Why Climate False-Alarmists Are Completely Wrong

Subtitle: Polar Bears Don't Know They Went Extinct 100,000 Years Ago

photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service

Climate science must be consistent, if it is to have any credibility.  So, this bears (no pun intended) checking.  The polar bear diverged from brown bears approximately 400,000 years ago per the scientists who study such things, but we are also told that the previous inter-glacial period was 8 degrees C warmer than today's temperature.     The last inter-glacial period was approximately 100,000 years ago. 

Meanwhile, there is much agonizing by the false-alarmists over polar bears' imminent extinction due to a - and get this one, folks - 2 degree C increase in temperature.   They survived a 10,000 year period when the temperature was 8 degrees hotter than today, but now a 2 degree C increase will run them all extinct.   That's their claim.   (as an aside, one must also wonder exactly how coral reefs and sea turtles also survived in such an 8 degree warmer world)

The claim about divergence from brown bears:  "We analyzed 89 complete genomes of polar bear and brown bear using population genomic modeling and show that the species diverged only 479–343 thousand years BP."  - (Shiping Liu et. al. "Population Genomics Reveal Recent Speciation and Rapid Evolutionary Adaptation in Polar Bears,"  Cell 157, 785–794, May 8, 2014)   see link    (note: BP is Before Present, generally taken as 1950)

This claim of divergence approximately 400,000 years ago is disputed, as earlier work showed the divergence might have been a few millions of years ago.  Something about assumptions one uses in the science one employs.   Either way, those polar bears are pretty stout.  

And, where is the claim made that the last inter-glacial period was 8 degrees C warmer compared to today?  From those scientists that study ice cores, in this case the Greenland ice cores.    For that matter, more recent data from ice cores show that the last 15,000 years, the current inter-glacial period also had several periods that were substantially warmer than today.  These include the Medieval Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Minoan Warm Period, and the even earlier Climate Optimum. 

Yet polar bears and coral reefs are still here.   No tipping points existed back then, where polar ice melted, oceans turned acidic, frozen methane hydrates belched forth their stinking clouds of methane, ocean levels rose by the tens of meters, Florida was a giant reef, Memphis, Tennessee was a seaport while New Orleans was like Atlantis, a fabled underwater city,  and many lovely tropical islands were underwater homes to tropical fish.  

The next time a climate false-alarmist starts proclaiming the end is near, bring these points up and watch what he (or she) does.   I did exactly that at a meeting of Chemical Engineers recently, (see link) and the reaction was, shall we say, less than positive.  

(note: edited for clarity on the claim of brown bear divergence, and define BP)

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Houston, Texas
copyright (c) 2019 by Roger Sowell - all rights reserved

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