Summary: New research continues to flow in that challenges important aspects of the climate science consensus. In the case of a new article, the long-term temperature reconstructions, largely dependent on tree rings (dendrochronology), and the role of solar effects. That the leaders have for so long chosen to ignore these factors has not made them go away. And science marches on, no matter what consensus they pretend to have.
Excerpts from “Signs of reversal of Arctic cooling in some areas“, press release from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres 29 July 2010.
(1) About the temperature record.
For the past 400 years since AD 1600, the reconstructed summer temperature on Kola in the months of July and August has varied between 10.4°C (1709) and 14.7°C (1957), with a mean of 12.2°C. Afterwards, after a cooling phase, a ongoing warming can be observed from 1990 onwards.
… What stands out in the data from the Kola Peninsula is that the highest temperatures were found in the period around 1935 and 1955, and that by 1990 the curve had fallen to the 1870 level, which corresponds to the start of the Industrial Age. Since 1990, however, temperatures have increased again evidently.
… “One thing is certain: this part of the Arctic warmed up after the end of the Little Ice Age around 250 years ago, cooled down from the middle of the last century and has been warming up again since 1990,” says Dr Tatjana Böttger, a paleoclimatologist at the UFZ.
For an update on the polar ice caps see the Global Sea Ice Reference Page: Arctic and Antarctic current graphs and imagery. According to the Danish Centre for Ocean and Ice, the temperature for Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel is running below the 1958-2002 average (graph).
(2) Scientists studying solar influences on Earth’s climate
Second and more importantly, evidence grows of significant solar impact on our climate. For more about this ignored aspect of climate science see section 2 of the FM reference pages Science and Climate.
Researchers from the Institute of Geography in Moscow, Hohenheim University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) report in journal Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research: “The data indicate that solar activity may have been one of the major driving factors of summer temperatures, but this has been overlaid by other factors since 1990”.
… What is conspicuous about the new data is that the reconstructed minimum temperatures coincide exactly with times of low solar activity. The researchers therefore assume that in the past, solar activity was a significant factor contributing to summer temperature fluctuations in the Arctic. However, this correlation is only visible until 1970, after which time other – possibly regional – factors gain the upper hand.
Last, a note about the various trees used in temperature reconstructions. Guess which series is used in the hockey stick reconstructions?
Following the summer temperature reconstruction on the Kola Peninsula, the researchers compared their results with similar tree-ring studies from Swedish Lapland and from the Yamal and Taimyr Peninsulas in Russian Siberia, which had been published in Holocene in 2002. The reconstructed summer temperatures of the last four centuries from Lapland and the Kola and Taimyr Peninsulas are similar in that all three data series display a temperature peak in the middle of the twentieth century, followed by a cooling of one or two degrees. Only the data series from the Yamal Peninsula differed, reaching its peak later, around 1990.
Yes, the Yamal Peninsula. For more on the significance of these few trees, see these articles by Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit. They’re fascinating, and reveal much about the farcical aspects of climate science.
- Fresh Data on Briffa’s Yamal #1, 26 September 2009
- YAD06 – the Most Influential Tree in the World, 30 September 2009
The actual article
“Regional Summer Temperature Reconstruction in the Khibiny Low Mountains (Kola Peninsula, NW Russia) by Means of Tree-ring Width during the Last Four Centuries”, Yury M. Kononov, M. Friedrich and T. Boettger, Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, issue 4, 2009 — Abstract:
This study presents a new pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) ring-width chronology and a summer temperature reconstruction for the last 400 years from the Khibiny Low Mountains (Kola Peninsula, NW Russia). Pine trees from sites at the altitudinal timberline of Khibiny Mountains show pronounced climatic signals in tree-ring width.
We found a strong positive correlation with summer temperature of July–August (r = 0.58). The reconstruction shows lower summer temperatures from A.D. 1630 to 1840, a subsequent warming up to the mid-20th century and a cooling trend afterwards. According to our data, a temperature increase is observed during the past decade. The good coherence of multi-decadal to secular trends of our reconstruction and series of observed solar activity indicate that solar activity may have been one major driving factor of past climate on Kola Peninsula.
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