Geoheresy
The distortion of science for ideological purposes has a long history, and the results are generally ugly.Friday, October 27, 2006
ICESHEET AGE IN ANTARCTIC
There is a general belief that the ice sheet at Antarctica is very old but apparently some of the ice sheets melted some 2000 years ago according to this reference - Pudsey, C.J., and J. Evans. 2001. First survey of Antarctic sub-ice shelf sediments reveals mid-Holocene ice shelf retreat. Geology 29(September):787.
The abstract reads: The retreat of five small Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves in the late 20th century has been related to regional (possibly anthropogenic) climate warming. We use the record of ice- rafted debris (IRD) in cores to show that the Prince Gustav Channel ice shelf also retreated in mid-Holocene time. Early and late Holocene-age sediments contain IRD derived entirely from local ice drainage basins, which fed the section of ice shelf covering each site. Core- top and mid-Holocene (5–2 ka) sediments include a wider variety of rock types, recording the drift of far-traveled icebergs, which implies seasonally open water at the sites. The period when the Prince Gustav ice shelf was absent corresponds to regional climate warming deduced from other paleoenvironmental records. We infer that the recent decay cannot be viewed as an unequivocal indicator of anthropogenic climate perturbation.
Ahem. A massive melting episode 2000 years ago?
There is a general belief that the ice sheet at Antarctica is very old but apparently some of the ice sheets melted some 2000 years ago according to this reference - Pudsey, C.J., and J. Evans. 2001. First survey of Antarctic sub-ice shelf sediments reveals mid-Holocene ice shelf retreat. Geology 29(September):787.
The abstract reads: The retreat of five small Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves in the late 20th century has been related to regional (possibly anthropogenic) climate warming. We use the record of ice- rafted debris (IRD) in cores to show that the Prince Gustav Channel ice shelf also retreated in mid-Holocene time. Early and late Holocene-age sediments contain IRD derived entirely from local ice drainage basins, which fed the section of ice shelf covering each site. Core- top and mid-Holocene (5–2 ka) sediments include a wider variety of rock types, recording the drift of far-traveled icebergs, which implies seasonally open water at the sites. The period when the Prince Gustav ice shelf was absent corresponds to regional climate warming deduced from other paleoenvironmental records. We infer that the recent decay cannot be viewed as an unequivocal indicator of anthropogenic climate perturbation.
Ahem. A massive melting episode 2000 years ago?
posted by Louis Hissink # 12:54 AM 
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