A QUORA QUESTION

Chris Schmehl requested your answer

How do we responsibly address world population growth? How do we help the population the Earth has already? How many human beings can the Earth sustain?

ANSWER

IN A RELATED POST ON THIS SITE: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/30/the-humans-must-save-the-planet/ WE NOTE AS FOLLOWS:

The crust of the planet where we live is an insignificant portion of the planet. Life on earth is an insignificant portion of the crust of the planet. Humans are an insignificant portion of life on earth.

Although it is true that humans must take care of their environment, we propose that the environment should have a more rational definition because the mass balance above does not show that humans are a significant force on a planetary scale or that they are in a position to either save it or to destroy it even with the much feared power of their fossil fueled industrial economy.

And that implies that it is not possible that there is such a thing as an Anthropocene in which humans are the dominant geological force of the planet. Like ants and bees, humans are social creatures that live in communities of humans so that when they look around all they see are humans. This is the likely source of our human oriented view of the world. Paul Ehrlich’s overpopulation theory is derived from his first visit to India which he described as “people people people people people!” It is this biased view of the planet that makes it possible for us to extrapolate Calcutta to the planet and come up with the fearful image described by Jeff Gibbs as “Have you every wondered what would happen if a single species took over an entire planet?”

WE NOTE FURTHER THAT ALTHOUGH THERE HAVE BEEN SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS ON A COMING OVER-POPULATION CATASTROPHE, ALL OF THESE WORKS HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE WRONG TO THE POINT OF COMICAL FAILURES.

BUT THE LEGACY OF POPULATION FEAR AND THE OBSESSION OF THE HUMANS WITH THE OVERPOPULATION MYTH THAT THEY CREATED IS IMPRESSIVE AND IT INDICATES NOT THAT THE OVERPOPULATION HYPOTHESIS PROVIDES A USEFUL INSIGHT INTO POPULATION BUT THAT IT TELLS U SOMETING ABOUT US HUMANS.

THESE KINDS OF CATASTROPHE INTERPRETATIONS ACTIVATE A FEAR BUTTON WE CARRY WITHIN OUR PSYCHE THAT SOMEHOW CO-EXISTS WITHIN OTHERWISE RATIONAL HUMANS.

RELATED POST ON CATASTROPHE: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/11/08/the-catastrophism-of-the-humans/

THE HUMAN OBSESSION WITH DOOMOLOGY

POPULATION FEARMONGERING SINCE 1970

RELATED POST ON THE POPULATION BOMB AND POST POPULATION BOMB FORECASTS OF DOOM BY SCIENTISTS PUBLISHED IN PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/25/earth-day-wisdom/

EXCERPT

#1: Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years. Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born and by 1975 food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, will perish in the “Great Die-Off.

#2: Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.

#3: We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,

#4: Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction

#5: It is already too late to avoid mass starvation

#6: Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine

#7: Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence that in a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.

#8: At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it is only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.

#9: Decaying organic pollutants will use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate and disappear.

#10: Air pollution will take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone and 200,000 Americans will die in 1973 due to “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles. DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945 and these people have a life expectancy of only 49 years. Life expectancy will reach 42 years by 1980, when it might level out.

#11: By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate that there won’t be any crude oil left in the ground.

#12: Humanity will run out of copper shortly after 2000. Thereafter, lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver reserves will all have been depleted by 1990.

#13: In 25 years (by 1995) 75% to 80% of all the species of animals on earth will become extinct.

#14: Since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rain forests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.

#15: The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be 4C colder for the global mean temperature in 1990 and 11C colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.

#16: The battle to feed all of humanity is over. Hundreds of millions will starve to death in the 1970s and 65 million of them will be Americans. India is doomed and the odds are that England will not exist in the year 2000.

#17: By 1985 the end will come. It will be an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.

#18: The end is near. Strict measures of population control is required. Tax benefits for having additional children must be eliminated and new births must be taxed.

#19: Allowing women to have as many babies as they want is like letting everyone throw their garbage into the neighbor’s yard.

#20: CLOSING QUESTION: How many years do you have to fear the end before “the end” obsession loses credibility?

HERE IS WHAT “THE NATURAL WORLD GUY” STILL SAYS: WE ARE A PLAGUE ON THE EARTH. EITHER WE LIMIT OUR POPULATION GROWTH OR THE NATURAL WORLD WILL DO IT FOR US

PART-1: ZHARKOVA

The publisher, Scientific Reports is investigating how it came to publish a study suggesting that global warming is down to natural solar cycles. The paper was criticised by scientists for containing “very basic errors” about how Earth moves around the sun. The study was published online on 24 June by Scientific Reports, an open access journal run by Nature Research, which also lists the prestigious Nature journal among its titles. A spokesperson told New Scientist that it is aware of concerns raised over the paper, which was authored by four academics based at Northumbria University, the University of Bradford and the University of Hull, all in the UK, plus the Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Shamakhi Astrophysical Observatory in Azerbaijan. The authors suggest that Earth’s 1°C temperature rise over the past two centuries could largely be explained by the distance between Earth and the sun changing over time as the sun orbits around our solar system’s centre of mass {barycentre}. The phenomenon would see temperatures rise a further 3°C by 2600, they say.

The Ken Rice critique: It’s well known that the sun moves around the barycentre of the solar system due to the influence of the other solar system bodies, mainly Jupiter but this does not mean that this then leads to changes in the distance between the sun and the Earth. The claim that we will see warming in the coming centuries because the sun will move closer to the Earth as it moves around the solar system barycentre is very simply wrong. Ken Rice is urging the journal to withdraw the paper, and says it is embarrassing it was published.

Gavin Schmidt critique: The paper contains egregious errors. The sun-Earth distance does not vary with the motion of the sun-Earth system around the barycentre of the sun-Jupiter system, nor the sun-galactic centre system or any other purely mathematical reference point. The journal must retract the paper if it wants to retain any credibility.

Michael Brown, Monash University Australia critique: Lamented uncritical media coverage of the paper in Australia.

Valentina Zharkova responds: Following criticism of the paper, lead author Valentina Zharkova, of Northumbria University, described Ken Rice as a climate alarmist and reiterated that the close links between oscillations of solar baseline magnetic field, solar irradiance and temperature are established in our paper without any involvement of solar inertial motion. The publisher, Scientific Reports, says it has begun the process to investigate the paper it has published. “This process is ongoing and we cannot comment further at this stage”.

A REVIEW OF THE VARIOUS WORKS OF ZHARKOVA CRITICAL OF THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING BY WAY OF FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS WITH THE PROPOSITION THAT VARIATIONS IN GMST IS GOVERNED BY VARIATIONS IN SOLAR IRRADIANCE IS PRESENTED IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/30/climate-wars/

HER HISTORY OF REPEATED FORECASTS OF THE COMING COOLING BASED ON A THEORY OF SOLAR OUTPUT VARIATION AS THE PRIMARY DRIVER OF EARTH’S TEMPERATURE HAS BEEN FALSIFIED BY HISTORY.

PART-2: THE CONNOLLYS

THE REPORT OF THE CONNOLLYS CERES RESEARCH IN CLIMATE DENIAL WEBSITES: A diverse expert panel of global scientists finds blaming climate change mostly on greenhouse gas emissions was premature. Their findings contradict the UN IPCC’s conclusion, which the study shows, is grounded in narrow and incomplete data about the Sun’s total solar irradiance. Most of the energy in the Earth’s atmosphere comes from the Sun. It has long been recognized that changes in the so-called “total solar irradiance” (TSI), i.e., the amount of energy emitted by the Sun, over the last few centuries, could have contributed substantially to recent climate change. However, this new study found that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only considered a small subset of the published TSI datasets when they were assessing the role of the Sun in climate change and that this subset only included “low solar variability” datasets. As a result, the IPCC was premature in ruling out a substantial role for the Sun in recent climate change.

WHAT THE CONNOLLYS RESEARCH PAPER SAYS

In this post, we briefly summarise some of the main findings of our 2015 paper with Dr. Willie Soon, “Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century”, that was published in the journal, Earth-Science Reviews. This summary is adapted from a similar post from 2019 on the CERES-science website.

In this post, we review how the UN’s highly influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that climate change since the 1950s is “mostly human-caused”. We argue that this conclusion was premature and scientifically unjustified. This essay was originally published on Medium.com on 23rd September, 2019.

It is widely believed that “90-95% of scientists agree on climate change”. This is technically true if you define “agree on climate change” to mean “agree that the climate is changing”. We would be included in that 90-95% of scientists. Indeed, the very subject of this website is about climate change. However, many people mistakenly assume that 90-95% of scientists agree that recent climate change is “mostly human-caused”. The reality is that there is a wide range of views among the scientific community about the causes of recent climate change. Many scientists agree with that view, but many do not! In this post, we explain how this mistaken idea became embedded in the public conscience, and what is known about the true views of the scientific community on climate change.

A SUMMARY OF THE CONNOLLY’S RESEARCH

WHAT IS BEING PRESENTED IN 2021 IS ALSO FOUND IN THEIR 2019 PAPER REVIEWED IN A RELATED POST ON THIS SITE: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/10/31/connolly/

THIS WORK IS SUMMARIZED BELOW

1. THE CLAIM IS THAT THEIR ANALYSIS SHOWS THAT THE GHG EFFECT OF CO2 THAT IS THE FOUNDATION OF THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT THE PRIMARY DRIVER OF GMST (GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE) AS CLAIMED BY CLIMATE SCIENCE. THEIR FINDINGS SHOW THAT VARIATIONS IN TSI (TOTAL SOLAR IRRADIANCE) DATA EXPLAINS THE WARMNG WITH AND WITHOUT THE GHG EFFECT AND THAT THEREFORE THE GHG EFFECT OF CO2 IS NOT A NECESSARY VARIABLE FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF GLOBAL WARMING.
2. They found that in the study period 1881 to 2013, when the Hoyt & Schatten TSI {total solar irradiance} data are used in conjunction with CO2 forcing, TSI can explain the current warming with or without the CO2 effect with almost equal precision. Very high correlations of ρ≥0.7 are found for TSI alone against temperature. The authors of this post tested the validity of the correlation with detrended correlation analysis and found detrended correlations ≥0.45 with strong statistical significance. More importantly, the addition of CO2 forcing did not make a significant improvement in the correlation.
3. The results imply that long term temperature trends in surface temperature data are driven almost entirely by variability in total solar irradiance (TSI) when the Hoyt&Schatten proxy data are used. The dramatic difference between the Kopp&Lean and the Hoyt&Schatten TSI data are depicted in the chart above (Figure 16 in Scafetta and Willson 2014). The  greater variability of Hoyt&Schatten is able to explain the current warming event with greater precision than the Kopp&Lean TSI data and without the use of CO2 GHG forcing. The important contribution of this work to the AGW discussion is that it may encourage a greater attention to solar variability in the understanding of climate change that now relies on the Lacis principle that climate change can and must be understood solely in terms of fossil fuel emissions and CO2 forcing,   Related posts on this site are : [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK][LINK] [LINK] 
4. HOWEVER, THERE ARE TWO SIGNIFICANT WEAKNESSES IN THE WORK OF THE CONNOLLYS. First, it is important in the context of the data used in the study to pay attention to the issue of uncertainty in proxy paleo data in general and in reconstructions of TSI in particular. The large differences seen in the chart above between the Hoyt&Schatten and Kopp&Lean TSI proxy data are not anomalous but rather what one would normally expect in paleo proxy reconstructions. Therefore, that a single proxy reconstruction exists that supports the Connolly hypothesis requires confirmation with different proxy data sources. This aspect of proxies is a generic problem with paleo data that has been described most clearly by Professor Carl Wunsch [LINK].
5. Professor Wunsch writes that “Thousands of papers do document regional changes in proxy concentrations, but almost everything is subject to debate including, particularly, the age models, geographical integrity of regional data, and the meaning of the apparent signals that are often transformed in complicated ways on their way through the atmosphere and the ocean to the sediments. From one point of view, scientific communities without adequate data have a distinct advantage because they can construct interesting and exciting stories and rationalizations with little or no risk of observational refutation. Colorful, sometimes charismatic, characters come to dominate the field, constructing their interpretations of a few intriguing, but indefinite observations that appeal to their followers, and which eventually emerge as “textbook truths.” Therefore, although high correlations between TSI proxies and temperature have been shown with the Hoyt&Schatten proxy data, this relationship will gain greater credibility if it can be shown to exist in other proxies or in direct observations.
6. Yet another consideration is that the study examines five distinct regions with  mean temperature data for China, USA, the Arctic, the Northern Hemisphere, and sea surface temperature. AGW is a theory about global mean temperature and it would seem important that a test of that hypothesis should include a test of global mean temperature. Thus, in the selection of proxies to use and in the selection of regions to study, the methodology leaves open a possibility of data selection bias that would imply a circular reasoning issue in the form of the so called Texas Sharpshooter fallacy in the sense that data selection may have played a role in the success of the empirical test in proving what the authors had apparently set out to prove.

IN VIEW OF THE DATA AND METHODOLOGICAL WEAKNESSES NOTED ABOVE, THOUGH THIS WORK RAISES INTERESTING ISSUES THAT SHOULD BE LOOKED INTO, THE FINDINGS AS PRESENTED DO NOT SHOW THAT THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING BY WAY OF FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS HAS BEEN FALSIFIED. SPECIFICALLY, (FIRST): THE UNCERTAINTY IN TSI RECONSTRUCTIONS REQUIRES VERIFICATION OF THE FINDINGS WITH MULTIPLE SOURCES OF THIS DATA. AND (SECOND): THE PROPOSED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TSI AND GMST MUST BE ESTABLISHED AGAINST GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND NOT AGAINST SELECTED REGIONS WHERE A GOOD CORRELATION IS FOUND.

LINK KYLE ON QUORA ASKS:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GLOBAL WARMING STOPS?

THERE IS MORE TO THIS QUESTION THAN MEETS THE EYE.

ITEM#1: IN A RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/11/chaoticholocene/ WE FIND THAT THE 11,000-YEAR HISTORY OF THE HOLOCENE INTERGLACIAL SHOWS THAT THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE HAS NEVER BEEN FLAT WITH NEITHER WARMING NOR COOLING. IN OTHER WORDS, THE ABSENCE OF A TEMPERATURE TREND IS NOT FOUND IN THE DATA. INSTEAD WHAT WE FIND IS THAT AT ANY GIVEN TIME THE WORLD IS EITHER WARMING OR COOLING.

WHAT’S MORE, THESE WARMING AND COOLNG CYCLES ARE ALWAYS AT MILLENNIAL AND CENTENNIAL TIME SCALES, THE VERY SAME TIME SCALES FOUND IN THE CHAOTIC BACK AND FORTH TEMPERATURE DYNAMICS OF GLACIATION AND DEGlACIATION CYCLES SEEN IN THE CHAOS VIDEO IN THE RELATED POST LINKED ABOVE AND IN THE STILL FRAMES OF THAT VIDEO PRESENTED BELOW.

THE VIDEO IN THE RELATED POST MOVES THROUGH TIME AT 1791 YEARS PER SECOND SO THESE CHAOTIC DYNAMICS MAY BE DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW. THE STILL FRAMES PRESENTED BELOW ARE 11,000 YEARS APART AND THEY CLEARLY SHOW THE BACK AND FORTH ICE GAIN AND ICE LOSS CYCLES AT CHAOTIC TIME SCALES BETWEEN CENTENNIAL AND MILLENNIAL IN BOTH GLACIATION AND DEGLACIATION.

CHAOS VIDEO STILL FRAMES FOR GLACATION: 120,000 YEARS AGO TO 66,000 YEARS AGO

CHAOS VIDEO STILL FRAMES FOR DEGLACATION: 66,000 YEARS AGO TO 11,000 YEARS AGO

WHAT WE SEE IN THESE IMAGES OF THE GLACIATION AND DEGLACIATION CYCLES IS THAT THEY BOTH CONTAIN CHAOTIC BACK AND FORTH DYNAMICS OF ICING AND DE-ICING AT CENTENNIAL AND MILLENNIAL TIME SCALES. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GLACIATION AND DEGLACIATION IS THAT THE GLACIATION CYCLE CONTAINS A SLIGHT EDGE FOR ICE FORMATION AND THE DEGLACIATION CYCLE CONTAINS A SLIGHT EDGE FOR ICE MELT.

AND HERE IS THE AMAZING PART. THE VERY SAME CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR OF TEMPERATURE IS FOUND IN INTERGLACIALS. THE IDENTICAL CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR OF TEMPERATURE AT THE SAME TIME SCALE IS ALSO SEEN IN BOTH THE HOLOCENE INTERGLACIAL THAT WE LIVE IN AND IN THE PRIOR INTERGLACIAL, THE EEMIAN. LINK TO EEMIAN INTERGLACIAL POST: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/21/eemian/ .

THIS MEANS THAT THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION POSED BY LINK KYLE IS THIS. TEMPERATURE TRENDS DON’T END. IT IS EITHER WARMING OR COOLING. THE CURRENT WARMING CYCLE OF THE HOLOCENE CAME FROM THE PRIOR COOLING CYCLE OF THE HOLOCENE AND IT WILL END INTO THE NEXT COOLING CYCLE OF THE HOLOCENE. THE EARTH’S TEMPERATURE IS NEVER STABLE. IT IS A CHAOTIC DYNAMIC OF WARMING AND COOLING CYCLES AT CENTENNIAL AND MILLENNIAL TIME SCALES.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLISHED RESEARCH PAPERS ON THIS TOPIC IS PRESENTED BELOW AND THE 1997 PAPER BY GERARD BOND IS HIGHLIGHTED. THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RESEARCH ON THIS TOPIC SUPPORTS THE CONCLUSIONS PRESENTED ABOVE.

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.

SUMMARY & CONCLUSION: A literature review shows that climate appears to exhibit properties of non-linear dynamics and deterministic chaos over centennial to millennial time scales. Glaciation is not a linear and well behaved period of cooling and ice accumulation and deglaciation is not a linear and well behaved period of warming and ice dissipation. Rather, both glaciation and deglaciation are chaotic events consisting of both processes differentiated only by a slight advantage to ice accumulation in glaciation and a slight advantage to ice dissipation in deglaciation and interglacials. It is in this context that all Holocene temperature cycles must be viewed. If climate science can explain these Holocene temperature cycles as deterministic cause and effect phenomena, they should explain all of them and not just pick one of them to explain in that way because that kind of empirical research is subject to data selection bias, confirmation bias, and circular reasoning. The climate science of Anthropogenic Global Warming and Climate Change that has selected only the post LIA warming cycle to explain as a cause and effect phenomenon can be rejected solely on that basis. 

THE CHAOTIC DYNAMICS OF TEMPERATURE DESCRIBED ABOVE INVALIDATES THE CLIMATE SCIENCE ASSUMPTION THAT AN INTERGLACIAL WARMING CYCLE IN THE HEELS OF A COOLING CYCLE IS AN ODDITY THAT REQUIRES AN EXPLANATION IN TERMS OF HUMAN CAUSE. THE TEMPERATURE OF EARTH MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS A NATURAL CHAOTIC DYNAMIC BETWEEN WARMING AND COOLING CYCLES AT CENTENNIAL AND MILLENNIAL TIME SCALES AND NOT AS AN INVARIANT STATE WHERE WARMING OR COOLING REQUIRES AN EXPLANATION IN TERMS OF HUMAN CAUSE.

RELATED POST ON CHAOS THEORY: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/24/wbm1996-a-chaos-model-of-glaciation-cycles/

POSTSCRIPT: In a related post, a Keeling and Whorf paper makes the same argument and the authors propose a theory of the temperature cycles of the Holocene in terms of tidal cycle resonance dynamics [LINK] . 

THE RELEVANT BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Denton, George H., and Wibjörn Karlén. “Holocene climatic variations—their pattern and possible cause.” Quaternary Research 3.2 (1973): 155-205. In the northeastern St. Elias Mountains in southern Yukon Territory and Alaska, C14-dated fluctuations of 14 glacier termini show two major intervals of Holocene glacier expansion, the older dating from 3300-2400 calendar yr BP and the younger corresponding to the Little Ice Age of the last several centuries. Both were about equivalent in magnitude. In addition, a less-extensive and short-lived advance occurred about 1250-1050 calendar yr BP (A.D. 700–900). Conversely, glacier recession, commonly accompanied by rise in altitude of spruce tree line, occurred 5975–6175, 4030-3300, 2400-1250, and 1050-460 calendar yr BP, and from A.D. 1920 to the present. Examination of worldwide Holocene glacier fluctuations reinforces this scheme and points to a third major interval of glacier advances about 5800-4900 calendar yrs BP; this interval generally was less intense than the two younger major intervals. Finally, detailed mapping and dating of Holocene moraines fronting 40 glaciers in the Kebnekaise and Sarek Mountains in Swedish Lapland reveals again that the Holocene was punctuated by repeated intervals of glacier expansion that correspond to those found in the St. Elias Mountains and elsewhere. The two youngest intervals, which occurred during the Little Ice Age and again about 2300–3000 calendar yrs BP, were approximately equal in intensity. Advances of the two older intervals, which occurred approximately 5000 and 8000 calendar yr BP, were generally less extensive. Minor glacier fluctuations were superimposed on all four broad expansion intervals; glacial expansions of the Little Ice Age culminated about A.D. 1500–1640, 1710, 1780, 1850, 1890, and 1916. In the mountains of Swedish Lapland, Holocene mean summer temperature rarely, if ever, was lower than 1°C below the 1931–1960 summer mean. Summer temperatures varied by less than 3.5°C over the last two broad intervals of Holocene glacial expansion and contraction. Viewed as a whole, therefore, the Holocene experienced alternating intervals of glacier expansion and contraction that probably were superimposed on the broad climatic trends recognized in pollen profiles and deep-sea cores. Expansion intervals lasted up to 900 yr and contraction intervals up to 1750 yr. Dates of glacial maxima indicate that the major Holocene intervals of expansion peaked at about 200–330, 2800, and 5300 calendar yr BP, suggesting a recurrence of major glacier activity about each 2500 yr. If projected further into the past, this Holocene pattern predicts that alternating glacier expansion-contraction intervals should have been superimposed on the Late-Wisconsin glaciation, with glacier readvances peaking about 7800, 10,300, 12,800, and 15,300 calendar yr BP. These major readvances should have been separated by intervals of general recession, some of which might have been punctuated by short-lived advances. Furthermore, the time scales of Holocene events and their Late-Wisconsin analogues should be comparable. Considering possible errors in C14 dating, this extended Holocene scheme agrees reasonably well with the chronology and magnitude of such Late-Wisconsin events as the Cochrane-Cockburn readvance (8000–8200 C14 yr BP), the Pre-Boreal interstadial, the Fennoscandian readvances during the Younger Dryas stadial (10,850-10,050 varve yr BP), the Alleröd interstadial (11,800-10,900 C14 yr BP), the Port Huron readvance (12,700–13,000 C14 yr BP), the Cary/Port Huron interstadial (centered about 13,300 C14 yr BP), and the Cary stadial (14,000–15,000 C14 yr BP). Moreover, comparison of presumed analogues such as the Little Ice Age and the Younger Dryas, or the Alleröd and the Roman Empire-Middle Ages warm interval, show marked similarities. These results suggest that a recurring pattern of minor climatic variations, with a dominant overprint of cold intervals peaking about each 2500 yr, was superimposed on long-term Holocene and Late-Wisconsin climatic trends. Should this pattern continue to repeat itself, the Little Ice Age will be succeeded within the next few centuries by a long interval of milder climates similar to those of the Roman Empire and Middle Ages. Short-term atmospheric C14 variations measured from tree rings correlate closely with Holocene glacier and tree-line fluctuations during the last 7000 yr. Such a correspondence, firstly, suggests that the record of short-term C14 variations may be an empirical indicator of paleoclimates and, secondly, points to a possible cause of Holocene climatic variations. The most prominent explanation of short-term C14 variations involves modulation of the galactic cosmic-ray flux by varying solar corpuscular activity. If this explanation proves valid and if the solar constant can be shown to vary with corpuscular output, it would suggest that Holocene glacier and climatic fluctuations, because of their close correlation with short-term C14 variations, were caused by varying solar activity. By extension, this would imply a similar cause for Late-Wisconsin climatic fluctuations such as the Alleröd and Younger Dryas.
2. Hammer, Claus U., Henrik B. Clausen, and Willi Dansgaard. “Greenland ice sheet evidence of post-glacial volcanism and its climatic impact.” Nature 288.5788 (1980): 230. Acidity profiles along well dated Greenland ice cores reveal large volcanic eruptions in the Northern Hemisphere during the past 10,000 yr. Comparison with a temperature index shows that clustered eruptions have a considerable cooling effect on climate, which further complicates climatic predictions.
3. O’Brien, S. R., (Mayewski). “Complexity of Holocene climate as reconstructed from a Greenland ice core.” Science 270.5244 (1995): 1962-1964.  Glaciochemical time series developed from Summit, Greenland, indicate that the chemical composition of the atmosphere was dynamic during the Holocene epoch. Concentrations of sea salt and terrestrial dusts increased in Summit snow during the periods 0 to 600, 2400 to 3100, 5000 to 6100, 7800 to 8800, and more than 11,300 years ago. The most recent increase, and also the most abrupt, coincides with the Little Ice Age. These changes imply that either the north polar vortex expanded or the meridional air flow intensified during these periods, and that temperatures in the mid to high northern latitudes were potentially the coldest since the Younger Dryas event.
4. Angelakis, Andreas N., and Stylianos V. Spyridakis. “The status of water resources in Minoan times: A preliminary study.” Diachronic Climatic Impacts on Water Resources. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1996. 161-191.A well-known passage in Homer’s Odyssey, probably based on an ancient ritual myth, tells the story of Demeter, the Greek corn-goddess and Iasion, the son of Zeus by Electra, daughter of Atlas. The latter was the guardian of the pillars of heaven (Odyssey, 1.53), the Titan who holds the sky up (Hesiod, Theogony, 517) and is, thereby, identified with water and rainfall. [FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD .
5. Alley, Richard B., (Mayewski)  “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.
6. 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.
7. Roberts, Neil, et al. “The age and causes of Mid-Late Holocene environmental change in southwest Turkey.” Third Millennium BC climate change and old world collapse. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 1997. 409-429.  Proxy records such as lake sediment sequences provide important data on abrupt environmental changes in the past, but establishing their specific causes from the palaeoenvironmental record can be problematic. Pollen diagrams from southwest Turkey show a mid-late Holocene pollen assemblage zone, designated as the Beyşehir Occupation phase, the onset of which has been 14C dated to ca. 3000 BP (ca. 1250 BC). A second millennium BC date for the start of the Beyşehir Occupation phase can now be confirmed as a result of the discovery of volcanic tephra from the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) in lake sediment cores from the region. Palaeoecological analyses on sediment cores from Gölhisar gölü, a shallow montane lake, indicate that tephra deposition was followed by a sustained response in the aquatic ecosystem, in the form of increased algal productivity. The onset of pollen changes marking the beginning of the Beyşehir Occupation phase was not, on the other hand, precisely coincident with the tephra layer, but rather occurred at least a century later at this site. Despite the paucity of archaeological evidence for Late Bronze Age settlement in the Oro-Mediterranean region of southwest Turkey, it would appear that the second millennium BC saw the start of a period of major human impact on the landscape which continued until the late first millennium AD. The Santorini ash represents an important time-synchronous, stratigraphic marker horizon, but does not appear to have been the immediate cause of the onset of the Beyş ehir Occupation phase.
8. Bond, Gerard, et al. “Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene.” science 294.5549 (2001): 2130-2136.  Surface winds and surface ocean hydrography in the subpolar North Atlantic appear to have been influenced by variations in solar output through the entire Holocene. The evidence comes from a close correlation between inferred changes in production rates of the cosmogenic nuclides carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and centennial to millennial time scale changes in proxies of drift ice measured in deep-sea sediment cores. A solar forcing mechanism therefore may underlie at least the Holocene segment of the North Atlantic’s “1500-year” cycle. The surface hydrographic changes may have affected production of North Atlantic Deep Water, potentially providing an additional mechanism for amplifying the solar signals and transmitting them globally.
9. Stenni, Barbara, et al. “Eight centuries of volcanic signal and climate change at Talos Dome (East Antarctica).” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 107.D9 (2002): ACL-3.  During the 1996 Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide‐International Trans‐Antarctic Scientific Expedition traverse, two firn cores were retrieved from the Talos Dome area (East Antarctica) at elevations of 2316 m (TD, 89 m long) and 2246 m (ST556, 19 m long). Cores were dated by using seasonal variations in non‐sea‐salt (nss) SO42− concentrations coupled with the recognition of tritium marker level (1965–1966) and nss SO42− spikes due to the most important volcanic events in the past (Pinatubo 1991, Agung 1963, Krakatoa 1883, Tambora 1815, Kuwae 1452, Unknown 1259). The number of annual layers recognized in the TD and ST556 cores was 779 and 97, respectively. The δD record obtained from the TD core has been compared with other East Antarctic isotope ice core records (Dome C EPICA, South Pole, Taylor Dome). These records suggest cooler climate conditions between the middle of 16th and the beginning of 19th centuries, which might be related to the Little Ice Age (LIA) cold period. Because of the high degree of geographical variability, the strongest LIA cooling was not temporally synchronous over East Antarctica, and the analyzed records do not provide a coherent picture for East Antarctica. The accumulation rate record presented for the TD core shows a decrease during part of the LIA followed by an increment of about 11% in accumulation during the 20th century. At the ST556 site, the accumulation rate observed during the 20th century was quite stable.
10. Mayewski, Paul A. (aka Ice Man). “Holocene climate variability.” Quaternary research 62.3 (2004): 243-255. Although the dramatic climate disruptions of the last glacial period have received considerable attention, relatively little has been directed toward climate variability in the Holocene (11,500 cal yr B.P. to the present). Examination of 50 globally distributed paleoclimate records reveals as many as six periods of significant rapid climate change during the time periods 9000″8000, 6000″5000, 4200″3800, 3500″2500, 1200″1000, and 600″150 cal yr B.P. Most of the climate change events in these globally distributed records are characterized by polar cooling, tropical aridity, and major atmospheric circulation changes, although in the most recent interval (600″150 cal yr B.P.), polar cooling was accompanied by increased moisture in some parts of the tropics. Several intervals coincide with major disruptions of civilization, illustrating the human significance of Holocene climate variability.
11. Magny, Michel. “Holocene climate variability as reflected by mid-European lake-level fluctuations and its probable impact on prehistoric human settlements.” Quaternary international113.1 (2004): 65-79.  A data set of 180 radiocarbon, tree-ring and archaeological dates obtained from sediment sequences of 26 lakes in the Jura mountains, the northern French Pre-Alps and the Swiss Plateau was used to construct a Holocene mid-European lake-level record. The dates do not indicate a random distribution over the Holocene, but form clusters suggesting an alternation of lower and higher, climatically driven lake-level phases. They provide evidence of a rather unstable Holocene climate punctuated by 15 phases of higher lake-level: 11 250–11 050, 10 300–10 000, 9550–9150, 8300–8050, 7550–7250, 6350–5900, 5650–5200, 4850–4800, 4150–3950, 3500–3100, 2750–2350, 1800–1700, 1300–1100, 750–650 cal. BP and after 1394 AD. A comparison of this mid-European lake-level record with the GISP2-Polar Circulation Index (PCI) record, the North Atlantic ice-rafting debris (IRD) events and the ¹⁴C record suggests teleconnections in a complex cryosphere-ocean-atmosphere system. Correlations between the GISP2-PCI, the mid-European lake-level, the North Atlantic IRD, and the residual ¹⁴C records, suggest that changes in the solar activity played a major role in Holocene climate oscillations over the North Atlantic area.
12. Alley, Richard B., and Anna Maria Ágústsdóttir. “The 8k event: cause and consequences of a major Holocene abrupt climate change.” Quaternary Science Reviews 24.10-11 (2005): 1123-1149.  A prominent, abrupt climate event about 8200 years ago brought generally cold and dry conditions to broad northern-hemisphere regions especially in wintertime, in response to a very large outburst flood that freshened the North Atlantic. Changes were much larger than typical climate variability before and after the event, with anomalies up to many degrees contributing to major displacement of vegetative patterns. This “8k” event provides a clear case of cause and effect in the paleoclimatic realm, and so offers an excellent opportunity for model testing. The response to North Atlantic freshening has the same general anomaly pattern as observed for older events associated with abrupt climate changes following North Atlantic freshening, and so greatly strengthens the case that those older events also reflect North Atlantic changes. The North Atlantic involvement in the 8k event helps in estimating limits on climate anomalies that might result in the future if warming-caused ice-melt and hydrologic-cycle intensification at high latitudes lead to major changes in North Atlantic circulation. Few model experiments have directly addressed the 8k event, and most studies of proxy records across this event lack the time resolution to fully characterize the anomalies, so much work remains to be done.
13. Chew, Sing C. “From Harappa to Mesopotamia and Egypt to Mycenae: Dark Ages, Political-Economic Declines, and Environmental/Climatic Changes 2200 BC–700 BC.” The Historical Evolution of World-Systems. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2005. 52-74.  Considerations of hegemonic decline as a world historical process most often attempt to account for decline and collapse of complex institutions in terms of social, political, and economic processes (Gills and Frank 1992). As we increasingly question whether there are physical–environmental limits that would affect the reproduction of world-systems, political, economic, and social dimensions might not be sufficient to account for hegemonic declines. Consideration of environmental and climatological factors needs to be combined with socioeconomic relations in our understanding of hegemonic declines and shifts. This approach assumes that the humans seek to transform nature in an expansive manner, and ceaselessly amass surpluses. There are certain long periods in world history that exhibit large economic and social crises and hegemonic decline. Such long periods of economic and social distress are here termed dark ages.
14. Gorokhovich, Yuri. “Abandonment of Minoan palaces on Crete in relation to the earthquake induced changes in groundwater supply.” Journal of Archaeological Science 32.2 (2005): 217-222. Mysterious abandonment of palaces on Crete during the Late Minoan period was always a challenging problem for archeologists and geologists. Various hypotheses explained this event by effects of tsunamis, earthquakes or climatic changes that were caused by the volcanic eruption of the Santorini volcano. While each of them or their possible combination contributed to the abandonment of palaces and following Late Minoan crisis, there is another possible cause that appeared as a result of studies within the last 20–30 years. This cause is depletion of groundwater supply caused by persistent earthquake activity that took place during the Bronze Age. This explanation is supported by field observations and numerous studies of similar phenomena in other locations.
15. Wanner, Heinz, et al. “Mid-to Late Holocene climate change: an overview.” Quaternary Science Reviews 27.19-20 (2008): 1791-1828.  The last 6000 years are of particular interest to the understanding of the Earth System because the boundary conditions of the climate system did not change dramatically (in comparison to larger glacial–interglacial changes), and because abundant, detailed regional palaeoclimatic proxy records cover this period. We use selected proxy-based reconstructions of different climate variables, together with state-of-the-art time series of natural forcings (orbital variations, solar activity variations, large tropical volcanic eruptions, land cover and greenhouse gases), underpinned by results from General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity (EMICs), to establish a comprehensive explanatory framework for climate changes from the Mid-Holocene (MH) to pre-industrial time. The redistribution of solar energy, due to orbital forcing on a millennial timescale, was the cause of a progressive southward shift of the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). This was accompanied by a pronounced weakening of the monsoon systems in Africa and Asia and increasing dryness and desertification on both continents. The associated summertime cooling of the NH, combined with changing temperature gradients in the world oceans, likely led to an increasing amplitude of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and, possibly, increasingly negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices up to the beginning of the last millennium. On decadal to multi-century timescales, a worldwide coincidence between solar irradiance minima, tropical volcanic eruptions and decadal to multi-century scale cooling events was not found. However, reconstructions show that widespread decadal to multi-century scale cooling events, accompanied by advances of mountain glaciers, occurred in the NH (e.g., in Scandinavia and the European Alps). This occurred namely during the Little Ice Age (LIA) between AD ∼1350 and 1850, when the lower summer insolation in the NH, due to orbital forcing, coincided with solar activity minima and several strong tropical volcanic eruptions. The role of orbital forcing in the NH cooling, the southward ITCZ shift and the desertification of the Sahara are supported by numerous model simulations. Other simulations have suggested that the fingerprint of solar activity variations should be strongest in the tropics, but there is also evidence that changes in the ocean heat transport took place during the LIA at high northern latitudes, with possible additional implications for climates of the Southern Hemisphere (SH).
16. ? Scafetta, Nicola. “Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 72.13 (2010): 951-970.  We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 and 0.25°C, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.
17. Tsonis, A. A., et al. “Climate change and the demise of Minoan civilization.” Climate of the Past 6.4 (2010): 525-530.  Climate change has been implicated in the success and downfall of several ancient civilizations. Here we present a synthesis of historical, climatic, and geological evidence that supports the hypothesis that climate change may have been responsible for the slow demise of Minoan civilization. Using proxy ENSO and precipitation reconstruction data in the period 1650–1980 we present empirical and quantitative evidence that El Nino causes drier conditions in the area of Crete. This result is supported by modern data analysis as well as by model simulations. Though not very strong, the ENSO-Mediterranean drying signal appears to be robust, and its overall effect was accentuated by a series of unusually strong and long-lasting El Nino events during the time of the Minoan decline. Indeed, a change in the dynamics of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system occurred around 3000 BC, which culminated in a series of strong and frequent El Nino events starting at about 1450 BC and lasting for several centuries. This stressful climatic trend, associated with the gradual demise of the Minoans, is argued to be an important force acting in the downfall of this classic and long-lived civilization.  FULL TEXT DOWNLOAD
18. Wanner, Heinz, et al. “Structure and origin of Holocene cold events.” Quaternary Science Reviews 30.21-22 (2011): 3109-3123. The present interglacial, the Holocene, spans the period of the last 11,700 years. It has sustained the growth and development of modern society. The millennial-scale decreasing solar insolation in the Northern Hemisphere summer lead to Northern Hemisphere cooling, a southern shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and a weakening of the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoon systems. On the multidecadal to multicentury-scale, periods of more stable and warmer climate were interrupted by several cold relapses, at least in the Northern Hemisphere extra-tropical area. Based on carefully selected 10,000-year-long time series of temperature and humidity/precipitation, as well as reconstructions of glacier advances, the spatiotemporal pattern of six cold relapses during the last 10,000 years was analysed and presented in form of a Holocene Climate Atlas (HOCLAT; see http://www.oeschger.unibe.ch/research/projects/holocene_atlas/). A clear cyclicity was not found, and the spatiotemporal variability of temperature and humidity/precipitation during the six specific cold events (8200, 6300, 4700, 2700, 1550 and 550 years BP) was very high. Different dynamical processes such as meltwater flux into the North Atlantic, low solar activity, explosive volcanic eruptions, and fluctuations of the thermohaline circulation likely played a major role. In addition, internal dynamics in the North Atlantic and Pacific area (including their complex interaction) were likely involved. AUTHOR’S NOTES: {Based on temperature, humidity and glacier data, we analyze Holocene cold events. During the Holocene a clear cyclicity between warm and cold periods was not found.  Single cold relapses are subject to different dynamical processes. The six analyzed cold events show different spatial structures.}
19. Humlum, Ole, Jan-Erik Solheim, and Kjell Stordahl. “Identifying natural contributions to late Holocene climate change.” Global and Planetary Change 79.1-2 (2011): 145-156.  Analytic climate models have provided the means to predict potential impacts on future climate by anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition. However, future climate development will not only be influenced by anthropogenic changes, but also by natural variations. The knowledge on such natural variations and their detailed character, however, still remains incomplete. Here we present a new technique to identify the character of natural climate variations, and from this, to produce testable forecast of future climate. By means of Fourier and wavelet analyses climate series are decomposed into time–frequency space, to extract information on periodic signals embedded in the data series and their amplitude and variation over time. We chose to exemplify the potential of this technique by analysing two climate series, the Svalbard (78°N) surface air temperature series 1912–2010, and the last 4000 years of the reconstructed GISP2 surface temperature series from central Greenland. By this we are able to identify several cyclic climate variations which appear persistent on the time scales investigated. Finally, we demonstrate how such persistent natural variations can be used for hindcasting and forecasting climate. Our main focus is on identifying the character (timing, period, amplitude) of such recurrent natural climate variations, but we also comment on the likely physical explanations for some of the identified cyclic climate variations. The causes of millennial climate changes remain poorly understood, and this issue remains important for understanding causes for natural climate variability over decadal- and decennial time scales. We argue that Fourier and wavelet approaches like ours may contribute towards improved understanding of the role of such recurrent natural climate variations in the future climate development.
20. Drake, Brandon L. “The influence of climatic change on the Late Bronze Age Collapse and the Greek Dark Ages.” Journal of Archaeological Science 39.6 (2012): 1862-1870.  Between the 13th and 11th centuries BCE, most Greek Bronze Age Palatial centers were destroyed and/or abandoned. The following centuries were typified by low population levels. Data from oxygen-isotope speleothems, stable carbon isotopes, alkenone-derived seasurface temperatures, and changes in warm-species dinocysts and formanifera in the Mediterranean indicate that the Early Iron Age was more arid than the preceding Bronze Age. A sharp increase in Northern Hemisphere temperatures preceded the collapse of Palatial centers, a sharp decrease occurred during their abandonment. Mediterranean Seasurface temperatures cooled rapidly during the Late Bronze Age, limiting freshwater flux into the atmosphere and thus reducing precipitation over land. These climatic changes could have affected Palatial centers that were dependent upon high levels of agricultural productivity. Declines in agricultural production would have made higher-density populations in Palatial centers unsustainable. The ‘Greek Dark Ages’ that followed occurred during prolonged arid conditions that lasted until the Roman Warm Period.

CHAOS THEORY IN CLIMATE SCIENCE: A BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Zeng, Xubin, Roger A. Pielke, and R. Eykholt. “Chaos theory and its applications to the atmosphere.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 74.4 (1993): 631-644.  A brief overview of chaos theory is presented, including bifurcations, routes to turbulence, and methods for characterizing chaos. The paper divides chaos applications in atmospheric sciences into three categories: new ideas and insights inspired by chaos, analysis of observational data, and analysis of output from numerical models. Based on the review of chaos theory and the classification of chaos applications, suggestions for future work are given.
2. Marotzke, Jochem. “Abrupt climate change and thermohaline circulation: Mechanisms and predictability.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.4 (2000): 1347-1350.  The ocean’s thermohaline circulation has long been recognized as potentially unstable and has consequently been invoked as a potential cause of abrupt climate change on all timescales of decades and longer. However, fundamental aspects of thermohaline circulation changes remain poorly understood. [LINK TO FULL TEXT PDF]
3. Rial, Jose A., and C. A. Anaclerio. “Understanding nonlinear responses of the climate system to orbital forcing.” Quaternary Science Reviews 19.17-18 (2000): 1709-1722.  Frequency modulation (FM) of the orbital eccentricity forcing may be one important source of the nonlinearities observed in δ¹⁸O time series from deep-sea sediment cores (J.H. Rial (1999a) Pacemaking the lce Ages by frequency modulation of Earth’s orbital eccentricity. Science 285, 564–568). Here we present further evidence of frequency modulation found in data from the Vostok ice core. Analyses of the 430,000-year long, orbitally untuned, time series of CO₂, deuterium, aerosol and methane, suggest frequency modulation of the 41 kyr (0.0244 kyr⁻¹) obliquity forcing by the 413 kyr-eccentricity signal and its harmonics. Conventional and higher-order spectral analyses show that two distinct spectral peaks at ∼29 kyr (0.034 kyr⁻¹) and ∼69 kyr (0.014 kyr⁻¹) and other, smaller peaks surrounding the 41 kyr obliquity peak are harmonically (nonlinearly) related and likely to be FM-generated sidebands of the obliquity signal. All peaks can be closely matched by the spectrum of an appropriately built theoretical FM signal. A preliminary model, based on the classic logistic growth delay differential equation, reproduces the longer period FM effect and the familiar multiply peaked spectra of the eccentricity band. Since the FM effect appears to be a common feature in climate response, finding out its cause may help understand climate dynamics and global climate change.
4. Ashkenazy, Yosef, et al. “Nonlinearity and multifractality of climate change in the past 420,000 years.” Geophysical research letters 30.22 (2003).  Evidence of past climate variations are stored in polar ice caps and indicate glacial‐interglacial cycles of ∼100 kyr. Using advanced scaling techniques we study the long‐range correlation properties of temperature proxy records of four ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland. These series are long‐range correlated in the time scales of 1–100 kyr. We show that these time series are nonlinear for time scales of 1–100 kyr as expressed by temporal long‐range correlations of magnitudes of temperature increments and by a broad multifractal spectrum. Our results suggest that temperature increments appear in clusters of big and small increments—a big (positive or negative) climate change is most likely followed by a big (positive or negative) climate change and a small climate change is most likely followed by a small climate change.
5. Rial, Jose A. “Abrupt climate change: chaos and order at orbital and millennial scales.” Global and Planetary Change 41.2 (2004): 95-109.  Successful prediction of future global climate is critically dependent on understanding its complex history, some of which is displayed in paleoclimate time series extracted from deep-sea sediment and ice cores. These recordings exhibit frequent episodes of abrupt climate change believed to be the result of nonlinear response of the climate system to internal or external forcing, yet, neither the physical mechanisms nor the nature of the nonlinearities involved are well understood. At the orbital (10⁴–10⁵ years) and millennial scales, abrupt climate change appears as sudden, rapid warming events, each followed by periods of slow cooling. The sequence often forms a distinctive saw-tooth shaped time series, epitomized by the deep-sea records of the last million years and the Dansgaard–Oeschger (D/O) oscillations of the last glacial. Here I introduce a simplified mathematical model consisting of a novel arrangement of coupled nonlinear differential equations that appears to capture some important physics of climate change at Milankovitch and millennial scales, closely reproducing the saw-tooth shape of the deep-sea sediment and ice core time series, the relatively abrupt mid-Pleistocene climate switch, and the intriguing D/O oscillations. Named LODE for its use of the logistic-delayed differential equation, the model combines simplicity in the formulation (two equations, small number of adjustable parameters) and sufficient complexity in the dynamics (infinite-dimensional nonlinear delay differential equation) to accurately simulate details of climate change other simplified models cannot. Close agreement with available data suggests that the D/O oscillations are frequency modulated by the third harmonic of the precession forcing, and by the precession itself, but the entrained response is intermittent, mixed with intervals of noise, which corresponds well with the idea that the climate operates at the edge between chaos and order. LODE also predicts a persistent ∼1.5 ky oscillation that results from the frequency modulated regional climate oscillation.
6. Huybers, Peter, and Carl Wunsch. “Obliquity pacing of the late Pleistocene glacial terminations.” Nature 434.7032 (2005): 491.  The 100,000-year timescale in the glacial/interglacial cycles of the late Pleistocene epoch (the past ∼700,000 years) is commonly attributed to control by variations in the Earth’s orbit¹. This hypothesis has inspired models that depend on the Earth’s obliquity (∼ 40,000 yr; ∼40 kyr), orbital eccentricity (∼ 100 kyr) and precessional (∼ 20 kyr) fluctuations^2,3,4,5, with the emphasis usually on eccentricity and precessional forcing. According to a contrasting hypothesis, the glacial cycles arise primarily because of random internal climate variability^6,7,8. Taking these two perspectives together, there are currently more than thirty different models of the seven late-Pleistocene glacial cycles⁹. Here we present a statistical test of the orbital forcing hypothesis, focusing on the rapid deglaciation events known as terminations^10,11. According to our analysis, the null hypothesis that glacial terminations are independent of obliquity can be rejected at the 5% significance level, whereas the corresponding null hypotheses for eccentricity and precession cannot be rejected. The simplest inference consistent with the test results is that the ice sheets terminated every second or third obliquity cycle at times of high obliquity, similar to the original proposal by Milankovitch¹². We also present simple stochastic and deterministic models that describe the timing of the late-Pleistocene glacial terminations purely in terms of obliquity forcing.
7. Tziperman, Eli, Carl Wunsch. “Consequences of pacing the Pleistocene 100 kyr ice ages by nonlinear phase locking to Milankovitch forcing.” Paleoceanography 21.4 (2006).:    The consequences of the hypothesis that Milankovitch forcing affects the phase (e.g., termination times) of the 100 kyr glacial cycles via a mechanism known as “nonlinear phase locking” are examined. Phase locking provides a mechanism by which Milankovitch forcing can act as the “pacemaker” of the glacial cycles. Nonlinear phase locking can determine the timing of the major deglaciations, nearly independently of the specific mechanism or model that is responsible for these cycles as long as this mechanism is suitably nonlinear. A consequence of this is that the fit of a certain model output to the observed ice volume record cannot be used as an indication that the glacial mechanism in this model is necessarily correct. Phase locking to obliquity and possibly precession variations is distinct from mechanisms relying on a linear or nonlinear amplification of the eccentricity forcing. Nonlinear phase locking may determine the phase of the glacial cycles even in the presence of noise in the climate system and can be effective at setting glacial termination times even when the precession and obliquity bands account only for a small portion of the total power of an ice volume record. Nonlinear phase locking can also result in the observed “quantization” of the glacial period into multiples of the obliquity or precession periods.
8. Eisenman, Ian, Norbert Untersteiner, and J. S. Wettlaufer. “On the reliability of simulated Arctic sea ice in global climate models.” Geophysical Research Letters 34.10 (2007).  While most of the global climate models (GCMs) currently being evaluated for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report simulate present‐day Arctic sea ice in reasonably good agreement with observations, the intermodel differences in simulated Arctic cloud cover are large and produce significant differences in downwelling longwave radiation. Using the standard thermodynamic models of sea ice, we find that the GCM‐generated spread in longwave radiation produces equilibrium ice thicknesses that range from 1 to more than 10 meters. However, equilibrium ice thickness is an extremely sensitive function of the ice albedo, allowing errors in simulated cloud cover to be compensated by tuning of the ice albedo. This analysis suggests that the results of current GCMs cannot be relied upon at face value for credible predictions of future Arctic sea ice.
9. Frank, Patrick, and John McCarthy. “A climate of belief.” Skeptic 14.1 (2008): 22-30. The claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable by Patrick Frank “He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.” — John McCarthy “The latest scientific data confirm that the earth’s climate is rapidly changing. … The cause? A thickening layer of carbon dioxide pollution, mostly from power plants and automobiles, that traps heat in the atmosphere. … *A+verage U.S. temperatures could rise another 3 to 9 degrees by the end of the century … Sea levels will rise, *and h+eat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Disease-carrying mosquitoes will expand their range. And species will be pushed to extinction.” So says the National Resources Defense Council,2 with agreement by the Sierra Club,3 Greenpeace,4 National Geographic,5 the US National Academy of Sciences,6 and the US Congressional House leadership.7 Concurrent views are widespread,8 as a visit to the internet or any good bookstore will verify. Since at least the 1995 Second Assessment Report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been making increasingly assured statements that human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2) is influencing the climate, and is the chief cause of the global warming trend in evidence since about 1900. The current level of atmospheric CO2 is about 390 parts per million by volume (ppmv), or 0.039% by volume of the atmosphere, and in 1900 was about 295 ppmv. If the 20th century trend continues unabated, by about 2050 atmospheric CO2 will have doubled to about 600 ppmv. This is the basis for the usual “doubled CO2” scenario. Doubled CO2 is a bench-mark for climate scientists in evaluating greenhouse warming. Earth receives about 342 watts per square meter (W/m2 ) of incoming solar energy, and all of this energy eventually finds its way back out into space. However, CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, most notably water vapor, absorb some of the outgoing energy and warm the atmosphere. This is the greenhouse effect. Without it Earth’s average surface temperature would be a frigid -19°C (-2.2 F). With it, the surface warms to about +14°C (57 F) overall, making Earth habitable.9 With more CO2, more outgoing radiant energy is absorbed, changing the thermal dynamics of
   the atmosphere. All the extra greenhouse gasses that have entered the atmosphere since 1900, including CO2, equate to an extra 2.7 W/m2 of energy absorption by the atmosphere.10 This is the worrisome greenhouse effect. On February 2, 2007, the IPCC released the Working Group I (WGI) “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) report on Earth climate,11 which is an executive summary of the science supporting the predictions quoted above. The full “Fourth Assessment Report” (4AR) came out in sections during 2007.  [LINK TO FULL TEXT PDF]
10. Huybers, Peter John. “Pleistocene glacial variability as a chaotic response to obliquity forcing.” (2009).  The mid-Pleistocene Transition from 40 ky to ~100 ky glacial cycles is generally characterized as a singular transition attributable to scouring of continental regolith or a long-term decrease in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Here an alternative hypothesis is suggested, that Pleistocene glacial variability is chaotic and that transitions from 40 ky to ~100 ky modes of variability occur spontaneously. This alternate view is consistent with the presence of ~80 ky glacial cycles during the early Pleistocene and the lack of evidence for a change in climate forcing during the mid-Pleistocene. A simple model illustrates this chaotic scenario. When forced at a 40 ky period the model chaotically transitions between small 40 ky glacial cycles and larger 80 and 120 ky cycles which, on average, give the ~100 ky variability.
11. Dima, Mihai, and Gerrit Lohmann. “Conceptual model for millennial climate variability: a possible combined solar-thermohaline circulation origin for the~ 1,500-year cycle.” Climate Dynamics 32.2-3 (2009): 301-311.  Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events are the most pronounced climatic changes over the last 120,000 years. Although many of their properties were derived from climate reconstructions, the associated physical mechanisms are not yet fully understood. These events are paced by a ~1,500-year periodicity whose origin remains unclear. In a conceptual model approach, we show that this millennial variability can originate from rectification of an external (solar) forcing, and suggest that the thermohaline circulation, through a threshold response, could be the rectifier. We argue that internal threshold response of the thermohaline circulation (THC) to solar forcing is more likely to produce the observed DO cycles than amplification of weak direct ~1,500-year forcing of unknown origin, by THC. One consequence of our concept is that the millennial variability is viewed as a derived mode without physical processes on its characteristic time scale. Rather, the mode results from the linear representation in the Fourier space of nonlinearly transformed fundamental modes.
12. Dijkstra, Henk A. Nonlinear climate dynamics. Cambridge University Press, 2013.  

EARLY HOLOCENE SEA LEVEL RISE & 8.2K EVENT

1. Hori, Kazuaki, and Yoshiki Saito. “An early Holocene sea‐level jump and delta initiation.” Geophysical Research Letters 34.18 (2007).  Early Holocene sea‐level change controlled the evolution of classic coastal depositional systems. Radiocarbon‐dated borehole cores obtained from three incised‐valley‐fill systems in Asia (Changjiang, Song Hong, and Kiso River) record very similar depositional histories, especially between about 9000 and 8500 cal BP. Sedimentary facies changes from estuarine sand and mud to shelf or prodelta mud suggest that the marine influence in the incised valleys increased during this period. In addition, large decreases in sediment accumulation rates occurred. A sea‐level jump causes an estuarine system and its depocenter to move rapidly landward. It is possible that the final collapse of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, accompanied by catastrophic drainage of glacial lakes, at approximately 8500 cal BP caused such a jump. The jump was followed immediately by a period of decelerated sea‐level rise that promoted delta initiation.
2. Vink, Annemiek, et al. “Holocene relative sea-level change, isostatic subsidence and the radial viscosity structure of the mantle of northwest Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, southern North Sea).” Quaternary Science Reviews26.25-28 (2007): 3249-3275.  A comprehensive observational database of Holocene relative sea-level (RSL) index points from northwest Europe (Belgium, the Netherlands, northwest Germany, southern North Sea) has been compiled in order to compare and reassess the data collected from the different countries/regions and by different workers on a common time–depth scale. RSL rise varies in magnitude and form between these regions, revealing a complex pattern of differential crustal movement which cannot be solely attributed to tectonic activity. It clearly contains a non-linear, glacio- and/or hydro-isostatic subsidence component, which is only small on the Belgian coastal plain but increases significantly to a value of ca 7.5 m relative to Belgium since 8 cal. ka BP along the northwest German coast. The subsidence is at least in part related to the Post-Glacial collapse of the so-called peripheral forebulge which developed around the Fennoscandian centre of ice loading during the Last Glacial Maximum. The RSL data have been compared to geodynamic Earth models in order to infer the radial viscosity structure of the Earth’s mantle underneath NW Europe (lithosphere thickness, upper- and lower-mantle viscosity), and conversely to predict RSL in regions where we have only few observational data (e.g. in the southern North Sea). A very broad range of Earth parameters fit the Belgian RSL data, suggesting that glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) only had a minor effect on Belgian crustal dynamics during and after the Last Ice Age. In contrast, a narrow range of Earth parameters define the southern North Sea region, reflecting the greater influence of GIA on these deeper/older samples. Modelled RSL data suggest that the zone of maximum forebulge subsidence runs in a relatively narrow, WNW–ESE trending band connecting the German federal state of Lower Saxony with the Dogger Bank area in the southern North Sea. Identification of the effects of local-scale factors such as past changes in tidal range or tectonic activity on the spatial and temporal variations of sea-level index points based on model-data comparisons is possible but is still complicated by the relatively large range of Earth model parameters fitting each RSL curve, emphasizing the need for more high-quality observational data.
3. Kendall, Roblyn A., et al. “The sea-level fingerprint of the 8.2 ka climate event.” Geology 36.5 (2008): 423-426.  The 8.2 ka cooling event was an abrupt, widespread climate instability. There is general consensus that the episode was likely initiated by a catastrophic outflow of proglacial Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway through the Hudson Strait, with subsequent disruption of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. However, the total discharge and flux during the 8.2 ka event remain uncertain. We compute the sea-level signature, or “fingerprint,” associated with the drainage of Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway, as well as the expected sea-level signal over the same time period due to glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) in response to the Late Pleistocene deglaciation. Our analysis demonstrates that sites relatively close to the lakes, including the West and Gulf Coasts of the United States, have small signals due to the lake release and potentially large GIA signals, and thus they may not be optimal field sites for constraining the outflow volume. Other sites, such as the east coast of South America and western Africa, have significantly larger signals associated with the lake release and are thus better choices in this regard.
4. Hijma, Marc P., and Kim M. Cohen. “Timing and magnitude of the sea-level jump preluding the 8200 yr event.” Geology 38.3 (2010): 275-278.  Evidence from terrestrial, glacial, and global climate model reconstructions suggests that a sea-level jump caused by meltwater release was associated with the triggering of the 8.2 ka cooling event. However, there has been no direct measurement of this jump using precise sea-level data. In addition, the chronology of the meltwater pulse is based on marine data with limited dating accuracy. The most plausible mechanism for triggering the cooling event is the sudden, possibly multistaged drainage of the Laurentide proglacial Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway through the Hudson Strait into the North Atlantic ca. 8470 ± 300 yr ago. Here we show with detailed sea-level data from Rotterdam, Netherlands, that the sea-level rise commenced 8450 ± 44 yr ago. Our timing considerably narrows the existing age of this drainage event and provides support for the hypothesis of a double-staged lake drainage. The jump in sea level reached a local magnitude of 2.11 ± 0.89 m within 200 yr, in addition to the ongoing background relative sea-level rise (1.95 ± 0.74 m). This magnitude, observed at considerable distance from the release site, points to a global-averaged eustatic sea-level jump that is double the size of previous estimates (3.0 ± 1.2 m versus 0.4–1.4 m). The discrepancy suggests either a coeval Antarctic contribution or, more likely, a previous underestimate of the total American lake drainage.
5. Bard, Edouard, Bruno Hamelin, and Doriane Delanghe-Sabatier. “Deglacial meltwater pulse 1B and Younger Dryas sea levels revisited with boreholes at Tahiti.” Science327.5970 (2010): 1235-1237.  Reconstructing sea-level changes during the last deglaciation provides a way of understanding the ice dynamics that can perturb large continental ice sheets. The resolution of the few sea-level records covering the critical time interval between 14,000 and 9,000 YBP calendar years before the present is still insufficient to draw conclusions about sea-level changes associated with the Younger Dryas cold event and the meltwater pulse 1B (MWP-1B). We used the uranium-thorium method to date shallow-living corals from three new cores drilled onshore in the Tahiti barrier reef. No significant discontinuity can be detected in the sea-level rise during the MWP-1B period. The new Tahiti sea-level record shows that the sea-level rise slowed down during the Younger Dryas before accelerating again during the Holocene.
6. Smith, D. E., et al. “The early Holocene sea level rise.” Quaternary Science Reviews 30.15-16 (2011): 1846-1860.  The causes, anatomy and consequences of the early Holocene sea level rise (EHSLR) are reviewed. The rise, of ca 60m, took place over most of the Earth as the volume of the oceans increased during deglaciation and is dated at 11,650–7000 cal. BP. The EHSLR was largely driven by meltwater release from decaying ice masses and the break up of coastal ice streams. The patterns of ice sheet decay and the evidence for meltwater pulses are reviewed, and it is argued that the EHSLR was a factor in the ca 8470 BP flood from Lake Agassiz-Ojibway. Patterns of relative sea level changes are examined and it is argued that in addition to regional variations, temporal changes are indicated. The impact of the EHSLR on climate is reviewed and it is maintained that the event was a factor in the 8200 BP cooling event, as well as in changes in ocean current patterns and their resultant effects. The EHSLR may also have enhanced volcanic activity, but no clear evidence of a causal link with submarine sliding on continental slopes and shelves can yet be demonstrated. The rise probably influenced rates and patterns of human migrations and cultural changes. It is concluded that the EHSLR was a major event of global significance, knowledge of which is relevant to an understanding of the impacts of global climate change in the future. Highlights:  1. Reviews the early Holocene sea level rise of 11650–7000 cal. BP. 2. Argues that the rise was involved in the discharge of Lake Agassiz-Ojibway and the 8200-year cooling event. 3. Shows that he rise influenced climate by increasing sea areas, in turn affecting human migration. 4. Suggests that the rise increased volcanic activity, but that its effects on submarine sliding are uncertain. 5. Argues that study of the rise helps throw light on the effects of future sea level changes in a global warming world.
7. Hijma, Marc P., and Kim M. Cohen. “Holocene transgression of the Rhine river mouth area, The Netherlands/Southern North Sea: palaeogeography and sequence stratigraphy.” Sedimentology 58.6 (2011): 1453-1485.  This study presents a detailed reconstruction of the palaeogeography of the Rhine valley (western Netherlands) during the Holocene transgression with systems tracts placed in a precise sea‐level context. This approach permits comparison of actual versus conceptual boundaries of the lowstand, transgressive and highstand systems tracts. The inland position of the highstand Rhine river mouth on a wide, low‐gradient continental shelf meant that base‐level changes were the dominant control on sedimentation for a relatively short period of the last glacial cycle. Systems in such inland positions predominantly record changes in the balance between river discharge and sediment load, and preserve excellent records of climatic changes or other catchment‐induced forcing. It is shown here that the transgressive systems tract‐part of the coastal prism formed in three stages: (i) the millennium before 8·45 ka bp, when the area was dominated by fluvial environments with extensive wetlands; (ii) the millennium after 8·45 ka, characterized by strong erosion, increasing tidal amplitudes and bay‐head delta development; and (iii) the period between 7·5 and 6·3 ka bp when the Rhine avulsed multiple times and the maximum flooding surface formed. The diachroneity of the transgressive surface is strongly suppressed because of a pulse of accelerated sea‐level rise at 8·45 ka bp. That event not only had a strong effect on preservation, but has circum‐oceanic stratigraphical relevance as it divides the early and middle Holocene parts of coastal successions worldwide. The palaeogeographical reconstruction offers a unique full spatial–temporal view on the coastal and fluvial dynamics of a major river mouth under brief rapid forced transgression. This reconstruction is of relevance for Holocene and ancient transgressive systems worldwide, and for next‐century natural coasts that are predicted to experience a 1 m sea‐level rise.
8. Hijma, Marc P., et al. “Pleistocene Rhine–Thames landscapes: geological background for hominin occupation of the southern North Sea region.” Journal of Quaternary Science 27.1 (2012): 17-39.  This paper links research questions in Quaternary geology with those in Palaeolithic archaeology. A detailed geological reconstruction of The Netherlands’ south‐west offshore area provides a stratigraphical context for archaeological and palaeontological finds. Progressive environmental developments have left a strong imprint on the area’s Palaeolithic record. We highlight aspects of landscape evolution and related taphonomical changes, visualized in maps for critical periods of the Pleistocene in the wider southern North Sea region. The Middle Pleistocene record is divided into two palaeogeographical stages: the pre‐Anglian/Elsterian stage, during which a wide land bridge existed between England and Belgium even during marine highstands; and the Anglian/Elsterian to Saalian interglacial, with a narrower land bridge, lowered by proglacial erosion but not yet fully eroded. The Late Pleistocene landscape was very different, with the land bridge fully dissected by an axial Rhine–Thames valley, eroded deep enough to fully connect the English Channel and the North Sea during periods of highstand. This tripartite staging implies great differences in (i) possible migration routes of herds of herbivores as well as hominins preying upon them, (ii) the erosion base of axial and tributary rivers causing an increase in the availability of flint raw materials and (iii) conditions for loess accumulation in northern France and Belgium and the resulting preservation of Middle Palaeolithic sites.
9. Törnqvist, Torbjörn E., and Marc P. Hijma. “Links between early Holocene ice-sheet decay, sea-level rise and abrupt climate change.” Nature Geoscience 5.9 (2012): 601.  The beginning of the current interglacial period, the Holocene epoch, was a critical part of the transition from glacial to interglacial climate conditions. This period, between about 12,000 and 7,000 years ago, was marked by the continued retreat of the ice sheets that had expanded through polar and temperate regions during the preceding glacial. This meltdown led to a dramatic rise in sea level, punctuated by short-lived jumps associated with catastrophic ice-sheet collapses. Tracking down which ice sheet produced specific sea-level jumps has been challenging, but two events between 8,500 and 8,200 years ago have been linked to the final drainage of glacial Lake Agassiz in north-central North America. The release of the water from this ice-dammed lake into the ocean is recorded by sea-level jumps in the Mississippi and Rhine-Meuse deltas of approximately 0.4 and 2.1 metres, respectively. These sea-level jumps can be related to an abrupt cooling in the Northern Hemisphere known as the 8.2 kyr event, and it has been suggested that the freshwater release from Lake Agassiz into the North Atlantic was sufficient to perturb the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. As sea-level rise on the order of decimetres to metres can now be detected with confidence and linked to climate records, it is becoming apparent that abrupt climate change during the early Holocene associated with perturbations in North Atlantic circulation required sustained freshwater release into the ocean.
10. Sturt, Fraser, Duncan Garrow, and Sarah Bradley. “New models of North West European Holocene palaeogeography and inundation.” Journal of Archaeological Science 40.11 (2013): 3963-3976. Highlights: New Palaeogeographic models of North West Europe from 11,000 BP to present day at 500 year intervals. Calculated rates for Holocene inundation across North West Europe. High rates of change do not necessarily mean catastrophic impacts. Understanding rates of change and their social implications requires a multi-scalar, multidisciplinary approach to the past.Abstract: This paper presents new 500 year interval palaeogeographic models for Britain, Ireland and the North West French coast from 11000 cal. BP to present. These models are used to calculate the varying rates of inundation for different geographical zones over the study period. This allows for consideration of the differential impact that Holocene sea-level rise had across space and time, and on past societies. In turn, consideration of the limitations of the models helps to foreground profitable areas for future research.

A Chaotic Holocene Climate?

CLIMATE REPORT BY NOAA: LINK: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/13/global-warming-noaa-july-earths-hottest-month-ever/8123185002/

PART-1: NOAA REPORT AS SEEN ON USA TODAY 8/13/2021

July 2021 was the planet’s hottest month ever recorded, federal scientists announced Friday. Official global temperature records “only” date back 142 years, to 1880. But looking back further, the last time the world was definitely warmer than today was some 125,000 years ago, based on paleoclimatic data from tree rings, ice cores, sediments and other ways of examining Earth’s climate history, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said in 2017. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Rick Spinrad, in a statement on Friday, said “in this case, first place is the worst place to be. July is typically the world’s warmest month of the year, but July 2021 outdid itself as the hottest July and month ever recorded. The combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th-century average of 60.4 degrees F, according to NOAA. “This new record adds to the disturbing and disruptive path that climate change has set for the globe,” he said. According to NOAA, Asia had its hottest July on record, besting the previous record set in 2010; Europe had its second-hottest July on record – tying with July 2010 and trailing behind July 2018; and North America, South America, Africa and Oceania all had a top-10 warmest July. In the U.S., several states in the West and the northern Plains had their hottest July on record. A sign warns hikers of extreme heat on the salt flats of Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, Calif., where the temperature reached 128 degrees on July 10, according to the National Weather Service. July 2021 also marked the 45th consecutive July and the 439th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th-century average, NOAA said. NOAA’s report about July’s heat comes out the same week as a major report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Scientists from across the globe delivered the most up-to-date assessment of the ways in which the climate is changing,” Spinrad said. “It is a sobering IPCC report that finds that human influence is, unequivocally, causing climate change, and it confirms the impacts are widespread and rapidly intensifying.” ‘Code red for humanity’:UN report gives stark warning on climate change, says wild weather events will worsen Many of the changes seen in the world’s climate are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years. Some of the changes already set in motion – such as a rise in sea levels – are irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years, according to the report. Due to human-caused climate change, Earth’s average temperature has risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, NASA reported earlier this year. Ralf Toumi, co-director of Grantham Institute on climate change at Imperial College London, told Reuters the recent bursts of record-breaking heat are no surprise, given the long-term pattern of rising temperatures. “This is a constant casino we’re playing, and we’re just picking the high numbers again and again.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

IT IS REPORTED THAT THE GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND THE MEAN LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE IN ASIA WERE THE HIGHEST TEMPERATURE IN THE INSTRUMENTAL RECORD SINCE 1880 AND THAT THE MEAN LAND TEMPERATURE IN EUROPE WAS THE SECOND HIGHEST OVER THE SAME PERIOD. THESE TEMPERATURES ARE THEN INTERPRETED IN TERMS OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING AS INDICATORS OF THE UNNATURAL AND DANGEROUS STRENGTH OF THE CURRENT WARMING CYCLE OF THE HOLOCENE THAT HAS BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS.

WE NOTE IN THIS REGARD THAT THE THEORY OF ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING {AGW} REFERS ONLY TO LONG TERM TRENDS OF MORE THAN 30 YEARS IN GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE {GMST}, IN THAT CONTEXT, NEITHER THE LAND TEMPERATURE IN ASIA NOR THE LAND TEMPERATURE IN EUROPE HAS AN INTERPRETATION IN TERMS OF THE THEORY OF OF AGW. MOREOVER, THE THE MONTHLY MEAN TEMPERATURE IN THE MONTH OF JULY IS A BRIEF EVENT WITH A SPAN OF LESS THAN 30 YEARS AND THAT THEREFORE IT HAS NO INTERPRETATION IN TERMS OF AGW. WE PROPOSE THAT THESE TEMPERATURE EVENTS SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD AS INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND NOT IN TERMS OF AGW.

RELATED POST ON INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/ WE FIND STRONG SUPPORT FROM CLIMATE SCIENCE THAT A ONE MONTH TEMPERATURE EVENT MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND THAT IT THEREFORE DOES NOT HAVE AN AGW INTERPRETATION.

RELATED POST ON LONG TERM TRENDS IN GLOBAL MEAN SURFACE TEMPERATURE: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/01/11/global-warming-dec2020/

IN THE LEFT FRAME WE DISPLAY LONG TERM TRENDS IN GMST FROM 1979 TO 2020 FOR ONE CALENDAR MONTH AT A TIME AND NOTE THAT ALL LONG TERM TRENDS OF 41 YEARS SHOW RELATIVELY STEADY WARMING TRENDS. IN THE RIGHT FRAME ARE DISPLAYED THE CORRESPONDING DECADAL TRENDS AND THESE APPEAR TO BE RANDOM. CLEARLY, DECADAL TRENDS IN GMST DO NOT HAVE AN AGW INTERPRETATION. WE CONCLUDE THAT EVEN DECADAL DATA, 10*12 = 120 MONTHS OF DATA, MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND THAT THEREFORE, THE OBSERVATION THAT THE MONTH OF JULY IN 2021, A SINGLE MONTH IN A SINGLE YEAR, WAS A PARTICULARLY HOT MONTH HAS NO INTERPRETATION IN TERMS OF AGW.

YET ANOTHER ISSUE IS THE USE OF A REFERENCE PERIOD THAT GOES BACK TO 1880. THIS TIME SPAN INCLUDES THE SO CALLED ETCW (EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY WARMING) ANOMALY THAT CLIMATE SCIENCE HAS REMOVED FROM CONSIDERATION BECAUSE THIS WARMING SEQUENCE IS INCONSISTENT WITH AGW THEORY. JAMES HANSEN, NASA, AND CLIMATE SCIENCE IN GENERAL HAVE THEREFORE MOVED THE BEGINNING OF AGW TO THE POST ETCW YEAR OF 1950.

CONCLUSION: IN VIEW OF THE ARGUMENTS PRESENTED ABOVE WE FIND THE ALARM RAISED BY CLIMATE SCIENCE WITH RESPECT TO JULY MEAN TEMPERATURE IN 2021 IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE THEORY OF AGW AND THAT THEREFORE IT IS NOT CREDIBLE.

BRIEF TEMPERATURE EVENTS DO NOT HAVE AN AGW INTERPRETATION.

HUMAN CAUSE: THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS HUMAN CAUSE BECAUSE WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CAUSE OF THE WARMING TREND, WHATEVER IMPACTS THE WARMING MAY HAVE ARE ALL NATURAL.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/11/09/the-issue-is-human-cause/

QUESTION:

What’s going on now with climate change? Won’t the future be so good because of this? What do the governments do about it?

ANSWER:

What’s going on now with climate change and what has been going on with climate change all along is that the climate movement of our time is best understood not in terms of climate but as a reincarnation of the anti fossil fuel movement of the 1960s.

The real issue here is fossil fuels. Climate is a reinvented rationale for the demand to rid the world of fossil fuels after the 1960s hippie movement against fossil fuels was undone when new EPA rules forced fossil fuel users to meet the environmentalism demands of the hippies.

What the hippies had expected was that fossil fuels will be banned and that the world will move to wind and solar and tidal renewable energy. Therefore a new rationale had to be invented for the unrequited movement against fossil fuels.

That new rationale is climate change.

For details please see

A HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT OF OUR TIME

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/23/anti-fossil-fuel-activism-disguised-as-climate-science/

RELATED POST: THE UNABOMBER: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/06/13/unabomber/

THE DISCUSSION OF A SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE OF OUR TIME IS A CREATION OF IMAGINATION THAT IS WITHOUT SUBSTANCE.

SUMMARY OF THE FIVE GREAT EXTINCTION EVENTS PROVIDED BY SAMNOBLE MUSEUM: LINK: https://samnoblemuseum.ou.edu/understanding-extinction/mass-extinctions/end-permian-extinction/

(#1: END PERMIAN) When did it happen?: There were two significant extinction events in the Permian Period. The smaller, at the end of a time interval called the Capitanian, occurred about 260 million years ago. The event at the end of the Permian Period (at the end of a time interval called the Changshanian) was much larger and may have eliminated more than three-quarters of species of marine animals. It happened about 252 million years ago and geological evidence shows that it may have taken no more than 200,000 years. In terms of geological time the extinction occurred quickly. Who became extinct? Important groups of marine animals disappeared at the end-Permian extinctions. Trilobites, which had lived in the oceans for more than 250 million years, were lost, along with tabulate and rugose corals. Reef building in shallow seas stopped for about 14 million years until the middle of the following Triassic Period. At that time, an entirely new group of corals, the stony or scleractinian corals, appeared in the oceans. Although they did not become entirely extinct, rhynchonelliform brachiopods, crinoids, shelled cephalopods and snails also suffered significant losses. On land, primitive synapsids (relatives of mammals) disappeared. Some estimates suggest that up to 70 percent of vertebrate genera were lost. Below are some groups of marine animals that became extinct at the end-Permian event. trilobites, Tabulate corals, Rugose corals, goniatitic cephalopods, Productid brachiopods, cladid crinoids. What caused the extinction? Warming of the Earth’s climate and associated changes to oceans were the most likely causes of the extinctions. At the end of the Permian Period volcanic activity on a massive scale in what is now Siberia led to a huge outpouring of lava. The eruptions also produced carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that helps warm the planet. The lava flows erupted onto carbon rich rocks like coal and as they were heated by the hot lava, greenhouse gases, including methane, were also produced. The global warming that followed may have increased average ocean water temperatures by as much as 14.5°F (8°C). Much of the carbon dioxide released by the eruptions would have been absorbed by the oceans. High levels of dissolved carbon dioxide in seawater are toxic to many marine invertebrates. Also, the dissolved carbon dioxide would have produced changes in seawater chemistry that may have made it difficult for some marine invertebrates, such as corals, to grow shells or skeletons. If that wasn’t bad enough, there is also geological evidence that the amount of oxygen dissolved in sea water (which invertebrates and fishes breath with their gills) was reduced, probably as a result of changes in ocean circulation.

(#2: END TRIASSIC): When did it happen?: The extinction occurred near the end of the Triassic Period, about 201 million years ago. Who became extinct?: All major groups of marine invertebrates survived the extinction, although most suffered losses. Brachiopods, shelled cephalopods, sponges and corals were particularly hard hit. On land, casualties included the phytosaurs, a group of crocodile-like animals. What caused the extinction?: At the end of the Triassic, the supercontinent of Pangea, which combined all of the modern continents into a single landmass, began to break (rift) apart. As North America separated from Africa and the Atlantic Ocean began to form, volcanic activity on a massive scale introduced carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This led to global warming and changes to the oceans that were similar to (although not as large) those that occurred at the end-Permian extinction. Reconstruction of Late Triassic global geography: All of today’s continents were combined into the supercontinent of Pangea. Pangea was beginning to break apart. As North America and Africa began to separate there was a vast outpouring of lava. The area of volcanic rocks that formed at this time is shown in yellow. Gases, including carbon dioxide, produced during the eruptions led to global climate change.

(#3: LATE DEVONIAN): When did they happen?: The end-Frasnian extinction happened about 375 million years ago. The oldest of the three extinctions, towards the end of a time interval called the Givetian, occurred about 10 million years before the Frasnian event. The youngest extinction happened near the end of the Devonian period, about 365 million years ago, during a time interval called the Famennian. Who became extinct?: The end-Frasnian extinction was most pronounced in tropical environments, particularly in the reefs of the shallow seas. Reef building sponges called stromatoporoids and corals suffered losses and stromatoporoids finally disappeared in the third extinction near the end of the Devonian. Brachiopods associated with reefs also became extinct. Groups of trilobites disappeared at each of the three extinctions and very few survived into the following Carboniferous Period. Examples of groups of brachiopods and trilobites that became extinct are: Odontopleurid trilobites, Dalmanitid trilobites, Phacopid trilobites, Atrypid brachiopods, Pentamerid brachiopods. How did they happen?: As extinctions were mostly of tropical groups climate change may have been involved, and there is geological evidence for cooling of the global climate at the end-Frasnian event and near the end of the Devonian Period. Cooling may have been caused by a drop in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that helps warm the planet, so if levels fall, cooling will follow. In the Late Devonian, large trees evolved and formed the first forests. As plant life expanded, they used up more carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. When dead plant material decays, carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere, but some plant material (e.g., leaves) will be buried in swamps, lakes and rivers. This buried plant material removes carbon permanently from the atmosphere and often forms coal. When we mine coal and burn it we return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and warm the planet.

(#4: END-ORDOVICIAN): When did it happen?: There were two distinct extinctions roughly a million years apart. The first of these began about 443 million years ago. Together, these extinctions may have removed about 85 percent of species of marine animals. Who became extinct?: All of the major animal groups of the Ordovician oceans survived, including trilobites, brachiopods, corals, crinoids and graptolites, but each lost important members. Widespread families of trilobites disappeared and graptolites came close to total extinction. Examples of fossil groups that became extinct at the end-Ordovician extinction: Trilobite family Trinucleidae, Trilobite family Bathyuridae, Brachiopod genus Thaerodonta, Brachiopod genus Plaesiomys, Graptolite family Climacograptidae, Graptolite family Diplograptidae. What caused the extinction? The evidence indicates that climate change caused the extinctions. A major ice age is known to have occurred in the southern hemisphere and climates cooled world-wide. The first wave of extinctions happened as the climate became colder and a second pulse occurred as climates warmed at the end of the ice age. Reconstruction of Late Ordovician global geography (southern hemisphere), showing the south polar icecap (white). The Ordovician continent of Laurentia corresponds to most of present day North America; Baltica included part of modern western Europe. Gondwana was a super-continent composed of most of the major modern continents.

(#5: END CRETACEOUS): When did it happen?: The extinction occurred at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 65.5 million years ago. Who became extinct?: In addition to the non-avian dinosaurs, vertebrates that were lost at the end of the Cretaceous include the flying pterosaurs, and the mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs of the oceans. Important marine invertebrates also disappeared, including ammonites, groups of cephalopods and some bivalves, such as the reef-building rudists and some relatives of modern oysters. Examples of invertebrate groups that became extinct at the end_Cretaceous event. tes that disappeared at the end-Cretaceous extinction. Ammonite (Cephalopod), gryphaeid oyster (Bivalv), Inoceramid (Bivalve). What caused the extinction?: Several lines of geological evidence indicate that an asteroid that was as much as 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter hit the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period. This evidence includes an ancient impact crater in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico (now filled in by younger rocks) that dates to the time of the extinction. The impact would have produced an enormous dust cloud that would have risen up into the atmosphere and encircled the planet. The dust cloud greatly reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface and prevented photosynthesis by plants on land and plankton in the oceans. As plants and plankton died, extinctions expanded up the food chain, eliminating herbivores and carnivores. If that was not bad enough, dust and debris falling back to Earth was hot and may have triggered widespread wildfires. There is some debate over whether the asteroid was the sole cause of the extinction or whether other factors were also involved. Towards the end of the Cretaceous, volcanic activity in India produced lava flows over a vast area. Some paleontologists and geologists have suggested that gases (e.g., sulfur dioxide; carbon dioxide) released by the volcanoes might have altered the climate. Others point to geological evidence for a fall in sea level that would have reduced the area of shallow seas and, possibly, coastal plains.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS:

The characteristics of the five mass extinctions described above show that the two essential things that they all have in common are signficant global geological upheaval involving enormous amounts of energy and time scales of millions of years. Humans appeared on earth 66 million years ago and we could have been a creation of the End Cretaceous Extinction event but we surely could not have caused it. Human civilization did not appear until this Holocene interglacial about 8,000 years ago and the industrialization of human civilization did not occur until 100 years ago. The time scale needed for mass extinction events excludes any role for humans and the geological nature of these events also excludes any significant role for humans. That humans are causing a sixth mass extinction in the sequence of the five described above is a fanciful idea of extreme environmentalism but not credible.

It should also be noted that published research papers on a coming human caused mass extinction as an extension of human caused climate change have two things in common – they are published by the same journal (PNAS) and they all include a common co-author, Paul Ehrlich. In terms of Ehrlich’s failed population bomb hypothesis and his obsession with human population and climate change, his interest in the theory of a human caused sixth mass extinction can be understood as an extension of his obsession with human caused catastrophe.

It is possible that the sixth mass extinction idea derives from a need in climate science to inject additional fear into the fear based activism against fossil fuels that is not going well for them. The need for climate change science to include a sixth mass extinction in its fear porfolio is also seen in the way the 5 great mass extinctions are now described. These descriptions include the idea that the planetary scale geological holocaust had increased or decreased atmospheric CO2 and had thereby caused global warming or global cooling – in other words a role for AGW-like climate change is inserted into the mass extinction events of the geological past.

We therefore agree with the presentation at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America by Professor Douglas Erwin that the sixth mass extinction is a fanciful extension of the climate change discussion with imagination but without substance.

HUMAN CAUSE: THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS HUMAN CAUSE BECAUSE WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CAUSE OF THE WARMING TREND, WHATEVER IMPACTS THE WARMING MAY HAVE ARE ALL NATURAL.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/11/09/the-issue-is-human-cause/

THIS POST IS A STUDY OF A NEW NPR ARTICLE ON CLIMATE ACTION POSSIBILITIES DISCOVERED WITH COMPUTER MODELS OF THE ECONOMY. LINK TO SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027370891/climate-change-solutions-global-warming-computer-models-paris

PART-1: WHAT THE SOURCE ARTICLE SAYS

As the world’s top climate scientists released a report full of warnings this week, they kept insisting that the world still has a chance to avoid the worst effects of climate change. “It is still possible to forestall most of the dire impacts, but it really requires unprecedented, transformational change,” said Ko Barrett, vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “The idea that there still is a pathway forward, I think, is a point that should give us some hope.”

After Dire U.N. Warning On Climate, Will Anything Change? That hopeful pathway, in which dangerous changes to the world’s climate eventually stop, is the product of giant computer simulations of the world economy. They’re called integrated assessment models. There are half a dozen major versions of them: four developed in Europe, one in Japan, and one in the U.S., at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “What we mostly are doing, is trying to explore what is needed to meet the Paris goals.” says Detlef van Vuuren, at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, which developed one of the models.

How to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero in 40 years: World leaders agreed in Paris to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The planet has already warmed about 1 degree Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. Meeting that goal will mean cutting net greenhouse gas emissions to zero within about 40 years. It would require profound changes; so profound, it’s not immediately clear that it’s even possible. That’s why van Vuuren and his colleagues turned to their computer models for help. “How is it possible to go to zero emissions?” he says. “That’s for transport, that’s for housing, that’s for electricity.”

It’s 2050 And This Is How We Stopped Climate Change
Each of these models starts with data about current sources of greenhouse emissions. They include cars and buses, auto rickshaws, airplanes, power plants, home furnaces and rice paddies. The models also include assumptions about international trade, prices, and the costs of new technologies.Then the scientists force their virtual worlds to change course, by introducing limits on greenhouse emissions. The models then try to satisfy that requirement in the most cost-effective way, as long as it’s technologically feasible and doesn’t run up against limits like the supply of land or other natural resources. The good news is that the models found a way to meet that target, at least in scenarios where world governments were inclined to cooperate in meeting their Paris commitments. In fact, according to Keywan Riahi, at the International Institute for Applied Systems, in Austria, they found multiple paths to zero carbon. “The models tell us that there are, first of all, alternative pathways possible; that there are choices available to the decision-maker,” he says. Different models, using different assumptions, arrive at contrasting visions of the future world. But they’re all dramatically different from the situation today. Some models show people responding to higher energy prices or government regulations by changing their lifestyle. They move to more energy-saving houses, and give up their cars in favor of a new and better kind of public transit. In addition to traditional bus lines, autonomous vehicles respond like Uber — taking people where they need to go. Riahi likes this version best. “I’m convinced that a fundamental demand-side restructuring would also lead to a better quality of life,” he says. Other scenarios show people still using plenty of energy, which in turn requires a huge boost in production of clean electricity. It would mean 10 or 20 times more land covered with solar and wind farms, compared to now, plus more power plants burning wood or other biofuels, outfitted with equipment to capture and store the carbon dioxide that’s released. Politics and individuals’ preferences could foil the models. Riahi is quick to point out that what happens in the models may not be feasible in real life. They don’t account for political obstruction, for instance, or human preferences. People may just want to drive an expensive car, rather than take public transit, even when the models says that choice isn’t economically rational.

Roads Become Rivers: Nearly 4 Million Chinese Evacuated Or Displaced From Flooding
But the models also can be far too pessimistic, in particular about technological innovation. Ten years ago, van Vuuren says, they never anticipated the rise of cheap solar power. “We have been in the extremely fortunate situation that the cost of renewables has declined rapidly in the past decade.” This has made the task of reducing carbon emissions much easier. For all their shortcomings, though, these models remain the primary way that scientists and policymakers figure out options for the future. They quantify tradeoffs and consequences that may not be clearly apparent. If countries want to turn trees or crops into fuel, for instance, it means less land for growing food or for natural forests. Also, the models make it clear that international cooperation is essential, with rich countries helping poorer countries to cut their emissions. The results of the computer modeling are like fuzzy maps, pointing out routes that could help the world avoid disaster.

PART-2: CRITICAL COMMENTARY

THE SUMMARY OF ALL THESE CLIMATE SCIENTISTS RUNNING ALL THESE GLOBAL ECONOMIC MODELS TO DISCOVER THAT WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE TO STOP THE WARMING IN TIME IS THAT {INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND A COMMITMENT TO THE 1.5C/2C WARMING TARGET ARE ESSENTIAL AND AS LONG AS THESE CONDITIONS ARE MET, WE FIND IN THESE AMAZING SIMULATION MODELS THAT WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING.

THIS FINDING MAKES THE MODELS AND THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IRRELEVANT AND POINTLESS. THE KEY TO THE FAILURE OF THE UN TO PUT TOGETHER THE SO CALLED “MONTREAL PROTOCOL FOR THE CLIMATE” WAS THEIR FAILURE TO ACHIEVE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION. THIS ISSUE IS EXPLAINED IN DETAIL IN A RELATED POST. LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/06/05/the-paris-agreement/

IN THE CONCLUSION OF THE ARTICLE THAT SOPHISTICATED COMPUTER MODELS SUGGEST THAT CLIMATE ACTION IS POSSIBLE IF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IS ACHIEVED DOES NOT CONTAIN USEFUL INFORMATION. WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT THE PROBLEM WAS THE FAILURE OF THE UN TO ACHIEVE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND THE SOLUTION IF ANY MUST BE PROPOSED UNDER THIS CONDITION. THAT A MAGICAL ACHIVEMENT OF INTERNAIONAL COOPERATION WILL INDEED SOLVE THE PROBLEM IS NOT USEFUL INFORMATION. IT IS A USELESS TRUISM RECYCLED AS NEW INFORMATION – A CASE OF AN UNSUPPORTED ASSUMPTION PROPOSED AS THE SOLUTION EVEN THOUGH THE ISSUE AT HAND IS THE HISTORICAL INFORMATIION THAT THE ISSUE IS THE ABSENCE OF SUPPORT FOR THAT ASSUMPTION.

THIS POST IS A LIST OF LINKS TO POSTS ON OCEAN ACIDIFICATION AT THIS SITE

CAN THE OCEAN ACIDIFY ITSELF?: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/14/ocean-volcanism/

KILLER OCEAN ACIDIFICATION: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/13/15577/

ALFRED WEGENER INSTITUT: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/22/an-ocean-acidification-horror-chamber/

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/26/remember-only-you-can-prevent-ocean-acidification/

REMEMBER! ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION NIGHTMARE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/02/27/a-co2-nightmare-hydrothermal-vents/

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION IS THE EVIL TWIN OF CLIMATE CHANGE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/01/26/ocean-acidification-the-evil-twin-of-climate-change/

THE BALD GUY ON YOUTUBE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/01/18/tbgy-ocean-acidification/

LICKER ET AL 2019, ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/12/14/ocean-acidification-2019/

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF OCEAN ACIDIFICATION DATA: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/09/29/ocean-acidification-by-fossil-fuel-emissions/

HUMAN CAUSE: THE REAL ISSUE HERE IS HUMAN CAUSE BECAUSE WITHOUT EVIDENCE OF HUMAN CAUSE OF THE WARMING TREND, WHATEVER IMPACTS THE WARMING MAY HAVE ARE ALL NATURAL.

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/11/09/the-issue-is-human-cause/

The World Wide Fund, WWF, is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. The WWF is also a fund raising organization that raised $276 in the year 2020 with their wilderness caretaker image and activity.

THE WWF POSITION ON CLIMATE CHANGE IS THAT CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS WILDLIFE

Sea levels are rising and oceans are becoming warmer. Longer, more intense droughts threaten crops, wildlife and freshwater supplies. From polar bears in the Arctic to marine turtles off the coast of Africa, our planet’s diversity of life is at risk from the changing climate. Climate change poses a fundamental threat to the places, species and people’s livelihoods WWF works to protect. To adequately address this crisis we must urgently reduce carbon pollution and prepare for the consequences of global warming, which we are already experiencing. WWF works to: advance policies to fight climate change, engage with businesses to reduce carbon emissions, help people and nature adapt to a changing climate. Our world is changing faster than anyone predicted. Already, freshwater supplies are shrinking, agricultural yields are dropping, our forests are burning, and rising oceans are more acidic—all, in part, due to a warming climate. As our natural world changes around us, so does our way of life. Coastal home values drop as insurance premiums rise; drought reduces feed for American farmers’ cattle and water for their crops; more pollen and dust in the air aggravates asthma and allergies in kids and adults alike. At WWF, we believe we can fight this consequential threat and build a safer, healthier and more resilient future for people and nature. We must rethink the way we produce and consume energy, food, and water; protect the world’s forests; and help people prepare for a changing world. Achieving this future will require action by everyone, and we are already well on our way. People are using their collective voices to demand change. Businesses are making investments in clean energy, already creating local jobs and stronger economies. Communities are redesigning their roads, buildings, airports, and railroads to make them climate resilient. And nations around the world are committed to delivering on a landmark global plan to curb climate change, known as the Paris Agreement. For decades, WWF has engaged with millions of Americans, leading businesses, and government leaders to prepare for inevitable change and reduce the emissions that drive climate change.

AS SEEN IN THE TEXT ABOVE, CLIMATE CHANGE PROVIDES YET ANOTHER IMAGINED THREAT TO WILDLIFE AND MORE SUPPORT FOR THE IDEA THAT WILDLIFE NEEDS HUMANS TO PROTECT THEM FROM HUMAN ACTIVITY AND THAT THEREFORE ORGANIZATIONS LIKE WWF NEED MORE RESOURCES AND THEREFORE MORE DONATIONS TO SAVE THE WILDLIFE FROM THE HUMANS SO MUCH MORE SO NOW THAT THE HUMANS HAVE UNLEASHED CLIMATE CHANGE UPON THE WILDLIFE. THE MORE DANGERS TO WILDLIFE THE WWF CAN FIND THE GREATER THEIR FINANCIAL GAIN. IN THAT CONTEXT, CLIMATE CHANGE IS A FINANCIAL GIFT TO ORGANIZATIONS LIKE THE WWF.

IT IS FOR THIS REASON THAT WHAT WE SEE IN THE ECO WACKO ENVIRONMENTALISM MOVEMENT IS THAT THEY HAVE ALL BOARDED THE CLIMATE TRAIN AND THEY HAVE ALL FOUND HORRIFIC IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON “THE ENVIRONMENT” AND THEY HAVE ALL TWISTED THEIR ENVIRONMENTALISM AGENDA AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE.

RELATED POSTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE ENVIRONMENTALISM

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2010/09/15/fear-based-environmentalism/

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/03/31/eco-wacko-climate-science/

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/02/28/climate-change-environmentalism/

IN THIS CONTEXT, CLIMATE CHANGE IS A MAN MADE ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE FROM WHICH NATURE NEEDS TO BE SAVED BY ENVIRONMENTALISTS BECAUSE AS SEEN IN GENESIS AND IN THE BAMBI PRINCIPLE, THE HUMANS NOW SEE THEMSELVES NOT AS PART OF NATURE BUT AS THE MANAGERS AND CARETAKERS OF NATURE.

THE BAMBI PRINCIPLE

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/15/the-bambi-principle/

ABSTRACT: The forest is presented as a kind of idealized human-free world where nature can frolic. Unless humans arrive, animals of all species live without fear in a “paradise” untouched by human hands where even owls have morphed into vegetarians. Here all interaction with humans, and only with humans, end in death or suffering. There is a complete separation of nature into two worlds – humans and humanless nature. The big issue in modern environmentalism is that it has been extended into the Anthropocene. It is described as a paradise lost where humans have seized control of nature and of the planet. This construct of environmentalism is one where Bambi played a role. The modern concept of an ecosystem is that it does not contain humans but that it must be managed by humans.

THAT HUMANS ARE THE MANAGERS AND CARETAKERS OF NATURE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTION IN THIS KIND OF ENVIRONMENTLISM AND THIS IMAGE OF THE WORLD IS BIBLICAL. THIS IS WHY WE FIND BAMBI ENVIRONMENTALISM IN SOCIETIES WITH A CHRISTIANITY CULTURE

AND THIS IS WHY “THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT IS SO DEEPLY AUTHORITARIAN AT ITS CORE WITH AN UNQUENCHABLE WILL TO POWER THAT CANNOT BE SATISFIED AND WILL NOT BE DENIED” ANNA HONACKER, LINK: https://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2132

ECO WACKO CLIMATE SCIENCE

ECO WACKO CLIMATE SCIENCE

FROM NEW REAL CLIMATE SCIENCE ON QUORA

A USER WRITES: I CAN’T STOP PANICKING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. HOW DO I DEAL WITH THIS ANXIETY? PEOPLE SUGGEST MAKING CHANGES IN MY OWN LIFE. BUT I AM A TEENAGER AND AND MY LIFESTYLE IS NOT STRICTLY UNDER MY CONTROL. PLEASE HELP

RELATED POST: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/04/28/the-new-climate-science/

IN THE RELATED POST LINKED ABOVE WE DESCRIBE THE USE OF TEENAGERS BY CLIMATE SCIENCE TO PUSH THEIR FEAR APPPEAL ACTIVISM AGAINST FOSSIL FUELS.

THERE WE NOTE AS FOLLOWS

A common theme in the climate activism by teenage girls listed above is that, quite unlike climate science where the issue is that burning fossil fuels causes atmospheric CO2 to rise, the underlying issue in teenage activism is environmentalism. What’s more is that the environmentalism view of the teenagers is the Bambi-ism that humans are an unnatural and destructive force that threatens nature.

The Bambi issue in environmentalism is described in a related post on this site; LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/11/15/the-bambi-principle/

Here we propose that this environmentalism fear and fervor of the teenage girls derives from a corruption of the middle school curriculum in the age of tree hugger Bambi environmentalism where environmentalism has morphed from the idea that human welfare can be enhanced by humans managing their surroundings (“Environ” in French)to the Bambi-ism idea in Genesis that humans are the managers and caretakers of nature.

The basic middle school curriculum should focus preparing the students for high school with things like math, reading, writing, grammar, The middle school curriculum that used to be the basics that prepare students for high school and beyond in subjects such as grammar, history, mathematics, and the basics of the sciences that they need to study these subjects at the high school level. However, it appears that this basic idea of middle school education has been corrupted by environmentalism of the teachers and it is apparently a kind of environmentalism that can be described as “tree hugger” or “Bambi-ism” where humans are an evil and destructive force upon nature.

THE IMPRESSIONABLE YOUNG KIDS THAT EMERGE FROM MIDDLE SCHOOL THUS SCARED TO DEATH OF A HUMAN DESTRUCTION OF INNOCENT NATURE SCENARIO EASILY INTERPRET CLIMATE CHANGE IN THAT WAY AS HUMANS DESTROYING NATURE. THE ENVIRONMENTALISM INTERPRETATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE BY THESE KIDS AND THEIR DEVASATING FEAR OF CLIMATE CHANGE EXPRESSED BY THE KIDS IN THE SUMMARY ABOVE, ARE BEST UNDERSTOOD IN THIS CONTEXT. THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM HAS BECOME CORRUPTED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM OF TEACHERS SUCH THAT THE EFFECT IS BEST UNDERSTOOD AS CHILD ABUSE.

SWEDEN TOO

SOURCE: LINK: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sweden-s-environmental-education-building-generation-greta-thunbergs-n1106876

Sweden’s environmental education is building a generation of Greta Thunbergs. It is creating green revolutionaries, that think in a specific way. That 17-year-old Greta Thunberg became the face of climate change action may have taken the world by surprise, but in Sweden, young people have long been champions of the environment. While Thunberg made her way to the United Nations climate talks in Madrid earlier this month, students at an elementary school in a suburb of Stockholm removed their sneakers and boots at the door before entering for the day, both for their comfort and to reduce the need for chemical floor cleaners that harm the environment. Caring for the environment is integrated into every aspect of the day for students at the Orminge Skola Elementary School, where bright classrooms are decorated with world maps and images of animals. Students scrape their leftover lunch off reusable dishes into a compost container, remove their shoes at the door before entering and learn about the impact of plastic pollution on oceans.

Liv Emfel, 11, says she can’t imagine that people don’t recycle their waste, having grown up learning to recycle at home and in school.Linda Givetash / NBC News “I have two different visions of the world. It’s either a beautiful world and we fixed everything and we saved the climate and the environment, or it’s just getting worse and we can’t do anything and everyone thinks they’re going to die because we didn’t do anything earlier,” said Liv Emfel, 11, who did not seem intimidated talking to journalists in English, which is not her native language. “I hope it’s going to be a beautiful world, but you can’t know, (so) you have to do something now (for it) to get better.” The environment — from ecology to conservation — has been an integral part of the Swedish curriculum since 1969. Teachers and education experts couldn’t pinpoint an event that sparked its adoption, but the relationship with nature has long been prominent in Swedish culture. “My family have recycled all of my life and (when) I heard that some people don’t, I thought it was weird,” Emfel said, before joining her class of fewer than 25 students. The country’s environmentally conscious culture is attributed by many to the fact that more than 80 percent of Swedes live within 3 miles of one of its 30 national parks, 4,000 nature reserves or many other conservation sites. Use of public lands for hiking, camping and other recreation is not only encouraged but is also a legislated right. Instead of being exceptional, Thunberg, who was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year 2019, reflects the culmination of decades of government educational policies, said Kajsa Holm, 26, a social science teacher at the Vårbyskolan Middle School in southwest Stockholm for children ages 10 to 16. “She is a representative of this generation. A lot of kids have the feeling that they need to change, that something needs to change. Lessons on the environment aren’t compressed into a single course but addressed across subjects, from science to home economics, and in every grade beginning in preschool. Given the breadth of the instruction, the interest and activism in environmentalism isn’t a surprise to teachers.

HOW THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT USES THE MEDIA IN THIS CHILD ABUSE PROGRAM

BBC: LINK: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56941979 Carbon: How calls for climate justice are shaking the world, BBC Environment: Young activists are breathing new life into the long-running debate over climate justice – the framing of global warming as an ethical issue rather than a purely environmental one. When world leaders took to the stage at President Biden’s climate summit, they were given a gentle telling off by 19-year-old climate activist, Xiye Bastida. Solutions must be aligned with the fact that climate justice is social justice,” she said, echoing the words of Greta Thunberg. The Mexican-born teenager is among a new generation of climate activists drawing attention to environmental and social injustices they say are blighting lives worldwide. Her words cut through the noise in a video that has been viewed more than a quarter of a million times. For her, climate justice is about making sure we address historic injustices over emissions, including the carbon footprint of the wealthy, whose lifestyles have contributed most to global warming. At the same time, climate change is predominantly impacting those who’ve done the least to contribute to carbon pollution and who have the least resources to deal with it because they are living below the poverty line. Greta Thunberg said that we cannot separate social justice from climate justice. The starkest inequalities are seen in the poorest countries of the world, where people leaving only a tiny carbon footprint are at the front line of climate chaos, from floods to ruined crops. But even in wealthy countries like the UK, there are warnings of carbon inequality.

WE PROPOSE THAT THIS KIND OF CHILD ABUSE IS CRIMINAL AND THAT THERE SHOULD BE CRIMINAL CHARGES FILED AGAINST ALL INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS BEHIND THE UGLY AND CRIMINAL USE OF CHILDREN IN THIIS WAY TO PUSH A CLIMATE CHANGE AGENDA THAT IS WELL BEYOND THIESE KIDS’ EDUCATION AND ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AND CRITICALLY EVALUATE.

THIS IS CHILD ABUSE EVEN WORSE THAN THE CHILD PROSTITUTION HOUSES OF CAMBODIA FOR THERE ITS A POVERTY THING. THE CHILDREN AT LEAST DO PROVIDE MUCH NEEDED INCOME FOR POOR FAMILIES.