If this one million+ year trend continues, we are now nearing the end of our current interglacial period. The actual duration will likely vary somewhat from the 10,000 year average. Even assuming that the ice age cycle again repeats, its start date will probably not be easy to recognize in real-time.

During our current interglacial period there have been several periods when it was warmer than now. The most recent prior warming, and hence best documented, was about 1,000 years ago, spanning the period from about 800 to 1300 AD, and is referred to as the Medieval Warming Period (MWP).

Ancient vineyards dating to the MWP have been found in northern areas in England where even today grapes cannot be grown. The Vikings took up residence during the MWP on “Greenland” (and named it). They were able to map the entire coast line of Greenland because it was at that time free of ice. The most recent cooling period during our current interglacial was from about 1200 to 1700 AD, and known as “the little ice age”. This cooling period began about the same time that the Vikings began leaving Greenland. As can be seen from the websites below, scientists have established that the MWP was global and not just a regional phenomenon.

http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod1024x768.htm
http://www.c3headlines.com/climate-history/

So, if temperatures on several occasions during our current interglacial period have been higher than now, why this concern about global warming?

There has been a strong historical correlation between the rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and temperature for the past 600,000 years. Over that entire period the ceiling on CO2 remained at or below 280ppmv (parts per million by volume in the atmosphere). At the time our industrial revolution began, about two centuries ago, CO2 broke through that ceiling and continued to rise. It has now reached about 390 ppmv. Temperature had also begun to increase about the same time, so the preliminary interpretation of the CO2/temperature correlation was that industrial activities are contributing to the rise in CO2 and therefore CO2 must be responsible for this warming.

However, subsequent examination of core samples, where both CO2 and temperature were taken from the same sample, showed that there was about an 800 year lag between the rise in temperature and the later rise in CO2. It was temperature that increased first! That should have put the scientists on notice that there were problems with the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory. The following graph is courtesy of John-Daly.com

The AGW advocates instead refocused on the past couple of centuries, where both CO2 and the temperature were increasing and continued assuming that CO2 was driving temperature. However, that assumption was also blown out of the water because during the past two decades, as CO2 continued its steady increase, temperature remained basically flat.

The computer models simulating climate change failed because of the built-in assumption that CO2 was driving temperature. Computer model predictions are not “evidence.” It is not unusual for a model to successfully predict past periods. Computer models never get out of the testing stage until they have been sufficiently reworked to match historical data. Arguing that the models are reliable because they perfectly reflect historical activity would be ludicrous. Not only that, attempting to predict results 100 years into the future by simulating both a very complex and poorly understood climate along with the impact on it due to changing world economics is a guaranteed exercise in futility.

The warming over the past two centuries is well within the bounds of natural variation and is to be expected after several hundred years of cooling (the “little ice age”). The fact that temperatures during the MWP (and during several earlier warming periods) were also higher than our current temperatures, put the final nail in the AGW coffin. A good review of the process (the “scientific method”) for confirming or rejecting theories appears in the The Resilient Earth below.

But, what about carbon dioxide? It is now well above the long established ceiling of 280ppm.

In the more distant past (around 100 million years and beyond, and keeping in mind that the earth is 4 billion years old) carbon dioxide levels were generally much higher. We know that higher levels of CO2 are great for plant life, and there is no evidence that these higher levels had any harmful effect on animal life. The CO2 level has also been much higher during three ice ages. In fact, CO2 was much higher going into one ice age, so it does not appear to have much impact, either directly or via feedback on temperature. We also know that further increase in its level will hardly contribute to that feedback. There is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere to entirely absorb the few wavelengths of available infrared.

The only other known link between human activity and temperature is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, but UHI appears to be a local phenomenon. Temperature readings in surrounding rural areas do not pick up any of that heat, and since urban areas constitute a very small percentage of the total surface area it evidently has no impact on the global temperature.

Carbon dioxide represents less than 4/100 of one percent of the atmosphere. It is currently at about 390ppmv of the atmosphere. Water vapor, also a greenhouse gas, varies more, but generally comprises 1% to 4% of the atmosphere, so is approximately 50 times more prevalent than CO2. In recent years the annual increase in CO2 has been about 2ppmv. While Methane is 20 times as potent as CO2, as a greenhouse gas, it represents only 1/200 of CO2 volume

The level of carbon dioxide is increasing quite slowly, so drastic revisions in economic policy are not warranted. There appears to be time for us to convert to natural gas and nuclear power (which is long overdue and a good idea in any event), although US action will have little or no effect unless other populous countries such as China and India, do the same.

Reference: Skeptical Science

What about all these other related concerns: rising sea levels, melting ice and receding glaciers, more violent earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, suicides, you-name-it?

Some of those issues may indeed be influenced by global warming (although most fit better with astrology), but there is no evidence that human activities are responsible for global warming, so this is part of the ongoing natural process. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to live with it.

After all, we are apparently (and thank goodness) still in our interglacial period, so melting ice and sea level rise (where this may actually be happening) should not be surprising. You’ll know a real problem is coming up when there are no longer any receding glaciers, and there is no melting ice.

Since the ice age durations were different a couple of million years ago, what else could be influencing climate change?

We all know about the four seasons of climate variation brought on by the earth’s annual revolution around the sun. There are also other related influences on climate change that involve much longer cycles. These involve the earth’s “tilt” and associated wobbles relative to its orbital plane and to the eccentricity of its orbit. The former involves a 42,000 year cycle and the latter a 100,000 year cycle. For more detail see, for example, this article.

A more recent theory on climate indicates that we must also take into consideration our position in the Milky Way. One revolution of our solar system around the Galaxy takes about 250 million years. Keep in mind that the earth has experienced quite a few ice ages in just this past one million years.

About two decades ago Svensmark and several associates, representing various scientific disciplines (physics, astronomy, geology, and oceanography), came up with a theory that may explain a significant part of climate change. This theory involves sunspot activity, and its interaction with cosmic rays, their influence on the amount of low cloud cover, and our location in the Galaxy.

The theory is backed by strong correlations across hundreds of millions of years of historic data and is also confirmed by current data. They have also shown through experiment that aerosol buildup by the more energetic cosmic rays is possible. Svensmark, in 1995, predicted an approaching cooling period when everyone else was still concerned about global warming. (As a consequence he was obviously not very popular with the AGW folks.)

Cosmic Rays that penetrate the earth’s atmosphere and have sufficient energy to impact the lower atmosphere create aerosols which contribute to cloud cover buildup. Increased cloud cover leads to cooling. Less cloud cover leads to warming. Low clouds typically cover about 60% to 65% of the earth’s surface. Cosmic rays emanate from exploding stars. The number of exploding stars, together with their proximity, the energy level of the cosmic rays, and the level of solar activity dictate the results.

When the sun is in an active period, fewer cosmic rays are able to overcome the solar wind, so do not even reach the earth’s atmosphere. During such periods there is less cloud cover and hence warming, and it is the reverse during periods of solar inactivity. .

When the solar system is in or near one of the spiral arms of our Galaxy there are likely to be more stars in the vicinity, hence likely to be more exploding stars and therefore more cosmic rays.

The first website below is a 6 part video with more detail, in an easily understood and enjoyable presentation. Except for about the first minute of the first part, there are English subtitles but thereafter the audio is in English. The second website is a CERN colloquium held by Jasper Kirkby for physicists, much of it related to the same climate data relevant to Svensmark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA (Svensmark, 6 part youtube)
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1181073/ (CERN Colloquium)

Some reference books:

“The Resilient Earth” (Doug L. Hoffman and Allen Simmons)
“The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change” (Henrik Svensmark & Nigel Calder

Some (there are many others!) websites:

http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/01/catastrophe-denied-the-science-of-the-skeptics-position.html
(Warren Meyer, Climate-Skeptic.com)

http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/
(John Costella, “Analysis of ClimateGate”)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/
(Anthony Watts)

http://www.climatedepot.com/
(Marc Morano)

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/

JoNova as published a guest post by David Lapp, a geologist from Alaska, where they show a beautiful set of graphs–including the one of the last 10,000 years in Greenland that you see above.

The article, The big picture: 65 million years of temperature swings, also includes graphs and explanations on “65 million years of cooling” and “5 million years of cooling.” Definitely worth reading and bookmarking.

I am proud to add Dr. Jan Zeman’s authoritative addendum to substantiate the claims made in my Czechgate article. With Dr. Zeman’s permission I have edited and revised his paper slightly for publication.

THE KLEMENTINUM RECORD – UHI AND LOCAL WARMING
by Dr. Jan Zeman

Recently was published another example of how oddly the “global warming agencies” (being in charge of constructing the so called “global mean temperatures” in their weird quest to support the theory of anthropogenic global warming) treat the historical temperature records. It was brought to the attention, that the unique and very valuable record from Prague Klementinum was literally, statistically raped. In the following image (in this case from GISS…but the NOAA version is in principle similar) you can see what is gone: the record was stripped of its most valuable part going from 1770′s to the second half of the 19th century, then cut again in 1939, the decade of 40′s left out, and then was attached completely another record from the station at the Prague Ruzyne airport, and the rest after the “amputations” then renamed–despite the fact the record of temperatures in Klementinum are still active and it is one of the oldest uninterrupted instrumental temperature record in the world, and is of exceptional value – especially for the contemporary climatology which recently stirs so many controversies.

Because John O’Sullivan’s original article was partially based on my research, I am taking this opportunity to offer a more detailed explanation of how I perceive Klementinum has been influenced by the urban heat island effect (UHI) so that we may conclude that there is a net warming figure of ~0.25°C in Prague for the last two centuries. This, in my opinion, casts a serious doubt over all the internationally promoted global warming scares.

Maybe it would be for some even an interesting literal story–not just a learning about numbers and history, but also containing a kind of lesson: Describing how the warming trend in recent decades and manipulation or even dumping of the historically valuable records can cheat us into believing that the recent warming is somehow very high relatively to past temperatures…and in the end–paradoxically–bring a kind of proof that it is not the case.

So, let’s begin.

When we look at the temperatures measured during the recent decades in Klementinum, we come to these figures of decadal* temperature averages:

1960-1969 : 9.68°C
1970-1979 : 10.08°C
1980-1989 : 10.11°C
1990-1999 : 10.74°C
2000-2009 : 11.34°C

If we then factor in the average temperature for the entire record in Klementinum we find an overall average of 9.61°C – immediately suggesting the warming in the recent decades was relatively very high at 1.66°C above the 1960’s average, or 1.73°C above the record’s average.

But, if we go in terms of the relatively short history of the instrumental temperature measurements, deep into the past, we can then also, in the very same but uncut Klementinum record, discover the quite warm decade 1790-1799.

The average temperature during the ancient decade 1790-1799 was 10.32°C–which is more than the average temperature in 1980′s (even we still don’t factor in the possible UHI in this particulate comparison and if we would do, it would be even above the average of 1990′s).

Then, using basic math, we can state that the temperature difference between decadal averages of our last decade 2000-2009 and the ancient decade 1790-1799 is +1.02°C – the warming during last 200 years in Prague. This is significant but not as much as the IPCC proposes.

But is this figure really true? Isn’t it even less?

Maybe it will be hard to imagine, but let’s board the time machine of our fantasy and depart for the past.

We will find ourselves in the middle of Prague, the capital of the Czech Kingdom, once independent and for many centuries being the capital of The Holy Roman Empire, since the times of the king Charles IV in 14th century, who made this city one of the splendid capitals of the Gothic ages–a center of culture and scholarship at one of the oldest Universities in the World. The population of Prague then was about 40-50 thousand.

But never mind. Now we are at the end of the 18th century and the Czech Kingdom was already long ago conquered by the Austrian Empire. After the 30 years war, it one of the darkest times in the central Europe’s history. It was the time of the last big religious war in Europe, when the mostly protestant population of the Czech country diminished by a third, mostly by plagues, the reform and ancient Czech aristocracy, when protestants were executed or chased out to the exile, and the rest of the population during this horrors re-catholized and Prague made a provincial city in terms of importance. Nevertheless, it has still been an enigmatic place at the crossroads of the historical turnovers.

We are now in 1790 and the emperor Joseph II just died. It was him, who under the influence of enlightenment, abolished the order of Jesuits in 1773.

And we now find ourselves in one of the most important convents of this order: Klementinum. It was founded by the order of Dominicans in 1227 at the right side of the river, just by the bridge, which later–in the times of the Charles IV–was rebuilt in stone and became a part of one of the beautiful city panoramas.

Klementinum was, in 16th century after their invitation in Prague by king Ferdinand I, obtained by the Jesuits, who played a very controversial role not only in the Czech history but of whole the Europe.

But let’s restrain ourselves from black & white thinking of religious hate – It was they, who in the years 1623-1756 rebuilt the ancient monastery to a huge convent in baroque style, which then became the most important center of the scholars in the Czech Kingdom.

It were the Jesuits, who opened there the important University library which still seats there until our ages. They cared about the Charles University of Prague, they founded the Museum of Mathematics in the Klementinum 1751, and it was the same Jesuits, who built there an astronomical and meteorological observatory, where, in 1770 began the long trail of the instrumental temperature measurements, which day-by-day persists despite of all further turmoils, uninterrupted by our age of routinely permanent manned space missions and the globalization which brought around also the planetary scare design to introduce the global tax and governance.

But let’s stay just another while in the “idyllic” times of no cars, no trains, no underground, no airplanes, no electricity, no gas, no oil, no central heating, no computers, no nuclear weapons, no fridges, no hot water in the taps, and no TV propaganda…

Age of horses and coaches and feeding the fire.

The industrial age is just beginning. The Klementinum is preparing to host the first industrial exhibition held there in 1791: the year of the adoption of the French Constitution and American Bill of Rights. Population of Prague then? 75,000 thousand.

Are you already tired by all the history? OK, let’s come back to the present. Now Prague has 1,290,000 inhabitants–17 times more than in 1790, with numerous other towns in the metropolitan area, electricity everywhere, central heating, fridges, computers, microwaves, digital TV propaganda, cars, trams, trains, underground, airplanes… How much does this impact our figure of 1.02°C temp. rise?

Thanks to the flaws in the process of the global temperature record keeping at NOAA in USA and subsequently in the CRU in the UK–paradoxically–we can estimate. How?

I now ask that you remember how GISS (CRU and NOAA, too) scandalously connected the Klementinum record with the record from the Prague airport Ruzyne, and erased the important name Klementinum from the climatic history–because this could be, paradoxically–our key!

Let’s use the CRU’s homogenized “Praha/Ruzyne” data** and compare mean temperature in last decade against the intact Klementinum record and all time averages.

As we already know, the Klementinum record showed that there is in the last decade +1.73°C difference against the average temperature of the whole record. Now we go to the dataset of Ruzyne,an airport outside of the Prague, and do the same. The difference of the last decade (1999-2008 – the CRU dataset unfortunately hasn’t 2009 data) mean from the “Ruzyne” baseline? 1.24°C. (The average of the decade 1999-2008 in the original Klementinum record is exactly the same as for the decade 2000-2009 and its difference from the whole record average is 1.73°C.)

That’s our present UHI warming bias for Klementinum. If we would pretend there is no heat island at all at the Prague airport Ruzyne.***

Now we arrive to grand finale: the difference between the decade 1790-1799 and the our recent decade 2000-2009 we counted as 1.02°C. Now we subtract the Klementinum UHI we just came to:

And that is our warming between the decade 1790-1799 and our last decade 2000-2009.

I don’t know if the globe is undergoing a “catastrophic global warming” in last century. But Prague, and central Europe? Not really.

——————————————-
* for purpose of this analysis I count decades arbitrarily from zero year. The reason is pragmatic–to not have a need to wait another year with this paper until the decade 2001-2010 ended.

** The CRU is source of the Klementinum/Ruzyne dataset homogenization. The CRU datasets from Czech stations–as probably the only temperature records from CRU officially publicly available at the time–were recently published by the Czech climatologists who obtained them from CRU despite Phil Jones declared the data “missing”, “lost during the moving”. The CRU datasets of the Czech stations can be downloaded here.

*** If I would not omitted it the Klementinum UHI warming bias the result would be even higher – and I estimate it will add another at least 0.1°C. But I omitted it because I also know that there was at least some artificial heat in Prague in the 1790′s – when Prague had the 75,000 inhabitants; although, I seriously doubt it would produce even nearly the same heat power dispersed in the surrounding areas like do the loads of jet planes at Ruzyne airport every day and night in our times. Just consider that the heat power produced by only one jetliner engine–in take-off as well as in auto-reverse modes–is comparable with the total solar power showering several dozens of hectares! Insisting, that it has no significant influence on the measured temperatures immediately around I find utterly ludicrous. The met-station Praha/Ruzyne is just 200m from the very frequented runway 31). Only question remains, not if, but how much the air-traffic adds to the measured temperature values. But I leave this question for more qualified people to answer.

NOTE: Other examples of the unique historical temperature records of the world can be found here and I leave it to others to find out what the notorious NOAA, GISS and CRU have done to them and maybe even find out, what the possible estimated UHI subtraction from the recent trend would do with the by Nobel prize laureated anthropological global warming” consensus.” A hint: Check out St. Petersburg.

After the publication of the article in Czech language I got also an interesting reaction from the Czech historian of the climatology Dr. Jiri Svoboda where I’ve found also this in my opinion important testimony against the GISS practices, which I’m allowing myself to translate :

“…It is noteworthy with the GISS panel that when I began use it some ten years ago there the oldest records were normally accessible. Approximately since 2004 or 2003 all the data were cut to 1880, because otherwise it would show, that the warming of our present was virtually the same here 200 years ago.”

© 2010 Jan Zeman, working draft, all rights reserved

Jan Zeman studied IT and psychology of political violence. He is
co-founder of the CZFree.Net community network, was working in the Czech
Senate as political advisor during the hot disputes about the Lisbon
Treaty and he also works as an independent journalist, known for his
book and articles about terrorism, EU politics, energetics and
environmentalism and for his translations of many controversial
documents. His Czech site: janzeman.blog.idnes.cz

Climate skeptics claim the censoring of the Czech’s raw data has been perpetrated by climate scientists because the Prague records prove there has been no warming in Europe for over two hundred years.

Bloggers found that GHCN, based at Arizona State University, also cut out Prague’s warm 1940’s as it would make recent warming look unexceptional. This process of adjusting raw data by climatologists (almost always upwards) is known as ‘homogenization.’ Skeptics then found that climatologists had replaced the original Prague dataset from 1949 with a homogenized warmer series from another weather station in Praha/Ruzyne even though Prague had never stopped taking temperature readings.

Skeptic analysts are outraged because, after the Central England Temperature Record, the Czech records are the second oldest continous and reliable temperature record in the world and are known as the Central European Temperature Record. The data set has been kept uninterrupted since 1775 in Praha-Klementinum (Prague).

Interested readers looking to verify for themselves this outrageous deceit can check the records here, then search for “Praha/Ruzyne.“ The real Praha/Klementinum data may be found for the period 1770 to 2009 here.

From plain reading of the Czech data we see that for the past 200 years the temperature in this part of central Europe has warmed by a statistically insignificant 0.25° Centigrade per century.

The Prague raw temperatures correlate perfectly with those of the world’s oldest climate data set, found in the Central England Temperature Record (CET) that has been running continuously for 351 years.

Thus, the two oldest and most reliable raw thermometer records in the world are telling us there is not a shred of real world evidence to show any significant global warming. Rather, it the homogenized or faked data created artificially by climatologists in their laboratories that is consistently being shown as the source of such ‘warming.’

Source: Chiefo