2 which does not condense out and is therefore “long lived” in the atmosphere (Lacis, 1974) (Lacis, The role of long lived greenhouse gases, 2013) (IPCC, 2014).
4. The “human cause” argument in global warming (Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW) is that in the industrial economy, considered to have started in the nineteenth century, humans were bringing up fossil fuels from under the ground, where they had been sequestered from the carbon cycle for millions of years, and injecting that carbon into the current account of the carbon cycle. This injection of carbon is therefore an artificial and unnatural perturbation of the carbon cycle and therefore of the climate system by way of the GHG effect of atmospheric CO2. However, this narrow definition later became extended to all human activity to include land use, agriculture, deforestation, and other activities such that the initial argument about the perturbation of the current account of the carbon cycle with external carbon no longer applied so that any carbon emission that can be ascribed to humans were considered “external”. Here we argue that this extension of a theory about the impact of the “industrial economy” on climate to all human activities, even those that predate the Industrial Revolution, is arbitrary and capricious and that the perturbation of the current account of the carbon cycle by “external carbon” can only be assessed in terms of non-surface phenomena that are peculiar to the industrial economy.
5. Two non-industrial human activities identified as additional causes of global warming are rice farming and enteric fermentation of farm animals because these activities are known to be sources of methane emissions. Methane (CH4) is considered to be a powerful greenhouse gas more potent than CO2. It has been suggested that the rate of global warming can be moderated by restricting human activities known to be sources of methane emission. A significant body of research exists on the subject of human-induced CH4 emissions from land use changes, rice farming, and cattle ranching (Conrad, 1996) (Johnson K. , 1995) (Sass, 1991) (Lamb, 1994) as well as emissions from the extraction and transportation of hydrocarbons (Harrison, 1996) (EPA, 2015) (Warmuzinski, 2008) (Allen, 2013) (Howarth, 2011). Recently, the generation of hydroelectric power, ordinarily thought to be a green energy source, has been found to be a source of anthropogenic methane because its production involves converting flowing river water into still water in reservoirs that retain the vast quantities of vegetation that were flooded when the reservoir was formed. Such bog-like conditions are known to favor methane emissions and these emissions have been documented (Fearnside, 2015) (Giles, 2006) (Magill, 2014) (Santos, 2006) (Delsontro, 2010). However, the IPCC does not yet recognize hydropower production as a source of anthropogenic methane. The IPCC identifies large flows of methane from natural sources (IPCC, 2007) (IPCC, 2014) that include mud volcanoes (Etiope, 2005), geothermal vents (Etiope G. , 2007), marine and terrestrial hydrocarbon seepage (Cline, 1977) (Geyer, 1973) (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, 2000) (Kvenvolden, 2003), termites (Sanderson, 1996), incomplete combustion in peat bog fires and coal seam fires (Stracher, 2004) (Kuenzer, 2007), and the wetlands of the northern hemisphere (Christensen, 2003) (Aselmann, 1989) (Ortiz-Llorente, 2012) (Bousquet, 2006). That natural sources of geological carbon are not trivial can be seen in the Pliocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum  (PETM) event when a global and catastrophic devastation is thought to have been caused by natural geological sources of methane [LINK] . A source of bias in the environmental sciences is the tendency to assume a human cause for all observed trends. 
6. Although it is common to ascribe changes in atmospheric methane to human causes under study (Smith 2010), these natural flows make that attribution problematic. An added complexity in the study of atmospheric methane is that methane is unstable in the presence of oxygen and spontaneously oxidizes to carbon dioxide and water releasing the heat of reaction into the atmosphere. Methane emissions into the atmosphere thus deplete naturally with a half life of ≈5 to 6 years. In that sense methane is not a “long-lived” greenhouse gas.
7. Care must be taken in the attribution of observed changes in atmospheric methane so that the attribution is supported by responsiveness at an annual time scale. Direct measurements of atmospheric CH4 are available from the NOAA Mauna Loa (MLO) measuring station from 1983 denominated as parts per billion by volume on a dry basis (PPBV) (NOAA, 2015). Monthly mean values of “flask” measurements of CH4 are downloaded and converted into annual means as the average of the monthly values for all 12 months of each calendar year. Annual changes in atmospheric methane are computed from 1984 to 2013 by subtracting the previous year’s annual mean adjusted for oxidation decay from the annual mean value of the current year. For the base case, we assume that each year 1/12th of the atmospheric methane decays by oxidation. Two alternate cases are also studied – one at a higher decay rate of 1/9th per year and one at a lower decay rate of 1/15th per year. These decay rates are based on a mean lifetime of methane in the atmosphere of 12±3 years. These differences give us 30 years of changes in mean annual atmospheric CH4. This time series is the object of our study and the dependent variable in our detrended correlation model.
8. Methane measurements have been made at MLO using the “in-situ” method since 1988 (NOAA, 2015). These values are somewhat different. The flask measurements are used in this study because they offer a longer time series and a larger sample size. In the common period 1988-2014, the two series do not differ in a way that would affect our analysis. A comprehensive dataset of global greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural activities is available from the FAOSTAT data services of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2015). The data are reported as “CO2-equivalent” emissions in Gigagrams per year. These figures are used only as a proxy for year to year changes in the size of agricultural activities and processes that are known to be sources of methane emission. Agricultural activities included in this study are enteric fermentation and rice cultivation.
9. Figure 1 shows the atmospheric CH4 data used in this study. These data are used to compute annual change in atmospheric CH4 net of oxidation decay shown in the left panel of Figure 2.  The changes are computed as δCH4 = CH4i – CH4i-1 * (λ-1)/λ where λ is the mean lifetime of methane in the atmosphere and i is the year for which the change is computed. The difference δCH4 represents the additional methane that was added to the atmosphere from surface sources during the year. In the base  case presented here, the value of λ is set to λ=12 years. Possible values of λ at either end of the range  are also included in this study with λ=9 years and λ=15 years.
10. The values of δCH4 are detrended by subtracting the trend line from the observed values. The detrended series is shown in the right panel of Figure 2. These values are the object of our study. They represent the year to year changes in atmospheric CH4 net of long term trends. We proceed now to investigate whether these changes correlate with indexes of six human activities that have been identified as anthropogenic sources of atmospheric methane. The observed data and their detrended values for coal production, natural gas production, oil production, hydropower generation, enteric fermentation, and rice cultivation are presented graphically in Figure 3 to Figure 8. An important feature of the six detrended series presented here is that, with the exception of oil production, the explanatory variables are correlated with each other to a degree that makes it difficult to test their individual effects in the same model (Draper&Smith, 1998). The correlation coefficients among the six anthropogenic emission factors are tabulated in Figure 9. The multi-collinearity among the anthropogenic emission rates may imply that methane emissions attributed to these anthropogenic sources may derive from a common natural source source and that their attribution is arbitrary and capricious.
11. In detrended correlation analysis, we look at the correlation of each of the detrended sources of emission individually with the detrended δCh4 series. The six correlations are shown graphically in Figure 10 to Figure 12. The correlations shown in these figures are based on a mean methane lifetime in the atmosphere of λ= 12 years and the assumption that 1/12th of the atmospheric methane is removed by oxidation each year. Figure 13 shows the correlations at two additional decay rates with λ=9 and λ=15. We note in Figure 13 that higher values of λ and the corresponding lower rates of decay of atmospheric methane yield higher correlations. All eighteen values of detrended correlations are tabulated in Figure 13. The correlations for enteric fermentation and coal production are higher than the correlations for the other emission factors but in all eighteen hypothesis tests the p-value > α and we fail to reject the null H0: ρ≤0. The data do not provide evidence that any of the six sources of anthropogenic methane emission are correlated with changes in atmospheric methane at an annual time scale net of long term trends. The data do not provide evidence that changes in atmospheric methane concentration can be explained in terms of the six anthropogenic causes investigated. Rather their multi-collinearity suggests that changes in methane derive from a common source possibly the geological sources listed by the IPCC and arbitrarily ascribed to human activities.
12. Using a conversion rate of 2.78 megatons per ppbv of methane in the atmosphere we estimate that annual changes in atmospheric methane in the sample period corresponded with 320-360 MTY for a lifetime of λ=15 years, 400-440 MTY for λ=12 years, and 540-585 MTY for λ=9 years. The IPCC estimates natural flows as 254-502 MTY and anthropogenic flows as 278-239 MTY. The detrended correlation of annual changes in atmospheric methane with anthropogenic sources were highest at λ=15 years when they are least needed and lowest at λ=9 years when they are most needed to achieve a methane balance. The apparent paradox provides further support for the non-significance and spuriousness of the observed sample correlations. The role of anthropogenic sources in observed changes in atmospheric methane will likely not be understood until we have gained a far better precision in the measurement of natural flows (Bousquet, 2006) (Talbot, 2014).
13. We conclude from these findings that anthropogenic activities do not contribute to the observed rise in atmospheric methane in a measurable way and that therefore proposed climate action initiatives of eating less meat, the banning of fracking for natural gas production, and proposed changes in rice cultivation are unnecessary because there is no evidence that these initiatives will change the rate of increase in atmospheric methane. It  is far more likely that the observed rising trend in atmospheric methane is natural and geological in origin with no scope for human intervention for its attenuation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CATTLE, MEAT EATING, METHANE, AND CLIMATE CHANGE

1. 1991: Fung, Inez, et al. “Three‐dimensional model synthesis of the global methane cycle.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 96.D7 (1991): 13033-13065. The geographic and seasonal emission distributions of the major sources and sinks of atmospheric methane were compiled using methane flux measurements and energy and agricultural statistics in conjunction with global digital data bases of land surface characteristics and anthropogenic activities. Chemical destruction of methane in the atmosphere was calculated using three‐dimensional OH fields every 5 days taken from Spivakovsky et al. (1990a, b). The signatures of each of the sources and sinks in the atmosphere were simulated using a global three‐dimensional tracer transport model. Candidate methane budget scenarios were constructed according to mass balance of methane and its carbon isotopes. The verisimilitude of the scenarios was tested by their ability to reproduce the meridional gradient and seasonal variations of methane observed in the atmosphere. Constraints imposed by all the atmospheric observations are satisfied simultaneously by several budget scenarios. A preferred budget comprises annual destruction rates of 450 Tg by OH oxidation and 10 Tg by soil absorption and annual emissions of 80 Tg from fossil sources, 80 Tg from domestic animals, and 35 Tg from wetlands and tundra poleward of 50°N. Emissions from landfills, tropical swamps, rice fields, biomass burning, and termites total 295 Tg; however, the individual contributions of these terms cannot be determined uniquely because of the lack of measurements of direct fluxes and of atmospheric methane variations in regions where these sources are concentrated.
   
2. 1997: Hein, Ralf, Paul J. Crutzen, and Martin Heimann. “An inverse modeling approach to investigate the global atmospheric methane cycle.” Global Biogeochemical Cycles 11.1 (1997): 43-76. Estimates of the global magnitude of atmospheric methane sources are currently mainly based on direct flux measurements in source regions. Their extrapolation to the entire globe often involves large uncertainties. In this paper, we present an inverse modeling approach which can be used to deduce information on methane sources and sinks from the temporal and spatial variations of atmospheric methane mixing ratios. Our approach is based on a three‐dimensional atmospheric transport model which, combined with a tropospheric background chemistry module, is also employed to calculate the global distribution of OH radicals which provide the main sink for atmospheric methane. The global mean concentration of OH radicals is validated with methyl chloroform (CH₃CCl₃) observations. The inverse modeling method optimizes the agreement between model‐calculated and observed methane mixing ratios by adjusting the magnitudes of the various methane sources and sinks. The adjustment is constrained by specified a priori estimates and uncertainties of the source and sink magnitudes. We also include data on the ¹³C/¹²C isotope ratio of atmospheric methane and its sources in the model. Focusing on the 1980s, two scenarios of global methane sources are constructed which reproduce the main features seen in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory (NOAA/CMDL) methane observations. Differences between these two scenarios may probably be attributed to underestimated a priori uncertainties of wetland emissions. Applying the inverse model, the average uncertainty of methane source magnitudes could be reduced by at least one third. We also examined the decrease in the atmospheric methane growth rate during the early 1990s but could not associate it with changes in specific sources.   [FULL TEXT PDF]
3. 1998: Dlugokencky, E. J., et al. “Continuing decline in the growth rate of the atmospheric methane burden.” Nature 393.6684 (1998): 447. The global atmospheric methane burden has more than doubled since pre-industrial times¹,², and this increase is responsible for about 20% of the estimated change in direct radiative forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions. Research into future climate change and the development of remedial environmental policies therefore require a reliable assessment of the long-term growth rate in the atmospheric methane load. Measurements have revealed that although the global atmospheric methane burden continues to increase² with significant interannual variability³,⁴, the overall rate of increase has slowed²,⁵. Here we present an analysis of methane measurements from a global air sampling network that suggests that, assuming constant OH concentration, global annual methane emissions have remained nearly constant during the period 1984–96, and that the decreasing growth rate in atmospheric methane reflects the approach to a steady state on a timescale comparable to methane’s atmospheric lifetime. If the global methane sources and OH concentration continue to remain constant, we expect average methane mixing ratios to increase slowly from today’s 1,730 nmol mol⁻¹ to ∼1,800 nmol mol⁻¹, with little change in the contribution of methane to the greenhouse effect.
4. 1998: Etheridge, David M., et al. “Atmospheric methane between 1000 AD and present: Evidence of anthropogenic emissions and climatic variability.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 103.D13 (1998): 15979-15993. Atmospheric methane mixing ratios from 1000 A.D. to present are measured in three Antarctic ice cores, two Greenland ice cores, the Antarctic firn layer, and archived air from Tasmania, Australia. The record is unified by using the same measurement procedure and calibration scale for all samples and by ensuring high age resolution and accuracy of the ice core and firn air. In this way, methane mixing ratios, growth rates, and interpolar differences are accurately determined. From 1000 to 1800 A.D. the global mean methane mixing ratio averaged 695 ppb and varied about 40 ppb, contemporaneous with climatic variations. Interpolar (N‐S) differences varied between 24 and 58 ppb. The industrial period is marked by high methane growth rates from 1945 to 1990, peaking at about 17 ppb yr⁻¹ in 1981 and decreasing significantly since. We calculate an average total methane source of 250 Tg yr⁻¹ for 1000–1800 A.D., reaching near stabilization at about 560 Tg yr⁻¹ in the 1980s and 1990s. The isotopic ratio, δ¹³CH₄, measured in the archived air and firn air, increased since 1978 but the rate of increase slowed in the mid‐1980s. The combined CH₄ and δ¹³CH₄ trends support the stabilization of the total CH₄ source.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
5. 1998: Lelieveld, J. O. S., Paul J. Crutzen, and Frank J. Dentener. “Changing concentration, lifetime and climate forcing of atmospheric methane.” Tellus B 50.2 (1998): 128-150. Previous studies on ice core analyses and recent in situ measurements have shown that CH₄ has increased from about 0.75–1.73 μmol/mol during the past 150 years. Here, we review sources and sink estimates and we present global 3D model calculations, showing that the main features of the global CH₄ distribution are well represented. The model has been used to derive the total CH₄ emission source, being about 600 Tg yr^‐1. Based on published results of isotope measurements the total contribution of fossil fuel related CH₄ emissions has been estimated to be about 110 Tg yr^‐1. However, the individual coal, natural gas and oil associated CH₄ emissions can not be accurately quantified. In particular natural gas and oil associated emissions remain speculative. Since the total anthropogenic CH₄ source is about 410 Tg yr^‐1 (∼70% of the total source) and the mean recent atmospheric CH₄ increase is ∼20 Tg yr^‐1 an anthropogenic source reduction of 5% could stabilize the atmospheric CH₄ level. We have calculated the indirect chemical effects of increasing CH₄ on climate forcing on the basis of global 3D chemistry‐transport and radiative transfer calculations. These indicate an enhancement of the direct radiative effect by about 30%, in agreement with previous work. The contribution of CH₄ (direct and indirect effects) to climate forcing during the past 150 years is 0.57W m⁻² (direct 0.44W m⁻², indirect 0.13 W m⁻²). This is about 35% of the climate forcing by CO₂ (1.6W m⁻²) and about 22% of the forcing by all long‐lived greenhouse gases (2.6 W m⁻²). Scenario calculations (IPCC‐IS92a) indicate that the CH₄ lifetime in the atmosphere increased by about 25–30%during the past 150 years to a current value of 7.9 years. Future lifetime changes are expected to be much smaller, about 6%, mostly due to the expected increase of tropospheric O₃ (→OH) in the tropics. The global mean concentration of CH₄ may increase to about 2.55 μmol/mol, its lifetime is expected to increase to 8.4 years in the year 2050. Further, we have calculated a CH₄ global warming potential (GWP) of 21 (kgCH₄/kgCO₂) over a time horizon of 100 years, in agreement with IPCC (1996). Scenario calculations indicate that the importance of the climate forcing by CH₄ (including indirect effects) relative to that of CO₂ will decrease in future; currently this is about 35%, while this is expected to decrease to about 15% in the year 2050. [FULL TEXT PDF]  
   
6. 1999: Houweling, Sander, et al. “Inverse modeling of methane sources and sinks using the adjoint of a global transport model.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres104.D21 (1999): 26137-26160. An inverse modeling method is presented to evaluate the sources and sinks of atmospheric methane. An adjoint version of a global transport model has been used to estimate these fluxes at a relatively high spatial and temporal resolution. Measurements from 34 monitoring stations and 11 locations along two ship cruises by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration have been used as input. Recent estimates of methane sources, including a number of minor ones, have been used as a priori constraints. For the target period 1993–1995 our inversion reduces the a priori assumed global methane emissions of 528 to 505 Tg(CH₄) yr⁻¹ a posteriori. Further, the relative contribution of the Northern Hemispheric sources decreases from 77% a priori to 67% a posteriori. In addition to making the emission estimate more consistent with the measurements, the inversion helps to reduce the uncertainties in the sources. Uncertainty reductions vary from 75% on the global scale to ∼1% on the grid‐scale (8° × 10°), indicating that the grid scale variability is not resolved by the measurements. Large scale features such as the inter-hemispheric methane concentration gradient are relatively well resolved and therefore impose strong constraints on the estimated fluxes. The capability of the model to reproduce this gradient is critically dependent on the accuracy at which the inter-hemispheric tracer exchange and the large‐scale hydroxyl radical distribution are represented. As a consequence, the inversion‐derived emission estimates are sensitive to errors in the transport model and the calculated hydroxyl radical distribution. In fact, a considerable contribution of these model errors cannot be ignored. This underscores that source quantification by inverse modeling is limited by the extent to which the rate of interhemispheric transport and the hydroxyl radical distribution can be validated. We show that the use of temporal and spatial correlations of emissions may significantly improve our results; however, at present the experimental support for such correlations is lacking. Our results further indicate that uncertainty reductions reported in previous inverse studies of methane have been overestimated.  [FULL TEXT PDF] 
7. 2003: Dlugokencky, E. J., et al. “Atmospheric methane levels off: Temporary pause or a new steady‐state?.” Geophysical Research Letters 30.19 (2003).  The globally‐averaged atmospheric methane abundance determined from an extensive network of surface air sampling sites was constant at ∼1751 ppb from 1999 through 2002. Assuming that the methane lifetime has been constant, this implies that during this 4‐year period the global methane budget has been at steady state. We also observed a significant decrease in the difference between northern and southern polar zonal annual averages of CH₄ from 1991 to 1992. Using a 3‐D transport model, we show that this change is consistent with a decrease in CH₄ emissions of ∼10 Tg CH₄ from north of 50°N in the early‐1990s. This decrease in emissions may have accelerated the global methane budget towards steady state. Based on current knowledge of the global methane budget and how it has changed with time, it is not possible to tell if the atmospheric methane burden has peaked, or if we are only observing a persistent, but temporary pause in its increase.  [FULL TEXT]
8. 2010: Smith, Pete, David Reay, and Andre Van Amstel, eds. Methane and climate change. Routledge, 2010.  It is necessary to minimize our environmental impacts and carbon footprint through reducing waste, recycling and offsetting our methane emissions. During the 1990s and the first few years of the 21st century the growth rate of CH4 concentrations in the atmosphere slowed to almost zero, but during 2007 and 2008 concentrations increased once again. Recent studies have attributed to enhanced emissions of CH4 in the Arctic as a result of high temperatures in 2007, and to greater rainfall in the tropics in 2008. The former response represents a snapshot of a potentially very large positive climate change feedback, with the higher temperatures projected at high latitudes for the 21st century increasing CH4 emissions from wetlands, permafrost and CH4 hydrates. It is to this and the myriad of other natural and anthropogenic determinants of CH4 flux to the atmosphere that this book is directed. [FULL TEXT PDF]
9. 2010: Popp, Alexander, Hermann Lotze-Campen, and Benjamin Bodirsky. “Food consumption, diet shifts and associated non-CO2 greenhouse gases from agricultural production.” Global Environmental Change 20.3 (2010): 451-462. Today, the agricultural sector accounts for approximately 15% of total global anthropogenic emissions, mainly methane and nitrous oxide. Projecting the future development of agricultural non-CO₂ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is important to assess their impacts on the climate system but poses many problems as future demand of agricultural products is highly uncertain. We developed a global land use model (MAgPIE) that is suited to assess future anthropogenic agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions from various agricultural activities by combining socio-economic information on population, income, food demand, and production costs with spatially explicit environmental data on potential crop yields. In this article we describe how agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions are implemented within MAgPIE and compare our simulation results with other studies. Furthermore, we apply the model up to 2055 to assess the impact of future changes in food consumption and diet shifts, but also of technological mitigation options on agricultural non-CO₂ GHG emissions. As a result, we found that global agricultural non-CO₂ emissions increase significantly until 2055 if food energy consumption and diet preferences remain constant at the level of 1995. Non-CO₂ GHG emissions will rise even more if increasing food energy consumption and changing dietary preferences towards higher value foods, like meat and milk, with increasing income are taken into account. In contrast, under a scenario of reduced meat consumption, non-CO₂GHG emissions would decrease even compared to 1995. Technological mitigation options in the agricultural sector have also the capability of decreasing non-CO₂ GHG emissions significantly. However, these technological mitigation options are not as effective as changes in food consumption. Highest reduction potentials will be achieved by a combination of both approaches.  [FULL TEXT PDF]
10. 2011: Wirsenius, Stefan, Fredrik Hedenus, and Kristina Mohlin. “Greenhouse gas taxes on animal food products: rationale, tax scheme and climate mitigation effects.” Climatic change108.1-2 (2011): 159-184. Agriculture is responsible for 25–30% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions but has thus far been largely exempted from climate policies. Because of high monitoring costs and comparatively low technical potential for emission reductions in the agricultural sector, output taxes on emission-intensive agricultural goods may be an efficient policy instrument to deal with agricultural GHG emissions. In this study we assess the emission mitigation potential of GHG weighted consumption taxes on animal food products in the EU. We also estimate the decrease in agricultural land area through the related changes in food production and the additional mitigation potential in devoting this land to bioenergy production. Estimates are based on a model of food consumption and the related land use and GHG emissions in the EU. Results indicate that agricultural emissions in the EU27 can be reduced by approximately 32 million tons of CO₂-eq with a GHG weighted tax on animal food products corresponding to €60 per ton CO₂-eq. The effect of the tax is estimated to be six times higher if lignocellulosic crops are grown on the land made available and used to substitute for coal in power generation. Most of the effect of a GHG weighted tax on animal food can be captured by taxing the consumption of ruminant meat alone.
11. 2013: Ripple, William J., et al. “Ruminants, climate change and climate policy.” Nature Climate Change 4.1 (2013): 2. Greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant meat production are significant. Reductions in global ruminant numbers could make a substantial contribution to climate change mitigation goals and yield important social and environmental co-benefits.International climate negotiators can take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock as well as from the burning of fossil fuels. So far, global climate policy instruments have mainly focused on engineering improved industrial processes, energy efficiency and investments in alternative energy generation technologies, because sustainability has been predominantly interpreted as technological progress rather than changed patterns of human behaviour. Continued growth of ruminant meat consumption will represent a major obstacle for reaching ambitious climate change targets. The substantial environmental and climate costs of increased meat consumption have been recognized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. However, mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from ruminants has not received adequate attention in negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Meeting documents show that activities to reduce emissions from ruminants and agriculture in general, and in negotiations on land use, land-use change and forestry and reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation have been disproportionately slow. The land-use accounting under the Kyoto Protocol provides insufficient coverage of land-based emissions considering their large contributions to greenhouse gas fluxes. The Kyoto Protocol also only covers industrialized countries, so it misses some of the largest emerging ruminant producers. Further, under Articles 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol, emission reduction commitments for cropland and grazing land management are optional in many situations. The above-presented evidence calls for a more comprehensive approach to accounting in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use sector, following the lead of those countries requesting mandatory accounting for land-based emissions, including cropland and grazing land sectors. Progress would be facilitated if emissions resulting from ruminant livestock production are placed on the agenda of forthcoming global climate meetings such as the annual sessions of the Conference of the Parties. Current national policies on mitigating climate change could also be revised to curtail emissions from ruminant livestock in both developed and developing countries. Because the Earth’s climate may be near tipping points to major change, the need to act is increasingly pressing. Lowering peak climate forcing quickly with ruminant and CH4 reductions would lessen the likelihood of irreversibly crossing such tipping points into a new climatic state. Reducing the numbers of ruminants will be a difficult and complex task, both politically and socially. However, decreasing ruminants should be considered alongside our grand challenge of significantly reducing the world’s reliance on fossil fuel combustion. Only with the recognition of the urgency of this issue and the political will to commit resources to comprehensively mitigate both CO2 and non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions will meaningful progress be made on climate change. For an effective and rapid response, we need to increase awareness among the public and policymakers that what we choose to eat has important consequences for climate change.   [FULL TEXT PDF]
12. 2013: Edjabou, Louise Dyhr, and Sinne Smed. “The effect of using consumption taxes on foods to promote climate friendly diets–The case of Denmark.” Food policy 39 (2013): 84-96. Agriculture is responsible for 17–35% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions with livestock production contributing by approximately 18–22% of global emissions. Due to high monitoring costs and low technical potential for emission reductions, a tax on consumption may be a more efficient policy instrument to decrease emissions from agriculture than a tax based directly on emissions from production. In this study, we look at the effect of internalising the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions through a tax based on CO₂equivalents for 23 different foods. Furthermore, we compare the loss in consumer surplus and the changed dietary composition for different taxation scenarios. In the most efficient scenario, we find a decrease in the carbon footprint from foods for an average household of 2.3–8.8% at a cost of 0.15–1.73 DKK per kg CO₂ equivalent whereas the most effective scenario led to a decrease in the carbon footprint of 10.4–19.4%, but at a cost of 3.53–6.90 DKK per kg CO₂ equivalent. The derived consequences for health show that scenarios where consumers are not compensated for the increase in taxation level lead to a decrease in the total daily amount of kJ consumed, whereas scenarios where the consumers are compensated lead to an increase. Most scenarios lead to a decrease in the consumption of saturated fat. Compensated scenarios leads to an increase in the consumption of added sugar, whereas uncompensated scenarios lead to almost no change or a decrease. Generally, the results show a low cost potential for using consumption taxes to promote climate friendly diets. HIGHLIGHTS: Effect of a consumption tax based on CO₂ equivalents for 23 different foods. Calculated changes in consumption based on systems of demand elasticities, The most efficient scenario decreases CO₂ emission with 2.3–8.8% at a cost of 0.15–1.73 DKK/kilo, Health effects in terms of changes in the intake of calories, saturated fat and sugar. CONCLUSION: Taxes are a low cost way of promoting climate friendly diets without large adverse health effects. [FULL TEXT PDF]
13. 2014: Hedenus, Fredrik, Stefan Wirsenius, and Daniel JA Johansson. “The importance of reduced meat and dairy consumption for meeting stringent climate change targets.” Climatic change 124.1-2 (2014): 79-91. For agriculture, there are three major options for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: 1) productivity improvements, particularly in the livestock sector; 2) dedicated technical mitigation measures; and 3) human dietary changes. The aim of the paper is to estimate long-term agricultural GHG emissions, under different mitigation scenarios, and to relate them to the emissions space compatible with the 2 °C temperature target. Our estimates include emissions up to 2070 from agricultural soils, manure management, enteric fermentation and paddy rice fields, and are based on IPCC Tier 2 methodology. We find that baseline agricultural CO₂-equivalent emissions (using Global Warming Potentials with a 100 year time horizon) will be approximately 13 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070, compared to 7.1 Gton CO₂eq/year 2000. However, if faster growth in livestock productivity is combined with dedicated technical mitigation measures, emissions may be kept to 7.7 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070. If structural changes in human diets are included, emissions may be reduced further, to 3–5 Gton CO₂eq/year in 2070. The total annual emissions for meeting the 2 °C target with a chance above 50 % is in the order of 13 Gton CO₂eq/year or less in 2070, for all sectors combined. We conclude that reduced ruminant meat and dairy consumption will be indispensable for reaching the 2 °C target with a high probability, unless unprecedented advances in technology take place.
14. 2014: Caulton, Dana R., et al. “Toward a better understanding and quantification of methane emissions from shale gas development.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2014): 201316546. The identification and quantification of methane emissions from natural gas production has become increasingly important owing to the increase in the natural gas component of the energy sector. An instrumented aircraft platform was used to identify large sources of methane and quantify emission rates in southwestern PA in June 2012. A large regional flux, 2.0–14 g CH₄ s⁻¹ km⁻², was quantified for a ∼2,800-km² area, which did not differ statistically from a bottom-up inventory, 2.3–4.6 g CH₄ s⁻¹ km⁻². Large emissions averaging 34 g CH₄/s per well were observed from seven well pads determined to be in the drilling phase, 2 to 3 orders of magnitude greater than US Environmental Protection Agency estimates for this operational phase. The emissions from these well pads, representing ∼1% of the total number of wells, account for 4–30% of the observed regional flux. More work is needed to determine all of the sources of methane emissions from natural gas production, to ascertain why these emissions occur and to evaluate their climate and atmospheric chemistry impacts.
15. 2014: Bajželj, Bojana, et al. “Importance of food-demand management for climate mitigation.” Nature Climate Change4.10 (2014): 924. Recent studies show that current trends in yield improvement will not be sufficient to meet projected global food demand in 2050, and suggest that a further expansion of agricultural area will be required. However, agriculture is the main driver of losses of biodiversity and a major contributor to climate change and pollution, and so further expansion is undesirable. The usual proposed alternative—intensification with increased resource use—also has negative effects. It is therefore imperative to find ways to achieve global food security without expanding crop or pastureland and without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Some authors have emphasized a role for sustainable intensification in closing global ‘yield gaps’ between the currently realized and potentially achievable yields. However, in this paper we use a transparent, data-driven model, to show that even if yield gaps are closed, the projected demand will drive further agricultural expansion. There are, however, options for reduction on the demand side that are rarely considered. In the second part of this paper we quantify the potential for demand-side mitigation options, and show that improved diets and decreases in food waste are essential to deliver emissions reductions, and to provide global food security in 2050. [FULL TEXT PDF]
16. 2014: Westhoek, Henk, et al. “Food choices, health and environment: effects of cutting Europe’s meat and dairy intake.” Global Environmental Change 26 (2014): 196-205. Western diets are characterised by a high intake of meat, dairy products and eggs, causing an intake of saturated fat and red meat in quantities that exceed dietary recommendations. The associated livestock production requires large areas of land and lead to high nitrogen and greenhouse gas emission levels. Although several studies have examined the potential impact of dietary changes on greenhouse gas emissions and land use, those on health, the agricultural system and other environmental aspects (such as nitrogen emissions) have only been studied to a limited extent. By using biophysical models and methods, we examined the large-scale consequences in the European Union of replacing 25–50% of animal-derived foods with plant-based foods on a dietary energy basis, assuming corresponding changes in production. We tested the effects of these alternative diets and found that halving the consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs in the European Union would achieve a 40% reduction in nitrogen emissions, 25–40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and 23% per capita less use of cropland for food production. In addition, the dietary changes would also lower health risks. The European Union would become a net exporter of cereals, while the use of soymeal would be reduced by 75%. The nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of the food system would increase from the current 18% to between 41% and 47%, depending on choices made regarding land use. As agriculture is the major source of nitrogen pollution, this is expected to result in a significant improvement in both air and water quality in the EU. The resulting 40% reduction in the intake of saturated fat would lead to a reduction in cardiovascular mortality. These diet-led changes in food production patterns would have a large economic impact on livestock farmers and associated supply-chain actors, such as the feed industry and meat-processing sector.
17. 2014: Scarborough, Peter, et al. “Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK.” Climatic change 125.2 (2014): 179-192. The production of animal-based foods is associated with higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than plant-based foods. The objective of this study was to estimate the difference in dietary GHG emissions between self-selected meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK. Subjects were participants in the EPIC-Oxford cohort study. The diets of 2,041 vegans, 15,751 vegetarians, 8,123 fish-eaters and 29,589 meat-eaters aged 20–79 were assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire. Comparable GHG emissions parameters were developed for the underlying food codes using a dataset of GHG emissions for 94 food commodities in the UK, with a weighting for the global warming potential of each component gas. The average GHG emissions associated with a standard 2,000 kcal diet were estimated for all subjects. ANOVA was used to estimate average dietary GHG emissions by diet group adjusted for sex and age. The age-and-sex-adjusted mean (95 % confidence interval) GHG emissions in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per day (kgCO₂e/day) were 7.19 (7.16, 7.22) for high meat-eaters ( > = 100 g/d), 5.63 (5.61, 5.65) for medium meat-eaters (50-99 g/d), 4.67 (4.65, 4.70) for low meat-eaters ( < 50 g/d), 3.91 (3.88, 3.94) for fish-eaters, 3.81 (3.79, 3.83) for vegetarians and 2.89 (2.83, 2.94) for vegans. In conclusion, dietary GHG emissions in self-selected meat-eaters are approximately twice as high as those in vegans. It is likely that reductions in meat consumption would lead to reductions in dietary GHG emissions.
18. 2016: Bryngelsson, David, et al. “How can the EU climate targets be met? A combined analysis of technological and demand-side changes in food and agriculture.” Food Policy 59 (2016): 152-164. To meet the 2 °C climate target, deep cuts in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be required for carbon dioxide from fossil fuels but, most likely, also for methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture and other sources. However, relatively little is known about the GHG mitigation potential in agriculture, in particular with respect to the combined effects of technological advancements and dietary changes. Here, we estimate the extent to which changes in technology and demand can reduce Swedish food-related GHG emissions necessary for meeting EU climate targets. This analysis is based on a detailed representation of the food and agriculture system, using 30 different food items. We find that food-related methane and nitrous oxide emissions can be reduced enough to meet the EU 2050 climate targets. Technologically, agriculture can improve in productivity and through implementation of specific mitigation measures. Under optimistic assumptions, these developments could cut current food-related methane and nitrous oxide emissions by nearly 50%. However, also dietary changes will almost certainly be necessary. Large reductions, by 50% or more, in ruminant meat (beef and mutton) consumption are, most likely, unavoidable if the EU targets are to be met. In contrast, continued high per-capita consumption of pork and poultry meat or dairy products might be accommodated within the climate targets. High dairy consumption, however, is only compatible with the targets if there are substantial advances in technology. Reducing food waste plays a minor role for meeting the climate targets, lowering emissions only by an additional 1–3%. [FULL TEXT]
19. 2016: Springmann, Marco, et al. “Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113.15 (2016): 4146-4151. What we eat greatly influences our personal health and the environment we all share. Recent analyses have highlighted the likely dual health and environmental benefits of reducing the fraction of animal-sourced foods in our diets. Here, we couple for the first time, to our knowledge, a region-specific global health model based on dietary and weight-related risk factors with emissions accounting and economic valuation modules to quantify the linked health and environmental consequences of dietary changes. We find that the impacts of dietary changes toward less meat and more plant-based diets vary greatly among regions. The largest absolute environmental and health benefits result from diet shifts in developing countries whereas Western high-income and middle-income countries gain most in per capita terms. Transitioning toward more plant-based diets that are in line with standard dietary guidelines could reduce global mortality by 6–10% and food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 29–70% compared with a reference scenario in 2050. We find that the monetized value of the improvements in health would be comparable with, or exceed, the value of the environmental benefits although the exact valuation method used considerably affects the estimated amounts. Overall, we estimate the economic benefits of improving diets to be 1–31 trillion US dollars, which is equivalent to 0.4–13% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2050. However, significant changes in the global food system would be necessary for regional diets to match the dietary patterns studied here.  The food system is responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions while unhealthy diets and high body weight are among the greatest contributors to premature mortality. Our study provides a comparative analysis of the health and climate change benefits of global dietary changes for all major world regions. We project that health and climate change benefits will both be greater the lower the fraction of animal-sourced foods in our diets. Three quarters of all benefits occur in developing countries although the per capita impacts of dietary change would be greatest in developed countries. The monetized value of health improvements could be comparable with, and possibly larger than, the environmental benefits of the avoided damages from climate change. [FULL TEXT]
20. 2018: Tweet thread by Frederic Leroy @fleroy1974 on Twitter : https://twitter.com/fleroy1974/status/1074111080052482053

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[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

RELATED POST:  AN EXCLUSIVE RELIANCE ON FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS OVERLOOKS NATURAL CARBON FLOWS. [LINK]  

RELATED POST: THE CARBON BUDGET MYSTERIES OF CLIMATE SCIENCE  [LINK]

RELATED POST : WHEN DID AGW BEGIN? [LINK]  

RELATED POST: THE TCRE: TRANSIENT CLIMATE RESPONSE TO CUMULATIVE EMISSIONS  [LINK]

RELATED POST:  CORRELATION BETWEEN TEMPERATURE AND FORCINGS:  [LINK]

LIST OF POSTS AT THIS SITE:  [LINK]

ABSTRACT: Climate science has presented a causal relationship between emissions and warming in terms of the TCRE where we find a near perfect proportionality between cumulative emissions and surface temperature. The TCRE is used in climate science to construct “CARBON BUDGETS” Tto relate the climate action needed for any given warming target.

However, as shown in related posts [LINK]  [LINK] , the TCRE has no interpretation in terms of the data because of a fatal statistical error. This work addresses these shortcomings of the TCRE by defining finite time scales shorter than the full span. Here we use data for fossil fuel emissions from the CDIAC and the theoretical temperatures from these emissions in the CMIP5 forcings found in the RCP8.5 as well as the HadCRUT4 temperature reconstructions. We then compute the corresponding correlations between emissions and warming as in the TCRE but with the changes needed to retain degrees of freedom.

The results are summarized in Figure 6 and Figure 7 below where we find that the source data correlation rises as the time scale is increased. The theoretical model predictions (RCP) show stronger detrended correlations (0.3 to 0.56) than the HAD observational data (0.1 to 0.2) because a larger portion of the model prediction RCP source correlation survives into the detrended series, indicating a stronger relationship between emissions and warming in climate models than in observational data. We find that the four time scales greater than ten years (15, 20, 25, and 30 years) show statistically significant detrended correlations for the climate model series RCP8.5. No statistically significant detrended correlation is found in the observational data HadCRUT4. 

We conclude from these results that though the causal relationship between emissions and warming is found in the RCP8.5 generated by climate models, it is not found in the data and that thereforee no empirical evidence is found to support the rationale for costly climate action that assumes a causal relationship between the rate of emissions and the rate of warming. 

THE ESSENTIAL FINDING HERE IS THAT CLIMATE ACTION WORKS IN CLIMATE MODELS BUT NOT IN THE REAL WORLD. THE ANOMALIES IN CARBON BUDGETS THAT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS ARE STRUGGLING WITH MAY BE UNDERSTOOD IN THIS CONTEXT.  [LINK]  

AN IMAGE FROM THE MEDIA

FIGURE 1A: RCP8.5 WITH TIME SCALE = 10 YEARS

FIGURE 1B: HADCRUT4 WITH TIME SCALE = 10 YEARS

FIGURE 2A: RCP8.5 WITH TIME SCALE = 15 YEARS

FIGURE 2B: HADCRUT4 WITH TIME SCALE = 15 YEARS

FIGURE 3A: RCP8.5 WITH TIME SCALE = 20 YEARS

FIGURE 3B: HACRUT4 WITH TIME SCALE = 20 YEARS

FIGURE 4A: RCP8.5 WITH TIME SCALE = 25 YEARS

FIGURE 4B: HADCRUT4 WITH TIME SCALE = 25 YEARS

FIGURE 5A: RCP8.5 WITH TIME SCALE = 30 YEARS

FIGURE 5B: HADCRUT4 WITH TIME SCALE = 30 YEARS

FIGURE 6: CORRELATION, DETRENDED CORRELATION, & SURVIVAL RATE

FIGURE 7: HYPOTHESIS TEST FOR DETRENDED CORRELATION

FIGURE 8: SUMMARY TABLE

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

AN IMAGE FROM THE MEDIA

1. The essential feature of climate science, and its activism for climate action in the form of reductions in fossil fuel emissions, is a causal relationship between emissions and the rate of warming with the implication that emission reduction will reduce the rate of warming. This relationship is found in the Transient Climate Response to Cumulative Emissions or TCRE based on a near perfect proportionality between cumulative emissions and surface temperature. Accordingly, the TCRE not only serves as the rationale for climate action but also as the tool for the construction of so called “carbon budgets” that define the maximum amount of emissions for a given target rate of global warming.
2. However, it has been shown in two related posts  [LINK]  [LINK] that there is a fatal statistical flaw in the TCRE methodology. Correlations between cumulative values of time series data are spurious because the effective sample size of the cumulative value series is EFFN=2 leaving it with neither time scale nor degrees of freedom.  This weakness of the TCRE is demonstrated with correlations between random numbers in the two related posts described above [LINK]  [LINK]
3. This work addresses these shortcomings of the TCRE by defining finite time scales shorter than the full span of the time series so that the effective sample size will be greater than two (EFFN>2) and thus yield positive degrees of freedom so that a hypothesis test can be constructed to determine the statistical significance of the correlation. The effective sample size procedure is described in a related SSRN paper [LINK] . Data for fossil fuel emissions in millions of tons of carbon equivalent are provided by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center of the Oak Ridge National Laboratories (CDIAC, 2017). Two surface temperature datasets for the study peruid 1861 to 2016 are used for the analysis. They are the RCP8.5 theoretical temperature forecasts from climate models with CMIP5 forcings (hereafter referred to as RCP), and the HadCRUT4 global mean temperature reconstruction (hereafter referred to as HAD) provided by the Hadley Centre of the Climate Research Unit of the UK Met Office. The comparison between these temperature datasets are made in the context that the RCP8.5 represents the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming by way of fossil fuel emissions (AGW) because it was created by climate models that contain the causal relationship between the rate of emissions and the rate of warming. The HadCRUT4 reconstruction represents observational data although they are not direct observations but reconstructions from observations.
4. To insert a time scale and finite degrees of freedom into the TCRE model, we use five different time scales for this analysis from 10 years to 30 years at 5 year increments. For each time scale we compute the cumulative emissions in the duration of the time scale and the rate of warming within the time scale. The time scale window then moves across the full span of the data one year at a time. For example, in the 10-year time scale, cumulative emissions is computed as the total emissions in a moving 10-year window that moves one year at a time through the full span of the data. Likewise, the rate of warming is computed within a moving 10-year window that moves through the full span of the data one year at a time. We then compute the detrended correlation between warming and emissions net of the contribution to source data correlation by shared long term trends. The rationale for detrended analysis is described in a related post [LINK]
5. Figure 1A to Figure 5B above show the data for both RCP and HAD against the cumulative emissions in moving windows of 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years along with a graphical display of the correlations and detrended correlations. The results are summarized in Figure 6 and Figure 7. Both temperature datasets show that source data correlation (CORR) rises as the time scale is increased from 10-years to 30-years but more rapidly at the lower time scales than at higher time scales. The theoretical model predictions (RCP) show much stronger source data correlations (CORR=0.5 to 0.8) than the observational data (HAD) with source data correlations of (CORR=0.27 to 0.65). When the spurious effect of long term trends is removed from the source data correlation, lower correlations are seen in the detrended data (DETCOR) with values of (DETCOR=0.3 to 0.56) in the RCP climate model prediction and much lower values of (DETCOR=0.1 to 0.2) in the HAD observational data. We also note that a much larger portion of the model prediction RCP source correlation CORR survives into the detrended series DETCOR (56% to 68%) than in the observational data HAD (29% to 35%) indicating a much stronger relationship between emissions and warming in climate models than in observational data. It is also noted that the behavior of the detrended correlation curve and the percent survival curve are different in the HAD data series than in the RCP climate model series.
6. The rising value of correlations with increasing values of the time scale from 10-years to 30-years comes at a price because higher time scales reduce the effective value of the sample size (EFFN) and therefore of the degrees of freedom (DF). (see reference paper at SSRN [LINK] . In Figure 8 we see that as the time scale is increased from 10-years to 30-years, the effective sample size drops from 16.6 to 6.4 and takes down the degrees of freedom with it computed as DF=EFFN-2. There is a price to be paid for the higher correlations in longer time scales. The standard deviation of the correlation coefficient is estimated using Bowley’s procedure (Bowley, 1928). To test for positive values of the correlation coefficient, the null hypothesis is set to H0: ρ≤0 with the alternate HA: ρ>0. Hypothesis tests for correlation are carried out at a maximum false positive error rate of α=0.001 per comparison in keeping with “Revised Standards for Statistical Evidence” published by the NAS (Johnson, 2013) as a way of addressing an unacceptably high rate of irreproducible results in published research (Siegfried, 2010).
7. In these tests we find that the four time scales greater than ten years (15, 20, 25, and 30 years) show statistically significant detrended correlations for the climate model series RCP8.5. No statistically significant detrended correlation is found in the observational data HadCRUT4. These results show that though the causal relationship between emissions and warming, assumed in the motivation for costly climate action, is found in the RCP8.5 generated by climate models, it is not found in the data. This result is consistent with the finding in the TCRE post [LINK]  that the correlation seen between temperature and cumulative emissions is spurious and that in fact there is no evidence that the correlation between emissions and warming found in climate models exists in the data.
8. The Transient Climate Response to Cumulative Emissions (TCRE) does show that the rate of warming is responsive to emissions in the observational data but that metric contains a fatal statistical flaw. It is based on a spurious correlation and contains neither time scale nor degrees of freedom as shown in a related post at this site [LINK] .
9. We conclude from these results that no empirical evidence exists to support the rationale for costly climate action that assumes a causal relationship between the rate of emissions and the rate of warming. The evidence does not show that reducing emissions will lower the rate of warming. 
10. The comparative analysis methodology used in this work is validated by a positive result for the theoretical temperature series in RCP8.5 compared with a negative result for observational data.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS:  Climate science has presented a causal relationship between emissions and warming in terms of the TCRE where we find a near perfect proportionality between cumulative emissions and surface temperature. However, as shown in related posts [LINK]  [LINK] , the TCRE has no interpretation in terms of the data because of a fatal statistical error. This work addresses these shortcomings of the TCRE by defining finite time scales shorter than the full span. Here we use data for fossil fuel emissions from the CDIAC and the theoretical temperatures from these emissions in the CMIP5 forcings found in the RCP8.5 as well as the HadCRUT4 temperature reconstructions. We then compute the corresponding correlations between emissions and warming as in the TCRE but with the changes needed to retain degrees of freedom. The results are summarized in Figure 6 and Figure 7 below where we find that the source data correlation rises as the time scale is increased. The theoretical model predictions (RCP) show stronger detrended correlations (0.3 to 0.56) than the HAD observational data (0.1 to 0.2) because a larger portion of the model prediction RCP source correlation survives into the detrended series, indicating a stronger relationship between emissions and warming in climate models than in observational data. We find that the four time scales greater than ten years (15, 20, 25, and 30 years) show statistically significant detrended correlations for the climate model series RCP8.5. No statistically significant detrended correlation is found in the observational data HadCRUT4. We conclude from these results that though the causal relationship between emissions and warming is found in the RCP8.5 generated by climate models, it is not found in the data and that thereforee no empirical evidence is found to support the rationale for costly climate action that assumes a causal relationship between the rate of emissions and the rate of warming. 

THE ESSENTIAL FINDING HERE IS THAT CLIMATE ACTION WORKS IN CLIMATE MODELS BUT NOT IN THE REAL WORLD.

AN IMAGE FROM THE MEDIA

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CLIMATE ACTION PARIS AGREEMENT BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. 2016: Rogelj, Joeri, et al. “Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 C.” Nature 534.7609 (2016): 631. The Paris climate agreement aims at holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this, countries have submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) outlining their post-2020 climate action. Here we assess the effect of current INDCs on reducing aggregate greenhouse gas emissions, its implications for achieving the temperature objective of the Paris climate agreement, and potential options for overachievement. The INDCs collectively lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to where current policies stand, but still imply a median warming of 2.6–3.1 degrees Celsius by 2100. More can be achieved, because the agreement stipulates that targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are strengthened over time, both in ambition and scope. Substantial enhancement or over-delivery on current INDCs by additional national, sub-national and non-state actions is required to maintain a reasonable chance of meeting the target of keeping warming well below 2 degrees Celsius.
2. 2016: Hale, Thomas. ““All hands on deck”: The Paris agreement and nonstate climate action.” Global Environmental Politics 16.3 (2016): 12-22. The 2015 Paris Climate summit consolidated the transition of the climate regime from a “regulatory” to a “catalytic and facilitative” model. A key component of this shift was the intergovernmental regime’s embrace of climate action by sub- and nonstate actors. Although a groundswell of transnational climate action has been growing over time, the Paris Agreement seeks to bring this phenomenon into the heart of the new climate regime. This forum article describes that transition and considers its implications.
3. 2016: Falkner, Robert. “The Paris Agreement and the new logic of international climate politics.” International Affairs 92.5 (2016): 1107-1125. This article reviews and assesses the outcome of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Paris in December 2015. It argues that the Paris Agreement breaks new ground in international climate policy, by acknowledging the primacy of domestic politics in climate change and allowing countries to set their own level of ambition for climate change mitigation. It creates a framework for making voluntary pledges that can be compared and reviewed internationally, in the hope that global ambition can be increased through a process of ‘naming and shaming’. By sidestepping distributional conflicts, the Paris Agreement manages to remove one of the biggest barriers to international climate cooperation. It recognizes that none of the major powers can be forced into drastic emissions cuts. However, instead of leaving mitigation efforts to an entirely bottom-up logic, it embeds country pledges in an international system of climate accountability and a ‘ratchet mechanism’, thus offering the chance of more durable international cooperation. At the same time, it is far from clear whether the treaty can actually deliver on the urgent need to de-carbonize the global economy. The past record of climate policies suggests that governments have a tendency to express lofty aspirations but avoid tough decisions. For the Paris Agreement to make a difference, the new logic of ‘pledge and review’ will need to mobilize international and domestic pressure and generate political momentum behind more substantial climate policies worldwide. It matters, therefore, whether the Paris Agreement’s new approach can be made to work.
4. 2016: Bodansky, Daniel. “The Paris climate change agreement: a new hope?.” American Journal of International Law 110.2 (2016): 288-319.  Know your limits. This familiar adage is not an inspirational rallying cry or a recipe for bold action. It serves better as the motto for the tortoise than the hare. But, after many false starts over the past twenty years, states were well advised to heed it when negotiating the Paris Agreement. While it is still far too early to say whether the Agreement will be a success, its comparatively modest approach provides a firmer foundation on which to build than its more ambitious predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol.
5. 2016: Schleussner, Carl-Friedrich, et al. “Science and policy characteristics of the Paris Agreement temperature goal.” Nature Climate Change 6.9 (2016): 827.  The Paris Agreement sets a long-term temperature goal of holding the global average temperature increase to well below 2 °C, and pursuing efforts to limit this to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Here, we present an overview of science and policy aspects related to this goal and analyse the implications for mitigation pathways. We show examples of discernible differences in impacts between 1.5 °C and 2 °C warming. At the same time, most available low emission scenarios at least temporarily exceed the 1.5 °C limit before 2100. The legacy of temperature overshoots and the feasibility of limiting warming to 1.5 °C, or below, thus become central elements of a post-Paris science agenda. The near-term mitigation targets set by countries for the 2020–2030 period are insufficient to secure the achievement of the temperature goal. An increase in mitigation ambition for this period will determine the Agreement’s effectiveness in achieving its temperature goal.
6. 2016: Dimitrov, Radoslav S. “The Paris agreement on climate change: Behind closed doors.” Global Environmental Politics16.3 (2016): 1-11. The Paris Agreement constitutes a political success in climate negotiations and traditional state diplomacy, and offers important implications for academic research. Based on participatory research, the article examines the political dynamics in Paris and highlights feature2016s of the process that help us understand the outcome. It describes battles on key contentious issues behind closed doors, provides a summary and evaluation of the new agreement, identifies political winners and losers, and offers theoretical explanations of the outcome. The analysis emphasizes process variables and underscores the role of persuasion, argumentation, and organizational strategy. Climate diplomacy succeeded because the international conversation during negotiations induced cognitive change. Persuasive arguments about the economic benefits of climate action altered preferences in favor of policy commitments at both national and international levels.
7. 2016: Van Asselt, Harro. “The role of non-state actors in reviewing ambition, implementation, and compliance under the Paris agreement.” Climate Law 6.1-2 (2016): 91-108. Non-state actors will play a unique and crucial role in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Although much of the focus in the lead-up to Paris was on the mitigation commitments and actions of non-state actors, this essay focuses on another valuable contribution they can make: to hold the parties to their obligations under the Paris Agreement. I argue that, while the formal avenues for non-state-actor participation in review processes—encompassing the review of implementation, compliance, and effectiveness—remain limited, there are several other ways in which non-state actors can be, and already have been, influential
8. 2017: Höhne, Niklas, et al. “The Paris Agreement: resolving the inconsistency between global goals and national contributions.” Climate Policy 17.1 (2017): 16-32. he adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015 moved the world a step closer to avoiding dangerous climate change. The aggregated individual intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) are not yet sufficient to be consistent with the long-term goals of the agreement of ‘holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C’ and ‘pursuing efforts’ towards 1.5°C. However, the Paris Agreement gives hope that this inconsistency can be resolved. We find that many of the contributions are conservative and in some cases may be overachieved. We also find that the preparation of the INDCs has advanced national climate policy-making, notably in developing countries. Moreover, provisions in the Paris Agreement require countries to regularly review, update and strengthen these actions. In addition, the significant number of non-state actions launched in recent years is not yet adequately captured in the INDCs. Finally, we discuss decarbonization, which has happened faster in some sectors than expected, giving hope that such a transition can also be accomplished in other sectors. Taken together, there is reason to be optimistic that eventually national action to reduce emissions will be more consistent with the agreed global temperature limits.
9. 2017: Rogelj, Joeri, et al. “Understanding the origin of Paris Agreement emission uncertainties.” Nature Communications 8 (2017): 15748. The UN Paris Agreement puts in place a legally binding mechanism to increase mitigation action over time. Countries put forward pledges called nationally determined contributions (NDC) whose impact is assessed in global stocktaking exercises. Subsequently, actions can then be strengthened in light of the Paris climate objective: limiting global mean temperature increase to well below 2 °C and pursuing efforts to limit it further to 1.5 °C. However, pledged actions are currently described ambiguously and this complicates the global stocktaking exercise. Here, we systematically explore possible interpretations of NDC assumptions, and show that this results in estimated emissions for 2030 ranging from 47 to 63 GtCO₂e yr⁻¹. We show that this uncertainty has critical implications for the feasibility and cost to limit warming well below 2 °C and further to 1.5 °C. Countries are currently working towards clarifying the modalities of future NDCs. We identify salient avenues to reduce the overall uncertainty by about 10 percentage points through simple, technical clarifications regarding energy accounting rules. Remaining uncertainties depend to a large extent on politically valid choices about how NDCs are expressed, and therefore raise the importance of a thorough and robust process that keeps track of where emissions are heading over time.

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1. Millions of years ago (MYA), in the Triassic and Jurassic geological periods, reptiles and dinosaurs ruled the world. The Triassic Period started with the mass extinction that ended the Permian Period 250 MYA and ended with the mass extinction 200 MYA that marks the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods. The mass extinction that ended the Triassic and that marks the beginning of the Jurassic is called the “End Triassic Extinction” or ETE for short. It is one of the most extreme and horrific mass extinctions in the paleo record.
2. This post is a literature review of paleoclimate evidence and expert interpretations of the data to surmise what happened in that horrific mass extinction that changed the Triassic age of reptiles and small dinosaurs into the Jurassic, the age of the dominance of giant dinosaurs.
3. The paleo data show that about 200MYA the geochemical evidence indicate a sequential eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) with a contemporaneous disappearance of a large number of land and oceanic life forms.
4. This summary of the End Triassic Extinction event is provided by Hames (2003):  “A singular event in Earth’s history occurred roughly 200 million years ago, as rifting of the largest and most recent supercontinent was joined by basaltic volcanism that formed the most extensive large igneous province (LIP) known. A profound and widespread mass extinction of terrestrial and marine genera occurred at about the same time, suggesting a causal link between the biological transitions of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and massive volcanism. A series of stratigraphic, geochronologic, petrologic, tectonic, and geophysical studies have led to the identification of the dispersed remnants of this Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) on the rifted margins of four continents. Current discoveries are generally interpreted to indicate that CAMP magmatism occurred in a relative and absolute interval of geologic time that was brief, and point to mechanisms of origin and global environmental effects. Because many of these discoveries have occurred within the past several years, in this monograph we summarize new observations and provide an up-to-date review of the province.
5. A bibliography of research in this field is presented below.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JESSICA WHITESIDE, JEAN GUEX, ANDREA MARZOLI, BLAIR SCHOENE

1. 1992: Hodych, J. P., and G. R. Dunning. “Did the Manicouagan impact trigger end-of-Triassic mass extinction?.” Geology 20.1 (1992): 51-54.  We use U-Pb zircon dating to test whether the bolide impact that created the Manicouagan crater of Quebec also triggered mass extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. The age of the impact is provided by zircons from the impact melt rock on the crater floor; we show that the zircons yield a U-Pb age of 214 ±1 Ma. The age of the Triassic/Jurassic boundary is provided by zircons from the North Mountain Basalt of the Newark Supergroup of Nova Scotia; the zircons yield a U-Pb age of 202 ±1 Ma. This should be the age of the end-of-Triassic mass extinction that paleontology and sedimentation rates suggest occurred less than 1 m.y. before extrusion of the North Mountain Basalt. Although the Manicouagan impact could thus not have triggered the mass extinction at the Triassic/Jurassic boundary (impact likely having preceded extinction by 12 ±2 m.y.), the impact may possibly have triggered an earlier mass extinction at the Carnian/Norian boundary in the Late Triassic.  [FULL TEXT]
2. 1999: Marzoli, Andrea, et al. “Extensive 200-million-year-old continental flood basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province.” Science 284.5414 (1999): 616-618. The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) is defined by tholeiitic basalts that crop out in once-contiguous parts of North America, Europe, Africa, and South America and is associated with the breakup of Pangea. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar and paleomagnetic data indicate that CAMP magmatism extended over an area of 2.5 million square kilometers in north and central Brazil, and the total aerial extent of the magmatism exceeded 7 million square kilometers in a few million years, with peak activity at 200 million years ago. The magmatism coincided closely in time with a major mass extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.  [FULL TEXT]
3. 2000: Pálfy, József, et al. “Timing the end-Triassic mass extinction: First on land, then in the sea?.” Geology 28.1 (2000): 39-42. The end-Triassic marks one of the five biggest mass extinctions, but current geologic time scales are inadequate for understanding its dynamics. A tuff layer in marine sedimentary rocks encompassing the Triassic-Jurassic transition yielded a U-Pb zircon age of 199.6 ± 0.3 Ma. The dated level is immediately below a prominent change in radiolarian faunas and the last occurrence of conodonts. Additional recently obtained U-Pb ages integrated with ammonoid biochronology confirm that the Triassic Period ended ca. 200 Ma, several million years later than suggested by previous time scales. Published dating of continental sections suggests that the extinction peak of terrestrial plants and vertebrates occurred before 200.6 Ma. The end-Triassic biotic crisis on land therefore appears to have preceded that in the sea by at least several hundred thousand years.  [FULL TEXT]
4. 2002: Hesselbo, Stephen P., et al. “Terrestrial and marine extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary synchronized with major carbon-cycle perturbation: A link to initiation of massive volcanism?.” Geology 30.3 (2002): 251-254. Mass extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J) boundary occurred about the same time (200 Ma) as one of the largest volcanic eruptive events known, that which characterized the Central Atlantic magmatic province. Organic carbon isotope data from the UK and Greenland demonstrate that changes in flora and fauna from terrestrial and marine environments occurred synchronously with a light carbon isotope excursion, and that this happened earlier than the Tr-J boundary marked by ammonites in the UK. The results also point toward synchronicity between extinctions and eruption of the first Central Atlantic magmatic province lavas, suggesting a causal link between loss of taxa and the very earliest eruptive phases. The initial isotopic excursion potentially provides a widely correlatable marker for the base of the Jurassic. A temporary return to heavier values followed, but relatively light carbon dominated the shallow oceanic and atmospheric reservoirs for at least 600 k.y.
5. 2002: Hallam, Anthony. “How catastrophic was the end‐Triassic mass extinction?.” Lethaia 35.2 (2002): 147-157. A review of marine and terrestrial animal and plant fossils fails to reveal convincing evidence of a global catastrophe at the Triassic‐Jurassic boundary, although this time marked the final disappearance of ceratite ammonites and conodonts, together with the extinction of most calcareous demosponges; important groups of bivalves and brachiopods went extinct. Because of facies problems, however, there is no stratigraphic section that reveals a clear‐cut disappearance over a short distance. Other marine animal groups except perhaps the radiolarians fail to reveal a notable extinction of global extent immediately across the boundary. On the other hand, there was a substantially higher extinction rate among marine animals in the Rhaetian as compared with the previous stage. On the land, the record is equivocal. Dramatic changes across the T‐J boundary have been claimed for plants in particular areas, such as eastern North America and East Greenland, but only gradual change has been recognized elsewhere. Similarly, claims of a T‐J boundary vertebrate mass extinction have not been supported by others. For the Rhaetian as a whole, however, the turnover rate of reptiles was high. Although much remains to be learned, it seems evident that the fossil record of the latest Triassic is more consistent with a gradual scenario extended over time than a ‘geologically instantaneous’ impact catastrophe.
   
6. Hames, Willis, et al. “The Central Atlantic magmatic province: Insights from fragments of Pangea.” Washington DC American Geophysical Union Geophysical Monograph Series 136 (2003).  A singular event in Earth’s history occurred roughly 200 million years ago, as rifting of the largest and most recent supercontinent was joined by basaltic volcanism that formed the most extensive large igneous province (LIP) known. A profound and widespread mass extinction of terrestrial and marine genera occurred at about the same time, suggesting a causal link between the biological transitions of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and massive volcanism. A series of stratigraphic, geochronologic, petrologic, tectonic, and geophysical studies have led to the identification of the dispersed remnants of this Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) on the rifted margins of four continents. Current discoveries are generally interpreted to indicate that CAMP magmatism occurred in a relative and absolute interval of geologic time that was brief, and point to mechanisms of origin and global environmental effects. Because many of these discoveries have occurred within the past several years, in this monograph we summarize new observations and provide an up-to-date review of the province
7. 2004: Guex, Jean, et al. “High-resolution ammonite and carbon isotope stratigraphy across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary at New York Canyon (Nevada).” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 225.1-2 (2004): 29-41.The Triassic–Jurassic boundary is generally considered as one of the major extinctions in the history of Phanerozoic. The high-resolution ammonite correlations and carbon isotope marine record in the New York Canyon area allow to distinguish two negative carbon excursions across this boundary with different paleoenvironmental meanings. The Late Rhaetian negative excursion is related to the extinction and regressive phase. The Early Hettangian  δ¹³C_org negative excursion is associated with a major floristic turnover and major ammonite and radiolarian radiation. The end-Triassic extinction–Early Jurassic recovery is fully compatible with a volcanism-triggered crisis, probably related to the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province. The main environmental stress might have been generated by repeated release of SO₂ gas, heavy metals emissions, darkening, and subsequent cooling. This phase was followed by a major long-term CO₂accumulation during the Early Hettangian with development of nutrient-rich marine waters favouring the recovery of productivity and deposition of black shales
8. 2004: Marzoli, Andrea, et al. “Synchrony of the Central Atlantic magmatic province and the Triassic-Jurassic boundary climatic and biotic crisis.” Geology 32.11 (2004): 973-976. The evolution of life on Earth is marked by catastrophic extinction events, one of which occurred ca. 200 Ma at the transition from the Triassic Period to the Jurassic Period (Tr-J boundary), apparently contemporaneous with the eruption of the world’s largest known continental igneous province, the Central Atlantic magmatic province. The temporal relationship of the Tr-J boundary and the province’s volcanism is clarified by new multidisciplinary (stratigraphic, palynologic, geochronologic, paleomagnetic, geochemical) data that demonstrate that development of the Central Atlantic magmatic province straddled the Tr-J boundary and thus may have had a causal relationship with the climatic crisis and biotic turnover demarcating the boundary.
9. 2004: Hautmann, Michael. “Effect of end-Triassic CO 2 maximum on carbonate sedimentation and marine mass extinction.” Facies50.2 (2004): 257-261. Correlation of stratigraphic sections from different continents suggests a worldwide interruption of carbonate sedimentation at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary, which coincided with one of the most catastrophic mass extinctions in the Phanerozoic. Both events are linked by a vulcanogenic maximum of carbon dioxide, which led to a temporary undersaturation of sea water with respect to aragonite and calcite and a corresponding suppression of carbonate sedimentation including non-preservation of calcareous skeletons. Besides the frequently cited climatic effect of enhanced carbon dioxide, lowering the saturation state of sea water with respect to calcium carbonate was an additional driving force of the end-Triassic mass extinction, which chiefly affected organisms with thick aragonitic or high-magnesium calcitic skeletons. Replacement of aragonite by calcite, as found in the shells of epifaunal bivalves, was an evolutionary response to this condition.
10. 2004: Knight, K. B., et al. “The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary: paleomagnetic and 40 Ar/39 Ar evidence from Morocco for brief, episodic volcanism.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 228.1 (2004): 143-160. The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), one of the largest known flood basalt provinces formed in the Phanerozoic, is associated with the pre-rift stage of the Atlantic Ocean at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary ca. 200 Ma. Paleomagnetic sampling targeted packages of CAMP lava flows in Morocco’s High Atlas divided into four basic units (the lower, intermediate, upper, and recurrent units) from sections identified on the basis of field observations and geochemistry. Oriented cores were demagnetized using both alternating field (AF) and thermal techniques. Paleomagnetic results reveal wholly normal polarity interrupted by at least one brief reversed chron located in the intermediate unit, and reveal distinct pulses of volcanic activity identified by discrete changes in declination and inclination. These variations in magnetic direction are interpreted as a record of secular variation, and they may provide an additional correlative tool for identification of spatially separated CAMP lava flows within Morocco. ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar analyses of Moroccan CAMP lavas yield plateau ages indistinguishable within 2σ error limits, sharing a weighted mean age of 199.9±0.5 Ma (2σ), reinforcing the short-lived nature of these eruptions despite the presence of sedimentary horizons between them. Correlation of our sections with the E23n, E23r, E24 sequence reported in the Newark basin terrestrial section and St. Audrie’s Bay marine section is suggested. Brief volcanism in sudden pulses is a potential mechanism for volcanic-induced climatic changes and biotic disruption at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. Combination of our directional group (DG) poles yields an African paleomagnetic pole at 200 Ma of λ(°N)=73.0°, ϕ(°E)=241.3° (Dp=5.0°, Dm=18.5°).
11. 2007: Nomade, S., et al. “Chronology of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province: implications for the Central Atlantic rifting processes and the Triassic–Jurassic biotic crisis.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 244.1-4 (2007): 326-344. The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) is among the largest igneous provinces on Earth, emplaced synchronously with or just prior to the Triassic–Jurassic (T–J) boundary ca. 200 Ma. In great part due to the controversial connection between the occurrence of CAMP and the events of the T–J boundary, the demand for better constraints on the duration and eruptive chronology of this province has increased. More than 100 new ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages have been published in the last 15 years, with more than half of these in the last 3 years. A careful review and selection of available ages, as well as the publication of 16 new ages from the Carolinas, Newark Basin (USA), French Guyana and Morocco are presented. Judicious selection yields a total of 58 accepted age determinations for CAMP magmatism, ranging from 202 to 190 Ma covering every part of the CAMP. A more complete picture develops with intrusive CAMP magmatism commencing as early as 202 Ma. Extrusive activity initiated abruptly ∼ 200 Ma, reaching peak volume and intensity around 199 Ma on the African margin. The main period of CAMP magmatism is confirmed as brief, but is suggested to consist of at least two phases over ∼ 1.5 Ma, with magmatism commencing along the Africa–North American margins and slightly later along the South American margin. Two volumetrically minor, but distinctive magmatic peaks centered at 195 and 192 Ma are mirrored in data from all three continents and highlighted by our statistical approach. Models describing rifting and thermal input and magma production on these timescales are explored. Despite significant advances in our understanding of the chronology of CAMP, more data of better quality and broader geographical coverage are needed to completely characterize the evolution of the CAMP and infer its geodynamic origin. In addition, lack of a well-defined T–J boundary age, as well as the absence of a relevant basis for comparison between U/Pb and ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar data for this time period remain limiting factors to unambiguously linking CAMP in time with the events of the T–J boundary.
12. 2008: Schaltegger, Urs, et al. “Precise U–Pb age constraints for end-Triassic mass extinction, its correlation to volcanism and Hettangian post-extinction recovery.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 267.1-2 (2008): 266-275. New precise zircon U–Pb ages are proposed for the Triassic–Jurassic (Rhetian–Hettangian) and the Hettangian–Sinemurian boundaries. The ages were obtained by ID-TIMS dating of single chemical-abraded zircons from volcanic ash layers within the Pucara Group, Aramachay Formation in the Utcubamba valley, northern Peru. Ash layers situated between last and first occurrences of boundary-defining ammonites yielded 206Pb/238U ages of 201.58 ± 0.17/0.28 Ma (95% c.l., uncertainties without/with decay constant errors, respectively) for the Triassic–Jurassic and of 199.53 ± 0.19 / 0.29 Ma for the Hettangian–Sinemurian boundaries. The former is established on a tuff located 1 m above the last local occurrence of the topmost Triassic genus Choristoceras, and 5 m below the Hettangian genus Psiloceras. The latter sample was obtained from a tuff collected within the Badouxia canadensis beds. Our new ages document total duration of the Hettagian of no more than c. 2 m.y., which has fundamental implications for the interpretation and significance of the ammonite recovery after the topmost Triassic extinction.The U–Pb age is about 0.8 ± 0.5% older than 40Ar–39Ar dates determined on flood basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP). Given the widely accepted hypothesis that inaccuracies in the 40K decay constants or physical constants create a similar bias between the two dating methods, our new U–Pb zircon age determination for the T/J boundary corroborates the hypothesis that the CAMP was emplaced at the same time and may be responsible for a major climatic turnover and mass extinction. The zircon 206Pb/238U age for the T/J boundary is marginally older than the North Mountain Basalt (Newark Supergroup, Nova Scotia, Canada), which has been dated at 201.27 ± 0.06 Ma [Schoene et al., 2006. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70, 426–445]. It will be important to look for older eruptions of the CAMP and date them precisely by U–Pb techniques while addressing all sources of systematic uncertainty to further test the hypothesis of volcanic induced climate change leading to extinction. Such high-precision, high-accuracy data will be instrumental for constraining the contemporaneity of geological events at a 100 kyr level.
13. 2009: Cirilli, S., et al. “Latest Triassic onset of the Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP) volcanism in the Fundy basin (Nova Scotia): new stratigraphic constraints.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 286.3-4 (2009): 514-525. In this paper we investigate the stratigraphic relationship between the emplacement of the CAMP basalts and the Triassic–Jurassic (Tr–J) boundary in the Fundy Basin (Nova Scotia, Canada). This is one of the best exposed of the synrift basins of eastern North America (ENA) formed as a consequence of the rifting that led to the formation of the Atlantic Ocean. The Triassic palynological assemblages found in the sedimentary rocks below (uppermost Blomidon Formation) and just above the North Mountain Basalt (Scots Bay Member of the McCoy Brook Formation) indicate that CAMP volcanism, at least in Nova Scotia, is entirely of Triassic age, occurred in a very short time span, and may have triggered the T–J boundary biotic and environmental crisis. The palynological assemblage from the Blomidon Formation is characterised by the dominance of the Circumpolles group (e.g. Gliscopollis meyeriana, Corollina murphyae, Classopollis torosus) which crosses the previously established Tr–J boundary. The Triassic species Patinasporites densus disappears several centimetres below the base of the North Mountain basalt, near the previously interpreted Tr–J boundary. The lower strata of the Scots Bay Member yielded a palynological assemblage dominated by Triassic bisaccate pollens (e.g Lunatisporites acutus, L. rhaeticus Lueckisporites sp., Alisporites parvus) with minor specimens of the Circumpolles group. Examination of the state of preservation and thermal alteration of organic matter associated with the microfloral assemblages precludes the possibility of recycling of the Triassic sporomorphs from the older strata. Our data argue against the previous definition of the Tr–J boundary in the ENA basins, which was based mainly on the last occurrence of P. densus. Consequently, it follows that the late Triassic magnetostratigraphic correlations should be revised considering that chron E23r, which is correlated with the last occurrence of P. densus in the Newark basin, does not occur at the Tr–J boundary but marks rather a late Triassic (probably Rhaetian) reversal.
14. 2010: Schoene, Blair, et al. “Correlating the end-Triassic mass extinction and flood basalt volcanism at the 100 ka level.” Geology 38.5 (2010): 387-390.  New high-precision U/Pb geochronology from volcanic ashes shows that the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and end-Triassic biological crisis from two independent marine stratigraphic sections correlate with the onset of terrestrial flood volcanism in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province to <150 ka. This narrows the correlation between volcanism and mass extinction by an order of magnitude for any such catastrophe in Earth history. We also show that a concomitant drop and rise in sea level and negative δ¹³C spike in the very latest Triassic occurred locally in <290 ka. Such rapid sea-level fluctuations on a global scale require that global cooling and glaciation were closely associated with the end-Triassic extinction and potentially driven by Central Atlantic Magmatic Province volcanism.  [FULL TEXT]
15. 2010: Whiteside, Jessica H., et al. “Compound-specific carbon isotopes from Earth’s largest flood basalt eruptions directly linked to the end-Triassic mass extinction.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.15 (2010): 6721-6725. A leading hypothesis explaining Phanerozoic mass extinctions and associated carbon isotopic anomalies is the emission of greenhouse, other gases, and aerosols caused by eruptions of continental flood basalt provinces. However, the necessary serial relationship between these eruptions, isotopic excursions, and extinctions has never been tested in geological sections preserving all three records. The end-Triassic extinction (ETE) at 201.4 Ma is among the largest of these extinctions and is tied to a large negative carbon isotope excursion, reflecting perturbations of the carbon cycle including a transient increase in CO₂. The cause of the ETE has been inferred to be the eruption of the giant Central Atlantic magmatic province (CAMP). Here, we show that carbon isotopes of leaf wax derived lipids (n-alkanes), wood, and total organic carbon from two orbitally paced lacustrine sections interbedded with the CAMP in eastern North America show similar excursions to those seen in the mostly marine St. Audrie’s Bay section in England. Based on these results, the ETE began synchronously in marine and terrestrial environments slightly before the oldest basalts in eastern North America but simultaneous with the eruption of the oldest flows in Morocco, a CO₂ super greenhouse, and marine biocalcification crisis. Because the temporal relationship between CAMP eruptions, mass extinction, and the carbon isotopic excursions are shown in the same place, this is the strongest case for a volcanic cause of a mass extinction to date.
16. 2010: Deenen, Martijn HL, et al. “A new chronology for the end-Triassic mass extinction.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters291.1-4 (2010): 113-125. The transition from the Triassic to Jurassic Period, initiating the ‘Age of the dinosaurs’, approximately 200 Ma, is marked by a profound mass extinction with more than 50% genus loss in both marine and continental realms. This event closely coincides with a period of extensive volcanism in the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) associated with the initial break-up of Pangaea but a causal relationship is still debated. The Triassic–Jurassic (T–J) boundary is recently proposed in the marine record at the first occurrence datum of Jurassic ammonites, post-dating the extinction interval that concurs with two distinct perturbations in the carbon isotope record. The continental record shows a major palynological turnover together with a prominent change in tetrapod taxa, but a direct link to the marine events is still equivocal. Here we develop an accurate chronostratigraphic framework for the T–J boundary interval and establish detailed trans-Atlantic and marine–continental correlations by integrating astrochronology, paleomagnetism, basalt geochemistry and geobiology. We show that the oldest CAMP basalts are diachronous by 20 kyr across the Atlantic Ocean, and that these two volcanic pulses coincide with the end-Triassic extinction interval in the marine realm. Our results support the hypotheses of Phanerozoic mass extinctions resulting from emplacement of Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) and provide crucial time constraints for numerical modelling of Triassic–Jurassic climate change and global carbon-cycle perturbations.  [FULL TEXT]
17. 2011: Schaller, Morgan F., James D. Wright, and Dennis V. Kent. “Atmospheric pCO2 perturbations associated with the Central Atlantic magmatic province.” Science 331.6023 (2011): 1404-1409. The effects of a large igneous province on the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (PCO₂) are mostly unknown. In this study, we estimate PCO₂ from stable isotopic values of pedogenic carbonates interbedded with volcanics of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) in the Newark Basin, eastern North America. We find pre-CAMP PCO₂ values of ~2000 parts per million (ppm), increasing to ~4400 ppm immediately after the first volcanic unit, followed by a steady decrease toward pre-eruptive levels over the subsequent 300 thousand years, a pattern that is repeated after the second and third flow units. We interpret each PCO₂ increase as a direct response to magmatic activity (primary outgassing or contact metamorphism). The systematic decreases in PCO₂ after each magmatic episode probably reflect consumption of atmospheric CO₂ by weathering of silicates, stimulated by fresh CAMP volcanics.
18. 2011: Ruhl, Micha, et al. “Atmospheric carbon injection linked to end-Triassic mass extinction.” Science 333.6041 (2011): 430-434. The end-Triassic mass extinction (~201.4 million years ago), marked by terrestrial ecosystem turnover and up to ~50% loss in marine biodiversity, has been attributed to intensified volcanic activity during the break-up of Pangaea. Here, we present compound-specific carbon-isotope data of long-chain n-alkanes derived from waxes of land plants, showing a ~8.5 per mil negative excursion, coincident with the extinction interval. These data indicate strong carbon-13 depletion of the end-Triassic atmosphere, within only 10,000 to 20,000 years. The magnitude and rate of this carbon-cycle disruption can be explained by the injection of at least ~12 × 10³ gigatons of isotopically depleted carbon as methane into the atmosphere. Concurrent vegetation changes reflect strong warming and an enhanced hydrological cycle. Hence, end-Triassic events are robustly linked to methane-derived massive carbon release and associated climate change.  [FULL TEXT]
19. 2013: Blackburn, Terrence J., et al. “Zircon U-Pb geochronology links the end-Triassic extinction with the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province.” Science 340.6135 (2013): 941-945. Correlating a specific triggering event, such as an asteroid impact or massive volcanism, to mass extinction events is clouded by the difficulty in precisely timing their occurrence in the geologic record. Based on rock samples collected in North America and Morocco, Blackburn et al. (p. 941, published online 21 March) acquired accurate ages for events surrounding the mass extinction that occurred ∼201 million years ago, between the Triassic and Jurassic Periods. The timing of the disappearance of marine and land fossils and geochemical evidence of the sequential eruption of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province imply a strong causal relationship.  [FULL TEXT]

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FIGURE 1: LIST OF SEA LEVEL RISE DATA SOURCES

FIGURE 2: FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS 1814-2014

FIGURE 3: RESULTS FOR JEVREJEVA GMSL 1807-2010

FIGURE 4: RESULTS FOR KEY BISCAYNE 1913-2014

FIGURE 5: RESULTS FOR PORTLAND, MAINE 1910-2014

FIGURE 6: RESULTS FOR ATLANTIC CITY, NJ 1911-2014

FIGURE 7: RESULTS FOR CRISTOBAL 1907-2014

FIGURE 8: RESULTS FOR HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA 1919-2014

FIGURE 9: RESULTS FOR GALVESTON, TX 1904-2014

FIGURE 10: RESULTS FOR BREST, FRANCE 1846-2014

FIGURE 11: RESULTS FOR MARSEILLE FRANCE 1885-2014

FIGURE 12: RESULTS FOR GEDSER DENMARK 1891-2014

FIGURE 13: RESULTS FOR HORNBAEK, DENMARK 1891-2014

FIGURE 14: RESULTS FOR HONOLULU, HI 1905-2014

FIGURE 15: RESULTS FOR BALBOA 1907-2014

FIGURE 16: RESULTS FOR PRINCE RUPERT, BC 1909-2014

FIGURE 17: RESULTS FOR VICTORIA BC 1909-2014

FIGURE 18: RESULTS FOR SAN FRANCISCO, CA 1897-2014

FIGURE 19: RESULTS FOR SAN DIEGO, CA 1906-2014

FIGURE 20: SUMMARY OF ALL 16 STATIONS: FULL SPAN

FIGURE 21: SUMMARY OF ALL 16 STATIONS: FIRST HALF

FIGURE 22: SUMMARY OF ALL 16 STATIONS: SECOND HALF

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1. The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis holds that fossil fuel emissions since the Industrial Revolution have created an unnatural warming of the climate and thereby caused an unnatural sea level rise at an accelerated rate. The UNFCCC’s international agreement to limit fossil fuel emissions is derived from this theory of causation and proposes that dangerous anthropogenic sea level rise can be moderated by reducing emissions. This work is an empirical test of the causal relationship between emissions and sea level rise on which the UNFCCC emission reduction plan is based. A necessary condition for the effectiveness of the proposed intervention to attenuate sea level rise is that the rate of sea level rise and the rate of emissions must be correlated and that the correlation must be positive and must be statistically significant at the appropriate time scale. Here we test sea level data for the evidence of responsiveness of sea the rate of sea level rise to the rate of fossil fuel emissions at nine different time scales ranging from 20 years to 60 years using both a global mean sea level reconstruction for the period 1807 to 2010 (Jevrejeva, 2014) and observational data from sixteen Northern Hemisphere sea level measurement stations in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Figure 1 is a list of all sea level data sources and their time spans. Figure 2 displays the emissions data used in the study.
2. A  consideration in the study of sea level rise is the complexity of ocean dynamics that creates spatial and temporal differences that are natural and that therefore have no interpretation in terms of an external or artificial cause. AGW does not force SLR at the same rate everywhere. Rather, there are spatial variations of SLR superimposed on a global average rise. These variations are forced by ocean circulations, variations in temperature and salinity, mass re-distributions, changing gravity, and the Earth’s rotation and shape. These effects form unique spatial and temporal patterns in SLR that appear to be random” (Landerer, 2007) (Levermann, 2005) (Schleussner, 2011). Therefore no single tide gauge time series data has an interpretation in terms of a trend in global mean eustatic sea level. 
3. These issues are addressed in this study in several ways. First, only very long continuous time series of a century or more are used. Second, multiple measurement stations are selected over a wide geographical area and latitude span. Nine different time scales are used ranging from two to six decades for assessing the anthropogenic forcing of sea level change. The smaller time scales, less than 35 years, are likely to contain some noise from known multi-decadal cycles in ocean dynamics but the longer time scales of 40, 45, 50, 55, and 60 years are expected to detect an anthropogenic forcing if it exists. The reliability of the correlation between SLR and emissions is checked using a procedure patterned after the Cronbach split-half test. The two halves of the time series, overlapping in most cases, are compared and the reliability of the full span correlation is judged based on their consistency (Cronbach, 1947). The standard deviation of the correlation coefficient is estimated using Bowley’s procedure (Bowley, 1928) and degrees of freedom are adjusted for multiplicity of data use in moving windows (Munshi, Illusory Statistical Power in Time Series Analysis, 2016).
4. The proposition that the rate of sea level rise can be moderated by reducing fossil fuel emissions is tested with detrended correlation analysis. Correlations between time series may derive from effects other than those at the time scale of interest particularly from an incidental common drift in time that is unrelated to the theory of causation at the proposed time scale (Shumway, 2011) (Prodobnik,2008) (Munshi, Spurious Correlations in Time Series Data, 2016) (Munshi, 2017). It is therefore necessary to separate the time scale effect from the common drift effect. In the hypothesis test for correlation, the alternate hypothesis is HA: ρ>0 and the corresponding null hypothesis is H0: ρ≤0. Here ρ represents the correlation in the underlying phenomenon that generated the time series sample data being studied. The sixteen correlations from the sixteen stations for each of the three time spans and for each time scale are assumed to be manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon but with natural geographical variability among stations and their average is taken “as a more accurate estimate of the population correlation” (Corey, 1998).
5. The results of detrended correlation analysis for the Jevrejeva global mean sea level reconstruction 1807-2010 are presented in Figure 3. No positive relationship between rate of emissions and the rate of sea level rise is found at any of nine time scales from 20 years to 60 years in the full span of the data 1807-2010 or in the most recent half-span 1909-2010. Some high positive correlations between r=0.628 to r=0.829 are found for time scales of 45 to 55 years are found in the early half-span of the data 1807-1908. This result is considered spurious in light of the complete absence of positive correlations in the full span and particularly in the recent half-span when fossil fuel emissions were an order of magnitude greater than in the early half-span. Total fossil fuel emissions 1807-1908 were 18.1 GTC (gigatons of carbon equivalent) while in the recent half-span 1909-2010 emissions were 345.7 GTC. If forcing by emissions drive the rate of sea level rise it should be more apparent in the recent half-span than in the early half-span. Thus, the results in Figure 3 do not present credible evidence that the proposed climate action intervention to attenuate sea level rise will be effective. It is noted that correlation is a necessary though not sufficient condition for causation.
6. The corresponding results for observational data from the sixteen measuring stations are presented in Figure 4 to Figure 19. As in the global mean sea level reconstruction, detrended correlation analysis is carried out for the full span as well as for the early half and the recent half of the available full span data series. The full span results for all sixteen stations are summarized in Figure 20 and the results for the early half and recent half are summarized in Figure 21 and Figure 22 respectively. Differences in the observed correlation among time scales in each of these Figures 20,21,&22 are expected but for any given time scale the sources of variance are assumed to be natural regional variation. In such cases “the correlation coefficient can be a highly variable statistic” (Corey, 1998). Although the time spans among stations don’t exactly correspond, we assume that the sixteen correlations from the sixteen stations for each of the three time spans and for each time scale are the manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon but with natural geographical variability among stations. Accordingly, we take their average as a better estimate of the population correlation (Corey, 1998). The average is shown in the bottom of each of the Figures 20,21,&22. For statistical significance, the standardized value of the average correlation would have to be much greater than unity. However, as seen in the charts in Figures 20,21,&22, the maximum standardized average correlation, found at time scales of 30 to 40 years, is tmax=0.1 for the full span (Figure 20), tmax=0.4 for the early time span (Figure 21), and tmax=0.53 for the recent time span (Figure 22). These results are consistent with the results for the 204-year sea level reconstruction data (Figure 3). We conclude that the data presented in Figures 20,21,&22 do not provide credible evidence that the rate of sea level rise can be moderated by reducing fossil fuel emissions as claimed by various authors (Hansen, 2016).
7. The (Clark 2018) paper that showed a correlation between cumulative sea level rise and cumulative emissions is discussed in a related post [LINK] . There we show that the correlation between cumulative  values is spurious because time series of the cumulative values of another time series contains neither time scale nor degrees of freedom (See also [TCRE] ). In our work this issue is addressed by using finite time scales less than the full span to insert both time scale and degrees of freedom in the correlation statistics and find that when the spuriousness of the correlation between cumulative values is removed, no correlation is found.

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CITATIONS 

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FIGURE 1: CUMULATIVE UFO SIGHTINGS AND CUMULATIVE GLOBAL WARMING

FIGURE 2: TCRU: TRANSIENT CLIMATE RESPONSE TO CUMULATIVE UFO SIGHTINGS

FIGURE 3: TCRU VALUES BY CALENDAR MONTH

FIGURE 4: TCRU ESTIMATES FOR REGIONAL TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTIONS

[LIST OF POSTS ON THIS SITE]

1. The TCRE (Transient Climate Response to Cumulative Emissions) serves a crucial role in climate science. First, it provides a direct causal link between emissions and warming in support of the two key elements of climate change theory theory that (i) the observed warming since the LIA is driven by fossil fuel emissions, and (ii) that the rate of warming can be moderated by climate action in the form of emission reduction. Even more important, the TCRE provides climate science with a metric for estimating the so called “carbon budget” used by climate action policy makers to determine the maximum total emissions possible to meet total warming targets such as the IPCC 1.5ºC and 2.0ºC targets. For more information about the TCRE and its applications in climate science, please see [2018: Matthews, Damon, “Focus on cumulative emissions, global carbon budgets and the implications for climate mitigation targets.” Environmental Research Letters 13.1 (2018)].
2. The Environmental Research Letters focus issue on ‘Cumulative Emissions, Global Carbon Budgets and the Implications for Climate Mitigation Targets‘ was launched in 2015 to highlight the emerging science of the climate response to cumulative emissions, and how this can inform efforts to decrease emissions fast enough to avoid dangerous climate impacts. There is also a related post on the TCRE at this site [LINK] where it is argued and demonstrated that the observed proportionality between temperature and cumulative emissions is spurious and that therefore, the TCRE metric and carbon budgets derived from it are specious because the correlation derives from a fortuitous sign pattern in the data where annual emissions are always positive and, in an era of global warming, the amount of warming each year is mostly positive.
3. This work is a parody of the TCRE that further demonstrates the speciousness of the TCRE metric showing that any variable that matches the sign convention offered by cumulative emissions creates just as good a proportionality as emissions. The variable chosen for this parody demonstration is UFO sightings. Like emissions, UFO sightings each year are either zero or positive but never negative. UFO activity data are available from numerous sources for different regions and periods of time (Bader, 2017) (Donderi, 2013) (Hopkins, 1987) (Picknett, 2001) (Sheaffer, 1998) (Spencer, 1993) (UFO-Info, 2017). A convenient summary is also provided by Wikipedia (Wikipedia, 2018). The data are cross checked against the Wikipedia compilation for completeness.
4. The sightings data are available as individual sightings and complied into total number of UFO sightings worldwide for each year 1910-2015. It is noted that individual sightings are usually for a number of different spaceships that vary from sighting to sighting and in different reports of the same sighting. For the purpose of this study, UFO activity is defined in terms of sightings without consideration for the number of ships per sighting. The annual sightings data are sparse in the first half of the study period with most years containing no sightings. The data are compiled into a cumulative values series along the lines of the CCR/TCRE procedure in climate science (Allen, 2009) (Matthews, 2009) (Matthews/Solomon, 2012) (Munshi, 2018). The proportionality π between cumulative sightings and surface temperature is computed both as a linear regression coefficient and also as a correlation coefficient and tested for statistical significance. The null hypothesis H0: π=0 is tested against the alternate HA: π>0 in a one-tailed test. Here π represents proportionality estimated as a combination of the strength of the linear regression coefficient and the correlation coefficient.
5. Global surface temperature reconstructions for the period 1910-2015 are provided by the Hadley Centre of the Met Office of the Government of the UK (Morice, 2012). The data are available as monthly mean temperatures for each calendar month in four distinct region and surface combinations. They are Land in the Northern Hemisphere, Sea in the Northern Hemisphere, Land in the Southern Hemisphere, and Sea in the Southern Hemisphere. Data for each calendar month in each of four distinct surface and region specifications are studied for a total of forty eight different statistical tests of the hypothesis that surface temperature in the study period 1910-2015 is driven by UFO activity. The beginning of the study period of 1910-2015 is constrained by the availability of UFO data and the end is constrained by the data availability at the time the study was carried out.
6. Figure 1 is a graphical display of the UFO sightings and temperature data used in this work. The results of the analysis of these data using the TCRE methodology is displayed in Figure 2 and tabulated in Figure 3. The left frame of Figure 2 is a graphical display of the correlation between annual mean global temperature and cumulative UFO sightings. The right frame is a presentation of the results for monthly mean temperatures. The numbers 1 to 12 along the coordinate represent the twelve calendar months from January to December. There are two ordinate parameters. The TCRU coefficients for the calendar months, computed as the regression coefficient of monthly mean global temperature against cumulative UFO sightings is shown in blue. The corresponding correlation that supports the validity of the regression coefficient is shown in red. The numerical values for both the TCRU and corresponding correlation are tabulated in Figure 3. Details of the month by month analysis are shown in Figure 4.
7. the empirical test with available UFO sighting data and surface temperature reconstructions 1910-2015 presented in Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3 shows a strong statistically significant proportionality between temperature and cumulative UFO sightings. We conclude that the data are consistent with the proposition that the observed warming since 1910 can be explained as an effect of UFO sightings perhaps by way of their unnatural perturbation of earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields as suggested by various authors.
8. It has been proposed that UFO spacecraft contain no mechanism for flying known to man. The consensus among scientists is that the method of flight employed by these craft involve interactions with the earth’s own gravitational and geomagnetic system. Analysis of artifacts retrieved from crashed UFOs as well as the study of the intensification of the Aurora Borealis in the presence of UFOs reveal details of UFO propulsion dynamics that imply a massive and intense interference in the earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields (Potter, 2016) (Mike, 2011) (Ensley, 2013) (LaViolette, 2008) (Sarg, 2009). These electromagnetic and gravitational effects alter the way the earth interacts with its sun (Potter, 2009). Based on these effects of UFOs on the atmosphere and the results of our analysis presented above, we propose that the observed warming since 1910 is related to atmospheric perturbations of UFO activity.

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CITATIONS

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