Humble Clumps of Moss Yield Sobering Climate Surprises

[mamooth]

The only thing that`s left is "the rabbits up there like to eat dead but freshly exposed moss"...or similar brilliant "reasoning".

So that's your explanation as to why there's not a 100-foot-thick carpet of undecayed dead moss? The rabbits ate the dead moss, but not the live moss?

It's good to be on the side of reason. I just have to point out that dead moss decays or gets munched by tiny bugs fairly quickly, as in within a few decades. Bacteria and bug eggs survive a deep freeze with no problems, and revive with every thaw.

And again, this whole denialist theory doesn't make sense. If there were other warm thawed-out periods, why didn't any moss grow at those times? This magical denialist moss not only doesn't ever decay, it also conveniently doesn't grow new moss, even when conditions are right for growth.

 

[longknife]

A simple post gets 39 lengthy responses - that nobody but a very few seem to be reading?

 

[Abraham3]

Eleven different posters in three pages. That's fairly busy.

 

[flacaltenn]

The only thing that`s left is "the rabbits up there like to eat dead but freshly exposed moss"...or similar brilliant "reasoning".

So that's your explanation as to why there's not a 100-foot-thick carpet of undecayed dead moss? The rabbits ate the dead moss, but not the live moss?

It's good to be on the side of reason. I just have to point out that dead moss decays or gets munched by tiny bugs fairly quickly, as in within a few decades. Bacteria and bug eggs survive a deep freeze with no problems, and revive with every thaw.

And again, this whole denialist theory doesn't make sense. If there were other warm thawed-out periods, why didn't any moss grow at those times? This magical denialist moss not only doesn't ever decay, it also conveniently doesn't grow new moss, even when conditions are right for growth.

So you are guessing whilst PBear has lived and worked on similiar tundra for years.
In fact -- this whole zealot misinterpretation will soon be fading from view.. Because "the community" won't publicly flog their own out in the open..

An hour of pulling references seemed to show how badly you are guessing about moss decomp rates on open tundra..

http://www.rug.nl/research/ocean-ecosystems/publications/artikelen/roboplantecol1822006.pdf

A vegetation, climate and environment reconstruction based on palynological
analyses of high arctic tundra peat cores (5000 –6000 years BP) from Svalbard
J. Rozema1,*, P. Boelen1, M. Doorenbosch1, S. Bohncke2, P. Blokker1, C. Boekel1,
R. A. Broekman1 and M. Konert1


Peat formation in polar regions is much slower
than at lower latitudes, since tundra plant growth
is limited to a short and cold arctic summer.
However melt and rainwater in the soil above the
omnipresent permafrost layer at the depth of
10 –100 cm (Rønning 1996) helps to preserve dead
plant material. Once dead plant material has left
the active layer and forms part of the permafrost,
microbial and chemical decay is very slow or
absent, and preservation of organic plant matter
including pollen and spores is optimal.

In August 2000 a core was collected near Ny
A ˚lesund (78 N, 11 E) (Figures 2, 4b). The average
temperature for Ny A ˚ lesund in February, the
coldest month, is c. )15.0 C. In July, which commonly
is the warmest month, the average temperature
is c. +5.0 C. The core (Figures 2, 4, 6) taken
with a stainless steel corer, had a diameter of 40 mm
and was 9.7 cm deep. The lithology is as follows:
0 –3.8 cm: fresh moss peat, 3.8 –6.0 cm: strongly
humified peat, 6.0 –9.7 cm: silt.
Peat material for 14C dating was taken at 5.8 –
5.7 cm below the top of the core and was dated
280±45 BP, indicating an age of 490 BP (1460
AD), (BP Before Present is standardized at AD
1950) , for the lower part (9.7 cm) of the core. The
core was collected on a sun exposed dry arctic
heather site dominated by Cassiope tetragona with
a Salix polaris understorey

GrN-28890 4670±60 BP 3517 –3482 cal BC
Blomstrand 3479 –3369 cal BC
Collected July 2002

GrN-28891 5710±150 BP 4718 –4443 cal BC
Stuphallet 4421 –4395 cal BC
Collected July 2002 4387 –4371 cal BC
collected

GrA-20057 280±45 BP 1521 –1579 AD
Ny A ˚ lesund 1583 –1594 AD
Collected August 2000 1619 –1558 AD

GrA-20058 101±6 BP 1689 –1731 AD
Ny A ˚ lesund 1808 –1826 AD
Collected August 2000 1829 –1892 AD
1908 –1924 AD

The numbers I bolded above are radio-dated years of survival for OTHER sample cores at other similiar locations.
On ALL THOSE sites -- the dead moss had likely not been ice bound in modern times.

The resilience and functional role of moss in boreal and arctic ecosystems. - ResearchGate

The resilience and functional role of moss in
boreal and arctic ecosystems
Author for correspondence:
Merritt R. Turetsky
Tel: +1 519 824 4120
Email: mrt@uoguelph.ca
Received: 24 March 2012
Accepted: 11 June 2012

Because they produce biomass that, in general, decomposes slowly, mosses
over time also contribute to the formation of microtopography
maintenance of seasonal ice and permafrost, and the formation
of ombrotrophic conditions (see Section II). By contributing
to these key ecosystem attributes, mosses play a role in both
the resistance and the resilience of northern ecosystems.

The model simulations also both showed that
mosses were important to C and N accumulation. On the other
hand, our simulations did not provide clear indications of regime
shifts, even when the moss layer was completely removed. In the
HPM simulation, loss of moss did cause the system to stop accumulating peat,
but only c. 500–600 yr after the onset of the
disturbance. Even without moss, the simulated system functionally
remained a peatland for several centuries.

EVEN WITHOUT live material --- a peatland remained for several centuries above a permafrost line.

As for your question about why no LIVE moss? We don't know what ALL the samples showed. Just the ones with the "STUNNING" dates. Assuming the material is still there, one needs only to find ONE SAMPLE with a much younger date to disprove this whole theory. OR ---- since we know that 400 year "dead arctic moss" can be revived and brought to life.. It's quite possible that these older date samples did exactly that. Revive and regrow at 500 yr intervals or so.. OR --- maybe even 1000 yr periods !!! The radio dating would not discriminate these intervals -- only blur the life record into a single number. A number that because of how carbon works -- would favor the older dates even with several much more recent re-growing periods.

 

[skookerasbil]

More k00k losing Too......more fodder that the people who blindly follow the established narrative no matter compelling information presented to the contrary.......are mental cases.

I work every day for the past 28 years with OCD people. It doesn't matter what verbal or visual stimulus is put in front of them.....the obsessive-compulsive behavior remains. No amount of reasoning conveyed by anybody can change the dynamic of the thinking. One guy I provide services for waits for his bus to take him to his job and cannot sit still. Perseverates wildly that he fears the bus wont come. It matters not what my staff tell the young man. It is like a house is going to fall out of the sky and onto his head until he see's that bus pull up. Its a thought processing **** up.......OCD.........a mental disorder.


Sound familiar?



By the way.......pharmacological aids in the SSRO class are typically highly effective in interrupting the rumination of thoughts ( in many cases ), particularly for people without a concurrent disability..

 

[skookerasbil]

A simple post gets 39 lengthy responses - that nobody but a very few seem to be reading?

See my post above ( #45)......explains it all.


These people fall all over themselves to perpetuate the established narrative.

 

[Abraham3]

See my post above.

These people fall all over themselves trying to refute established science.

 

[skookerasbil]

See my post above.

These people fall all over themselves trying to refute established science.

fAiL


How much proof is there that global warming is man made?








That's "science" only to the k00ks!!!

 

[freedombecki]

Now hang on a millenium there pardner....

Is it just me? Or is there WAAAAY too much glee in the authors tone? Like he's found the magic bullet to nail every last denying skeptic out there?

Seems to me -- the whole theory is one big logical fallacy...
I have little doubt that the poor moss died 5000 or 40,000 yrs ago as measured..

But there is nothing in evidence to say that the ice that just melted to REVEAL the dead bodies was that old.
Surely, NEWER ICE could have recovered that dead moss many times WAAAY after it died.

((Dead moss tells no tales. And will still be dead no matter HOW many times you bury it in ice))

Say NEWER ICE that was created between the MedWarmP and today.. Or NEWER ICE that reformed ANYTIME since the last Ice Age after a period of intense warming.

Unless you got proof that this is 1st time that dead stuff was exposed since those dates --- you ain't got jackshit. Gloating about that NOW before all that is settled is just obscene and wee bit desparate... Don'tcha think?

There is lots more evidence, even way way farther north than where that moss was found just how temperate the climate has been for long periods.
I uploaded and posted some pictures I collected when I was stationed at the northernmost tip of Ellesmere Island, CFS Alert, next to the pole.
Like these tree stumps buried under just a few inches of sand:

Lower right, that`s Fort Conger at the Nares Straight looking across to Greenland. Lower left not far from AFB Thule are muskox skulls arranged in a circle. We found these all over the northernmost parts of Greenland.
Muskox need vegetation to survive, so do the rabbits...

and the Ellesmere Island wolves (lower right) would not even exist had there been no rabbits and no muskox to feed on....well sometimes we gave`m a "handout".
It`s amazing you can walk up to any of these animals and watch them dig up moss & roots under the snow or exposed sand.
Polar bears are the exception and I would not recommend to get any closer than that without some firepower:

PS.: None of us ever had to shoot one. A warning shot worked, but not the next time you run into the same bear. Unless you can escape with whatever you used for transportation it`s kill or be killed & eaten !

Anyway...that`s the way it is and has been long before "AGW" on the bare windward side.
The leeward sides are buried, often under kilometer thick ice.

The ice free regions have been like that even when the first arctic expeditions arrived there and that is well documented by Lieutenant Greely on the maps he drew.

Glaciers calve all the time

Even during the winter while it`s brutally cold. Sometimes so massively that it causes earth tremors. The rate at which they do is for the most a function of gravity and terrain gradient.
You won`t see any melt water running off most glaciers even during the summer:

To see that the best place is South Greenland which has an entirely different climate from the rest of Greenland.
I posted all that years ago...only to get stupid replies from the usual Wikipedia "experts" that claim to know the arctic better even though none of them ever even been there.

Those glaciers are beautiful, polarbear, along with your explanation from a field scientist's viewpoint. Thanks for showing indigenous species, too. I loved the hares and muskox. They're survivors up there.

 

[flacaltenn]

A simple post gets 39 lengthy responses - that nobody but a very few seem to be reading?

See what you did man? You're no different than that famous fight promoter Don King.
He had the "rumble in the jungle" -- you started the "thunder on the tundra"..

Or maybe "the blunder on the tundra" ????

And I read every WORD of my opponents posts. (Doesn't take long)