The BBC and the London (UK) Telegraph announced last Thursday that the World’s Oldest Tree had been discovered in Sweden. While this is not precisely correct (as I will explain below), nevertheless it is an important and significant finding with implications for our modern times.
From the BBC [here]
Swedes find ‘world’s oldest tree’
A tree said to be the oldest on the planet - thought to be nearly 10,000 years old - has been found in Sweden.
Scientists from Umeaa University discovered the spruce [Picea abies, commonly Norway spruce] on Fulu Mountain in Dalarna province while carrying out a census of tree species there in 2004.
The age of its genetic material was recently calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida.
World’s Oldest Tree?
Scientists had believed the world’s oldest trees were 4,000-year-old pine trees found in North America.
The oldest, a bristlecone pine [Pinus longaeva] named Methuselah located in California’s White Mountains, is aged 4,768, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
The new record contender, which would have taken root just after the last ice age, was found among a cluster of around 20 spruces believed to be more than 8,000 years old at an altitude of 910m (2,985ft) on Fulu Mountain.
The visible portion of the spruce was comparatively new, but analysis of four “generations” of remains - cones and wood - found underneath its crown showed its root system had been growing for 9,550 years, Umeaa University said.
Umeaa’s professor of physical geography, Leif Kullmann, said the spruce’s stems or trunks had a lifespan of around 600 years, but as soon as one died, a cloned stem could emerge from the root system.
The clones take root each winter as snow pushes low-lying branches of the mother tree down to ground level, Mr Kullmann added.
Cloning is perhaps not the proper term. I prefer “layering.” Layering happens (in some conifer species) when a branch contacts soil and new roots emerge at the contact point. Then a new stem may grow from the new root system. In our region coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) and western red cedars (Thuja plicata) are known to reproduce by layering.
In the case of the ancient Norway spruce, it appears that the orginal root system was still intact and living, but the current stems had arisen by layering.
Cloning, as I have learned the term, is when the original root system puts out new stems without layering. Cloning is a characteristic of other species, in our region notably tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflora) and quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). Clonal aspen groves may be as old or older than the ancient spruce discovered in Sweden.
One aspen grove, named Pando near Fish Lake in southern Utah, has been dated to 80,000 years old [here]. There is speculation, however, that some aspen clones could be a million years old!
Be that as it may, the discovery of the 9,550-year-old spruce is still significant. From the BBC report:
The discovery of the tree has been surprising, because the spruce had until now been regarded as a relative newcomer in the region.
“Our results have shown the complete opposite, that the spruce is one of the oldest known trees in the mountain range,” Mr Kullmann said.
He explained that 10,000 years ago the spruce would have been extremely rare in the region and that it was conceivable Mesolithic humans might have imported the species as they migrated northwards with the receding ice cap.
The discovery also shows that it was much warmer in the region at the time than had been thought previously, perhaps even warmer than today, he added.
Much paleological evidence has suggested that it was indeed warmer globally from 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, a period known as the Hypsithermal or Holocene Climatic Optimum. At that time it was possibly as much as 2 degrees centigrade warmer than now. From David Archibald’s report, Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States [here].
From the UK Telegraph report on the ancient spruce [here]:
… Ten millennia ago, a spruce would have been extremely rare and it is conceivable that the ancient humans who lived there imported the tree, he [Prof Kullman] says.
“Man immigrated close to the receding ice front. We have also found fossil acorns in this area, and people may have taken them with them as they moved over the landscape.”
It had been thought that this region was still in the grip of the ice age but the tree shows it was much warmer, even than today, he says.
Fossil acorns in northern Sweden! That is another notable discovery.
The implication is that we know less than we thought we did about the Early Holocene. We also may know less than we thought we did about our modern era, the Late Holocene.
The paleo record provides some evidence that previous interglacials peaked early, declined fairly quickly, and then the ice sheets started to reform after 10,000 years or so. Our Holocene, on the other hand, also peaked early but has declined much less rapidly, and appears to be hanging on, temperature-wise. This may be due to human-set landscape fires during the entire Holocene, not just to modern fossil fuel use. From David Archibald again:
Note that previous interglacials were much less persistent than our Holocene. This is readily evident when they are superimposed on each other (again from David Archibald):
For some unknown reason Holocene temperatures have not plunged as rapidly as they did in the previous interglacials. Even with the one degree centigrade increase of the 20th century, global temperatures are still less than the Climatic Optimum. Not that much less, however, and ice sheets are not forming anew, as they did after 10,000 years of the previous interglacial (the Eemian). Could it be that anthropogenic fire has extended our fragile global warmth?
The Milankovich Optimum was about 10,000 years ago. The Earth’s orbit has been getting more elliptical ever since. If global temperatures had followed past interglacial patterns, we would be facing the onset of another Ice Age. That is still a real possibility and indeed the likely future given all the available evidence. If, however, we can maintain our Holocene warmth, we can possibly stave off the Ice.
Warmer is better. Glacial epochs are bad news. The onset of the deep cold of prior glaciations would cripple agriculture and cause mass starvation worldwide. No doubt, civilization as we know it would be greatly altered, if not lost. Whatever we can do to maintain the warmth, we should do, for the good of humanity and all life.
Global warming is not a threat; it is our only salvation. That lesson is the opposite of what global warming alarmists are trumpeting, but it is the truth, according to the best scientific evidence we have.
April 20, 2008 | Topic: Climate and Weather
April 21st, 2008 at 1:49 am
Mike:
You are doing some excellent work in keeping your readers informed regarding the so-called “consensus science” that has been funded to support the Global Warming political movement.
The extreme and prolonged cold of this winter have drawn the scientific findings of Meryl Streep, Al Gore, Ted Kulongoski, Ted Turner, and their fellow alarmists into sharp focus. Media and others duped into accepting many of their bizarre pronouncements have lately been using words such as “hoax” and “hysteria” to describe the predictions of these people and their followers. Even the US Democrat Party seems to have become strangely silent on the issue as Winter continues into Spring this year.
You have been using these words and actively questioning the credibility of the scientists who have (been paid to be) bought into this nonsense for the past two years, for which you should be commended. You were right, and they continue to be proved wrong at nearly every turn — and for the reasons you have given. Reasons based on good science and facts; not fear and bogus computer models.
There is now this last remaining idea that needs to be made mainstream: Warmer is Better. Keep trying — it is the most important point of the whole debate.
It is bad enough to have witnessed the integrity of high-priced “scientists” compromised by dollars and political pressure on this issue. It has been worse to listen to the hysterical nonsense being “predicted” by these same people regarding the unlikely and impossible — and invariably negative — consequences that will doom humanity if the climate does become warmer.
Climate can change only two ways — warmer or colder. You are right and the consensus crowd is nuts — colder will only end in calamity and catastrophe for most people in the world. Warmer is Better.
Keep up the good work. This is an important message that should not continue to be ignored.
April 21st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Acorns in Sweden? Wow, just imagine what beach season was like back then!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Wouldn’t we fare better if we were to say fight Continental drift or maybe strike up a war on planetary orbit and axis tilt. Let’s freeze this planet on June 21. An all out war against the Southern Hemisphere, isn’t about time?
Waylon Jennings had it right, stop the world and let me off. I’m tired of going round and round.