History of the future

Lord Nelson may hold the key to understanding climate change

It seems Jack Tar was big on recording data. Anything that would help with navigation would be a great advantage for the British Navy. Weather is, of course, very important.

A preliminary study of 6,000 logbooks has produced results that raise questions about climate change theories. One paper, published by Dr Dennis Wheeler, a Sunderland University geographer, in the journal The Holocene, details a surge in the frequency of summer storms over Britain in the 1680s and 1690s.

Many scientists believe storms are a consequence of global warming, but these were the coldest decades of the so-called Little Ice Age that hit Europe from about 1600 to 1850.

Heresy! Global warming is irrefutable! Any deviation from orthodoxy and you will be ostracized.

Wheeler and his colleagues have since won European Union funding to extend this research to 1750. This shows that during the 1730s, Europe underwent a period of rapid warming similar to that recorded recently – and which must have had natural origins.

No! It cannot be! There is no warming that was not caused by evil, foul, polluting capitalists humans. You are dangerously close to being banished.

The ships’ logs have also shed light on extreme weather events such as hurricanes. It is commonly believed that hurricanes form in the eastern Atlantic and track westwards, so scientists were shocked in 2005 when Hurricane Vince instead moved northeast to hit southern Spain and Portugal.

Many interpreted this as a consequence of climate change; but Wheeler, along with colleagues at the University of Madrid, used old ships’ logs to show that this had also happened in 1842, when a hurricane followed the same trajectory into Andalusia.

Impossible. They must be mistaken. These logs are forgeries made by Karl Rove and Chimpy McHaliburton had Ashcrofts Dissent Squashing Commandos substitute them for the originals. (They flew there in a Blackwater owned plane that was making an extraordinary rendition flight so it was going that way anway.)

Wheeler makes clear he has no doubts about modern human-induced climate change. He said: “Global warming is a reality, but what our data shows is that climate science is complex and that it is wrong to take particular events and link them to CO2 emissions. These records will give us a much clearer picture of what is really happening.”

Back from the precipice! I think you are only declaring your belief in What Everyone Knows To Be True as protection from questions about the correctness of your thoughts. You know that to speak otherwise would be the end of your funding. Tread carefully Mr. Wheeler, you’re on thin ice and all this warmening is likely to melt that ice.