Global Warming?
Geologists should become more involved in the debate over global
warming. Climatologist and environmental scientists, often politically
motivated, currently dominate a debate that fails miserably to put the
controversy into a proper context. Climatologists think in terms of
seasons, years and 100 year floods or droughts. Environmental
scientists, in fact most people, think in terms of their lives or the last
few generations. Geologist think in terms of the age of the earth.
Geologists understand that the climate has changed dramatically
thousands of times over the history of the earth and none of these
changes has had anything to do with us. Geologists would more likely
agree that we could only wish that we could control the climate. The
next major climatic shift will certainly come and we will be at it's mercy
regardless of it's cause.
warming. Climatologist and environmental scientists, often politically
motivated, currently dominate a debate that fails miserably to put the
controversy into a proper context. Climatologists think in terms of
seasons, years and 100 year floods or droughts. Environmental
scientists, in fact most people, think in terms of their lives or the last
few generations. Geologist think in terms of the age of the earth.
Geologists understand that the climate has changed dramatically
thousands of times over the history of the earth and none of these
changes has had anything to do with us. Geologists would more likely
agree that we could only wish that we could control the climate. The
next major climatic shift will certainly come and we will be at it's mercy
regardless of it's cause.
Starting with the document, Climate Change 1995, Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change the "Global Warming" movement began in
earnest. The document is filled with data and "conclusions" based on
this data. Some of the interesting "conclusions" and often the only
information the public has been treated to, are those which extract a
sound bite from a very biased reading of the data. In one section the
author states: "it seems unlikely that the mean temperatures have
increased by 1o C or more in a century at any time during the last
10,000 years." and "the 20th century appears to have been warmer
than any century for some thousands of years." The data the
unidentified author or authors of the "Summery" on pg 137-139 uses is
from the graph below.
Panel on Climate Change the "Global Warming" movement began in
earnest. The document is filled with data and "conclusions" based on
this data. Some of the interesting "conclusions" and often the only
information the public has been treated to, are those which extract a
sound bite from a very biased reading of the data. In one section the
author states: "it seems unlikely that the mean temperatures have
increased by 1o C or more in a century at any time during the last
10,000 years." and "the 20th century appears to have been warmer
than any century for some thousands of years." The data the
unidentified author or authors of the "Summery" on pg 137-139 uses is
from the graph below.
The summery is technically correct but a 1oC change per century is the
result of the anomalous stability of the last 10,000 years not an
unprecedented event as the statement would like you to infer. More
importantly this 1oC rise hasn't even happened it is the projection of the
computer program. As you can see below the temperature has actually
risen 0.2 oC since 1840 and even starting from the low around 1910 to
the high at 1940 its only been about 0.8 oC. To claim that the last
century is the "hottest of the last few thousand years" is wonderfully
instructive of the bias of the author. The last century is also "one of the
coldest" of the last 10,000 years, but "one of the hottest" of the last
150,000 years.
result of the anomalous stability of the last 10,000 years not an
unprecedented event as the statement would like you to infer. More
importantly this 1oC rise hasn't even happened it is the projection of the
computer program. As you can see below the temperature has actually
risen 0.2 oC since 1840 and even starting from the low around 1910 to
the high at 1940 its only been about 0.8 oC. To claim that the last
century is the "hottest of the last few thousand years" is wonderfully
instructive of the bias of the author. The last century is also "one of the
coldest" of the last 10,000 years, but "one of the hottest" of the last
150,000 years.
To a geologist 150 thousand years is still an instant of time. If the earth
were one year old this would represent the last 20 minutes. The "mini
ice age" 1400-1600 AD is barely visible in the data and in fact the
temperature has been slowly dropping for the past 10,000 years, rising
slightly only over the last 400 years. When I look at this data I would
advocate we concentrate on avoiding the fate of the planet 120,000
years ago when, after a brief 10,000 year warm spell, almost identical to
the last 10,000 years, the planet fell victim to a 100,000 year long ice
age.
were one year old this would represent the last 20 minutes. The "mini
ice age" 1400-1600 AD is barely visible in the data and in fact the
temperature has been slowly dropping for the past 10,000 years, rising
slightly only over the last 400 years. When I look at this data I would
advocate we concentrate on avoiding the fate of the planet 120,000
years ago when, after a brief 10,000 year warm spell, almost identical to
the last 10,000 years, the planet fell victim to a 100,000 year long ice
age.
Most people understand the concept of regression to the mean, and few
could argue that this set of data could be interpreted as indicating
anything other than a high probability for falling temperatures in the
future. Luckily it looks as though it might take a few thousand years
before it gets real cold.
could argue that this set of data could be interpreted as indicating
anything other than a high probability for falling temperatures in the
future. Luckily it looks as though it might take a few thousand years
before it gets real cold.
As far a the short term data used to feed the computer models that
generate the warming disaster, it spans only the last 150 years. This
represents the last two seconds in the year old earth referenced above.
The graph below is the linchpin of the entire debate. The top line has
almost no correlation to the increasing "human caused pollution"
dropping precipitously to a low in 1910 increasing steadily until 1940
and then holding mostly steady. The increases in carbon dioxide and
other gases over this same span does not come close to this pattern.
However, the lower line, which is data I have added to this chart,
represents the solar cycle. The peaks and troughs are the 11 year
sunspot cycle numbers for the same period. I have simply drawn a line
between the 11 year peaks in the spot cycle. The correspondence to
the temperature data looks much better to me than anything the global
warming scientists have been able to produce. Additionally the "mini ice
age" referenced above was coincident with a greatly diminished or
absent sun spot cycle. Recently a couple of Russian scientists bet a
"global warmer" $10,000 that the temperature of the earth was more a
function of the spot cycle, shown below, than a man made "Global
Warming" disaster.
generate the warming disaster, it spans only the last 150 years. This
represents the last two seconds in the year old earth referenced above.
The graph below is the linchpin of the entire debate. The top line has
almost no correlation to the increasing "human caused pollution"
dropping precipitously to a low in 1910 increasing steadily until 1940
and then holding mostly steady. The increases in carbon dioxide and
other gases over this same span does not come close to this pattern.
However, the lower line, which is data I have added to this chart,
represents the solar cycle. The peaks and troughs are the 11 year
sunspot cycle numbers for the same period. I have simply drawn a line
between the 11 year peaks in the spot cycle. The correspondence to
the temperature data looks much better to me than anything the global
warming scientists have been able to produce. Additionally the "mini ice
age" referenced above was coincident with a greatly diminished or
absent sun spot cycle. Recently a couple of Russian scientists bet a
"global warmer" $10,000 that the temperature of the earth was more a
function of the spot cycle, shown below, than a man made "Global
Warming" disaster.
Now admittedly this is not all the data on which the debate rests and we
may in fact be observing a warming trend that we are partly responsible
for but it is far from settled.
may in fact be observing a warming trend that we are partly responsible
for but it is far from settled.
Who Pays for This? Are the scientist who manipulated data to
scare the world into paying them additional money to generate more
fraudulent information going to jail? Is the scientific community going
to stand by and let science become the equivalent of politics. None of
the problems I expressed with the original post on global warming
(below) ever questioned the honesty or integrity of the raw data used. I
objected to the interpretations and conclusions but took the data at
face value. Now I find out the data has been manipulated. What's the
difference between the lies of a Bernie Madoff and those at the heart
of this scandal (Climategate), didn't both lie to take other peoples
money?
scare the world into paying them additional money to generate more
fraudulent information going to jail? Is the scientific community going
to stand by and let science become the equivalent of politics. None of
the problems I expressed with the original post on global warming
(below) ever questioned the honesty or integrity of the raw data used. I
objected to the interpretations and conclusions but took the data at
face value. Now I find out the data has been manipulated. What's the
difference between the lies of a Bernie Madoff and those at the heart
of this scandal (Climategate), didn't both lie to take other peoples
money?
End-phase of the Climate Wars?
by Barry Brill
March 22, 2010
History may see the interview of CRU’s Professor Phil Jones by the BBC’s
Roger Harrabin on 12 February 2010 as the opening of the end-phase of
the long-running “alarmists versus sceptics” debate.
The gap between these two schools has never yawned as widely as
media reports often suggest. Both agree that climate is always
changing, that we have recently been in a warming period (with tiny
temperature changes), that “greenhouse theory” has some validity, and
that human activities are capable of impacting climate. The core dispute
lies in the detection and attribution of ‘anthropogenic global warming’
(AGW), and is brought out in the following exchange:
Harrabin – How confident are you that warming has taken place and that
humans are mainly responsible?
Jones - I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the
second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s
evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human
activity.
Sceptics say any human causation was trivial. This dispute was
addressed directly:
Harrabin - what factors convince you that recent warming has been
largely man-made?
Jones - The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by
solar and volcanic forcing.
“The warming from the 1950s” didn’t actually commence until 1975, and
the 1975-2009 warming is identified by Professor Jones as a trend-rate
of temperature increase of 0.161C per decade.
This decadal figure is significant, but only just. In the second interview
question, Jones says a trend of “0.12C per decade is not significant at
the 95% significance level”.
The world has been experiencing a long-term gentle warming since the
end of the Little Ice Age. Professor Jones has said elsewhere[i] that this
natural variability has averaged 0.11C per decade. So, the
“extraordinary” recent warming that calls for explanation is the balance
of 0.051C per decade.
This is the smoking gun. It is the sole evidence that a measurable but
unexplained increase in global temperatures has coincided with the
post-1950 increase in human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Jones
says that this correlation is evidence of causation, because the IPCC
has no other explanation.
The first rejoinder by sceptics is that this is an argument from ignorance.
Humanity cops the blame solely because IPCC researchers know so
little about all the vast natural forces and cycles influencing global
temperatures that they can’t pin it firmly on any one suspect. Cast in this
way, the strength of the IPPC’s case is inversely proportional to the
depth of their climatic understanding. But why should homo sapiens be
the default option?
Secondly, doubters say it is not surprising that IPCC models can’t
explain an infinitesimal heat anomaly of five-hundredths of a degree over
a 10-year period. They have a track record of being wrong about much
larger matters, including their prediction of 0.2C warming over the past
decade. Phil Jones says there has been no significant warming since
1995.
Thirdly, a very important question arises as to the precision of the
instrumental record, as well as all the statistical processing, that
produces this key trend figure of 0.161C per decade. This seems an
impossibly precise figure for all the world’s temperatures, over lengthy
periods, in all seasons, using diverse and changing instruments. What
are the margins of error for the thermometers? What are the statistical
confidence intervals for the homogenization of records? What of the
spatial and temporal gaps?
Error bars narrow over time, but the IPCC accepts that even the most
modern gridded readings contain errors of +/- 0.17. When this level is
applied to Professor Jones’ trend for 1975-2009 it overwhelms it. The
anomaly which “we can’t explain” is so small as to be swamped by the
margins of error.
Doubts about the accuracy of data processing are heightened by the
ongoing unavailability of worldwide raw data and metadata. CRU evaded
Freedom of Information obligations and then confessed that computer
data was lost. This pattern was mirrored by the actions of NIWA in New
Zealand, and perhaps others. What of the ‘Climategate’ accusations of
manipulation, also mirrored in New Zealand? There are a great many
known unknowns, and perhaps just as many unknown unknowns.
The fourth objection is that a trend of 0.161C per decade is NOT outside
the boundaries of internal natural variability. This is where the BBC
testimony of Professor Jones becomes invaluable in settling the
argument:
Harrabin – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record
used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-
1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Jones - The 1860-1880 period is only 21 years in length. As for the two
periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically
significantly different.
It is common ground that the warmings commencing in 1860 and 1910
were not human-caused, so they must have resulted from oscillations or
other cyclical or chaotic aspects of internal variability. An unexplained
warming trend of 0.16C/decade, which has occurred three times in the
last 150 years is, by definition, within the natural variability of the global
climate system.
The first two IPCC reports accepted that the medieval warm period
(MWP) was the warmest period of the millennium, but this was
challenged in 2001 by the 'hockey sticks' produced by Mann, Briffa, and
others. These projects, which focused on tree rings in North America
and Siberia, were illuminated by the BBC interview:
Harrabin- There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period
(MWP) was global.
Jones - For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen
clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern
Hemisphere. There are very few paleoclimatic records for these latter
two regions.
So the ‘hockey team’ go under a bus, along with the IPCC’s dogmatic
claim that current temperatures are the warmest experienced for a
thousand years. The MWP which was established by history records still
stands - as yet unchallenged by proxy temperature records.
The fifth argument accepts that all three warmings since 1860 (and the
MWP) could have exceeded the bounds of natural variability, if all were
forced by the same external influence. Possibilities are legion and
include solar flares, cosmic rays, orbital anomalies, undocumented
cycles, aerosols, ocean currents and magnetic realignments. Nobody
actually blames these warmings on volcanoes or solar irradiance, which
are the only two influences considered by Phil Jones.
The sixth problem is that the correlation between the respective
increases of GHGs and temperatures, which has always been poor, has
become non-existent in the past 15years. Whilst CO2 emissions have
rocketed since 1995, Phil Jones confirms there has been no detectable
increase in global warming.
The real value of the Harrabin/Jones interview is the fact that straight
questions received straight answers, for the first time in recent memory.
Professor Jones, as co-inventor of the modern climate change
hypothesis, principal archivist of global temperature records, co-author
of the IPCC’s AR4, Nobel laureate, and former CRU director, is the most
authoritative source imaginable. He received written notice of the
questions from a long-sympathetic interviewer, and his responses were
pre-vetted by his lawyers and by the University of East Anglia media
office. There will be no retractions.
Even if humans have in fact been responsible for the “unexplained”
warming of 0.051C per decade over 35 years, it is comforting to note
that allowing this rate to continue will produce only 0.5C by the end of
the century. As only about half of the human-caused warming is
attributed to CO2, the valuation of any net benefit from abandoning fossil
fuels is becoming very obscure indeed.
Five-hundredths of a degree Celsius per decade produces extra
nocturnal warmth at about the same rate as we grow toenails. It is far
too insignificant to be detected by human sensors or even by standard
weather thermometers - which are usually rounded up to the closest
whole degree. It is a statistical fiction, created by computer-splicing of
incompatible datasets, derived from averages of averages of
inconsistent instruments.
The controversy continues. But with the imprimatur of Phil Jones to the
key fact that recent warming is not unusual, the debate will never be the
same. The two sides are edging closer to a common set of facts; and it
surely cannot be too much longer before common conclusions are
drawn from those facts.
by Barry Brill
March 22, 2010
History may see the interview of CRU’s Professor Phil Jones by the BBC’s
Roger Harrabin on 12 February 2010 as the opening of the end-phase of
the long-running “alarmists versus sceptics” debate.
The gap between these two schools has never yawned as widely as
media reports often suggest. Both agree that climate is always
changing, that we have recently been in a warming period (with tiny
temperature changes), that “greenhouse theory” has some validity, and
that human activities are capable of impacting climate. The core dispute
lies in the detection and attribution of ‘anthropogenic global warming’
(AGW), and is brought out in the following exchange:
Harrabin – How confident are you that warming has taken place and that
humans are mainly responsible?
Jones - I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the
second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s
evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human
activity.
Sceptics say any human causation was trivial. This dispute was
addressed directly:
Harrabin - what factors convince you that recent warming has been
largely man-made?
Jones - The fact that we can’t explain the warming from the 1950s by
solar and volcanic forcing.
“The warming from the 1950s” didn’t actually commence until 1975, and
the 1975-2009 warming is identified by Professor Jones as a trend-rate
of temperature increase of 0.161C per decade.
This decadal figure is significant, but only just. In the second interview
question, Jones says a trend of “0.12C per decade is not significant at
the 95% significance level”.
The world has been experiencing a long-term gentle warming since the
end of the Little Ice Age. Professor Jones has said elsewhere[i] that this
natural variability has averaged 0.11C per decade. So, the
“extraordinary” recent warming that calls for explanation is the balance
of 0.051C per decade.
This is the smoking gun. It is the sole evidence that a measurable but
unexplained increase in global temperatures has coincided with the
post-1950 increase in human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Jones
says that this correlation is evidence of causation, because the IPCC
has no other explanation.
The first rejoinder by sceptics is that this is an argument from ignorance.
Humanity cops the blame solely because IPCC researchers know so
little about all the vast natural forces and cycles influencing global
temperatures that they can’t pin it firmly on any one suspect. Cast in this
way, the strength of the IPPC’s case is inversely proportional to the
depth of their climatic understanding. But why should homo sapiens be
the default option?
Secondly, doubters say it is not surprising that IPCC models can’t
explain an infinitesimal heat anomaly of five-hundredths of a degree over
a 10-year period. They have a track record of being wrong about much
larger matters, including their prediction of 0.2C warming over the past
decade. Phil Jones says there has been no significant warming since
1995.
Thirdly, a very important question arises as to the precision of the
instrumental record, as well as all the statistical processing, that
produces this key trend figure of 0.161C per decade. This seems an
impossibly precise figure for all the world’s temperatures, over lengthy
periods, in all seasons, using diverse and changing instruments. What
are the margins of error for the thermometers? What are the statistical
confidence intervals for the homogenization of records? What of the
spatial and temporal gaps?
Error bars narrow over time, but the IPCC accepts that even the most
modern gridded readings contain errors of +/- 0.17. When this level is
applied to Professor Jones’ trend for 1975-2009 it overwhelms it. The
anomaly which “we can’t explain” is so small as to be swamped by the
margins of error.
Doubts about the accuracy of data processing are heightened by the
ongoing unavailability of worldwide raw data and metadata. CRU evaded
Freedom of Information obligations and then confessed that computer
data was lost. This pattern was mirrored by the actions of NIWA in New
Zealand, and perhaps others. What of the ‘Climategate’ accusations of
manipulation, also mirrored in New Zealand? There are a great many
known unknowns, and perhaps just as many unknown unknowns.
The fourth objection is that a trend of 0.161C per decade is NOT outside
the boundaries of internal natural variability. This is where the BBC
testimony of Professor Jones becomes invaluable in settling the
argument:
Harrabin – Do you agree that according to the global temperature record
used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-
1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
Jones - The 1860-1880 period is only 21 years in length. As for the two
periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically
significantly different.
It is common ground that the warmings commencing in 1860 and 1910
were not human-caused, so they must have resulted from oscillations or
other cyclical or chaotic aspects of internal variability. An unexplained
warming trend of 0.16C/decade, which has occurred three times in the
last 150 years is, by definition, within the natural variability of the global
climate system.
The first two IPCC reports accepted that the medieval warm period
(MWP) was the warmest period of the millennium, but this was
challenged in 2001 by the 'hockey sticks' produced by Mann, Briffa, and
others. These projects, which focused on tree rings in North America
and Siberia, were illuminated by the BBC interview:
Harrabin- There is a debate over whether the Medieval Warm Period
(MWP) was global.
Jones - For it to be global in extent the MWP would need to be seen
clearly in more records from the tropical regions and the Southern
Hemisphere. There are very few paleoclimatic records for these latter
two regions.
So the ‘hockey team’ go under a bus, along with the IPCC’s dogmatic
claim that current temperatures are the warmest experienced for a
thousand years. The MWP which was established by history records still
stands - as yet unchallenged by proxy temperature records.
The fifth argument accepts that all three warmings since 1860 (and the
MWP) could have exceeded the bounds of natural variability, if all were
forced by the same external influence. Possibilities are legion and
include solar flares, cosmic rays, orbital anomalies, undocumented
cycles, aerosols, ocean currents and magnetic realignments. Nobody
actually blames these warmings on volcanoes or solar irradiance, which
are the only two influences considered by Phil Jones.
The sixth problem is that the correlation between the respective
increases of GHGs and temperatures, which has always been poor, has
become non-existent in the past 15years. Whilst CO2 emissions have
rocketed since 1995, Phil Jones confirms there has been no detectable
increase in global warming.
The real value of the Harrabin/Jones interview is the fact that straight
questions received straight answers, for the first time in recent memory.
Professor Jones, as co-inventor of the modern climate change
hypothesis, principal archivist of global temperature records, co-author
of the IPCC’s AR4, Nobel laureate, and former CRU director, is the most
authoritative source imaginable. He received written notice of the
questions from a long-sympathetic interviewer, and his responses were
pre-vetted by his lawyers and by the University of East Anglia media
office. There will be no retractions.
Even if humans have in fact been responsible for the “unexplained”
warming of 0.051C per decade over 35 years, it is comforting to note
that allowing this rate to continue will produce only 0.5C by the end of
the century. As only about half of the human-caused warming is
attributed to CO2, the valuation of any net benefit from abandoning fossil
fuels is becoming very obscure indeed.
Five-hundredths of a degree Celsius per decade produces extra
nocturnal warmth at about the same rate as we grow toenails. It is far
too insignificant to be detected by human sensors or even by standard
weather thermometers - which are usually rounded up to the closest
whole degree. It is a statistical fiction, created by computer-splicing of
incompatible datasets, derived from averages of averages of
inconsistent instruments.
The controversy continues. But with the imprimatur of Phil Jones to the
key fact that recent warming is not unusual, the debate will never be the
same. The two sides are edging closer to a common set of facts; and it
surely cannot be too much longer before common conclusions are
drawn from those facts.