'We are just recovering from the LIA'

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Posted by Coby Beck (Guest Contributor) at 10:10 PM on 23 Dec 2006

(Part of the How to Talk to a Global Warming Skeptic guide)

Objection: Today's warming is just a recovery from the Little Ice Age.

Answer: This argument relies on an implicit assumption that there is a particular climatic baseline to which the earth inexorably returns -- and thus that a period of globally lower temperatures will inevitably be followed by a rise in temperatures. What is the scientific basis for that assumption?

There is no evidence of such a baseline. The climate is influenced by many factors, which change or remain stable in their own ways. The current understanding of the Little Ice Age is that it was likely the result of a decrease in solar irradiance combined with an increase in volcanic activity, blocking additional sunlight. The LIA was also not particularly well synchronized globally, affecting different regions at different times. Scientists are aware of no century-scale pattern in solar output or volcanic activity, so there's no reason to expect a reversal of those changes. As it happens, solar output did increase somewhat in the early 20th century, which did contribute to warming at that time. However, that's not behind current warming.

Another problem with appealing to a natural recovery from the LIA is that temperature has now risen to levels higher than the assumed baseline climate. So even if some recovery were to be expected, why have we now exceeded it? This argument has problems similar to the more general "it is part of a natural cycle" argument.

For story: 'We are just recovering from the LIA'
4 Comments | Post a Comment

A Question

You say:

A climate skeptic might reply that it's like a pendulum swing. After the drastic downward tip of the Little Ice Age, the climate is now overcorrecting, How would you respond to that?

Thanks,

Ivriniel

by Ivriniel at 4:22 AM on 27 Feb 2007

back to point one

Hi Ivriniel,

Sorry for the late reply. I think I would just go back to the initial argument, there is just no evidence that the climate behaves like a pendulum.

A true sceptic does not abandon a comprehensive and well supported theory like those in modern climate science in favor of idle speculations.

"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?" -- unknown

by Coby Beck at 9:46 AM on 01 Mar 2007

I am a skeptic

Because skeptics are people who question accepted beliefs. I do believe in global warming, but I also like to be well informed. Saying a statement like "there is just no evidence that the climate behaves like a pendulum" is simply ridiculous. Have you ever looked at a graph of temperature over a long period of time... see how it goes back and forth.

Oh... thats what a pendulum does.

I don't really know either way. But neither do you. The science behind the matter is too complex for people to compute in any reasonable amount of time so people saying the science defends their theory is like the claims of people with tremendous scientific, mathmatic or technological breakthroughs that other people just don't understand.
Like the proof of Fermat's last theorem (I believe it was 100 pages of dense complex mathematics). It was accepted, peer reviewed, and still accepted, and then later oops... no it wasn't right, but there is a correction paper that took over a year to write. Which everybody now trusts. There are numerous examples I could site of researches scientists and the like making claims that they truly believe in, which have later been revealed to be spurious.

I say don't support what you don't truly understand. You self admittedly do not have a firm grasp on the concepts (or at least the math) behind most of the claims.

Which is why I argue against both sides on the issue and say we need to have better data before we "know" anything. Because that is the only fact in the entire issue of global warming that is universally agreed upon.

by Crammer10 at 8:04 AM on 21 Aug 2007

OT Fermat Proof

The Fermat proof was not peer reviewed prior to publication, it was only privately discussed with a collegue. The error was found during peer review.

As to the pendulum point, looking at temperature over the last 420,000 years, although there is a large scale pattern, the intervening times are far from regular. If this is a pendulum, why do temperatures fall when they should be rising more or less smoothly?

by Jaydee at 5:28 AM on 23 Nov 2007

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