Articles Tagged "Don Easterbrook"

Temperature changes recorded in the GISP2 ice core from the Greenland Ice Sheet show that the global warming experienced during the past century pales into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of profound climate reversals over the past 25,000 years.

SIGNIFICANCE OF PREVIOUS GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGES

If CO2 is indeed the cause of global warming, then global temperatures should mirror the rise in CO2. For the past 1000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels remained fairly constant at about 280 ppm (parts per million). Atmospheric CO2 concentrations began to rise during the industrial revolution early in the 20th century but did not exceed about 300 ppm. The climatic warming that occurred between about 1915 and 1945 was not accompanied by significant rise in CO2. In 1945, CO2 emission began to rise sharply and by 1980 atmospheric CO2 had risen to just under 340 ppm. During this time, however, global temperatures fell about 0.9°F (0.5° C) in the Northern Hemisphere and about 0.4°F (0.2° C) globally. Global temperatures suddenly reversed during the Great Climate Shift of 1977 when the Pacific Ocean switched from its cool mode to its warm mode with no change in the rate of CO2 increase. The 1977–1998 warm cycle ended in 1999 and a new cool cycle began. If CO2 is the cause of global warming, why did temperatures rise for 30 years (1915-1945) with no significant increase in CO2? Why did temperatures fall for 30 years (1945-1977) while CO2 was sharply accelerating? Logic dictates that this anomalous cooling cycle during accelerating CO2 levels must mean either (1) rising CO2 is not the cause of global warming or (2) some process other than rising CO2 is capable of strongly overriding its effect on global atmospheric warming.

CLICK to download FULL report by DR. Don Easterbrook from SPPI

The entire planet has stopped warming since 1998 and, more significantly, has started to cool since 2003. Instead of warning people of cooler weather for the next 30 years, there’s still the distinct false sense of expectation of unprecedented warming. People and governments are being urged to go entirely in the wrong direction for the wrong reasons – and at a potentially horrendous price.

Just look at what happened in UK. Ten years ago Britons were told to expect global warming only and that snow would be a thing of the past. Yet the opposite has arrived, three winters in a row. This winter it crippled the entire nation for nearly a month in December 2010.

1934 has long been considered the warmest year of the past century. A decade ago, the closest challenger appeared to be 1998, a super-el nino year, but it trailed 1934 by 0.54C (0.97F). Since then, NASA GISS has “adjusted” the U.S. data for 1934 downward and 1998 upward (see December 25, 2010 post by Ira Glickstein) in an attempt to make 1998 warmer than 1934 and seemingly erased the original rather large lead of 1934 over 1998.

The last phases of the strong 2009-2010 El Nino in early 2010 made this year another possible contender for the warmest year of the century. However, December 2010 has been one of the coldest Decembers in a century in many parts of the world, so 2010 probably won’t be warmer than 1998. But does it really matter?

Regardless of which year wins the temperature adjustment battle, how significant will that be? To answer that question, we need to look at a much longer time frame-centuries and millennia.

One of the best ways to look at long-term temperatures is with isotope data from the GISP2 Greenland ice core, from which temperatures for thousands of years can be determined. The ice core isotope data were obtained by Minze Stuiver and Peter Grootes from nuclear accelerator measurements of thousands of oxygen isotope ratios (16O/18O), which are a measure of paleo-temperatures at the time snow fell that was later converted to glacial ice. The age of such temperatures can be accurately measured from annual layers of accumulation of rock debris marking each summer's melting of ice and concentration of rock debris on the glacier.

CLICK to download PDF file from IceCap.us and read FULL report from Dr. Don Easterbrook

Abstract: Perlwitz etal (2009) used computer model suites to contend that the 2008 North American cooling was naturally induced as a result of the continent’s sensitivity to widespread cooling of the tropical (La Nina) and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures. But they concluded from their models that warming is likely to resume in coming years and that climate is unlikely to embark upon a prolonged period of cooling. We here show how their models fail to recognize the multidecadal behavior of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Basin, which determines the frequency of El Ninos and La Ninas and suggests that the cooling will likely continue for several decades. We show how this will be reinforced with multidecadal shift in the Atlantic.

IPCC AND MULTIDECADAL SHIFTS

In chapter 3 (Observations: Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change) of their 2007 report, the IPCC recognized circulation indices, including short term and decadal scale oscillations in the Pacific and Atlantic and attributed their origin as natural. They noted that the decadal variability in the Pacific (the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO) is likely due to oceanic processes.

“Extratropical ocean influences are likely to play a role as changes in the ocean gyre evolve and heat anomalies are subducted and reemerge”. (3.6.3) The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is thought to be due to changes in the strength of thermohaline circulation. Ultimately, however, the IPCC fails to suggest a connection between these cyclical oceanic changes and observed global cyclical temperature changes. They only go as far as making a possible connection to regional variances. “Understanding the nature of teleconnections and

CLICK to download PDF file from SPPI and read FULL report from Joseph D’Aleo and Dr. Don Easterbrook

As some of you may know, my recent paper at the Heartland global climate conference has been attacked by Gareth Renowden and posted by Tim Lambert on his blog.

Although I don't normally even read this kind of garbage, I responded to an inquiry by Andy Revkin with the attached.

Don Easterbrook

"When you are losing an argument on the basis of facts and evidence, the oldest trick in the world is to invent some outrageous lie, the more outrageous the better, and while people are reacting to the lie, attention is diverted from the real issue. It is a sure sign of desperation in distracting attention from facts and data. The outrageous charge of fraud made by a self professed "photographer and truffle grower" (Gareth Renowden) is not worthy of response, but because the charge is so easily refuted, I will do so......"

Please click PDF file to download FULL response to "hides the incline" from Don Easterbrook

“Global warming is over—at least for a few decades,” geologist Don Easterbrook, professor emeritus from Western Washington University told the Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change on May 19. He warned, however, us not to rejoice. Colder winters kill twice as many people as hot weather while crop production suffers from shorter growing seasons and weather-disrupted harvests.

Dan Miller, climate expert with the Roda Group and ardent believer in Anthropogenic Global Warming, responded to Easterbrook at Fox News: “It’s absurd to talk about global cooling when global heating is with us and accelerating.” But Miller is referring to the current temperature spike from an El Nino in the Pacific Ocean—a short-term climate event already ending, according to Pacific sea surface temperatures. The key question now is where the temperatures will go after the El Nino fades.

Easterbrook offered geological evidence that the earth has had ten big “recent” warmings that dwarf the 0.7 degree temperature increase estimated for the 20th century. Over the past 15,000 years, those temperature shifts drove the earth’s temperatures radically up or down by 9–15 degrees C within a single century. He also noted 60 sharp-but-smaller temperature changes in the past 5,000 years. All of these occurred before 1945, when the post-war Industrial Boom began to ramp up human-emitted CO2 levels.

'Expect global cooling for the next 2-3 decades that will be far more damaging than global warming would have been'

CHICAGO -- A prominent U.S. geologist is urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.

Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook's warning came in the form of a new scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16, 2010. Dr. Easterbrook is an Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. Easterbrook's full resume is here.

Dr. Easterbrook joins many other scientists, peer-reviewed research and scientific societies warning of a coming global cooling. Easterbrook is presenting his findings alongside other man-made global warming skeptics at the three day conference in Chicago.

Updated below with additional article and Video Link

The Geological Society of America (GSA) has declined to endorse an official policy statement of the society which was proposed in October. At the national meeting of GSA in Portland last October, I strongly opposed adoption of the proposed endorsement of IPCC contentions and argued that "for a position statement of a scientific society of professional geologists, this statement is remarkably one sided and lacks the kind of depth and scientific analysis that one would expect from GSA. It totally ignores a wealth of well-documented data contrary to many of the statements made in the text and many of the contentions are not supported by any tangible data at all. This would be a much more credible document if it explored both sides of many of the issues and provided supporting evidence. The section on Rationale is shocking in its lack of scientific logic—it essentially claims that because we have had global warming (which no one denies), that in itself proves it is due to CO2. CO2. That shoddy logic must surely make T.C. Chamberlain and Hoover Mackin turn over in their graves!"

"To contend that glacier retreat proves warming due to CO2 is bad enough, but the authors clearly have very poor knowledge of glacier fluctuations since 1850.During the 1890 to 1915 cool period, glaciers extended almost to their Little Ice Age maximums, retreated during the 1915 to 1945 warm period, advanced again during the 1945 to 1977 cool period, and retreated again during the 1977 to 1999 warm period. None of these climate fluctuations prior to 1945 can be due to increase in CO2 so to contend that retreat of glaciers since 1850 is proof of warming due to CO2 is incredibly amateurish."

Fiogure 1. Atmospheric temperatures 1900 to 2009. The blue line shows global cooling for the past decade; the red line shows the length of the decade.

The decade of 2000 to 2009 appears to be the warmest one in the modern record, the World Meteorological Organization reported in a new analysis on Tuesday. Does that mean that the past decade has been cooling? No—of course not. Comparison of the red line in Fig. 1 with pre-1998 decades shows that the past decade is warmer, but the blue line shows cooling during the past decade—although the decade is warmer than previous decades, the climate did cool during the decade.

Two hundred years ago, Charles Lyell coined the phrase “The present is the key to the past.” In today’s highly contentious issues of global climate change, we might well add “The past is the key to the future, i.e., to forecast future geologic events, we must understand past climate changes. This paper documents past global climate changes in the geologic and historic past.

Recent laser imaging of the Earth’s surface provides new evidence for abrupt, fluctuating, warm and cool climatic episodes that could not have been caused by changes in atmospheric CO2. In a paper presented at the national meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, OR, Professor Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University, presented new data from airborne laser imagery showing well-defined, previously unknown, multiple moraines deposited by glaciers 11,700 to 10,250 years ago.