The Pacific Ocean Was As Warm 600 Years Ago – Watts Up With That?

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

An international team of climate scientists have used a 627-year coral record from Fiji to reveal unprecedented insights into ocean temperatures and climate variability across the Pacific Ocean since 1370.

The new coral record shows that the local ocean temperature was warm between 1380 and 1553, comparable to the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, when combined with other coral records, the Pacific-wide warming observed since 1920, largely attributed to human-derived emissions, marks a significant departure from the natural variability recorded in earlier centuries.

https://phys.org/news/2024-08-fijian-coral-reveals-year-pacific.html

We can safely ignore the usual contemptuous claim that it proves “climate change”. As ever, this study would not have been funded or published if it had not mentioned climate change. Hence the authors’ appeal:

Their graphs show there is no evidence of their attribution:

(D) Annually averaged Sr/Ca-SSTs for coral core F14 from Fiji (red) compared to the Fiji composite
coral record from records 1F and AB (23) (green) over their common period of 1781 to 1997. (E) Annual Fiji composite coral record (red) combining the records shown in
(D) compared to the Ocean2K SST anomaly reconstruction for the western Pacific (24) (blue) and the SST from the PHYDA close to Fiji (17°S, 117°E) (21) (green). Also shown
is the most recent SST data for Fiji from ERSSTv5 (1998 to 2021) shown in (E) (black). SST presented as anomalies relative to the period of 1883 to 1996. It should be noted
that records 1F and AB (23) from Fiji are also included in the PHYDA and O2KWP reconstructions. Triangles in (D) and (E) denote the timing of major volcanic events (<−3.5 W/
m2 values) (Fig. 2) (22) typically associated with a cooling response. Extended warm (cold) periods highlighted in (D) and (E) by red (blue) bars based on the change point
analysis for the Fiji composite shown in (E) are indicated by dark red vertical lines; dark red horizontal lines indicate the mean for each period.

Not only do we see the warmer period before the LIA set in. We can also clearly see that SSTs began rising again in the early 19thC, long before any possible man-made effect.

Plainly natural variability dominates the whole period, something which is hardly surprising, given that a warmer atmosphere cannot significantly increase ocean temperatures.

We should also ignore that black line, showing current SSTs – splicing of data in this way is a strict no-no in any statistical analysis.