More Science

Another response pointed at Don, printed as a letter to the editor, in OMR. Jan '07.

As usual, Don Fultz fans don’t require him to produce any factually based, scientific research that supports his allegiance to Al Gore, only that he check in. (see Ltr 12-14-06) Not to worry, I will provide the facts of this debate, supporting commentary, and the sources. My science research comes from the Quatemary Science Reviews, a research journal from the Reed Elsevier Group, plc., a global publisher of science and health information. I call your attention to QSR 25: 2357-2379, an investigation of the “Holocene history of the Northeastern Antarctic Peninsula Larsen Ice Shelf [sections A and B] to determine whether the recent retreat pattern is unique or has previously occurred on a millennial time scale.” More particularly, they analyzed “the composition of ice-rafted debris to distinguish seasonally open-marine sediments from sub-ice shelf facies,” and they examined “benthic foraminifera for clues to the former presence or absence of the ice shelf. Al Gore claims that the ice shelf had remained in tact for at least the last 10,000 years and the break-up is evidence for the climate-alarmist claim that modern global warming is equally unique. I want to reference two study groups, Pudsey and Evans (2001 and 2006), Geology 29 & 25 respectively, and Vaughan (2001), Science 293. Fultz fans, are you with me so far?

Pudsey data indicates “widespread ice shelf breakup in the mid-Holocene,” of both the APLIS-A & B and the adjacent Prince Gustav Channel ice shelf, but that subsequent colder conditions “allowed the ice shelf to reform. That is in harmony with the finding of Vaughan, that from 6000 to 1900 years ago the PGCIS, as they describe it, “was absent and climate was as warm as it has been recently.” Consequently, and most recently, Pudsey concluded that “the maximum ice shelf limit may date only from the Little Ice Age,” which they report is “widely recognized” to have held sway in that part of the world between 700 and 150 years ago.

A large body of data makes it clear that the greatest extent of the Larsen ice shelf during the current interglacial likely occurred only a few hundred years ago, and that the portions of it that recently disintegrated (Larsen A & B) were probably created about that same time. Temperatures were likely as warm or warmer 2000 years ago. Furthermore, there was approximately 100 ppm less CO2 in the air of that time than there is in the air today. That fact suggests that something other than anthropogenic CO2 emissions was the cause of the earlier “balmy” conditions of the northeast Antarctica, which implies that “that same something else” or something different yet, could be responsible for the current warmth of the region, possibly solar intrusion.

So, Don Fultz fans, should you not hear from your guru for awhile, I’m sure he’s just trying to digest all of this data and probably getting Al Gore on the phone to find out where his supporting evidence might have fallen off the “loony” train. Meanwhile, be assured, more data forthcoming.