Global Warming 'Splained

[code1211]

You are reading the instrument record of the current times vs the proxy temps of the past. Comparing a progression of climate measured by one method and then switching at any point to different data collection technique invites error. The proxy temps of current show that the temperature now is lower than in the past.

It is certainly the case that if one is using one method and then aburptly switches to another method, that extreme care must be employed to insure the integrity of the data and the projections made from such data. This simply isn't an issue with the graph in question which employs a multitude of proxies for pre-instrument data, and in fact does not quit using much of the proxy data during the transition to modern data representations, it merely overlays and highlights the instrument measurements because we are certain of their degree of precision and accuracy. Now it is rare that proxy information is used for the most modern data points (those of the last 50 years or so), primarily because we have much greater coverage and precision with the instrument data. This said, climate science isn't resting on past accomplishments and is continually looking for new pre-instrument proxies and testing and refining the reliability and accuracies of all proxy measurements and benchmarking them against the instrument standards.
I am certainly no expert on the broad spectrum of proxies, but I am familiar with the overall procedures and processes, so if there is any specific and particular proxy issues that you would care to discuss in more detail I would be happy to share my understandings and provide references for my understandings where possible.

Anecdotal evidence supports this as glaciers that are receeding now are receeding to points that they were at many thousands of years ago.

If the receeding glaciers of today are put forth to prove warming, then the proof that they advanced from points we are now at at a point in the past has to be, by the same logic, that the climate at that time was dropping and has remained low until now.

If that is the case, and it is, then this is far from being an Anthropogenically induced departure from the normal state of things. If anything, this would show that we are simply riding the global and natural cycle of climate variation.

Ötzi the Iceman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The global average records are what they are, but there are issues that many forget about when looking at issues like Otzi. It must be understood that regional warmings and coolings happen despite global trends and events. Issues like the Medieval Optimum and the LIA clearly demonstrate that regional and even hemispheric anomalies occassionaly buck the global trends causing some areas to experience decades or even centuries worth of cooling or warming, while the overall planetary trend is different.

And of course, regardless of records of the past. We understand and can demonstrate the atmospheric "greenhouse effect," we can measure the precise levels of GHGs in the atmosphere, and we can compellingly demonstrate with multiple lines of evidence precisely where those gases are coming from. So even if we throw out ever bit of mountain range of evidences prior to 1800. We can still compellingly support and demonstrate the scientific basis of AGW, its causes, its ultimate results and the needed actions to remediate the worst of its potential impacts.

We can indeed. We can also compellingly demonstrate that predicted outcomes of those Scientific bases deviates from the actual performance of the climate.

One must wonder if the actual performance is wrong or if the predictions are wrong.

 

[code1211]

We seem to be about 16 degrees cooler right now than we were about 50 million years ago.

Conservationists of that age would be panicking over how cold the Earth is right now.

Around 50 million years ago, we were in the midst of a GHG induced planetary thermal maximum extinction event, similar, but generally of a lesser magnitude than the one we are currently inducing upon the planet's climate. Actual measurements indicate that the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) was between 4° and 8°C (7.2° - 14.4° F) it took a few 100K years to return to (pre)historical norms after it peaked.

Here's a bit more information on that event if you'd like to figure out whats in store for the next few 100s of thousands of years on our planet, if we don't get our act together pretty quickly:

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: A Perturbation of Carbon Cycle, Climate, and Biosphere with Implications for the Future - http://973.geobiology.cn/photo/2011050939692101.pdf

After looking at these, it is important to remember that these circumstances were caused by a temp. change of 4-8°C over 10,000 years, we may well see that happen over the next 60-70 years,...and that's just the beginning.

Actually, the "beginning is the rise of temperature over the last 2000 years which is 0.7 degrees.

 

[code1211]

You are reading the instrument record of the current times vs the proxy temps of the past. Comparing a progression of climate measured by one method and then switching at any point to different data collection technique invites error. The proxy temps of current show that the temperature now is lower than in the past.

It is certainly the case that if one is using one method and then aburptly switches to another method, that extreme care must be employed to insure the integrity of the data and the projections made from such data. This simply isn't an issue with the graph in question which employs a multitude of proxies for pre-instrument data, and in fact does not quit using much of the proxy data during the transition to modern data representations, it merely overlays and highlights the instrument measurements because we are certain of their degree of precision and accuracy. Now it is rare that proxy information is used for the most modern data points (those of the last 50 years or so), primarily because we have much greater coverage and precision with the instrument data. This said, climate science isn't resting on past accomplishments and is continually looking for new pre-instrument proxies and testing and refining the reliability and accuracies of all proxy measurements and benchmarking them against the instrument standards.
I am certainly no expert on the broad spectrum of proxies, but I am familiar with the overall procedures and processes, so if there is any specific and particular proxy issues that you would care to discuss in more detail I would be happy to share my understandings and provide references for my understandings where possible.

Anecdotal evidence supports this as glaciers that are receeding now are receeding to points that they were at many thousands of years ago.

If the receeding glaciers of today are put forth to prove warming, then the proof that they advanced from points we are now at at a point in the past has to be, by the same logic, that the climate at that time was dropping and has remained low until now.

If that is the case, and it is, then this is far from being an Anthropogenically induced departure from the normal state of things. If anything, this would show that we are simply riding the global and natural cycle of climate variation.

Ötzi the Iceman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The global average records are what they are, but there are issues that many forget about when looking at issues like Otzi. It must be understood that regional warmings and coolings happen despite global trends and events. Issues like the Medieval Optimum and the LIA clearly demonstrate that regional and even hemispheric anomalies occassionaly buck the global trends causing some areas to experience decades or even centuries worth of cooling or warming, while the overall planetary trend is different.

And of course, regardless of records of the past. We understand and can demonstrate the atmospheric "greenhouse effect," we can measure the precise levels of GHGs in the atmosphere, and we can compellingly demonstrate with multiple lines of evidence precisely where those gases are coming from. So even if we throw out ever bit of mountain range of evidences prior to 1800. We can still compellingly support and demonstrate the scientific basis of AGW, its causes, its ultimate results and the needed actions to remediate the worst of its potential impacts.

Otzi's body was found on bare ground where he sat down to die. The snow fell around him and a glacier formed over him. It stayed there for 5000 years.

Are charchterizing a 5000 year old persistant glacier as a regional anomoly which acted in varience to the temperature of the globe?

 

[code1211]

All of this sounds very scientific and logical.

However, the current warming period that we are enjoying and which followed the Little Ice Age started before the Industrial Revolution...

In order to keep your statement scientific and logical, either the previous warming had to end to start "the Little Ice Age," or the LIA was a minor regional event within the previously intiated warming.

That is, it started before the vast burning of Fossil Fuels. It has continued with some ups and downs at a pretty consistant rate in spite of increasing CO2 levels.

Actually there appears to be both a degree of accuracy, and several incorrect statements in these two sentences. But if you can provide some compelling and verifiable evidences (or references) to support your assertions, I would appreciate the opportunity to examine them.



again, a curious mixture of what appears to be accurate (the last sentence) and what seems to be irrelevent and/or inaccurate, but please provide the evidences/references which you feel compellingly supports your assertions.

The Scenarios and the resulting predictions put forth by Dr. James Hansen in 1988 were based on the theories that you promote above and were wrong.

Please demonstrate and support the errors you perceive or the published peer citations of the papers which refute Dr Hansen's work.

If Hansen's predictions had been based on calcualtionns that I could have done on a bar napkin with a ball point point pen a list of the average temperatures since 1880, I would have produced a more accurate prediction.

Please link to your personal journal published research which supports the above assertions

RealClimate: Hansen’s 1988 projections

This is a link to Realclimate which is a proponent of the AGW Theory and tries valiantly to show that Hansen was not wrong. They fail.

In business, there are methods of reviewing performance against historicals and projections. Deviation from the prediction must be quantified. For ease of description, a plan or a budget coul be called a path. Actual performance vs the path could be described as a drunk stumbling down the path. The degree of deviation from the path is what triggers corrective action and the degree of the correction needed.

In business it is valuable to understand both what the deviation is and what the causes of the devaiation might be. Since contol of reaction to deviation is the goal in business, any chart of deviation must organize the data and average it to determine a baseline.

Organizing the data from greatest to least and identifying the mean allows a manager to create both the upper control and lower control limits. Any data outliers will be exposed as anomolies and the other bits of data will fit in or expose the areas that need to be addressed.

So, by taking all temperature data and arranging it from greatest to least will describe the mean. Adding the avaialble temps and averaging gives a base line within any measured time span. Multiplying the mean by pi gives the upper and lower control limits.

By doing this, a graph of temperatures will be created that shows a gradual rise and, with some variences, a pretty consistant rate of rise.

This method, which is simple and standard throughout the business world, a world in which accurate measurements are critical to success since the theory means little and the outcome means all, produces time and again an accurate and dependable guide to the amount of and intensity of response to any problem.

It also is a more accurate predictor of temperature than Hansen's models and is what I was referring to as the "back of the napkin" calculation. Because the temperatures leading up to 1988 from 1880 created an identifiable "path", extending that path into the future is all that was required to accurately predict the temperature in 2010.

It works!

Hansen's method did not.

 

[daveman]

No, bowedbydick, that one was the kookster. But just so you don't feel left out, I found a good picture of you dressed up for a night on the town.

Your masterful use of language and logic have nearly convinced me of the rightness of your views. I'm considering buying a Prius.

 

[boedicca]

Things are going to get more interesting soon:

A conservative group granted access to controversial climate change research documents from the University of Virginia on Wednesday says it will post those documents on the Internet, a move that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said wouldn't necessarily lead him to drop legal action seeking similar documents.

"Anything we get we are going to post," said David Schnare, an attorney for the American Tradition Institute, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January seeking documents related to former U.Va. professor Michael Mann, whose research on climate change has drawn the ire of global warming skeptics.

A Prince William County judge this week ordered the university to turn over documents the university believes are subject to public disclosure by Aug. 22. A separate order requires the university to allow the group to review documents it believes are exempt from public disclosure by Sept. 21.

The institute secured the release of documents similar to the ones denied to Cuccinelli by the courts last year. Cuccinelli said he needed the documents to determine if Mann defrauded taxpayers by taking state funds for his academic work....

Read more at the Washington Examiner: Judge orders U.Va. to release climate research documents | David Sherfinski | Virginia | Washington Examiner

 

[RollingThunder]

We understand and can demonstrate the atmospheric "greenhouse effect," we can measure the precise levels of GHGs in the atmosphere, and we can compellingly demonstrate with multiple lines of evidence precisely where those gases are coming from. So even if we throw out ever bit of mountain range of evidences prior to 1800. We can still compellingly support and demonstrate the scientific basis of AGW, its causes, its ultimate results and the needed actions to remediate the worst of its potential impacts.

We can indeed. We can also compellingly demonstrate that predicted outcomes of those Scientific bases deviates from the actual performance of the climate.

One must wonder if the actual performance is wrong or if the predictions are wrong.

That's your denier cult delusion but it has no basis in reality. The predictions of the climate scientists have proved to be pretty accurate. I've already been over this on this thread but I guess your reading comprehension is as retarded as everything else about you. So here it is again, post #84

Climate Models
(excerpts)

Climate Models and the Past

Dr. James E. Hansen used current theories based on greenhouse gases, changes in solar, volcanic, ozone, land use and aerosol concentrations to create temperature reconstruction of the last 130 years. Hansen's model is shown below as the black line. The blue line with stars is the actual temperature data we have. As you can see the model reflects the observed temperature data very well. This is very strong proof that the models do in fact work. What is especially striking is the fact that the models "are not statistical, but are physical in nature." Statistical models use training data to find correlations. For example a batting average in baseball is based off of ones batting history. This can be used as a statistical model to predict the future. A physical model of a player at bat would likely use equations based on the velocity of the baseball, force of the swing, etc and ignore the players batting history. The climate models used by the IPCC and NASA are not statistical models. NASA's climate models make their predictions based off of the laws of physics. Since the models are based off of physics comparing them to the past is almost as good as testing them with predictions of the future. Another advantage of physical models over statistical models is best described by physicist Ulf Bossel: "the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes." There may be gaps in our knowledge but once a mechanism is understood the physics used to describe that mechanism is not going to change.

Fig 1. Source: Hansen et al. 2005 doi:10.1126/science.1110252.

Past Attempts of Climate Models to Predict the Future

On June 23, 1988 James Hansen testified in front of congress on global warming. Hansen said he could state "with 99% confidence" that a long-term warming trend was underway, and he strongly suspected that the greenhouse effect was to blame. He provided the following graph as part of his Congressional testimony on global warming. (Figure 2) So fast forwarding 20 years later Hansen releases an updated version of his graph in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "Global temperature change". (Figure 3) Again his models are very accurate.

Hansen's Original 1988 Graph of Predictions

Fig 2. Hansen and Lebedeff, 1988

Hansen's 2006 Graph Confirming 1988 Predictions

Fig 3. Source: PNAS, Hansen et al. 103 (39): 14288. (2006)

Other Climactic Behaviors and Mechanisms Correctly Predicted & Reconstructed by the Models

Most notable is that the models have not only correctly predicted temperature trends but they've predicted how the earth will change. The following is a list of successful predictions made by the models:

Models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;

Models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere. For a while satellite readings seemed to disagree but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors due to changing orbit (gravity pulling on satellite), sensor issues, etc and on correction, this warming has been observed; Mears et al, Santer et al and Sherwood et al show that the discrepancy has been mostly resolved, in favor of the models.

Models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed.

Models have successfully reconstructed ocean heat content. (Fig 6)

Models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;

Models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this; (Figure 7)

Models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening; (Figure 8)

Models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and as you can see from figures 2 & 3, they have had a very good track record.


***

 

[daveman]

Things are going to get more interesting soon:

A conservative group granted access to controversial climate change research documents from the University of Virginia on Wednesday says it will post those documents on the Internet, a move that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said wouldn't necessarily lead him to drop legal action seeking similar documents.

"Anything we get we are going to post," said David Schnare, an attorney for the American Tradition Institute, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January seeking documents related to former U.Va. professor Michael Mann, whose research on climate change has drawn the ire of global warming skeptics.

A Prince William County judge this week ordered the university to turn over documents the university believes are subject to public disclosure by Aug. 22. A separate order requires the university to allow the group to review documents it believes are exempt from public disclosure by Sept. 21.

The institute secured the release of documents similar to the ones denied to Cuccinelli by the courts last year. Cuccinelli said he needed the documents to determine if Mann defrauded taxpayers by taking state funds for his academic work....

Read more at the Washington Examiner: Judge orders U.Va. to release climate research documents | David Sherfinski | Virginia | Washington Examiner

Odd, isn't it, that an endeavor that utterly relies on the open and free exchange of information to be successful (all the more so since the subject in question has such dire import for all of humanity) must be forced by a court to show how it's conducting business?

Very odd indeed.

 

[RollingThunder]

Actually, the "beginning is the rise of temperature over the last 2000 years which is 0.7 degrees.

That's even more retardedly wrong than is usual for you, codlicker.

World average temperatures varied somewhat over the last two thousand years but the long term trend was pretty flat for most of that time until the start of the current rapid increases in the 1800's. The temperature increases have accelerated over the last 40 years and the rate of increase is increasing. Temperatures have risen about 1.4 degrees F over the twentieth century with the majority of that increase happening over the last 40 years.

According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average….

According to the Global Historical Climatology Network, 2010 was the wettest year on record, in terms of global average precipitation….

All 12 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1997.

“Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia” - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 13252-13257, 2008.

 

[RollingThunder]

Otzi's body was found on bare ground where he sat down to die. The snow fell around him and a glacier formed over him. It stayed there for 5000 years.

Are charchterizing(sic) a 5000 year old persistant(sic) glacier as a regional anomoly(sic) which acted in varience(sic) to the temperature of the globe?

Just more of your ignorant idiocy, codlicker. The glaciers have been there in about the present form since the end of the last period of glaciation 12,000 years ago. Glaciers do advance and retreat a little over time naturally and there was a time 5 or 6 thousand years ago when it was locally a bit warmer in the Swiss Alps and there was a little bit of glacial retreat, not disappearance. A glacier nearby to the pass that 'Otzi' was trying to cross had retreated slightly making the pass passable and then the glacier advanced again. At least that's what the scientists think who studied him.

Of course as the glaciers melt, anything that was originally lost in the snow at the top will wind up on the ground. 'Otzi' could also have died crossing an extension of the glacier, his body was then frozen and buried in the falling snow and his body simple sank down to the ground as the ice melted away. Your denier cult fantasies about the matter are really silly and based only on your own total ignorance of science, history, geology and how the physical world actually works.

Valais ice monsters surrender human remains
Aug 4, 2009
(excerpts)

The steady drip-drip-drip of melting glaciers in the southern canton of Valais is having unexpected, often macabre, results: an increasing emergence of human remains.

At the end of July a mitten, a 40-year-old camera and a human bone were recovered in one location on the spectacular Gorner glacier above Zermatt.

According to Patrick Rovina, a scientific expert with the Valais cantonal police, such discoveries are a growing phenomenon.

"Over recent years with the retreat of the glaciers automatically things inside start appearing," he told swissinfo.ch. "Last year we had five cases with human bones like this one."

Bruno Jelk, head of the rescue services at Air Zermatt, confirmed this trend.

"People tell us they have found bones, old skis, clothes and other objects," he explained, adding that full skeletons have previously been found near the Matterhorn or on the Gorner glacier.

The Gorner glacier shrank by 290 metres between 2007 and 2008, according to scientists at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

 

[code1211]

We understand and can demonstrate the atmospheric "greenhouse effect," we can measure the precise levels of GHGs in the atmosphere, and we can compellingly demonstrate with multiple lines of evidence precisely where those gases are coming from. So even if we throw out ever bit of mountain range of evidences prior to 1800. We can still compellingly support and demonstrate the scientific basis of AGW, its causes, its ultimate results and the needed actions to remediate the worst of its potential impacts.

We can indeed. We can also compellingly demonstrate that predicted outcomes of those Scientific bases deviates from the actual performance of the climate.

One must wonder if the actual performance is wrong or if the predictions are wrong.

That's your denier cult delusion but it has no basis in reality. The predictions of the climate scientists have proved to be pretty accurate. I've already been over this on this thread but I guess your reading comprehension is as retarded as everything else about you. So here it is again, post #84

Climate Models
(excerpts)

Climate Models and the Past

Dr. James E. Hansen used current theories based on greenhouse gases, changes in solar, volcanic, ozone, land use and aerosol concentrations to create temperature reconstruction of the last 130 years. Hansen's model is shown below as the black line. The blue line with stars is the actual temperature data we have. As you can see the model reflects the observed temperature data very well. This is very strong proof that the models do in fact work. What is especially striking is the fact that the models "are not statistical, but are physical in nature." Statistical models use training data to find correlations. For example a batting average in baseball is based off of ones batting history. This can be used as a statistical model to predict the future. A physical model of a player at bat would likely use equations based on the velocity of the baseball, force of the swing, etc and ignore the players batting history. The climate models used by the IPCC and NASA are not statistical models. NASA's climate models make their predictions based off of the laws of physics. Since the models are based off of physics comparing them to the past is almost as good as testing them with predictions of the future. Another advantage of physical models over statistical models is best described by physicist Ulf Bossel: "the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes." There may be gaps in our knowledge but once a mechanism is understood the physics used to describe that mechanism is not going to change.

Fig 1. Source: Hansen et al. 2005 doi:10.1126/science.1110252.

Past Attempts of Climate Models to Predict the Future

On June 23, 1988 James Hansen testified in front of congress on global warming. Hansen said he could state "with 99% confidence" that a long-term warming trend was underway, and he strongly suspected that the greenhouse effect was to blame. He provided the following graph as part of his Congressional testimony on global warming. (Figure 2) So fast forwarding 20 years later Hansen releases an updated version of his graph in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "Global temperature change". (Figure 3) Again his models are very accurate.

Hansen's Original 1988 Graph of Predictions

Fig 2. Hansen and Lebedeff, 1988

Hansen's 2006 Graph Confirming 1988 Predictions

Fig 3. Source: PNAS, Hansen et al. 103 (39): 14288. (2006)

Other Climactic Behaviors and Mechanisms Correctly Predicted & Reconstructed by the Models

Most notable is that the models have not only correctly predicted temperature trends but they've predicted how the earth will change. The following is a list of successful predictions made by the models:

Models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed;

Models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere. For a while satellite readings seemed to disagree but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors due to changing orbit (gravity pulling on satellite), sensor issues, etc and on correction, this warming has been observed; Mears et al, Santer et al and Sherwood et al show that the discrepancy has been mostly resolved, in favor of the models.

Models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed.

Models have successfully reconstructed ocean heat content. (Fig 6)

Models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;

Models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this; (Figure 7)

Models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening; (Figure 8)

Models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and as you can see from figures 2 & 3, they have had a very good track record.


***

We know that Hansen could not predict the future of what climate will do. You are now saying that Hansen can predict the past of what climate did do?

This a joke, right?

Does he also have a fool proof system to predict what horses already won the Kentucky Derby? How about a model that predicts what the Stock Market did in the past. Can he predict who won the Super Bowls over the last 25 years?

Let's take the points and the Chiefs in Super Bowl IV.

My God! We'll all be rich!

 

[code1211]

Actually, the "beginning is the rise of temperature over the last 2000 years which is 0.7 degrees.

That's even more retardedly wrong than is usual for you, codlicker.

World average temperatures varied somewhat over the last two thousand years but the long term trend was pretty flat for most of that time until the start of the current rapid increases in the 1800's. The temperature increases have accelerated over the last 40 years and the rate of increase is increasing. Temperatures have risen about 1.4 degrees F over the twentieth century with the majority of that increase happening over the last 40 years.

According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average….

According to the Global Historical Climatology Network, 2010 was the wettest year on record, in terms of global average precipitation….

All 12 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1997.

“Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia” - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 13252-13257, 2008.

Again comparing instrument record to the proxy record and calling it science.

Interesting spin on propaganda.

If you are looking to cherry pick data, then do so and call it what it is. If you are looking to consistantly measure a trend using consistanly collected data, then do that.

Mixing the two is just an exercise in salesmanship.

 

[boedicca]

And the moronic TrollingBlunder posted a graph showing changes since the end of the Little Ice Age. Of course it's gone warmer. We should all be happy about that, as the warming improved agricultural productivity.

 

[code1211]

Otzi's body was found on bare ground where he sat down to die. The snow fell around him and a glacier formed over him. It stayed there for 5000 years.

Are charchterizing(sic) a 5000 year old persistant(sic) glacier as a regional anomoly(sic) which acted in varience(sic) to the temperature of the globe?

Just more of your ignorant idiocy, codlicker. The glaciers have been there in about the present form since the end of the last period of glaciation 12,000 years ago. Glaciers do advance and retreat a little over time naturally and there was a time 5 or 6 thousand years ago when it was locally a bit warmer in the Swiss Alps and there was a little bit of glacial retreat, not disappearance. A glacier nearby to the pass that 'Otzi' was trying to cross had retreated slightly making the pass passable and then the glacier advanced again. At least that's what the scientists think who studied him.

Of course as the glaciers melt, anything that was originally lost in the snow at the top will wind up on the ground. 'Otzi' could also have died crossing an extension of the glacier, his body was then frozen and buried in the falling snow and his body simple sank down to the ground as the ice melted away. Your denier cult fantasies about the matter are really silly and based only on your own total ignorance of science, history, geology and how the physical world actually works.

Valais ice monsters surrender human remains
Aug 4, 2009
(excerpts)

The steady drip-drip-drip of melting glaciers in the southern canton of Valais is having unexpected, often macabre, results: an increasing emergence of human remains.

At the end of July a mitten, a 40-year-old camera and a human bone were recovered in one location on the spectacular Gorner glacier above Zermatt.

According to Patrick Rovina, a scientific expert with the Valais cantonal police, such discoveries are a growing phenomenon.

"Over recent years with the retreat of the glaciers automatically things inside start appearing," he told swissinfo.ch. "Last year we had five cases with human bones like this one."

Bruno Jelk, head of the rescue services at Air Zermatt, confirmed this trend.

"People tell us they have found bones, old skis, clothes and other objects," he explained, adding that full skeletons have previously been found near the Matterhorn or on the Gorner glacier.

The Gorner glacier shrank by 290 metres between 2007 and 2008, according to scientists at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Of course you are right and those who observed the site saying that he was leaning against the rocks where he was found when he died and rigor set in and that his ax was leaning against the rock where he placed it must be wrong.

Do you ever get tired of reaching the wrong conclusion? Occam's razor tells us that the simplest conclusion is usually the right one. You are saying that warm pocket came into being and melted a glacier with surgical precision and that ol' Otzi happened upon the briefly exposed ground and died.

OR

That Otzi died on the top of the glacier and then through millenia of melting and re-freezing dropped through the glacier to come to rest in a posture and in a place that made it appear that he sat down on the bare ground and died.


Several proxies from around the world indicate that the temperature was higher at that time. Anecdotal evidence suggests the same. The posture and placement of Otzi says the same.

However, you and your agenda, passionately assert that only you are right despite the clear evidence to the contrary. You should keep pursuing science. Someday you might catch it.


File:Holocene Temperature Variations Rev.png - Global Warming Art

 

[edthecynic]

Again comparing instrument record to the proxy record and calling it science.

Interesting spin on propaganda.

If you are looking to cherry pick data, then do so and call it what it is. If you are looking to consistantly measure a trend using consistanly collected data, then do that.

Mixing the two is just an exercise in salesmanship.

Where the proxy data overlaps the direct instrument measurements, the proxy data is quite inaccurate. Proxy data is essentially worthless.

 

[Trakar]

Just more of your ignorant idiocy, codlicker. The glaciers have been there in about the present form since the end of the last period of glaciation 12,000 years ago. Glaciers do advance and retreat a little over time naturally and there was a time 5 or 6 thousand years ago when it was locally a bit warmer in the Swiss Alps and there was a little bit of glacial retreat, not disappearance. A glacier nearby to the pass that 'Otzi' was trying to cross had retreated slightly making the pass passable and then the glacier advanced again. At least that's what the scientists think who studied him.

Of course as the glaciers melt, anything that was originally lost in the snow at the top will wind up on the ground. 'Otzi' could also have died crossing an extension of the glacier, his body was then frozen and buried in the falling snow and his body simple sank down to the ground as the ice melted away. Your denier cult fantasies about the matter are really silly and based only on your own total ignorance of science, history, geology and how the physical world actually works...

Actually, this makes some sense, as glaciers move and if Otzi had been at the base of a glacier as it formed, or run over by a formed glacier there really wouldn't have been much to find, at least not a well preserved and virtually pristine corpse. I routinely retrieve "glacier gold" and one of the hallmarks of this type of gold it that it is flattened and crushed from being in amongst the gravel that is scraped up and carried along at the base of thick glacier ices. Even if we are just talking an ice cap feature rather than the slow moving rivers of ice that are glaciers, the weight of even a few tens of feet of ice would have crushed his frozen body flat. Ice weighs about 57 lbs/cubic foot. A column of ice 2 foot wide, 6 foot long, and 30 foot tall would be about 10 tons, more than enough to crush all the boney structures with voids and snap levered joints (skull, rib cage and all the small feature processes) and smash the frozen flesh, and yet none of this is indicated in the "Otzi" body.

 

[Trakar]

Again comparing instrument record to the proxy record and calling it science.

Interesting spin on propaganda.

If you are looking to cherry pick data, then do so and call it what it is. If you are looking to consistantly measure a trend using consistanly collected data, then do that.

Mixing the two is just an exercise in salesmanship.

Where the proxy data overlaps the direct instrument measurements, the proxy data is quite inaccurate. Proxy data is essentially worthless.

The thing about most proxy data is that it is imprecise exactly because it is an indirect measurement. Take tree-ring data, yes, warmer years tend to produce more growth (wider rings) than colder years, but there are also other factors that increase growth, such as more water, more CO2, etc.,. SOmetimes these factors work in conjunction to amplify each other, sometimes these factors are at odds with each other (ie a warm but dry season). That is why, the best pre-instrument assessments use lots of different types of proxies and then look for averages across the range.

 

[Metzor]

And the moronic TrollingBlunder posted a graph showing changes since the end of the Little Ice Age. Of course it's gone warmer. We should all be happy about that, as the warming improved agricultural productivity.

I see that you're still kickin' liberal ass. I'm gonna start posting more here.

 

[RollingThunder]

And the moronic TrollingBlunder posted a graph showing changes since the end of the Little Ice Age. Of course it's gone warmer. We should all be happy about that, as the warming improved agricultural productivity.

I see that you're still kickin' liberal ass. I'm gonna start posting more here.

Neither of you morons know your ass from a hole in the ground. Intellectually, both of you put together have about as much chance of kicking anyone's ass as a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest with lumberjacks.

 

[code1211]

Just more of your ignorant idiocy, codlicker. The glaciers have been there in about the present form since the end of the last period of glaciation 12,000 years ago. Glaciers do advance and retreat a little over time naturally and there was a time 5 or 6 thousand years ago when it was locally a bit warmer in the Swiss Alps and there was a little bit of glacial retreat, not disappearance. A glacier nearby to the pass that 'Otzi' was trying to cross had retreated slightly making the pass passable and then the glacier advanced again. At least that's what the scientists think who studied him.

Of course as the glaciers melt, anything that was originally lost in the snow at the top will wind up on the ground. 'Otzi' could also have died crossing an extension of the glacier, his body was then frozen and buried in the falling snow and his body simple sank down to the ground as the ice melted away. Your denier cult fantasies about the matter are really silly and based only on your own total ignorance of science, history, geology and how the physical world actually works...

Actually, this makes some sense, as glaciers move and if Otzi had been at the base of a glacier as it formed, or run over by a formed glacier there really wouldn't have been much to find, at least not a well preserved and virtually pristine corpse. I routinely retrieve "glacier gold" and one of the hallmarks of this type of gold it that it is flattened and crushed from being in amongst the gravel that is scraped up and carried along at the base of thick glacier ices. Even if we are just talking an ice cap feature rather than the slow moving rivers of ice that are glaciers, the weight of even a few tens of feet of ice would have crushed his frozen body flat. Ice weighs about 57 lbs/cubic foot. A column of ice 2 foot wide, 6 foot long, and 30 foot tall would be about 10 tons, more than enough to crush all the boney structures with voids and snap levered joints (skull, rib cage and all the small feature processes) and smash the frozen flesh, and yet none of this is indicated in the "Otzi" body.

Which is why the experts think that he was encased in snow and then frozen under the ice as the snow turned to ice around him. He seems to have made it to a bit of an alcove before finally succumbing.

If he had died atop the glacier and then descended by the melting and refreezing, wouldn't that expose him more to the crushing and grinding effects that you describe than simply being frozen in place within an alcove.

What are the chances that he and his ax wold have descended to the same alcove in the rock through the ice?