​The Holocene and how it undermines climate fear mongers

A Warm Period by Any Other Name – The Climatic Optimum

Catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) relies upon tiny data sets to work. If the data is expanded beyond about 120 years the argument quickly fails.

​More below.

"Even a cursory examination of the Holocene shows why the period is problematic for promoters of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). As Steve McIntyre pointed out, the problems began when skeptics noted that the temperature for most of the Holocene contradicted their claim that the latter part of the 20th century was the warmest ever. I know they never used the term ‘ever’, rather, it was left unsaid but implied in the message to the public and not contradicted when used by the media.

McIntyre wrote;

The Team has taken a preditable (sic) position on the Holocene Optimum: that it’s a regional and restricted event."

Or as the old adage goes, damn the torpedoes, obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate! OK, maybe I made that up.

But by extending the data sets to 10,000 to 15,000 years, the data becomes much clearer.

The first chart shows the great temperature rise as the earth came out of the last ice age, the high average temperature lasting from about 10,000 years ago to about 3,500 years ago, and then the consistent decline in average temperature to the present. It also shows that the Little Ice Age was one of the three coldest periods during the Holocene.

The second chart shows the current temperature line as far below the Holocene temperature average, and on par with only a few Holocene cold periods.

"Current temperatures are proclaimed as the warmest on record. In fact, the world was warmer than today for 97 percent of the last 10,000 years."

This creates an obvious problem for the CAGW crowd. We are warming because just a hundred years ago, or so we were at one of the coldest periods in the Holocene. To proclaim this warming as terrifying, or out of control is irresponsible, and deeply foolish. 

So, how did the CAGW crowd create this fear out of whole cloth? They use a short data set which only encompasses the years 1850 to present, and then they fear monger. 

​Like this:

If you compare the first chart with this one you will realize what the fear mongering CAGW crowd has done, and how they made a minor warming trend at the end of one of the Holocene's coldest periods into terrifying catastrophic manmade global climate disaster. This is how one creates a fraud in plain sight. And even though we know that todays temperatures are well below 97% of the temps during the Holocene, tacking on the lie that 2015 will be the hottest year on record is sure to frighten, and inflame the gently bleeting sheeple.

But the CAGW crowd are never satisfied by something like this and so they fabricate even more:

The black line represents actual global temperature anomaly, and frankly in this graph they do not look so concerning, but add the fantasy red line from  2020 to 2100 and boy howdy is that terrifying! I think they should have taken it up to +12˚! That would have been even more terrifying, and equally as inaccurate. 

"The Holocene is an interesting warm period that many believe marks the end of the last ice advance of the Pleistocene. It fascinated early scientific attempts to understand the events and mechanisms in the early days of climate reconstructions, which were complicated by a lack of standardized terminologies and central collections of data. For example, I recall long discussions about the need for centralized data banks on tree rings. The Holocene became ignored or distorted after the advent of AGW and the IPCC because the evidence of its existence contradicted most of their claims."

Just so. You will never find the CAGW crowd arguing, or charting the period prior to 1850, at least not in the public press. All attempts to do so have ended like Michael Mann's Hockey Stick Graph in fiasco, and recriminations. The only way the crowd can win the argument when the big data set is included is through fraud, and data manipulation. They excel at this, but are incompetent at it as well. And, so, Mann was hoisted on his own petard, and made into a self-made laughingstock.

A few prior posts:

Dude, where's my global warming?!

​Environmentalists channel Sturm und Drang, exalting the environment, and seeking to overthrow the Enlightenment, and rational human enterprise . . . 

​Below is a YouTube compilation of Mann hoisting himself on his own petard!