Excerpt of an article from the New Scientist, 01 December 2008 by Mark Buchanan (h/t to Richard Hegarty)
EVEN if we turn to clean energy to reduce carbon emissions, the planet might carry on warming anyway due to the heat released into the environment by our ever-increasing consumption of energy.
This picture, taken with a thermal imaging camera, reveals how much heat is being emitted by City Hall in London (Image: National Pictures)
That’s the contentious possibility raised by Nick Cowern and Chihak Ahn of the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at Newcastle University, UK. They argue that human energy consumption could begin to contribute significantly to global warming a century from now.
Cowern and Ahn considered an emissions scenario proposed by James Hansen of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, and others. Under this scenario, which envisages greenhouse gases being cut significantly through phasing out coal over the next 40 years, Cowern and Ahn calculate that the greenhouse effect will start to diminish by 2050, stabilising the climate.
Read more here
Consider then UHI, and my recent measurement of a temperature transect from Reno, NV
Here is the result of my South to North transect driving Virgina Street overlaid on a Google Earth image oriented to match the timeline of the transect:
Click for larger image
It seems clear that waste heat is already having an effect, because the UHI bubble from Reno has been shown by NOAA to affect the USHCN weather station there, which caused them to move the station once. They even include this in their own training manual.
What was amazing is that they’d already determined that there were significant problems with this USHCN station placement that contributed a significant warming bias to the record.
In fact, the National Weather Service includes the UHI factor in one of it’s training course ( NOAA Professional Competency Unit 6 ) using Reno, NV and Baltimore, MD as examples. The Reno station had to be moved because it was producing an erroneous record, and the Baltimore station has so much bias (because it existed on a rooftop of a downtown building) that they simply closed it in 1999.
From that manual:
Reno’s busy urban airport has seen the growth of an urban heat bubble on its north end.
The corresponding graph of mean annual minimum temperature (average of 365 nighttime
minimums each year) has as a consequence been steadily rising. When the new
ASOS sensor was installed, the site was moved to the much cooler south end of the
runway. Nearby records indicate that the two cool post-ASOS years should have been
warmer rather than cooler. When air traffic controllers asked for a location not so close
to nearby trees (for better wind readings), the station was moved back. The first move
was documented, the second was not. The climate record shows both the steady warming
of the site, as well as the big difference in overnight temperature between one end of this
flat and seemingly homogeneous setting, an observation borne out by automobile
traverses around the airport at night.
They were also kind enough to provide a photo essay of their own as well as a graph. You can click the aerial photo to get a Google Earth interactive view of the area.
This is NOAA’s graph showing the changes to the official climate record when they made station moves:
Source for 24a and 24b: NOAA PCU6 Internal Training manual, 2004-2007
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Cowern and Ahn calculate that the greenhouse effect will start to diminish by 2050, stabilising the climate.
When you say something that includes the phrase “stabilising the climate” you lose all creditability with me.
Isn’t this essentialy the uban heat island effect? Can’t say I’m suprised in the least.
I always enjoy deconstructing statements that NewLeftist prints. For example:
The energy in coal and oil isn’t locked up?
This is one more in the endless series of “what if…” arguments. No doubt, Hansen’s two cronies will now apply for taxpayer grant money to ‘study’ this non-problem.
Anthony,
Is there some evidence that the “heat bubble” is created by waste heat rather than simple trapping of the air between structures reducing flow and allowing solar heating to take effect?
That’s what I had always assumed was happening. The release of air from city hall picture is interesting but had imagined a much stronger impact from air trapping.
They should rename that rag New Caveman
I’ve probably missed the discussion somewhere, but FWIW:
How many of these automated surface observation systems (ASOS) are on airport tarmac?
The ASOS program is a “joint effort” of the National Weather Service (NWS), Department of Defense (DOD) and the FAA, but they seem primarily designed to provide airport runway conditions:
As a network, they would surely be biased, as far as temps. That bias might be illustrated by the record of any stations situated on the border between a field and a runway.
Since each station continually monitors and reports ambient temp as well as wind direction, speed and character (gusts, squalls), the record should show any contrast in temperatures created by the tarmac vs. the open field.
Most of the dissipating waste heat is concentrated in a very small percent of the world’s surface area (ie, the cities). Much of it should radiate into space within a relatively short time and distance downwind. Regionally, I can see some potential for this having an effect (not necessarily detrimental in the frost zones of the northern hemisphere, btw), but globally? With increasing costs of energy production, we’re likely to be continuing the trend of more efficiency as well, so the anticipated increase of waste heat might be over-estimated. Show me all the numbers before I believe another report of the sky falling…
A recent ad I read (might have been last night in the Wall Street Journal) proclaimed that the sun deposits more energy on planet earth in one hour than the entire planet consumes over one year. That’s a tad under 9000 times the rate we use energy.
Now what was that again about our waste energy heating the planet; that’s also about 1/9th the peak to peak change in the solar constant over a sunspot cycle.
Bah ! humbug. the picture sure is pretty though, and of course they show the waste heat in red to make it more ominous.
Well LED lamps are slowly getting more efficient and the best results have more than 50% external quantum efficiency. If a lot of that light escapes to space, rather than being eventually converted to heat, then that will help the situation.
But if you do want to contemplate a true horror situation; you just wait till the day we knock over free abundant thermonuclear energy. At that point this planet truly will be doomed.
I’ve always been told that the UHI is primarily caused by lots of concrete and ashphalt.
I rather doubt that waste heat is a major component of UHI.
hotlink:
Yes, and this is the new spin they’ve come up with to frame the local UHI problem to be in line with the UN/IPCC’s global disaster scenario.
When they can show evidence of global warming as a result of this extremely tiny forcing, I’ll listen. But so far, it isn’t even a computer model, it’s simply idle speculation intended to be turned into grant money.
In any case the waste heat is a step function that only increases as more heat is wasted, no tipping points, no long term effect.
It’s a blip on the radar that doesn’t effect climate in any measurable quantity and is reversable.
Zero panic factor.
Aaannnddd….
Thermography is a tricky devil. You can make anything look hot. The sky is nearly black during the day and that building isn’t much warmer than the clouds above it in the infrared spectrum.
Gary:
Show me all the numbers before I believe another report of the sky falling…
That might be a nice little reason-based meme for anyone so inclined to simply purposefully memorize and have at the ready as an effective “one-liner” rebuttal to many of the wild claims being made – in many spheres, and especially where a more “social” interaction is involved, i.e., family, friends, parties, etc.. I even use them when interacting with employees at stores: recently, I simply said to a Home Depot employee who was straightening up shelves next to me, after some banter, “sounds like a government job”, and we ended up talking politics for a half-hour while he worked, a little.
As long as “global” average surface temperatures are compiled largely from urban stations, and politicos buy the AGW story, all the marginal descriptive sciences–in which linear regression is “higher” mathematics–and climate modelers with unproven assumptions and parametrizations will continue to bask in the warmth of unprecedented federal funding.
The UHI factor is particularly acute near the take-off and landing zones of runways, where engine exhausts play havoc with min-max readings, upon which the daily “average” is constructed. Small wonder that GISS has winnowed its station list to where airports now provide the bulk of readings world-wide.
Thank you for another very interesting thread. Just as an aside – I couldn’t help but chuckle from the irony that your surface temp transect chart from driving down Virginia Street resembled…well, the State of Virginia. Doggone it, you should have chosen Colorado or Oklahoma Street.
The temperature in England is currently 4 degrees C lower than ‘normal’ according to the CET. Usually, these statistics are skewed towards warming at the start of any December, as the days get progressively colder, so this is even more unusual. A cold early December looks probable, which will keep the CET down. If it continues it’s going to mean an annual minus figure for the first time since 1996, as the year anomaly is only 0.63 at present. Of course, a warm spell in December could turn it around, but the forecast for up to mid-month is “colder than usual”. Glasgow just had its coldest November day for 23 years.
I remember catching the weather on TV when I was living in Atlanta as they showed how thunderstorms would die out as they approached Atlanta’s UHI. That was an example, I suppose, of a microclimate effect. Of course the New Scientist piece seems to just be looking at all the heat that would be generated by energy production in the future. Seems that no matter what we do it’ll be wrong.
A “burp” from old Sol and all our “conservation” efforts are for naught.
And a belated happy anniversary to ATS 3 celebrating 41 years of service a mere 38 years past its design expectancy. http://www.n2yo.com/satellite/?s=3029
Groan…
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24742053-952,00.html
Global warming is killing Lemurs.
There is a HUGE difference between a temperature station sited next to an AC unit that raises the temperature in the surrounding 20 feet, and thinking that the waste heat from the AC unit is heating the planet.
Pictures like the one of City Hall makes me both laugh and cry. There dramatic color pictures are always used for good effect, but what do they tell us? Very little. What is the temperature scale on the picture? Was the picture taken at night or during daylight, e.g. where does the temperature difference comes from, solar illumination or energy waste?
The use of these pictures is worse than useless, it is a subversion of Reason and of non-contradictory thought; it aims to disinform and confuse.
On a hilarious note: Instead of posting that comment on WUWT site, I mistakenly posted it on the New Scientist’s website. We’ll see if they publish it… 🙂
Anthony,
I do dearly love those who say a picture is worth a thousand words. Heat emitted from London City Hall huh? When was it taken? What were the weather conditions at the time? From what angle? What temps to the colors signify? If taken at midnight when the air was cool, then maybe, just maybe there is a fragment of truth in the “emitted” statement. If taken on a summer’s afternoon with the sun blazing on it and the photo angle is to the east, then what part is “emitted” and what part is “reflected”?
This is similar to those scenic mountain pictures of ANWR with the caption claim this is where the oil drilling will take place – not a lie really but certainly far from the truth.
With these people mankind has to be bad, and purged from the face of the earth for good. The posters are right, another money pit to pour taxpayer’s into. These two should go to work for Home Depot – at least they’d have to do some real work…
Mike
This is an order of magnitude error by the authors.
I’ve always suspected that one of the main motivators for many of the people pushing AGW, is a desire to deindustrialize mankind. The fact that some of them are trying to make hay from this nonsense re-inforces that belief.
I did read once that a solar power station the size of Nevada (less than 1/1000th of the globe), even with all the inefficiences of solar power, could in theory generate all the power needs of the human race. While this statement was made to support solar power, my take on it was that the human race must be a pretty small player in the global energy budget for that to be true.
Measurably heat the whole planet by energy consumption? Give me a break!