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East Asia was 5 degrees warmer 3000 years ago

sailor(Ocean & Mountain)

Zhu Kezhen 01.jpg

Just read an article about climate change.  It was written by Mr Coching Chu(1890-1974), a prominent Chinese meteorologist, geologist and educator.  He was the president of my university from 1936 to 1949.

In this long article, Mr Chu introduced the climate change records of East Asia during the last 5000 years.  

It used to be a lot warmer than now. From 3000 BC to 1000 BC, the winter temperature was three to five Celsius degree higher.  A lot of tropical and sub-tropical plants, such as bamboo, orange tree and plum tree, was common in Northern China.  Now it's impossible for them to survive the harsh winter there.

From 1000 BC to now, the climate has been waving up and down.  The major cycle is 400-800 years, with the temperature changing up and down by one Celsius degree.

This brings an interesting question.  Is the current global warming really a result of human activities, or just part of a natural cycle?

If you can read Chinese, here's the link of this article:

http://www.douban.com/group/topic/4011485/

The Wiki page of Mr Coching Chu:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coching_Chu

(#1769@4096)
Last Updated: 2015-10-23
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  • East Asia was 5 degrees warmer 3000 years ago -sailor(Ocean & Mountain); 2015-10-23 {1782} (#1769@4096)

    Zhu Kezhen 01.jpg

    Just read an article about climate change.  It was written by Mr Coching Chu(1890-1974), a prominent Chinese meteorologist, geologist and educator.  He was the president of my university from 1936 to 1949.

    In this long article, Mr Chu introduced the climate change records of East Asia during the last 5000 years.  

    It used to be a lot warmer than now. From 3000 BC to 1000 BC, the winter temperature was three to five Celsius degree higher.  A lot of tropical and sub-tropical plants, such as bamboo, orange tree and plum tree, was common in Northern China.  Now it's impossible for them to survive the harsh winter there.

    From 1000 BC to now, the climate has been waving up and down.  The major cycle is 400-800 years, with the temperature changing up and down by one Celsius degree.

    This brings an interesting question.  Is the current global warming really a result of human activities, or just part of a natural cycle?

    If you can read Chinese, here's the link of this article:

    http://www.douban.com/group/topic/4011485/

    The Wiki page of Mr Coching Chu:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coching_Chu

    • If we take forest into account... -sailor(Ocean & Mountain); 2015-10-26 {1515} (#1781@4096)

      A friend made a comment after he read the article:

      "One thing I could argue with him is, in Chu's theory, he didn't take into consideration the effect of deforestation. North China used to be covered by forest, which helped to moderate temperature change. For instance, with forest, temperature may vary from 0 to 20 degree in a day; without forest, temperature may vary from -5 to 25 degree. Although both the average temperature is 10, the latter is more harsh to some species's survival."

      IMHO this is a very good point.  We should also take into account that there used to be much more forest coverage 3000 years ago.  The forest should have made the climate milder.

      This also brings another question.  According to the modern global warming theory, CO2 has a very significant role in terms of temperature change.  The more CO2, the higher the temperature of the earth.

      3000 years ago, the density of CO2 in the atmosphere must be much lower than now, thanks to the vast amount of vegetation, which lowered CO2 through photosynthesis process.  Therefore, the temperature should be a lot lower then--according to the global warming theory.

      So this is the question.  Which factor played a more superior role for the temperature of 3000 years ago?  Did the forest raise the low temperature in winter, or did the low CO2 make the earth colder in winter?

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