unstoppable global warming (every 1500 years)

That's the title of S. Fred Singer's recent book (co-authored with Dennis Avery).

Singer and Avery:

-avidly defend ("unstoppable") global warming, but note that it is moderate (about .8 degrees since 1850 and about .3 degrees since 1940) and argue that it is not man-made (proponents of global warming seem to be acknowledging this recently in their shift from "global warming" to "climate change")

-focus on the "persistent global warming cycle that has dominated Earth's temperatures for the past 10,000 years"-- a natural 1500-year climate cycle (+/- 500 years); further, they connect current warming to the famous Medieval Warming of 950-1300 AD and the Roman Warming (200 BC - 600 AD)

-bring together a broad array of evidences for 600 such warming cycles in the past one million years-- from ice cores, the progress and retreat of grapes and olive trees, seabed sediments, peat bogs, tree growth rings, stalagmites, coral reefs, fossilized pollen, archaeological digs and tree lines on mountainsides, tooth enamel on Vikings, clouds depicted in paintings, etc.


Other interesting points:

-Singer and Avery chart the impact of global warming cycles on Greenland-- from inhabitable to virtually uninhabitable, from the Viking settlements circa 985 to glaciers crushing northern settlements by 1350 and southern settlements being unreachable by 1410. Greenland was not re-colonized until 1721 by Denmark "when the Little Ice Age was losing its grip on the huge island...The cycle will eventually shift again and Greenland will descend into ice and hardship."

-The planet warmed from (big) Ice Age to the present time in less than 100 years-- about 11,500 years ago. (Half of the warming may have occurred within 15 years.)

-By far, the strongest correlate is, not surprisingly, solar activity-- and its inverse connection to sunspot activity. The Maunder Sunspot Minimum, from 1640 - 1710, is the most notable example-- and resulted in the Little Ice Age.

-Given our planet life's historic propensity to endure climate change, we would imagine that the impact on species would be exceedingly modest-- at most, some migration of species. In the Holocene Climate Optimum, 5-8K years ago, the warming was greater but no known species were lost.

-The impact on agriculture would be at most a mild negative and probably (as historically), a significant positive. (Interestingly, Newfoundland used to be known as Vinland.)

-The failures of the Greenhouse Theory: CO2 changes do not account for a highly variable climate (especially when compared to the 1500-year cycle); CO2 changes do not account for recent temperature changes since most warming occurred before 1940 (and the climate cooled from 1940 into the mid-1970s); the models predict the largest warming effects at the North and South Poles (the latter has been getting cooler); the models (incorrectly) predict that lower atmosphere temps will rise faster than surface temperatures; the land temperature readings fail to accommodate "urban heat islands" (interestingly, more-developed countries seem to be warming moreso!);

-Singer and Avery rip media and self-interested pursuits of climate catastrophism, Kyoto, Al Gore, and Mann et. al.'s "hockey stick"-- topics covered in even more detail in another book I hope to review shortly.

-Ironically, the big climate concern should be the next big Ice Age!

I'm not an expert on such things, but I thought this was compelling. If people know where Singer and Avery fall short, let us know!