I gotta say --- I'm thrilled your here. I'm been asking for "better warmers" to discuss this with and you are a welcome relief from the juvenile and personal horsecrap that this forum has become on the GW topic.
I don't actually care that much for the "unprecedented", and would be perfectly fine with, "unprecedented, as far as our records show" or some amended version like that, if that removed your acrimony over the implied claim to knowledge that may not be there.
Fact is there are no methods to build a GLOBAL record with the resolution and accuracy to MAKE comparisons. And this knowledge SHOULD have been presented for what it was. An estimate of LONG TERM MEAN temperatures during those periods. The fact that each of these had the modern instrumentation tacked onto the right side of the graph is a sign of desperation and bad judgement -- if not outright corruption of scientific integrity...
THAT --- solves my "acrimony"...
On the other hand, if there's no known forcing that gets into the earth's system an amount of energy to cause a 1°C temperature increase, and then gets that energy out of the system again, and all in, say, 250 years, and leave no other traces, I'd say, that claim to "unprecedented" warming stands on sturdier feet. Still, I am not interested in quibbling about this, but was interested if there was more information behind your criticism.
I'm honestly NOT impressed by 0.6degC in our lifetimes. It's EASILY explained by a combination of natural variation and increased "insulation" from GHouse gases.. I gave you the BASIC calculation.. The FIRST doubling of CO2 since the Industrial Age has not yet occurred. That's 280 to 560ppm.. We won't hit that til WAAAY after 2050.. And the NEXT doubling will require we go from 560 to 1120ppm just to get the NEXT degree. At that rate -- there would not BE a TOP SHELF GWarming crisis with international attention..
Not sure that it NEEDS an explanation. Or at the VERY LEAST -- I'm CERTAIN as somebody who's invested heavily in this topic for 15 years with an EXTENSIVE science background --- that the more important thing is to FREE the appropriate communities to do GOOD GENERAL science on the thermal dynamics of the climate system as a whole. And I read THOSE sources quite a bit. Tend to ignore the OVER-HYPED public debate.
Just shortly, so maybe we get somewhere: There's but two plausible ways to get that energy into the system, increased irradiation, or energy trapped in the system. Agreed? We know the sun follows very regular cycles. So does the earth's orbit. I've seen nothing in that, or a combination thereof, that would account for such a short-term (in geological time scales) event, and of the required magnitude. That leaves energy trapped, presumably by an increase in greenhouse gases. The only candidate for that would be methane, because it might build up, and dissipate, on that time scale. The problem with that is that there is probably no explanation for the generation of such enormous amounts of methane that doesn't have other, detectable causes. CO2 it cannot be, because the required causes would be detectable (burning enormous amounts of wood or coal, or volcanism on that scale would leave traces in sediments), and it would linger for thousands of years. Increased concentrations of water vapor would be a consequence of warming, rather than the cause thereof.
You're asking for empirical confirmation that this relatively minor fluctuation is unique. I can't give you that. In fact, we''ve only had adequate tools in orbit to study the atmos and the sun from space for just 30 years. You ask for a lot here. You also make the mistake of calling it a "short term" event. It STARTS in a temperature of the LIAge about 1700.. Since then, the run-up of Total Solar Insolation (NOT SUNSPOT COUNTS, but actual radiation flux WITHOUT the baseline removed) has taken a step-up of about 1.2W/m2 at the surface.
Since we're looking to explain a forcing of about 3W/m2 to get the temp rise. This is UNDOUBTEDLY a part of it. Especially since I laid out the fact that time to new equilibriums and storage and thermal distribution paths are complex and not simple linear relations. So there are DELAYS involved, transient instability effects and all things that occur in a complex system. In addition you have those 12 or 20 CYCLIC variations spinning around the calendars at different periods and VOILA -- once in a blue moon they align to force a temperature spike by virtue of system transfer function..
Besides if you ever studied linear/nonlinear/stochastic systems theory, you know that any system with storage (integration) WILL produce a continuous RAMP (like your temperature curve that you're sweating) to a STEP input. Along with the expected transients if it's "underdamped".. So the chart above shows you --- "a step input" that remained flat throughout the past 3 or 4 decades. And energy from that step is STILL being "stored" in the oceans. Even tho the TSI has been flat.. And LIKELY soon to be DECLINING if the latest predictions of a Solar Minimum are correct.
The problem with that is that there is probably no explanation for the generation of such enormous amounts of methane that doesn't have other, detectable causes.
You're kidding right? NATURAL methane seeps are a big source WITHOUT additional warming. And you have termites -- alone as just one ******* species --- as probably 2nd only to man in methane production. More growth -- more termites. And I'm not impressed or pleased with the "accounting" on mankind's contribution to "excess" CO2.. First of all it's only 5% of the TOTAL yearly carbon cycle. Nature is 85%. And secondly -- mankind gets "charged" for domestic animal farts when it FACT -- those domestic herds merely REPLACED buffalo and other gassy animals as far as the eye can see. Thirdly, the sketchy claim is made that man's "fingerprint" is on the "excess CO2/Methane in the atmos".. This is a weak argument since the Carbon isotopes used to point to "old carbon" are highly over-lapped and somewhat ambiguous, and that this fingerprint is virtually INDISTINGUISHABLE from old carbon being coughed up NATURALLY stored for millenia in ocean and land rifts and seams.
Even if we get there, a 1°C increase, that still leaves the problem that you'd have to get that energy out of the system just as fast. I, for one, don't have the first clue as to how that's supposed to happen. Even if we increased the amount of energy trapped in the system by way of feedback mechanisms, these would probably also linger and preclude the quick cooling.
Here's a clue. Every hour of every day the LWIR from the Earth is a NET LOSS to space. The GH causes NO surface warming. It merely IMPEDES the rate of the loss to space. The Earth will probably always have a net loss to space or we're doomed. Even IF the next doubling of CO2 to 1120 is hit -- there will still a MASSIVE loss to space. And on a day to day basis --- WATER VAPOR is bigger determinant of net loss to space than any other GH gas..
Are you aware of the prediction for an imminent new Solar Minimum? If not, be advise, should this happen -- you will see the equivalent of thousands of atom bombs worth of energy disappear from the climate system in the matter of 50 to 80 years..
All in all, I don't see a prehistorical hockey stick, broken off somewhere in the middle of the warming phase. That does not mean it's impossible. I'd still like to see how the like could happen.
It's easier than that. As I said if you look at LOCAL High Resolution proxy studies (not the Global crap) you will see AMPLE climate variability in the pre-man past. I'll post some up for you in awhile...
