StudentOfClimatology

Pages magazine is not peer-reviewed, it's an open publication not a scientific journal. None of the articles provide publication history (date submitted, date accepted, and so forth). And when I tried to find some of the articles using Google Scholar they didn't turn up in the search results. Try for yourself and see if you get the same results.

Another thing - when I read over the list of papers I saw very few familiar names among those cited, and most of the prominent researchers in the paleoclimate research community were conspicuously absent. Interesting.

SOC this was definitely a swing and a miss for you.

Well, at least now I know you're pretty stupid. Not only is every paper fully documented and reachable via Google Scholar (do I really have to demonstrate this?), but you misinterpreted the conclusions of the Marcott et al 2013 study that you linked. Marcott et al 2013 agrees with the scientific consensus, which is that the HCO was clearly warmer than today, globally.

I'm sick of having to rehash the basics of paleoclimatology here. This research is easy to do. Use your brain.

No, it isn't. You said, and I quote, "[Current global temperature is] nowhere near the levels seen during the Holocene climate optimum (yet)." The paper I linked to says the exact opposite.

I thought you were referring to the quote about the Pliocene.

Regarding the Holocene climate optimum, your study is in the scientific minority, sorry. I just linked about 30 papers, including the beloved Marcott et al 2013, highlighting the consensus that current temperatures have not exceeded those observed during the Holocene climate optimum. The majority of the evidence points in this direction.

This is basically settled science, at this point. If I'd argued that we were currently warmer than the HCO in any academic thesis or presentation, I'd flunk unless I were to provide original research of my own. That's seriously way "out there".

This is the mistake you guys are making..PhillipS did not correctly interpret Marcott's smoothing algorithm.

Read Marcott's FAQ if you're having trouble interpreting it statistically.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/03/response-by-marcott-et-al/comment-page-1

Statement by Marcott et al:

Holocene Temperature Distribution: Based on comparison of the instrumental record of global temperature change with the distribution of Holocene global average temperatures from our paleo-reconstruction, we find that the decade 2000-2009 has probably not exceeded the warmest temperatures of the early Holocene, but is warmer than ~75% of all temperatures during the Holocene. In contrast, the decade 1900-1909 was cooler than~95% of the Holocene. Therefore, we conclude that global temperature has risen from near the coldest to the warmest levels of the Holocene in the past century. Further, we compare the Holocene paleotemperature distribution with published temperature projections for 2100 CE, and find that these projections exceed the range of Holocene global average temperatures under all plausible emissions scenarios.

Anyone arguing that today's temperatures are warmer than those observed during the Holocene climate optimum would be laughed at in any academic setting.

I can link more recent papers, but they basically reiterate what the former were saying, as this is basically settled science.

Why are those papers so ancient? Houghton came out before the big 90's warm-up. We are not 1.0C from the HCO, no way my man.

You sure don't understand context. Instrumental data is usually tuned to the proxy resolution used in the study. The best early/mid proxy resolutions are on the order of 50-200 years.

Most of the early/mid Holocene work was done from the 1970s to the 1990s. I can link more recent papers if you'd like, but they'll reiterate the same thing.

http://www.pages-igbp.org/calendar/127-pages/904-holocene-climate-change

Near the beginning of the current interglacial, global temperatures rose considerably about 10,000 years ago to usher in a period of time referred to as the Holocene. On the basis of temperature reconstructions derived from studies of latitudinal displacements of terrestrial vegetation (Bernabo and Webb, 1977; Wijmstra, 1978; Davis et al., 1980; Ritchie et al., 1983; Overpeck, 1985) and vertical displacements of alpine plants (Kearney and Luckman, 1983) and mountain glaciers (Hope et al., 1976; Porter and Orombelli, 1985), it has been concluded (Webb et al., 1987; COHMAP, 1988) that mean annual temperatures in the Midwestern United States were about 2 °C warmer than those of the past few decades (Bartlein et al., 1984; Webb, 1985), that summer temperatures in Europe were 2 °C warmer (Huntley and Prentice, 1988), as they also were in New Guinea (Hope et al., 1976), and that temperatures in the Alps were as much as 4 °C warmer (Porter and Orombelli, 1985; Huntley and Prentice, 1988). In the Russian Far East, temperatures are also reported to have been from 2 °C (Velitchko and Klimanov, 1990) to as much as 4-6 °C (Korotky et al., 1988) higher than they are today; while the mean annual temperature of the Kuroshio Current between 22 and 35 °N was 6 °C warmer (Taira, 1975), and the southern boundary of the Pacific boreal region was positioned 700 to 800 km north of its present location (Lutaenko, 1993). 10,000-year temperature history A graphical representation of the mean global air temperature that results from the amalgamation of these several records, as prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Houghton et al., 1990) indicates that temperatures during the Holocene maximum were warmer than those of the past few decades for a period of time on the order of several thousand years.

Bartlein, P.J., Webb, T., III. and Fleri, E. 1984. Holocene climatic change in the northern Midwest: Pollen-derived estimates. Quaternary Research 22: 361-374.

Bernabo, J.C. and Webb, T, III. 1977. Changing patterns in the Holocene pollen record of northeastern North America: A mapped summary. Quaternary Research 8: 64-96.

Bryson, R.A., and Swain, A.M. 1981. Holocene variation of monsoonal rainfall in Rajasthan. Quaternary Research 16: 135-145.

Ciais, P., Petit, J.R., Jouzel, J., Lorius, C., Barkov, N.I., Lipenkov, V. and Nicolaiev, V. 1992. Evidence for an early Holocene climatic optimum in the Antarctic deep ice-core record. Climate Dynamics 6: 169-177.

COHMAP Members. 1988. Climatic changes of the last 18,000 years: Observations and model simulations. Science 241: 1043-1052.

Crowley, T. J. and North, G.R. 1991. Paleoclimatology, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Davis, M.B., Spear, R.W. and Shane, L.C.K. 1980. Holocene climate of New England. Quaternary Research 14: 240-250.

Fabre, J. and Petit-Marie, N. 1988. Holocene climatic evolution of 22-23 °N from two palaeolakes in the Taoudenni area (Northern Mali). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 65: 133-148.

Hope, G.S., Peterson, J.A., Radok, U. and Allison, I. 1976. The Equatorial Glaciers of New Guinea. Balkema, Rotterdam.

Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J. and Ephraums, J.J. (Eds.). 1990. Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Huntley, B. and Prentice, C. 1988. July temperatures in Europe from pollen data 6000 years before present. Science 241: 687-690.

Kearney, M.S. and Luckman, B.H. 1983. Holocene timberline fluctuations in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Science 221: 261-263.

Korotky, A.M., Pletnev, S.P., Pushkar, V.S., Grebennikova, T.A., Raszhigaeva, N.T., Sahebgareeva, E.D. and Mohova, L.M. 1988. Development of Natural Environment of the Southern Soviet Far East (Late Pleistocene-Holocene). Nauka, Moscow, USSR.

Lambin, E.F., Walkey, J.A. and Petit-Marie, N. 1996. Detection of Holocene lakes in the Sahara using satellite remote sensing. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing 61: 731-737.

Lutaenko, K.A. 1993. Climatic optimum during the Holocene and the distribution of warm-water mollusks in the Sea of Japan. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 102: 273-281.

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.

Overpeck, J.T. 1985. A pollen study of a late Quaternary peat bog, south-central Adirondack Mountains, New York. Geological Society of America Bulletin 96: 145-154.

Petit-Marie, N. (Ed.). 1991. Paléoenvironnements du Sahara Lacs Holocenes a Taoudenni (Mali), Editons du CNRS, Paris, France.

Porter, S.C. and Orombelli, G. 1985. Glacial concentration during the middle Holocene in the western Italian Alps: Evidence and implications. Geology 13: 296-298.

Ritchie, J.C., Cwynar, L.C. and Spear, R.W. 1983. Evidence from north-west Canada for an early Holocene Milankovitch thermal maximum. Nature 305: 126-128.

Ritchie, J.C. and Haynes, C.V. 1987. Holocene vegetation zonation in the eastern Sahara. Nature 330: 645-647.

Taira, K. 1975. Temperature variation of the "Kuroshio" and crustal movements in eastern and southeastern Asia 7000 years B.P. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 17: 333-338.

van Zinderen Bakker, E.M. and Coetzee, J.A. (Eds.). 1980. Palaeoecology of Africa, v. 12. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Velitchko, A.A. and Klimanov, V.A. 1990. Climatic zonality of the northern hemisphere 5 or 6 thousand years B.P. Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Geographical Series, 5: 38-52.

Webb, T. 1985. Holocene palynology and climate. In: Paleoclimate Analysis and Modeling. A.D. Hecht (Ed.). Wiley-Interscience, New York, NY, pp. 163-196.

Webb, T., Bartlein, P.J. and Kutzbach, J.E. 1987. Climatic change in eastern North America during the past 18,000 years: Comparisons of pollen data with model results. In: North America and Adjacent Oceans During the Last Deglaciation. W.F. Ruddiman and H.E. Wright, Jr. (Eds.). The Geology of North America, v. K-3. Geol. Soc. Am., Boulder, CO, pp. 447-462.

Whyte, I.D. 1995. Climatic Change and Human Society. Arnold, London, UK.

Wijmstra, T.A. 1978. Paleobotany and climatic change. In: Climatic Change. J. Gribbin (Ed.). Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.

I would trust Drs. Hansen and Sato over you.

Source: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf

Did you even read my post? That's exactly what I said.

All I want are four peer-reviewed global (not regional) Holocene temperature reconstructions that refute the Marcott et al 2013 by showing that the peak global Holocene temperatures were warmer than current global temperatures. That should be a breeze for you, right?

Or possibly not. I did a cursory scan of the 198 papers that have cited Marcott et al 2013 since its publication and not one of your alleged 80% have published a rebuttal, or response, or critique, of the Marcott paper. Surely if it were as flawed as you claim at least one of your multitude would have pointed out the errors, if only to prevent others from being misled. Agree?

If you had read Marcott et al 2013, you'd know that he himself notes that we have not yet reached peak interglacial warmth. That RealClimate.com graph is misleading for obvious reasons.

But sure, I'll link you your studies.

I agree on an (eventual) stabilization, but I think it'll occur much later. Eventually, Antarctica will begin to warm as AGW overwhelms the stratospheric processes that are currently keeping that domain relatively cold.

There's also evidence for rapid changes to the Hadley Cells in the paleoclimate data, in response to various stimuli that include some of the forementioned processes. That alone could have enormous consequences in the future, if it occurs again.

Yep, and that's the risk we face going forward. We can handle a gradual AGW, but if the system decides to go into one of its feedback loops (as it often does, geologically speaking), then we have a problem.

Well, if you are correct about the 80% then you should find it easy to share four recent peer-reviewed papers that refute Marcott et al 2013. Otherwise, we can confidently assume you're just making things up again.

I could link 50 studies that reach a vastly different conclusion regarding the Holocene climate optimum and subsequent millennial variability. Is that what you want?

Probably 0.1-0.25C away from the HCO....exciting times indeed.

You're way out of the mainstream with this one, but it's not my job to govern your opinions. Good luck with your research.

Mindblown. Can we agree that the sky is blue?

We can agree that Rayleigh Scattering causes it to appear blue in the presence of solar radiation.

You are downplaying the 20th century warming too much. We need to warm by about 0.9C to surpass everything in the last 2.5 million years except the Eemian. I am using Hansen's (2013) dataset to formulate these numbers.

Please stop inventing crap like this. It's honestly annoying.

No one is downplaying the 20th century warming..we know how much the planet has warmed since 1850..about 0.85C, +/- 0.2C. It was a very rapid warming, largely an anthropogenic signal. But it's nowhere near the levels seen during the Holocene climate optimum (yet).

I love being brainwashed. Warm era of the Pliocene is a range of 3.8-1.8C, besides the Eemian interglacial peak, this approaching 1.5-2.0C range has been unchallenged territory for millions of years.

This is wrong. Three of the last five interglacials peaked at or above 1.5 degrees centigrade warmer than post-modern era. This is undisputed in the literature. The Holocene optimum wasn't quite as warm, but still peaked early in both the borehole data and the ice core data, well above current/post-modern era temperatures.

That would be borderline mid Pliocene temps. I want what your smoking.

Pliocene? Again, this is why a formal education would suit you well. Technically, the mid/late Pliocene was a glacial era.

The majority of the proxy data is fairly clear regarding the Holocene climate optimum. Paleoclimate is my area of study.

We'll be blowing past that very soon if we haven't done it already. There is only so much you can interpret from paleo and exact numerical measures of global temperature in small intervals is not one of them.

Yes, we'll eventually surpass the Holocene climate optimum. We'll need to warm at least 1 - 1.5 degrees centigrade, though.

Nope, you're wrong again. Marcott et al is a multi-proxy reconstruction, not ice core only like your plot. So it is both more representative of global temperature changes and it runs up to where it can be merged with the instrumental temperature record. This is why it gives an accurate indication of global temperature trends for the past 10K years.

That's bullcrap. Try telling any paleoclimatologist that we're warmer now than we were during the Holocene optimum..you'll get all sorts of funny looks.

Do you understand that the most recent data value in the GISP2 ice core is 1855? The last point is 95 years before the present, and the present was defined as 1950 by Dr Richard Alley, who led the ice core analysis team. So the plot you posted leaves off the most recent 160 years or so of the temperature record. That is the period during which most of the AGW warming took place so your plot is disingenuous at best. A better, more accurate, paleoclimate reconstruction would be either Marcott 2013, or Kobashi 2013 (though Kobashi is N hemisphere, not global).

That Marcott et al study depicting Holocene climate variability is at odds with ~80% of the peer reviewed literature in the paleoclimate arena. The consensus is the globe was at least 1 degree centigrade warmer during the Holocene climate optimum than it is now.

The best global climate proxies are in fact the isotope ratios found in ice cores. Not only are they preserved better via the lack of biological decay, but they represent a process that takes place from the equator to the pole itself.

How come the cloud cover data correlates really well to the observed temp trends between 1983-2009.

Let me guess, would this be the data derived from the ISCCP? Remember, the error potential on that dataset is very large..a full 1.5 standard deviations per each side of the trend-line. Using it to determine trend(s) in cloud cover alone, not to mention cloud cover by altitude, isn't smart or scientifically sound.

How come water vapor in the upper troposphere has declined.

This is far from certain. There is conflicting data amongst the four primary sonde reanalyses and many satellite suites as well.

CO2 increases means warming and more water vapor ....therefore every dataset than does not show this must be wrong.

What makes you think H^2O feedback is a linear process? The forecasted increases that matter all occur above 700mb, and there are a slew of factors that can alter mid/upper tropospheric H^2O content, including long term changes to the Brewer-Dobson circulation, aerosol production, solar forcing on O^3 photodissociation, etc.

The surface data is the best???That is laughable. 70% of the ocean covers the Earth and we know to a high degree of confidence what the ocean temps were 120 years ago???

The very satellite networks/sounding units that you personally employ to measure global lower tropospheric temperatures also measure SSTs. This data is fed into both NCDC and HADCRUT4. Why don't you trust those datasets?

GISS is the only surface dataset that employs ERSST3 as its primary source for ocean skin temperatures. This detracts from GISS's value, especially along land/sea boundaries and at the poles.

They don't. Quite simply stated.

Seriously, what is your motivation? There are a several things to be skeptical about in climate science, but you keep picking the losing arguments. Try working on ECS or TCR instead. I'd gladly have those debates with you. This is nonsense though.

SOC, I expect a detailed rebuttal from you on Blizzard's post, since you are an academic.

Are his posts really worth responding to? The various CFS reanalyses weren't designed to observe global temperature, but are there mostly as a result of the methods employed to improve initialization schemes. No one should be using it for measure climate change.

I would not be able to succeed in a traditional masters in science path. Regardless, my biggest strength is gathering/connecting information others have built and I believe I do this better than most.

Not surprised

In all seriousness, it would probably help you. Treat yourself with dignity and respect. Give it a try before jumping to conclusions like that.

I think I understand the climate system better than most, especially versus someone who only holds a mathematical degree, but it was accomplished on my own time and on my terms. I believe self-education is the new frontier, especially with the rising costs of college.

You might think that now, but you lack the perspective that only a legitimate education can give you. It shows, at times, too.

Climate science requires a unique type of person, one who can crunch the data and make broad-sweeping systematic interpretations and build a puzzle from scratch.

Not a certain type of person..a certain type of education. There are many potential deviations and moving parts within the realm of atmospheric science. The fundamentals are still the same, though.

There is no "climate science" degree..the atmospheric science degree is full spectrum. Additional degrees in physics and/or mathematics are helpful.

Don't waste your time responding. A full blown argument will ensue and someone will get banned. SOC is a contrarian, and that would be a generous title. Unfortunately for him, I cannot offer a benefit of the doubt due to past fiasco.

Looks like your sarcasm detector is broken. Skier was agreeing with me.

Blizzard1024 was using the highly-uncertain ISCCP dataset to argue for a net-negative low-cloud feedback to CO2 forcing, which is both risky and in contradiction to the vast majority of literature on the matter.

I'm tired of babysitting you, dude. Learn to comprehend what you read instead of letting your imagination take over.

I'm not making anything up man, do you really hate me that much? High here was 69, forecast was 63. Where it was warm, it overperformed and where it was cold it overperformed in the other direction.

This goes back to your obsession about the mid-atlantic being a little pocket of land from Woodbridge to Pikesville.

You've got me confused with someone else, regarding the geographical boundaries of the Mid-Atlantic. I remember that exchange and I had nothing to do with it.

I actually like you, personally, based on what I've read from you. I just think you'd make a better politician than a scientist, considering most of what you say is hogwash.