Paul

A letter that was recently published in the UK Daily Mail about the work of Raymond H Wheeler prompted me to find out more:

Professor Raymond H. Wheeler (University of Kansas) compiled 20 centuries of historical records, and concluded from his studies that there exists a most important 100-year-cycle of climatic changes that influences human affairs in a profound manner.

The cycle occurs in four distinct phases, which are descriptive of worldwide conditions rather than specific areas. The four phases are disturbed by secondary leads and delays — as much as 10 years — in isolated and widely separated areas. Prof Wheeler stated:

“The climatic curve is intended to represent — as far as one curve can — the weather trend in the world as a whole at any one time. The curve has no absolute significance. The meaning of the curve at any one time is relative to the pattern of the 100-year old cycle as a whole.”

The 100-year weather cycle and its phases are not of precisely equal duration. The cycle can contract to 70 years or expand to 120. The cycle is divided into a warm and a cold phase, each of which has a wet and dry period. Because people are affected by weather, the cycles of weather produce similar patterns of behaviour and events in history during the same phases of the century-long weather cycle. The phases are: (1) Cold-Dry, (2) Warm-Wet, (3) Warm-Dry, and (4) Cold-Wet. We are now in a cold-dry phase, which will prevail until about 2000 A.D.
Dr. Wheeler extended his research to reveal a continuous, universal cultural pattern of “mechanism” alternating with “humanism” that occurs throughout history synchronously with the 100-year weather cycle……………….

I find this phrase uncannily representative of the modern warm period:

“Second, the decline, onset of decadence, the growing excesses of centralized government, the emergence of dictators, tyranny, fanaticism, communism, and socialism, as the warm epoch continued, and as temperatures and dryness increased.”

Most of the material that we have about Wheeler is found in the book Climate: The Key To Understanding Business Cycles by Raymond Wheeler, (Revised & Edited by Michael Zahorchak). This volume summarizes Raymond H. Wheeler’s extensive research with long climatic cycles and their relationship to the business cycle. In the 1930’s Wheeler began a lifetime study that analysed world climate and cultural activities back to the dawn of recorded civilization.

Wheeler was also the creator of a huge volume known as “The Big Book” which was housed at the Foundation for the Study of Cycles until the late 1990s.

Cycles Research Institute: Raymond H Wheeler

Letter published in the UK Daily Mail:

As a result of the recent budget, the Rudd government will be spending $2.3 billion over five years to “tackle climate change by reducing emissions, adapting to change and helping Australia play a leadership role.”

An Australian climate realist recently remarked, “This represents a huge pitch by Kevin Rudd for the youth and environmental vote, and helps explain why our new government has determinedly resisted listening to any alternative, wiser voices on the issue of global warming.

Penny Wong’s new ministry (of Climate) is reputed to already have 124 staff, and that’s on top of an already established federal dept. of the environment, a national greenhouse office that gets a few hundred million dollars a year, eight states and territories with both DOEs and GOs, and several major university-CSIRO research centres. The cost of maintaining such an army of bureaucrats and (by Australian standards) regiment of scientists must be in the region of $2 billion, to which treasurer Swan is now adding another couple of billion.

The resulting Australian figure of $4 billion annually is similar to what USA is estimated to spend on greenhouse R&D each year (though the US figure probably doesn’t include all their climate bureaucracy). On a per capita basis, as for sport, Australia now appears to be ‘punching above our weight’.”

I think it’s worth posting the graphic below again:

Borrowing the phrase often attributed to UK Aussie Rolf Harris, ” Can you tell what it is yet!?”

The Amazon rainforest, so crucial to the Earth’s climate system, is coming under threat from cleaner air say prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists in the journal Nature.

Science Daily: Amazon Under Threat From Cleaner Air

Report: CO2 from deforestation ‘far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories’

Excerpt: The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth’s equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. “Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of climate change,” said Andrew Mitchell, the head of the GCP.Scientists say one days’ deforestation is equivalent to the carbon footprint of eight million people flying to New York. Reducing those catastrophic emissions can be achieved most quickly and most cheaply by halting the destruction in Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and elsewhere.No new technology is needed, says the GCP, just the political will and a system of enforcement and incentives that makes the trees worth more to governments and individuals standing than felled. “The focus on technological fixes for the emissions of rich nations while giving no incentive to poorer nations to stop burning the standing forest means we are putting the cart before the horse,” said Mr Mitchell.

The Independent: Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming

KEVIN Rudd’s climate change guru Ross Garnaut has used his newly attained expertise in the field to argue heritage traditions, such as a slate roof, should not apply to a sleek, modern house he wants to build in inner suburban Melbourne.

The Australian: Garnaut heavies council over roof

WATER Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy says installing a pool at her home is sending “the right message” to Queenslanders coping with tough water restrictions.

couriermail.com.au: Water chief defends new pool

CLIMATE change could lead to “killer cornflakes” with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.

news.com.au: Cornflakes in cereal killer warning

A $34 million solar instrument package to be built by the University of Colorado at Boulder, considered a crucial tool to help monitor global climate change, has been restored to a U.S. government satellite mission slated for launch in 2013.

The data from these instruments will help scientists differentiate between natural and human-caused climate change, said Pilewskie.

CU Team To Build $34 Million Instrument Package For U.S. Environmental Satellite

Study: With locked crust, Earth could become another Venus

HOUSTON, May 12, 2008 — A new study of possible links between climate and geophysics on Earth and similar planets finds that prolonged heating of the atmosphere can shut down plate tectonics and cause a planet’s crust to become locked in place.

EurekAlert: Hot climate could shut down plate tectonics

Temperatures in the Arctic are rising far faster than in other parts of the world. Climate models produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are tuned to reproduce the human-made greenhouse effect, predict the region should have warmed by 1.4 °C between 1960 and 2000. In fact, the Arctic’s average air temperature rose by 2.2 °C.

Vladimir Semenov of the Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Moscow, Russia, says that ocean currents carrying warm water from lower latitudes into polar regions could have played a part in this increase. He analysed air temperature data from the north Atlantic, which revealed a cyclic pattern of highs and lows over the past century. He argues the length of such cycles must be explained by ocean currents, which also fluctuate over a timescale of decades.

Between 1970 and 2000, the average temperature of the northern hemisphere increased by 0.5 °C. Semenov calculates that the natural process he outlined may have been responsible for around 0.2 °C.

New Scientist Environment: Arctic currents may be warming the world (subscription required to read full article).

Conference poster: A mechanism for the early 20th century warming in the Arctic: a missing link Lennart Bengtsson, Vladimir A. Semenov and Ola M. Johannessen

Thanks to Luke for alerting us to this interesting research.