Holocene Logic

CSS-1 The “Climate Change” discussion is a very complicated subject. The OPS series tries to break that discussion down into bite size chunks (i.e.: looking at just the status of snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere (well above normal for the last three winters)). There are hundreds/thousands of books, papers, articles, etc. that put forward evidence that the climate will warm dangerously (primarily Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW)) or cool dangerously (falling temperatures as the sun heads into the forecasted Grand Solar Minimum (GSM). The answer will be somewhere between these two polarizing viewpoints. The more likely scenario is a GSM with some minor warming from AGW (not CAGW) that offsets a bit of the cooler temperatures that the GSM could have reached. That cooling (based on historical GSMs) will most likely still be dangerous despite CO2’s warming. Two comments and 9 Figures (CSS-1b to CSS-1j) to follow.

So, to better set up the story behind my OPS-26 series (a-f), I’m putting forward a Climate Short Story (CSS) that brings the Holocene data sets into the discussion one at a time. Essentially the Modern Temperature Record (MTR, 1850 – Present) cannot be looked at in isolation (standard practice for the CAGW alarmist crowd). Hopefully, this approach takes out the complexity/confusion that a few readers commented on based on the OPS discussion). Will this be the whole story on Climate Change? No, but the narrative that CO2 is responsible for the vast majority of the MTR record is dangerous and ignores the natural forcings (solar related activity) that have acted throughout the Holocene period (and prior). Those forces are still active. And the historical solar cycles point to both the warming we’ve experienced over the last century and the GSM we are just currently descending into. The cooler temperatures over the next decade or two will be more dangerous (potentially catastrophic) than any mild warming that CO2 may cause by the end of the century (based on its theoretical climate sensitivity of around 1 C). CO2 can cause Warming (however the warming’s magnitude is still not settled science). CO2 cannot cause Catastrophic Warming.

Solar activity’s influence on the planet’s climate is much more visible in the historical data (i.e.: empirical data) than CO2’s influence. In fact, anyone can stop this discussion immediately by supplying just one CO2/temperature data set that shows CO2 driving the climate on any statistically significant historical time scale. That data set doesn’t exist. An inconvenient truth since that data set is required to prove the CAGW theory. In the end, adherence to CAGW is simply religious in nature not scientific. Natural forcings (solar and solar related (ocean cycles, cloud cover, albedo, etc.)) dominated the climate in the past and will continue to dominate in the future.