Time Immortal

Count Roland writes in again with some follow-up regarding my previous response to him.

Agreed.

But the hypothesis was looking at the methane produced by large swaths of putrifying organic matter, as in vast rice paddies. Also, the period of NA buffalo depopulation coincides with the tail end (1700-1850) of a deepening mini ice age between ~1300 and ~1900. At the begininng of that, likely somehow related, the bl;ack death eliminated populations in Eurasia, likely impacting rice production among other things, reducing methane as well.

Also, it did not say that human induced methane production caused global warming - it said that such production slowed global cooling such that by now, given solar output, a pivot point for the commencement of an ice should be well past but we have not arrived at it, yet. But then again, perhaps the sun is acting a little differently this cycle.

However, a point that can be gleened from this hypothesis. If it is solar activity that is the principal factor and is in a ‘downward’ general cycle with some upticks (we are talking 1000’s and 100’s of years respectively) our human global warming, as little as it may be, may be the only barrier between us and and ice age which would cover most of the developed world with ice. Another way to say this is to remember that the last hundred years’ supposed “hockey stick” is but a fraction of an average glacial cycle let alone the longer solar cycles we have yet to gather the data for. Last time I checked, looking at the smallest fraction - a prooftext, of data and giving a conclusion is not good science.

I think the maxim “correlation does not imply causation” is relevant here with regard to the observation of the correlation between buffalo depopulation (1700-1850 AD) and the “tail end” of a “mini ice age” (1300-1900 AD), especially since a) the aforementioned “mini ice age” was already long in progress by the time buffalo depopulation began, and b) while significant, buffalo were not the only source of methane production in the world, and it seems suspect to suggest that even as catastrophic a decline in population as they underwent would precipitate sweeping changes in global average temperature, especially since by the time the buffalo were being hunted to the brink of extinction, the rice paddies would have been back in action.

There is also to be considered the observation that post-1850, the “mini ice age” came to an end (i.e. temperatures began to rise), even though the buffalo herds were no longer churning out massive quantities of methane (and at the time, cattle farming wouldn’t have made up the shortfall; it doesn’t even manage to do that today). One could potentially point to the Industrial Revolution as the culprit in this case, although given the analysis that has been done about the insignificance of CO2 and other industrial emissions as a driver of global temperature change, that thesis also falls deeply into question.

It serves to note that the Sun is only now coming to the end of an unusually energetic cycle that has, among other things, triggered warming trends on other planets in our solar system, Mars and Neptune to name but two. That diminishment in solar activity has already triggered a downward shift in global average temperature that has more or less undone the warming trend that Al Gore et. al. were so up in arms about, as one would expect if one accepts the theory that CO2 does almost nothing to affect changes in global average temperature, and that the Sun effects profound changes in same.

I also question whether it is humanity’s minimal contribution to changes in the average global temperature that stave off a coming ice age; personally, I tend to think that even under the most carefully controlled conditions, nature will do whatever it damn well pleases. Yes, there are cyclical patterns in climate, as there are in many things, but those patterns can shift for any number of reasons. The Sun has been unusually active for the last while, and is now entering a phase where it is much less energetic than it has been. This may trigger a mild drop in the global average temperature, or it may trigger an extreme drop in same, thus ushering in a new ice age. Either way, I don’t think anything humanity does, in terms of emissions, will offset the results to any meaningful extent. It has been said that even if humanity ceased all CO2 production (even from out of our own lungs), we would have an effect on the global average temperature that one would need percents of percents to measure properly — i.e. statistically and quantitatively insignificant. Even if methane had a hundred times the impact of CO2 in the atmosphere, cutting all our methane emissions would still only result in a change in global average temperature of a percent, or perhaps a few percent (if we were lucky).

If humanity wanted to really stave off a coming ice age, we’d find a way to maximize our production of water vapour, since it is vapour that contributes the most to the atmosphere’s ability to retain heat. But even then — next to the natural water cycles of the planet, our contribution at present is almost meaningless, and it would be a mighty effort indeed to change that.