By Jo Nova
For the first time Antarctic ice core teams have got hold of ice that is 3 million years old and the results have confounded them
The way CO2 responds in ice cores is canon to “the faith” so this is more important than it seems at first glance. Believers are really struggling.
Three million years ago the world was warmer, and about to cool into the violent ice age cycles. The ice core experts were expecting to confirm that CO2 levels were about 400ppm, as other proxies had shown, and they thought that greenhouse gases might fall and lead the cooling shift. But instead of CO2 being at 400 parts per million, and then leading the cooling, the bubbles trapped in ice were only 250 parts per million to start with and they stayed constant through important temperature swings. Sacre Bleu! CO2 did not appear to have any role in causing the warmth that was, or the cooling that followed. And nor did methane. O’ the dilemma?
Some sacred cows have to be sacrificed. Either CO2 is not a major driver of climate change, or the ice cores are wrong (or both!).
Watch the last few addicts coping with this news. Follow the ‘reasoning’ — it still “might” be worse than we thought, you know! I mean, it’s possible, that tiny changes in CO2 that are too small to measure could be affecting the Earth…
It’s like the homeopathy of climate science, except homeopathy has more data to support it.
It’s a cult :
Ice core reveals low CO2 during warm spell 3 million years ago
By Marissa Grunes, New Scientist
“We definitely were a bit surprised,” says Marks-Peterson. If correct, the findings may suggest that even small changes to greenhouse gas levels could trigger major shifts in climate. “Maybe the Earth system is even more sensitive to changes in CO2 than we have understood,” she says. “That’s a little bit of a scary thought and something that I would say that our record can’t answer yet.”
“Ultimately, any new data that suggests Pliocene CO2 levels were lower than previously expected means future climate change might be worse than previously expected,” says Cristian Proistosescu at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study.
Click to enlarge
But choosing sacred cows is quite the dilemma, because the ice cores are sacred too. The Vostok graphs were the core propaganda graph of climate change even before The Hockey Stick. Then they starred as a giant extravaganza in the Al Gore documentary. So every other way we have of guesstimating ancient levels of CO2, like stomata and alkenones, are considered fine until they disagree with the ice cores, then everyone forgets they exist.
These proxies below in the graph — are all the esstimates of the atmospheric levels of CO2 3 million years ago. Obviously, there is quite a lot of data suggesting that CO2 was 400ppm at the time. And since temperature causes CO2 to rise, we’d expect CO2 to be higher in a warmer world.
So maybe these proxies are right. Either way, CO2 is still a minor player.
…
For those wondering where they can find ice that’s up to 6 million years old — the cores were dug at Allan Hills where strong winds stop new snow from depositing on top of the ice core, preserving the really old ice somewhere near the surface.
But this study is quite the spanner in the works.When forced to choose between the ice cores and “CO2 as Earths control knob”, surprisingly the ice cores are more important to the believers . And the second Nature paper released actually considers whether CO2 is a driver rather than toss out the ice core graph — even wondering out loud if the power of CO2 was weak…
There are three possible explanations for this tight balance: (1) it reflects the CO2-thermostat responding to a decline in CO2 sources; (2) it reflects the CO2-thermostat responding to an increase in continental weatherability; and (3) the CO2-thermostat is weak and CO2 sources and sinks are invariant and constant over the past 3 Myr.
— Marks-Peterson (2026)
The Blasphemy…
At least one science writer got the idea that CO2 could be the main driver today, but not 3 million years ago. Those laws of physics you know, switch on and off:
By Jess Cockerill, ScienceAlert
The rapid climate change we are experiencing today is mainly driven by the greenhouse gases we humans keep releasing into the air.
But new evidence from ancient Antarctic ice cores suggests this wasn’t always the case for the past three million years of Earth’s changing climate.
According to the findings of two new papers published in Nature, at certain transition points ocean temperatures could have had a greater influence over Earth’s climate than greenhouse gases.
Lordy! Imagine the oceans being more influential than a trace gas at 0.04%?! What was she thinking….?
REFERENCES
Marks-Peterson, J., Shackleton, S., Higgins, J. et al. Broadly stable atmospheric CO2 and CH4 levels over the past 3 million years. Nature 651, 647–652 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-10032-y
Shackleton, S., Hishamunda, V., Yan, Y. et al. Global ocean heat content over the past 3 million years. Nature 651, 653–657 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10116-3
Even though most research these days is designed to produce findings that support the accepted dogma, it is embarrassing when the results are not fit for purpose. However, if the researcher (as opposed to scientist is agile enough, embarrassment can be avoided by doing pirouettes in the point of a pin.
460
For those with an gardening bent …
I have oil being produced by my Dicksonian fern stalk.
Its about 1.2m tall but has been dead for 12 years. Only the stalk remains.
However, it produces fern oil.
Ferns are mostly lignin and if there is no white fungus around I assume it will merrily produce C6-C12 oils for a few thousand years….
May need it for the diesel genny.
Obviously it must be producing CO2 emissions and will be banned by Lily, 40ft above the bed, D’Ambrosio.
or maybe it somehow uses the CO2 to make oil?
expect dead fern stalks everywhere….
50
Models have proven that the CO2 3 million years ago was weaker than today’s CO2. Problem solved. (/sarc)
20
Even more to the point about data correctness, ice core temperatures in Greenland and Antarctica show divergence, implying different histories due to climate variance factors, the Gulf Stream and isolation of the southern continent. In general ice core data is now considered suspect because Jaworowski (2009) showed false low CO2 levels due to bubble contamination in Greenland cores and that these cores show inverse correlation between CO2 levels and load pressure: whereby the deeper the ice, the greater the pressure resulting in gas loss and thus lower CO2 levels. Other workers have reported significant equilibration (30-50%) loss of CO2 occurred by diffusion over 100-300 years of snow compression to firn then ice at depths of 80-100m. In deep ice, pressure ensures air bubbles disappear and solid clathrates form further lowering CO2 levels.
This data is confirmed by other proxies such as Stomata and even direct readings over the last 150 years that all show the atmosphere has much more CO2 up to 400ppm well before our modern warming era from 1975. Thus, whilst ice core temperature records are considered correct, the CO2 record is highly suspect and along with it the whole AGW theme. Co2 is a follower of temperature not its driver and its IR warming potential-ECS in any case is very weak due to saturation in the IR spectrum. Isn’t modern science wonderful the deeper you dig into the data the more truth you extract!
10
Do I detect a little whiplash in their results!!!!! 🙂
280
In the immortal words of that breakfast cereal song: Snap! Crackle and Pop!
After 38 years of repetition, the holy dogma is as vacuous as the day Hanson Mann Gore conjured it: “The rapid climate change we are experiencing today…”
180
That is reinforced by the self-evident truth that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Oh wait, I just remembered that was a marketing slogan introduced by Kellogg’s.
The lesson for the kids- don’t let trending indoctrination get in the way of the truth.
150
I can remember three ammonia plants being built by Kellogg (engineering) for ICI on Teesside in the late 1960s that were designed to run on North Sea gas,but until the gas was brought on-shore they were run on naphtha.
The plant operators had so many problems they’ve called the plants Snap, Crackle and Pop.
Once they were able to run on gas they worked perfectly.
It’s so sad to see the decline of the chemical industry in Teesside. The factories at Billingham and Wilton were a real hive of industry with lots of jobs in a well-paid workforce, now a shadow of itself made worse by Mr M………
110
But, man-made CO2 is different to natural CO2. Simple physics really.
100
Yep, Natural sources of CO2 represent a minuscule 97% of the CO2 that enters the atmosphere but that has no effect on the climate . But NASTY human CO2 which represents a massive 3% of the CO2 entering the atmosphere has complete control of the climate and is the sole cause of ANYTHING unpleasant . ( sarc )
And good ole Aussie is 1% of that 3% !!! Just imagine how much effect that has on the temperature !
160
Ha, ha, ha.
ROTFLMFAO !!!!!
Sucked in, eh.
Oh, how the “experts” have FAILED.
Again.
110
https://notrickszone.com/2026/03/18/new-research-south-australias-mid-holocene-sea-surface-temperatures-were-4c-warmer-than-today/
A new sea surface temperature (SST) reconstruction (Pan et al., 2026) uses mollusc fossil evidence to affirm southern Australia’s (Yorke Peninsula) SSTs were 4°C warmer than today (23°C versus 19°C) during both the mid-Holocene (MH, 8000 to 5000 years ago) and Last Interglacial (LIG, 125,000 to 116,000 years ago).
170
Sorry, elgordo.
You posted this yesterday (Wed) late.
60
Not a problem, Ocean Heat Content (OHC) might become a talking point in Canberra.
41
Oh no, it couldn’t be the sun that determines the earth’s average temperature, could it?
250
Our colleague Rick Will would probably agree with you, but I’m more inclined towards oceanic oscillations being the main drivers of temperature.
ENSO is a prime example in the medium term, along with the North Atlantic Oscillation, both produce a quick response.
51
I tend to believe that it’s a combination of all the ocean circulations, not just the two main ones.
10
Agreed, the influence of the PDO and AMO over a 30 year period, negative and positive, are just as important. There was a dramatic jump in temperature around the Great Climate Shift of 1976, when the PDO took on a positive hue.
31
El Nino generally shows a spike in world temperature.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2026_v6.1_20x9-scaled.jpg
21
Again, the co2 Coalition Scientists have also shown that the Eemian ( 130 K to 115 K years ago) temperatures were 8 c higher than our Holocene today.
And even Wiki tells us Eemian SLs then were 6 metres higher then than today in 2026.
And even their ABC Catalyst program tells us that SLs on our east Aussie coast were 1.5 metres higher than today about 4,000 years ago.
Again, co2 levels were about 280 ppm during those earlier periods.
Just unbelievable but true, although it may confuse our delusional left wing loonies.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
180
And the polar bears survived the Eemian!. Supposedly during the Eemian Polar temps were 6 deg warmer and tropical temps 2 deg warmer. CO2 followed the temperature rise from about 260ppm to the heady heights of 290ppm…. And as far as I know, no one was driving naughty petrol cars…
The Eemian does suggest that natural factors induce climate changes and these have an effect on CO2. Strange that.
100
Fred and Barney Flintstone used feet power
20
Since the data conflicts with the Official Narrative, obviously the data is wrong.
Solution: Change (homogenise as the BoM calls it) the data to make it conform to the Official Narrative and then it will be right.
250
Don’t forget that altering the data to fit the Official Narrative is simple and regularly practiced by Klimate Kultists.
For example this fine example by Michael Mann and associates and the IPCC vs real data.
https://share.google/46PewZmjphh89FuLX
80
Read that again! Temperature causes CO2 to rise.
As TdeF has been saying over and over again.
It is generally believed by Climate Scientists that approximately 1/2 of our CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere and half of the emissions go into the sea or other sinks. The maths work out that way.
But if we assume that CO2 is in rapid equilibrium with sea water ( the assumption is well supported by the C14 data following cessation of the atmospheric nuclear tests) then it turns out that human emissions are not enough to explain the current atmospheric CO2 levels. CO2 must also be coming from somewhere else and that somewhere is the sea!
In other words. As Jo has stated above increasing Temperature causes CO2 to rise.
291
I have another absurdity with the 1/2 of emissions absorbed each year.
Firstly, fossil fuel CO2 is IDENTICAL to any other CO2. (except that it is not radioactive, one molecule in a trillion)
So 50% of ‘emissions’, fossil fuel CO2 disappears into the ocean and sinks each year and 50% remains in the air permanently, 50% of ALL atmospheric CO2 must also disappear into the oceans and sinks each year without return.
Atmospheric CO2 would halve each year! Which is ridiculous.
This fantasy idea of gaseous equilibrium exchange is just nuts, non science.
And the idea that the ocean is already full of CO2 and can absorb no more is nuts. The simple pH of 8.0 says it’s not true. Soda water has a pH of 4.0. (Coca Cola pH without things like Phosphoric acid)
Coca Cola at a pressure of only 2.5 atmospheres, a pressure achieved at a mere 15 metre of depth means a bottle of Coca Cola has an amazing 6 litres of CO2 gas dissolved happily! And 99.5% of the ocean has pressures exceeding 2.5 atmospheres, so it has limitless ability to absorb CO2. The oceans cannot be full.
To check this amazing capacity to absorb CO2, drop in menthos.
130
You may be puzzled about this half absorbed, half not absorbed business.
As CO2 emissions are now 1% of atmospheric CO2 there is a simple accounting problem. 100 years of 1% would double CO2. But CO2 has only gone up 50%. Therefore half must be in the ocean. That’s the entire logic, not science. Just fit the inconvenient facts with a story. No science.
No concept of gaseous equilibrium and rapid exchange at a liquid boundary for a very soluble gas. No Henry’s Law connecting gas pressure, concentration and temperature. Not a shred of real science. Climate Science.
70
Oh NO:
You have started a new scam for the Greenies.
Climate Change causes CO2 to lose radioactivity.
Incidentally, when I was involved and we wanted extra 75% phosphoric acid (food grade) up to 360 tons for the coming year we were summarily dismisses as unimportant and 14th on the list of users. 6 of the first 7 were CocaCola bottlers. Not bad for a product with 0.45% acid.
Also, incidentally; in the early 70’s when a new labelling rule was introduced there was a certain agitation among CocaCola bottlers that their product could only be sold in Black Plastic containers with embossed Poison and a label saying that Keep out of Reach of children and if swallowed Seek Medical Advice.
50
Again, Ken Stewart also checked out many studies of Aussie SLs in our earlier Holocene period and the temperatures then were much higher than today in 2026.
Of course co2 levels then were about 280 ppm.
https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2021/08/23/the-worlds-biggest-thermometer/
50
I love how in the first 2 paragraphs Jo frames the discussion as if it’s some form of religion. Which it is! Like when John Howard was asked about man made climate change and he said he was agnostic on the subject. Which revealed 2 things. Firstly, that he really never believed in it and secondly the use of the term “ agnostic” indicated how the subject was more akin to religion.
200
Is this when the funny man in a red hat and cape jumps out declaring “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”? 🤪😳🥴
80
Jo continues to deliver Inconvenient Truths that threaten the movement’s seemingly theological foundations. It’s a recently concocted religion, much like Scientology. Hopefully, because it doesn’t have such deep roots, it will be easier to get rid of it.
100
“The rapid climate change we are experiencing today is mainly driven by… [insert preferred fake horror].
Middle-aged people and older have heard this proselytising for decades. If they think of their LIVED experience over the imaginings of ‘climate scientists’, they know that nothing has changed. Summer is still hot (sometimes hotter or cooler depending on the solar cycle), Winter is still cold (sometimes warmer or colder, depending on the solar cycle) and Autumn/Spring is still changeable (sometimes warmer, cooler depending…)
Mother Nature, once again, has made fools of the zealots.
110
We should start our planning for the global anniversaries in 2028
(1958) Even within the lifetimes of our children the Arctic Ocean may open
(1970) Scientists predict a New Ice Age
(1971) The world will be as little as 50 years from an new Ice Age
(1979) Scientists predict a New Ice Age
(1989) global warming and rising sea levels will wipe entire nations off the map
(1989) The Maldives and other atolls will be underwater by 2018
(1990) glaciers will be gone in 10 years
(2000) children in Britain won’t know what snow is by 2007
(2000) within twenty years, the Mediterranean would become far too hot for European holiday makers, who would instead flock to Blackpool to take advantage of warmer summers in the UK
(2004) Britain to have Siberian climate by 2020
(2008) the Arctic will be ice-free by 2008
(2010) the Arctic will be ice-free by 2013
(2010) Greenland Ice Sheet has less than 10 years – The entire mass of Greenland will disappear if temperatures rise as little as 2℃.… unleashing a sea level rise of 7 metres by 2020.
(2018) we only have 10 years to save the World
(2020) we only have 6 months to save the planet.
130
Quickly, I must find another migratory bird to eviscerate!
30
Don’t forget
(1986) Atmospheric CO2 levels have already reached runaway greenhouse levels
60
That is absolutely true, Jaye. I was born in Glasgow in 1940, lived in Fort William until I was four, moved to Swansea until the end of the war, then back to Scotland. I remember those early years, in the 40’s, being warm in summer and cold in winter with plenty of snow. And as I moved into my teenage years, from 1915 to 1920, the weather moderated with both highs and lows retreating somewhat. It was forever like that as I moved through adulthood to my present “mature” years, with cyclic variations that, to my memory, show no significant changes. Very few of those now panicking about a 0.5° change would have my lived experience.
100
Peter
A couple of dates look like they need correcting –
” I was born in Glasgow in 1940,”. ” my teenage years, from 1915 to 1920, “
00
More proof that there has been no recent acceleration in SLR and the Dutch Engineers’ study has now been published.
This is from the trustworthy Clintel group of Scientists.
So why is there no acceleration in SLR due to higher levels of co2?
And why are many of the stupid OECD countries still wasting trillions of $ for a guaranteed ZERO return?
https://clintel.org/breaking-no-acceleration-in-sea-level-rise-detected-worldwide/
70
Whaaaat! I thought CO2 was a control knob. LMAO.
40
This is not new news for the High Priests of the cult Michael Mann and Lee Kump in their book Dire Predictions published in 2008. On pages 84-85 they say the anomalies in climate trends versus CO2 over the geological history of the Earth are yet to be explained (extended periods of high temperatures and low CO2 —500ppm and low temperatures and high CO2–2000 ppm). Mann is the architect of the disputed hockey stick graph that eliminated known warm periods over the last few thousand years. It appears the empirical. evidence is still inexplicable! Maybe it says the mantra is just plain wrong!
70
Ah, yes, I remember. Russian hackers downloaded all the abusive emails to scientists who disagreed with Mann, the practical guide to disenfranchising those who disagreed with him, the hockey stick where he removed particular years as ‘anomalous’, like 1816, 1942, 1963, the Little Ice Age, all to support his scurrilous claims.
He should be fired from the University of Pennsylvania and jailed on scientific fraud charges, that include a penalty for all the money wasted on his bullshit.
130
Around before and after Copenhagen COP – called Climategate 1 & 2
40
Every story, every photo, every piece of ice in Antarctica is about water, not CO2. Earth is a water covered planet, 72%, 74% with Antarctica a South America sized continent covered with a 3.5km iceblock. And vast oceans to an average depth of 3.5km and often 7km and sometimes 11km. At 1 atmosphere per 10 metres, this means water outweighs the thin air above by 350:1. And water is the third biggest gas in the air. Not clouds but as gas. 1% to 4%. Even across the deserts of Australia, water is 1% of the air. (Not across the true deserts of North Africa and the Middle East though where humidity is 0.0%. )
And water gas absorbs most of the back radiation Infra Red, not CO2. At many frequencies not a single narrow and saturated band. At 250 to 1000x the weight, far lighter than O2, not heavier like CO2, water is the great greenhouse gas.
Also with 4x the specific heat, its capacity for heat absorption without warming much is immense, 350×4 or 1400x that of the air. The vast turbulence of rapidly rising hot air which drives tornadoes, storms, hurricans with rapid updrafts do not happen. And only the very surface of the ocean can radiate heat.
Rather heat in the ocean moves in giant 3D currents like the Gulf Stream. And given the oceans contain 50x as much CO2 as the air, we should look to ocean current to explain CO2 changes, not tiny human activity which at a record high is only 1% per year of atmospheric CO2, which means 0.02% of total CO2. And the ocean surface never gets hot enough to radiate much, so no Greenhouse effect with back radiation for most of the planet. Rather the albedo effect from reflecting ice across the continent which is Antarctica or the effect of clouds which simply block incoming light.
Still alleged Climate Scienctists look for proof of a critical role of small variations in CO2 in climates across the planet. Good luck with that. Like a dog chasing its tail, frustrated. Still, 38 years since man made world ending CO2 driven Armageddon was invented, the funding is good. And Australia as we have just seen, after spending so many hundreds of billions to achieve Australian energy independence, we now must be close to total freedom from imported gas and oil. We only have to wait a little longer for Snowy II to start generating free electricity forever.
220
Has Australia yet spent $1Trillion in taxpayer dollars to achieve total carbon energy independence? Or is it $500Billion? We can laugh at those poor sods sweating on oil shipments from the Middle East. Soon we will be exporting our carbon free energy around the world as the world’s only renewable energy superpower. I do hope though there is a money back guarantee on all those windmills and solar panels?
240
Including legislated by Labor 2017-2013 Governments Renewable Energy Target 32% and transition to renewable energy away from fossil fuels.
50
I find it funny that, while all the attention on ice cores is focused on CO2 levels, almost no mention is made of the other data collected from those same samples, particularly the determination of temperatures.
It was the comparison of CO2 changes to temperature changes in Vostok ice core data that originally identified that temperature changes always occurred first. CO2 changes lagged consistently by about 600+/-400 years. This paper seems to avoid mentioning temperature data that should also have been determined.
What most climate scientists ignore is the scale of those temperature changes. Between ice ages and interglacial periods, they amount to 9-12 degC. Comparing the equivalent change in CO2 levels, measured at between 190 and 280 ppm, shows the absurdity of the climate science religion. Even accepting the consensus view of climate sensitivity, there has simply never been enough change in atmospheric CO2 levels to account for the huge temperature changes.
Any suggestion that only small changes in CO2 can trigger global climate changes only invalidates everything that the IPCC has stated about climate sensitivity for the last 40 years, and would also invalidate every single climate model in use today!
140
The either/or isn’t needed: both sacred cows should be barbecued.
Not many here will leap to the defence of cow #1, but a few here seem to believe in #2. The more I read about how ice cores are analysed, the less convinced I become.
Here’s the claim for paleo temperatures: you measure the proportion of the ice containing heavier isotopes. These molecules are heavier and take more energy to lift, so more of the heavier water in the core means it must have been hotter at that time.
Sounds plausible, but only if you ignore obvious confounding factors. The clothes on the line dry quicker on a mild, windy day than on a hot, still day. The isotope ratio reflects a jumble of temperature, humidity and wind strength, at the very least. I would dearly like to hear how the ice cores can tell us why a change in isotopes is not due to a change in wind or humidity rather than temperature.
That’s a big problem aired.
To dip into another, Jo says:
The winds do that today, but they haven’t kept it swept clean for millions of years. The reason they believe the ancient ice is near the surface today is (more or less) because of turbulence in the glacial flow, with layers tumbling and folding on each other.
I wonder what all that tumbling does to the “timeline”…
Like most of the climate stuff, a lot of the ice core story seems more like tea leaf reading, or looking for patterns in clouds.
90
You are quite right Robert, and I investigated the ice cores in detail in the book chapter I wrote for the IPA a few years ago. I should dig that work out…
All the paleoclimate proxies are loosely calibrated (or at least mentally judged) compared to the ice cores, so if the ice cores are not ideal, or have some smoothing, capping, limits or non-linear behaviour — a lot of data suddenly might look different. This is why the climate scientists are possibly even more welded to the ice cores than they are to CO2 as a thermostat. It is core to the whole belief network.
I think any stomata samples that disagreed with the ice cores were probably just not published — binned as an artifact.
But you are right, if the wind direction changes over the ocean, then the ice cores are suddenly recording the temperature (so they say) of a different piece of ocean. There are many big variables at work here.
130
Don’t forget that Biden yapped about the EXISTENTIAL threat for Humans if we didn’t DO SOMETHING about his dangerous CC.
So can anyone explain why Humans today have much more food available or our daily per capita protein supply?
And in most continents there seems to be a big INCREASE in daily per capita protein supply after 2009.
Why is it so? And why is their so called dangerous CC among the missing today?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-protein-supply?tab=line&country=ZAF~OWID_WRL~OWID_AFR~OWID_OCE~Europe+%28FAO%29~Asia+%28FAO%29~South+America+%28FAO%29~Northern+America+%28FAO%29~AUS&mapSelect=~ZAF
60
I know enough to say: it may be important but I don’t know what it means.
The options seem to be:
1) CO2 change is a climate driver
2) CO2 change is not a climate driver
3) CO2 change is a symptom of something else that is driving the climate
I will say this: we’re not yet at the stage of even understanding how CO2 change does/doesn’t affects/is effected by climate let alone being able to predict future climate change.
To use an analogy we’re at the stage of sailing when they had no maps, no compass and so no way to navigate.
41
its all about the sun – that is sufficient to explain everything
90
And the oceans which store 99.9% of all incident solar heat. For a very long time.
00
If you take “climate change” to be change over periods of at least a decade. If you take the start of climate science as 1970 and, you assume that you need at least 10 points even to guess at a relationship and 20-30 to be sure, we aren’t going to be having even good guesses at what actually changes climate till at least 2070 and won’t be sure until 2270.
I would leave it a bit before jumping in with such a strong statement.
10
All very interesting. I think I partially understand carbon dating being something to do with comparative radioactive decay of different isotopes. But I know my understanding is only partial and how they calibrate their calculations is beyond me.
I am yet to achieve even a basic understanding of how any of the other common proxy measurements work.
You can tell what the temperature was a million (or whatever) years ago by looking at bubbles of air inside buried ice? Really?
You can tell what the temperature was a million (or whatever) years ago by looking at tree rings? Really?
The researchers who study these things are seriously clever people. But I always come back to great intelligence enabling belief in really stupid things.
Thank heavens for the scientific method. Eventually it will guide us to objective reality.
30
The temperatures in the ice cores are actually from the layers of ice, not from the bubbles. They look at Oxygen-18 and Deuterium. The CO2 is from the bubbles, which may take years to seal over. So the resolution is not the same in the datasets of temp and CO2. One is from water, and the other from air.
There is some extreme chemistry and physics involved.
60
Thanks Jo. Do you have a link to a primer?
20
Maybe it was slow carbon cycle CO₂ in those days of yore when Tim Flim-Flam was still evolving from primitive slime.
30
I have been looking for and looking forward to the results from these recent ice core studies for some time (as posted a few weeks ago). I have been telling for years anyone who is sufficiently open minded to listen that temperature drives CO2 and not the other way round as was proved in the ice cores more than 2 decades ago. Perhaps we now need those same scientists and politicians who jumped on the bandwagon from the original findings of temperature and CO2 going up and down together to say – hey maybe we got it all wrong and CO2 does not drive Temperature? But whats the betting on those same people getting these papers withdrawn due to some “technical” problems with the data? Whilst we find it compelling and justification for our long term opposition to all this nonsense and to the classification of CO2 as a “pollutant” which it isn’t, there is plenty of very big money invested in the renewable energy area which should make it imperative for those people to get rid of this new “evidence” as fast as possible. This needs to be pushed out to the main stream as soon as possible – before it gets buried by massive counter arguments.
100
Quite right MR.
The problem of course is that the argument is political and not scientific. I put forward a hypothetical…
Voice of reason: the research shows that CO2 follows temperature
True believer: Ok. So what causes changes in temperature?
Voice of reason: Hang on I’ll get back to you
True believer: See. It’s actually CO2 causing the change in temperature which causes CO2. It’s a vicious spiral and we’re all going to fry.
The rhetoric truly is turtles all the way down. But the good news is that the science is progressing. Slowly but progressing.
70
the answer is that we havent fried yet – so its not going to happen – we are more likely to be heading into the next glacial phase
60
You and I know that as do nearly all regular contributors here.
My hypothetical true believer does not permit himself to know that.
30
Don’t forget that climate change “research” is an excellent source of funding for taxpayer-funded adventure holidays to the poles, exotic and remote islands, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Amazon Rainforest etc..
100
Also a useful implied threat to world tourism for Australia via GBR pushed often by climate politicians
60
Message for the Klimate Kult.
If the measured temperature data doesn’t match the Klimate Model, it is the model, not the data, that needs correcting.
120
Response? Who are you calling a cult you cultist. That’s all you deniers ever do. You just distract and abuse. I’m not going to dignify you with an answer.
But what about the question? Which needs correcting?
I’ve already answered your question. I don’t talk to name calling deniers.
Note to self: Isn’t the first sign of insanity talking to yourself? And the second sign is answering?
70
The irony/hypocrisy of calling someone a “name calling denier”. It looks like straight out hypocrisy. But I can’t discount the possibility that you were being ironical for the sake of humour.
The third sign of insanity is claiming you have answered a question when you haven’t.
30
Well now, put that climate based political campaign on ice.
70
I had hopes for Canavan, but he is also ignorant.
‘However, the Queensland Senator told Sky News Sunday Agenda that his views had been misrepresented.
“Yes, there is an impact on the climate from higher amounts of carbon dioxide,” Mr Canavan said.
“My question here has also always been how significant that is and what we should do about it.” (SKY)
01
Why aren’t the climate models open source for all if it’s the end of the world if we don’t spend the trillions?
Whom is lobbying for this?
81
Climate science in a nutshell.
40
They really bend over backwards to keep believing in their idee fixe, don’t they? Normal people would consider that losing your credibility.
40
“Ultimately, any new data that suggests Pliocene CO2 levels were lower than previously expected means future climate change might be worse than previously expected,” says Cristian Proistosescu at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the study.
Who are these people?
They talk like maroons.
Worse than what?
The last Ice Age?
Gee Cristian, climate change has already been better than you you climate change scientists expected hasn’t it?
Maroons.
As a peasant, especially since circa 2009 or 10, the managerial intelligentsia just sound increasingly maroonic.
I think CERN really f-ed something up.
And another thing …
going on all the time about one thing or another being the single “driver” of variation in probably the central most complex system we are able to observe … is also maroonic.
50
Thank you Jo,
I can glimpse the truth finally.
The important next step in in the U.S.
The senate Democrats are still clinging to the Mafia inspired slogan in 1961 “vote early, vote often”.
The I.D. democratic vote must be won.
11