G'day Terry,

Actually I thought I was confining my comments to the Holocene fluctuations. Its a bit hard not to mention the politics of how that is determined, however, because the science doesn't exist in a vacuum.

But it was a general query and I thought it deserved a general answer. As Mr Morgan says right now I'm not prepared to post a bunch of links or citations because the whole thing devolves into an endless debate about such specifics as to how many words I manage to type.

This is one field where there is a great deal of research which can be referred to. How about you pick a subject to start with and I'll be happy to contribute specific research or links. It's too wide a subject currently. For instance, the physics of ice core samples could be discussed. There are several research papers on this as well as what the ice core samples are interpreted to be. Dr Singer rather likes sedimentation samples for determining trends in this climate. That's not a bad topic either.

We could discuss the Mann et al graph and similar downplaying of the peaks and troughs of the Holocene and there is certainly reasonable links to research ranging from complete support to total repudiation. I guess that is what these types of forums are for, if you are interested in a scientific subject, really to learn other's views and why they are held and whether they have a scientific basis. Actually, sometimes suppositions that even the proposer does not support result in terrific results in such discussions but they really do need to be treated with a view that the reason to discuss such topics is to learn other viewpoints, rather than prove that yours is the only view worthy of recognition, imho.

I liked your link by the way. It is a study that sets outs its aims well and confines both the research and the conclusions to those aims. There are thousands of such studies around. Good quality studies that help with an overall understanding of the general trends of climate during the Holocene and what was the local response to climate. In this instance the study also makes the distinction between what is known and possible alternative reasons, such as the change in precipitation levels.

The study also demonstrates why you end up with so many different dates for different periods of the Holocene. Climate may change quickly but vegetation, the subject of this subject, takes a considerable time to adapt to the changes unless really extreme. So you get a broad brush idea of what climate changes might have occurred but not a great time frame.

To be a little political again, I wonder what the conclusion of this study would have read like if it had not been done ten years ago.


Sane=fits in. Unreasonable=world needs to fit to him. All Progress requires unreasonableness