Harris, Peter. 2008. An Urgent Signal for the Coming Ice Age
Peter Harris of Eumundi, Queensland AU graduated with a BSc (hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of Witswatersrand in 1963 and a PhD in 1967. He worked as a research fellow in the Rochester Institute for Technology, in the USA for three years before returning to South Africa to work for the National Institute of Metallurgy (which later became Mintek). At Mintek he was closely involved in many aspects of flotation chemistry, a particular focus being the behaviour and characterisation of polymeric depressants. During this time he was responsible for the early developments of what has now become the UCT bubble sizer. In 1995 he retired from the position of Assistant Director: Process Chemistry in Mineralogy. He consulted to Trohall, a depressant supplier company, for two years before joining the MPRU as an Associate Professor. In 1998 he and Dee Bradshaw initiated the “Chemical Interactions in Flotation” program, and in 1999 they established the Depressant Research Facility to study the use of polymeric depressants in flotation. His research interests include all chemical aspects of flotation [here] . He is an endorser of the International Climate Science Coalition Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change [here].
Full text [here]
Selected excerpts:
When paleoclimatologists met in 1972 to discuss how and when the present warm climate would end , termination of this warm climate we call the Holocene seemed imminent and it was expected that rapid cooling would lead to the coming ice age. These ideas were based on the 1M year analogue for climate transitions first proposed by Milankovitch over 60 years ago, which has been demonstrated to show the correlation of glacial and interglacial climate with solar insolation as it is modulated by our changing distance from the sun. These data sets may be used to serve as a signal for the coming ice age. Orbital geometry was approaching similar conditions to those of the previous transitions to ice.
But soon it was observed that global temperature was increasing and at about this time Global Climate Modeling (GCM) received more attention and the Milankovitch analogue was forgotten. There has been no further discussion about the coming ice age. …
Then using a modeled Holocene they projected climate using a range of CO2 forcing, and they reported that there was no transition to ice for at least 30KY into the future.
The algorithm for this process is not disclosed but the authors rightly list the limitations of the model in which CO2 is considered as an external forcing ie the carbon cycle is not simulated by the model. Clouds and the hydrological cycle are simplified and so is the heat transport to middle and deep ocean. In addition, regional changes such as the North Atlantic and over Europe are not simulated “and might depart from the global trend.”
It is unfortunate that these limitations appear to have been ignored and the AGW [anthropogenic global warming] hypothesis was born and has occupied science and the media ever since. The Milankovich analogue has been forgotten.
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April 28, 2008 | Comments Off | Topic: Pre-Holocene Climates
