The Constitution Club

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They might be treading water in Auckland, but they will be eating popcorn at Machu Picchu.

with 20 comments

It just might be good to be an Inca again, well better than it has been…

The last time global warming came to the Andes it produced the Inca Empire.  A team of English and U.S. scientists has analyzed pollen, seeds and isotopes in core samples taken from the deep mud of a small lake not far from Machu Picchu and their report says that “the success of the Inca was underpinned by a period of warming that lasted more than four centuries.”

Your messenger wonders if the AGW movement, headed up by wealthy white fat-cats like Al Gore, is just another attempt by “the man” to keep the little brown people down…

The new study is called “Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context” and was prepared by Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an English paleo-biologist working for the French Institute of Andean Studies, in Lima.  Alex led a team that includes Brian Bauer, of the University of Illinois, one of today’s top Inca-ologists. The study is being published in Climate of the Past, an online academic journal.

Alex spends a lot of time in Cuzco and he told me the other day that the report “raises the question of whether today’s global warming may be another opportunity for the Andes.”

Sure people like Gore and his buddies complain about the idea of Wall Street being under water; but aren’t they really worried about poor people in Peru making big money selling ethanol corn grown up-slope in the Andes? Yep, think of all of those Inca descendants driving those huge flex-fuel trucks made by Chevy and Ford from their corn profits. Go ahead Al – stop the world from warming and keep the Peruvians poor.

The author of our little story makes this observation…

Core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere have built up a history of the world’s climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.

Ok, Ok, Ok I follow this, except this part: “…the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.” Really now? Couldn’t it just be that since our good old planet goes through these changes with regularity that this change is well – a regular one? In any event it is comforting that we survived before. I mean I guess it is.

ADD: If you don’t know this…

…finally, there is the role of natural variability in changes now being observed. Nobody disputes that the climate, independent of human activities, changes. The question is to what extent changes now underway can be attributed to natural variability. “So far, in the 21st century, global warming has stabilized and no one really knows why,” writes Dr. William Cotton, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. “None of the ‘known’ climate forcing mechanisms can explain the discrepancy.” We know too little about natural variability of the climate to confidently make predictions, he insists.

then just what do you know?

Written by pg - your humble messenger

July 3, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Posted in Environmentalism

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20 Responses

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  1. I think this goes right in line with Al Gore thinking. When you consider that the Mayans disappeared at this time and were supplanted by the Incas, it makes sense to keep down a superpower at that time.

    But this is essentially what Conclub has been saying for a few years now. The world is finally catching on. It is ludicrous that global warming apologists refuse to weigh the history of climate change into their thinking. Years from now, people will look back at this era’s alamists and laugh their asses off. The modern day flagellants.

    E the Wise

    July 3, 2009 at 3:53 pm

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  2. But this is essentially what Conclub has been saying for a few years now. The world is finally catching on. It is ludicrous that global warming apologists refuse to weigh the history of climate change into their thinking. Years from now, people will look back at this era’s alamists and laugh their asses off.

    Uh-huh. The Incas may be better off and Auckland may be underwater, and pointing at these two possible positive effects of global warming is evidence that it isn’t happening?

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 3, 2009 at 11:36 pm

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  3. Uh-huh. The Incas may be better off and Auckland may be underwater, and pointing at these two possible positive effects of global warming is evidence that it isn’t happening?

    AHHHH…nope – that is not the point that was made. It is not even close to the point made. This is just you struggling to find something you think you can defend. Care for another throw?

    pg - your humble messenger

    July 4, 2009 at 1:01 pm

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  4. I’ve already pointed at graphs incorporating “the role of natural variability”. The New Scientist covered this myth.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 4, 2009 at 10:46 pm

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  6. WOW! You links! I got links too.

    pg - your humble messenger

    July 5, 2009 at 11:47 am

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  7. Additionally neither of your links address the issue of “natural”, as if man is not natural and somehow an interloper in nature, climate variability over time. That was the point.

    For instance your link: Climate myths: Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans – is off topic to anything in my post or the links it contained. The Sun and its spots are not mentioned.

    Your other link: Climate myths: Global warming stopped in 1998 – Is at least somewhat on the topic Dr. Will Cotton addressed in the quote I posted of his. Considering that he is an atmospheric scientist with Ph.D. in meteorology, and has nearly 40 years of climate modeling experience, he is entitled to have weight given his opinion. BTW – Truth be told he was one of the scientists who invented modeling.

    It is also worth mentioning that Dr. Cotton said “So far, in the 21st century, global warming has stabilized and no one really knows why”. He did not say it stopped. Your link does not address his point.

    Finally, look to the summation in your link where Le Page says…

    Some climate scientists are predicting that surface temperatures will remain static or even fall slightly over the next few years, before warming resumes. Their predictions are based largely on the idea that changes in long-term fluctuation in ocean surface temperatures known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation will bring cooler sea surface temperatures.

    If these predictions are right – and not all climate scientists think they are – you can expect to hear more claims from climate-change deniers about how global warming has stopped. But unless we see a simultaneous fall in both surface temperatures and ocean-heat content, claims that the “entire planet” is cooling are nonsense.

    Even he concedes that surface temperatures are static. He also concedes there is disagreement among scientists, AGW believing scientists BTW, about whether this static period will last and for how long.

    Do you even read your own links?

    pg - your humble messenger

    July 5, 2009 at 12:38 pm

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  8. “If these predictions are right – and not all climate scientists think they are – you can expect to hear more claims from climate-change deniers about how global warming has stopped.”

    Check.

    Even he concedes that surface temperatures are static.

    “But unless we see a simultaneous fall in both surface temperatures and ocean-heat content, claims that the “entire planet” is cooling are nonsense.”

    Check.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 5, 2009 at 4:24 pm

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    • Except I did not, nor did anyone I linked to, claim the planet was cooling. Nor was there a claim made on this post that global warming has stopped. So what is your point? Who are you rebutting?

      Are you attempting to discuss my post and the points I made, or are you attempting to make generalized points about whatever you like?

      Care for another throw?

      pg - your humble messenger

      July 5, 2009 at 5:49 pm

      Reply

    • I deleted a comment I made here because I am having trouble structuring anything coherant despite edting it over and over again. I kept mixing up comments I made and repeating. Sorry. I need to have my wife check me out when she gets home. Possibly it is my meds. Duplicate dose maybe. One is free to conclude what one may from this.

      pg - your humble messenger

      July 5, 2009 at 6:03 pm

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  10. Except I did not, nor did anyone I linked to, claim the planet was cooling

    If the planet as a whole is getting warmer, then global warming is occurring. If there are natural cycles shunting heat between the atmosphere and the ocean, and yet the two put together are getting warmer, then blathering about natural cycles does not invalidate global warming.

    As I’m reading the science referenced, global warming is affecting the two together. However we are in a cycle where heat is moved from the atmosphere to the ocean. Thus we have fools pointing at the relatively static current temperature of the atmosphere and failing to acknowledge what is likely to happen when the cycle runs back the other way – an even faster rise in atmospheric temperature.

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 6, 2009 at 12:00 am

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  11. …then blathering about natural cycles does not invalidate global warming.

    I did not say it did. The converse is also true regarding AGW at this point. This is especially true as the dramatic changes have only been predicted at this point and not yet realized. Natural cycles do not only include dramatic shifts like an ice age btw.

    You are more settled in your choice than I am; fine. Please pay attention more to what I say and write. Too often you assume I am of a belief when that is not the case.

    For instance I am not convinced from my reading of the science that all the attention paid to CO2 within AGW is correct (Allowing for consideration that AGW even exisits as claimed) This was within the Ski Area Management article that I link to with the Dr. Cotton quote…

    One long-standing critic is Roger Pielke Sr., a senior research associate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Pielke does not dispute that the climate is changing. He does argue the relative responsibility of various causes. For decades he has maintained that mainstream climate change theory attributes too much causality to emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas emitted by human activity. He believes that changes in land use resulting from the activities of people and what he describes as the spatial variations in pollution particles bear at least equal responsibility.

    “Tropical deforestation clearly has an effect on both regional and global climate that is at least as important as the radiative effect of adding carbon dioxide,” Pielke told one interviewer in 2007, and he made similar comments to a Congressional committee in 2008. The role of land resource processes was underreported in the body of the 2007 IPCC report, he claims, and essentially ignored in the companion IPCC Statement for Policymakers.
    Aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere resulting from wildfires, combustion of fossil fuels, and dust storms—also have an underappreciated role, he insists.

    If Pielke is correct, reduction of carbon dioxide should be just one of a host of menu options. “The current focus on using reductions in C02 emissions as the primary currency for achieving benefits to society and the environment clearly represents a very flawed approach,” he told EcoWorld.com.

    My reading of the science regarding global climate change in general, and AGW in particular, convinces me that calling it unsettled is to be charitable. I also think that the misshapen creature that Waxman-Markey is will do far more harm than anything else.

    I will continue to pay attention to scientists like Cotton and Pielke with their outstanding pedigrees and impressive body of works. You go believe what you choose. I am not a denier or a conspiracy believer. I am also not a follower.

    pg - your humble messenger

    July 6, 2009 at 8:01 am

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  12. However we are in a cycle where heat is moved from the atmosphere to the ocean. Thus we have fools pointing at the relatively static current temperature of the atmosphere and failing to acknowledge what is likely to happen when the cycle runs back the other way – an even faster rise in atmospheric temperature.

    See, this is where Global Warming – excuse me – “Climate Change” gets fun. When the atmosphere warms we fools are told it’s proof of AGW. But when it stops warming (“Peaks” in fool-speak) and then even begins to march downward, that’s only warming in a different way or a brief interlude in the impending doom we know is to come. Oh and it’s coming, you betcha. it’s gonna get ya. That cycle’s gonna run back the other way any day now…

    hairybeast

    July 6, 2009 at 9:56 am

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  13. But when it stops warming

    …with the ocean’s temperature continuing to rise…

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 6, 2009 at 10:57 am

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  14. According to the Argos buoys ocean temps were falling, that is until the data got “corrected”.

    hairybeast

    July 6, 2009 at 9:51 pm

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  15. I notice you have no cite given. However, that suggests one of two possibilities:

    i, The people interpreting the Argos data are part of a global conspiracy of scientists and policy makers dedicated to raising fears of global warming in order to, um, what? Get hold of extra research funding? Piss off the oil companies?

    OR

    ii, Correction or reinterpretation occurred as a normal part of the scientific process.

    Gee, it’s difficult to figure out which given that you seem to have failed to give any cites to this latest news of a possible ominous conspiracy. Instead of using scare quotes next time, why not use an html link?

    Phoenician in a time of Romans

    July 8, 2009 at 2:44 am

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  16. Get the twist out of your knickers – ask and ye shall receive.

    From the Vancouver Sun:

    Little ocean tattletales fail to find right facts
    Lorne Gunter, Canwest News Service
    Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008

    They drift along in the worlds’ oceans at a depth of 2,000 metres — more than a mile down — constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity, pressure and velocity of the upper oceans.

    Then, about once every 10 days, a bladder on the outside of these buoys inflates and raises them slowly to the surface, gathering data about each strata of seawater they pass through.

    After an upward journey of nearly six hours, the Argo monitors bob on the waves while an onboard transmitter sends their information to a satellite that in turn retransmits it to several land-based research computers where it may be accessed by anyone who wishes to see it.

    (snip)

    So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys’ findings? Because in five years the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters’ hypotheses, must be wrong.

    In fact, “there has been a very slight cooling,” according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.

    Willis insisted the temperature drop was “not anything really significant.” And I trust he’s right. But can anyone imagine NASA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the UN’s climate experts — shrugging off even a “very slight” warming.

    The big problem with the Argo findings is that all the major climate computer models postulate that as much as 80-90 per cent of global warming will result from the oceans warming rapidly then releasing their heat into the atmosphere.

    But if the oceans aren’t warming, then (please whisper) perhaps the models are wrong.

    The supercomputer models also can’t explain the interaction of clouds and climate. They have no idea whether clouds warm the world more by trapping heat in or cool it by reflecting heat back into space.

    Modellers are also perplexed by the findings of NASA’s eight weather satellites that take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily over the entire surface of the Earth, versus approximately 7,000 random readings from Earth stations.

    In nearly 30 years of operation, the satellites have discovered a warming trend of just 0.14 C per decade, less than the models and well within the natural range of temperature variation.

    I’m not saying for sure the models are wrong and the Argos and satellites are right, only that in a debate as critical as the one on climate it would be nice to hear some alternatives to the alarmist theory.

    So that was about a year ago. How did Willis eventually deal with this problem? He threw out the coldest readings and then added in secondary readings that he had admitted were “too warm” and Viola! The cooling went away!

    Here’s a blog post on the issue with a lively debate in the comments section. The Beast was particularly impressed by this one:

    Dr. Josh Willis realizes that something is “clearly wrong” with the Argo data, since it doesn’t agree with his preconceptions.Other scientists explain to him that his data is wrong because it doesn’t agree with their models.Willis looks for ways to modify the data: He starts by throwing out the coldest probe records. This isn’t enough, so he averages in data from XBTs (Expendable Bathermographs) — an old technology known to have a warm bias. This is just what is needed to remove the inconvenient cooling signal! Kudos all around for this excerise in data selection engineering to achieve the “right” result. (Let’s just hope the damn things don’t continue to cool.)

    This is pretty much the “thought process” used to deny the evidence of radiosonde readings and actual temperature stations in Antartica, in favor of hypothetical processes and involved “correction” proceedures that produce the (politically) “correct data”. Another example: I have a friend (PhD in meteorology) who has maintained a high-quality weather station in the mountains of Colo for the last 30 years. His data shows cooling for the last 7 years, but NASA-GISS “adjusts” his data upward because it doesn’t agree with the stations in the Denver suburbs (not to mention their AGW agenda).

    Here’s a link to the NASA site describing the switcheroo. And by the way, this stuff was tough to Google up because instead of trumpeting this “Correction” they’ve pretty much remained silent on it.

    By the way – the false dichotomy style of argument is a tediously sophomoric tactic. Researchers don’t have to be engaged in a “Conspiracy” to push a bad theory. It’s a natural human tendency to work to prove true something you have invested your life in, and to resist evidence to the contrary. Look at Willis, his data was fine for years (it just happened to run contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy) until others convinced him to change it so it’d fall in line with the models. As they said in the article: “Since the revision, says Willis, the bumps in the graph have largely disappeared, which means the observations and the models are in much better agreement. “That makes everyone happier,” Willis says.

    No doubt.

    hairybeast

    July 8, 2009 at 9:24 am

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  17. It’s a natural human tendency to work to prove true something you have invested your life in, and to resist evidence to the contrary.

    Well stated Beast. Here is an example from Physics…

    There are many well-qualified scientists who question long-established physics theories even when paradigms are not in crisis. Challenging scientific orthodoxy is difficult because most scientists are educated and work within current paradigms and have little career incentive to examine unconventional ideas. Dissidence is a strategic site for learning about the dynamics of science. Dozens of well-qualified scientists who challenge dominant physics paradigms were contacted to determine how they try to overcome resistance to their ideas. Some such challengers obtain funding in the usual ways; others tap unconventional sources or use their own funds. For publishing, many challengers use alternative journals and attend conferences dedicated to alternative viewpoints; publishing on the web is of special importance. Only a few physics dissidents come under attack, probably because they have not achieved enough prominence to be seen as a threat. Physics could benefit from greater openness to challenges; one way to promote this is to expose students to unconventional views.

    Take Cosmology for instance – The universe is definitely 7 billion years old. No wait its 9 (because they had better technology to measure it). AHHH, NO WAIT AGAIN…its 13.

    They plug dark matter into to crap to make their equations work. I guess that is better than calling it the “magical x factor thingy”; though not by much. Now they have dark energy to plug another hole.

    It is part of what scientists do of course. Theories, refined by measurement, is how science progresses. Calling something a “fact” with so much in question, including the data and how it is measured, when whole economies may rise and fall on the proposed solutions to this fact/problem is drastically irresponsible.

    ADD: BTW – That paper I linked to is an outstanding discussion on challenging dominant paradigms in any field.

    pg - your humble messenger

    July 8, 2009 at 11:41 am

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  18. Yep, PG. And let us not forget these are the folks who gave us the infamous Mann “Hockey Stick” graph.

    “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period”…

    hairybeast

    July 8, 2009 at 11:50 am

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