Nice catch, John. It's always good to find an explanation for ONE of the climate changes in the past. It's also interesting that the author(s) of the piece also seem to accept the human influence on global warming when they write:

As someone who studied chemistry and virology, I'm sure you understand the meaning of "anthropogenic forcing."

Or do you want to play Chinese Buffet and pick and choose which part of the article you like while rejecting other parts that you don't?

Now, there is one big series of dots you have not yet connected: how does this article apply to what's happening to the earth's climate 2300 years later? The article seemed pretty clear they do not when, in the part quoted above, the author(s) state:


From the article:

Are any similar laminated sediments seen today? Has a period of " strongly increased springtime winds" been noted and documented? If so, where?

Finally there is this:

The article says nothing about world-wide climate change, only climate change in Western Europe. How does that relate to the world-wide changes going on now?

A couple other things. You wrote:

And

Looks like your spell checking abilities are as "execrable" as those you excoriate. It should be "pejorative manner."

I'd be delighted to chat about the science (or lack of it) behind creationism should you ever like to take up that challenge. A new thread would be best. If not, I can fully understand why not.

The purpose of my posting was to enforce the previously stated concept that earth-external forces can have an affect on weather.
..snip..
As for the science behind Creationism, a very famous astronomer made the statement that (and I paraphrase) "scientists have climbed mountains of knowledge only to discover more mountains on the other side only to come to the peak of the last mountain to see theologians there and asking 'What took you so long?".
The Bible says we have all been given a measure of faith. Each one of us decides what we want to use it on.
I remember having a discussion at work about science and Christianity and a fellow worker came to those of discussing it and mentioned how impressed he was how we discuss the without all the anger.

Who has ever claimed external forces can not have an effect on the planet's climate? Asteroids have slammed into the planet and produced some major climatic changes.

The question remains: what does this have to do with the current global climate changes?

Since we have yet to come to that "last mountain," it's far too early for the theologians to start gloating. And what answer are they going to give other than "Magic man done it"? What kind of an answer is that? In your studies of chemistry and virology, would it have been accepted on any of the examinations?

See the Robin Ince video mentioned above.

Just out of idle curiosity... are you a young earth or old earth creationist?

To JohnR999,
I read your reponce to Roger and applaud your position. I think Roger misunderstood your belief as one of the new "CREATIONISTS" that reject the theory of evolution. You obviously promote the concept of evolution or you would not have gone into virology.
This so called heat spell you speak of that occurred more than a decade ago from the increased output of our sun is recorded and noted. But, isn't this the cause of the temperature increases on other planets in our solar system? You admit that man's increased polution of our atmosphere has altered the amount of heat that can escape into space, and that heat is heald captive within our atmosphere. You even go on to say you saw the massive amounts of air polution at the formula one races in China.
However, the article you presented talks about local weather changes and speaks nothing about global average temperture increases that have been recorded by NASA and other scientific organizations. This, to me anyway, is the main topic here and not some localized issue for Germany or just the European continent. Once there are changes to the Jet Streams of the world, then ocean current and fishing grounds will be altered or destoyed and crop devestation from draught or flooding is the main issue. Right now there are famines from draught in Africa, floods in Southeast Asia and India and with increased polution from the millions of extra gasoline vehicles in China and India, which do not comply to any of the new emission standards either here or in Europe, this polution can only become worse.
These so called scientific journals and reports and articles that are published or on the net that refute global warming are all trying to steer our attentions away from a frightening and inevitable demise of not only our way of life but possibly all life as we know it on this planet. Yes, the planet has been her before us and will probably be here after us, but LIFE is what counts here and not the rock it resides on.

The main objective of the project RNAVIRSPE was to gain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary processes, as well as the role of relevant genetic and biological factors, leading to 'speciation' (i.e. appearance of new species) in animal and plant RNA viruses, through comparative gene sequence analysis. Specifically, the aspects to be addressed in this project are:
1) Analyse different biological factors affecting virus speciation (host range, geographical distribution, etc)'
2) Study of the role of "modular evolution" in the evolution of different families of animal and plant RNA viruses;
3) Estimate the general frequency of lateral gene transfer in these viral families;
4) Determine the role of other genetic factors, such as mutation rates, levels of gene expression and the presence of gene overlapping, in virus speciation.

During the first 12 months of the project, the role of various biological and genetic factors involved in speciation processes of two major groups of plant RNA viruses -luteoviruses and tobamoviruses- has been analyzed. To do so, state-of-the-art bioinformatic techniques have been applied in order to perform comparative genome sequence analysis. This allowed achieving objectives 1, 2 and 3 for plant RNA viruses. The results indicate that viral speciation events tended to occur within the same plant host species and country of origin, as expected if speciation is largely sympatric, rather than allopatric, in nature. Importantly, the role of host range seems to be associated with virus adaptation rather than with co-divergence processes between the virus and host species. In addition, these analyses have shown that modular evolution is involved in speciation of the luteoviruses, but not of the tobamoviruses, for which recombination rate is extremely low.

Understanding these evolutionary processes and the factors involved in virus speciation will contribute to know how viruses adapt to new environmental conditions and which forces may shape this process. Once finished, the project will allow answering key questions in virus evolution such as what genomic changes allows RNA viruses to infect new hosts or survive to different climate conditions? How fast can an RNA virus genome evolve? Can RNA viruses exchange functional modules or genes, or is their evolution mainly the result of the accumulation of point mutations? The answers to these questions will help to understand the origin and causes of the emergence of novel viral diseases. Hence, the conclusions obtained are of high general interest, as the results obtained can be used to the development of more efficient control strategies for infectious diseases, and implement health politics.