There are currently a succession of very good posts at http://chiefio.wordpress.com. EM Smith (December 6th) begins by bemoaning the constant bleating about the hottest year ever – before it has reached its end. As many other people have looked at the medieval warming he thought it might be interesting to look at what is called the Roman Optimum. The Wikipedia entry on this has been long ago removed by the AGW cabal so he has a look elsewhere – and discusses a paper that discovered the ups and downs (actually reviewed in an earlier In the News post). Hence, no need to repeat it here but go to link if you are not aware of what I am alluding to. Going back to Wikipedia he found an entry on Ostia – apparently unbeknown to Connelly and cronies. Ostia was a seaport at the mouth of the River Tiber but due to silting and a drop in sea level the site now lies 3km inland. He then adds that much of modern Istanbul is built on top of what was a harbour in the Roman Optimum (and provides a variety of links on the subject of sea level change in the Mediterranean). He claims this is existence proof of higher temperatures and higher sea levels during the Roman Optimum – when civilisation flourished. It was followed by a period of cooler weather that led to civilisation in Europe, the Middle East and Iran, India, China and the Americas, to flounder. He goes on to say the simple truth is that climate is driven by the Sun and has natural cyclic oscillations longer than our memories. As Wikipedia is infested by PC zealots who rewrite any article a sceptic might find useful, he says, the whole piece on Ostia is attached to the post – before it is changed by the AGW faithful. Incidentally, Ostia was featured in a recent issue of Current World Archaeology (see another earlier posting).
At http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/05/new-peer-reviewed-paper-shows-just-how-bad-the-climate-models-really-are/ … Anthony Watts has a gentle prod at climate model projections by alluding to a paper in the Hydrological Sciences Journal by some Greek researchers (a pdf version of the paper can be downloaded one click away).