Comments on: Sci-AM: Confirming the importance of MBH 99

By: TCO

TCO — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 02:06:41 +0000

What was the science behind the 1990 IPCC claim? did they cite a study or do a new reocnsutruciton to get that 1990 result.

And if we accept the 2000 year hockey stick, is it reasonable? What it’s telling us about climate that is? Seems to be saying in the absence of man, that climate will not change much (at least nowadays). That seems like a checkable hypothesis. for instance do models show a chaotic or stable system?

By: SPQR

SPQR — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 20:57:59 +0000

I sure had the opinion that the IPCC was opining on global climate.

By: Peter Hearnden

Peter Hearnden — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:20:44 +0000

John, To what part(s) of the world did the IPCC chart you reproduce apply to? Why do you seem to me to think it was the last word in climate reconstruction? Is the implication that climate reconstructions get worse with time? If so what did we think (know?) about past climate in the 50′s and the 1700′s? Peter

John writes: As far as I recall the IPCC reconstruction of 1990 refers to global climate. I don’t think that climate reconstructions get worse over time. They were fairly good over a long period, then declined suddenly in a period we observers call "The Little IPCC Age" before recovering more recently to almost the quality that they were before. In all periods of climate history we thought that the modern version was better than the old, and that the sins of Mankind were causing the climate system to turn against us, and that we must repent of our sinful ways, lest we be stricken from the earth.

By: Chas

Chas — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 21:07:49 +0000

Yes, there is at least one study of CO2 on ring-width precied at http://www.co2science.org ; Telewski et al. (1999)-look in the subject index under ‘D’ (Density)then ‘Wood’. This particular four-year in-field air-enrichment to 650 ppm C02, increased the pine’s ring-widths by 93,29,15 and 37% in the consecutive years. There are several other reviews of CO2/wood papers at the site.
[The site run by the Idso's]

By: Michael Ballantine

Michael Ballantine — Sun, 20 Feb 2005 15:47:07 +0000

The statement “That rise coincided with the unprecedented release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the earth’s atmosphere, leading to the conclusion that industrial activity was boosting the world’s mean temperature.” reminds me of an old joke.

A scientist teaches a flea to jump whenever he says “jump”. It is very repeatable. He removes one of the legs and whenever he says “jump” the flea still jumps. He continues the experiment until there are no more legs. Now, whenever he says “jump” the the flea just lays there. His conclusion: Removing all the legs from a flea renders the flea deaf.

That would seem to be a logical conclusion, if the scientist is narrowly focused in the extreme. It just happens to be wrong.

If we have increased tree ring growth associated with increased CO2, why would any rational person assume that this indicates increased temperature instead of the obvious direct correlation. Give the tree more nutrition and it grows faster.

Does anyone know of a study that correlates tree ring growth with CO2 concentrations? I know there is a study on here that says tree ring growth does not correlate well with temperature.

The infamous Bristle Cone Pines. Are they perhaps “downwind” or otherwise in the area of higher levels of CO2?