Is this proof we didn’t warm the earth? asks the Daily Mail 26 March 2012. The question arose from a study reported in ScienceDaily 21 March 2012 and Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2012; 325-326: 108 DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2012.01.036.
Over the last 2,000 years there have been significant changes in climate including the Medieval Warm Period followed by the Little Ice Age. Proponents of man-made global warming such as the IPCC have claimed the Medieval Warm Period was a European, rather than a world-wide phenomenon, and could not be used as evidence for global warming without man-made emissions.
To test this hypothesis and see if the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were global phenomena, Zunli Lu, a geochemist at Syracuse University and colleagues have studied a rare mineral named ikaite that forms in cold water. Lu explained: “Ikaite is an icy version of limestone. The crystals are only stable under cold conditions and actually melt at room temperature”.
Lu’s team studied the mineral in the laboratory to see if it could be used as an indicator of the temperatures it was laid down in, and found that it could. They then studied ikaite in cores taken from sediment laid down over the past 2,000 years in Antarctica and concluded: “This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula”.
Editorial Comment: A climate change that included both Europe and Antarctica has to be a global change, therefore the Daily Mail is correct in asking its question. The Medieval Warm Period was as warm as the current warm period, but man-made emissions were limited to people breathing and lighting fires. There was no coal and oil-burning industry, and no-one driving cars and trucks.
Furthermore, the warm period did not come to an end because the kings of the day taxed carbon emissions. The warming and cooling were part of the on-going cycles of climate change such as the previous warm period that had occurred during Roman times.
This study is another reminder there are larger forces at work that change the climate than man can control. Humbling isn’t it? Perhaps we should concentrate on doing a better job with the things we can control, and humble ourselves before the Creator who truly can control the climate.
Evidence News 28 March 2012
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