By Jo Nova

How much money has the world wasted because of some tree ring studies?

A Chinese group has looked at all the different kinds of 2,000 year long proxies in the PAGES dataset and found that history looks quite different depending on which proxy you pick. Only the tree rings show the HockeyStick shape that matches the climate models. In other proxies, temperatures have fallen for most of the last 2,000 years, especially in the Southern half of the world. And even after the recent warming, we are not yet back to the temperatures the Romans lived through.

So yet again, we see that that current temperatures are not unusual except according to tree rings, which we know are affected by rising levels of CO2. (The paper does not mention CO2 or carbon or fertilizer).

“All the evidence points out that we are still far from a complete understanding of the Common Era temperature variability at hemispheric and global scales,” says Professor Yang.”

“We show that the millennial cooling of annual mean temperatures is likely a global phenomenon.”

The world according to tree-rings is at the top, and other proxies, below:

The map showing that the proxies are spread around the world. There are not that many proxies stretching back 2,000 years:

Figure 1 Locations of the proxy data used for the temperature reconstructions over the past 2000 years.

The paper looked closely at how all the proxies responded to volcano eruptions, and tree rings do seem to be useful. But without acknowledging that trees love carbon dioxide and grow faster with the fertilization effect of extra CO2, it feels like they are dancing around the point. They said tree rings capture the variability of shorter periods (less than 200 years) but that non tree ring proxies were better for variations longer than 200 years. The news that matters the most to mum and dad voters is that they found a significant long term cooling trend, but that information is buried in the text.

And as so many proxies have shown, global warming started back in the late 1600s, long before human emissions of CO2 started.

PhysOrg:   “… we wanted to know how our understanding of climate in the past is dependent on proxies,” says Professor Bao Yang. A paper on this topic is published in the journal Science China Earth Sciences.

To do so, the research team led by Professor Yang integrated the longest millennial paleoclimate data in the PAGES proxy network into new versions of global and hemispheric reconstructions of annual temperatures. The results show that the rate of pre-industrial millennial cooling in global and hemispheric temperatures varies according to proxy combination, with the strongest cooling revealed by non-tree-ring proxies.

Yang and colleagues compared the volcanic responses and spectral characteristics of tree-ring and non-tree-ring records. They found that the properties of tree-ring and non-tree-ring data differ significantly.

REFERENCE

Bao Yang et al, (2024) The influence of proxy selection on global annual mean temperature reconstructions during the Common Era, Science China Earth Sciences. DOI: 10.1007/s11430-024-1348-3

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he New York Times (NYT) recently published a special Sunday feature titled, “How Close Are the Planet’s Climate Tipping Points?”

The article, which is heavy on infographics and short on actual references or facts tackles several topics about Earth’s features that may be “in danger of collapse.” The entire article is nothing more than speculation with pretty graphics and doesn’t offer any evidence whatsoever that Earth is close to these so-called “tipping points.” The article heavily hedges its bets with weasel-words such as, could, may, might, and possibly but doesn’t make a single solid prediction.

Here’s a summary of the NYT article claims, plus the prediction of “When it might happen,” which follows each topic.

For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they can stay somewhat in balance even as temperatures rise. But only to a point.

Once we warm the planet beyond certain levels, this balance might be lost, scientists say. The effects would be sweeping and hard to reverse. Not like the turning of a dial, but the flipping of a switch. One that wouldn’t be easily flipped back.

Mass Death of Coral Reefs

In time, the reefs can bounce back. As the world gets warmer, though, occasional bleaching is becoming regular bleaching. Mild bleaching is becoming severe bleaching. When it might happen: It could already be underway.

Collapse of Greenland Ice and Breakup of West Antarctic Ice

The collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could become more likely at 1.5°C. When it might happen: The timing will vary place to place. The effects on global warming could accumulate over a century or more. Irreversible melting could begin this century and unfold over hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Abrupt Thawing of Permafrost

The localized thaw of permafrost could become more likely at 1.5°C. When it might happen: The timing will vary place to place. The effects on global warming could accumulate over a century or more.

Sudden Shift in the West African Monsoon

Monsoons may be disrupted. When it might happen: Hard to predict.

Loss of Amazon Rainforest

By 2050, as much as half of today’s Amazon forest could be at risk. When it might happen: Will depend on how rapidly people clear, or protect, the remaining forest.

Shutdown of Atlantic Currents

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC may slow down, changing the weather. When it might happen: Very hard to predict.

As you can see for yourself, the NYT didn’t have a single definitive answer for “When it might happen.” This is not at all surprising as every one of these predictions about tipping points is based on computerized climate models which we know to be faulty and have a tendency to be running overly hot with no scientific justification other than built-in bias.

Here is what we know based on actual data and measurements.

• Coral Reefs are doing very well. Despite over hyped media claims, such as the poster child for this issue, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia it is actually doing quite well and has reached its largest range of expansion in 2024 ever recorded. It has been steadily improving.
• The Abrupt Thawing of Permafrost is a summer phenomenon. While there is a few instances of this happening in winter, this is due to changes in weather patterns, not climate. Permafrost records are so short in duration, we don’t have any idea if this has also happened in the past. Arctic regions have high natural temperature variability. For example, in some regions of Siberia, average January temperatures are lower than -40 °C (-40 °F). In the summer, the long days of sunshine thaw the top layer of frozen ground and bring average temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F). At some weather stations in the interior, summer temperatures can reach 30 °C (86 °F) or more.
• Greenland Ice is melting, but the melt is miniscule compared to the entire ice mass. It also refreezes every winter.
• The breakup of West Antarctic Ice due to melting has been theorized for decades but hasn’t happened. Again, like Greenland Ice, the melt is minuscule compared to the total ice in Antarctica.
• No shift in the West African Monsoon has been observed. Science shows us that the West African Summer Monsoon rainfall exhibits large variability at interannual and decadal timescales, causing droughts and floods in many years.
• The loss of Amazon Rainforest is mostly about clearing of lands for agriculture and mining, not climate change. The NYT article even mentions this even though they still insist climate change will have a role.
• There’s been no evidence of shutdown of Atlantic Currents like the AMOC. Science shows it not slowing at all. In fact climate science can’t actually decide from year to year whether it is speeding up or slowing down. The last sentence of the NYT section on Atlantic currents says, “When it might happen: Very hard to predict.” Is accurate, yet they still list it as a concern.

In summary, this NYT article is nothing but fear-mongering with a razor-thin veneer of science to back it up. Every one of the “predictions” is so open-ended that they have the same probability of a coin-toss. However, based on the physical evidence and data we have so far, which suggest none of these tipping points will occur, even 50-50 odds are unlikely to be representative of the future. The NYT did their readers a huge disservice with this article.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM