Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
This is the first part of a two-part series of posts that present chapters from my recently published ebook On Global Warming and the Illusion of Control – Part 1. The introductory post for the book is here (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here), and the book in pdf format is here (25 MB). Yes, the book is free.
The topic of this post is What is Global Warming? The second post, to be published next week, is What is Climate Change?
1.2 – What is Global Warming?
The term “global warming” has come to mean the warming of our planet Earth (the surface, the lower atmosphere, and the oceans to depth) that has been caused by, and will be further enhanced by, the emissions of man-made greenhouse gases. No one bothers calling it man-made global warming or anthropogenic global warming or human-induced global warming anymore. Whenever a news report or article uses the term global warming, everyone now assumes they’re talking about the hypothetical man-made kind of warming.
There are many possible reasons why global warming has occurred over the past few decades, some of which are natural, but the primary focus of research has been on the consequences of increased emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that result from the burning of fossil fuels.
Graphs that show global land plus ocean surfaces warming since pre-industrial times are commonplace. Figure 1.2-1 shows the annual global land+ocean surface temperature anomalies, based on the UKMO HadCRUT4 reconstruction, from its start year in 1850 1880 through to 2014. Based on the linear trend, global surfaces are warming at a not-very-alarming long-term rate of about 0.06 deg C/decade (about 0.10 deg F/ decade)…for a total warming of less than 0.8 deg C (about 1.4 deg F) since 1880.
The linear trend line also helps to illustrate that the warming was not continuous. Initially, there is a period of cooling followed by a period of warming until the mid-1940s. Then the cycle repeats itself with a period of cooling until the mid-1970s, followed by a warming period. Because the rates of warming during the two warming periods are greater than the cooling rates during the two cooling periods, there is a positive warming trend.
That leaves us with a very basic question. Should we expect another multidecadal cooling period, or at least a slowdown lasting for a couple of decades, before another warming period? Rephrased, would we expect the multidecadal (approximately 60-year) cycle to repeat itself?
Many persons believe the cycle will repeat into the future. The climate modelers do not. Their models have been tuned to extend (and amplify) the warming from the more recent higher-than-average warming period out into the future, without accounting for the cyclical nature of global warming. If the cycle continues into the future, then the climate models have simulated too much warming…way too much warming.
THE RATE OF WARMING IS SO SMALL WE HAVE TO BE TOLD GLOBAL WARMING IS HAPPENING. WE CAN’T SENSE IT.
In the Introduction, I noted we have to be told global warming is occurring…that we as individuals would not be able to sense that global surface temperatures have warmed. Daily and seasonal variations in local temperatures are so great that we’d never notice the slight change in global surface temperatures we’ve experienced since the mid-1970s. It’s only about 0.7 deg C or 1.3 deg F (based on the linear trend), and it’s occurred over a 40-year period.
Think about how great the temperature variations are at your home: over the course of every year…and daily. Here are examples from a widely referenced dataset.
In the two graphs in Figure 1.2-2, the increase in annual global surface temperature (red curves) since 1880 (same red curve as in Figure 1.2-1) is compared to daily maximums (orange curves) and minimums (dark green curves) for the Central England Temperature dataset, during that same timeframe. The top graph shows the three datasets in deg C, while the bottom graph shows them in deg F.
The UKMO Central England Temperature (a.k.a. HadCET or simply CET) dataset is the longest continuous temperature record in the world. It is supported by the 1992 Parker et al. paper A new daily Central England Temperature series. As its name suggests, it is not based on a temperature record at one specific location but rather a group of locations in Central England.
Daily Central England maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperature data are available from the KNMI Climate Explorer, specifically the Daily climate indices webpage, starting in 1878.
The minimums of the green curves in Figure 1.2-2 above show the lowest temperatures reached each year, and the maximums are the highest annual temperatures. Obviously, the range in temperatures that Central England sees every year dwarfs the rise in global surface temperatures.
Now let’s consider the daily change in temperature, from minimum to maximum.
Using the Central England Temperature data again for example, we can determine what climate scientists call the diurnal temperature range by subtracting the daily minimum temperatures from the daily maximums. See Figure 1.2-3. The global surface temperature anomalies are also included as a reference. As shown, there can be very large swings in daily temperatures.
As I wrote earlier, because the daily and seasonal variations in temperature where we live are so great, it’s very unlikely that we would be able to sense that global surface temperatures have warmed. We have to be told. I suspect that’s why most people around the world rank global warming low on their list of priorities. See the MyWorld2015.org poll The United Nations Global Survey for a Better World.
Some readers may recall a similar presentation by Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology (emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in one of his many lectures on global warming. Yes, the idea for this topic came from his November 17, 2009 talk at Oberlin College. See the YouTube video here. It’s a wonderful lecture.
BE WARY HOW THE TERM GLOBAL WARMING IS BEING USED
Global warming can mean different things to different people. As a result, we have to be careful about how the term is used. Let’s assume a reporter is interviewing a climate scientist…but unknown to the reporter, the scientist is a skeptic.
If the reporter were to ask: Do you believe in global warming?
And if the scientist answered: Yes. Numerous datasets indicate the Earth has warmed since the start of the 20th Century.
That answer makes the scientist part of the consensus, the groupthink.
And if the reporter were to ask: Do you believe that mankind has contributed to global warming?
Scientist’s answer: Yes. Mankind has contributed to global warming in many ways.
The scientist didn’t specify what those “many ways” were. If the reporter was to stop there, the scientist would be thought to be a part of the groupthink.
But if the reporter asked: Do you believe that mankind is the primary cause of global warming and that future warming will lead to catastrophe?
Suppose now the scientist were to answer: Based on my research and detailed understanding of the data, climate models and their uncertainties, my answer is no.
For that answer, the scientist would likely be branded a heretic.
Different interpretations of the term global warming can also lead to questionable results in polls.
Bottom line: Always be wary of term global warming and how it is being used. Is the author discussing the fact that the surface of the Earth has warmed? Is he or she discussing naturally caused warming or human-induced global warming?
ACCORDING TO A WELL-KNOWN AND WELL-RESPECTED CLIMATE SCIENTIST, “…NO PARTICULAR ABSOLUTE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE PROVIDES A RISK TO SOCIETY…”
Every now and then, during the discussion of a global warming-related topic, a climate scientist—a member of the consensus—will make an amazing statement…or two. Examples can be found in a blog post by Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Director of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. Dr. Schmidt wrote the following in his December 2014 blog post Absolute temperatures and relative anomalies, at RealClimate. (Blog post archived here.) Dr. Schmidt was attempting to downplay the fact that there is a large range (about 3 deg C or about 5.4 deg F) in the absolute global surface temperatures produced by the climate models stored in the CMIP5 archive, which is roughly 3 times the warming we’ve experienced since pre-industrial times. Dr. Schmidt states, where GMT is global mean temperature (my boldface and my brackets):
Most scientific discussions implicitly assume that these differences [in modeled absolute global surface temperatures] aren’t important i.e. the changes in temperature are robust to errors in the base GMT value, which is true, and perhaps more importantly, are focussed on the change of temperature anyway, since that is what impacts will be tied to. To be clear, no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society, it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.
See, I told you. That paragraph includes two memorable statements.
First: “…it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters”.
Well, we’re “used to” wide variations in surface temperature every day, and “used to” even greater changes each year.
Second: “To be clear, no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society…”
I would hazard a guess that many of you are now wondering why politicians around the globe are concerned about global warming. If the absolute global mean temperature today provides no “risk to society”, and if an absolute global mean temperature that’s 2.0 to 4.0 deg C (3.6 to 7.2 deg F) higher than today provides no “risk to society”, then what’s all the hubbub about? Based on Dr. Schmidt’s statement, should the priority then be adaptation to weather and rising sea levels, not reductions in greenhouse gas emissions?
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If you look at the policies that are being adopted worldwide – not just the policy statements – that is the priority.
Talk is cheap. Reducing CO2 emissions is not.
Excellent primer on the subject.
Excellent post by Bob Tisdale.
“Global Warming” is a CON. The entire basis of the CON is carbon-dioxide.
Carbon-dioxide is not a pollutant, it never was.
The “globe” is not warming.
Thanks again to Bob Tisdale: an excellent post.
But the globe is warming, as this post indicates. As paragraph 5 states “…a total warming of less than 0.8 deg C (about 1.4 dag F) since 1880.”, last time I checked Webster’s, this would be considered “warming” by classic definition. The only fact about it that could be considered even remotely concerning is that,
Warming since 1880 is 1.4 deg F
Warming since 1970 is 1.3 deg F
Warming between 1880 and 1970 is 0.1deg F
Warming since 1970 is 1.3 dev F (still mild though)
Bryan A — In this 0.8 deg C since 1880 is not due to emissions [used as global] but due to several local and regional human induced causes — ecological changes –; and this influence at local and region level conditions but not at global level conditions. The exact raise in temperature due to man-induced anthropogenic [due to fossil fuel uses] emissions is not clear to date. I say it is insignificant as the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a saturation point to change the energy in to temperature; and now what ever is added to existing greenhouse gases impact to convert energy in to temperature is in the plateau part.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr. Reddy,
I both appreciate and agree with your responce that there are numerous causes for localized and regional increases in temperatures that, while human induced, have nothing to do with CO2. I also agree that we are, in all likelihood, in the midst of a plateau (hiatus) which calls the “ULTIMATE driving force” of CO2 into question. CO2 cannot be considered the ultimate driver if, as the hiatus demonstrates, it’s effect can be easily mitigated by natural forces.
My point was in response to Warrens assertion (3rd point above) that “the “globe” is not warming” when the article and the data it represents states/indicates otherwise.
Bryan ….. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.
Warming between 1880 and 1970 may be nill, but the warming between 1910 and 1945 was 0.6C, and the warming between 1970 and 2014 was 0.8C …….
Your post “could” be taken to be saying that all the warming since 1880 happened between 1970 and 2014, which simply is not true.
There were cooling periods inbetween.
You should be happy with mild warming.
The centuries from 1300 to 1800 were too cool.
The only other “choices”, not that humans have much of an effect, are mild cooling or severe cooling and increasing glaciation.
My property in Michigan would be under a mile of ice … again.
And I can’t ice skate.
Are you going to be there helping me chop the ice so I can get into my front door?
I didn’t think so.
Earth is always warming, except when it’s cooling.
Warming and cooling happened long before there were coal power plants and SUVs.
A lot of warming happened in the past 15,000 years, after peak glaciation of the current ice age — do you think coal power plants and SUVs started the warming 15,000 years ago … that has increased sea level over 400 feet so far … and is still in progress?
I suppose you think natural warming in the past 15,000 years suddenly stopped in 1975, with no known explanation, and manmade CO2 came out of nowhere to take over as “President of global warming.”?
CO2 levels were higher than today, often much higher, during most of Earth’s 4.5 billion year history.
Or do you think geologists who say that are not real scientists?
The claim that computer models can predict the future climate is false.
The claim that CO2 is the “climate controller” is false — it is a minor climate change variable at best.
The claim that a climate catastrophe is coming is the most successful hoax in history.
Demonizing CO2 worked better than demonizing DDT, acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, global cooling, etc.
But the goal is always the same — leftist politicians scare people into giving them more power to micromanage our lives, tax corporate energy use, and some leftists also want to redistribute wealth from rich to poor nations.
Be thankful I’m not in charge of the US — I’d throw leftists in jail for a year to lower my blood pressure and improve my quality of live — their ever-louder whining about climate change is quite annoying, considering that Earth’s climate today is BETTER than it has been in at least 500 years !
That’s just my opinion, based on reading about climate change since 1997, but I could be wrong.
I thought the world was going to end in 2012, and it didn’t.
My climate blog for non-scientists:
No ads
No money for me.
A public service.
Includes a climate centerfold!
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Mr Greene
I went to your webpage.
Do you have a “subscribe” choice so that I can be alerted concerning new articles/blogs/comments ?
Thanks
Dr. Deanster,
My point was simply to point out that Warrens argument regarding “The “globe” is not warming” is incorrect as, since 1970 until the beginning of the hiatus in 1997/1998 it had warmed 1.3 deg F per the data referenced in Bob’s article.
The 0.2-0.3 C cooling between 1880 & 1910 and again between 1950 & 1975 has yet to materialize again during this current plateau/hiatus, though I am still hopeful that it will.
Bob Tisdale:
Thankyou for your fine article.
You say
True, and the point is even stronger than you say because you report on another assertion of Schmidt saying
That, too, is true, but your response does not directly address Schmidt’s assertion that it is change in global temperature which is a matter of concern. However, that assertion can also be directly refuted by observation.
The Earth’s northern and southern hemispheres have very different coverage by the oceans, and the oceans are an effective heat sink, so the range of seasonal temperature change is greater in the north than in the south. It is summer in the north when it is winter in the south and vice versa, and global mean temperature (GMT) is the average temperature of both hemispheres. Thus, during each year GMT increases by 3.8 deg C from January to June and falls by 3.8 deg C by from June to January.
This rise in GMT of 3.8 deg C during 6 months of each year is nearly double the feared rise of 2.0 deg C and nobody notices it.
Richard
I am accustomed to local temperatures and variations. I cannot and never will feel global temperature (partly because there is no such thing).
Does my skin average temperatures? If I hold ice in one hand and fire in the other; are they averaged? No. One is cold and the other burns. What matters therefore is the temperature range where you are and perhaps more particularly the location of your farms and animals. Exceeding minimums or maximums in your locale is bad; never mind what the rest of the planet experiences.
Michael 2:
Yes, you make a very good point. But warmunists claim mean global temperature (MGT) matters and, for example, this is demonstrated in this thread by Javier in a sub-thread that begins here.
Richard
“Daily and seasonal variations in local temperatures are so great that we’d never notice the slight change in global surface temperatures we’ve experienced since the mid-1970s.”
Hmmm… while CO2 is not a pollutant, and while I believe there are natural cycles that affect climate, I do have to take issue with the above assertion. Everyone I know is acutely aware that “things have changed”. My dad and many others regularily drove a car across a local, very big frozen river in winter as late as the early 50’s… now ice rarely appears on the banks. From the ’70’s til now the change has been more than obvious with spring planting a full month earlier than then. That there has been change is clear on the graph and in our experience. The only real issues concern the cause and the potential impact. In our part of the world, the impact has been wholly positive.
Does my skin average temperatures? @Michael 2, it’s even worse than that, how the average is computed is inconsistent, most of the time it is the mean of Tmax and Tmin, but not always, so we can never know if warming is Tmax getting greater or Tmin getting greater or both. If the answer is Tmax is increasing than that meet most people’s preconceived notion of “getting Warmer”, where Tmin increasing does not as most people’s notion of that is “it’s not getting as cool”.
Well this very morning, just for kicks, I GPS drove and measured the distance from my front driveway, to the street front of Sunnyvale CA city Hall, at exactly 3.0 km +/- 0.1 km plus GPS uncertainty of 2.3 metres.
So I am essentially in the heart of downtown Sunnyvale, which I know for damn sure, has warmed considerably over the last 150 years.
Pre Fairchild Semiconductor, it was all farmland, and before that, likely forested. So it is an Apple bound concrete UHI now.
So 20 km South of Sunnyvale is Saratoga; and I bet that the average climatic Temperature there is more than 1.0 deg F cooler than Sunnyvale City Hall; probably at least 2.0 deg. F, so more difference than Sunnyvale has experienced in 150 years.
And from pole to pole in northern summertime, the global climatic Temperature range is about 270 deg. F in extreme, and at least 200 deg. F any old summer day.
So yes; I’m convinced that Climate changes, even over just 20 km; and NO, I don’t know anyone; nor do I know of anyone, who does not believe that climate changes. And given that Temperature anomaly is the standard metric of climate change, that means a plurality of people I know, or know of, believe that Temperature changes up and down, as
Bob shows us here in his exposition.
Thanx for keeping us all honest Bob.
g
I am thinking we need a better definition/understanding of climate change.
george, for your amusement, I live near a small town. studies by a friend (actually coworker) indicate even in this small berg, the UHI (urban heat island) effect between country side and town is actually significant (multiple degrees C difference).
“In 1971, the top climatologists at NCAR and NASA reported that a runaway greenhouse effect is not possible, because the CO2 absorption spectra is nearly saturated already”
“Effects of Carbon dioxide and Aerosols on the Climate”
“it is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 ( co2), which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce a surface temp of less than 2K.
even by a factor ten the temp does not exceed 2.5K”
http://vademecum.brandenberger.eu/pdf/klima/rasool_schneider_1971.pdf
h/t tony heller
Thanks for the link, richard.
The link backed up what I found years ago and that was a ~99-100% CO2 didn’t warm more than the atmosphere CO2 by 3K.
Therefore factor of 8 (CO2) = ~ 2K
factor of ~12.5 (CO2) = ~3K
Without a positive feedback this experiment only shows per doubling CO2 of 0.24 c. The planet so far is not showing a rate higher than this for CO2. I am confident the true value will be not far off this because the temperature increases here are in an environment where it remains in similar 1 atm conditions.
“To perform these calculations we adopted a model atmosphere…”
Because 1971 was the best year for models and calculations.
They say that aerosol production may not be a problem over the next 50 years (to 2021) because nuclear power may have replaced fossil fuels as a means of energy production. Funny how the world looked back then. Unfortunately, only France actually did it. We could have had a nice clean energy source everywhere, and there would have been no need for IPCC or WUWT to exist.
“Knut Ångström, asked an assistant to measure the passage of infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. The assistant (“Herr J. Koch,” otherwise unrecorded in history) put in rather less of the gas in total than would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The assistant reported that the amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas back by a third. Apparently it took only a trace of the gas to “saturate” the absorption — that is, in the bands of the spectrum where CO2 blocked radiation, it did it so thoroughly that more gas could make little difference”
Bob Tisdale:
Comparing changes in average temperature to seasonal variation is an apples to oranges comparison. While many mid-latitude locations experiment variations in summer to winter averages of 20-30°C, the average temperature change from glacial to interglacial has been calculated to be of around 5°C by experts. Clearly changes in global average temperature have a lot more drastic effect that changes of regional seasonal temperatures.
I guess everybody understands the difference between being in winter versus being in a glacial period. One cooling lasts a few months and the other lasts many millennia. The effect cannot be the same.
After quoting me about our being used to wide variations in surface temperatures every day and every year, Javier says: “Comparing changes in average temperature to seasonal variation is an apples to oranges comparison…”
Of course it’s “an apples to oranges comparison”. That’s the point.
Apples to oranges comparisons are pointless by definition.
Javier:
Please see my above comment that recognised the ‘apples to oranges comparison’ and provides an ‘apples to apples comparison’.
Schmidt’s assertion concerned change in mean global temperature (MGT). I point out – and explain why and how – that during each year GMT increases by 3.8 deg C from January to June and falls by 3.8 deg C by from June to January.
This rise in GMT of 3.8 deg C during 6 months of each year is nearly double the feared rise of 2.0 deg C and nobody notices it.
Bob Tisdale made a correct observation. I foresaw his illustration would be ‘jumped-on’ by some warmunist as being an ‘apples to oranges comparison’, and that is why I provided the ‘apples to apples comparison’. (I have decades of experience of the behaviour of warmunists).
Richard
Not always. Apples generally are crisper while oranges frequently are juicier. That’s a valid comparison between two characteristics that differentiate texture. When you make this sort of comparison, however, it requires more context and careful explanation of why the seemingly illogical measure might have *some* merit.
Richard,
Your comparison of intra-annual temperature changes to inter-annual temperature changes continues being an apples to oranges comparison.
Javier:
As is usual when you are shown to be wrong, you resort to untrue and ridiculous assertion.
The comment of Schmidt that is under discussion says
There are only two possible understandings of Schmidt’s words; viz.
1.
As Tisdale assumed, Schmidt meant it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.
2.
As I interpretted, Schmidt meant it is the change in global temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.
Tisdale showed that we often experience larger changes in temperature than the feared 2°C.
I anticipated that somebody would make the disingenuous claim that Tisdale’s explanation was an ‘apples to oranges comparison’ and, therefore,
I showed that we often experience larger changes in global temperature than the feared 2°C.
Your response is to claim that both comparisons are ‘apples to oranges comparison’. That is idiotic but is no more ridiculous than your other responses when shown to be wrong.
Richard
Richard,
You are making a fool of yourself by not being able to understand that Schmidt refers to inter-annual changes in global average temperature. Please note also that both hemispheres experiment intra-annual variation of antisymmetric nature. Try turning regional seasonal temperature variations into a global average.
Javier:
In response to your latest twaddle, I quoted Schmidt then I wrote
And I explained
You have replied saying in full
OK. O Wise One, please explain to this humble fool what third understanding of Schmidt’s words you are making.
I cannot “try” anything when I don’t see how anything I try would not distort from both of the two possible understandings of Schmidt’s words that are in evidence.
I certainly don’t see any problem with comparing inter-annual changes in MGT to intra-annual changes in MGT: comparing them is comparing changes to MGT (i.e. comparing ‘apples to apples’). And I fail to see the relevance your point you say I should “note” because MGT consists of collated local temperatures that vary.
So, O Wise One, this humble fool needs to be told what inscrutable understanding of Schmidt’s words you are making.
Richard
Javier: “You are making a fool of yourself…”
Oh dear!
Have I got this right? It seems to me that Richard is not saying that long term changes in global temperature of 2°C would or would not be important, or catastrophic, or anything. He is sayimng that Gavin Schmidt’s words can only be interpreted as meaning that. This resolves the apparent disagrement between Javier and Richard. Clearly it would be absurd to claim that a long term change in global temperatures of 3.5°C would have no noticable effects *because* we already have short term variation of this amount. There may be other arguments that would lead you to that conclusion, but intra-annual variation is not one of them.
Just curious. I find it hard to believe that there would have been only a 5 degree C difference in average global temperatures between those two periods. Is it possible that the larger area of perpetual ice coverage during the glacial periods was not as cold as the temperatures on present day Antarctica for example?
Maybe during the glacial ice covered areas, they were less cold than todays pole regions but with much more snow fall?
Erik,
The tropics do not show that much change from glacial to interglacial, and the sea surface never gets much colder than 0°C anywhere, and the oceans make for 70% of Earth’s surface. Nevertheless, a change of 5°C in global average is HUGE and most people in this thread including its author don’t seem to be able to grasp it.
Relevant bibliography:
Schneider von Deimling, T. et al., How cold was the Last Glacial Maximum? 2006. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14709
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.395.349&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Annan J.D. & Hargreaves, J.C. 2013. A new global reconstruction of temperature changes at the Last Glacial Maximum. Clim. Past, 9, 367–
376.
http://www.clim-past.net/9/367/2013/cp-9-367-2013.pdf
I’m no expert, but I am good at reading graphs. I am looking at the graphs from the ice core studies, EPICA and Vostok, and I can see that our current interglacial is about 9 Celsius warmer than the end of the last ice age. I can also see that previous interglacials were 2 or 3 degrees warmer than this one. So there have been 9 or 12 degree swings over a few hundred years at regular intervals, according to my expert analysis. This is minor compared to where I live in Ontario. I’ve seen many plus or minus 40 days, in the same year. I once saw minus 50 but thankfully, that is unusual.
Wayne, you are making the crucial mistake of extrapolating regional polar temperature proxies to global average temperatures. It is a very common mistake.
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Schmittneretal2011_zpsjntnz9wu.png
Essentially you are looking at the green curve at 80°N and thinking that it is representing a global change.
Javier,
So then, what’s the average global temperature?
Here, I’ll help you:
Next question: what do you see there that’s a reason for your climate alarmism?
dbstealey ,
I already told you but you seem to have a learning problem.
I am not at all worried by climate changes. I am currently enjoying present warm conditions and I foresee no climate dangers for several centuries at least, at which point any dangerous change will be irrelevant from a personal point of view. Got it this time?
dbstealey:
Javier again demonstrates he/she/they/it cannot read.
You asked
Javier replied
And failed to address why he is alarmist.
No matter how you try, all you will get is evasion and deflection but never an answer to your question.
Richard
I have look up and down this thread Javier, and other then in your post i list here I have seen no other locate of the statement by you “I am not at all worried by climate changes.”
could you please point out there on the thread stated it earlier? My inability to find it is leading to think very poorly of you.
thank you
michael
Javier November 9, 2015 at 10:08 am
dbstealey ,
what do you see there that’s a reason for your climate alarmism?
I already told you but you seem to have a learning problem.
I am not at all worried by climate changes.
Arrgh
My inability to find it is leading ME to think very poorly of you.
must proof read before hitting “post comment” button
michael
Mike the Morlock,
Here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/06/is-climate-science-settled-now-includes-september-data/#comment-2066445
dbstealey accused me of being a climate alarmist and i answered him that I defend that most of the warming is natural.
Don’t jump to conclusions in the absence of data.
Javier:
I checked your link for Mike the Morlock and it does not say what you claim it does.
Is your telling porkies another part of your expertise in “bad behaviour ” which you have boasted? Or is there some other reason that you keep doing it?
Richard
Javier thank you for the reply.
Now, “Don’t jump to conclusions in the absence of data.”
Did I not ask, politely?
If someone makes a statement as you did on a blog which is read by as many as this one, you must consider that there is no such thing as a private conversation. If you allude to statements made on an unidentified earlier thread, who is at fault?
You, the person communicating or the person reading said communication?
Responsibility for the accuracy and comprehensiveness of a communication is the burden of the person communicating.
Please do no blame me or others for your linguistic & literary deficiencies
thank you
michael
Richard or dbstealey, can you help me out here. Can you tell what claims of Javier’s demonstrate his climate alarmism? He declares he does not anticipatre any dangerous change for at least several centuries, which seems the opposite of alarmist, so presumably he has made claims that contradict his stated position. Can you tell me what they are? Mike the Morlock may think poorly of you because you did not state them in your comments.
seaice,
OK, since you asked let me help you out. “Javier” posted a list of references that included people pushing the DAGW narrative, including Hansen, Shindell, Mann, Schmidt, Shakun, etc. If those are his sources, it’s no wonder he’s a climate alarmist. I think he’s a chameleon, too. Just MHO.
As you know by now I ‘wear my heart on my sleeve’; I think about what I say, and I say exactly what I think. I don’t misinform, at least never deliberately. But some people regularly hide behind their statements. Do you believe everything someone posts?
The more ‘Javier’ says he’s not pushing the DAGW agenda, the more he is contradicted by the links he posts. Are you saying we are obligated to believe him, just because he asserts something? Have you ever heard the term, ‘ulterior motive’?
“OK, since you asked let me help you out. “Javier” posted a list of references that included people pushing the DAGW narrative, including Hansen, Mann, Shakun, etc.”
Thanks, dbstealey. I now have a better understanding of your meaning of alarmist.
seaice,
Yes, a climate alarmist is the exact opposite of a scientific skeptic.
And please keep in mind that skeptics are the only honest kind of scientists.
Thanx.
Javier,
You wrote: “The average temperature change from glacial to interglacial has been calculated to be of around 5°C by experts.”
Which experts might those be?
In 1999, an estimate was for 5.6 degrees C from the LGM to the mid-20th century. Given alleged warming since then, call it 6.0 degrees C colder than now. But here in the early 21st century, we are probably still cooler than the Holocene Optimum. (Lately climastrologists have tried to argue that the HO was actually globally cooler than today, which is errant garbage.)
Other estimates for the depths of the LGM are colder than this. One often quoted figure for the average of the last ice age, not the LGM, is 12 degrees F, ie 6.7 degrees C.
IMO, the LGM globally was probably seven to eight degrees C colder than now.
Gloateus Maximus,
I already provided some open access bibliography here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/09/back-to-basics-part-1-what-is-global-warming/#comment-2067559
Most published works on the issue defend a warming of 4-6°C, hence the average of 5. A few defend more extreme values between 3-12°C, but they do not enjoy ample acceptance. Your opinion of 6.7 is obviously not impossible, but do you realize that the lower the value the more constrained is climate sensitivity to the lower side?
The estimate of 6.7 degrees C is not my opinion, but the best supported estimate before climastrologists started cooking the books.
Twelve degrees F was what I learned in paleoclimatology in the 1970s. Again, that was the estimated average for the whole last glaciation compared with the chilly by Holocene standards of the interval of the 1940s-70s, cooler than the decades which preceded and followed it. The LGM, when the North Atlantic froze over in winter, as does the Arctic now, was even colder.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?url=http://courses.washington.edu/proxies/CuffeyScience1995.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGBfm3fhhMOZr16Nxh3phWRX-_fqdx1aw&nossl=1&oi=scholarr
Cuffey, Clow, Alley, et al (1995), linked above, found the GISP II record to show the Greenland temperature rise to be ~15 degrees C from the glacial average and ~21 or more from the depths of the Wisconsin glaciation to the Holocene, ie changes three to four times larger than the tropics..
They cite “recent estimates” at low mid-latitudes of 4 to 6 degrees C from the glacial average.
Thus your assertion of 5 degrees C from the LGM appears unsupportable prima facie. Please cite the relevant passages from your “experts'” work. Thanks.
Gloateus Maximus,
I hope knowledge of the field has advanced since.
Relevant bibliography:
Schneider von Deimling, T. et al., How cold was the Last Glacial Maximum? 2006. Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L14709
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.395.349&rep=rep1&type=pdf
“Using reconstructed tropical SST cooling, we constrain the range of dTLGM to 5.8 ± 1.4°C, which is corroborated by proxy data from other regions.”
Annan J.D. & Hargreaves, J.C. 2013. A new global reconstruction of temperature changes at the Last Glacial Maximum. Clim. Past, 9, 367–
376.
http://www.clim-past.net/9/367/2013/cp-9-367-2013.pdf
“Our reconstruction is significantly different to and more accurate than previous approaches and we obtain an estimated global mean cooling of 4.0 ± 0.8 °C (95 % CI).”
Holden, P.B. et al. 2010. A probabilistic calibration of climate sensitivity and terrestrial carbon change in GENIE-1. Climate Dynamics, 35(5), pp. 785–806
http://oro.open.ac.uk/19191/2/85fba276.pdf
“We estimate climate sensitivity as likely (66% confidence) to lie in the range 2.6 to 4.4°C, with a peak probability at 3.6°C. We estimate LGM cooling likely to lie in the range 5.3 to 7.5°C, with a peak probability at 6.2°C.”
Schmittner, A. et al. 2011. Climate Sensitivity Estimated from Temperature Reconstructions of the Last Glacial Maximum. Science 334, 1385
https://bing.bc.edu/jeremy-shakun/Schmittner%20et%20al.,%202011,%20Science.pdf
“The model provides data-constrained estimates of global mean (including grid points not covered by data) cooling of near-surface air temperatures DSATLGM = –3.0 K [66% probability range (–2.1, –3.3), 90% (–1.7, –3.7)] and sea surface temperatures DSSTLGM = –1.7 K [66% (–1.1, –1.8), 90% (–0.9, –2.1)] during the LGM”
Here you have a quick selection with values of 5.8, 4.0, 3.6 and 3.0 (mean 4.1). As you can see you can take your pick. I have read some more so my personal choice is values around 5°C that inspire me more confidence, but I am not going to argue for ± 1°C given the errors involved.
Real climatology has been destroyed since then by “climate science”, ie computer gaming.
Sorry. The values are: 5.8, 4.0, 6.2 and 3.0 (mean 4.75). I guess prima facie my estimate is supported by scientific bibliography.
And their models only show their beliefs, not the factual climate of earth. They are doing science fiction. They are playing games on big, expensive computers that do not move science ahead even a tiny bit.
Maybe send the BBC a copy http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34763036
Maybe we should let them know about the recent re-analysis of Antarctic Ice Loss/Gains from NASA.
Since, the last mention of this on the BBC appears to emphasize only losses on the periphery of this vast continent.
The BBC have unfortunately completely omitted to mention the NASA study, even though it was reported widely in almost all of the world’s media. (At least I certainly can not find it, and I sure have looked.)
Whilst they seem happy to give in-depth coverage of all alarmist claims regarding both poles.
Maybe they should rectify this situation – rather than continuing to behave like desperately devious manipulative shysters who have decided to focus all efforts on mass deception and brainwashing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/34534091
What a strange belief system (“religion” if you will).
So, “Change” is the demon who rules the world and demands our respect and subservience. “God-fearing folks” have morphed into “Change-fearing folks. “Progressives” have morphed into “Luddites”. Hades looks much more appealing now, because the Climate of Torment never changes.
Their leaders say, in effect, “We have Nothing to fear, except Change itself”.
What a load of BS, which completely glosses over the fact that Humans and most other living creatures are highly adaptive and are capable of adjusting to an amazing variety of climate conditions. (Think Jungle and Desert to Arctic and Mountain-Tops).
😐
Um, look at their entire literature. They are very much Luddites and hate the modern machine age and want a return to pre-1800 society!
He should be quite happy then because nobody alive today has experienced over their lifetimes global warming on a scale that matters. The other thing that has happened since the end of the LIA which seems to be the accepted starting point for global warming studies and record keeping (unbelievably true) technology has created all manner of clothing, housing, designer crops that make the immeasurably small so-called unnatural part of global warming moot. As for the natural part, well, that’s not something we can or should do to prevent. Nobody knows why, but with or without humans, as would be expected at the end of the still mysterious LIA cooling period, the globe is in a minor warming period, or was until the late 1990’s. Dangerous global warming is a fictional product of flawed models and human arrogance. It is alarming that people are alarmed by alarmingly small temperature excursions given the greater and clearly obvious climate changes of the past.
When we were “used to” ice sheets across North America it must have been very alarming to alarmists of the time to think the planet was overheating to the point that apples and wine grapes would someday grow on the glacial benches those ice sheets left behind. Oh, the humanity.
My house is on one of these benches and the view of early winter across the Cascades is spectacular, thanks to honest measurable global warming that removed 2000′ of ice sheet from where my car is now parked.
Wow, how many people live outside? No absolute temperature change provides a risk to society either globally or locally. Warm/hot regions hardly change and places where it warms the most are very cold, in winter and at night. Win, win, win.
In cold countries hardly any live outside and in warm/hot countries a little warming especially at night and in winter is beneficial where people live outside/hut/shack.
I can cause more changes than global warming will ever do in my house by turning the central heating up a little. Nobody notices a temperature difference of 1+ c and record local temperatures have not been beating previous ones any more generally than global temperature increased.
Just admit it, the scare is for ££££$$$$$$$$£££££££ grant money and milking the poor.
“Global warming is, and has always been, the name of a politically inspired propaganda campaign which has nothing at all to do with science”. And merely by using the name of giving it any credence at all is to suggest that propaganda campaign has any validity.
“Whenever a news report or article uses the term global warming, everyone now assumes they’re talking about the hypothetical man-made kind of warming.”
Everyone???? – hardly; I suspect that 50% of the population doesn’t understand the corruption by wordsmithing used by the IPCC.
Their ‘ideal climate’ is the Little Ice Age.
East coast US cities and many cities in Europe and Asia were founded DURING the Little Ice Age. Since then, the oceans have risen but no where near to Minoan Warm Age levels. This idiotic idea we should be very cold again has gripped many people who think change of any sort is evil.
The problem lies in previous city building. At no time in history have shorelines been ‘stable’ they change not just daily with tides but over geological time.
By the way, due to everyone using wooden ships to get around and do business, building right on top of the water was highly valued which is why low lying easily flooded cities were built in the first place! With the expectations that very cold conditions were normal.
Bob T says,
But if the reporter asked: Do you believe that mankind is the primary cause of global warming and that future warming will lead to catastrophe?
“Suppose now the scientist were to answer: Based on my research and detailed understanding of the data, climate models and their uncertainties, my answer is no.
For that answer, the scientist would likely be branded a heretic.”
======================================================================
Precisely, yet the opposite of that answer, “Yes, anthropogenic global warming will produce catastrophic results” is what all the “consensus” studies do not ASK, and do not ASSERT. (This, of course, is only one fatal flaw among many other serious flaws in those studies)
Yet if you read the skeptical “Oregon Petition” statement, they take the “C” in CAGW head on. Likewise the NIPCC studies take this question head on. The theory is “CAGW”, and the “C”, the “G” are MIA. Even the “W” is far below the predictions. Only the “A” is left, and I agree, we have anthropogenic political disaster.
Bob’s plots of the CET instrument record are revealing because they show the HadCRUT4 global anomaly on a scale commensurate with the absolute temperature range in which humans actually live.
http://i64.tinypic.com/2mfj7mh.png
So the recent “global warming” (yellow oval) doesn’t look as menacing as the “alarmist view”, which artificially rescales the range to make it look scarier. (But it also portrays the recent “warming pause” much more vividly, doesn’t it?).
http://i63.tinypic.com/2w2n3op.png
How much of this recent warming can be attributed to the commensurate rise in CO2? Well, the pause pretty much belies the notion that it is directly tied to CO2 concentration (as all the models require). Something else is driving the temperatures.
It could be water vaport, or cloud cover, or other quasi-cyclic mechanisms. But I think it could still be linked, in part, to man-made activities.
It’s probably a mixture of all of those process. But let’s focus on the ‘man-made’ part for a moment. The CET record is an aggregation of thermometers sampled over all of Britain. Evidently, urbanization has changed the siting condition of these thermometers over the centuries from mostly rural to mostly urban conditions.
Has anyone quantified this change in a formal way? How to proceed?
First, a “global urbanization metric” is needed to study of urbanization effects. It simply denotes the degree of “urbanization” from zero to 100%. To see this more clearly, let’s use a little ‘thought experiment’ to imagine a parameterized model of the world, fully equipped with continents, oceans and environment. Now this model was written by a divine, omniscient Oracle, so let us assume (for our little thought experiment) that it is 100% ‘faithful’ to Nature.
It is equipped with one big Control Knob, labeled “Urbanization”. When I turn the knob fully counter-clockwise to the Zero position. All of Mankind and urban areas completely disappear, leaving only rural areas over all of the land-mass areas. When I crank it up fully clockwise to the 100% level, all of the urbanized areas expand until they fully cover all of the land-masses. I.e. “wall-to-wall” cities. The Oceans are not affected by Control Knob, but continue to react to the land mass changes, according to the laws of nature.
So the research questions are:
1. Does Urbanization affect global climate? For example what are the mean global temps as the Control Knob is advanced from zero to one hundred? (I suspect the fully urbanized World would be warmer than the fully rural World. But how much warmer? We need to formally quantify this, so a sub-model which predicts Temperature given Urbanization Coefficient must be developed (by the Oracle, of course, because she is 100% faithful to Nature).
2. Compute the actually urbanization coefficient of this world. (I’m guessing less than 5%, but increasing). Does it predict a temperature close to what the Oracle predicts?
Of course it does, because the Oracle is perfect.
Now let’s change the experiment and let humans try to write this model, which introduces the likelihood of error (and other shenanigans). Could we prove that urbanization makes the world warmer (or colder, or no-change etc), incrementally according to the measured urbanization coefficient?
I assume someone has already tried this, but I’m not aware of the results. I think it is, at least, a useful way to think about quantifying the effects of man-made activities on the earth’s climate.
I suggest urbanisation raises the overnight minimums and maximums are unaffected. There in lays the problem with average temp. Should use median temp.
Hard to avoid averages because temperature is just an abstraction, an intensive property of matter, simplistically, representing the average kinetic energy of a collection of molecules comprising an object. So temperature is the tendency of that object to transfer its energy towards or away from other objects. When Object A transfers net energy to Object B, we say Object A has a higher temperature than Object B.
But the point I was trying to make was that the so-called UHI (urban heat island) effect is not just an ‘anomaly’ that must be corrected or discounted. Rather it represents the intrinsic behavior of the world system. This is easy to see, when we turn the Control Knob up to 100. Then the urban areas, in effect, become the World.
In the other direction there is probably some very small valued setting, below which the UHI effect can be safely ignored. Problem is we don’t know what that setting is.
Urban effects may be one of the major components of “global warming”, which needs to be studied and evaluated.
So change can br rough. So what. During the fall of Rome, probably not a lot of Romans liked the change, though non-Romans thought, “Hey, I can live with this.”.
There is also fear of change. The devil you know is better than the devil you do not know.. except not always and the only way to know is to accept change.
In terms of planet Earth this is irrelevant; the planet is not going to stop changing regardless of what humans “are used to” or what they might do about it. Our ability to change the planet is negligible compared to our ability to change the course of human civilization. In that regard maybe we should stop focusing on divisive diversions like global warming and walk into the future boldly instead of like chicken little.
Bob. You say
“That leaves us with a very basic question. Should we expect another multidecadal cooling period, or at least a slowdown lasting for a couple of decades, before another warming period? Rephrased, would we expect the multidecadal (approximately 60-year) cycle to repeat itself?
Many persons believe the cycle will repeat into the future. The climate modelers do not. Their models have been tuned to extend (and amplify) the warming from the more recent higher-than-average warming period out into the future, without accounting for the cyclical nature of global warming. If the cycle continues into the future, then the climate models have simulated too much warming…way too much warming.”
The basic error of the establishment scientist’s forecasts is this failure to include the natural cycles .The 60 year cycle is important but even more so is the larger millennial cycle with its amplitude of about 1.8 degrees.
It seems likely that both cycles peaked simultaneously at about 2000.We are just entering the cooling leg of the millennial cycle which is likely to last until about 2635-50.
A new forecasting paradigm needs to be adopted.
For forecasts of the timing and extent of the coming cooling based on the natural solar activity cycles – most importantly the millennial cycle – and using the neutron count and 10Be record as the most useful proxy for solar activity check my blog-post at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
(Section 1 has a complete discussion of the uselessness of the climate models.)
see also
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-epistemology-of-climate-forecasting.html
I agree on the millennial cycle being more important than the 60 year cycle, Norman, but the main driver of Holocene global temperatures is the 41,000 years obliquity cycle. No long term forecast can be successful without considering that present temperatures are far above where they should be according to the obliquity insolation determinant. On the multi-centennial timescale, global temperatures will have to converge downward to the insolation determinant, and this will necessarily override shorter cycles. My estimates suggest that according only to the obliquity insolation determinant, “astronomically correct” temperatures are about what they were around 1920, i.e. about -0.8°C below what they are now. They should be about -1.0°C in 600 years when the millennial cycle bottoms out. We might lose that degree in the next 600 years.
Most people make the mistake of thinking that Earth’s average temperature should be flat in the absence of solar, GHG, volcanic, oceanic, atmospheric, cloud, or aerosol forcings. They forget the most important forcing of all, the Milankovitch obliquity cycle, that determines that Earth’s average temperature should be slowly falling. And temporary changes due to other forcings will eventually be overrode.
Javier:
You say,
Strewth! You have made some strange assertions on WUWT but knowing what present temperatures “should be” caps them all.
When and how did you obtain such deific omniscience?
I don ‘t dispute your claim to deity, but if now is warmer than it “should be”, I would like to know why you didn’t use your deific powers to prevent the Minoan, Roman and medieval periods from being warmer than now?
Richard
Richard,
You should study Milankovitch cycles instead of interrupting conversations, like this one between Dr. Page and me. My comment was personally directed at him. Please show a little respect if it is not too much to ask.
Javier:
Respect? Show respect for an anonymous internet pop-up who spouts irrational nonsense and has childish temper tantrums when shown to be wrong?
No, don’t be silly. I refuse to pretend respect when I only have contempt.
Richard
richardscourtney,
I shall call moderation upon you. You show the behaviour of a troll that has taken residence on this place and personally attack and harass anybody that disagrees with you. You should be mopped up for the good of this place.
[No. With 14,079 items (replies, answers, and questions) the quality of his comments stand on their own. .mod]
To mod:
I see, so due to that he is allowed to harass and insult as much as he pleases without any restrain, isn’t he? And the victims of his harassment have to bear with this because he is a regular contributor. Am I correct? What kind of protection does your moderation provide me against his behavior? None?
Javier whines:
I shall call moderation upon you.
Instead, why don’t you just try to answer the questions?
dbstealey,
Because bad behavior should not be rewarded as this foments repetition. This is a basic principle of education and moderation.
Javier:
I bow to your superior knowledge of “bad behaviour”. You have demonstrated expertise at it.
Richard
Javier says:
Because bad behavior should not be rewarded as this foments repetition. This is a basic principle of education and moderation.
So that’s your excuse for not answering questions.
One common trait that runs throughout the alarmist crowd is their refusal to answer questions. Because if you continued to answer questions, eventually you would be forced to admit that there is nothing unusual happening with global temperatures (except maybe the fact that they have been unusually flat), and that there is certainly nothing unprecedented happening.
(Please note that skeptics are generally happy to answer – and easily refute – the alarmist crowd’s questions and concerns.)
So you won’t answer questions, and you certainly won’t answer follow-up questions. You are intelligent enough to understand that the ‘runaway global warming’ scare, which has now morphed into the ‘climate change’ scare, is completely baseless. Global T has been exceptionally flat for more than a century:
Not only is the ‘climate change’ hoax baseless, but it is directly contrary to what is being observed in the real world. Rather than seeing the endlessly predicted ‘runaway global warming’, we have been very fortunate in the extremely mild global temperatures we’ve seen over the past century. The alarmnists were completely wrong. Your conjecture has been falsified by the ultimate Authority: the real world.
So what is your real motive for trying to perpetuate the ‘dangerous AGW’ hoax? You do have a motive, there is no doubt about that. Because if you were sincerely trying to learn, you would answer questions. But as we see, you’ve now deflected into your crying mode rather than answer the questions you were asked. That shows us you don’t want to learn, and that you’ve boxed yourself into a corner trying to defend your climate false alarm.
If you want something legitimate to complain about, visit blogs like Hotwhopper, SkS, and similar alarmist blogs and pretend to be a scientific skeptic. You think you’ve got it tough here? As if. You seem to have no idea of the despicable attacks constantly endured by Anthony Watts and other skeptics of the man-made global warming hoax. So instead of crying about the mote in someone else’s eye, pay attention to the beam in your own eye.
dbstealey,
This is getting tiresome. Since I am not alarmed by climate change, I do not belong to the alarmist crowd. As everybody else, I answer the questions that I know the answer, or have an opinion to share, and I see someone benefitting for it. If I have nothing to say I say nothing.
I already showed you there is. Global average glacier length is smaller than it has been in several thousand years. This is very well known to all glacierologists. It was unknown to you until I told you. Now you are just refusing to accept it.
Certainly. I agree that ‘runaway global warming’ scare is completely baseless.
No it hasn’t. That graph of yours only shows that you don’t understand the proper scale of global average temperature changes. Global average temperatures have increased significantly with respect to what they were in the first half of the 19th century.
I do not try to perpetuate something I do not believe in. I do not believe global warming is dangerous even if it was to continue (it probably won’t). However it is clear that the increase in atmospheric GHGs has produced some warming. Refusing to accept that actually weakens the position of those of us that believe global warming is not dangerous because GHGs produce far less warming than generally believed and man-made warming is only a secondary contributor to global warming. By refusing to believe that GHGs increase produces some warming, you position yourself outside the realms of science, the same as the people that do not believe in evolution.
This should not be an excuse for a similar behavior here. We aspire to be better, don’t we?
As you can see I can answer questions alright as long as the person that makes them really wants to know the answer and I know the answer. Do you really want to know what is my position or are only looking for ammunition against me?
Javier,
Prof Richard Lindzen, the author of twenty dozen peer reviewed papers on the atmosphere, was the head of M.I.T.’s atmosphereic sciences department for many years. Dr. Lindzen wrote:
Climate is always changing. We have had ice ages, and warmer periods when alligators were found in Spitzbergen. Ice ages have occurred in hundred-thousand year cycles for the last 700 thousand years, and there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present, despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. More recently, we have had the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age. During the latter, alpine glaciers advanced, to the chagrin of overrun villages. Since the beginning of the 19th Century these glaciers have been retreating. Frankly, we don’t fully understand either the advance or the retreat.
Go argue with the expert if you think you have the answer. There is nothing “unprecedented” happening. The planet has more than 160,000 glaciers, but I doubt you could name a half dozen of them. You’re just parroting the alarmist narrative.
As Lindzen writes, during the LIA glaciers grew, and now that the planet is naturally recovering from the LIA, glaciers will naturally retreat. Assigning those events to ‘dangerous AGW’ (DAGW) is pseudo-scientific nonsense, so you have “showed” nothing unusual, or unprecedented.
Next, you tried to contradict the chart I posted with your personal opinions. That’s no good on a science site. All you are doing is expresing your beliefs. Here’s a corroborating chart:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lPGChYUUeuc/VLhzJqwRhtI/AAAAAAAAAS4/ehDtihKNKIw/s1600/GISTemp%2BKelvin%2B01.png
So who should we believe? You? Or our lyin’ eyes?
Next, you falsely assert:
Global average temperatures have increased significantly with respect to what they were in the first half of the 19th century.
Global T has risen only about 0.7ºC, over more than a century. By moving the goal posts to the early 1800’s you are including the end of the LIA. Naturally, the planet was colder then. But over the past century — when human CO2 emissions began to rise fast — the temperature did not follow. The past century is as close to ‘flat’ as anything found in the geologic record. You are acting like Chicken Little, running around in circles and clucking that the sky is falling! It isn’t. It wasn’t even a tiny acorn. Because 0.7ºC is nothing.
Finally, you claim that you’re not a climate alarmist, but all your posts indicate otherwise. You argue with those skeptical of DAGW, not with those who believe in it. And why even comment if there’s no problem? The only questions you ‘answer’ are done via baseless assertions that express only your beliefs. I posted charts showing that global T over the past century+ have been unusually flat. That contradicts the alarmists’ “climate change” hoax. You argue that those charts are wrong, but without posting verifiable facts showing why they’re wrong.
Once again: there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening. The DAGW scam is a hoax, intended to get carbon taxes passed. And as I’ve shown, it is based on a lie.
@ur momisugly dbstealey November 9, 2015 at 11:17 am comment,
This is getting tiresome. Since I am not alarmed by climate change, I do not belong to the alarmist crowd. As everybody else, I answer the questions that I know the answer, or have an opinion to share, and I see someone benefitting from it. If I have nothing to say I say nothing.
I already showed you there is. Global average glacier length is smaller than it has been in several thousand years. This is very well known to all glacierologists. It was unknown to you until I told you. Now you are just refusing to accept it.
Certainly. I agree that ‘runaway global warming’ scare is completely baseless.
No it hasn’t. That graph of yours only shows that you don’t understand the proper scale of global average temperature changes. Global average temperatures have increased significantly with respect to what they were in the first half of the 19th century.
I do not try to perpetuate something I do not believe in. I do not believe global warming is dangerous even if it was to continue (it probably won’t). However it is clear that the increase in atmospheric GHGs has produced some warming. Refusing to accept that actually weakens the position of those of us that believe global warming is not dangerous because GHGs produce far less warming than generally believed and man-made warming is only a secondary contributor to global warming. By refusing to believe that GHGs increase produces some warming, you position yourself outside the realms of science, the same as the people that do not believe in evolution.
This should not be an excuse for a similar behavior here. We aspire to be better, don’t we?
As you can see I can answer questions alright as long as the person that makes them really wants to know the answer and I know the answer. Do you really want to know what is my position or are only looking for ammunition against me?
dbstealey,
While Prof Lindzen’s opinion is respectable even if he was an expert on the atmosphere, not on glaciers. Not understanding something does not mean that we don’t know how to measure it. Glacierologists know that glaciers have not been this short in thousands of years. It is an anomaly whatever way you look at it.
That is true, but in their retreat too many glaciers have boldly retreated where no glacier has retreated in thousands of years. That is why Ötzi, with an age of 5200 years, showed up in 1991.
It is not my opinion. I already provided abundant bibliography supporting it, while you have provided no scientific source that claims the opposite.
Hahaha, that chart is so scientific that you would be hard pressed to notice glacial periods there. Are you claiming that “Global T has been exceptionally flat for more than a” few million years?
Why? You think it should have risen more? It is in the upper end of Holocene upward variability, and in just a century.
Then you have a problem with your reading comprehension. All I have done is to defend the scientific evidence wherever it takes, without a predetermined position and without any agenda. Extremist positions that either natural warming or man-made warming do not contribute to global warming are both clearly absurd. I have tired of saying that most warming looks natural. Just because I say that some looks man-made you accuse me of being what I am not. But you are used to being wrong most of the time, aren’t you?
Javier says:
Prof Lindzen’s opinion is respectable even if he was an expert on the atmosphere, not on glaciers.
And what, exactly, is your expertise on glaciers? Or are you just parroting what your confirmation bias leads you to cherry-pick?
Next:
Hahaha, that chart is so scientific that you would be hard pressed to notice glacial periods there.
I posted two charts, which both showed only global T, from about 1880 to now. They had nothing whatever to do with glacial periods, so why are you laughing? Am I debating a fool? I think not. You are simply a climate alarmist chameleon, pretending to be a skeptic. You aren’t fooling anyone here.
Next, you ask:
Are you claiming that “Global T has been exceptionally flat for more than a” few million years?
Javier, you keep posting nonsense like that. Once again, the charts I posted both show the same thing: global temperature change since ≈1880. Naturally, being a climate alarmist you set up a strawman argument, and now you’re arguing with that. I never said anything about “a few million years”. My point, which you have avoided, is that global T has changed very little since human industrial emissions began to rise. In fact, the 0.7ºC wiggle is as small a change in global T as you can find in the temperature record.
Next, you make this preposterous claim:
Then you have a problem with your reading comprehension. All I have done is to defend the scientific evidence wherever it takes, without a predetermined position and without any agenda.
Javier, either your reading comprehesion is ridiculously inept, or you are deliberately mis-stating what I wrote. I suspect the latter. All you have ever done is to parrot cherry-picked factoids that support the climate alarmists’ “climate change” hoax.
You’re fooling nobody here. No one else agrees with you because we see exactly where you’re coming from. When you say “most” warming looks natural, that’s just a chameleon statement. It could easily mean 51% is natural, which would suit you just fine. You say:
Just because I say that some looks man-made you accuse me of being what I am not. But you are used to being wrong most of the time, aren’t you?
I accuse you of being exactly what you are. And if I’m wrong, why do you constantly parrot the climate alarmist narrative? Every factoid you pick out fits right in with the climate scare.
You are fooling no one, Javier, except yourself if you believe we’re not onto you. You are just not smart enough to pull off what you’re trying to do here.
Javier
November 9, 2015 at 2:39 pm
As you’ve been repeatedly shown, no glaciologist knows any such thing as that “glaciers have not been this short for thousands of years”.
Glacial retreat since the LIA has demonstrated what all of real paleoclimatology shows, ie that glaciers were this short 1000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period, 2000 years ago during the Roman WP and 3000 years ago during the Minoan WP. Not that all are now short by any means. Many are advancing, due to local conditions.
And all glaciers on earth, as noted, are as nothing compared to the gigantic EAIS, which is gaining mass.
Besides which, no connection can be established between human activities and glacial advance and retreat. If we have had any effect, it might be from increased Chinese soot or decreased aerosols.
Gloateus Maximus,
Oh yes they do, and not, glaciers were not this short 1000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period, and were not this short 2000 years ago during the Roman WP. I am sorry but science is with me in this one.
Relevant bibliography
1. J. Oerlemans. Holocene glacier fluctuations: is the current rate of retreat exceptional? Annals of Glaciology, Volume 31, Number 1, January 2000, pp. 39-44(6)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2000/00000031/00000001/art00008
“Integrations for a 10 000 year period, driven by random forcing of a realistic strength, show that the current retreat cannot be explained from natural variability in glacier length and must be due to external forcing.
2. Johannes Koch, John J Clague and Gerald Osborn: Alpine glaciers and permanent ice and snow patches in western Canada approach their smallest sizes since the mid-Holocene, consistent with global trends. The Holocene 2014 24: 1639
http://kochj.brandonu.ca/ho_2014.pdf
“Glacier retreat in western Canada and other regions is exposing subfossil tree stumps, soils and plant detritus that, until recently, were beneath tens to hundreds of metres of ice. In addition, human artefacts and caribou dung are emerging from permanent snow patches many thousands of years after they were entombed. Dating of these materials indicates that many of these glaciers and snow patches are smaller today than at any time in the past several thousand years.”
“The global scope and magnitude of glacier retreat likely exceed the natural variability of the climate system and cannot be explained by natural forcing alone. This departure is best explained by the ascendancy of another forcing factor – the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
3. Goehring, B. M. et al. 2012. Holocene dynamics of the Rhone Glacier, Switzerland, deduced from ice flow models and cosmogenic nuclides. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 351–352, 27–35.
http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:152773/CONTENT/j.epsl.2012.07.027.pdf
“After 5 ka, the Rhone Glacier was larger than today, but smaller than its LIA maximum extent. The present extent of the Rhone Glacier therefore likely represents its smallest since the middle Holocene and potential climate warming will lead to further rapid retreat of the Rhone Glacier.”
4. B. K. Reichert, L. Bengtsson and J. Oerlemans: Recent Glacier Retreat Exceeds Internal Variability. Journal of Climate 15 (2002) 3069.
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/courses/EVAT795/Reichertal-JClim02.pdf
“Preindustrial fluctuations of the glaciers as far as observed or reconstructed, including their advance during the Little Ice Age, can be explained by internal variability in the climate system as represented by a GCM. However, fluctuations comparable to the present-day glacier retreat exceed any variation simulated by the GCM control experiments and must be caused by external forcing, with anthropogenic forcing being a likely candidate.”
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Glacier%20extent_zps4smk8tz8.png
A) Koch & Clague 2006 meta-study of global glacier extent showing that current retreat exceeds the global range and minimum extent trend since mid-Holocene (Trend lines added). Notice how it shows glaciers now shorter than Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period.
http://kochj.brandonu.ca/pages_2006.pdf
B) Thompson et al., 1995 study of the Huascarán glacier. Ice-core of the glacier with the temperature proxy showing that current glacier temperature is unprecedented for thousands of years and anomalous within trend.
http://research.bpcrc.osu.edu/Icecore/publications/Thompson%20et%20al%20Science%201995.pdf
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/ice%20remains_zps2d4bszof.png
Organic remains entombed in ice at mid-Holocene and freed by present global warming.
Where is the evidence that demonstrates otherwise?
dbstealey,
If the scale goes from 0-320°K then the entire variability from glacial to interglacial represents only a 1.5% variation of that scale. You would not appreciate glacial periods if you were to extend that graph 500,000 years to the past. The entire phanerozoic era would probably not show more than a 10% change in that graph. The scale is chosen to look flat no matter how drastic temperature changes are. That graph has been emptied of any information by the scale choice.
No. I have presented scientific evidence and scientific literature that contradicts some of the things you say and you don’t like that.
I do not parrot the climate alarmist narrative. You are a little paranoid if you think that I am just pretending to be skeptic about the dangers of global warming to fool you. If I say something defending the importance of natural warming nobody here challenges it so I do not have to defend it. If I say something defending the existence of anthropogenic warming you challenge it, so I am forced to defend it. You are the one that is forcing me to defend almost exclusively the existence of anthropogenic warming by contradicting published evidence without any evidence from your part.
When I said that from Last glacial Maximum to Holocene the change was believed to be about 5°C, most people were fine with it, so I did not have to defend it that much. It is the audience that decides what I have to defend, because I generally have scientific evidence backing most things that I say, unlike you.
I am sorry if this evidence hurts your position, but you have to learn to live with it. Otherwise, as I said, you leave the realm of science and place yourself in the company of the people that rejects evolution. Are you comfortable there?
Javier,
Stop with your deflecting onto the glacier nonsense. The charts I posted have nothing to do with glaciers, just like human emissions have nothing to do with changes in glaciers. And when you assert:
It is the audience that decides what I have to defend, because I generally have scientific evidence backing most things that I say, unlike you.
You are saying that the links I always provide are not evidence? That’s what it sounds like. And yare ignoring the fact that you have the onus of defending your narrative that glacier length is connected with human emissions.
Now, if I’m wrong about that — if you are saying that glacier length has nothing whatever to do with human emissions — then I’m wrong, and I apologize. But if that’s the case, why are you so fixated on something completely natural?
dbstealey,
Despite the scale of your charts concealing any information, I really have no issue with temperatures. Post-LIA global warming is not in my opinion significantly outside Holocene temperatures upward variability. I do not think that temperature changes, even after significant tampering, show that GHGs have become the primary forcing in current climate variability. This is one of the main reasons why I am not worried with global warming or with CO2 increases, and because I also think that the positives of increased CO2 levels far outweigh the negatives. I am also not concerned with sea-level raise because it shows little sign of acceleration and is very modest. I have checked all this in the scientific literature myself, looking for the opposite to avoid confirmation bias that so much plagues the climate debate. If I am not able to demonstrate that temperatures are abnormal or that sea-level is abnormal during the high CO2 period, then the null hypothesis stands and therefore any contribution of GHGs to temperatures and sea-level rise has to be modest.
Not really. In science it is really hard to really demonstrate things, so we have to go along with “convincing evidence”. For example we have convincing evidence that CO2 has a greening effect that rests on “fertilization effect” theory, laboratory experiments and coincidence of CO2 increase and satellite detected increases in foliage in semi-arid regions. But you will not be able to demonstrate that the greening effect is connected with human emissions, because no experiment can tell you that.
The same that “convincing evidence” exists that human emissions are having an effect on semi-arid regions greening, it also exists that human emissions are having an effect on glacier length. But while you readily accept the first, you reject the second, not because the evidence is significantly different between both cases, but because you have fallen prey to confirmation bias. You only accept evidence that confirms your beliefs. I can easily accept that both are true because I lack confirmation bias. I have been trained not to have it. I have been trained to bow to whatever the evidence supports. That is why I am quite skeptic of catastrophic global warming. The evidence does not support it.
Glacier shortening is the only strong evidence that I have found that GHGs are having an important role in a climate-related phenomenon. As in the case of the greening, this is supported by CO2 theory that says that glaciers should be more sensitive to CO2 levels, and laboratory experiments on CO2 effects.
It is important the people that do not believe we have a pressing danger from GHGs levels know the facts, because if they defend false and absurd things their position weakens greatly. I believe I am doing a service to the skeptical community by telling them what things are false and what are true. Defending that CO2 has no warming effect at all puts you immediately in the loony group, at which point you are easily dismissed. If arguing with an alarmist he/she brings the glacier point, you can answer, “yes, it is true that glaciers are now shorter than in thousands of years, but this is because glaciers are specially sensitive to GHGs due to the low vapor content of the air above them, and this does not constitute evidence that temperatures are now higher than thousands of years before.” Isn’t this better than refusing to accept scientific evidence and taking an anti-science stance?
You should check Freeman Dyson’s opinion on climate change. I am essentially of the same opinion he is. He also thinks that CO2 is having an effect on climate, but he thinks the effect is net positive and not dangerous. He is one of the foremost scientific minds of our time and he did work some time on climate change.
@Javier,
I wrote:
The charts I posted have nothing to do with glaciers
But you insist on arguing glaciers anyway. Then you say:
…you will not be able to demonstrate that the greening effect is connected with human emissions, because no experiment can tell you that.
Wrong, experiments in actual greenhouses have repeatedly confirmed that.
Next, I pointed out that…
…you have the onus of defending your narrative that glacier length is connected with human emissions.
You admitted:
Glacier shortening is the only strong evidence that I have found that GHGs are having an important role in a climate-related phenomenon.
But it isn’t ‘strong evidence’ at all. Unless you know more than Prof Lindzen, I think it’s wise to accept his explanation rather than your belief. You have nothing more than that to support your assertion that glacier length is due to human CO2 emissions. The whole thing is silly, when you think about it. It’s just tap-dancing around the fact that you have no measurements at all quantifying AGW. So you take a spurious correlation and promote it as “strong evidence”, when it is nothing of the sort.
Finally, you say:
Defending that CO2 has no warming effect at all puts you immediately in the loony group, at which point you are easily dismissed.
The only way you can argue is by misrepresenting what I’ve consistently written: that no one has ever produced a measurement quantifying human CO2 emissions. Neither have you, so you claim that glacier length is your measurement. Not even that, you just pick glacier “shortening”. But that is just your unproven conjecture, and despite your claims it is not “strong evidence”. Really, it’s not evidence at all, but just a coincidental correlation that has everything to do with the planet’s recovery from the LIA, and nothing verifiable to do with CO2.
dbstealey,
Amazing. You are not even aware of your strong confirmation bias. It really limits your capacity to find the truth, but then you are not very interested in the truth, aren’t you? Just on your chosen values and beliefs.
I’ll leave you to them.
‘Javier’ calls scientific skepticism “confirmation bias”, demonstrating his psychological projection.
If ‘Javier’ ever posts a verifiable, testable measurement quantifying AGW, I will sit up straight and pay attention.
But so far, ‘Javier’ has no more real world measurements of AGW than anyone else. In other words, he’s got nothing.
So he wings it by pretending that glacier length is a measurement of human CO2 emissions. That is so silly it isn’t even worth refuting; it’s self-refuting because Javier conveniently omitted glacier growth, and 99%+ of the planet’s 160,000 glaciers.
And whenever a news report or article uses the term “greenhouse gases”, everyone now assumes they’re talking about the hypothetical man-made kind of warming that occurs within an actual “greenhouse” due to its physical enclosure that prevents convection cooling.
The literal fact is, any type of gas that is confined within the physical enclosure of an actual “greenhouse” can technically be defined as being a “greenhouse gas” that is wholly or partly responsible for the residual “warming” within the confines of said physical structure.
I personally do not like the term “GLOBAL ” WARMING. No one can relate to such a temperature and it does not do justice to what is really happening globally . Here is an example . The alarmists claim global warming is happening at an unprecedented rate. Yet it is only happening for the oceans and only due to data manipulation by Karl et al . Where people live it is an entirely different picture . Some areas are cooling some are warming and some areas are not changing at all or flat . So a single “global ” warming figure is a misrepresentation of what is really happening.
YEAR- TO- DATE (JAN-DEC) LAND ONLY TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES TREND 2005-2014) LAST 10 YEARS
DATA PER NOAA CLIMATE AT A GLANCE UNITS IN (C DEGREES/DECADE )
CONTIGUOUS US (-0.68)
NORTH AMERICA (-0.41)
ASIA (-0.31)
EUROPE (+0.39)
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE (-0.04)flat
OCEANIA (+0.07)flat
ARFICA (+0.08)flat
SOUTH AMERICA (+0.24)
SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE (+0.06)flat
GLOBAL (-0.01) flat
Surely fear induced by barely detectable trends in global average temperature can only hold sway in the minds of the totally ignorant.
Whilst I was still a child I was informed of many changed that had occurred even during the period in which human societies had existed in Europe.
I can casually look up this topic on the internet and find descriptions of recent rapid climate change such as:
“Then around 17,000 BC, the global temperature started to increase which resulted in melting of the great Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. This melt down lasted until about 4,000 BC, and the result was a global warming and the increase in sea levels. But this increase in temperature, warming and sea level increase was not uniform. If we look at the global sea levels, we see that during the period of the big melt down, 17,000 BC to about 4,000 BC, they rose by a total of more than 120 meters.”
And this from an article about acorns.
So, a person can casually reassure themselves that the manufacturer of this material is not attempting to support global warming d*n*al*sm.
Frankly, I believe that the warming trend wars which we currently see are a diversion from the real trouble that we face.
We KNOW that climate changed very rapidly at times in the recent history of man and of the earth.
If we were honest then we would note that we do not satisfactorily know WHY it changed as it did.
Until we can satisfactorily and confidently explain past climate change then we can not attribute the causes of current climate change.
The trend upon which the current sociological phenomenon (climate change panic) was created was that which existed during the 1980’s – 1990’s. It may have been a period of trend which was higher than at some other points during the 20th century.
But – SO WHAT. To focus in on these trivial periods of time and on these trivial trend is to fall into the trap of failing to see the bigger picture. Or indeed any picture at all.
The climate panic community has developed a trend obsession.
They have lost sight of the real problems that we have in explaining the climate.
We should remind them what these problems are. If it warms by 0.2degC during the next decade then they will all jump with joy and use this as an excuse to fill their pockets with other people’s money.
But…it’s all meaningless until we can explain climate change.
I have not yet seen a satisfactorily comprehensive explanation of climate change.
Maybe we should create a subject called Climatology where dedicated scientists work on trying to provide us with an all encompassing explanation of the processes that cause the climate to change.
What could possibly go wrong. (sarc)
Quote from: http://oldeuropeanculture.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/how-did-oaks-repopulate-europe.html
Schmidt’s claim that “it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters” is so bizarre and idiotic that it beggars belief. By that metric, people who traveled to different climes, experiencing possible temperature changes of 50F or more would die. Just as idiotic is his belief that the slight warming we’ve experienced since the LIA has been anything but beneficial. What these warmunist nincompoops can never seem to grasp is that it is cooling that we need to be concerned about, not warming.
If you experienced a change of 50F you would die if you did not adapt to your new temperature. Pysiological adaptation is not possible, so behavioural adaptations would be required. Wear a coat and hat, for example. I think this demonstrates that it is the change, not the absolute, that would present you with a problem.
Equally clearly there are some temperature that are impossible to adapt to – Venus for example. So Schmidt is wrong when he says “no particular absolute global temperature provides a risk to society” if you take him literally. If you assume he meant any temperature that is remotely likely to occur then his statement seems reasonable.
Putting it another way, with an extreme example to illustrate the point. In a hypothetical world if a 5°C temperature rise caused the ice caps to melt, that would present society with at least one huge problem of cities flooding. However, if society had developed in a world that was 5°C warmer and had sea levels tens of meters higher, then that society would be OK as all the cities would have been built in different places.
Excellent! Unfortunately propaganda trumps science and logic for the vast majority of folks. One must hit their pocketbook to get their attention and hit it hard. And they must FEEL the hit and know where it came from. Unless policies change dramatically, that hit is coming. Virtually no one, if one asks, understands, if one asks, that CO2 is a trace gas in our atmosphere. So far the propaganda is still winning. It gives many people a nice warm feeling to be environmentally conscious. Do they want to pay for it? Not so much.
Based on the wild prognostications of the alarmists both Helsinki and Singapore must currently be uninhabitable.
Ironically, large modern cities would be uninhabitable if the grid ever failed for any significant period of time.
Although that is unlikely to happen unless we base our energy polices upon wild prognostications.
Thanks, Bob. Your new book will make a difference in our understanding of the “global warming” hypothesis that blames it on CO2 without first evaluating the alternatives and explaining the inconsistencies, like the warming periods that happened before mankind started to popularize electricity and mechanical power from burning petroleum.
The illusion of control is even older.
Thanks Bob, a very timely posting.
The where are we? with respect to the scientific understanding of temperature trends is much needed.
The subject is much confused by the deliberate use of ill defined terms.
Glad you have started this project as I feel the argument is stale, science is greeted with politics.
Time to take the offensive, so what do we really know, now?
And what can we reasonably infer from that?
So far rational examination of the proffered evidence produces more sceptics than believers.