PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 118/2000 - 15 November 2000
---------------------------------
The doomsayers
Seers, prophets, scientists and fortune-tellers
give us a frisson with their prophecies of doom.
They meet a human need, perhaps to learn the worst
yet know that we survive despite the odds.
Can we ignore the huge extinctions of the past?
Of course we can! The logic's simple - our parents,
grandparents, great-grandparents, all survived,
and therefore we are not in danger. The few
who have an inkling of time's extent,
find human history hard enough to grasp.
What of geological and astronomical time?
Does an ant's nest fear the nearing bushfire front?
Can a city's people apprehend a danger
that they've never seen or heard of?
We build on flood-plains, volcano slopes, and faults;
and these are real enough for most of us,
but danger cloaked in esoteric numbers leaves us numb.
What can we do? Publish the numbers, tell
the influential few who need to know,
keep speculation to ourselves, when every word
is trawled by journalists looking for sensation? No!
What we must explain is our uncertainty and doubt,
not what we think we know, but what we don't.
Malcolm Miller
stellar2@cyberone.com.au
15 November 2000
(1) NEAR SHOEMAKER TEAM RELEASE LOW-FLYOVER MOVIE OF EROS
Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
(2) THE LEONIDS, COMING THIS WEEKEND TO SKIES NEAR YOU
Space.com, 14 November 2000
(3) THE LEONIDS AS SEEN FROM THE UK (WE HOPE) AND EUROPE
Jacqueline Mitton <aco01@dial.pipex.com>
(4) CORRECTIONS
Dave Tholen <tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu>
(5) RUSSIAN RESEARCH ON NEOS & PLANETARY DEFENSE BOOMING
Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>
=============
(1) NEAR SHOEMAKER TEAM RELEASE LOW-FLYOVER MOVIE OF EROS
From Ron Baalke <baalke@jpl.nasa.gov>
http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/flash/00nov14_1.html
November 14, 2000
Showing you don't need lasers and light sabers to make a great
space flick,
the NEAR mission team has released the first movie from NEAR
Shoemaker's
low-altitude buzz over Eros:
http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod/20001114/index.html
Shot in the early hours of Oct. 26, 2000, the film covers
segments of a
55-minute span in which NEAR Shoemaker closes from 8 to 5 miles
(13 to 8
kilometers) over the asteroid's rocky surface. Without giving
away too much
of the plot, the 90-second movie includes unprecedented and
detailed views
of dust-filled craters, jagged boulders and rugged terrain that
have
intrigued NEAR scientists.
"The resolution in these images is about three times better
than any we've
seen of Eros, and they've given us a lot to talk about,"
says NEAR Project
Scientist Andrew Cheng. "There is an amazing number and
variety of boulders,
some of which seem to have a layered structure. We also see the
same global
fabric of ridges and grooves that we saw from higher altitudes,
and from
this altitude we can discern finer details."
The NEAR Web site offers several movies of Eros, some going back
to the
weeks before NEAR Shoemaker's historic Valentine's Day rendezvous
with the
asteroid. Mark Robinson, a NEAR science team member from
Northwestern
University who produces the movies from images snapped by NEAR
Shoemaker's
digital camera, says the short films are as scientifically
valuable as they
are cool to watch.
http://near.jhuapl.edu/Images/.Anim.html
"Setting the images in motion reveals a lot about the
asteroid itself,"
Robinson says. "The movies give us a dynamic look at changes
in the
shadowing and shading of surface features. By examining features
with
different illumination, geologists get a better look into the
history of the
asteroid."
The low flyover on Oct. 25-26 sent NEAR Shoemaker about 3 miles
(5.3
kilometers) from Eros' surface, the closest any spacecraft has
ever come to
a planetary body without landing on it. The car-sized satellite
has since
moved into a higher orbit, gathering global images of Eros from
about 124
miles (200 kilometers) away. After starting a 22-mile
(35-kilometer) orbit
on Dec. 13, NEAR Shoemaker will operate at that distance or lower
until the
mission ends in February 2001.
Check out the entire gallery of NEAR movies and pictures:
http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod/archive.html
==================
(2) THE LEONIDS, COMING THIS WEEKEND TO SKIES NEAR YOU
From Space.com, 14 November 2000
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/leonids_history_001113.html
By Mark Wheeler
The Leonid meteor shower peaks this weekend. Should you be
afraid?
The great meteor storm of 1833 is said to have kick-started the
modern study
of meteors - and scared the bejesus out of the uninformed. Small
wonder: at
the storm's peak, between 2 a.m. and dawn on November 12 and 13,
roughly
100,000 meteors per hour scorched the night sky.
"Imagine a constant succession of fireballs, resembling
rockets, radiating
in all directions from a point in the heavens," wrote
Denison Olmsted, of
Yale College. The display goaded scientists into researching past
storms and
hypothesizing on future ones. (It may also have been responsible
for a wave
of religious revivals, fomented by viewers convinced they had
experienced
the precursor to Armageddon.)
FULL STORY at
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/leonids_history_001113.html
=========
(3) THE LEONIDS AS SEEN FROM THE UK (WE HOPE) AND EUROPE
From Jacqueline Mitton <aco01@dial.pipex.com>
THE FOLLOWING PRESS NOTICE HAS BEEN RECEIVED FROM THE ROYAL
OBSERVATORY
GREENWICH AND IS FORWARDED FOR YOUR INFORMATION.
Jacqueline Mitton , Royal Astronomical Society Press Officer
jmitton@dial.ppex.com
Note: contact information is at the end of this release.
14 November 2000.
LEONID METEOR SHOWER 17/18 NOVEMBER 2000
- ROYAL OBSERVATORY GREENWICH INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES
Meteors from the constellation of Leo will light up the sky on
the nights of
17 & 18 November when astronomers all over the world will be
watching the
annual Leonid meteor shower.
For observers in the UK and Europe, the best chance of seeing
meteors will
be at 03:44 on the morning of 18 November, as the Earth passes
close to a
stream of debris released by comet Temple-Tuttle 260 years ago.
At this time
it may be possible to see as many as 100 meteors an hour. This is
ten times
the background rate that can be seen on any other night of the
year.
The Earth¹s orbit passes close to the comet Temple Tuttle¹s
orbit each year
in November and during this time the Earth collides with
particles of
cometary debris which follow the comet¹s orbit.
Meteors can be seen on any clear night of the year and most are
caused by
particles no bigger than grains of sand, which collide with the
Earth¹s
atmosphere at up to 70km per second (157,000 mph) and burn
up. Fireballs
are caused by meteors a few centimetres in diameter and can leave
tails that
persist for several minutes.
Dr Robert Massey will be taking students from the Royal
Observatory¹s GCSE
astronomy class out to a dark site in the Kent countryside on the
night of
17 November to observe the meteors and measure the level of
activity. The
observers will also take the opportunity to look at the Moon,
stars and
planets away from the lights of London.
To arrange interviews with Dr Robin Catchpole, Senior Astronomer,
or Dr
Robert Massey, Astronomy Information Officer, please contact the
Press
Office on (020) 8312 6545/6745/6790 or email kvcannin@nmm.ac.uk An ISDN
line
is available.
============================
* LETTERS TO THE MODERATOR *
============================
(4) CORRECTIONS
From Dave Tholen <tholen@galileo.ifa.hawaii.edu>
> The threat was downgraded after the original data,
previously studied,
> was reanalyzed.
If you have an address at which you can contact Steve Russell,
perhaps you'd
like to point out the error in his statement. The threat was NOT
downgraded
after the ORIGINAL data, previously studied, were (he should use
the plural
form) reanalyzed. The threat was downgraded after NEW
observations became available, namely the Catalina Sky Survey
positions from
1999 May 17.
> Do the new guidelines specifically state that the data needs
to be
> double or triple checked before such an announcement?
The guidelines call for peer review. In this case, the same set
of
observations was analyzed by FIVE individuals with consistent
results
(quintuple checked).
=============
(5) RUSSIAN RESEARCH ON NEOS & PLANETARY DEFENSE BOOMING
From Andy Smith <astrosafe@yahoo.com>
Hi Benny and CCNet,
It looks like the mid-September Space Shield Foundation meeting
was
excellent. There were more than 100 presentations (oral and
poster). About a
third of the presentations reported studies related to defense or
deflection. Another third concerned early-warning (and some of
these support
the clear need for orbiting and terrestrial telescopes, in an
optimized
global system). The final group addressed impact effects, etc.
The topics are at http://www.snezhinsk.ru/spe2000/eng/spe2000/abstracts.htm
There are also recommendations and a summary memorandum, in
english, at the
site. I am sure they
will give us the translations of many abstracts and papers, in
the
near-future - just as they were kind enough to do, with SPE94 and
SPE96.
By-the-way, there is a lot of good information , on the Web, from
our
excellent Planetary Defense Workshop (held at the Lawrence
Livermore
National Lab, Livermore, CA,in 1995).
Our Russian colleagues are doing an excellent job of starting to
seriously
look at what we could do, if the whistle blew tomorrow. Without
preparations, it would take us about 2 years (minimum) to
put-togeather and
launch a system. The trip, to interception, could take another
year. We
might not have three years.
With global planning and modest funding, we might cut the time
(from
alert-to-launch) by more than half and we would be more confident
of our
engineering.
Preparedness is a gamble, to be sure, but we can't afford not to
at least
think about "What if?" and how we might use what we
have, to protect
ourselves and our planet.
A third-of-a-kilometer rock, in the Atlantic, could destroy all
of the
coastal cities and we certainly have a fighting chance against
such a fate -
using on-the-shelf hardware.
The knowledge, of this great danger, places a tremendous burden
of
responsibility on each of us. And we, for our part, will do
everything we
can, to help with the efforts to prepare.
Cheers
Andy Smith
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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CCNet CLIMATE CHANGE - 15 November 2000
---------------------------------------
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote -
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu ungendred is the flour;
- from The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey
Chaucer, 1386
Our years are turned upside down;
our summers are no summers;
our harvests are no harvests!
- John King, an Elizabethan preacher,1595
(1) US-EU STANDOFF HARDENS AT HAGUE CLIMATE TALKS
Yahoo News, 14 November 2000
(2) DISPUTE BURNS OVER CURE FOR HOT AIR
USA Today, 14 November 2000
(3) ARCTIC GLACIERS: ARE THEY SUCCUMBING TO GLOBAL WARMING?
www.co2science.org,
8 November 2000
(4) UNSUSPECTED URBAN-INDUCED WARMING
CO2 Science, 15 November 2000
(5) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD AND LITTLE ICE AGE IN SWITZERLAND
CO2 Science, 15 November 2000
(6) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD - A SUMMARY
www.co2science.org,
8 November 2000
(7) THE 'HOCKEY STICK': A NEW LOW IN CLIMATE SCIENCE
http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/hockey/hockey.htm
(8) AND FIANLLY: THE PROOF IS IN THE DISPROOF
The New York Times, 12 November 2000
==================
(1) US-EU STANDOFF HARDENS AT HAGUE CLIMATE TALKS
From Yahoo News, 14 November 2000
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001114/wl/environment_climate_dc_5.html
By Matt Daily
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A standoff between the United States and
the European
Union hardened on Tuesday at the center of an international
conference on
the threat of global warming, with neither side appearing ready
for a
compromise.
"So far, I haven't seen anyone move their position by one
centimeter," said
Raul Estrada, Argentina's special representative for the
environment.
Estrada chaired the U.N. meeting in Kyoto three years ago which
laid out the
basis for emission cuts which are supposed to be finalized at the
two-week
climate conference in the Hague.
But while scientists warn of significant climate changes in the
years ahead,
with rising sea levels threatening to submerge coastlines and
entire
islands, politicians bicker over who should pay to cut the gas
emissions
which are believed to be the cause of global warming.
The 15-nation European Union wants wealthy states to take a lead
and
implement cuts in "greenhouse gases" through tough
domestic policies.
The United States, which has refused to ratify the Kyoto deal,
has teamed up
with Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, arguing they
should be able
to buy pollution "credits" from poorer nations which
can easily meet their
targets for cutting emissions.
Failure to compromise during the Hague conference could scupper
any hope of
implementing the Kyoto accord which aims to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by
over five percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
Besides the divide between the wealthy nations, the tough task of
getting
180 countries to agree has prompted some strange political
alliances as
talks get under way.
Broader Groups Face In-Fighting
One of the broadest coalitions is the "G77 plus China"
-- a loose bargaining
group of over 150 countries including most developing states as
well as some
major economies like Argentina and Brazil, and the OPEC oil
producers.
The group wants tough measures to force industrialized nations to
sharply
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The G77 have tried to negotiate together because they feel
they are at a
disadvantage," said Jennifer Morgan of environmental group
World Wide Fund
for Nature (WWF).
But the group, which is subdivided into factions representing
small islands,
Latin America and Africa, is itself riven with divisions on
climate change
strategy.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has little in
common with
islands threatened by rising water levels and devastating storms,
for
example. But it has a strong financial interest in teaming up
with them.
Saudi Arabia wants compensation for expected losses if oil
consumption is
cut -- essentially putting it in the same boat with developing
countries
which need help from industrialized states to develop
environmentally clean
industries.
Saudi Threat
"We would lose $25 billion a year by 2010 if the Kyoto cuts
are
implemented," said Mohammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi
delegation and
senior adviser to Saudi's oil minister.
"There will be no outcome if our concerns are not adequately
addressed," he
said.
Another group seeking to increase members' bargaining weight by
joining
forces is the Environmental Integrity Group, uniting non-EU
Switzerland with
OECD partners Mexico and South Korea.
Scientists say greenhouse gas emissions will warm the Earth's
temperature by
up to six degrees this century, raising ocean levels by 50
centimeters and
causing dramatic shifts in global weather patterns.
(Additional reporting by Robin Pomeroy)
Copyright 2000, Yahoo News
==============
(2) DISPUTE BURNS OVER CURE FOR HOT AIR
From USA Today, 14 November 2000
http://cgi.usatoday.com/usatonline/20001114/2834837s.htm
By Dan Vergano
Just as scientists warn of greater-than-expected global warming,
a row over
how best to stop climate change has started heating up.
Much of the controversy involves what sort of greenhouse gas most
urgently
needs reduction to slow atmospheric heating.
''Carbon dioxide emissions are still the 1,000-pound gorilla of
climate
change,'' says Steven Smith of the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory's
offices in Washington, D.C.
In the current Science, Smith and colleagues release an analysis
challenging
a new ''alternative scenario,'' a theory that many think
threatens
environmentalist emphasis on cutting atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The gas,
released by burning fossil fuels, absorbs sunlight and heats the
atmosphere.
A United Nations panel last month warned that man-made global
warming would
raise average temperatures worldwide by 10 degrees by 2100.
In August, a team led by James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute
for Space
Studies in New York suggested the alternative scenario of
fighting global
warming that concentrates on reducing black soot, along with
ozone and
methane, which also absorb sunlight and cause heating.
Hansen says his team offers a better cure than just cutting
carbon dioxide.
''The alternative scenario focuses on both carbon dioxide and
non-carbon-dioxide -- that is the only way that we can reduce the
climate
impact to a modest one.''
In the critique, Smith and his team argues that the Hansen
scenario
underestimates likely increases in carbon dioxide emissions over
the next 50
years. They say Hansen overestimates how easily exhaust systems
can filter
out black soot from other types of lighter-colored pollution
particles,
which reflect sunlight and actually cool the atmosphere in his
scenario.
Further, they suggest that the light-colored particles that would
be left
often contain acid-rain-causing sulfates, an unpalatable choice
for people.
In addition, they argue that such particles don't linger in the
atmosphere
for centuries, as carbon dioxide does, so they simply forestall
warming.
''We just don't think it's a coherent alternative scenario,''
Smith says.
Because the alternative scenario begins with lower predictions of
global
warming than U.N. scientists' ''business-as-usual'' projections,
some
industrialists greeted it warmly, perhaps too warmly for
environmentalists'
comfort.
Response to the proposal grew so heated that Hansen posted an
open letter on
the Web (natural science.com/ns/letters/ns_let25 .html) to defend
his work.
Copyright 2000, USA Today
See: Steven J. Smith, Tom M. L. Wigley, and Jae Edmonds: A New
Route Toward
Limiting Climate Change? Science, Nov 10 2000: 1109-1110.
============
(3) ARCTIC GLACIERS: ARE THEY SUCCUMBING TO GLOBAL WARMING?
From www.co2science.org,
8 November 2000
Reference
Dowdeswell, J.A., Hagen, J.O., Bjornsson, H., Glazovsky, A.F.,
Harrison,
W.D., Holmlund, P. Jania, J., Koerner, R.M., Lefauconnier, B.,
Ommanney,
C.S.L. and Thomas, R.H. 1997. The mass balance of
circum-Arctic glaciers
and recent climate change. Quaternary Research 48: 1-14.
What was done
The authors analyzed the mass balance histories of the 18 Arctic
glaciers
that have the longest observational records.
What was learned
Just over 80% of the 18 glaciers studied displayed negative mean
net mass
balances over their periods of record. However, the authors note
that
"ice-core records from the Canadian High Arctic islands
indicate that the
generally negative glacier mass balances observed over the past
50 years
have probably been typical of Arctic glaciers since the end of
the Little
Ice Age," and that "Arctic glaciers may have responded
to a step-like
warming in the early twentieth century associated with the end of
the Little
Ice Age."
What it means
These observations are clearly in harmony with our contention
that There Has
Been No Global Warming for the Past 70 Years (see also our
Editorials of 15
June, 15 July and 2 August 2000). In addition, these
observations also
suggest that Arctic glaciers are not succumbing to an
anthropogenically
induced warming of the globe. In fact, in the words of the
authors, "there
is no compelling indication of increasingly negative balance
conditions
which might, a priori, be expected from anthropogenically induced
global
warming." Quite to the contrary, they report that
"almost 80% of the mass
balance time series also have a positive trend, toward a less
negative mass
balance." Hence, although most Arctic glaciers
continue to lose mass, as
they have probably done since the end of the Little Ice Age, they
are losing
smaller amounts each year, in the mean, which is hardly what one
would
expect in the face of what climate alarmists call (falsely) the
"unprecedented warming" of the latter part of the
twentieth century.
Copyright © 2000, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
==================
(4) UNSUSPECTED URBAN-INDUCED WARMING
From CO2 Science, 15 November 2000
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2000/v3n31c1.htm
Reference
Changnon, S.A. 1999. A rare long record of deep soil temperatures
defines
temporal temperature changes and an urban heat island. Climatic
Change 42:
531-538.
Background
The putative warming of non-urbanized areas of the planet over
the past
century is believed to be less than 1°C. Urban-induced heating
in large
cities, on the other hand, may be as great as 10°C. Hence, since
nearly all
long-term temperature records have been obtained from sensors
located in
towns and cities that have experienced significant growth over
this time
period, it is extremely important that urbanization-induced
warming - which
can be a full order of magnitude greater than the background
trend being
sought - be removed from the original temperature records when
attempting to
accurately assess the true warming (or cooling!) of the natural
non-urban
environment.
What was done
The author used a series of measurements of soil temperatures
obtained in a
totally rural setting in central Illinois between 1889 and 1952
and a
contemporary series of air temperature measurements made in an
adjacent
growing community, as well as similar data obtained from other
nearby small
towns, to evaluate the magnitude of unsuspected heat island
effects that may
be present in small towns and cities that are typically assumed
by the IPCC
to be free of urban-induced warming.
What was learned
The soil temperatures obtained in the totally rural setting
revealed the
existence of a temperature increase from the decade of 1901-1910
to that of
1941-1950 that amounted to 0.4°C. This warming is 0.2°C
less than the 0.6°C
warming determined for the same time period from data of the U.S.
Historical
Climate Network, which is supposedly corrected for urban heating
effects.
It is also 0.2°C less than the 0.6°C warming determined for
this time period
by eleven benchmark stations in Illinois with the highest quality
long-term
temperature data, all of which are located in communities with
populations
of less than 6,000 people as of 1990. And it is 0.17°C
less than the 0.57°C
warming derived from data obtained from the three benchmark
stations closest
to the site of the soil temperature measurements and with
populations of
less than 2,000 people.
What it means
In the words of the author, his findings suggest that "both
sets of surface
air temperature data for Illinois believed to have the best data
quality
with little or no urban effects may contain urban influences
causing
increases of 0.2°C from 1901 to 1950." He further
notes - in a grand
understatement - that "this could be significant because the
IPCC (1995)
indicated that the global mean temperature increased 0.3°C from
1890 to
1950."
Clearly, the meticulous efforts of this world-renowned climate
specialist -
Stanley A. Changnon - call all surface-based global air
temperature records
into question. Therefore, until the challenge of very-small-town
urban heat
island effects is resolved, the climate alarmists'
"unprecedented" global
warming of the past century cannot be accepted at face
value. In all
likelihood, it is artificially inflated, perhaps severely so.
Reference
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 1995.
Climate Change 1995, The
Science of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
U.K.
Copyright © 2000. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==================
(5) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD AND LITTLE ICE AGE IN SWITZERLAND
From CO2 Science, 15 November 2000
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2000/v3n31c2.htm
Reference
Filippi, M.L., Lambert, P., Hunziker, J., Kubler, B. and
Bernasconi, S.
1999. Climatic and anthropogenic influence on the stable isotope
record from
bulk carbonates and ostracodes in Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland,
during the
last two millennia. Journal of Paleolimnology 21: 19-34.
What was done
The authors obtained stable isotope data (delta 18O and delta
13C) from bulk
carbonate and ostracode calcite in a radiocarbon-dated sediment
core removed
from Lake Neuchatel in the western Swiss Lowlands at the foot of
the Jura
Mountains, which they used to reconstruct the climatic history of
the region
over the past 1500 years.
What was learned
According to the authors, the data suggest that mean annual air
temperature
dropped by about 1.5°C during the transition from the Medieval
Warm Period
(MWP) to the Little Ice Age (LIA). They further state that
"the warming
during the 20th century does not seem to have fully compensated
the cooling
at the MWP-LIA transition" and that during the Medieval Warm
Period, mean
annual air temperatures were "on average higher than at
present."
What it means
For some time now the climate alarmists have been claiming that
temperatures
during the latter part of the 20th century were the warmest of
the past
thousand years. According to the authors of this paper, however,
that claim
is false. Not only do their data indicate that this is so, but
those of
others do as well. Citing Keigwin (1996), for example, they note
that "sea
surface temperature (SST) reconstructions show that SST was ca.
1°C cooler
than today about 400 years ago and ca. 1°C warmer than today
during the
MWP." And citing Bond et al. (1997), they note that the MWP
and LIA are just
the most recent manifestations of "a pervasive
millennial-scale coupled
atmosphere-ocean climate oscillation" that has absolutely
nothing to do with
variations in the air's CO2 content.
References
Bond, G., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P.
deMenocal, P.,
Priori, P., Cullen, H., Hajdes, I. and Bonani, G. 1997. A
pervasive
millennial-scale climate cycle in the North Atlantic: The
Holocene and late
glacial record. Science 278: 1257-1266.
Keigwin, L.D. 1996. The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm
Period in the
Sargasso Sea. Science 174: 1504-1508.
Copyright © 2000. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and
Global Change
==================
(6) THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD - A SUMMARY
From www.co2science.org,
8 November 2000
The Medieval Warm Period was a period of time during the 9th
through 14th
centuries A.D. when global temperatures reached levels that were
from 0.5 to
1.0°C warmer than they are presently. The degree of
warming varied from
region to region; and, hence, its consequences were manifested in
a number
of different ways. In Europe, for example, temperatures
reached some of the
warmest levels of the last 4,000 years, allowing enough grapes to
be
successfully grown in England to sustain an indigenous wine
industry (Le Roy
Ladurie, 1971). Contemporaneously, horticulturists in China
extended their
cultivation of citrus trees and perennial herbs further and
further
northward, resulting in an expansion of their ranges that reached
its
maximum extent in the 13th century (De'er, 1994).
Considering the climatic
conditions required to successfully grow these species, it has
been
estimated that annual mean temperatures in the region must have
been about
1.0 °C higher than at present (Hong et al., 2000), with extreme
January
minimum temperatures fully 3.5 °C warmer than they are today
(De'er, 1994).
In North America, tree-ring chronologies from the southern
Canadian Rockies
have provided evidence for higher treelines and wider ring-widths
between
950 and 1100 A.D., suggesting warmer temperatures and more
favorable growing
conditions (Luckman, 1994). Similar results have been derived
from tree-ring
analyses of bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of
California, where
much greater growth was recorded in the 11th and 12th centuries
than both
before and afterwards (Leavitt, 1994).
Tree-ring records from Siberia also reveal warming during the 9th
through
12th centuries A.D. that was "longer in time and similar in
amplitude" to
that experienced there in the 20th century (Naurzbaev and
Vaganov, 2000).
Additional data, derived from borehole measurements in Greenland,
indicate
that temperatures over the ice cap were as much as 1°C warmer
than at
present around this time (Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998).
The Medieval Warm Period was a hot time in portions of the
Southern
Hemisphere as well. Tyson et al. (2000) analyzed oxygen and
carbon-stable
isotope data from a well-dated stalagmite located in a cave in
South Africa
and found that temperatures there were as much as 3-4°C warmer
than they are
now during this significant climatic epoch. Cioccale (1999), in a
review of
climatic conditions in Argentina, also noted that warmer
temperatures
prevailed in that country from the latter part of the first
millennium until
about 1320 A.D. This benign climate was further characterized by
"an episode
of major climatic stability, with very scarce extraordinary
floods and few
droughts."
Other data document vast glacial retreats during the Medieval
Warm Period in
parts of South America, Scandinavia, New Zealand and Alaska
(Grove and
Switsur, 1994; Villalba, 1994); and ocean-bed cores suggest
Atlantic sea
surface temperatures were warmer then as well (Keigwin, 1996a,
1996b).
Perhaps the best evidence to date that the Medieval Warm Period
was indeed a
global phenomenon comes from the study of Huang and Pollack
(1997). Using
6,144 sets of heat flow measurements from every continent of the
globe,
these authors produced a global reconstruction of ground surface
temperatures over the past 20,000 years. Describing their
dataset as
"independent of other proxy interpretations [and] of any
preconceptions or
biases as to the nature of the actual climate history," they
found strong
evidence that the Medieval Warm Period indeed existed, was global
in extent,
and was perhaps as much as 0.5°C warmer than it was at the time
of their
study.
Interestingly, the warmer conditions associated with the Medieval
Warm
Period are known to have had a largely beneficial impact on
earth's plant
and animal life. In fact, the environmental conditions of
this time period
have been determined to have been so favorable that it is often
referred to
as the Little Climatic Optimum.
In the area of human enterprise, the climatic conditions of the
Medieval
Warm Period proved providential. The Arctic ice pack retreated
substantially, allowing the settlement of both Iceland and
Greenland; while
alpine passes normally blocked with snow and ice became
traversable, opening
trade routes between Italy and Germany (Crowley and North, 1991).
Contemporaneously, on the northern Colorado Plateau in America,
the Anasazi
Indian civilization reached its climax, as warmer temperatures
and better
soil moisture conditions allowed them to farm a region twice as
large as is
presently possible (MacCracken et al., 1990).
So what was the cause of this globally-warmed period? It
certainly wasn't
CO2, for atmospheric CO2 concentrations varied but little (± 10
ppm) from
their global average of about 280 ppm. One possibility has
to do with
changes in the global thermohaline circulation (Broecker et al.,
1999).
Another possibility relates to changes in the energy output of
the sun.
Tyson et al. (2000), for example, note that the warm temperatures
observed
in South Africa during the Medieval Warm Period correspond well
with the
Medieval Maximum in solar sunspot activity. Similarly, Hong
et al. (2000)
note that "there is a remarkable, nearly one to one,"
correspondence between
solar variability and climate observed in China during this time.
In light of the above evidence, the Medieval Warm Period does
indeed appear
to have been a time in which near-surface air and water
temperatures were
warmer than they are presently; and there would seem to be
sufficient
evidence to also conclude that this benign climatic epoch was
global in
scale.
References
Broecker, W.S., Sutherland, S. and Peng, T.-H. 1999.
A possible
20th-century slowdown of Southern Ocean deep water formation.
Science 286: 1132-1135.
Cioccale, M.A. 1999. Climatic fluctuations in the
Central Region of
Argentina in the last 1000 years. Quaternary International
62: 35-47.
Dahl-Jensen, D., Mosegaard, K., Gundestrup, N., Clow, G.D.,
Johnsen, S.J.,
Hansen, A.W. and Balling, N. 1998. Past temperatures
directly from
the Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 282: 268-271.
De'er, Z. 1994. Evidence for the existence of the
medieval warm period in
China. Climatic Change 26: 289-297.
Grove, J.M. and Switsur, R. 1994. Glacial geological
evidence for the
medieval warm period. Climatic Change 26: 143-169.
Hong, Y.T., Jiang, H.B., Liu, T.S., Zhou, L.P., Beer, J., Li,
H.D., Leng,
X.T., Hong, B. and Qin, X.G. 2000. Response of
climate to solar
forcing recorded in a 6000-year delta18 time- series of Chinese
peat
cellulose. The Holocene 10: 1-7.
Huang, S. and Pollack, H.N. 1997. Late Quaternary
temperature changes seen
in world-wide continental heat flow measurements.
Geophysical Research
Letters 24: 1947-1950.
Keigwin, L.D. 1996a. Sedimentary record yields
several centuries of data.
Oceanus 39 (2): 16 - 18.
Keigwin, L.D. 1996b. The little ice age and the
medieval warm period in
the Sargasso Sea. Science 274: 1504-1508.
Le Roy Ladurie, E. 1971. Times of Feast, Times of
Famine: A History of
Climate Since the Year 1000. Doubleday, New York, NY.
Leavitt, S.W. 1994. Major wet interval in White
Mountains medieval warm
period evidenced in delta13 of bristlecone pine tree rings.
Climatic
Change 26: 299-307.
Luckman, B.H. 1994. Evidence for climatic conditions
between ca. 900-1300
A.D. in the southern Canadian Rockies. Climatic Change 26:
171-182.
MacCracken, M.C., Budyko, M.I., Hecht, A.D. and Izrael, Y.A.
(Eds.). 1990.
Prospects for Future Climate: A Special US/USSR Report on Climate
and
Climate Change. Lewis Publishers, Chelsea, MI.
Naurzbaev, M.M. and Vaganov, E.A. 2000. Variation of
early summer and
annual temperature in east Taymir and Putoran (Siberia) over the
last two
millennia inferred from tree rings. Journal of Geophysical
Research 105:
7317-7326.
Tyson, P.D., Karlen, W., Holmgren, K. and Heiss, G.A.
2000. The Little Ice
Age and medieval warming in South Africa. South African
Journal of
Science 96: 121-126.
Villalba, R. 1994. Tree-ring and glacial evidence for
the medieval warm
epoch and the little ice age in southern South America.
Climatic Change
26: 183-197.
Copyright © 2000. Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide
and Global Change
==============
(7) THE 'HOCKEY STICK': A NEW LOW IN CLIMATE SCIENCE
http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/hockey/hockey.htm
The new dogma by both the IPCC and US National Assessment is that
the
Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age during the last
millennium never
happened. Their claim is both false and politically
inspired......
=============
(8) AND FIANLLY: THE PROOF IS IN THE DISPROOF
From The New York Times, 12 November 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/reviews/001112.12papinet.html
The Proof Is in the Disproof
To Karl Popper, falsifiability, not verifiability, is the essence
of
science.
By DAVID PAPINEAU
In 1945 an unknown Austrian emigre working in New Zealand
published 'The
Open Society and Its Enemies.' It was the perfect rallying cry
for the
incipient cold war. The book compared democracies founded on
rational debate
with authoritarian governments. Nazism was bad, and Communism no
better,
because they both suppressed the freedom that made open societies
worth
living in.
'The Open Society' quickly transformed its author, Karl Popper,
from an
obscure academic into a public figure. As it turned out, his
political
theories were something of a sideline, an outgrowth of his
primary interest
in the philosophy of science. He had already published 'Logik der
Forschung'
('The Logic of Scientific Discovery') in Austria in 1935. This
inverted the
traditional idea that science proceeds cautiously from facts to
theories.
Instead, science starts with bold speculation but is always ready
to abandon
any views that are falsified by experiment. The community of
science was
thus the epitome of the open society, recognizing no authority
but logic and
experimental falsification.
In the postwar years each twist and turn of Popper's thinking was
dissected
by his many followers. By contrast, comparatively little has been
known of
his life before 1945. But now one can consult Malachi Haim
Hacohen's 'Karl
Popper -- The Formative Years, 1902-1945.' Hacohen has labored
long and hard
in the archives, and the result is a magnificent work of
scholarship.
Karl Popper was born in Vienna. His father, an assimilated Jew,
was one of
the most prosperous lawyers in the city, and Popper grew up in an
apartment
of 20 rooms, with a library of 14,000 books. But this life did
not survive
World War I. His father's fortunes waned, and Popper's education
was
disrupted. By the end of the war he was flirting with Communism
and living
in a radical commune. He remained on the Socialist left through
his 20's,
occupying himself with social work and educational reform. He
attended
university in fits and starts, developing many interests,
especially in
mathematics and science. The question of scientific innovation
began to
engage his attention, and he worried about its relation to the
essentially
conservative view of the human mind taught by his Kantian
professors.
The young Popper was something of an intellectual loner,
restless, arrogant
and apt to take offense. There was little to suggest his future
eminence
until he came within the ambit of the Vienna Circle, the renowned
group of
philosopher-scientists whose mission was to replace traditional
metaphysics
with the clean worldview of modern science. 'Verification' was
the motto:
anything that cannot be verified by scientific methods is
nonsense. But the
motto threatened to undermine science itself. Since scientific
theories
always extrapolate beyond the data, can they themselves be
verified?
Popper saw his chance. His earlier theorizing had focused his
attention on
scientific change, and this suggested a better way of
distinguishing science
from metaphysics. The essential feature of science was not its
verifiability, but its falsifiability. Maybe science can't be
proved. But
what makes it different from other modes of thought is its
openness to
experimental disproof. It was an intriguing twist; Popper's
seniors in the
Vienna Circle took notice, and in due course 'Logik der
Forschung' appeared
in a series of Circle publications.
Soon there was an added urgency to the fight for academic
recognition. The
political situation was worsening, and the future looked bleak
for a leftist
thinker with a Jewish background. Along with many others, Popper
looked for
jobs abroad. He visited England and made important contacts, but
it was a
desperate scrabble, and in the end he and his wife were happy to
find a
junior post in New Zealand. He did not see his mother again, and
16 of his
uncles, aunts and cousins died at the Nazis' hands.
Hacohen, who teaches history at Duke University, takes Popper's
significance
for granted as perhaps the greatest philosopher of the 20th
century. But
this judgment is highly doubtful. As Hacohen recognizes, Popper's
standing
must rest on his philosophy of science, not on the relatively
derivative
political writings, and his account of science is fundamentally
flawed. It
can seem plausible to view science as a succession of brave
conjectures and
honest refutations. But few philosophers today think that this
explains the
worth of science [aha, I understand: the majority is right and
Popper's
theory must consequently be flawed - what a convincing
method of
falsification; BJP]. The whole point of science is to provide a
trustworthy
guide to the future (sic), not a series of hopeful guesses.
Hacohen
recommends Popper's critical rationalism over the
poststructuralist
relativism that dominates so much of the modern academy. But,
behind the
stylistic differences, there is little to choose between the two
philosophies, for both deny that it is possible to identify the
truth.
Attitudes toward Popper's standing are likely to influence
responses to this
biography. Hacohen's achievement is not in question. This
splendid work
would be worth reading for the background alone. The depiction of
interwar
Vienna makes our contemporary intellectual life seem thin by
comparison. But
when it comes to Popper's personality, opinions are likely to
divide. By
Hacohen's own account, Popper was a monster, a moral prig. He
continually
accused others of plagiarism, but rarely acknowledged his own
intellectual
debts. He expected others to make every sacrifice for him, but
did little in
return. In Hacohen's words, 'He remained to the end a spoiled
child who
threw temper tantrums when he did not get his way.' Hacohen is
ready to
excuse all this as the prerogative of genius. Those who think
Popper a
relatively minor figure are likely to take a different view.
When Popper wrote 'Logik der Forschung,' he was barely 30.
Despite its
flawed center, it was full of good ideas, from perhaps the most
brilliant of
the bright young philosophers associated with the Vienna Circle.
But where
the others continued to learn, develop and in time exert a
lasting influence
on the philosophical tradition, Popper knew better. He refused to
revise his
falsificationism, and so condemned himself to a lifetime in the
service of a
bad idea.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
David Papineau is professor of the philosophy of science at
King's College,
London. His most recent book is 'Introducing Consciousness.'
Copyright 2000, The New York Times
[Sorry Professor Papineau, but I feel you missed the point: to
Karl Popper,
falsifiability was not "the essence of science," as you
claim - but the
essence of the scientific method. I am not aware of any other
method used by
the scientific community, BJP].
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