The Ideal Climate
Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus Geology, Western Wa****ngton
University, author of 8 books, 150 journal publications with focus on
geomorphology; glacial geology; Pleistocene geochronology; environmental
and engineering geology.
CBS-TV, 60 Minutes, Burlington, Wa****ngton
March 30, 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DonEasterbrookInterviewTranscript.pdf
KLC: For the record, Don, if you gave a gift to the world and controlled
the thermostat, where would you place us with regard to climate history?
DJE: If I had to pick a climate that was good for the whole world, the
perfect climate would be around the Medieval Warm Period.
KLC: Which is similar to where we are now.
DJE: We're slightly below it. It depends on who you believe. When the
Mann hockey stick curve was all the rage, they said the MWP didn't
happen. But we know it did happen. During this time, civilizations
flourished in Europe because of the long growing season and other
things. There is good reason to believe if you're in that range, the
growing season is longer, you can grow more food, you can grow more food
in Northern latitudes, and you'll sup****t a more robust civilization.
People will have more free time because they're not starving to death,
they can do more things, like art-
KLC: And study the climate-
DJE: Right, like study the climate, that sort of thing. If I had to pick
a climate that would be a nice thing for the whole world, I'd say
somewhere close to the MWP.
KLC: A little bit warmer than now.
DJE: Yes, a little bit warmer than now, but not much. There's an
interesting parallel. If you look at the temperature curves, we've been
coming out of the LIA for about 400 or 500 years at a rate of a degree a
century. Will we do this forever? A degree a century? We have the
thirty-year wiggles in there, but when do we top out and start cooling
again? During the early part of the Holocene, it was warmer than now. In
fact, during the Climactic Optimum; it was warmer than it is now. If we
are on an overall rising temperature curve coming out of the LIA, when
we get to the temperature of the MWP, will we get another LIA, something
really big or something in-between, like the 1880-1910 cooling? The
answer is, we don't know, we'll have to wait and see. Until we have a
better understanding of what causes climactic fluctuations, solar or not
solar, and if it is solar, what the impact of solar fluctuations are,
there are a lot of things we don't know.
Until we understand the mechanisms better, we don't know. I don't know.
I don't know anybody who does know.
--
Warnest Regards
Bonzo
"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods
but by perpetual repetition." Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of
Meteorology, MIT
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