January 2008 was an exceptional month for our planet, with a significant cooling, especially since January 2007 started out well above normal.
January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major well respected indicators. I have reported in the past two weeks that HadCRUT, RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year.
Also see the recent post on what the last 10 years looks like with the same four metrics – 3 of four show a flat trendline.
Here are the 4 major temperature metrics compared top to bottom, with the most recently released at the top:
UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature anomaly (HadCRUT) Dr. Phil Jones:
Reference: above data is HadCRUT3 column 2 which can be found here
description of the HadCRUT3 data file columns is here
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Dr. James Hansen:
Reference: GISS dataset temperature index data
University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Dr. John Christy:
Reference: UAH lower troposphere data
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA (RSS):
Reference: RSS data here (RSS Data Version 3.1)
The purpose of this summary is to make it easy for everyone to compare the last 4 postings I’ve made on this subject.
I realize that not all the graphs are of the same scale, so my next task will be to run a combined graphic of all the data-sets on identical amplitude and time scales to show the agreements or differences such a graph would illustrate.
UPDATE: that comparison has been done here
Here is a quick comparison and average of ∆T for all metrics shown above:
| Source: | Global ∆T °C |
| HadCRUT |
- 0.595 |
| GISS | - 0.750 |
| UAH | - 0.588 |
| RSS | - 0.629 |
| Average: | - 0.6405°C |
For all four metrics the global average ∆T for January 2007 to January 2008 is: – 0.6405°C
This represents an average between the two lower troposphere satellite metrics (RSS and UAH) and the two land-ocean metrics (GISS and HadCRUT). While some may argue that they are not compatible data-sets, since they are derived by different methods (Satellite -Microwave Sounder Unit and direct surface temperature measurements) I would argue that the average of these four metrics is a measure of temperature, nearest where we live, the surface and near surface atmosphere.
UPDATE AND CAVEAT:
The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
“Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.”
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: “–a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years”
There has been no “erasure”. This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not “erase” anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
UPDATE #2 see this post from Dr. John R. Christy on the issue.
UPDATE #3 see the post on what the last 10 years looks like with the same four metrics – 3 of four show a flat trendline.
Seems like GISS is the odd man out and should be discarded as an “adjustment”.
Anthony – if you’re going to use a common reference period, use a 30-year period that ends in 2000 (the latest decade). This is at the recommendation of the WMO.
I think that would be 71-2000 (which should still cover the “modern global warming” period).
Remember, GISS consistantly shows as the “hottest” because of the reference period (51-80, I believe), while HadCRU and NCDC use later time periods.
Why in the world should 2000 be used. we’re already almost a decade past that and inconveniently, showing, a dramatic decline in temps. This past 7 years has already given back all of the gain of the past 150 years. Shows how vulnerable the purported changes are to real results.
speaking of real results, did you know it snowed in San Diego last week?
This drop in temperature is certainly very unusual. The fall of 0.595 degrees since Jan 2007 is the largest January-to-January drop in HAD CRU3 since 1875, and the biggest drop for any 12-month interval since -0.681 degrees in February 1974.
The January temperature is the lowest for any month since 1994, and the lowest for a month unaffected by volcanic eruptions in 20 years.
January 2008 was cooler than January 1932, even after all the downwards adjustments they have applied to the old data.
Nice to see that the data with the highest decline is the GISS, which has relied on Polar Amplification to reinforce its warming position. There’s way too much noise to pluck anything of value from the N Pole data, but the MSU data shows the Extratropics have dropped 0.94 deg C in the last 12 months. That’s a chunk, to use technical language.
NOAA is still showing an elevated SOI (1.9 for January, 1.8 for December, 0.9 for November). Dependent on the time lag between the SOI and the La Nina (2 to six months typically) we’re in for some chillier weather for a couple more months, assuming one believes ENSO has an impact on global temp. It’s tough to miss.
How long can the trend continue? How long is the lag between solar and global temperature? We won’t be seeing the rest of the recent drop in TSI for a few more years now. There go a couple more tenths.
It’ll be fun to watch.
So how’s that correlation of the temperature anomaly with the atmospheric CO2 change going? /rhet
Does anyone have an early-access look at UAH or RSS data? Can we see were we stand 20 days into February?
REPLY: No. This is why I keep saying I’m not going to analyze the surfacestation data until the survey is complete. Don’t rush the science.
So, the oceans have turned cooler or at the very least stayed the same over the last few years, and the temperature of the atmosphere have cooled significantly over the last decade. The idea of “committed warming”, i.e. a strong radiative imbalance is rather hard to reconcile with the fact that the climate system has lost heat.
It should be time to
1) use a relatively short response time to perturbations for the climate system when calculating the sensitivity and
2) admit that either the sun or possibly ocean currents play a much bigger role then admitted by the IPCC.
Can I as an AGW agnostic sound a note of caution: that sudden changes in temperature are usually quickly reversed. If that happens we could soon be back in record warm temperatures.
On the other hand it is pleasant to see the low temperatures on the graph. Thank you for doing all this work.
I surely wish that we could have unadjusted records over the peroid of record. I am not a scientists but am having trouble with the current adjustments They seem to be designed to make the recent trend warmer. The raw data dosen’t seem to be doing that.
I just wonder if GISS is trying to adjust the older records up to match current UHI levels? If so they are surely being disengenious. I will not say they are deliberately changing the record, but I do have trouble in that they do seem to have personal bias toward warming and their adjustments seem to show that.
We need to get back to raw data and eliminate the microbias stations from the USHCN and start using good methodology.
From the layman’s point of view I want climate science that I can trust. If we are going to use proxies, use ones that are conclusive (not tree rings that might be moisture related, CO2 related, or temperature related).
Thanks Anthony for such a good job..
Bill
Drop about another .5C, and we’re basically back to where we were in the mid-late 1800s when the Little Ice Age ended.
I’m really, really anxious to see Feb data now.
“Seems like GISS is the odd man out and should be discarded as an “adjustment”.”
That is *exactly* what I thought the instant I saw their data. Looks like they knew they were overestimating for a long time, and this was a great time to adjust their reporting to be in line with everyone else.
REPLY: Soon, after examination of the algorithm, they may be singing “Thats the nights that the lights went out in Georgia….” There is a flaw in the adjustment, see my post on Cedarville…urban adjustment applied to a stable rural station. Nightlights is flawed.
“Lights=0″ = 0?
I wonder if there will be a scientific consensus that this temperature drop was not caused by humans?
Please keep in mind that GISS takes 1950-1980 as their reference period and not 1960-1990 as the others do. This may explain the higher values.
Hmm. I think that would only affect their baseline (i.e., “what is zero”), but not the actual raw amount of the drop (0.75C).
And this is odd, condsidering their recent adjustments to NOAA data are nil–they don’t push current temps UP (any more than the NOAA), they have been pushing past temperatures DOWN.
“I wonder if there will be a scientific consensus that this temperature drop was not caused by humans?”
No comment on the subject would probably translate to “not human”. OTOH, there are those who say “it’s Global Warming” (Dr. Pielke points this out in his blog.)
BTW, what happens when one overlays the 100-year record of NASA and NOAA (metadata) with the NOAA data (raw, with only outliers removed)?
REPLY: So many questions, not enough time.
You can actually follow daily temp UAH here
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
by clicking on the graphs you could roughly calculate the temps for feb up to current but as Anthony says it wont be relaible as it’s going up and down ect but its still below (that’s the lower troposphere data)
REPLY: I’ve visited this resource and I’ve seen some errors in the way javascript presents the data on that website, so take it with some caveats that it may not accurately represent the result due to it being an interactive web application.
What stands out to me isn’t the cooling, but the discrepancies in the numbers. There are plenty of variables that could alter the absolute temperature for each study. But if these numbers truly represented a global average temperature, there should be a very high degree of agreement over the delta T. Particularly in the most recent, and presumably most reliable, numbers.
When the data for the single most precisely measured year, shows a disagreement equal to fully 1/4 of the claimed total change, the system simply isn’t knowable at a relevant level. Assuming all the numbers are gathered and adjusted in good faith, that data can only get less precise in preceding years.
GISS includes the poles – the other temperature series do not. A larger drop in GISS simply indicates that the poles got colder faster than the rest of the globe. I would not read too much into the difference between them.
That said, I am not convinced that GISS polar measurement estimates have any connection with reality but that is a seperate issue.
Patrick is absolutely right …except for the part about it being nice to see low temperatures on the graph. I am freezing.
Raven, GISS ESTIMATE the Poles , hadcru does not.
More data for the mix.
El Nino/La Nina effects on ocean temps (+/- 5 degrees from equator, 120-170 degrees West. (Celsius), 1950 to 2007
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
Anthony,
When you redo the data for the temperatures to a common reference, could you make the raw data available on your website? I have some neat statistical software I am playing with, find it frustrating using all the difference data sets and don’t have a really good idea how to change it all to a common reference.
REPLY: There are links to the raw data below each graph, maybe you missed them?
Re:
“You can actually follow daily temp UAH here
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
by clicking on the graphs you could roughly calculate the temps for feb up to current but as Anthony says it wont be relaible as it’s going up and down ect but its still below (that’s the lower troposphere data)”
As Anthony mentioned the page is quirky and doesn’t seem to plot properly. However, you can select show data as text and get a nice data dump for the past 10 years and then play with it in Excel. I selected 3300 ft. altitude (lower toposphere) and performed a few quick calculations.
Dec 2007 average = 270.209 Kelvin
Jan 2008 average = 269.950 deg Kelvin
Feb 2008 average (through 2/18) = 270.007 Kelvin
February to date is roughly a 0.06 deg C increase from January. However, take it with a grain of salt and please check it out yourself as this was real quick and dirty calculation.
Take a look at NOAA’s breakdown of global temps. NH land is showing a negative anomaly and is a huge 2.4C cooler than last January (no mistake in that number).
Interestingly, Jan 2008 was the warmest Jan on record in Australia. February 2008 looks like being substantially cooler. So Feb 2008 will probably see the SH ‘catching up’ with the NH.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/jan/global.html#temp
Thanks for the average. Now somebody with time on their hands should average out the four time series over the whole satellite era.
Maybe there could be a consensus that, everybody should use this average of averages as a common reference base when talking about recent global temperature changes. Without an aggregate, the debate always becomes pointless as parties get to pick their favorite temperature series.
While differing baselines could displace one graph from another linearly it seems that three graphs are congruent, the other not.
I would say as a result that the work done on the fourth is not confirmed, and barring justification of the kind Raven and Steven M. are sorting out I might even call it invalid. Perhaps I’m anal, though.
Gary.
I Am toying with a statistical test.
Giss say that they know the global temp per year within +-.05C
Hadcru say the same. how close should they be? how far apart
I’ve started “Rurudyne’s Daily Global Cooling Watch” and would like any feedback or suggestion on the article I’ve assembled. The following link is to a nice, safe, non-political forum … yes, it’s a Transformers Fan Forum. –.^
http://tfarchive.com/community/showthread.php?t=43032
[...] online sources (e.g. Watts Up With That) point to other sources providing similar messages, including that the year-to-year change in [...]
“February to date is roughly a 0.06 deg C increase from January. ”
But that’s an increase over Jan.’s temperature, not Feb.’s zero-anomaly, right?
REPLY: lets not speculate on future datasets please. Let them be released first then we can all squabble over the numbers. Don’t rush Science.
#Re Jeff C: February to date is roughly a 0.06 deg C increase from January. However, take it with a grain of salt and please check it out yourself as this was real quick and dirty calculation.
Thanks for that! great calculation…A re-check at the end of month should confirm whether we can use this for approximations at least.
The whole idea of man made global warming is so ridiculous. Will the liberal establsihment of pop-culture ideas admit their fault? That will be interesting to see! I think it will take some time. Whichever way earth’s current climate trend goes, there is little or nothing we can do about it. We can NOT PANIC and adapt as needed.
(Sigh)
A.) Okay, okay, I’ll send back my cattle prod.
B.) The IPCC followed me home. Can’t I keep it, huh?
C.) But Unca’ Rev, all the OTHER kids get to rush the science! THE’VE already GOT a hunderd years! I don’t get to have ANY fun!
[...] In fact, Watts Up has four such charts. [...]
Let them be released first then we can all squabble over the numbers. Don’t rush Science.
But, but, but, Algore said we only have 10 years left, and that was nearly 2 years ago. Geez, if we can’t rush the science, we’re DOOMED!! Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, droughts, rising sea level, oh the horror of it.
Sorry, Anthony, that just seemed to fit this thread.
Sam Said: (20:34:11) :
“Why in the world should 2000 be used. we’re already almost a decade past that and inconveniently, showing, a dramatic decline in temps. This past 7 years has already given back all of the gain of the past 150 years. Shows how vulnerable the purported changes are to real results.”
And that’s the point. Why does GISS continue to use 51-80 for their reference period, almost 40 years in the past (and in a cooler period, before the “modern global warming” period.)
If you compare surface temps to a walk-in freezer, you WOULD get higher anomalies.
“Will the liberal establsihment of pop-culture ideas admit their fault?”
The jury is still out. (Consensus OFF. Debate ON.)
It seems probable to me that man has had some measurable effect on the temperature. However, there is preliminary evidence that temperature has been poorly measured and very badly adjusted by those responsible. Data is in the process of being gathered regarding this. Results still pending.
There is also evidence of stronger correlations to factors other than Greenhouse gasses, particularly the PDO/AMO cycle, which may well account for warming of the the 19-teens-’30s, cooling from the ’40s-70s, and warming since 1980. (The degree of warming since 1980 being particularly called into serious question). The temperature trend of the next five years may well provide (most of) the answer.
Mere correlation is not proof. It is a mere starting point for further empirical observation. Lack of correlation, however, may be considered likely to be disproof.
I think that puts it pretty fairly.
And what if those of the pop-culture establishment (which I do not consider to be “liberal” in any real sense of the definition) do, in the end, turn out to be wrong or mostly wrong, then will they admit their error?
As a liberal apostate (and continuing bleeding-heart liberal), I think I can answer that question by consultatiion of the the historical record:
Every bit as much as they admitted error on demographics.
Every bit as much as they admitted error on resource depletion.
Every bit as much as they admitted the “surge” was a success.
Every bit as much as they admitted that poverty has been reduced.
Every bit as much as they admitted that the W.H.O. is right about DDT.
Every bit as much as they have admitted Paul Ehrlich was wrong.
Every bit as much as they have admitted Dennis Meadows was wrong.
Every bit as much as they have admitted Herman Kahn was right.
Every bit as much as they have admitted tax cuts result in greater revenues.
Every bit as much as they have admitted that putting bad guys in jail reduces the crime rate.
Every bit as much as they have admitted that Reagan caused the fall of the Soviet Union.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Apology accepted. (*insert appropriate ghastly sound effects*)
“Will the liberal establishment of pop-culture ideas admit their fault?”
Evan … At the risk of citing a ‘liberal’ I must wonder at the notion that the luminaries of pop-culture have any ideas at all…. Well, good ideas.
Since the 1970s we have so many things in our popular culture that they just couldn’t have imagined and didn’t imagine. In their most cynical moment of mad brilliance all they could come up with, all they could place on the stage with Howard Beale ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfGdbFh6cSI ), can’t hold a candle to the sheer mendacity and creative incompetence which these luminaries themselves have actually foisted on this nation.
They had Beale mourn the unreality of TV and yet their peers now give us “Reality TV.” Beale said “Go to God! Go to your gurus. … Go to yourselves!” but now they invite us to come to Oprah or any of the countless “People’s Court” clones.
It’s amazing to realize how unimaginative they were about themselves and their peers, what THEY were capably incapable of.
Could they make Network today? What would they say to us today? Not “Turn off your TVs!” because how would that play with the people paying for product placement ads in the movie? Maybe a Howard Beale in 2008 would be watered down to talk about the evils of … um … well …hmmmmmm?
Maybe I just lack the imagination to think of anything they might do that they haven’t already done. Go figure?
Wasn’t ‘98 “the hotest year on record” due to a super El Nino? How come GISS missed it ?
The 30 day temp anomaly from the NCDC (Jan 20 to Feb 18) is here.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30a.rnl.html
The map shows the extreme cold conditions in southern Asia, north-west North America, parts of Arctic and Antarctica over the past 30 days. Europe and Russia are above average.
The 7 day anomaly shows there has been some moderation in all the anomalies.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_07a.rnl.html
So, February to date might be showing some moderation in temps from January.
And thanks Anthony for a great report and great website (people should print this out and show it to their global warming friends).
But the biggest cause of the temperature decline this year is La Nina. The latest sea surface temperature map shows La Nina is still going strong but ther may be some weakening. Historically, global temperature lag the La Ninas / El Ninos by 3 to 6 months so there should not be any significant increase in temps for at least 6 months.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.2.18.2008.gif
I hate to say it but, any drop in temperature if and when recognized will be attributed to AGCC. C02 will still be the villain. It’s the whole “tipping point” thing, and because we’ve upset nature’s “delicate balance”. Global Warming is so Yesterday.
Just to make sure I understand this, you are comparing January 2007 with January 2008, and drawing your conclusions from those numbers alone?
REPLY: No, but you seem to be. This is a very large anomaly, largest seen in years, coming on the heels of predictions of increasing temperaturs, so worth pointing out. Besides the fact that 4 metrocs are in agreement, what is also worth noting is that this large anomaly coincides with a large La Nina, a PDO shift, and a deep solar minimum. See previous posts on the subject.
Roger: They’ve moved on to bigger and better things, no dwelling on their legacy of achievement–commendable in a way.
henry and others, changing the anomaly peroid just sifts the line vertically, it doesnt change the trend and the trend is the issue
Roger, technically 1934 was the hottest year on record.
It is impossible to tell which periods were warm relative to others by looking at the GISS chart of anomalies. For that, you need to look at a chart of the actual temperatures (preferably unadjusted). Frankly, I don’t have a clue what the GISS chart represents. There is no sign of cooling from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, and there are no significant anomalies during the 1930’s.
I don’t really have any opinion about global warming, but I do have a strong opinion about how the data is being collected and how it is being “adjusted.”
PS. If you want to read a defense of Hansen, check out Mark Bowen’s Censoring Science, which was published in December. There isn’t a single mention of any of Hansen’s critics, their reverse engineering of his mistakes or Hansen’s stonewalling of requests for information. When critics are mentioned, they are labeled “deniers.”
Question:
Does anyone have a handy link to one (or more) of the Big Four monthly anomalies? (I.e., the “average” for each month from 1979-1998 (or whatever time period .)
“and yet their peers now give us “Reality TV.” ”
Actually, I think FOX started that.
“Could they make Network today?”
Maybe as a South Park episode.
Never Mind!
For purposes of comparison, here are the NOAA global anomolies 1900-2000
(Celsius)
LAND
J: 2.8
F: 3.2
M: 5.0
A: 8.1
M: 11.1
J: 13.3
J: 14.3
A: 13.8
S: 12.0
O: 9.3
N: 5.9
D: 3.7
Mean: 8.5
LAND/SEA
J: 12.0
F: 12.1
M: 12.7
A: 13.7
M: 14.8
J: 15.5
J: 15.8
A: 15.6
S: 15.0
O: 14.0
N: 12.9
D: 12.2
Mean: 13.9
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html
For those jumping the gun, note that Feb. is normally a warmer month that Jan.
Looks like Scotland’s brave decision to lead the way in fighting “climate chaos” (see link) is having an effect already.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7213745.stm
As an aside does anyone know what “climate stability” would look like?
Jim’s question about “Those numbers alone . . . ” got me thinking.
We can’t draw conclusions but please let me know if I’m am incorrect in my thinking.
That heat is lost to the system forever setting us back to a lower starting point.
As atmospheric CO2 has not dropped and the heat loss to space was accelerated as compared to recent years (yes, I realize temp is a noisy proxie of heat but has Anthony and others have shown, it is difficult for it to be biased cold vs. high)
As the study of the climate is an on going endeavor and the actual drivers of the system are still being discovered, the recent temperature drop pushes down the confidence of CO2 as a significant driver and increases the confidence other drivers are now more likely to be more significant. (To date, those other drivers being primarily PDO, AMO, Solar Variance)
Feedback appreciated.
Re: “lets not speculate on future datasets please. Let them be released first then we can all squabble over the numbers. Don’t rush Science.”
Agreed. After playing with the data from UAH webpage more it is clear that the data is not in final form and trying to draw conclusions from it would not be wise.
Mike, my layman’s answer to your question is that the global temperatures must fluctuate a great deal more than the underlying heat in the world system. Where all the heat has gone I don’t know (below sea level perhaps?), but it is more customary just to look at annual rather monthly figures, since they at least are less dominated by very short term effects.
When trying to lose weight most experts tell us that it is not a good idea to weigh yourself on extremely accurate scales every few hours and worry about a few ounces gained or lost. They say that it is best to weigh oneself no more than once a week – and to be more concerned about the generally trend than the exact number of pounds lost.
I am slightly concerned that we might be making too much of a temporary blip in temperature and that we should take a long term view of the trend.
There seems to be a closer correspondence with PDO/AMO and (to a lesser extent) TSI than to CO2.
We have to consider that climate is subject to many different pressures and that singling out one effect is very difficult. (A correspondence might not exist between temperatures and Effect X because of vaious competing pressures even if X is important.)
But the oscillation factor seems to be important. Note that ocean temps are far less volatile than land temps (more joules required to change air temp than water owing to density of the latter).
This would seem to imply that a change in ocean temps woud carry more “Umph” (i.e., joules) than a change in air temps and that the ocean temps may well be the dog and the land temps may be the tail.
Mike, you beat me to it. The global average temperature (GAT) measures the current energy level of the atmosphere. For a drop of this magnitude to be explained, you have to find out how energy left the system or is hidden in the system. If the energy left the system, then GHG aren’t locking in and accumulating energy as the warmists claim. If the energy has gone into hiding (e.g. into the ocean), then the GAT measurement has to questioned as inadequate.
Putting 0.6 degrees in perspective– That is the amount of energy we get from sun in about 3.7 hours.
assuming:
(a) Heat capacity of atmosphere ~ 3.8*10^21 Joule/K
(b) incident radiation ~ 1366 Watt/m^2)
(c) surface temp is approximative of the whole atmosphere. (big assumption)
Losing (or gaining) .6 deg over the course of a year is not a big deal percentage wise. That would mean we averaged a radiative imbalance of -0.04% in the last 12 months, and about +0.0007% over the last century.
I think a lot of people who worry about GW don’t have a good feel for the amounts of energy they are talking about.
As an example, a solar eclipse deprives the earth of ~3.3*10^20 Joules. (Assuming it happens in the daytime, ha ha) This alone is enough to drop the Atmosphere’s avg temp by 0.085 deg K.
(assumptions: solar eclipse transit time = 7 hrs, radius of moon= 0.27*radius of earth)
[...] global warming. I wonder what the good scientist thinks of the current global cooling, especially this year the world is [...]
The “cliff” depicted by HadCRUT is of a greater amplitude than the fall off from the ‘97 – ‘98 El Nino. I am getting quite concerned.
I’m amazed that no one else is commenting on the NH land (where 90% of people live) average temp falling 2.4C (jan 2007 to jan 2008) in 12 months.
The IPCC is saying we will get that amount of warming in 50 years and it will be a catastrophe. Yet, we get that amount of cooling in a year and no one bats an eyelid.
I think the reason is that both sides of the debate instinctively believe that whatever happens, climate changes slowly and therefore a 2.4C drop in average temperature in a year must be a statistical quirk or anomaly.
Well maybe it isn’t and climate can change rapidly. There is some evidence that at the start of the Little Ice Age we had an abrupt cooling of around 3C in just a few years (perhaps 5 years).
BTW, I went and checked there wasn’t a mistake in the Jan 2007 NH land temp and found in fact it had been adjusted down slightly in the jan 2008 report and the cooling would have been -2.45C using the jan 2007 value.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/jan/global.html#Temp
steven mosher (06:26:51) :
“henry and others, changing the anomaly peroid just sifts the line vertically, it doesnt change the trend and the trend is the issue.”
Once again, I agree about the trend. But if a common zero is to be chosen, why choose GISS?
Does this mean that the other three zeros should be bumped up to the GISS values, or should all four follow the lowest?
Compare GISS Jan 08 (.12C) to RSS Jan 08 (-.08). How much of that .2C difference is due to processing of data, and how much is because of the difference on reporting time?
And once again, trend wouldn’t change either way. But “alarmists” want to show the largest value above zero (implying that “zero” is normal).
Al Gore: give your Nobel prize back!
[...] het licht van de stijgende temperaturen wegens klimaatverandering. Deze meting is afzonderlijk door vier instituten bevestigd. De extremiteit van de daling is niet te verklaren via het weerfenomeen La Nina wat wel [...]
[...] het licht van de stijgende temperaturen wegens klimaatverandering. Deze meting is afzonderlijk door vier instituten bevestigd. De extremiteit van de daling is niet te verklaren via het weerfenomeen La Nina wat wel [...]
Patrick:
From one layman to another, I agree. I don’t want to make too much of it. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, what can we take from it? Don’t want to act in a catastrophist manner (if that’s a word)
Given the specific heat of the oceans, I would think the vast majority of heat exits to space.
Arthur: Question I asked myself wrt your comment. Where would the heat hide? Did atmosphere suddenly lose mass and pressure decreased forcing a temp drop? Don’t think so. Did some of it go into the oceans? Some yes, but I can’t imagine anywhere else other than outer space, (JIm Clark once gave me heck for not recognizing that some heat does travel down as evidenced by such things as thermals but I imagine the vast majority the heat escapes the system to outer space.) Maybe the heat got smart and is hiding between sample points.
Thanks for your comments. They are greatly appreciated.
Doubters ought to look at the trend in world ocean pH. Probably more stable than temperature. Increasing acidification is not good. To put it mildly.
I believe a period of cooling is in store, and that this is just the initial downward spike. Only time will tell, of course. The correlation between lower solar activity and a downward trend in temp. seems pretty clear, except to the fuzzy-brained warmers.
Since I have been taught by the almighty talking box that correlation equals causation, and since I moved from Columbus, Ohio to Westchester, NY in Dec ‘06, and have thus not had one single meal from either Taco Bell or White Castles since moving, I have to wonder if this temp drop hasn’t been a result of my dietary changes.
After all, methane is a greenhouse gas.
Of course, the AGW folks still think it’s C02, not the sun, but carry on.
There has been a lot of mention of La Nina being the reason for current change in temperature trends. Here is a bit of news that might warn us of any smugness we might have in our ability to do medium-term forecasting. A few months okay, forecasters for the Southeast U.S. were in consensus that La Nina meant continued low amounts of rainfall for Georgia. However, in the month of February already, Atlanta’s rainfall has exceeded normal rainfall. Also, the rainfall for the last three months is above normal. http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/fitness/monthly/USGA0028?from=36hr_topnav_fitness
The global warmers will completely ignore this info, since there is no way to tax the sun.
Maybe we can get Algore to donate a small portion of his global warming millions to buy winter coats for poor kids or something like that.
It’s clear why the temperatures have dropped so quickly.
The Kyoto protocol is actually working, and the cooling was in the pipeline!
Global Ice Age …… Al G. invented that !!!!!
Your website should see a nice bump as you are linked indirectly through Drudge via the link below. Congrats and back off to lurking for me.
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
It is very popular in all sorts of disciplines to assemble data sets which best exemplify a conclusion which supports hypothesis. Further data will confirm or refute the most recent assertion.
It will be interesting to see if we could find explicit solar data which could be tied to these trends. That in and of itself does not refute global climate change tied to an increase in atmospheric CO2, popularly called global warming.
One misapprehension people have about global warming is that it will suddenly make everything hotter; That is incorrect. What it will do is increase the over all energy in the system, which in turn will likely be reflected in more kinetic energy in the weather systems and faster over-all exchanges of heat between the poles and the equator. *THAT* is what will likely cause major melting, not specific increases in insolation in higher latitudes.
It also means greater extremes in temperature on a seasonal basis, and less “consistent” weather over all. Boston may get one winter mostly below freezing, and immediately following have one where temps skip along mostly above.
The key now is to watch the trends, from the data we currently have, and are now starting to expand. Either way the wind is blowing (hot or cold), we need accurate empirical data. Much of what has been collected does support warming. More data in required to decisively refute that hypothesis.
I wish all of you would get an education before blabbering like hyenas on an issue you know nothing about. I’m not committed either way on the global warming debate, but to see people hysterical about a one year trend, when longer term trends (e.g., longer than decadal oscillations) clearly show warming, is laughable. Please get a clue.
Oh yeah, “snow” in san diego, baghdad, or madrid, doesn’t mean global warming is a myth. I know its hard for you genius’s to understand this, but this can be caused by larger amplitude of the polar jet, or more moisture in the atmosphere. Why aren’t we seeing record low temperatures anymore??? We have plenty of record high temperatures every year now. Cold air outbreaks are more short lived, You don’t see blobs of -10,-20,-30 degree high temperatures in the midwest like you could prior to 1995. These facts are making your head spin, I will stop now.
Duh, thanks, Jack.
FYI, hyenas are incapable of blabbering about issues. I would think your edumacation would have provided that information. People who think they know everything do, however. Us? We’re still looking for answers, we always will. It’s fine for you to believe we know all there is to know about global or even regional climates, but don’t preach to us.
Jack
International Falls, Minnesota just set a RECORD LOW of -40F (Also -40C)
It looks like the earth global temperatures were lower this year. The “librul media” is not saying that we have human factors causing global warming. The overwhelming consensus of “professional skeptics” (scientists) using legitimate methods (not faith based) say that this is a serious and perhaps catastrophic problem. These findings are supported by the world community.
Yup, we had a cool year. Thank you , God. Please give us a few more chances to get this planet back the way you gave it to us ok? We promise not to f*ck it up again.
Will Al give back his prize now? Will the media apologize? Probably not. I hope this at least puts an end to the socialists HORRIBLE cap and trade plans.
Thanks for that gnarley concert last year Al Gore. That really did the trick!!
As you were…
Are these the same scientists that can’t give me an accurate five day forecast that are telling me they can accurtately account for all of the variables involved in climatic change? Am I that far off in saying that the number factor in short term climate change is a change in oceanic currents brought about by plate tectonics? If so, since when has man ever really had a handle on how, when, or why these events occur?
Ya es oficial: enfríamiento global
Para los científicos, claro. Los políticos y los ecomarxistas seguirán dándonos la tabarra con el calentamiento global, el cambio climático y el calor que hace en Tarifa.
Tanto Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH como RSS, los cuatro centros principales de…
Given that global warming is real according to overwhelming scientific consensus, and given that humans play a significan role in causing global warming, what steps should we take to reduce the problems caused by the increases that virtually all (reputable) scientists agree are going to happen in the coming years? Is it wise to look at a single year and base our future on that? Is it wise to ignore the consensus of climate science? There will always be fringe sites that worry about the socialists destroying the earth. Is it reasonable to say that fossil fuels are a finite resource and look now for alternatives? Or is it better to just hope for the best and continue to throw dung on those evil socialists?
Thank you , God. Please give us a few more chances to get this planet back the way you gave it to us ok? We promise not to f*ck it up again.
Well, speaking as a liberal atheist, I wouldn’t wish the world we Current Apes evolved out of [100,000ya] on my worst enemies (not being a fan of ice ages–I LIKE my mid-Holocene!).
Not to worry, though. Your fears are a bit out of date. The environment was (totally) saved by the internal combustion engine around a hundred years ago. Before that, man was very hard on old terra firma. (Europe used to be one big forest before we busy pre-BigOil beavers went and chopped it up and burned it down.)
And I’d hate to lose the wealth that “getting this planet back” would entail. In order to give away (and invest) large $chunks to save the world, you have to create it in the first place. Liberalism is a lot of things, but one thing it ain’t is cheap! It requires $$$. The “Kyoto cost” in human life and welfare would be awfully steep in humanitarian terms.
Given that global warming is real according to overwhelming scientific consensus, and given that humans play a significan role in causing global warming, what steps should we take to reduce the problems caused by the increases that virtually all (reputable) scientists agree are going to happen in the coming years?
I believe it’s real. I agree man has had an impact (but not particularly significant). I dispute the degree alleged, as do a lot of reputable scientists. (I think it’s exaggerated about twofold.) I think the PDO/AMO is the primary driver and the rest is spurious measurement error and “adjustment”. I hope to all heck we can avoid a solar minimum. And the PDO is due for a cooling phase, anyway.
I think by far the most effective means we have to combat it (if severe) is to develop economically as quickly as we possibly can. If AGW is as big a threat as some say, I believe it would be suicide-terracide to restrict development or growth in any way.
In that case (which I seriously doubt, but will stipulate), the only prayer we have is to “overtake” the crisis economically and technologically, which, given current trends, we will.
Is it reasonable to say that fossil fuels are a finite resource and look now for alternatives?
Depends entirely on the cost. (P.S., cost includes not only wealth spent, but wealth never created.)
We will leave fossil fuels in the dust–long–before we are anywhere near out of it (or even short of it). We have been discovering oil faster than we have been using it ever since we popped the cork in Pennsylvania in 1859. We have nearly twice the potential reserve we had thirty years ago.
But if we murder our wealth by restricting use, we will be that much less likely to get there. We will also be that much less likely to be able to deal with any real environmental/climate crisis if it occurs.
If AGW is real and serious, we can’t dodge it–we haven’t the means. Even the IPCC says Kyoto can’t do us down more than 0.2C. If it IS real, our best chance by far is to outrun it. In which case, please don’t vote to hobble us in the name of winning the race!
Tree rings up here at 9200 ft in Colorado show sudden increases in size–then trail off into ever increasing dry periods. (rings get ever more narrow like up to now) Looking at the rings–I asked what Denver was like in 1946–reply “only the streetcars could move with boards on their fronts”. I do truly hope that the enormous drift of snow on the norths side of my dome will have melted away by this fall.
I found it interesting that on some sites, the cry immediately went from global warming to climate change. The simple reason is there is too much money that can be made from scientific uncertainty. 25 years ago it was the coming ice age, 10 years ago the coastal plains would soon be underwater, now what?
A temporary drop in temperature is to be expected when both poles are melting. It takes 80 calories per gram just to change ice to water at 0 C. That energy has to come from somewhere. The overall trends in global temperature continue upward in rough parallel with CO2 atmospheric levels, an increase in global precipitation, the recession of the glaciers, an increase in violent weather, all of whch changes are occurring more rapidly than at any other time in the history of the planet. Those that ignore these trends are fools.
Here is a perfect example -
http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000370&p=80#001189
“Mankind fiddles while earth burns.”
John A. Davison
Maybe we should pour tons of co2 in the atmosphere to warm it up?
Weather is not climate change, but there is surely enough long-term evidence to downplay the role of CO2 in the warming debate before our politicians and the UN kill the global economy. There are no viable practicable alternatives to fossil fuels as sources of energy in the next 10 years ( nuclear plants take time to build, and Harry Reid is still alive) but there will be a limit to what the public is willing to pay for gasoline. Necessity is the mother of invention. Let’s hope the upcoming “Heartland” meeting in N.Y. gets some good publicity and common sense prevails in our energy policies.
dailytech has simply replaced the language with “Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming”
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
Please GOD use this infomation to shut that mad man Gore up.
No, but climate is defined as the accumulation of weather over time, so the two are joined at the hip.
all of whch changes are occurring more rapidly than at any other time in the history of the planet.
I doubt that. For that matter, those changes are occurring less rapidly in the last decade than the previous two.
And now we’ve had a very precipitous cooling. A century’s warming worth of giveback in a year. So far. “More rapidly than at any other time in the history of the”–well, since we’ve been paying close attention and measuring it with satellites, I guess.
When it comes to climate, I suspect we don’t know as much as we suspect we know. I’d hate to shut down modernity on a hunch. Especially as the further progress of modernity is the only thing that will solve anything if serious warming–or cooling–is down the pike.
Those that ignore these trends are fools.
What about those who miscalculate them?
and the UN kill the global economy.
If the west is too weak-kneed, I hope at least India and China will tell the UN where to stuff it. No point in theim starving just becuase we feel a need(less) to shoot ourselves in the foot. (They have their children to think of.)
It seems apparent that no matter how often or thoroughly basic tenants of AGW theory fail when tested empirically, or how inadequetly the theory fails to explain observed natural phenomena, this theory somehow remains current, when such similar refutation of any other theory would relegate it to the dustbin of history. While AGW theory demands that atmospheric temperatures at both poles will rise first and most at surface level, and temperatures in the lower-troposphere will rise 3-4 times as much as surface levels because that sector of the atmosphere is where theory requires the inordinate capture of reflected radiation by GHGs, such measured temperatures uniformly fail to comply with theory. Now the Alarmists are confronted with the uncomfortable facts that temperatures in the Antarctic have been cooling overall for years, that lower-tropospheric measures are static when they should have been rising steadily, and surface temperatures have remained static (and dropping recently more steeply than any temperature has ever changed up or down before) in the last decade, while CO2 levels rise, and cannot explain such observations within their own theory.
Global Warming
By S. C. Yednock Jr.
I long for what the summer brings,
Swim suit clad athletic young things,
Cavorting about a net and a ball,
I’m tired of ice and snow and all.
So humor me in my chagrin
And let our relief begin.
Spray and spread the aerosol
And let’s pollute this big blue ball.
Remove all control devices,
CO2 will melt our ices.
The green house will soon be forming
And we can ENJOY our global warming
No major cooling reported by NASA here
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
What is the sun explodes?
Can someone please explain to me why the NASA site is displaying diametrically opposite temperature data for 2007???
At http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ is the NASA temp data for
2007. They say: “The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period
of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard
Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had
leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the
“El Niño of the century”. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy
because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and
the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El
Niño-La Niña cycle.”
REPLY: Because they haven’t put in the data for January 2008, which was a huge anomaly. NASA has not updated that graph. The source tabular data is all there from NASA GISS, which is what I used. See links below each graph above. You are welcome to plot it yourself.
Additional plots and analysis are here with additional analysis coming in parts later.
Around 1996, the scientific community was abuzz with the discovery of a mysterious “anomaly” in the equatorial pacific which they referred to as the “Warm Pool.” The “Warm Poll” was a 13.5 million square mile body of unusually warm water sloshing back and forth between Indonesia and the west coast of South America. As an individual who had already spent 10 years studying climate change, I jumped into this with both feet (no pun intended). Over the next ten years or so, amazing discoveries were made surrounding this “anomaly.”
First of all, it wasn’t an “anomaly,” but something that had been referenced as early as the mid 1500’s. Secondly, scientists discovered the linkage between its “sloshing” back and forth and the ENSO phenomenon. They also quantified (to a certain extent) its movement with La Nina and El Nino.
But more importantly, certain scientists (and I can’t locate the names right now) drew a linkage between the “Warm Pool’s” movements and the PDO. Basically, the theory was that changes in ENSO directly impacted the PDO which in turn impacted the NAO.
Then along came Svensmark and his theory on sun spot’s activity in relation to world temperatures. Now considering the WP lies predominantly across the equator where the sun has its greatest impact, and that sun spot activity has been strangely quiet (in theory meaning colder climes), it seems to me someone must have connected the dots by now. By the way, I’ve begun posting data about the WP at epwp.com and am open to any papers.
Any comments?
Just for grins, I arbitrarily chose the GISS data, downloaded the raw data, ported it to Excel, and plotted it (1880 to 2008). Without reading all posts, I don’t know if anyone has done this yet, but lo and behold. the Jan 08 data appears to be an anomaly. That is, only ONE point is out of line with the rest of the data. The data does NOT refute the global warming theory, it’s just noisy because of the very short time period of one month. The fact that four independent sources correlate means it is probably a good data point. It doesn’t give any special significance; in fact, I would guess the temperatures will return to “normal” in the next few months, maybe even February.
Bottom line? Don’t make wild assumptions about one lousy data point. Look at all the data.
REPLY: When you say “it’s only one month or year, it doesn’t mean anything” I’ll remind everyone how folks like Mr. Gore insisted that the terrible hurricane season of 2005 spurred their predictions of worse to come with global warming to blame, followed by the two calmest hurricane seasons in a decade. And NOAA recently published a paper saying that there is no global warming link to frequency or hurricame damage.
I drew no conclusions from it other than to say that 4 metric agreed and that the anomaly was large. But it is not just Jano08, there was the entire year of 2007, as evidenced by the three other metrics also, or did you look at them?
I don’t claim that I’m right, or that I’m wrong. I only claim that such a temperature anomaly and agreement of the metrics is an unusual occurance.
“One of the most resilient skeptic tropes is the notion that back in the ’60s and ’70s the scientific community predicted that the globe would cool in the coming century. “Those scientists … first it’s one trendy theory, then it’s the opposite. You just can’t trust ‘em!”"
Now comes a new study showing, once and for all, that:
* there was no such consensus in the scientific community — quite the opposite, and
* there was no such consensus in the popular press.
Forthcoming in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the study “surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. [Study co-author Thomas] Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.” Added Peterson, “I was surprised that global warming was so dominant in the peer-reviewed literature of the time.”
This is according to “The Nation” which I am pretty sure will be met with jeers from those Gore haters… Has anyone seen this survey? Can we drive a stake through the heart of the meme about all those dumb scientists thinking we were going to have an ice age?
And btw, Frank, yeah I did that Excel graph too. Pretty amazing how so many of these guys can STARE AT THAT and still throw rocks at the evidence. I wonder if, ten years from now, they will say they are sorry? I will if we are ankle deep in snow in July. I promise. :)
But if we are ankle deep in sea water in Kansas, I am going to go buy Al Gore a nice mint julep instead.
Why, yes, as a matter of fact, the “librul media” IS saying “OH NOES TEH ERF IS GETTING HOTTER! SHAME, SHAME UPON YOU AMERICA!11!!!”
Libruls, go home.
Why? If it’s true he’s the one causing a lot of it!
[...] global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out [...]
What’s interesting about ALL of these posts is that there is clearly dissenting opinion of the final “consensus” of scientists and data.
How many scientists become the criteria for the final stamp of approval?
If we are discrediting some scientists and some data, what is the criteria for this discredit? Who gets to decide?
It’s clear that, at the very least, we are still observing the actions and could not possibly come to “absolute” conclusions by which we should be altering massive economies to promote political agendas.
Emotional reaction feigned as intellectual relevance.
In fact, there has not been any winter in Finland this year.
Today’s news tell the current ‘winter’ is the warmest ever recorded. The average temperatures between Dec 2007 -Feb 2008 are about ONE degree above the previous record warm wintger 1924-1925.
So if you are wondering where all the thermal energy is now, look no further it’s in Finland.
** Before you judge this post, please read it in entirety **
I think this is another area where the ego of the human mind has inflated itself to the point of utter nonsense. Science has become another competitive sport where one intellectual tries to beat the other intellectual to print by publishing his next big theory before anyone else.
I watched almost 30 minutes of “An Inconvenient Truth” and had to turn it off when Al Gore himself accidentally demonstrated that humans were NOT causing global climate change. When he pointed to the large graph with all the peaks and valleys representing global warming and cooling trends based on CO2 levels over the past eons, he made some interesting remarks. At several peaks he said, ‘ Ice age, ice age, ice age, ice age’ to indicate that at these elevated CO2 levels the earth was thrown into several ice age periods because of the influx of higher CO2 levels resulting in higher temperatures. Then he proceeded to today’s numbers to which he needed a scaffold to reach because they were SO much higher than any in history. The problem: First, in EVERY instance of the past ice ages, there were no humans present and yet the CO2 levels were high enough to cause global climate change. Second, at current levels, based on his graph, we should be immersed in the largest ice age in the earth’s history, however we are only seeing small changes in temperature.
It boggles the mind that we are looking at data from 30, 50, and even 100 years and calling them trends on a planet that is over 4.5 billion years old. Do you realize how small that actually is? It is a sample of .0000000222% of the total time the planet has been inexistence. Comparing that to a human being with a life expectancy of 80 years, which equates to 29,200 days or 700,800 minutes or 42,048,000 seconds. A stopwatch would be needed to get this sample. It is .9334 seconds of a human life. Do you think that is an adequate sample size to tell the average temperature of a human being? I had the flu this winter and my fever reached 102. This is certainly not indicative of my mean temperature, surely not irreversible, and NOT fatal.
Allow me to CORRECT my math: An average human life would be 80 years or 29,200 days or 700,800 HOURS or 42,048,000 minutes or 2,522,880,000 seconds. The correlation between gathering 100 years of global temperature data as a measure of earth’s average temperature, equates to approximately 56 seconds out of an entire human life. Still nowhere near the needed sample size to measure the average temperature of a human being. Sorry for the error but the argument still stands.
timbscmidt, I’m afraid your analogy fails. Your observation on timescale is correct. You are incorrect in your assumption that the rules that apply to changes in a human system (our physiology) may be similarly extrapolated to our ecosystem.
The problems are:
1) type – the earth is an “open” system, which has boundaries which can change, and in fact can change structurally (e.g. transformation from an anaerobic to an aerobic atmosphere 600my bce). People are a “closed” system, which cannot realistically continue to function if modified beyond limits defined by our genetics.
2) size – scale does count, as the rules of physics apply. The earth is a system which is over *6* orders of magnitude larger than we are. The movement of energy and matter through it’s system is far more restricted. There is proportionally far greater inertia in the larger system than in a person. As newtonian physics breaks down when applied at a quantum level, so also does the application of rules pertaining to a “human” system when applied to a planet.
To everyone generally – I’m hearing inconsistent references regarding the actual changes in temperature. I’ve also heard some appropriate comments regarding the effect of phase transition (ice to water) taking a large amount of energy out of the environment.
I will repeat what I posted earlier. It is not the absolute content of energy which will cause change in the environment. It is the rate of energy exchange between the equator and higher latitudes. That changes in temperature across the globe are inconsistent neither confirms nor refutes global warming. It *could* be evidence of increased movement of energy *around* the system, which *might* be evidence of a small overall increase in energy retained by the system.
Do also note that, in some models, global warming provokes the start of an ice age, depending on predictions of a breakdown in oceanic currents and air flow, which in those models in turn were caused by increases in global temperature.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080116/
2007 was tied as the second warmest year in a century.
One weird month means nothing. The month of January 2008 was a cold month, fine. We’re in a trough of cyclical solar activity, it’s not hard to see how one month could be aberational. One swallow does not a spring make, right? Let’s see how 2008 plays out.
REPLY: ” One weird month means nothing.” I agree, but you are saying something that is not correct in the context presented.
It is not a single month, it is an entire year. January 2007 to January 2008. 4 sources all say the same, HadCRUT, GISS, RSS, UAH. The data plotted is for one year. In the case of GISS, I plotted all the January data because they don’t format the data like all the others and the plotting program I use won’t read in the GISS data without re-formatting. GISS does not publish a linear list of months like all the others.
In a case of selective vision, you and many others are erroneously focusing on that one plot and that alone, ignoring the other 3 datasets, and saying “its only one month”. Yes, one month, one year apart for GISS only. That doesnt change the fact that the GISS data was .87°C for January 2007 and in January 2008 it was .12°C for a yearly drop of -.75°C. It also doesn’t change the fact that all three other datasets plotted show the same trend with similar magnitudes.
Read the post again: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
Jeff, You may have read more into the analogy than I assert. My analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth. Both of the points you raise are absolutely true. However, my analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth other than, put into practical terms, it shows how tiny a sample size science is working from to extrapolate a theory of any kind. The analogy holds. It was this: To look at only 56 seconds from a human life is not an adequate sample size to determine its average temperature. Similarly, measurements of global temperature, taken since the 1880’s, does not constitute a trend of any kind for a system that is over 4.5 billion years old. Such a small amount of scientific data indicates nothing worth noting. We are still merely a blip on and ancient scale of time.
(sarcasm)Minor point(/sarcasm) — You did note that the total observed warming is based on averages, not based on 1998 alone, right? Well, just as 1998 was one year, which on its own does not make a trend, so too 2008 is one year that does not make a trend. So, I’d mostly call this whole non-peer-reviewed post a complete non-data-point. Wake me when you have a decade like this. Or, better yet, wake me when you have some peer reviewed data, preferably in a climatology journal. (Last one I saw was in a journal of medicine and surgery for some bizarre reason. What a crock that was. Of course, that was the one from the 19000 scientists site, where I counted under 17000 names and found many with no credentials to speak of when I googled some at random.)
But, keep up the good work. Maybe all the denying of the peer-reviewed work will actually save our species from extinction. I have no clue how that could happen. But, keep trying.
REPLY: And keep up the sarcasm, maybe all of the snark will save our species too. ;-) /sarcasm
How about if I try it with a little less snark then.
Your first graph makes it very obvious that the downward deviation of 2007-2008 is less than the upward deviation of 1997-1998. Neither of these indicates a trend in and of itself.
So, moving to the second graph. Does anyone not see that the overall trend is still strongly up? In fact, the low point still comes out above the zero mark. To me, that says that even our coldest years now are warmer than our warmest years from about 1920 and earlier. What point was this graph supposed too be making again? I forgot.
Now onto the third and fourth graphs. Does anyone here think that 4 years indicates a trend in a global climate scheme? Even if you stretch it out and add a couple of months, 50 months is not going to show us any long term trends. We’re not looking for weather patterns.
This is a La Niña year. They’re typically colder. Duh!
Well, I’m probably not snark free. But, I think this is a bit more serious than my prior post. I hope you won’t mind if I point people to this blog page. The first two graphs are actually quite good for making the point that global warming is real.
In fact, that second one is quite scary!! Damn. The coldest year since about 1990 is still warmer than the warmest year before about 1925. Yikes!!
REPLY: Point all the people here you wish. Since you like the charts I make, please be sure that you also show them this one: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/surfacestations_ushcn_crnmap.png
Surely a a man as smart as Al Gore (remember they said he was the one to invent the Internet) could not have been wrong about Global Warming!!
I’ve added it in a reply to my own post. Feel free to take a look.
Global Warming Denier Proves Global Warming is Real?!
If I have mischaracterized you in any way, please feel free to let me know. I will correct any misstatements about you. I have toned down what I wrote last night if you had already seen it. Or, feel free to post your own reasons why you believe you know more about climatology than the 1,700 climate scientists on the IPCC or the vast majority of the rest of the published climate scientists on the planet.
REPLY: Thank you. I did read it last night, the correction you missed (probably since you have gone back through posts here) is that I don’t deny global warming has occurred. Certainly the earth has warmed in the last century, no dispute there. I also don’t dispute the magnitude of the surface record being about 0.7°C during that period. What is unknown at this point is the magnitude of human contribution such as CO2, aersols, UHI, etc., compared to the magnitude of other drivers such as the sun, GCR modulation, measurement biases in the surface record (a big topic here) etc.
So to be fair, I’m not a “denier”. That is an inaccurate characterisation, but often just thrown at anyone who ask these kinds of questions. I’m curious, informed on the issues, and do my own investigative work, which would classify me as a skeptic, not a denier.
Incidentally, I used to be very much in belief that AGW was the main driver, in fact I was way ahead of the curve on the. Back in 1990 I did a special program for about 300 TV stations nationwide for the National Arbor Day Foundation. I provided TV meteorologists with a short program on trees and their benefits to show their viewers. The result was there was about 250,000 trees planted Nationwide using the seedling kist NADF provided. It was my way of making a dent in the issue back then after hearing Jim Hansen testify before congress.
But As I learned more about eh issue, and started working with the former state climatologist here, I began to realize I was wrong about the issue.
I don’t want to mischaracterize anyone. I have changed the title of my post to say skeptic. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, changing the post slug is considered very bad form. So, I will leave that alone.
As for the relative contributions of human and solar causes, I agree there is some debate. I have seen some claims in several peer reviewed papers that show 5-15% caused by increased solar radiation. I have have even seen one paper claim 5-30% though I personally tend to ignore the most extreme papers and go with the more mainstream claims. Even if you take the most extreme estimate of 5-30% though, it still leaves humans responsible for at least 70%. I go with the 85-95% human caused.
From a climate science text book, I have seen that the Earth’s temperature absent GHGs would be -19 degrees C. With GHGs, the number is about +15 degrees C. Since we’ve already increased GHGs from 280ppm to at least 380ppm and probably already 450ppm, do you have any explanation for how that could NOT have an enormous effect?
Keep in mind, the albedo of Venus is so high that it actually receives less Sun than Earth despite it’s proximity to the Sun. And, it’s brutally hot there due to runaway GHGs, especially CO2. Do you have any explanation for why you think our increase in GHGs would NOT have the same effect as our baseline GHGs or the same effect as the GHGs on Venus?
REPLY: Thanks for making those corrections. The change from rhetoric to gentlemanly debate is appreciated. My specialty is not the GHG equations, it is instrumentation and measurement. A good question though about Venus. I would say this: there are significant differences between Earth and Venus related to TSI, concentration, partial pressure, water vapor and a whole host of other atmospheric chemistry issues. So Venus and Earth are truly “apples and oranges” when looking at the components of their atmospheres and their TSI from the sun.
There are many other educated people far more in tune with atmospheric chemistry and GHG that can help answer your question. Folks?
timbsmidt:“Jeff, You may have read more into the analogy than I assert. My analogy with a human life span was not to say that it has a direct correlation to the earth.”
I adjust my perception then. I also agree with you that the temperature data since the 19th century is very much a blip, and must be evaluated in that context. It is very dangerous from an analytical standpoint to base too many conclusions on that data alone.
That said, cognitively, I have been following the impact of human activity on the environment, in detail, for 40 years. My direct observations on two coasts of this continent are of profound changes, not necessarily tied to carbon release, but of activities that affect albedo and heat retention, changes in local species (example: the persistent northern migration of the Eastern Mockingbird, which started wintering over in Massachusetts in the early 70s) and other similar changes.
The smoking gun may not be atmospheric carbon. Mechanically, we know the increase does not help. Your opinion of Al Gore aside (mine is indifferent) not withstanding, It is very had to prove a hypothesis that human activity is *not* responsible for many of the climatic changes we have seen over the last century. Presented with two industrial economies (India and China), collectively with 10 times our population, which are attempting to ramp up to the same level of consumption we have in this country (US), my concern is very great. From the consumption standpoint *alone*, even if we find more reserves, I believe absolutely that we *MUST* find alternatives and improve efficiency. The competition for energy alone requires it. *That* is more immediately pressing than global climate change. We also cannot ignore the indirect effects of that much more active technology. I absolutely do not wish to deny anyone prosperity, but I think it imperative we find ways to mitigate impact. I also believe it can be done.
-Jeff
Wasn’t there a theory:? First some warming and the seas
evaporate more, making more clouds, and the clouds do their albedo bit,
reflecting sunlight back into space!!
[where it keeps going until caught in nearest Black Hole].
And we are left here freezing our ass.
Question: how the hell do you measure the earth’s temperature? (esp. when 1/2 is dark?) How many data gatherers are there? and who correlates them?
What day of the week do they use? What year?
How many scientists become the criteria for the final stamp of approval?
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? In science, there is no criterion. But when it comes to policy it always comes down to an up-or-down vote.
Bill in Vigo (06:02:58) wrote:
“I surely wish that we could have unadjusted records over the peroid of record. I am not a scientists but am having trouble with the current adjustments They seem to be designed to make the recent trend warmer. The raw data dosen’t seem to be doing that.”
But that’s exactly why we need the “adjusted” data. Otherwise the lie wouldn’t wash with us. Never mind the facts, adjust the data so it suits the agenda.
The earth has actually been cooling over the last 7 years. But you won’t hear that on CNN.
Mars is the key. The polar ice caps on Mars have been melting at roughly the same rate as the earth has been warming. Some scientests insist that there is no correlation, as Mars may be having “dust storms.” However, if the polar ice caps on Mars return in keeping with the sudden cold on Earth, then the argument is settled. Global warming is NOT then a result of man, but rather, the effects of solar activity alone. If mars cools as does earth, the arguments for human caused global warming fall a little flat. I would suggest, having seen the graphs, that we keep a close eye on Martian ice caps. They will tell us if our data is sound, or reasoning solid, or if the “Goreans” are a total fraud.
I’ve heard the argument that Mars’ orbit is undergoing an eccentricity and that is to blame for the warming. (I have no idea if that is true.)
Can I really thank the person who posted the early February 2008 global temperatures. If these are as low as suggested, it really is a spanner in the works for global warming alarmists because unless there is an equally dramatic warming, it will mean that yet again the UK Met Office have predicted a rise when none happened.
What is the chance of getting your forecast high 9 out of 9 years if there is not a consistent error in the forecasting model? Here is the actual global temperature and the UK Met Office’s “overwhelming scientific consensus” that the year would be warmer than the actual temperatures we got:
Year: Actual
2000: 0.238°C (claimed >80% chance of >0.33°C)
2001: 0.400°C (claimed >75% chance of >0.42°C)
2002: 0.455°C (claimed >50% chance of >0.47°C)
2003: 0.457°C (claimed >75% chance of >0.50°C)
2004: 0.432°C (claimed >75% chance of >0.47°C)
2005: 0.479°C (claimed >75% chance of >0.48°C)
2006: 0.422°C (claimed >50% chance of >0.45°C)
2007: 0.402°C (claimed >75% chance of >0.49°C)
Now if you are claiming 75% chance of something then on average 75% of predictions should be right! Instead 75% are way out and 100% of their forecasts are high! Using the Met Office’s own probability, there’s less than 1% error of getting their forecast consistently high, unless there is something wrong with the forecast.
And that error is a consistent prediction of temperature rise of some +0.06°C per year and if this were to continue, then it would mean that by 2014, instead of the average temperature rising to 0.73°C as the UK Met Office currently predicts it will have cooled to 0.3°C
Has anyone else noticed the near total silence on this subject from the main stream media. Except for Drudge, I would never have found this website and the great discussion on it.
If I understand the comments correctly, there is a consensus here that the dramatic dip in average global temperature in 2007 does not disprove or prove anything. On the otherhand, the AGW theory is weakened because its predictions and observed real world don’t agree. (Even if the time scale is small – 1 year).
An objective media would want to inform people of all the facts before we make election choices.
From earlier post: “Today’s news tell the current ‘winter’ is the warmest ever recorded. The average temperatures between Dec 2007 -Feb 2008 are about ONE degree above the previous record warm wintger 1924-1925.”
ONe question, my Finnish friend: Why was it so warm in 1924-1925? SUVs?
I see in these posts much speculation over numbers, many assertions regarding their meaning, and a great deal of dismissive language aimed at people who are definitively *NOT* stupid. None of these activities is particularly useful in *understanding* the numbers.
What would be useful is to see some hypotheses.
If the numbers suggest cooling, why?
For that “why”, if it is true, what other evidence should we see?
What is the relationship between those parallel effects and the original phenomena?
For that evidence, how do we collect and measure it?
Assertions are not particularly useful. Testable theory *is*.
to: Evan Jones.
Thanks. Your comment is supported by an article in National Geographic News titled “Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human Cause for Warming, Scientist Says.
You are absolutely right in suggesting that some scientest believe the warming of Mars is due to it’s “wobble.” Unfortunately I have been unable to find anywhere on the net scientific evidence that Mars is in fact wobbling. Perhaps some readers of this blog will be able to furnish that data for me. To say that Mars is warming due to a wobbling orbit, without evidence of that wobble, is really bad science. We have the fact that the south pole of mars has been decreasing in size. We seem to have only the theory that this is caused by orbital wobble. Theorys are well and good, but to be valid they must be supported by fact. If someone can furnish scientific evidence that wobbling in the martian orbit is occuring, I will gladly, happily, quickly, and even really fast, retract all my previous comments. Yet, if no scientific data supports the wobble theory, then perhaps we best keep an eye on Mars. CK.
Darn, there goes my NSF grant. Guess us “clima’psuedo’tologists are gonna have to come up with something else to scare the public ……….. so we can get that grant money.
Chicken Little
[...] internet meme began with a misleading post by a meteorologist about how cool January 2008 was compared to January 2007 (but who made no connection to global [...]
For a check of what’s going on in solar cycle 24, check:
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
Pretty quiet.
Max
Just a quick question from a non scientist schmuck. If it is true that “Theorys are well and good, but to be valid they must be supported by fact.” and that statement is agreed upon by the scientific community, then where exactly can I find the set of agreed upon “facts” that demonstrate human causes of global warming? Thank You
to Hagar:
Unfortunatly I must agree with you. The conflicting data and “scientific” studies have gotten so confusing, that for any “fact” you find on one side of the debate, there seems to be another “fact” on the other side refuting it. This is why I am looking at Mars for something that will blow away all the chaff, and the thesis antithesis arguments going around.
Now, if you are seriously looking for “fact” in this debate, I might recomend that you try looking in Oz. I understand from a reliable sourse (the tooth fairy) that in a cave in Oz, you will find the holy grail, the lost arc, and the book of truth on Global Warming. But be careful. I understand it is guarded by Elvis. CK.
Answer to Hagar’s question, “where exactly can I find the set of agreed upon ‘facts’ that demonstrate human causes of global warming?”
You can’t, because they do not exist.
Max
Sandy, In order to measure the earths temperature one must know where to stick the thermometer…generally that’s Clevland.
Hagar,
Try searching Google Scholar for peer reviewed publications relating to any climate change topic. I think you’ll soon come to the same obvious conclusion that the vast majority of true climate scientists have. Unfortunately, you’ll also quickly be inundated. Such is the nature of overwhelming data.
Sorry, I know of no compendium of data for which you would not have to check peer review. Some sites are excellent. But, with ExxonMobil funding behind others that appear to be at the same level of quality, everything must be checked and re-checked with peer reviewed publications.
One more thing Hagar,
If you really are willing to do the level of work necessary to read a book or two, here are a couple of good ones with very good endnotes citing all of their peer-reviewed information.
Is the Temperature Rising: The Uncertain Science of Global Warming – S. George Philander: A relatively light book and highly readable for a climate science text book.
The Weather Makers – Tim Flannery: Details the reality of anthropogenic climate change. What is known, what is not, what we must do, and what can and cannot be saved.
Its sad, but this data will probably never reach the average person. Al Gore and the rest of the elite already said it…thus it is and will be. The media has not said anything about this and they probably never will. Global Warming will be the next set of misleading information leading to further deterioration of our rights, liberties, and self respect.
Chipping away…quickly and quietly, they chip away, but the truth is too depressing and the television shows are too damn good to miss.
Some more advice for Hagar
Hagar asked: “where exactly can I find the set of agreed upon ‘facts’ that demonstrate human causes of global warming?”
Misanthropic Scott’s advice to search Google for “peer reviewed publications relating to any climate change topic” might not really give Hagar the “facts that demonstrate human causes of global warming” for which he is looking, but rather provide him “overwhelming data” that support the mainstream (and IPCC supported) view.
A tip for Hagar: forget ”peer review” as a stamp of authenticity – it has been shown to simply be a rubber stamp by the current mainstream view (viz. the peer reviewed but since discredited Mann “hockey stick” to prove that we are in a period of “unprecedented warmth”).
Scott’s reference to “ExxonMobil funding” is as ingenious as referring to “taxpayer funding”. Let’s face it, you are paying for both, either as taxes or at the pump when you fill up your car. Both sides have a “vested interest”. But “ExxonMobil” funding is truly a tiny drop in the bucket when compared to the billions of taxpayer dollars being paid to fund the whole “climate disaster” research, in order to gather public support for draconian carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes involving hundreds of billions of dollars (again paid by you) being shuffled around by UN and other bureaucrats and politicians. So you have to check and recheck both sides of the story very carefully.
Hagar’s best bet is to be skeptical and to insist on evidence based on observed actual data, not on projections based on the virtual reality of model studies, and to make sure he is not being “bamboozled” by someone that has a hidden agenda.
Max
Max,
A tip for Hagar: forget ”peer review” as a stamp of authenticity – it has been shown to simply be a rubber stamp by the current mainstream view (viz. the peer reviewed but since discredited Mann “hockey stick” to prove that we are in a period of “unprecedented warmth”).
On the assumption that you are not a religious fanatic who does not believe in science, I must ask you this.
Why exactly do you believe that on this single topic alone in science that the peer review process is more corrupt that corporate american greed?
Your assertion to throw away peer review is akin to throwing away all science. Peer review is the process by which science works. If you make such an assertion that peer review is invalid, you really must back this up. Do you believe that peer review prevents people from publishing views opposed to other scientific areas? If not, why is this one area different?
I think you are highly deluded on this subject. I think you should simply denounce science and all that it has brought to this world as summarily as you dismiss the peer review process on which it is based. I think you should probably turn off the computer on which you are reading this. It relies on quantum theory, which withstood the peer review process, in order for its semiconductors to do the job the engineers set forth for them.
As for my ExxonMobil statement, do you get your information about whether cigarettes are bad for you from Phillip Morris? I bet you do. Do you get your statistics about the dangers of mercury in the environment from the top coal companies? I bet you do. Do you get your information about the dangers of obesity from McDonalds? I bet you do.
Yes, one should clearly consider the source of one’s information. That you ignore the sources of yours simply states that you have very little understanding about the nature of the greed that drives corporate America.
To Max:
I can’t agree with you more on your point of rubber stamped peer review. It is unfortunate that is the case, but so many people have a vested echonomic interest in Climate Change it almost dictates such a result.
So, well done on that comment.
Do you know of anyone anywhere who has run an expierment that actually proves that greenhouse gasses are infact greenhouse gasses? Do they “reflect” the heat back to the surface of the earth, or absorb the heat through their spectrum? To date I have been absolutely unable to find anywhere such an expierment. Without that expierment, it would seem to me that all we have here is conjecture by zellots on one side or the other of the debate.
Damn if it isn’t hard beeing open minded and nutral on the subject. The moment you drift towards one side or the other, you find yourself defending your point of view with trash science. That makes it difficult for anyone who is honestly trying to find the “truth” about Climate Change. CK
I would call this a tentative erasure of most of the warming in the last 100 years. The change is such that one could conclude that coolers times are likely to be sustained.
REPLY: It is not an erasure, but a large anomaly, the duration of which is uncretain by any measure. For all we know, it may swing positive again in the next month.
chris kilpatrick,
… so many people have a vested echonomic [sic] interest in Climate Change it almost dictates such a result.
ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, …, big coal companies, natural gas companies, all auto manufacturers, etc. Yup. Clearly the deep pockets are the educational institutions paying for real research. When the Kool-Aid smells like almonds, don’t drink it. Oops too late.
As for your CO2 ignorance, the answer is that the satellites can determine the wave lengths of infrared light, A.K.A. heat, that are missing in the radiation of heat by Earth. And, big shock, the wavelengths missing are the wavelengths absorbed by CO2, Methane, CFCs and the rest in exactly the expected amounts based on the known concentrations in the atmosphere. What part are you having trouble with?
Let us not forget what may be revealed as the greatest ecological disaster ot the past 100 years which occured in January and early February, 2008. Southern and eastern China, where many places have a climate similar to central Georgia (moderate winter coolness, odd light snow, humid). In January, blizards followed blizzards along with multiple ice stoms, encasing cities and towns in ice and collaping over 100,000 unprepared roofs in one city alone, where 400,000 waited (without violence) at a train station to get out of Dodge for the Chinese New Year, and back to their distant families. Can we in America imagine millions of snowed in citizens with no electrical power or heat, shivering for over 35 days? I don’t think so. The ecological disaster? An area of 670,000 square miles (about the size of Florida’s total land mass) has been denuded of vegetation, since most of the trees were unable to tolerate the prolonged and unprecedented encasement in ice. Dead semi-tropical softwoods will grow back, but it will be decades in the process. The Communist government, possibly less honest than American green extremists, reported only a miniscule number of of dead, from a bus accident and such. We must not bear bad news on the eve of the Olympics! By the way, the island of Crete was totally snowed over in February, and incapacitated for the first time in a century or so. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in memory.
Where is the media to bring this news to the masses?
Dr of Many Things
scott:
CO2 absorbs only 3% of the light that passes through it. That is confirmed by expierment. That is .03. Then we know from air samples that the atsmophere is about 3% CO2 at present. That means .0009 or so of the light is absorbed by the CO2, (.03 X .03) much less than one percent. This too is confirmed by expiermental data. So, our expected heat exchange is less than one percent, much less than one percent. If as you say this is the expected result, then it is hardly significant. Next, we know that as much CO2 as man produces, the oceans produce much much more. Animals produce more, vulcanic action produces more. For sake of argument (only because I lack the numbers) Let us say that man produces about 25% of the CO2, a fantastically high percentage. That means, (a little simple grade school math here) man contribution is .000225. I do not see how 2/100% is significant in terms of global warming.
That leaves reflection. That is, the gases reflect the heat back onto the earth. Here there is no expiermental data to confirm that outcome that I have been able to find. By what means does CO2 and other gases reflect the heat back to the earth?
Your response dictates absorbtion of wave lengths, and that just does not wash when you look at a gas spectrometer. It is not significant when you crunch a few simple numbers. So, for me at least, it’s back to the drawing board. Where the heck is the expierment that proves HOW green house gases act as green house gases reflecting heat back onto the surface of the earth? CK
Andrew, do you even understand what you are looking at here?
These graphs show tempreture anomoly over average. So Jan 2008 with a positive figure is still above average, even if it is below Jan 2007. There is no cooling, month-to-month variation is weather.
Weather is not climate. Haven’t you noticed it gets cooler in winter? (Which is relevent here because Jan is winter in the northern hemisphere where most of the land is – the sea tempreture in the south changes much slower).
You’ll also note that Jan 2008 is warmer than every month before Jan 1920. And also every month since 1980 is warmer than every month before 1920.
ie. it is getting warmer, with lots of ups and downs, but steadily, persistently warmer.
Andrew Bolt: mugged by reality again. It would be entertaining if his ability to think straight didn’t go astray at the same time.
Chris Kilpatrick: [blah and numerology eliminated]
Chris, the CO2 argument is basic physics established over 100 years ago by Arhennius, one of the first Nobel Prize winners.
He pointed out that with 0% CO2 in the atmosphere the earth would have an average tempreture of about -15C, but with CO2 at the then levels of approx 275ppm the average tempreture was approx 14C.
He proposed – using energy balance arguments based on the absorbtion of infrared by CO2 that if CO2 levels reached ~400ppm, the average tempreture would rise by about 2C.
Well over the last 100 years we’ve done the experiment. CO2 levels are now approaching 400ppm and average tempreture is about 1.6C higher.
QED.
It really is pretty basic science, back-of-the-envelope nonsense is not required when we have the real data.
CK: “Your response dictates absorbtion of wave lengths …”
Observed in the lab
“and that just does not wash when you look at a gas spectrometer. ”
It always worked for me back when I used gas chromatographs. What are you referring to? Are you saying gas chromatographs are snake oil devices sold to fools rather than expensive instruments sold to industry so they can make real profits?
“Where the heck is the expierment that proves HOW green house gases act as green house gases reflecting heat back onto the surface of the earth? ”
It’s simple physics, readily demonstratable. The lesson begins.
CO2 absorbs infrared to some extent (from the sun or from the earth doesn’t matter – it gets absorbed both coming and going), which leads the bonds in the molecule to vibrate (that’s the energy absorbed). The vibration allows the molecule to shed the energy which then goes in one of two directions – up or down.
If up, it goes to space and does not warm the earth. If down, it warms the earth. So a small amount of absorption allows CO2 to behave like a blanket. 50% of the absorbed heat is reradiated and retained in the atmosphere.
The heat that is retained warms the earth (to the tune of about 30C). Thicker blanket, more heat retained.
Lesson ends.
Chris,
You’ve made a number of flawed assumptions there. Let’s start with how CO2 can be significant as a global warming mechanism. First, every minute enough sunlight hits the earth to power the entire U.S. for a year. So, holding back a small percentage of that for warming the planet would certainly be significant.
Second, when you count human CO2 as smaller than all of those other contributions, you fail to explain how it is that we have doubled the CO2 in the atmosphere. Depending on whether you go by the 280ppm at the start of the industrial revolution or the 220ppm around the start of agriculture and whether you go by some estimates around 400ppm now and some as high as 450ppm now, we can quibble about the percentages. But, no matter which pair of numbers you use, our increase is tremendous.
As for how we cause such increase, don’t forget deforestation in your numbers. When you destroy a forest, not only do you release the carbon in the wood, you also release the 99% of the carbon that is sequestered in the soil, at least for temperate forests. For rainforests, the number in the soil may be lower. Both increase the CO2 in the atmosphere tremendously when cut down, faster if it’s by slash and burn, but by the same amount either way.
The global warming panic-mongers have some explaining to do, but of course they’ll ignore this downward temperature drop and sound more alarms when it goes up again.
I don’t know how you can measure a global temperature change of a fraction of a degree anyway. This research is helpful and should be done, but it’s also useful to use regional, cultural measures of climate behavior. Texas had the coolest and wettest year on record last year. This year looks similar so far .
It is not unheard of that a warming period is immediately followed by a cooling period. Nature always finds a way of balancing itself out. This happened during the last Ice Age and will probably always happen in a continuous cycle. Granted this is a ficitional reference, but if any of you have seen The Day After Tomorrow with Dennis Quaid, in it he references actual historical scientific data that showed the Last Ice age was preceeded and followed by drastic warming trends. This current cooling trend may be reminiscent of the latest Little Ice Age which occurred around the Medieval times. This cooling trend will most likely be followed by warming trends that will shift the temperature back above where it last left off in January 2007. No matter what, I still feel that we, as a society, need to be more environmentally responsible (whether this warming/cooling trend is caused by Global Warming or not).
atmospheric CO2
There has been no “erasure”. This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not “erase” anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
:(
Hello everyone, I’m a lurker. I am really enjoying the give and take. I also appreciate the civility of most of the posters here. Just wondering when the February numbers will be out. Thanks, Mike
Nevermind… Mike
JM
Arrhenius the Nobel Prize winning Chemist stated that:
a decrease in the concentration of carbonic acid by half or a doubling would be equivalent to changes of temperature of -1.5C or +1.6C respectively.
If this old paper is the basis of the Physics of Global Warming it needs to be validated by a Physicist.
TD:
” [Arhennius said] a decrease in the concentration of [CO2] by half or a doubling would be equivalent to changes of temperature of – 1.5C or +1.6C ”
I agree, that’s what he said – and it came out pretty good for a first cut model didn’t it?
” … it needs to be validated by a Physicist ”
Well firstly whole branches of physics and chemistry overlap particularly around 1900 (so much so, that Marie Curie who is generally regarded as a physicist got her second Nobel prize in 1911 for Chemistry. Another physicist – Linus Pauling – won the Chemistry prize in 1954 for contributions to atomic theory.
Secondly the argument is so simple it can be validated and understood by a Year 12 physics student.
Thirdly, it has been validated by all climate research since, including the IPCC which is just documenting people polishing the minor jewels on the elephant of the original idea.
Science is accretive not revolutionary so you shouldn’t be surprised by that fact.
Here’s a bit of data on CO2 and warming around the time of the last deglaciation.
http://tinyurl.com/28v4ph
I’ll keep searching if you remain unconvinced.
Why are temperature changes ever called “anomalies?” The only “normal” thing is that temperature is ALWAYS changing. I would be scared to death if these temperature graphs went flat. By the way, the long term prognosis: absolute zero. Thank entropy and Rudolf Clausius.
JM wrote: “Well over the last 100 years we’ve done the experiment. CO2 levels are now approaching 400ppm and average tempreture is about 1.6C higher.”
Wrong, JM, check the “real data” (and IPCC). It is not 1.6C, it is 0.7C over the past 100 years..
And over the last 10 years it was 0.06C.
No big deal, JM.
Max
JM wrote ” [Arhennius said] a decrease in the concentration of [CO2] by half or a doubling would be equivalent to changes of temperature of – 1.5C or +1.6C ”
I agree, that’s what he said – and it came out pretty good for a first cut model didn’t it?”
Based on more recent data, this is a bit on the high side for CO2 alone. Let’s use basic physics to establish the theoretical temperature increase from doubling CO2 levels from 280ppmv, which they were in 1900, to 560 ppmv, which they are projected to be in 2100, assuming there are no natural or other anthropogenic forcing factors (which is obviously not the case).
Arrhenius Law tells us
dE = [alpha] ln ( [CO2] / [CO2] orig ),
where alpha is 5.35 (Myhre et al.)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
dE is change in forcing
using Stefan-Boltzmann:
dT/dE = 1 / (4 [sigma] T^3)
then:
dT = [alpha] ln ( [CO2] / [CO2] orig) / 4 [sigma] T^3)
A doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv,
And substituting T = 15 degrees C = 288.16K
dT = 5.35 ln (560 / 280) / (4 *5.6705E-08 * (288.16^3))
or
dT = 0.6833 centigrade for a doubling of CO2
for simplification, let’s call that 0.7 degrees C
You can do the same calculation based on the CO2 level of 381 ppmv, as measured in 2006
Then you arrive at a dT of around 0.3 degrees C, by increasing CO2 from 280 to 381 ppmv.
This means there is about 0.4 degrees C warming to be expected from today to the year 2100, if CO2 increases to the anticipated 560 ppmv.
Since the relationship is logarithmic, CO2 will have to double again, to 1120 ppmv for another 0.7 degrees C to result. This might happen by around the year 2400, if current rates of increase continue and we haven’t run out of fossil fuels before then.
All of the above assumes that there are no significant natural forcing factors and no positive or negative feedbacks (water as vapor, water as liquid in lower altitude clouds or as solid in higher altitude clouds, etc.).
Max
JM wrote ” [Arhennius said] a decrease in the concentration of [CO2] by half or a doubling would be equivalent to changes of temperature of – 1.5C or +1.6C ”
I agree, that’s what he said – and it came out pretty good for a first cut model didn’t it?”
Based on more recent data, this is a bit on the high side for CO2 alone. Let’s use basic physics to establish the theoretical temperature increase from doubling CO2 levels from 280ppmv, which they were in 1900, to 560 ppmv, which they are projected to be in 2100, assuming there are no natural or other anthropogenic forcing factors (which is obviously not the case).
Arrhenius Law tells us
dE = [alpha] ln ( [CO2] / [CO2] orig ),
where alpha is 5.35 (Myhre et al.)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
dE is change in forcing
using Stefan-Boltzmann:
dT/dE = 1 / (4 [sigma] T^3)
then:
dT = [alpha] ln ( [CO2] / [CO2] orig) / 4 [sigma] T^3)
A doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv,
And substituting T = 15 degrees C = 288.16K
dT = 5.35 ln (560 / 280) / (4 *5.6705E-08 * (288.16^3))
or
dT = 0.6833 centigrade for a doubling of CO2
for simplification, let’s call that 0.7 degrees C
You can do the same calculation based on the CO2 level of 381 ppmv, as measured in 2006
Then you arrive at a dT of around 0.3 degrees C, by increasing CO2 from 280 to 381 ppmv.
This means there is about 0.4 degrees C warming to be expected from today to the year 2100, if CO2 increases to the anticipated 560 ppmv.
Since the relationship is logarithmic, CO2 will have to double again, to 1120 ppmv for another 0.7 degrees C to result. This might happen by around the year 2400, if current rates of increase continue and we haven’t run out of fossil fuels before then.
All of the above assumes that there are no significant natural forcing factors and no positive or negative feedbacks (water as vapor, water as liquid in lower altitude clouds or as solid in higher altitude clouds, etc.).
Max
Max
Thanks for doing the legwork. Now at least the argument is back in reality-land, rather than la-la land where people are denying well established physics.
Your point about other forcing factors and feedbacks is well made. I understand that there is a general belief that climate feedbacks are positive (at least at the point where we are at now).
I think we should also acknowledge the confounding effects of aerosols during the middle 20thC which moderated the tempreture increase from CO2 forcing.
Nonetheless, hat tip to ya. Thanks.
Hi JM,
You wrote: “I understand that there is a general belief that climate feedbacks are positive (at least at the point where we are at now).”
This is a moot point.
Those who want to convey a message of potentially alarming AGW (such as IPCC or, even more so, James E. Hansen) apparently hold that belief, although there is no scientific evidence supporting it and the actual temperature record to date actually speaks against it.
My bet (based on the observed temperature record) would be that the positive and negative feedbacks essentially cancel each other out.
Regards,
Max
Back again, JM,
You wrote: “I think we should also acknowledge the confounding effects of aerosols during the middle 20thC which moderated the tempreture increase from CO2 forcing”.
This is a bit of a red herring, in my humble opinion.
There is very little mention of this global cooling period in the latest IPCC AR4 WG1 report. Two references are cited: “From about 1940 to 1970 the increasing industrialization following World War II increased pollution in the Northern Hemisphere, contributing to cooling, and increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases dominate the observed warming after the mid-1970s.” “During the 1950s and 1960s, average global temperatures leveled off, as increases in aerosols from fossil fuels and other sources cooled the planet.” No hard data are presented to support these suggestions.
A common explanation, which expands on the rather sparse statements of the IPCC can be found on the pro-AGW blog sites. The response below is quoted from a pro-AGW blogspot as part of its “how to talk to a skeptic” series:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/what-about-mid-century-cooling.html
“During this period [1945-1975] the CO2 warming (a smaller forcing at the time [than today]) was temporarily overwhelmed by an increase in human particulates and aerosol pollution. Pollution regulations and improved technology saw a decrease in this different kind of emissions and as the air cleared, the CO2 signal again emerged and took over.
This phenomenon has been given the name of “global dimming”, although IPCC states in its report: “’Global dimming’ is neither global in extent nor has it continued after 1990.”
There are, however, some problems with the explanation of “global dimming due to anthropogenic aerosols”:
First and foremost, the suggested aerosol explanation for the mid-century temperature drop is based on theory alone. There is no observational physical evidence for strong anthropogenic aerosol cooling on a global basis during this period. The data are just not there.
The regions that produce aerosols have shown warming in recent years, and those that cooled from 1945-1975 were not necessarily those regions where aerosols were supposed to have any discernable effect. In other words, the actual observations do not support this cause-effect relationship for the mid-century cooling as suggested by the IPCC.
Those areas that were not affected by aerosols show the 1945-1975 cooling trend. This is evident in IPCC Southern Hemisphere temperature records for the last century. The question must be answered: how did “increased pollution in the Northern Hemisphere” affect temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere, as postulated by IPCC?
Next, regions that produce massive amounts of aerosols today do not show cooling at all. They actually show warming.
During the period from the 1950s to around 1980, there was negligible increase in temperatures in China. There was also negligible economic growth. Starting in the 1990s, there has been explosive economic growth in China with tremendous increases not only in CO2 but also in aerosol and sulfate emissions. If the mid-century “global dimming” hypothesis were valid, these emissions should presumably cause local cooling today as they are supposed to have done from 1945 to 1975, yet there has been a sharp increase in temperatures in China.
If we look at global emissions of the principle aerosol, sulfur dioxide, we see that these have increased steadily from around 28 to 72 million metric tons per year over the period 1945 to 1980 (expressed as sulfur), then decreased slightly to around 65 million metric tons per year in 1995 before increasing again to around 77 million metric tons per year today, where they now stand at a record high. The latest increase has occurred primarily in Asia, while both North America and Europe have seen significant decreases since around 1980. On a global basis, however, SO2 emissions have not been reduced, but have remained roughly constant or even increased slightly. In other words, there is no reason that aerosol emissions should have caused a cooling effect from 1945 to 1975 and then not continued to cause cooling after 1980 on a global basis.
Since the residence time of sulfur dioxide and sulfates in the atmosphere is very short (from 2 to 6 days), there is not much of a cumulative impact, and today’s record rates of SO2 emissions (77 Mtons/year) should show a higher cooling effect than the much lower rates, which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s (30 to 45 Mtons/year) and which are blamed for the cooling trend then.
Another argument points away from the suggestion that the mid-century cooling was caused by anthropogenic aerosols. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution sulfates and CO2 emissions have largely increased together, and on a proportional basis sulfate emissions were higher than greenhouse gases during the early industrial revolution when there were no automobiles or diesel engines and a higher percentage of the CO2 emissions came from (relatively high sulfur content) coal rather than oil or gasoline. This period was also before there were any environmental regulations governing sulfur pollution.
As a matter of fact, the Hadley record shows that the period of highest decadal rate of temperature increase since records started is NOT the most recent period (1976-2007) with 0.17 degrees C, but an earlier period (1860-1879) with a decadal rate of increase of 0.20 degrees C. During this period sulfate emissions increased at a greater rate in relation with CO2 emissions, when compared to today.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual
Since the temperature record shows that the industrial revolution, as indeed the period from 1906 to 1940, was not accompanied by cooling, the suggestion that cooling in the mid 20th century was caused by sulfates can be seriously questioned.
And finally, Europe and the USA have seen a recent massive cleanup of sulfate aerosols, and indeed the temperature rose in these regions over the same period. The AGW theory as stated in the “illconsidered” blogsite cited above postulates: “Pollution regulations and improved technology saw a decrease in aerosol emissions and as the air cleared, the CO2 signal again emerged and took over.”
If one were to accept the explanation for mid-century cooling as having been caused by anthropogenic aerosol emissions, then the aerosol reduction in the USA and Western Europe would have had a sufficiently high impact that CO2 would not even have been needed to explain the subsequent warming in these regions. As Hans Erren points out graphically, if all of the cooling in the USA from 1950 to 1975 were caused by increasing aerosols (Schneider et al) then all of the warming since 1975 could well be caused simply by eliminating a major portion of these aerosols.
http://home.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/usso2vst.gif
In other words, the IPCC’s suggested anthropogenic aerosol explanation for the global cooling experienced from 1945 to 1975 makes a good story that superficially “fits” the AGW theory but, upon closer examination, it has several serious flaws and inconsistencies and can therefore be seriously questioned or dismissed outright.
Just my thoughts.
Regards,
Max
To Max:
Thanks more than I can express for your comments. Your comments
show some hard science, and that I can live with. It pretty well demolishes the argument that CO2 impacts global warming through absorption.
That leaves reflection, where the trapped solar heat is reflected back onto the earth. Does anyone know of any experimental data that proves reflection?
I am a retired Geometry teacher. In Geometry one is required to give rigorous proof for any theorem. What I am looking for here is that rigorous proof.
Before we make political decisions we better know absolutely what the climate is doing, and why. Perhaps the “and why” is the most important part of the debate. Any political decisions made will hugely impact all of us. As I look at the global warming debate what I am seeing is a great deal of poor logic, bad science, and worse math, on both sides of the argument. (Thanks again for the good science above) I submit that it is past time for us to end the cranial anal inversions and start finding the rigorous proofs. CHK
I,m confused in calculations
How can earth warm/cool 0.5 degrees in a year? If M (earth) = 6×10 exp 24 kg, and we approximate that 1/20 000 of mass (outer layer) only counts, and let’s approximate the mass as H2O (as in sea), then heating this outer layer by 1 degrees requires 6xexp24×4000 J/20 000 = approx 10 exp 24 J
with a radius of 7000 km, and approximated as a flat circle (only half gets sun)
A (Earth in sun) = 7000 000 m x 7000 000 m x 3; at earth’s surface solar power is 1000 W per m2 (at upper layers=?); If we assume every single photon heats the earth and nothing radiates back to space, then we get 150 x 10exp12×1000 W (or J/s)
in a year we get heat 365×12x3600, or 16 000 000 times the before calculated sum, or 2,4 x 10exp24 J At this point Joules are somewhat balanced, but as we now, the sun doesn’t always shine, not everything absorbs, a lot reflects, and the earth is not just it’s outmost layer, so what on earth are the meteomen (and women) doing when they present us with temperatures-temperatures of what?
Another problem has come up for me in understanding global warming. The winds. As I look at a chart of wind patterns, both surface and upper air, I notice that the equator gets in the way. There are no wind currents that cross from northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere, so there can only be a little cross over. This means that only a very small percentage of CO2 moves from America to the some point accross the equator. So why then is CO2 or SO2 impacting the southern hemisphere at the same rate as the northern hemisphere? Or is it that CO2 is not a global warmer at all, just a hemisphere warmer?
I must admit, that as an intrested observer of the argument of anthropogenic causation of global warming, I am easily confused. It seems to me too many simple questions are going unanswered. CHK
Mra raises a valid question in asking what the “global average temperature” measurement actually represents.
Roger A. Pielke Sr. has raised some serious reservations regarding unresolved issues in using globally averaged surface temperature trends as a metric for assessing climate change.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-321.pdf
But mra’s more basic question is “temperatures of what?”
We have seen from Anthony Watts’ studies that even the land surface temperature stations used by NCDC NOAA in the USA are subject to major errors as a result of urbanization effects. These measure air temperature near the surface. Not only are a majority of the stations poorly sited with paved parking lots, buildings with air conditioners, etc. nearby, but five of the six “Global Historical Climatology Network” (GHCN) stations in California (for example), which are being used to compile the “global average”, are located in urban centers that have grown to more than 1 million inhabitants. In comparing two fairly close stations located north of Sacramento, CA (Orland, a well-sited station and Marysville, a poorly sited station), the NCDC temperature record shows that Marysville has recorded temperatures of 0.9C higher and a linear decadal rising trend of 0.13C per decade higher than Orland.
Since the global linear trend of temperature from 1976 to 2007 is 0.17C per decade, an error of 0.13C per decade raises some serious questions.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/how-not-to-measure-temperature-part-44/#comment-3738
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425725910040&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=425745000030&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
There is no reason to believe that the cases cited by Watts are unusual exceptions. In fact, there are other data from around the world that show that this is not the case. So there is a basic problem with the raw data used.
We then read in the latest NCDC update: “In February 2006, NCDC transitioned to the use of an improved Global Land and Ocean data set (Smith and Reynolds analysis (2005)), which incorporates new algorithms that better account for factors such as changes in spatial coverage and evolving observing methods.”
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/anomalies.html
Descibing the problem in more detail NCDC goes on to say:
“NCDC’s long-term mean temperatures for the Earth were calculated by processing data from thousands of world-wide observation sites on land and sea for the entire period of record of the data. Many parts of the globe are inaccessible and therefore have no data. The temperature anomaly time series presented here were calculated in a way that did not require knowing the actual mean temperature of the Earth in these inaccessible areas such as mountain tops and remote parts of the Sahara Desert where there are no regularly reporting weather stations. Using the collected data available, the whole Earth long-term mean temperatures were calculated by interpolating over uninhabited deserts, inaccessible Antarctic mountains, etc. in a manner that takes into account factors such as the decrease in temperature with elevation. By adding the long-term monthly mean temperature for the Earth to each anomaly value, one can create a time series that approximates the temperature of the Earth and how it has been changing through time.”
NCDC describes briefly the SR05 adjustment method for arriving at the “blended land and ocean dataset”: “The SR05 analysis merges a new analysis of in situ SST anomalies with an analysis of Land Surface Temperature (LST) anomalies from a gridded version of the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN)“.
So we start off with raw data that contain a spurious error, which exaggerates the record by several tenths of a degree C, and we then apply complicated adjustments to arrive at a “globally averaged blended land and ocean dataset”.
So back to mra’s question: “what on earth are the meteomen (and women) doing when they present us with temperatures-temperatures of what?”
Max
Regardless of all comments above it is has been proven that the long term trend favours global warming.
The analysis wrt to this presented on Real Climate and other similar blogsites is convincing.
La Nina was predicted to result in a lowering of temperatures. This does not invalidate the long term trend.
That said, the AGW protagonists are a mixture of balanced and normal scientists combined with a bunch of narcissisistic, intelligent, but emotionally immature folk who create the bulk of comment on some high profile blogsites.
Independent of the validity of the AGW position it is clear that resources are being consumed at an unsustainable rate. Furthermore the products of these resources are largely unnecessary and shortlived. Most of these emanate from the East – India and China.
These countries are rapidly emerging from poverty on the back of crapulous consumption of what will become increasingly scarce minerals and fuels.
The pollution and consequences to human life are well known.
The solution to putative AGW must be based upon two things.
Firstly the denial of an increase in the standard of living of many poverty stricken folk in the East and secondly a dramatic lowering of the standard of living of those countries that depend upon mineral and fuel exports for economic growth.
Any alternative will be too slow to emerge to “save the world” as the AGW folk would desire.
It is possible that we are about to witness either the greatest ecological catastrophe (wrt to causation of human fatalities) or the greatest loss of human life based upon the implementation of strategies designed to mitigate putative AGW.
Max,
Your post indicates that you are indeed a thinking human being. This is a good thing. As a thinking human being, you must recognize that the source of any piece of information is incredibly relevant.
A thinking human being does not go to a Phillip Morris press release to find out whether tobacco is hazardous to one’s health. A thinking human being does not go to a McDonald’s press release to find out whether obesity is a real health risk.
And, a thinking human being does not go to ExxonMobil to find out if anthropogenic global warming is real or if it poses a real danger for humanity. You have probably unknowingly done so. Pielke has stated in no uncertain terms that he is indeed an employee of ExxonMobil. Read his post to the Royal Society for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/2arkxc.
Or, for the short version, I have pasted a relevant reply in its entirety.
The rest of your post refers back to this blog, hardly an authoritative source and to two specific weather stations worth of data. Unfortunately, climate change is not equal around the globe. Some areas will cool while most warm. We must be very careful to always note the difference between localized weather, localized by either locale or by time, as with a cold La Nina year.
MODERATOR REPLY: Just to be clear, there are two Dr. Rogar Pielkes, Dr. Roger Pielke Senior who runs http://www.climatsci.org is not the person mentioned in this comment.
Message to Andrew Montgomery
Andrew, you have presented a thoughtful (if somewhat gloomy) analysis of the situation.
I do not believe that anyone disagrees that the Earth has been warming since around 1976, at a decadal rate of 0.17 or 0.13 degrees C, depending on the record used (surface vs. troposphere). This trend has slowed down slightly over the past 10 years to around 0.06C per decade (both records agree on this). Whether this apparent “plateau” is the beginning of a new long-term trend with a slower rate of increase or even a reversal is too early to say.
You wrote: “La Nina was predicted to result in a lowering of temperatures. This does not invalidate the long term trend.”
It is true that, while there has been an underlying warming trend of around 1.0C over the past 150 years, there have been several ups and downs in the record over this period. And, while we may know more about what causes climate changes than we did twenty years ago, there is still much more that we do not yet know.
There is good agreement that atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from around 280 ppmv in 1900 to around 380 ppmv today.
There is no doubt that theoretical physics tells us that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which would cause an increase in temperature of around 0.7C if its atmospheric concentration doubled from the value of around 280 ppmv in 1900 to a projected 560 ppmv by 2100 (and there were no other forcing factors and positive or negative feedbacks).
There is a lot of doubt, however, about what this all means for the future. The blog site you mention, Real Climate, has one viewpoint on this, which largely reflects the so-called “consensus” view as postulated by IPCC.
This view suggests that anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW) is very likely to have been the principal factor in causing the observed warming trend and that this warming trend will accelerate in sort of a “hockey stick” fashion in the future due to AGW, rather that going through cyclical swings as it has done in the past.
The projections for the future are based on computer models. These models include the theoretical forcing factors from greenhouse gases as well as significant positive feedbacks from water vapor. The impact of clouds is largely ignored. The impact of solar variability is deemed to be extremely low, while there is an admission by IPCC that the level of scientific understanding of these factors is low.
So the temperature projections are based on a high level of forcing from greenhouse gases, which is multiplied by a factor of two to three by assumed net positive feedbacks with very little natural forcing.
Once temperature projections for the future have been made, these can then be used to predict how the global climate system will react.
IPCC has made projections on melting glaciers and ice sheets, rising sea level, increased severe weather events, such as droughts, heavy precipitation events, heat waves, intensity of tropical cyclones, etc.
IPCC admits that the projections relating to severe weather events are based on “expert opinion” rather that “attribution studies”, and that the probability that these are caused by human impact is “more likely than not” (i.e.50+%).
But, unfortunately, this is not where the story stops.
There are some politicians, politically motivated activists and scientists who grossly exaggerate the IPCC projections to spread fear in the public.
Where IPCC suggests sea level rise measured in centimeters, these activists talk of 6-meter waves swallowing New York City.
Where IPCC postulates a gradual increase of temperatures, these alarmists talk of imminent “tipping points” from which human civilization the environment and our planet will not be able to recover.
You mention that the choices we face are both rather gloomy (if we believe the disaster scenario painted by the alarmists): face a climate disaster or stop the development of India/China and reverse economic growth in the developed world. It also includes, of course, keeping the very poorest nations in their poverty, without access to electrical energy and clean drinking water, for example.
I am more of an optimist.
I believe that there is no impending climate disaster, and that whatever happens to sea levels or ice caps, we can adapt (as the Dutch have been doing for years).
As far as the “greatest ecological catastrophe (wrt to causation of human fatalities)” is concerned, there was an annual average of just under 20,000 fatalities worldwide during the period 2000-2006 from all weather-related extreme events (including extreme cold)
There is no doubt that denying the poorest nations electrical power and clean water (which together kill around 4 million people annually from water-caused disease and respiratory diseases from indoor air pollution caused by cooking with wood or dung) is by far a greater problem for humanity that the projected climate change.
It gets less attention, because it is a”poor man’s (and woman’s) problem” rather than the projected climate crisis, which is essentially a “rich man’s problem”.
Yes, we should conserve energy.
Yes, we should develop more energy efficient automobiles.
Yes, we should stop pollution of our environment.
Yes, we should stop waste.
Yes, we should reduce our dependency on dwindling oil reserves in politically unstable regions.
Yes, we should develop renewable power sources.
And at the same time we should help the poorest nations develop a standard of living that is well above the poverty line and attack the many other REAL problems that are out there rather than waste our time and resources on the computer-generated virtual climate problem of the future.
Just my thoughts on this.
Regards,
Max
Message to Misanthropic Scott
Agree with you that one has to check the source of info.
As far as I know, Roger Pielke Sr. is a respected climate scientist.
I do not see any logical link to your mention of Phillip Morris, McDonald’s or ExxonMobil.
A press release by any of these organizations regarding the impact of their businesses on the world would carry about as much weight as a press release by the WWF or the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But the main point of my response to mra on “what are we measuring” was to point out that there are a lot of uncertainties regarding the validity of the “globally average land and sea temperature”, as pointed out by some of the work done by Anthony Watts and others. I also showed that there are an awful lot of adjustments, corrections, etc. made to the raw numbers to arrive at a final figure, further complicating the answer to the question raised by mra.
That’s all.
Regards,
Max
hi JM I’m back
You have either misstated Arrhenius or I am finally getting close to the method by which CO2 works its magic
The formula for carbonic acid is H2CO3, not CO2, and a Nobel Prize winning Chemist would know that
So is it that Infrared combines H20 & CO2 to form H2CO3 thereby warming the planet or is Arrhenius a dead end, as my understanding is that he actually based his paper on a halving or doubling of atmospheric “Carbonic Acid” (H2CO3).
Message to Chris Kilpatrick
Several days ago you asked me if I had any info about actual physical data or experiments that support the greenhouse theory.
I did some looking around and found nothing other than the theories and calculations used by IPCC.
For a 114-page scientific study that raises serious questions concerning the validity of the greenhouse theory from the standpoint of theoretical physics, read:
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v3.pdf
This study was written by two German scientists, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner.
Abstract
>
> The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the
> traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861 and Arrhenius 1896 and is
> still supported in global climatology essentially describes a fictitious
> mechanism in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an
> environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively
> equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of
> thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in
> almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary
> literature it is taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and
> stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular
> conjecture is analysed and the underlying physical principles are
> clarifed. By showing that
>
> (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in
> glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,
>
> (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature
> of a planet,
>
> (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees C is a meaningless
> number calculated wrongly,
>
> (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately,
>
> (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical,
>
> (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the
> atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
The authors’ argumentation seems to make sense, although I cannot say whether it really proves that the IPCC position on AGW is false or not.
I have not seen a scientific refutation of this paper, although I am sure that articles have been written by supporters of the anthropogenic greenhouse warming hypothesis attacking this study and/or its authors.
If someone out there has seen a serious scientific study refuting the conclusions of this paper, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Regards,
Max
TD: “The formula for carbonic acid is H2CO3, not CO2, and a Nobel Prize winning Chemist would know that”
Yes and if you’d actually bothered to read the paper (which is widely available on the internet) you would know that:
a.) Carbonic acid (H2CO3) is in equilibrium with CO2 (assuming constant TPV) in the presence of water (or water vapour in the atmosphere)
b.) Because CO2 concentrations were particularly difficult to measure 100 years ago, that H2CO3 (which was easy to measure) was a bit of a proxy measure at the time.
If you knew any chemistry you’d also know that ‘bit of a proxy’ understates the situation. Given the “acidity of air” aka “carbonic acid” you can precisely determine the concentration of CO2.
You’d also know that Arhennius was a bit of a demon for data and could crunch data like there was no tommorow. He tended to gather shedloads of observations, crunch them and produce results.
Since he couldn’t get shedloads of CO2 observations he used shedloads of H2CO3 observations which he could get. And from them – given the precise mathematical relationship to CO2 concentrations – he could quite reasonably quantify the greenhouse effect.
I’ll give you a tip. Ill informed blog posters who can’t be bothered to do the most minor research (that would be you) but want to question 100 year old established science in the bizarre belief that they can use mere semantic trivia to uncover flaws allegedly unnoticed by the intervening 5 or 6 generations of proffesional scientists, run a serious risk.
A serious risk of a bollocking from a semi-informed blog poster (that would be me) who can actually read.
Ok, I got that off my chest, I’ll be nice now.
You need to be real careful when reading old papers because terms change and often there’s a lot of dross surrounding the gold – Keplers writings are full of neoplatonist mystisicm about perfect forms and Newtons writings have all sorts of weird alchemy in them, but Keplers laws are still the only laws of planetary motion, and Newtonian gravitation got us to the moon.
Words in a paper may not mean what you think they do, and a simple alphanumeric equality check is not enough to say they are different.
Yes, Arhennius said “carbonic acid”, but he was talking about CO2
Thanks JM
My interest in Arhennius was sparked by his being mentioned as doing the orginal science in CO2 warming but was put off by the constant references to carbonic acid.
I didn’t want take the time to read about carbonic acid if it was just some people saying “well it does the same thing”.
I was interested in the original CO2 research as I have had a hard time finding the mechanism by which CO2 is claimed to heat the planet, this may be my lack of search skills but my hope is that as he was doing “new science” Arhennius would have had to go into the detail of how.
As for getting a bollocking on line, I don’t care.
Now that I have your assurance that he was researching CO2 I will read the paper although a pointer to a clean copy would be nice.
I have no intention of ever becoming a regular “blog poster” and my reading will benefit only me.
I do however apologize to others here for wasting their time with my personal quest
Hey TD,
You are not wasting anyone’s time.
Keep asking the critical questions and insisting on getting factual answers based on hard data rather than on computer generated hype.
The world needs you (and others like you) out there to cut through the fog.
Regards,
Max
TD: “I have had a hard time finding the mechanism by which CO2 is claimed to heat the planet”
If you look back in this thread, you’ll find a post of mine that outlines the mechanism.
Basically, any gas that absorbs energy from the sun – even to the slightest degree – will warm the planet to some extent. CO2 is important because it absorbs infrared which is a massive component of the suns output. (When you feel the heat of the sun on your face on a summers day – that’s infrared)
The absorption means that some energy entering the atmosphere is trapped and heats up the planet.
Now other gases also do the same thing – water vapour absorbs microwaves (which is how microwave ovens work), but microwave energy is a much smaller component of the suns output, as is UV which is absorbed by ozone (the ozone layer being important for making this planet habitable in the first place). Visible light doesn’t matter because no gas in the atmosphere absorbs it (you can tell because the atmosphere is transparent to visible light – if visible light were absorbed you and I would be walking around in a permanent haze)
What Arhennius did is take the basic observation that infrared is a major energy input to the earths climate, note that CO2 absorbed it and should be acting as a blanket warming; and then crunch a large amount of data to validate his model.
He then made a prediction about how the global tempreture would rise with increasing CO2. At the time, he expected a doubling to take about 3000 years based on the trends at the time. However, since then we’ve made pretty large inroads and have got about half-way to a doubling in just over a century. ie. we’ve done the experiment. And the results are in, he was pretty much right.
CO2 is the main player here, most of those other things that people go on about – methane, water vapour, etc – are just second order effects. Other things (gamma rays for example) are just plain looney as those guys can’t even put up a plausible mechanism, let alone make predictions of the quality of Arhennius’s.
But the key point is this. Apart from being the dominant factor, the concentration of CO2 is the *only* thing that’s changed during the last century. None of the other candidates – water vapour, suns output, even gamma rays – none of them have changed at all. CO2 has increased by around 50%. It’s the smoking gun. It’s the elephant in the room.
Max: “If someone out there has seen a serious scientific study refuting the conclusions of this paper, I’d be interested in seeing it.”
Max, the paper is refuted on its face. It is simply wrong.
A good place to start would be here
There are two links in that article, the first is long but informal. The second “Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” is a link to a formal paper debunking G&T at Cornell University.
It’s not really true that CO2 is the only thing which has changed, everything is always changing. But. Temperature has really only reached the level it was in the past, there’s nothing to see here.
Hi JM
Thanks for your message on Gerlich+Tscheuschner. You wrote: “Max, the paper is refuted on its face. It is simply wrong.”
You provided a link to a very recent rebuttal by A.P. Smith.
I am certainly not going to claim that the G+T paper is “right” (and that the greenhouse theory is therefore false).
However, I did not see a clear refutation of it in the Smith rebuttal you cited, but rather a succinct explanation of how the greenhouse theory works, including a calculation method for estimating its impact on a hypothetical “global average temperature”.
Smith states that the “average temperature is mathematically constrained to be less that the fourth root of the average fourth power of the temperature”.
Smith concludes that “the only way the fourth power of the surface temperature can exceed this limit” (i.e. a “value determined by the incoming stellar flux and the relative reflectivity and emissivity parameters”) is to be covered by an atmosphere that is at least partly opaque to infrared radiation. This is the atmospheric greenhouse effect.”
G+T state that “the popular climatologic ‘radiation balance’ diagrams describing quasi-one-dimensional situations…do not properly represent the mathematical and physical fundamentals”. G+T also state that the Stefan-Boltzmann equation used in calculating “heat transfer for a radiation-exposed body” is “invalid for real objects”.
G+T apparently question the method of calculation used as a “standard in global climatology” (p.63), in other words the basis for the conclusion reached by Smith.
As I understand it, part of this has to do with whether the “fourth root is drawn before averaging” rather than afterward.
It seems strange to me that Smith did not specifically refute this statement in G+T.
Another objection I saw in G+T (p.66), which Smith also did not refute directly, is to the concept of a “global average temperature”. G+T quote another study (Essex et al.) that says that: “there is no physically meaningful global temperature for the Earth in the context of the issue of global warming” and “a given temperature field can be interpreted as both ‘warming’ and ‘cooling’ simultaneously, making the concept of warming in the context of the issue of global warming physically ill-posed.”
The point G+T make here (whether it is valid or not) is that one cannot make simplified calculations based on a hypothetical “global average temperature”, since the influence of local factors is far too great. Again, I did not see a refutation of this statement by Smith.
A final point I saw was that G+T referred to a paper by Schack, which referred to CO2 as “ an absorbent medium”, but not in the context that atmospheric CO2 would radiate heat back to a warmer ground, causing surface warming.
Again, I am not taking either side on this issue, but I can see that the Smith paper was a rebuttal but not a refutation of the specific points raised by G+T.
Regards,
Max
Max “… I can see that the Smith paper was a rebuttal but not a refutation of the specific points raised by G+T.”
Specific points? Perhaps not. But the refutation is more fundamental. G&T are arguing that a.) the greenhouse effect does not exist at all, and b) that the second law doesn’t work. The paper points out the absurdity of a, the discussion points out the ridiculousness of b).
ie. G&T refute themselves by “disproving” the 2nd law. G&T is psuedoscience, not science.
Hi JM,
You wrote: “Specific points? Perhaps not. But the refutation is more fundamental. G&T are arguing that a.) the greenhouse effect does not exist at all, and b) that the second law doesn’t work. The paper points out the absurdity of a, the discussion points out the ridiculousness of b).
ie. G&T refute themselves by “disproving” the 2nd law. G&T is psuedoscience, not science.”
This is disappointing, JM. If Smith could really refute the specific points made by G+T this would be a robust refutation.
Since he did not, it is a well-written rebuttal, but not a robust refutation.
I am not taking either side on this, JM, but I am looking for a specific scientific refutation of G+T, and I do not find it in the Smith paper.
Do you?
Regards,
Max
How warm is it SUPPOSED to be?
Erik Z raises a good question: “How warm is it SUPPOSED to be?”
This kinda depends on where you are at what time of year and time of day, and whether it is a clear or cloudy/rainy day, etc…
The concept used by “climatologists” of a “globally averaged land and sea surface temperature” is very dicey, with so many adjustments, corrections, interpolations, etc. being applied to surface station data that are, in themselves, suspect for many reasons, which have been brought to light by Anthony Watts on this site as well as many others.
I guess the scientist would say that this has increased from a 1951-1980 average of 288.0K to an average value over the past 10 years of 288.5K, which now seems to be tapering off or reversing.
But back to Erik Z’s question: In the USA, for example, there are a lot of people (who have the choice) moving from harsher northern climates to the South and Southwest, where it is warmer.
These folks have apparently decided that it is SUPPOSED to be a bit warmer (to where they are relocating) than it is (from where they are departing).
But Erik Z raises a valid question, which is hard to really answer.
Max
Hi JM
Thanks for your explanation of CO2 absorbing heat from infrared it helped me a lot, although I have a problem with water vapor, as I know from the coffee addiction I admit to, that water accepts heat well otherwise I would be drinking coffee at room temperature, so a bit more on that wouldn’t hurt.
I have not read Arhennius yet, I found one copy online but it was a scan and the readability was poor. I am hoping to find a retyped version as I don’t like to cut down trees.
to: JM and Max
I have read the papers that you have mentioned (G &T and Smith) and I admit I didn’t understand a single equation. This is normal for me, both sides do understand them so any “that 1.5 should be a 2.5″ would quickly be sorted amongst themselves.
As usual my question is about how CO2 does its warming.
In Smith page 8 above equation 36 “half the radiation from this atmospheric layer will go up, and half down”, I am assuming that sideways doesn’t count because it eventaully goes up or down, but I am open to any explanation.
In order to get a handle on this, since the math is not something I can understand I made a small spreadsheet
absorbant layer in Lost in space Send Down
initial arrival 1000.00 500.00 500.00
Recycled 500.00 250.00 250.00
Recycled 250.00 125.00 125.00
Recycled 125.00 62.50 62.50
Recycled 62.50 31.25 31.25
Recycled 31.25 15.63 15.63
Recycled 15.63 7.81 7.81
Recycled 7.81 3.91 3.91
Recycled 3.91 1.95 1.95
Recycled 1.95 0.98 0.98
Recycled 0.98 0.49 0.49
Recycled 0.49 0.24 0.24
Recycled 0.24 0.12 0.12
SUM 999.88 999.88
I’m sure you can see my question
Where does the heating come in?
Is it
Because the IR is slowed down by being Recycled again and again, giving it longer to heat up the surface
or
Less than what goes down each time comes back up, so the ground picks up a bit more each time around the merry go round
or
No you missed the point again
Thanks for any insight you, or anyone else here can give me.
To both JM & Max I have enjoyed reading your interaction.
Sorry Guys
The formatting got lost on the table it should have columns separated by tabs and it did in the comments box
The headings are :
Absorbent layer in
Lost in space
Send down
The two Sum amounts are for
Lost in Space
Send Down
I am making a habit of apologizing here
[...] (UAH) und das Remote Sensing Systems in Santa Rosa, California (RSS)) belegen derzeit eine Abkühlung anstatt der angeblichen globalen Erwärmung. Der beobachtete Anstieg von etwa 0,6 °C der [...]
Hi TD,
No need to apologize. I think that the equations, the concepts as well as the practical implications of the greenhouse theory are difficult for anyone to understand fully.
Your spreadsheet for understanding the Smith statement (p.8) of what happens to the absorbed and re-emitted heat (or IR waves) makes sense to me, since there is basically no creation of heat, i.e. what comes in goes out. What your spreadsheet shows is that there is no net heat created.
As I understand it, the GH theory states that the GH mechanism is one of absorption of heat (from IR waves) and re-emission of this heat, partly out to space, and partly back to Earth. It is not a mechanism of reflection, as you would have from a mirror, for example.
Smith confirms this, as well, on p.8 when he writes of IR absorption in the atmosphere (by GH gases) and thermal re-emission.
This is where G+T have problems with the theory (pp.76,77). Their point is that it is not possible, according to the second law of thermodynamics, for heat to be transferred from a body at a lower temperature (the atmospheric CO2 layer, which is at well below 0C) to a body at a higher temperature (the surface of the Earth, which is at a “global average temperature” of around 15C), without the addition of work from an outside source. The reflection mechanism could do this (the mirror doesn’t have to be warmer than the surface to which it is reflecting heat waves), but absorption/emission cannot.
Smith presents the “proof” that GH warming exists on p.8: “The only way for a planet to be radiatively warmer than the incoming sunlight allows [minus what is reflected from its surface albedo] is for some of the thermal radiation to be blocked from leaving.”
This is not, in the true sense, a scientific proof that GH warming exists; it is, at best, a “proof by default”, which could be restated as follows:
“We (think we) know how much energy the sun is bringing in, we (think we) know how much is reflected back into space, and since a calculation shows that something else is going on that we cannot explain otherwise, which results it temperatures that are higher than those we calculated based on our assumptions, we conclude that it is greenhouse warming.”
Like you, I am waiting for someone to bring a reference to a true scientific refutation of G+T, since Smith does not provide this.
Regards,
Max
JM wrote in part to TD
Basically, any gas that absorbs energy from the sun – even to the slightest degree – will warm the planet to some extent. CO2 is important because it absorbs infrared which is a massive component of the suns output. (When you feel the heat of the sun on your face on a summers day – that’s infrared)
RESPONSE:
About 40% of sunlight is in the NEAR (shortwave) infra red, much of which is absorbed high in the atmosphere.
Most of the HEAT that is felt in the skin from sunlight, regardless of the time of year, is from absorption of visible light plus a little UV and a little shortwave-IR. Most of the heating of CO2 is not from incoming near infra red absorption, but from reradiated longer wavelengths from the surface which absorbed most of the incoming sunlight. (other than the reflected) Maximum initial absorption is near the surface. Greenhouse effect is usually discussed in the context of this longwave IR radiation (longwave EMR)
JM also WROTE in part to TD:
Now other gases also do the same thing – water vapour absorbs microwaves (which is how microwave ovens work), but microwave energy is a much smaller component of the suns output, as is UV which is absorbed by ozone (the ozone layer being important for making this planet habitable in the first place). Visible light doesn’t matter because no gas in the atmosphere absorbs it
RESPONSE:
Water vapour is by far the most powerful greenhouse gas, both in the width of its absorption spectrum, and its quantity in the atmosphere. Visible light does matter because it is the highest energy output from the sun, which is largely absorbed by the surface and reemitted as IR to cause the so-called greenhouse effect, of which a small part is caused by CO2 absorption, but mostly by H2O
JM, what was all that nonsense you gave TD all about?
The trouble i have with all the info from the greens is this ,the measurements of c02 ,if you take c02 away will that control oceans, weather patterns , volcanoes etc? i dont think so we cannot live without it ,methane is the killer gas for our planet but forests produce more than anything else and being 5 per cent is a lot lot more than 0.03 in c02 as methane turns into sulphuric acid in the upper atmoshphere and also eats at the ozone layer i think they are barking up the wrong tree ,but then again you cant tax people for forests can you.
[...] argument originated from Anthony Watts who plotted data from 4 sources (HadCRUT, GISS, RSS and UAH), all of which show sharp cooling of [...]
Hi Jack,
You are 100% right, of course, on CO2 being an essential atmospheric component for all life on this planet. No CO2 = no plants = no animals = no people.
And studies have shown that increased atmospheric CO2 actually helps plants (and crops) grow more quickly. IPCC has “assumed” that all measured increases in CO2 are caused by humans, which is unlikely.
Methane, on the other hand, is a “pollutant”, most of which is naturally caused, but a small percentage of which is caused by humans. IPCC “assumes” again that all increases are caused by humans, which is even more unlikely.
Here’s the theory on CO2 versus methane as a greenhouse gas, using the Arrhenius theory according to IPCC.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm
dE is change in forcing
using Stefan-Boltzmann:
dT/dE = 1 / (4 [sigma] T^3)
then:
dT = [alpha] ln ( [CO2] / [CO2] orig) / 4 [sigma] T^3)
where alpha is a constant for “radiative efficiency” = 5.35 for CO2
and sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant = 5.6705E-08
A doubling of CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv,
And substituting T = 15 degrees C = 288.16K
dT = 5.35 ln (560 / 280) / (4 *5.6705E-08 * (288.16^3))
or
dT = 0.6833 centigrade for a doubling of CO2
where the radiative forcing of doubling CO2 is equal to:
5.35 ln (560 / 280) or 3.71 W/m^2
IPCC says that CO2 has increased from 280 to 381 ppmv to date, resulting in a radiative forcing of 1.66 W/m^2, while methane has increased from 715 to 1774 ppbv, resulting in a RF of 0.48 W/m^2 (IPCC uses a different formula for calculating the greenhouse impact of methane than they do for CO2, but that’s the RF they calculate).
This means CO2 has theoretically caused an increase in temperature of around 0.3C and methane 0.1C to date (from 1750 to 2005).
And if CO2 really increases to 560 ppmv by 2100, that adds another 0.4C and methane, if it doubles again, adds another 0.1C by 2100.
That’s the greenhouse theory (be it right or wrong). Everything else is models, feedbacks and hype.
You are right that methane is “more potent” on a concentration basis than CO2, since it is measured in ppbv (parts per billion by volume) while CO2 is measured in ppmv (parts per million by volume).
But your key observation is “but then again you can’t tax people for forests can you?”
You are spot on. That’s the REAL difference.
Max
[...] year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out [...]
[...] Since then, I have continued to track the global warming issue on almost a daily basis, including browsing several blogs dedicated to it (including here, here, here, and here), as well as reading some books and any number of articles on the subject. And the more I dig into it, the less impressed I am with the models, the assumptions, and the data sets used by the AGW proponents, not to mention their rather bad track record on predictions (e.g., in the atmosphere, in the oceans, on the land, and just generally worldwide). [...]
Measuring air temperatures without ocean temperatures may not give an accurate picture – I would be very interested to see if ocean temps followed this curve.
To put the whole Climate Change issue into perspective vis-a-vis the Peak Oil Crisis, everyone needs to ask themselves, their associates, all sitting elected officials and those seeking office, especially the office of President of the United States, “What is more threatening in both the long and short terms, a beneficial 1 degree F rise in average world temperatures over the past 100 years, or a 1 percent decline in world oil production over the last 100 weeks – with steepening declines forecast? Furthermore, can our economy better deal with declining fuel inventories in an environment of persistent warming, or in an environment of declining average temperatures over the next several decades, the most likely scenario given the highly reliable solar inertial motion (SIM) model forecasts of climate change?” Solar cycle # 24 will tell the tale. The problem is not AGW. The problem is the end of cyclical warming coincident with the onset of Peak Oil.
The post by John A. Jauregui on Solar Cycle #24, the SIM hypothesis of solar climate regulation and “Peak Oil” considerations is interesting.
If this hypothesis holds and solar cycle #24 continues as now, it is very likely that the most recent 10 years’ flat temperature plateau will start to show significant cooling.
Don’t know about the “peak oil” problem, but below is a link to a recent Australian paper on Earth’s climate being regulated by the solar system, with some references.
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
The article says that according to the SIM hypothesis, Solar Cycle #24 should be like cycle #14, and be followed by two cycles that will create a brief ice age.
Even if this would end the current circus and hysteria surrounding AGW, it would definitely not be good news.
But there is every reason to believe that we would all survive this “disaster”, as we survived Hansen’s imaginary “tipping point” and Gore’s “6 meter waves swallowing New York City”.
hello, i have just finished an assignment for university on climate change and as a final note i left the graph from the Hadly centre as a last thought. it is clear to see that we don’t really have a clue about global warming, and although compelling as the link with increased Co2 to increased temperature is i think that we are not giving the planet enough credit. without sounding to hippy i would like to say, inst it a good thing in some respects that the mass majorities think that climate change is caused by us and the release of co2 emissions? if they cut back on cars and high emission vehicles and production lines and we start to become more sustainable throughout the whole world, surely it is a good thing. correct me if i am wrong.
At the moment it seems that it is just another thing to argue about, with people who like to argue leaving strong comments, either for or against, even on here without weighing up both sides of the story. There is now enough evidence in both arguments to pretty much outweigh each other so people that seem to be one sided ( on either side) are very incoherent and narrow minded people who like to argue. people who find that they want to argue with me or have angry or abusive comebacks are the exact people i am pointing out.
so just have a think, i am not a decisive word and do not pass final judgement, and ask what do you know aout climate change?
From JM…..
“Basically, any gas that absorbs energy from the sun – even to the slightest degree – will warm the planet to some extent. CO2 is important because it absorbs infrared which is a massive component of the suns output. (When you feel the heat of the sun on your face on a summers day – that’s infrared)”
Since no one argued with this statement I will accept it also and ask, if I may….
How does a gas surrounding the planet heat the planet? Infrared heats my face (the planet) when it gets to my face, not when it gets to the window. If reflectivity is not a factor in GW then how is the earth being warmed? It seems to me that a layer of anything that is absorbing IR would keep the heat from reaching the mass of the earth and warming it. As an insulator, that layer by definition must work in both directions. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Hagar
Hi Alex,
Your points are well taken that there are plenty of arguments plus some narrow minded and abusive people “on both sides”,
Both supporters of the suggestion of potentially alarming anthropogenic global warming and those who are rationally skeptical of this notion should be able to carry on a rational discussion of the issues involved.
Unfortunately, this has become more than just a scientific debate.
It has become a political discussion, as well as a debate about far-reaching policy decisions that will affect everyone on this planet and will involve hundreds of billions of dollars.
There are some who will benefit personally and financially from some of the proposed “solutions”, and therefore have a vested interest.
There are some on the other side that also have a vested interest.
And, in far too many instances, it has become a media-fed wave of hysteria, with the media also benefitting.
Scientists are scrambling for grant money, and the well-known axiom in publicly funded research is “no crisis = no funding”.
Activists on both sides are not above using the appeal to emotion (guilt as well as fear) rather than to reason in their argumentation.
Unfortunately, history has shown us again and again that politicians frequently resort to the use of fear in order to gain public support for a particular political agenda (be it a war, a new set of taxes, new legislation that restricts personal freedom or something else).
It is unfortunate that a rational discussion of very important issues such as those listed below is not possible without getting into the controversies surrounding the AGW debate:
· Conservation of energy at all levels (domestic, industrial, etc.)
· Elimination of waste at all levels
· Elimination of real air pollution (not CO2)
· Elimination of water and land pollution
· Control of tropical rain forest destruction
· Programs to increase forests in temperate zones
· Reduction of dependence on imported petroleum from politically unstable regions
· Improved fuel efficiency of automobiles
· Development of cost effective alternate fuels
· Improved and expanded energy efficient public transportation systems
· Upgrading or replacement of low thermal efficiency power generation plants
· Expanding power generation from non-fossil fuel sources (including nuclear)
· Development of new fast breeder / thorium fission technology
· Development of fusion technology
· Etc.
As a university student, I believe you will do the right thing by keeping an open mind, avoiding emotional argumentation, weighing the evidence provided on both sides of the factual arguments on these and many more pertinent issues and coming to your own opinions on what is really happening.
And, if you are lucky, you may be able to do something when you complete your studies that will “make a difference”.
Max
Hi Hagar,
JM and I had an exchange on this topic earlier on this site, where we discussed a paper by two German physicists that raised exactly your question: “How does a gas surrounding the planet heat the planet?”
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v3.pdf
These two physicists, Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, questioned the validity of the greenhouse theory as proposed by IPCC, based on the laws of physics. They also pointed out some errors in the method of calculation used.
I cannot judge whether they are right in all or some of their points or not.
A rebuttal to this paper was made by A.P. Smith.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf
Smith did not provide evidence that clearly refuted the G+T paper. Instead, he provided a succinct explanation of how the greenhouse theory works, including a calculation method for estimating its impact on a hypothetical “global average temperature”.
Both G+T and Smith agree that the CO2 layer does not reflect the outgoing infrared radiation back to Earth (as a mirror would, for example).
According to Smith the mechanism is one of absorption of heat and re-radiation of half of this heat back down to Earth (while the other half gets radiated upward into space).
According to G+T this mechanism defies the laws of thermodynamics, since a cold CO2 layer high in the troposphere at a temperature of minus 40 degrees C cannot “radiate” heat back to a warmer Earth surface.
I cannot say who is right here, but since Smith could not directly refute the G+T statements with any facts, it appears that the issue is still open.
Check the two sources, talk to some physicists and make up your own mind.
Regards,
Max
Max:
That had to be one of the best statements I have read on this whole issue. Congrats, you did well.
Unfortunatly the oder of human bovine excrement had pushed me over to the anti Gorean side of the argument.
I have recently heard on the news (Fox News Channel 04 Feb 2008) That some cities in California are putting a “Global Warming Tax” on gas. This is not to pay for global warming, it is to pay for unfunded programs. Thus the Global warming issue is now being used by governments to increase their tax income. Perhaps this is why so many governments are so interested in funding research into Global Warming.
What pushed me over the brink was an article in Yahoo news. Some “scientist” now says La Nina is the cause of Global cooling, and that in another five years we will go right back to Global Warming. I looked at the graphs of Global Warming. There is no hint of La Nina doing anything close to the cooling we have just experienced. No El Nina caused snow in China, or snow in Yemen, like it did last year. This El Nina argument is pure rubbish. But the Goreans will now use that rubbish to support their case.
Give us all a break. The pure nonsence that is coming from the Goreans has gone way over the top.
Count me in the anti-Gore camp.
I started out as just someone interested in finding out the truth. I have been so overwhelmed by the pure nonsense of the Goreans that I can only conclude that the “world is flat” camp actually has it right. CHK.
You can’t make the claim you are from the GISS dataset – you’re using a snapshot of January 07 to January 08 and ignoring the data between. You should correct your data accordingly, since the GISS yearly data is in direct contradiction to your conclusion here.
Chris,
You might be on to something there. If the earth is indeed flat, I think the greenhouse theory just might work!
Hagar
Message to Brian Angliss
Hi Brian,
Believe you are right that a January 2007 to January 2008 record does not say much.
What does say a bit more is a 10-year record.
Both the surface and satellite records show that there has been no warming in the past decade (1998-2008).
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
To convince yourself, all you have to do is download the monthly data from January 1998 to today into Excel and put in the linear trend line.
You will see that it is flat.
When the IPCC Chairman was recently asked about this, he said he would check if there were possibly natural factors that had caused this observed plateau.
The prior trend from 1976 to 1998 has been used by IPCC as the basis for claiming accelerated global warming caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
This record covers 22 years, or 2.2 times the time span of the most recent flat trend.
On this basis IPCC projected temperature increase of 0.2 degrees C per decade for the first two decades of the 21st century.
Is the most recent 10-year record a “trend”? Is it a temporary “idiosincracy”? Who knows?
We will have to wait and see.
But it does raise serious questions about the ability of the IPCC climate models to project future temperature increase.
Regards,
Max
Isaaac Asimov said that if you held the earth in your hand, and then carefully wiped away the oceans, rivers and lakes, you would be left with a sphere that is much smoother than a billiard ball. We think that the ocean is so huge because we are so tiny.
Everest and the deep ocean trenches are mere imperfections on our home sphere.
There is much less lag in ocean temperatures than anyone believes. The sun is active and El Ninos flourish, warming earth and sea alike. The sun is quiet and La Nina, the ice queen, moves in.
Anyone who watches the animations of La Nina can see this cooling taking place. The earth and her oceans cool and warm depending on what our heat source, the sun, does.
Anthony I’d like to thank you for your pursuit of truth because you have brought so many wonderful minds along with you.
Message to chris kilpatrick
Thanks for your message.
Yeah, the AGW guys are grasping at any straws they can to rationalize the current slowdown (or even reversal) of warming, just as they did for the mid-century cooling from around 1945 to 1976.
I’ve even heard a few of these guys saying “anthropogenic greenhouse warming” could also be responsible for recent extreme cold weather events.
But to your other point: It’s pretty clear to me that politicians and bureaucrats enjoy the power they get from shuffling around large sums of public money. Your point on California confirms this. Why else would they back this whole hoax?
In politics you have to follow the money trail. Unfortunately, this is also the case in “climate science”.
Regards,
Max
Looking at one isolated figure is foolish. Is this january temperature the global temperature of the atmosphere, the surface of the land, the oceans, or all water mass including the arctic, glaciers etc.
I noted the other day that NASA found that although the winter Arctic Ice extent was larger than last January, the perennial ice has reduced by a vast amount OVER WINTER.
There are currently food riots in 52 countries worldwide including India, Pakistan, Egypt, The Philippines, and due to four years of disastrous harvests (in central europe, australia, usa, south america, china) , the global stocks of food supply are down to something like 5 weeks. (5 weeks away from mass starvation on an unimaginable scale).
Salmon stocks have collapsed all the way up the west coast of the USA this year.
To me, this is beginning to look apocalyptic, and not 100 years time, not 10 years time, but now. Clutching at straws like one isolated figure going the right way is madness, and talk about what we can “afford” for the economy means is so out of whack it isn’t even on the right page as reality.
Message to Jeff Davies
Hi Jeff,
You wrote: “Looking at one isolated figure is foolish”, (i.e. the “globally averaged land and sea surface temperature anomaly” for the month of January 2008.
I agree. You have to look at longer trends.
And it is best to go the actual source of the data rather than relying on sites like gristmill or individuals like Hansen, who may just be telling me a message they want to get across.
So I downloaded the Hadley record for the past 10 years:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
I then plot the most recent record with different start dates:
If I plot the last 10 years (starting January 1998, ending February 2008) I get a totally flat trend.
But AGW supporters tell me it is “unfair” to start with 1998, the all-time record year. Sites like gristmill have “debunked” the claim of a most recent flat trend with this argument, calling it an “artifact of measurement”.
If I plot the trend starting January 1999 I get a linear trend of 0.009 degrees C per decade (less than 5 percent of the 0.2 degrees C per decade as projected for the first two decades in the 21st century by IPCC in its 2007 SPM report).
Then I also checked the actual trend with later start dates:
Starting in 2000, the warming trend is +0.004 degrees C per decade
Starting in 2001, the cooling trend is –0.009 degrees C per decade
Starting in 2002, the cooling trend is –0.018 degrees C per decade
Starting in 2003, the cooling trend is –0.023 degrees C per decade
It looks like the IPCC Chairman is correct when he refers to the recent flat trend as a “plateau” in global warming and the “debunkers” of the flat trend are “flat wrong”, based on the facts..
Max
Hi Jeff
I have no doubt as to the imapct that human beings have on global warming by sheer weight of numbers we must have an impact.
Sadly the debate on climate change is not being served by hysteria (polar ice caps melt by next week etc etc)
But as to global food shortages I think demographics have more to play than global warming. Given current demographic growth in certain parts of Africa (Chad, Ethiopia Mali, Nigeria) as well as certain parts of asia allied with increased capita consumption in China it is inevitable that their will be food shortages. It is only a matter of time before widespread famine takes place regardless of global warming.
As for global warming is a mild warming (< 2C ) such a bad thing? Would not fuel consumption drop in the N.Hemisphere and crop yields increase? Can anybody point me to any agricultural analysis?
Now i have to get my hat and coat to go to the pub as it is bloody freezing outside.
JF
JohnF wrote: “Can anybody point me to any agricultural analysis?”
There are some out there and, as you might imagine, they do not all come to the same conclusions.
Most studies show that increased atmospheric CO2 levels will result in enhanced growth of plants, trees and crops.
http://www.purgit.com/co2ok.html
http://www.asi.org/adb/04/03/05/co2-plant-growth.html
http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20043213360
http://www.applet-magic.com/CO2plants.htm
Some studies point out that the effects of CO2 enrichment on plants depend on the availability of soil moisture, and plants may benefit more from CO2 enrichment when sufficient water is supplied.
A study on rice growth showed that future increases in atmospheric CO2 are likely to be beneficial to rice growth and yield, but that a large increase in temperature (of several degrees C) could cause negative effects on rice yield. http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/7/959
Other studies covering Douglas firs in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific northwest showed that both elevated CO2 levels and elevated temperatures will result is enhanced growth. This enhancement can be severely limited, however, if there is insufficient nitrogen in the soil. Enhancement was 25% in nitrogen-rich soils, but only 10% in nitrogen-poor soils. This report did conclude that as Douglas fir is a genetically diverse species, adaptation, either natural or managed, is likely.
http://www.epa.gov/wed/pages/projects/globalclimatechange/CO2andTemperatureEffects.pdf
One study points out that not only crops, but also weeds, will benefit from higher CO2 levels.
But, all in all, most reports show that increased CO2 as well as a moderate increase in temperature will most likely have a beneficial effect on plant growth.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Max
Hi JohnF,
Found some more stuff that may be of interest regarding CO2 and plant growth.
Some studies point out a side benefit from higher atmospheric CO2 levels on plant growth (photosynthesis):
http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/762873-latuFL/webviewable/762873.PDF
http://www.springerlink.com/content/wn7766lt37p06jql/
http://www.astro.uu.se/~l/noworry.htm
Plants growing on land get their water from the ground, through the roots. They take up carbon dioxide through small holes, called stomata, in their leaves and stems. When the stomata are open, to let CO2 in, water may escape from the plant. The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the less time the plant needs to have its stomata open to get enough carbon dioxide, and thus the less water it will lose. The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the more organic material may also be produced by the plant in any given time, of course, provided it also has enough of essential nutrients.
Thus an increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has the two-fold advantage of allowing plants to grow faster and allowing them to use their water more efficiently.
This higher water use efficiency would be particularly important in arid and semi-arid areas where water use efficiency can be critical, particularly in the summer months.
So there can be some “greening” of arid regions and deserts with higher levels of atmospheric CO2, which could lead to even higher crop growth if properly managed.
Regards,
Max
Just wondering where the earths’ molton core enters into this discussion. Is it cooling, warming staying the same temp. What effect if any does the constant underwater and above ground erupting of volcanos have on this discussion?
Hagar
[...] I would suggest that this “caveat” is meaningless. If it actually is higher, it will be only by a hair. See below for further discussion. January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months « Watts Up With That? [...]
[...] I would suggest that this “caveat” is meaningless. If it actually is higher, it will be only by a hair. And, in fact, probably close to half of the temps over the past hundred years have been “higher than the average.” See below for further discussion. January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months « Watts Up With That? [...]
Multidecadal Temperature Cycles Part 1
This site started out by pointing to the recent cooling trend, as observed by four different temperature records.
There has been a lot of “hoopla” lately about “global warming”. The latest records show that it has essentially stopped over the past 10 years, which skeptics are eager to point out, but supporters of the global warming hypothesis are crying “foul”. They tell us that it has not really stopped, and we are still at the highest levels of temperature anomaly today, therefore global warming is still a very real and apparent threat to humanity, the environment and our planet.
So let us see if we can cut through the hype from both sides and look at some facts.
Since global temperature records have been kept (based on the UK’s Hadley Centre), and we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, there have been several multi-decadal cycles from warming to cooling, with an overall slight warming trend.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
Period Trend Years Increase
1860-1879 0.196 20 0.39
1879-1906 -0.047 27 -0.13
1906-1940 0.161 35 0.56
1940-1976 -0.020 36 -0.07
1976-1998 0.175 22 0.39
1998-2008 0.000 10 0.00
Trend is linear decadal trend in degreesC/decade
Increase is linear change over period in degreesC
Between 1850 and around 1860 there was a very slight cooling trend.
This trend reversed to a warming trend for the next 20 years until around 1879 (the highest decadal rate of increase since records have been taken).
This was followed by another cooling trend until around 1906.
Then came another warming trend until around 1940, followed by a slight cooling trend until around 1976 (this one has been very briefly rationalized by IPCC, without any supporting evidence, as having been caused by anthropogenic aerosol emissions).
Following this, we had a trend with the second highest decadal rate of increase from 1976 to 1998. This trend has gotten a lot of attention as evidence of anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW).
This trend appears to have reached a “plateau” from 1998 to today, in sharp contrast to the IPCC projections from model studies, which predicted a record rate of increase of 0.2 degrees C per decade for the first two decades in the 21st century.
Multidecadal Temperature Cycles Part 2
The longer-term trend over all these cycles has been an increase of somewhat more than 1 degree C over the 150+ years of measurement.
In its TAR (2001) IPCC reported an increase over the 20th century (1901-2000) of 0.6 degree C.
If one “jiggles” the definition of the 20th century (as IPCC did in its 2007 SPM report) to replace the 1900-1906 cooling trend with an essentially flat trend from 2000 to 2006, one can show a 100-year increase of 0.74 degrees C.
Interestingly, the highest decadal rate of increase occurred over the 20-year period from 1860 to 1879, in the “horse and buggy” days long before AGW was a problem.
The multidecadal cycles are apparent in the record, as is the underlying warming trend over the entire period.
Multidecadal Temperature Cycles Part 3
Whether or not the past 10 years are the beginning of a new “flat” or cooling cycle remains to be seen.
What is apparent, however, is:
-that temperatures have been in an overall slow rising trend since 1850
-that there are multidecadal swings from slight cooling to warming
-that the recent warming trend from 1976 to 1998 is not unusual when compared to earlier warming periods, which occurred prior to AGW
-that the impacts of various “forcing” components on the global average temperature are not as straightforward as IPCC would have us believe
-that the ability of climate models to predict temperature trends is limited
misanthropic:
“Here’s a bit of data on CO2 and warming around the time of the last deglaciation.
http://tinyurl.com/28v4ph
I’ll keep searching if you remain unconvinced.
”
That link is only to an abstract, not the full paper. It seems a bit arrogant to cite references that are not freely available (yes, us heathens don’t have a personal library of science, nature, the IEEE, etc.)
JM:
“(When you feel the heat of the sun on your face on a summers day – that’s infrared)”
That seems like a layman’s explaination for something that could be more scientific.
Most of the sun’s energy that reaches the earth surface is visible (peaks around 550nm=green light).
http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/assets/images/2002/Nov-18-2002/solar_spectrum.jpg
Your skin absorbs most of this energy, making your skin warmer. So most of what you feel on a sunny day is not infrared.
Max,
I suspect many people reading your posts are feeling a bit frustrated.
G+T make unsubstantiated claims, so they don’t have to be disproved (they haven’t (and can’t) prove many of their claims).
For example, you say”G+T also state that the Stefan-Boltzmann equation used in calculating “heat transfer for a radiation-exposed body” is “invalid for real objects”.” I read that and immediately conclude G+T are quacks (or you’ve misquoted them).
I have a non-contact infrared thermometer that would not work if S-B was “invalid for real objects”. And I must have wasted hundreds of dollars purchasing windows with lowE coatings for my house. And the lowE paint on my http://www.thermo-dynamics.com/solar_collectors.html is a waste too…
sorry for using sarcasm; it’s 2am, and my brain needs to work a bit harder to think of the most polite way to say things.
Jauregui:
There is no “Peak Oil” crisis. Civilization will never run out of oil. Demand & price will find an equilibrium. And oil will never see an annual inflation-adjusted average of US$200/barrel either. Substitution (PV, wind, nuclear, etc) becomes economically advantageous well before we get to that price level.
Alex,
“if they cut back on cars and high emission vehicles and production lines and we start to become more sustainable throughout the whole world, surely it is a good thing. correct me if i am wrong.”
Using the word “surely” generally means you are asserting what you are saying instead of actually proving it.
If I have to pay $500/yr more for green energy & green technology, that’s $500 less I have to give to international development. And for some projects in West Africa $500 is all it takes to build a well for a village.
I would agree with Ralph that the “peak oil” hypothesis ignores major North American reserves in tar sands and oil shale. These two alone would triple the total world reserves according to estimates.
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf
Max
Comment to Ralph on G+T
I do not believe that G+T are “quacks”.
I also do not support their conclusions (one way or the other).
Part of their analysis went toward pointing out mathematical errors (be this right or wrong). Another part took aim at the “radiation balance” diagrams used to explain greenhouse warming. Yet another part questioned the validity of a global temperature.
But the most basic (and controversial) part questioned the re-emission of heat from the cold atmospheric CO2 layer back to a warmer surface of the Earth, claiming that this violates the second law of thermodynamics.
I cannot say whether this makes sense or not.
I have seen the Smith paper but have not seen any papers directly refuting the points made by G+T.
Maybe they are out there somewhere, but just writing someone off as a “quack” is not the same as refuting their claims with hard facts.
There is no “Peak Oil” crisis.
Peek and ye shall find!
Some temp facts for Misanthropic Scott
All of the four temperature records show that the late 20th century global warming trend stopped in 2001.
Plotting the monthly data from the records and putting in a linear trend line shows the following trend from January 2001 to today:
The Hadley record shows a cooling trend of –0.108 degrees C per decade
The RSS record shows a cooling trend of –0.060 degrees C per decade
The UAH record shows a cooling trend of –0.004 degrees C per decade
The GISS record shows a flat trend of 0.000 degrees C per decade
The 21st century started officially on January 1, 2001 (Wikipedia).
So it is correct to say that there has been no observed global warming trend (so far) this century.
Those are just the plain unvarnished facts.
This is not to say that a 7-year record constitutes a new trend. It will take many more years to see what will really happen.
But it is correct to say that it appears that the rapid warming trend of the late 20th century stopped around 2001.
And it raises some serious questions regarding the IPCC projections of a warming trend of +0.2 degrees C per decade for “the next two decades”.
how can I see your stat charts.
I think the trend analysis is quite significant !
Lou Geoffrion
Mancehster-by-the-Sea, MA
Message to Lou Geoffrion
Hi Lou,
Just download the temperature record as it is published (globally averaged land and sea monthly figures). Below are the links for Hadley (surface) and UAH (troposphere):
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
Plot the monthly data in Excel starting January 1998 (or January 2001) to February 2008.
Put in a linear trend line with the equation for the trend.
I started out with the 1998-2008 (latest decade) trend, but got some criticism for starting with 1998 (a record warm year), so I re-did the plot starting January 2001 (the “first year in the 21st century”), for a 7-year trend. Either way, the trend is flat to slight cooling.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Max
Hi Lou,
Forgot to mention. When you have put in the linear trend line and the equation, you will see an equation that reads y = b*x + a. This is the linear trend line equation. The “b” tells you the linear trend of change. Since you plotted monthly data it gives you the monthly trend in degrees C per month. You have to convert this to the trend conventionally used, degrees C per decade by multiplying the “b” number by 120.
Regards,
Max
Fascinating discussion. BTW, we’ve had snow in Seattle for two days (April 19 & 20, 2008). I hear it’s a record for the latest measurable snowfall.
Correlation between temperature and CO2
Back in February Joe Black asked: “So how’s that correlation of the temperature anomaly with the atmospheric CO2 change going?”
On April 10 I posted a blog showing that the data from the Hadley record shows that there have been several multidecadal cycles in the temperature anomaly, from warming to slight cooling, over the entire record since around 1850.
Now if you compare the change in temperature anomaly with the change in atmospheric CO2 (from Mauna Loa and IPCC) over these periods you see:
Period………….Trend…Years…DTemp…DCO2
1860-1879……..+0.196…20……+0.39………2
1879-1906….…..-0.047…27……-0.13………5
1906-1940……..+0.161…35……+0.56………14
1940-1976………-0.020…36……-0.07………25
1976-1998……..+0.175…22……+0.39………33
1998-2008……….0.000…10……0.00………..20
Trend is linear decadal temperature trend in degreesC/decade
DTemp is linear temperature change over period in degreesC
DCO2 is increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over period in ppmv
If you download the first column (Period) and columns 4 and 5 (DTemp and DCO2) and plot it in Excel, you will see that correlation of change in temperature anomaly with change in atmospheric CO2.
Not very convincing.
Max
How IPCC sees the temperature / CO2 correlation
The temperature record shows multidecadal fluctuations with no correlation with atmospheric CO2 concentraction until around 1976.
There is a 22 year period where the correlation between temperature and CO2 appears to be strong, and the most recent flat trend is mostly outside the data used by IPCC and not acknowledged as a slowdown in its latest AR4 WG1 report.
IPCC points to a 1976 divide as a “date of widely acknowledged climate shift” (Chapter 3, p.240)
The 22-year cycle starting in 1976 accounts for around 30% of the warming since records started and is used as the “proof” of anthropogenic greenhouse warming (AGW) due to CO2 (and other GHGs).
IPCC (Chapter 9, p.681): “The simulations show that it is not possible to reproduce the large 20th-century warming without anthropogenic forcing, regardless of which solar or volcanic forcing reconstruction is used, stressing the impact of human activity on the recent warming.”
So CO2 is guilty “by default” (since there is no other explanation).
But what about the earlier warming cycles (1860-1879 and 1906-1940), which accounted for 70% of the total warming?
IPCC (Chapter 3, p.240) says: “The picture prior to 1976 has essentially not changed and is therefore not repeated in detail here. This amounts to “we’re not going there, folks”.
The period 1860-1879 had the highest decadal rate of increase and accounted for 30% of the total warming with essentially no CO2 increase, yet it is not mentioned by IPCC at all.
Very brief mention is made of the 1906-1940 period (Chapter 9, p.691): “Detection and attribution as well as modeling studies indicate more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming.” This period accounted for 40% of the total warming, yet it is only mentioned in passing, with the admission that there is “uncertainty” regarding the causes for this warming.
So we essentially have this logic:
1) We don’t know what caused the 1860-1879 or 1906-1940 warmings (total: 0.95C) (nor are we going to talk about this or investigate this “uncertainty” more closely).
2) We know that CO2 caused the 1976-1998 warming (total: 0.39C).
3) Why?
4) Because nothing else explains it.
No attempt has been made to analyze these earlier periods to find “unexplained” causes for the observed rapid warming. What are these causes and what was their impact? Could these “unexplained” (but observed) causes also have been causes for the late 20th-century warming, which is being attributed to AGW by default?
Instead of actually looking for true explanations for these “inconvenient” earlier warming periods, IPCC chose to ignore them and use the late 20th-century warming period as confirmation of their preconceived AGW theory.
As a result, the suggestion that “late 20th-century warming is much more likely to be anthropogenic than natural in origin” since “no climate model using natural forcings alone has reproduced the observed global warming trend in the second half of the 20th century” is made without any basis other than conjecture.
Max
And since we don’t even know all the forcings involved, and many are poorly understood, their so-called “logic” fails even further. One should also note, I believe, that models have to pump more CO2 into the virtual realm than we’re currently adding, which invalidates them even more.
[...] Age (National Post, Canada) 2008 – Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling (DailyTech) 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist) 2008 – The Oceans Have Stopped Warming! (Canada Free Press) 2008 – [...]
[...] Age (National Post, Canada) 2008 – Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling (DailyTech) 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist) 2008 – The Oceans Have Stopped Warming! (Canada Free Press) 2008 – [...]
[...] Age (National Post, Canada) 2008 – Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling (DailyTech) 2008 – 4 sources say "globally cooler" in the past 12 months (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist) 2008 – The Oceans Have Stopped Warming! (Canada Free Press) 2008 – [...]
[...] Age (National Post, Canada) 2008 – Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling (DailyTech) 2008 – 4 sources say "globally cooler" in the past 12 months (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist) 2008 – The Oceans Have Stopped Warming! (Canada Free Press) 2008 – [...]
[...] global warming and our role in it. After researchers revealed recently that they had observed a cooling trend over the last twelve months and that hotspot activity on the sun had decreased alarmingly, the contrarian opinion to the [...]
[...] as tendências efectivas da história climatérica. Por exemplo, dados recentes indicam que durante o ano de 2007 houve um decréscimo acentuado da temperatura global. Algumas fontes de medições climatéricas indicam que nos últimos 10 anos a temperatura global [...]
I threw and article out on my ‘blog’ (really, it’s just a collection of links I found interesting about the world and green stuff) that referenced some of your data. Someone made an informative comment on it and mentioned El Nino and La Nina.
What are your comments on that? Is it just a normal El Nino/La Nina cycle this year or is it actually going down? Will it probably still continue going down or is it really and ‘anomaly’ like some ppl have suggested?
Here is the link: http://www.makegreenwork.com/misc/05052008/what-cause-the-effects-of-global-cooling/#comment-66
I went to the net and typed in “hottest year on record”. I came to the conclusion that nobody anywhere has any idea what was the hottest year over the last one hundred or so years. The articles read, “2007, the hottest year on record”; “2005, the hottest year on record.” And so on and so on.
My questions are these:
One: If there isn’t any scientific agreement on just how hot is hot, and when hot becomes hotter, how the heck does anyone know just what the heck the earth is doing?
Two: On the asumption that only one year was “the hottest” doesn’t that discredit everyone who uses other figures? I mean, if they can’t get that right, how can you trust them to get anything right?
Three: Anyone out there KNOW what was the hottest year? Was it 1934, or 2007, or 1998, or what?
Four: To have a “hottest” year, don’t you need some sort of consistancy in measurment? Is there any?
I have to believe that scientific agreement on global warming is a crock. The scientific establishment can’t even agree on how hot is hot.
CHK
Those who are attempting to disparage the nearly TWENTY THOUSAND scientists who have signed the OISM petition strobgly questioning AGW need to read this:
http://www.oism.org/news/s49p1834.htm
…not that it will make any difference to the True Believer climate deceivers. But it may convince reasonable, moderate people that AGW is built 98% on hype.
The link above refers to the peer-reviewed paper which can be found here:
http://www.oism.org/pproject
The UN/IPCC used only about fifty tamed scientists to produce its summaries. Those scientists allow themselves to be petted by the UN – in return for money.
Contrast that tiny handful of co-opted scientists with the nearly 20,000 who have signed the IOSM petition above, who are highly skeptical of AGW.
For further proof that AGW is over-hyped alarmism, one only needs to reflect on the undeniable fact that neither Al Gore, nor the UN/IPCC, nor James Hansen, nor Michael Mann, nor any of the other purveyors of the AGW doomsday scenario will debate their position.
Since the promoters of AGW consistently run and hide from any debate [and also refuse to publicly archive their data and methodology], then the conclusion is crystal clear: they are lying.
When I first came to this blog I said that Mars was the key. That we need to keep an eye on the melting polar caps of Mars. Time to revisit that idea. Back in Feb of this year the caps were melting, and according to thought then, only about a meter thick, and the north polar cap was all but gone.
How times change.
Now according to the latest measurements, the north polar cap covers an area of about 800,000km, and is at least a mile thick. We cool, Mars cools. We heat up, Mars heats up. We have CO2 emmisions and Mars has- – - .
Maybe Marvin Martian is using coal in his rocket ship.
The expansion of the north polar cap on Mars is greater than can be expected by normal seasonal varations. It has gotten a good deal colder on Mars than any scientest expected, or predicted.
I contend that the expanding north polar cap on Mars puts an end to all argument that global climate change is AGW. I doubt that anyone can argue effectively that the expansion of the north polar cap on Mars occuring at the same time as the cooling on earth is anything but related to solar heating and cooling, and that there is no relationship in that to the CO2 emmisions on earth.
CHK
REPLY: Got references for the change in Mars? Love to see them.
got that from yahoo news. The figures I quoted came directly from there. CHK
Interesting. At first there was a receding of the Mars cap a few years back. That was chalked up to orbital eccentricity (though how that could affect things so quickly even with an unstable orbit was not explained).
If it’s getting cooler, in coincidence with earth, that adds buckshot to the idea.
I am a sea witch, but I also acknowledge the sun’s role as primary driver.
I’ll be keeping my eye out for more on this.
[...] Personally, I’d much rather watch the temperature fall all by itself. [...]
[...] See other scientific and statistical data included in Anthony Watt’s post titled 4 Sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months. [...]
[...] U.S. buyers there are other suppliers out there. Again, we stray from the OP. Show your data. January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Watts Up With That? Gateway Pundit: Brrrr… Global Cooling Causes Armed Clashes in Canada Global warming may ’stop’, [...]
[...] compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out [...]
[...] global temperatures have dropped precipitously. A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most [...]
Well here is what it all comes to. You can see “experts” running both directions. The fact is that the cooling or warming of the Earth has been debated for quite some time now. Some want to call it climate change others call it weather patterns. I call it ” lets not worry about it so much because if we caused it then it is not reversible. If we didn’t cause it, then the same it is not reversible.” I am sorry but, you can’t tell me that with all the polution we put in the air during the industrial revolution of the US wouldn’t have caused more harm than the over regulated cars, trucks, boats, and Factories of today. Not to mention that even if we as a community try to cut down on polution and so called carbon emmissions that China doesn’t just make up for with all of their un-regulated factories. So before the green peacers come and try to destroy my argument, look it up and do some research somewhere else than your green peacer websites. The fact still remains that the average temp in the past 30 or so years only rose about .6 of a degree. If that causes the ice caps to melt then there is nothing we can do to change that. Now we are getting reports that the average temp is now falling. So we all need to stop buying into the Al Gore garbage and do your own research and get your own ideas. If we can’t change it then why worry about it. Just live your life to the fullest and when the Earth is still around when you die then you can finally be happy and stop making the rest of us so miserable. :)
[...] can check the data for themselves at the British Meteorological Office website or Anthony Watts’ site. The data not only shows flatlined warming, but a temperature plunge in the past year (see graph [...]
I can’t believe the bollux you’ve tried to pull here. You’ve taken one abnormally warm month, and one abnormally cool month, noted that they’re 12 months apart (very convenient) and in January (also very convenient) and called it a one-year trend. It’s not – it’s just two months at opposite ends of the spectrum, that just happened to be in the right order for you to make your spurious argument. Feelings aside, your facts need checking.
Dear sir ,
I am enclosing a link to a forum where your work is being discussed. My hope is that you woukd take the time to read it and comment. I am not qualified to defend your work, which is being attacked. You and I are both called conspiracy theorists. You for your work, me for bringing your work into the discussion.
please help. I know its a poker forum, but it is a serious discussion pertaining to your research.Thank you.
http://pokerforums.fulltiltpoker.com/viewtopic.php?t=55733&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
The data is interesting, but as many have indicated: while concentrating on two consecutive data points and calling for a closer inspection of the system due to an exceptionally large range generation may be good QC methodology, and good science procedure, labeling that single large range swing as an indicator of profound change in the system, without further investigation is terrible procedure, in the field of QC or in basic science. It smacks of hidden agenda driven by the power of dogma. Very bad science. “Hey, fellows, how do we explain this?” is a reasonable, science-based response; “Hey fellows, we just disproved the hypothesis!” is the response of the village idiot, or a politician on the hunt for sucker votes.
[...] below, which shows that, globally, average ambient temperature has been falling in recent months. [Source] UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature anomaly (HadCRUT) Dr. Phil Jones: Is it merely a [...]
[...] what does this prove? It proves that even if the planet is warming (which it isn’t), it’s been hotter and we all survived, even prospered. Makes you wonder what all the hype is [...]
Well, it’s cooler her ein Alaska than it’s been in years. the ocean is cooler and the fish won’t come in. Will Al Gore have to give back his reward?
On the 9th of April I asked about the effects of volcanic action and the earths’ molten core on this discussion. I saw no response but today saw a news clip photo that claims there are massive eruptions going on under the arctic ocean. Anyone else see this and is it of any interest?
REPLY: Try looking at the main page
[...] January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months Watts Up With Tha… theres urglobal warming [...]
[...] of 2008 that this trend has been going on since January of last year. He cites four sources in This Post. He also has weighed in on the melting polar ice cap. Remember I chastised the reporter for [...]
[...] worldwide temperatures have all shown significant global temperature drops over the past years. The documented temperature decreases over the past year have ranged from 0.499 to 0.75 degrees [...]
[...] over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large [...]
[...] that HadCRUT, RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year. January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months It’s pretty cut-and-dry. ~Paradox __________________ Ron Paul For [...]
[...] Change…oh you mean Global Cooling. You know the Earth has cooled since 1998 right? January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months Watts Up With Tha… January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major well [...]
[...] interesting… January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months Watts Up With Tha… 4 graphs showing the drop in global temperatures. What do u make of [...]
You all forget that the world’s CO2 content was only .031 50 years ago and now is .038, caused mostly by one country. When you change the world’s CO2 content by 25% in 50 years something is going to change. As the world grows, this will pale to what the the US has done in 50 years, the next 20 or so years will be much, much, much higher. The truth is no one really knows what will happen. But we do know that once CO2 is over .5- 1% it becomes toxic to humans. [snip no vulgarity allowed here]
[...] a hint of Global Warming or Climate Change. I think the whole issue has cooled off in light of the large temperature drop this year and the majority of Americans wanting us to drill domestically. McCain's choosing [...]
This thread is mystifying to me.
What do short term month to month data matter? Or even year on year data? 5 year averages are more relevant.
Goddard Institute:
“The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990″
Currently we’re at a low point in the solar irradiance cycle and in the El Nino – La Nina cycle. Lower temperatures globally are to be expected.
There may well be lower temperatures for a year or two. It’s anticipated. But don’t hold your collective breath after that.
[...] global cooling that has been effecting the rest of the world continues to effect Victoria as [...]
very good post thank you
[...] of America: Minnesota town hits a record low (International Herald Tribune, February 11, 2008) 2008 – 4 sources say "globally cooler" in the past 12 months (Anthony Watts, Meteorologist, February 19, 2008) 2008 – Forget global warming: Welcome to the new [...]
Alan,
That is not what Al Gore said. Al said that temperates will increase along with CO2. CO2 is increasing and the temperature is lowering. Also, most scientists agree that warmer is better for humans. The little ice age was not good for humans. The truth is that there is not enough evidence to say that global warming cycles, that are a natural, are man made. It is ok to have a hypothisis, but follow the numbers.
[...] http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200…; [...]
[...] the future. If you can explain to me why the data related to the link is bogus, I am all ears. January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Honestly, maybe I am missing something. I could save you some trouble by quoting ‘Dr. John [...]
SAVE THE PLANET BUMPER STICKER
MORE CO2 = MORE GREEN
http://www.makestickers.com/display.aspx?cat=119
Just click on the template and enter the words MORE C02 = MORE GREEN
or whatever you want to say.
Al Gore saved the world!!!! Global temperatures have consistently dropped since the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth”. That movie must have had some magical power that caused temperatures to drop dramatically.
In an unrelated story, solar output has consistently dropped over the past several years.
[...] According to some reports the global temperature actually dropped in 2007, despite lobbyists continuing to affirm the effect of “Global Warming”. First off, the term “Global Warming” seems silly to me. If the temperature is fluctuating, a more accurate term is “Climate change”. Sorry, it just gets to me these days when I hear anyone say “Global Warming”. Makes me think they haven’t a real clue what they’re talking about, or they’re trying to work some angle. [...]
[...] the future. If you can explain to me why the data related to the link is bogus, I am all ears. January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Honestly, maybe I am missing something. I could save you some trouble by quoting ‘Dr. John [...]
I know this is an old discussion now, but I would like to clear up a question I have. I have read somewhere (can’t remember where) that CO2’s power as a greenhouse gas is not linear. In otherwords, as the concentration of CO2 increases, its relative power (per molecule) as a green house gas decreases. A 2x increase in CO2 would not lead to a 2x increase in warming due to CO2, but rather something less. At somepoint, no matter how much CO2 is added, its contribution to the greenhouse effect does not increase.
Is this true? What does the research show?
[...] is evidence that global temperatures dropped by as much as 0.65C between January of 2007 and January of 2008. [...]
It’s not complete and correct data without applying the governments weather modification/mitigation (chemtrails) programs worldwide (NATO countries).
I am not sold on the natural drop in global temps without acknowledgement of the literally millions of tons of Barium, Aluminum and other “weather modification” particulates.
There has been a tremendous amount of interest and comments trailing up from February until now – 11/18 – by my watch. Where is year #2 stacking up after the preciptous drop? Are you waiting until next February to refresh this data? I believe polar and antartic ice are building to 25 year highs, this would suggest the drop lengthens and is getting deeper.
Also, I am very interested in looking at any good Martian data, is there a good site for this?
[...] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-mont... [...]
Randall (11:08:02) :
The effect of CO2 is considered to be logarithmic.
See Table 1 here.
From Alan Henderson (12:03:26) :
This thread is mystifying to me.
What do short term month to month data matter? Or even year on year data? 5 year averages are more relevant.
end quote
It depends on what you want to measure. I trade stock a lot. One uses longer term averages to see a major trend, but they miss important inflection points. One uses shorter term averages to see if an inflection against the major trend is shaping up.
Your statement amounts to an assertion that you would not want to know that a major change (inflection) had happened for at least 3 years…
I have found that it is vitally important to look at averages of at least two different time periods to really know what is going on. It doesn’t matter if you are a long term investor (5 year weekly data points chart vs 1 yr daily) or a day trader (10 day hourly chart vs 5 day 5 minute chart). One shows the major trend that is / has been and the other gives you a rapid ‘heads up’ when that trend is violated.
What we are seeing in the crashing temperatures is just such a rapid inflection point. Were it a stock, I’d be selling my ‘warming’ position (and with the speed of the drop world wide preparing to short ‘warming’) while prepping to buy ‘cooling’. (Come to think of it, I am doing that. Just bought natural gas stocks last week …)
From Randall (11:08:02) :
I know this is an old discussion now, but I would like to clear up a question I have. I have read somewhere (can’t remember where) that CO2’s power as a greenhouse gas is not linear.
…
Is this true? What does the research show?
end quote
Yes, it’s true. The effect decays. Rather like the 10th cup of coffee doesn’t effect you nearly as much as the first ;-) Imagine putting silver on glass. At first you don’t get much effect. Eventually you have a dim mirror, then a full mirror. At some point, adding more silver does not make more than 100% of the light reflect.
From Dave (14:29:07) :
There has been a tremendous amount of interest and comments trailing up from February until now – 11/18 – by my watch. Where is year #2 stacking up after the preciptous drop?
end quote
Dave, google “2008 record cold snow” and stand back… Snow all over, cold records all over. Even record cold in Cuba and snow in S. Brazil…
I would expect this winter to be an ongoing series of weather events and cold news.
Hello all I live up in Shetland (the most northerly point in the British isles) up in Shetland we can get some amazing weather, about 3 weeks ago we had 117 mph winds. When you get that with snow you’re in for it. Over the last decades we have noticed a decline in the amount of snow, and cold weather we get, but this winter so far has been very cold. We had snow in October, that hasn’t happened since 1830. We have also had drifting snow in November, and it has been very cold. I just think it’s very funny how some of the scientists think, the sun, plays no part in the weather. If you cross reference sunspot activity and global temperatures, you will see clearly that the sun indeed has an effect. A Mr. Kenneth chatten has predicted very successfully, the sunspot cycles before, and has predicted that the sunspot cycle we are entering, cycle 24, will be very weak, but he has also predicted that, not only will sunspot cycle 24 be weak but cycles 25 & 26. which could result in very cold conditions on this earth. The difference in global temperature from the 1998’s temperature peek and the little ice age minimum is just 1.5 degrees. In one year the temperature has gone down by 0.7 degrees. It’s not looking good. When we do really need our 4×4’s the government has taxed it to the max. You have to laugh or you would cry.
[...] the future. If you can explain to me why the data related to the link is bogus, I am all ears. January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Honestly, maybe I am missing something. I could save you some trouble by quoting ‘Dr. John [...]
[...] January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Are you so immersed in your ’scientific’ beliefs that you do not find the dramatic shift in temperature of interest? I do find it interesting, but given the point was a warming trend the 12 month data is not an indicater of any trend by itself. If we had been discussing 1998, the unusual rise in temperature would not BY ITSELF proof anything. It is when coupled with the longer term trend data. Quote: [...]
I have been working since 2003 on actual emissions calculations of internal combustion engines. I believe the that I can prove that calculations of carbon of specific fuels to co2 is grossly exaggerated. I will be publishing end of 08. This may help the debate of co2 to heat retention.
Ron
Ron Long (14:09:52) :
I have been working since 2003 on actual emissions calculations of internal combustion engines. I believe the that I can prove that calculations of carbon of specific fuels to co2 is grossly exaggerated. I will be publishing end of 08. This may help the debate of co2 to heat retention.
Fuel goes in with x carbon. It comes out with v CO2, w CO, y C particulates, and z HC. Is there more to it than that? Looking forward to your paper… If all the tons of C particulates are being misattributed to CO2 that would be an issue… (rampant speculation…) but you’ve got me interested and thinking.
There has been a lot of world –wide concern over the past several years about the possibility of Global warming. The data indicates from the 19th century to 2007, the earth has warmed 1.2 degrees C and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 80 ppm from around 260 ppm to 340 ppm . All basically agree on these facts. Many scientists and other pundits jump on this fact as proof that man is causing global warming by spurting the green house gas carbon dioxide into the air from profit hungry factories and the infamous internal combustion machines. While carbon dioxide gets all the publicity, water vapor is actually is 60 to 80 percent of the green house gases and watch out for that sleeper methane that is 26 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. While it is a known scientific fact that greenhouse gases help retain heat from the sun making the earth a more hospitable planet, please remember that most of our warmth comes mainly from the sun. Depending on the activity of the sun and sun spots, the earth’s temperature does vary. A more plausible explanation for me for the concurrent rise of Earth temperature concurrent small increase of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is as follows. Carbon dioxide may not the cause of global warming but actually the result of global warming. The greenhouse gas, CO2, in the air is not a new thing. Volcanoes have been releasing it for years. So why hasn’t it build up in the air turning this planet into the desert of Hell? It does not build up in the air because it is soluble in water and rain delivers it to our lakes, rivers and oceans where it forms a weak, very dilute, carbonic acid. (yes, it is more complicated than that, carbon dioxide reacts in more than one way and the carbonic acid that it forms can further react with other elements such as calcium to form the insoluble calcium carbonate.) But let’s keep this discussion simple like me. There have been many previous times in the earth’s long history where the earth’s temperature rose or fell and at the same time it can be confirmed from old ice cores that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air also rose or fell. As the earth temperature rises and it’s waters warm and the solubility of carbon dioxide gas in warmer water decreases, so carbon dioxide must be released from water, to where? Where else, the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide in the air is in equilibrium with the amount in this plants water. (I said simple. let’s keep the amount used plant life use as a constant)
I believe that this warming issue is a weather or a physics problem but a good ol’ Chemistry 101 explanation and given the known amount of water and atmosphere on this planet and the delta temperature , the exchange of CO2 from the water to the atmosphere can be calculated.
OK, supporters of anthropogenic greenhouse warming, time to beat me up.
Peter Rafinate
tHanks
I have been working since 2003 on actual emissions calculations of internal combustion engines. I believe the that I can prove that calculations of carbon of specific fuels to co2 is grossly exaggerated. I will be publishing end of 08. This may help the debate of co2 to heat retention.
Ron
There has been a tremendous amount of interest and comments trailing up from February until now – 11/18 – by my watch. Where is year #2 stacking up after the preciptous drop? Are you waiting until next February to refresh this data? I believe polar and antartic ice are building to 25 year highs, this would suggest the drop lengthens and is getting deeper.
Also, I am very interested in looking at any good Martian data, is there a good site for this?
Fuel goes in with x carbon. It comes out with v CO2, w CO, y C particulates, and z HC. Is there more to it than that? Looking forward to your paper… If all the tons of C particulates are being misattributed to CO2 that would be an issue… (rampant speculation…) but you’ve got me interested and thinking
have been working since 2003 on actual emissions calculations of internal combustion engines. I believe the that I can prove that calculations of carbon of specific fuels to co2 is grossly exaggerated. I will be publishing end of 08. This may help the debate of co2 to heat retention.
thankyou..
have been working since 2003 on actual emissions calculations of internal combustion engines. I believe the that I can prove that calculations of carbon of specific fuels to co2 is grossly exaggerated. I will be publishing end of 08. This may help the debate of co2 to heat retention.
hi
[...] but the cooling trend is abundantly clear to everyone this year. The recent cooling in both 2007 and 2008 correlates with decreased solar activity, bolstering the solar theory and contradicting [...]
Please read more than just the headlines dig a little deeper and see that the warming of the 90s and no warming since 1998 was tied to the solar activity, which was the lowest since 1900 this past year. Man made CO2 is less than 2% of all the CO2 in the atmosphere, so changing it by any amount would mean nothing and the fact that man made CO2 only accounts for about .117% of the green house effect. Also that historically increases in CO2 follow warming and don’t precede it, and that there is no true correlation to increase of CO2 and increase in temperatures. The global warming climate models have proved themselves totally flawed!
I also find that it is funny that they start the data they want to use, following the last cooling period. In the 70’s there was a global cooling scare. We have actually been having global warming for about 18,000 years. The warmest years were about 1,000 years ago. CO2 is a very weak green house gas and our part in it is so unimportant that it is in the margin of error, so doesnt matter at all in the big picture.
Nature is in control get used to it, and hope we dont have another mini ice age, i vote for warmer not cooler.
[...] EU’s new figurehead believes climate change is a myth January 2008 – 4 sources say “globally cooler” in the past 12 months Watts Up With That? And a "global" increase of 0.06 celsius is no match for an increase of 0.6 in [...]
[...] science-related website notes “January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major [...]
[...] science-related website notes “January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the major [...]
Do not get caught up in numbers and graphs. This is about graft not graphs. In effect the act of taking advantage of one’ position as trusted or believable in order to make economic gain, profit or gain a power advantage over competition. Of course the trend I show on thermcoat dot com is typical of a house with the same furnace which is lived in by the same people with no structural alterations. It was originally intended to show deterioration of insulation but since 2008 was a dry year and the house was built in 1965, old enough to already have had its degradation you would think, the graph does show that since that so called reference period used by international experts has expired, the opposite trend has prevaild. We are solidly in global coolng.
What we do not realize is that the global cooling is the result of Greenhouse gasses. C02 causes the heat from the sun to be reflected leaving a Global heat deficit. We have not adjusted the historical numbers yet. But when we go back and raise the numbers from years back we will be able to show a longer trend downward proving that indeed we have massive man made global cooling. You must understand that we need to reduce the C02 emmisions using the most effective means possible. So we still recommend that we sell carbon credits. You see we have been buying them up and need to still sell these credits. Additionally we want to impose a ban on lawn watering as humidity has a much greater affect on global temperatures. Just because we now have a cooling trend does not mean we were wrong! We are still affecting the environment and we need to do something about it and we know exactly what to do. The price of my credits should be doubled because the double trend first positive then now negative (after we adjust historical figures back up) shows that humans are having twice the affect on the numbers.
Can’t we all agree that this is a crisis.
[...] It is predicted that this year will shatter all cooling records. HadCRUT GISS UAH and RSS January 2008 – 4 sources say globally cooler in the past 12 months Dr. John Christy (Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director, Earth System Science Center, The [...]
It’s cold. Then it’s warm. Then it’s cold. This is the history of the Earth over the past week, month, year, decade, century, millennium, or billion years.
Cold has always been worse for Humanity than warm. Cold wipes out entire civilizations, crushes 40%-50% of the arable land under glaciers, gives whole continents the flu. Warm causes comparatively few deaths, makes more land arable than is lost to desertification, and activates a few viruses that have lain dormant.
Darwin had the reason that the Norse, Gaels, Picts and Germanic tribes grew taller and stronger than other Europeans. These folk were bred to survive in the cold; but so many of them died in that cold, they rarely had sufficient numbers to conquer. The Norse’s biggest moment in the Sun (pun intended) was in the 800s to 1000s A.D. — when Greenland was Green, the world warmer — and the Norse had the numbers to lay waste to Western Europe.
Warm is better. So pray that our planet gets more warm, and less cold (unless you fear a return of Norsemen, say)…
Warmest Regards,
I am just wondering, what happens to the water vapor? We can only cram so much into the atmosphere before it falls back down again or does it have to reach a certain altitude to create precipitation?
I believe it is the latter, only because cooler temps would condense it back into water, yes? Does warming that has to happen to create increases in water vapor have to reduce precipitation?
This, as I understand it (admittedly not all that much) would suggest a warming in the upper levels of the atmosphere that goes down. How would CO2 facilitation of increases in water vapor affect precipitation? Also, if GW has nothing to do with hurricane cycles, how would we expect it to cause desertification?
“Warm is better. So pray that our planet gets more warm, and less cold (unless you fear a return of Norsemen, say)…”
Don’t you know that by going warmer, the iceberg melting will block the oceanic conveyance belt, which would freeze the north hemisphere, which was the cause of the ice ages?
Learn your sciences well before come here and waste everybody’s time!
Ohioholic, you need an adiabatic chart, which will show you at exactly what atmospheric conditions precipitation will occur.
Leo Z.
Um… I don’t know where you got that information, or if you just invented it, but it’s all wrong.
So, time for some well-intended education:
Most polar and Greenland ice is far, far below zero degrees C. Total global warming over the past century has been about 0.6 degrees C [and that slight warming has been almost entirely reversed].
Therefore, even a couple of degrees of warming would not be nearly enough to raise the temperature of the polar ice sheets, or of Greenland, enough to begin melting the ice on a massive scale. Besides, the globe is currently cooling, not warming, so there’s nothing to get alarmed about.
Finally, the ‘oceanic conveyance belt’ as you call it, will not stop, because it can not stop. It exists as a direct result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, similar to the jet stream; it is a heat transfer mechanism between warmer and cooler latitudes.
Don’t be frightened, Leo. That’s what Al Gore wants. He makes his $millions by trying to scare people. Only the rubes fall for it. Don’t be a rube.
Sure it can stop, if the sun stops shining, or the Earth stops rotating on its axis. Of course if the continents suddenly shifted thousands of miles the current would change dramatically. Essentially the current configuration of continents keeps the THC the way it is.
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