What's wrong with this analysis of global climate change?

The claims in the link above are not part of a peer-reviewed study, and some of the errors are obvious:

Claim #1: "There is a strong case for an imminent change to glacial conditions based on the orbital/climate analogue and historical data."

This is based on past correlation only. Recent studies have indicated the next glaciation isn't for tens of thousands of years, based on the minimum eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/297/...

Assuming for a moment, that ice age cooling were imminent, the process is very slow, perhaps 0.05 C of cooling per century, as compared with 3-5 C of warming by 2100 expected from GHG emissions, and the temperature data from the ice cores reveals that. So this doesn't support a "rapid transition to ice".

Claim #2: "The case for an extended Holocene and continued warming for at least 50 000 years

is summarized largely by the work of Loutre and Berger and with reference to the

use of global climate models and it depends on the hypothesis for CO2 forcing of

temperature."

A simple reading of the cited study indicates that it has nothing to do with CO2 forcing and everything to do with orbit eccentricity. Moreover, there are other studies that concur with a much longer interglacial period, irregardless of human intervention.

"Given the similarities between this earlier warm period and today, our results may imply that without human intervention, a

climate similar to the present one would extend well into the future."

http://www.up.ethz.ch/people/flueckiger/publicatio...

Claim #3: "There is no evidence to support CO2 warming by radiative forcing."

Huh? I thought the study was about glaciations. Interesting and revealing diversion. The individual here seems to be promoting unfounded fears of an imminent ice age as a way to counter the concerns, based on actual science, of global warming.

I would recommend this individual take a look at the overwhelming evidence on global warming.

General overview:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/bi...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Conservative analysis:

http://www.ipcc.ch/

Scientific consensus from...:

Scientific academies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on...

Peer-reviewed studies:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/306/5702/168...

Individual scientists:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.p...

Detailed discussions from PhD climatologists:

http://www.realclimate.org/

Latest climate change studies:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/glo...

Dana adds a good critique (mine wasn't comprehensive). Also, I think most of the studies that projected cooling in the early 70's were based on the cooling effects of sulfate aerosols (not an imminent ice age), which currently mitigates some of the GHG warming.

EDIT

Dirocyn,

The other study I posted was not a Loutre/Berger one. It has the following authors:

Laurent Augustin1, Carlo Barbante2, Piers R. F. Barnes3, Jean Marc Barnola1, Matthias Bigler4, Emiliano Castellano5, Olivier Cattani6,

Jerome Chappellaz1, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen7, Barbara Delmonte1,8, Gabrielle Dreyfus6, Gael Durand1, Sonia Falourd6, Hubertus Fischer9,

Jacqueline Flu¨ ckiger4, Margareta E. Hansson10, Philippe Huybrechts9, Ge´ rard Jugie11, Sigfus J. Johnsen7, Jean Jouzel6, Patrik Kaufmann4,

Josef Kipfstuhl9, Fabrice Lambert4, Vladimir Y. Lipenkov12, Genevie` ve C. Littot3, Antonio Longinelli13, Reginald Lorrain14, Valter Maggi8,

Valerie Masson-Delmotte6, Heinz Miller9, Robert Mulvaney3, Johannes Oerlemans15, Hans Oerter9, Giuseppe Orombelli8, Frederic Parrenin1,6,

David A. Peel3, Jean-Robert Petit1, Dominique Raynaud1, Catherine Ritz1, Urs Ruth9, Jakob Schwander4, Urs Siegenthaler4, Roland Souchez14,

Bernhard Stauffer4, Jorgen Peder Steffensen7, Barbara Stenni16, Thomas F. Stocker4, Ignazio E. Tabacco17, Roberto Udisti5,

Roderik S. W. van de Wal15, Michiel van den Broeke15, Jerome Weiss1, Frank Wilhelms9, Jan-Gunnar Winther18, Eric W. Wolff3 & Mario Zucchelli19*

In addition, the icecap article failed to show why the Loutre/Berger study was wrong. That study and the one above actually refute the icecap article.

Ignoring the source "icecap" which alone is enough to make it as a waste of time.

I would have to say the very poor attempt to try and prove some sort of consensus (that scientists thought we were headed for cooling in the 70s) (but deniers keep telling us consensus is not real science, so why do they keep try to prove it on the 70 cooling theory, ah Jello)

In the first page it is fairly obvious how poorly this document is when it talks of an important 1972 meeting of paleoclimatologists, but fails utterly to mention, what meeting or were it was held. It also mentions the work of "Quinn, Levine et al" (an allusion to a scientific paper) except, in spite of the fact that scientific journals with their entire back catalog are now online like "elsevier" the only return on this reference is 4 hits 2 on icecap and 2 on skeptic blogs.

And the poorly copied figures obviously cherry picked from various other publications.

So whats wrong with it, nothing it's what it is, a bad piece of fiction. Almost as bad/funny as doing a google on the "Loutre and Berger climate model" a climate model so well known that it returns (1) hit, this question.

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I can't understand why you would usually agree with Dana since he is consistently wrong IMO. When you see a pattern repeated over and over again, it is common sense that that pattern should repeat again, particularly if this pattern is repeated due to natural cyclical variations that consistenly repeat which I assume is the case. This interglacial has been unusual but the conditions that resulted in glacial periods before are still present. I would guess that we are about to have an ice age in geologic time (in the next few thousand years) because we seem to be overdue just looking at the graph. Those models that suggest otherwise probably are assuming a greater knowledge than they possess IMO. I would trust the trend more than the models or somebody's assumptions.

The whole analysis is completely wrong.

First it claims that most scientists in 1972 agreed we were headed for an ice age. This is wrong.

"Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends."

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global-warming-m...

Then it claims according to the Milankovitch cycles, we're due for another ice age. This is also wrong.

"Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years."

http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/global-warming-a...

So basically the whole article is completely wrong.

*edit* no, the Milankovitch cycles are not based on insolation. They're orbital cycles of the Earth around the Sun. Sorry, it's not my problem if you're not convinced. This is very basic stuff.

Nothing. Russian scientists are already getting ready for a long cold period.

There is no connection between co2 levels and global temperatures.