The study claims to narrow the gap between higher temps preceding higher CO2 — but even so, so what… a gap (or even no gap) is still a gap.
The study claims to narrow the gap between higher temps preceding higher CO2 — but even so, so what… a gap (or even no gap) is still a gap.
I am not even sure what the point would be, we know from observing temperature for the last 200 years or so that temperature does not move in lockstep with CO2.
On top of that, the mainstream claim appears to be that reducing the gap from 800 to a mere 200 years actually reverses the order of events. And, could it be that this research was undertaken expressly for the purpose of resurrecting the discredited AGW? Which it has clearly failed to do!
If Ice Ages are caused by orbital variation, then the corollary is that warming periods are also caused by orbital variation.
Since climate, warming or cooling, is more complicated than that, so are the causes of its variations.
As for CO2 changes and time lags, we know (as apparently the NY Times reporter does not) that “somehow” the warming atmosphere promotes outgassing of dissolved CO2 from the oceans — and, I’m sure, other terrain features as well. The study does not claim to show that CO2 rises precede warming periods, only that the estimated lag between the warming and the CO2 rise may have been overestimated. If anything, the new study adds to the idea that CO2’s role is small or even negligible.