Climate science has been getting some unwanted attention these days. Like the hoo-haa about HIV, in this case too, people are learning to be less sensationalist. When examining primary principles, one comes across quite a few studies that encourage us to pay heed to the need to be cautious lest one confuses correlations with causes. A recent paper by Sze Ling Ho and Thomas Laepple in Nature Geoscience is yet another in the series.
Surface temperatures of the seas and vast oceans of the planet play a big role in the climate change calculations. To model climate change, scientists use an proxy temperature index, TEX H 86 derived from the relationship between archaeal lipids and temperature. But use of this proxy in the climate model leads to unexplainable warm polar sea surface temperatures in Eocene - about 50 million year ago. This has been a bee in the bonnet of many climate scientists.
Now, the paper comes as a consolation and a cause for further worry. TEX may not be a good proxy for surface temperatures. But it is still very useful, since it is actually measuring subsurface temperatures.
If that does not cause worry to climate researchers who insist that they see climate warming in the future, I see it only as a a reflection of Tony Blair's "conviction" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Surface temperatures of the seas and vast oceans of the planet play a big role in the climate change calculations. To model climate change, scientists use an proxy temperature index, TEX H 86 derived from the relationship between archaeal lipids and temperature. But use of this proxy in the climate model leads to unexplainable warm polar sea surface temperatures in Eocene - about 50 million year ago. This has been a bee in the bonnet of many climate scientists.
Now, the paper comes as a consolation and a cause for further worry. TEX may not be a good proxy for surface temperatures. But it is still very useful, since it is actually measuring subsurface temperatures.
If that does not cause worry to climate researchers who insist that they see climate warming in the future, I see it only as a a reflection of Tony Blair's "conviction" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Nature Geoscience 9, 606–610 (2016)doi:10.1038/ngeo2763
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