Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A while back in the US there was an ad for a hamburger chain. It featured an old lady who bought a competitor’s hamburger with a great big hamburger bun. But when she opened it up she asked …
I got to thinking about this in the context of whether there is any real danger in a degree or two of average temperature rise, or whether it’s a big bun with no beef. In my previous post, “Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics … and Graphs”, I closed by saying:
My conclusion? Move along, folks, nothing to see here …
A commenter took exception to this, saying
When talking about global average temperatures, tenths of a degree really do matter.
Now, if tenths of a degree changes over a century “matter” for the globe, they certainly must matter for parts of the globe.
So here’s your pop quiz for the day: Which US State warmed the most, which cooled the most, and by how much?
To answer this, I used the USHCN State Temperature Database. Here are my findings:
Figure 1. Temperature trends by state, USHCN data. Seven states cooled, and forty-one warmed.
The state that warmed the most was North Dakota (top center), which warmed 1.4°C per century. The state that cooled the most was Alabama (middle of three dark blue states, lower right). It cooled by 0.3°C/century.
To compare with my previous post, here’s a similar graph, of the decadal changes in North Dakota by month.
Figure 2. North Dakota decadal average temperatures by month, 1900-2009. Red line is the average for the decade 2000-2009. Photo is an old North Dakota farmhouse.
As with the US, for much of the year there is little change, and the warming is in November to February. Note that unlike the US, during that four months, the temperature of North Dakota is below freezing (32°F) …
Now, if tenths of a degree “matter”, if they are as important as the commenter claimed, we should have seen some problems in North Dakota. After all, it has warmed by 1.6°C since 1895. That’s almost three times the global average warming.
But somehow, I must have missed all of the headlines about the temperature calamities that have befallen the poor residents of the benighted state of North Dakota. I haven’t seen stories about them being “climate refugees”. I didn’t catch the newspaper articles about how it has been so hard on the farmers and the frogs. I am unaware of folks moving in droves to Alabama, which has cooled by -0.4° since 1895, and thus should be the natural refuge of those fleeing the thermal holocaust striking North Dakota.
In fact, I don’t remember seeing anything that would support the commenter’s claims that tenths of a degree are so important. North Dakota has warmed near the low end of the range forecast by the IPCC for the coming century, and there have been no problems at all that I can find. So I have to say, as I said before,
My conclusion? Move along, folks, nothing to see here … where’s the beef?
APPENDIX: R Code for the US Map
(I think this is turnkey. Sometimes WordPress puts in extra line breaks. If so, it is also available as a Word document here.)
The code requires that you download the USHCN Temperature Data cited above and save it as a “Comma Separated Values” (CSV) file. I downloaded it, opened it in Excel. I split it using “Text to Columns …” into the following columns, as detailed in the USHCN ReadMe file:
FILE FORMAT:
STATE-CODE 1-3 STATE-CODE as indicated in State Code Table above. Range of values is 001-110.
DIVISION-NUMBER 4 DIVISION NUMBER. Value is 0 which indicates an area-averaged element.
ELEMENT-CODE 5-6
02 = Temperature (adjusted for time of observation bias)
YEAR 7-10 This is the year of record. Range is 1895 to current
year processed.
JAN-VALUE 11-17 Monthly Temperature format: Range of values -50.00 to 140.00 degrees Fahrenheit. Decimals retain a position in the 7-character field. Missing values in the latest year are indicated by -99.90.
FEB-VALUE 18-24
MAR-VALUE 25-31
APR-VALUE 32-38
MAY-VALUE 39-45
JUNE-VALUE 46-52
JULY-VALUE 53-59
AUG-VALUE 60-66
SEPT-VALUE 67-73
OCT-VALUE 74-80
NOV-VALUE 81-87
DEC-VALUE 88-94
If that is too complex, the CSV file is here.
Here’s the R code:
# The code requires that you download
# the USHCN Temperature Data
# and save it as a "Comma Separated Values" (CSV) file.
# I downloaded it, opened it in Excel, and used
# "Save As ..." to save
# it as "USHCN temp.csv"
#Libraries needed
library("mapdata")
library("mapproj")
library("maps")
# Functions
regm =function(x) {lm(x~c(1:length(x)))[[1]][[2]]}
#Read in data
tempmat=read.csv('USHCN temp.csv')
# Replace no data code -99.9 with NA
tempmat[tempmat==-99.9]=NA
# split off actual temps
temps=tempmat[,5:16]
# calculate row averages
tempavg=apply(temps,1,FUN=mean)
# calculate trends in °C by state
temptrends=round(tapply(tempavg,as.factor(tempmat[,1]),regm)*100*5/9,2)
# split off states from regional and national
statetrends=temptrends[1:48]
#calculate ranges for colors
statemax=max(statetrends)
statemin=min(statetrends)
statefract=(statetrends-statemin)/staterange
#set color ramp
myramp=colorRamp(c("blue","white","yellow","orange","darkorange","red"))
# assign state colors
mycol=myramp(statefract)
# names of the states (north michigan is missing for ease of programming)
myregions=c("alabama", "arizona", "arkansas", "california", "colorado", "connecticut", "delaware",
"florida", "georgia", "idaho", "illinois", "indiana", "iowa", "kansas", "kentucky", "louisiana", "maine",
"maryland", "massachusetts:main", "michigan:south", "minnesota", "mississippi", "missouri", "montana", "nebraska",
"nevada", "new hampshire", "new jersey", "new mexico", "new york:main", "north carolina:main", "north dakota",
"ohio", "oklahoma", "oregon", "pennsylvania", "rhode island", "south carolina", "south dakota", "tennessee", "texas",
"utah", "vermont", "virginia:main", "washington:main", "west virginia", "wisconsin", "wyoming")
# draw map
par(mar=c(6.01,2.01,4.01,2.01))
return=map('state',regions=myregions, exact=T,projection='mercator',fill=T,
mar=c(5.01,8.01,4.01,2.01),col=rgb(mycol,maxColorValue=255),ylim=c(10,60))
# set up legend boxes
xlref=-.48
yb=.37
ht=.05
wd=.08
textoff=.025
# assign legend labels
mylabels=round(seq(from=statemin,by=staterange/12,length.out=13),2)
#draw legend
myindex=0
for (i in seq(from=xlref,by=wd,length.out=12)){
xl=i
xr=xl+wd
yt=yb+ht
rectcolor=myramp(myindex/11)
rect(xl,yb,xr,yt,col=rgb(rectcolor,maxColorValue=255))
text(xl,yb-textoff,mylabels[myindex+1],cex=.65)
myindex=myindex+1
}
text(xl+wd,yb-textoff,mylabels[myindex+1],cex=.65)
# add annotations
text(0,1.08,"US Temperature Trends (°C/century)")
text(0,1.03,"USHCN Dataset, 1895-2009",cex=.8)
David S (06:41:21) : “Mercury freezes at about -38 (C or F – take your pick). To measure temperatures in that region, you have to use an alcohol thermometer.”
When was lack of data a problem in global warming calculations?
Is that USHCN original raw data, or the new improved revised raw data USHCN v2 ?
sphaerica (09:37:52) : The surface then emits infrared radiation, which is absorbed by greenhouse gases like CO2 and H2O. It is quickly re-emitted in all directions. What goes down warms the ground. What goes sideways warms the air. What goes up warms the air above, or eventually makes it back into space.
The above is what is the crux of the issue.
CO2 absorbs/emits in three places. 2.5, 4.7, and 15 micro. Using the 15 micro and Wein’s Law that is 200 K. Atlanta at night could be 300 K. CO2 will have nothing to do with the IR coming from the earth at night there. As for the 4.7 Atlanta will never get that hot (700 K).
Your statement about the desert tells exactly how ineffectual CO2 is as it is not capable of maintaining/increasing temperature. CO2’s specific heat is less than one so it is not able to do anything and again the desert IR would be outside its range.
So to my mind it is the latent heat of water and water vapor plus convection from the cooling surface that keeps the south warm at night. And our body temp is so close to the air temp of the south in the summer that only a small gradient exists for cooling to take place. Bring on the rain and wind.
Listening to baseball games in the summer you will at some point hear an announcer tell you how hot the outfield is compared to the air temperature. A difference of 30 or 40 degrees F is not uncommon. When we say that the CO2 in the air can heat the ground that is not possible as it is the ground that heated the CO2 either via convection or conduction. Any IR from CO2 in the summer to the earth has no effect. Cooler does not heat warmer.
Some portion of the suns heat is conducted down into the earth. Some portion is convected away from the surface by all the gases. And some is radiated away from the surface. We have no idea what the percentages of each are. Which most likely vary be surface type.
I really doubt that the climate is so sensitive to tenths of a degree.
Here in the Uk a typical year fluctuation in temperatures would -6C winter night to 31C daytime in summer and we havent dies yet! When I was in Ohio USA the annual temp fluctutaion might be -20C winter night to 38C summer day, and out of the city the wild life thrived
Far too many people making a living out of enviro scares
mkelly,
You can’t apply Wein’s Law here, because that applies to a blackbody, which individual certainly objects are not. All complex molecules emit in the IR spectrum as a result of losing vibrational energy. The exact wavelength depends on the chemistry (molecule, atoms, bonds, etc.), not the temperature.
See here for a good course in chemistry and radiation. There are many elements there I do not agree with, but you are safe in the area of pages 8 to 24.
Has anyone ever calculated (at least as an estimate) the actual heat release from mankind’s combustion of fossil fuels for some period of time up to the present? That heat has to go somewhere into our environment. It will of course eventually leave the planet as a long-delayed balancing release of solar radiation that was captured by life eons ago.
But is it totally unreasonable that a measurable contribution to the warming of the planet might come directly from combustion?
NickB.,
I’m doing nothing more than explaining how GHGs work, and why any GHG effect would actually be stronger, not weaker, in winter and at night. I don’t care what people choose to believe about AGW (well, I do, but I’m not touching that here and now at all), as long as those beliefs are firmly rooted in knowledge and understanding, and not a fallacious grasp of science.
To those of you who think that flooding in Fargo is the result of global warming, I can tell you that I grew up in a town on the Red River of the North in the 1960s and 1970s. We had plenty of major floods then, and learned in history class of large floods going back to the time of the earliest settlements.
To really understand what’s going on, check the excellent link first posted by Bill Parsons. http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/2007/55/pdf/finalWebGIP55.pdf Take a good look at the 3D topograhic that forms the background for that page. And be sure to look at the summary of factors affecting the floods, that is found at the far right of the page.
VicV,
Yes. It has been calculated, and if we burned every ounce of fossil fuel on the planet it is still the merest, tiniest fraction of the energy that the planet absorbs and sheds every day from the sun. It seems powerful because we are able to so easily harness the energy from it (as compared to the power of the sun), but in terms of heat generated… not so much.
Once again Willis, you have shown that this emperor has no clothes.
On the other hand, to follow Monty Python’s ‘Meaning of Life,’ which appears to be one of the AGW camp’s main sources of inspiration, could this catastrophic North Dakota warming be the ‘last wafer’ tipping point that finally ignites the planetary fever?
Or cause more volcanoes in North Dakota? Or Nevada?
And I’m very concerned about New Jersey since the governor just slashed their spending on their valiant AGW research-industrial complex, exposing that state to the full cascading effects of that heat wave. Those refugees may need to flee to Pennsylvania where the climate has apparently been stabilized by the heroic efforts of Mann.
Or will Maine be the last refuge for humanity?
Boris (09:44:36) writes:
“But somehow, I must have missed all of the headlines about the temperature calamities that have befallen the poor residents of the benighted state of North Dakota.”
Yeah, Willis, you missed the record floods of recent years.
————
Boris you need to read some history, and learn about how land use changes and channelization can impact apparent flood levels.
sphaerica (11:39:18) :
I’m doing nothing more than explaining how GHGs work, and why any GHG effect would actually be stronger, not weaker, in winter and at night. I don’t care what people choose to believe about AGW (well, I do, but I’m not touching that here and now at all), as long as those beliefs are firmly rooted in knowledge and understanding, and not a fallacious grasp of science.
It was more of a curiosity question than anything – apologies if it came across the wrong way. It wasn’t intended if it did 🙂
That is the interesting part about the conversation in general, especially once you start looking at anthropogenic surface changes. I jokingly refer to it as the chicken and the egg. For example, concrete production causes CO2, but the roads sidewalks and buildings its used for change the equilibrium of the earth’s surface creating UHI. We know by lab tests that CO2 should have some effect on the behavior of the atmosphere – we also know by simple observation that UHI, on the scale we create it, have a real effect too. How much is one vs. the other?
…and that’s assuming all of our impact is measurable and not just noise in the grand scheme of things.
This is a silly thread, pursuing a red herring.
The AGW proposition is that there is a temperature increase that is at least proportional to the increase of CO2 concentration. Were this hypothesis true, then recognizing it early would allow for corrective action so that the increase doesn’t become a problem. The few tenths we have seen so far is not a problem except to the extent that it could be an indication of what is to come.
Fortunately the AGW hypothesis appears to be false.
It is pretty clear that there is a thermostat somewhere, and it looks to be near the equator, so that the temperature rise is not proportional to the CO2 concentration, but the rate of increase of the CO2 concentration. Imagine a big room with an air conditioner in it, and a thermostat near the air conditioner. The area near the air conditioner will have a near-constant temperature, but the rest of the room will be warmer if the outside temperature goes up.
CO2 production is in the higher latitudes, and the thermostat is near the equator. That’s why most of the warming seems to occur at he high latitudes.
Willis, please incorporate this reasoning into your thermostat hypothesis, and also make use of the fact that there seems to be a clear correlation between the satellite observed temperature anomaly and the rate of increase of the Mauna Loa CO2 (http://www.2bc3.com/warming.html). This model fits the lack of temperature rise over the last decade accurately, and also predicts a return to a minor temperature rise when the economic recovery happens. (All bets are off if Laki goes off.)
What’s your share of the Cap & Tax bill? Check it out on Fox – http://www.foxnews.com/topics/climate-change-initiatives.htm
sphaerica (11:39:18)
It nice to see a dispassionate contribution from your side, the side where you “don’t care what people choose to believe about AGW (well, I do, but I’m not touching that here and now at all).”
But on your blogsite, as is typical for True Believers, you paint all skeptics with a broad stroke of hyperbole, then proclaim your prescience by telling us how it’s going to be.
Willis,
Just as a general commentary, I find your posts to be very hit-or-miss. That is, I occasionally find your arguments compelling and well thought out, but then you come up with something like this North Dakota vs. The Globe comparison.
First, the issue of scale. Are we really going to look at an area the size of North Dakota and extrapolate the effect (or lack thereof) of climate change to the rest of the world? Why not just pick a city and do the same thing? Or just measure the temperature in your backyard and draw conclusions about the (non-) effects of climate change? Ridiculous.
Second, for decades now scientists have been pointing out that even “modest” changes in global temperatures have serious consquences for the atmospheric capacity to hold moisture, for example. Or the fact that a given volume of water (e.g. oceans) expands as its temperature increases. Or the fact that dissolved oxygen in aquatic ecosystems is inversely related to temperature. What you perceive to be “small” changes are, in fact, critically important for numerous ecosystems that indirectly support human life. This is not new information, simply information you and your cohorts have chosen to ignore.
It is exactly this sort of “out of sight, out of mind” mentality that has resulted in numerous environmental and public health disasters in the Industrial Age. I would urge you to assume a more holistic view of ecology in your future commentaries.
For an example of how important a few degrees in the winter can be, do some reading about the bark beetle in the Western U.S. To sum up: the “slight” elevation of minimum temperatures, which is imperceptable to humans in the absence of instrumentation, results in an excelerated life cycle for the bark beetle, among others. One already observed effect of increased beetle populations has been the large-scale decimation of native tree populations in many areas of the West.
This is an example of the “observe then act” paradigm you seem to be promoting. I must say, I’m quite glad the scientific community at large does not share your myopic view of resource management.
Phil M – The mountain pine beetle AGW poster child is not quite the poster child it appears to be. True, a series of warmer than normal winters did allow them to survive and spread. But they could only do so as they did if they had vast expanses of mountain pine beetle habitat.
The most publicized of these beetle epidemics happened in British Columbia and involved the lodgepole pine. The beetle requires mature pines for habitat and there were vast expanses of even-aged mature lodgepole pines because ‘Smokey the Bear’ thinking suppressed the fires which would have otherwise naturally burned them. No matter how warm the winters were, if not for this unnatural intervention which created this unnatural quantity of beetle habitat, the results would not have been anything like what they were.
And don’t worry. Those forests will grow back. They already are.
sphaerica (11:35:02) : All complex molecules emit in the IR spectrum as a result of losing vibrational energy. The exact wavelength depends on the chemistry (molecule, atoms, bonds, etc.), not the temperature.
OK. I’ll accept that. That is not what is argued in most sites about AGW and CO2 but OK. But let’s be clear black body radiation is constantly being used as the means to show how much W/m2 we get from the sun, what the temperature of the earth would be without GHG’s etc.
So again you show the ineffectiveness of CO2. If the above quote is true that “All complex molecules emit in the IR…” Then O2 and N2, 99% of atmosphere, are what will control the transmission of IR around in the atmosphere. Not something with so small a percent like CO2. So CO2 is vindicated again.
All gases dissipate heat they donot on their own add heat to anything. The air cannot heat the ground.
Now you folks be kind to North Dakota. It is intergalactically famous for its musical scholarship, thanks to one man: Peter Schickele, “Very Full Professor ” of “musicolology” and “musical pathology”, at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople (a little-known institution which does not normally welcome out-of-state visitors).
Thanks to him we have the Periodic Table of Musics, and the rediscovery of the composer P.D.Q. Bach, famous for:
-Canine Cantata: “Wachet Arf!” (S. K9)
-Good King Kong Looked Out
-Trite Quintet (S. 6 of 1)
-“O Little Town of Hackensack”
-A Little Nightmare Music
-Pervertimento for Bagpipes, Bicycle and Balloons
and much more.
This is impressive stuff!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schickele
This fact has always been one of many AGW dirty little secrets. The overnight lows are higher and the winter is less cold. The world is not burning up.
Warmer winters might persuade more people to remain in North Dakota.
Do a few “tenths of a degree changes over a century “matter?
I certainly understand your question and your logic. However, I do not think that we can dismiss quickly a degree or two. I suspect few people believe that the LIA was more than 1 or 1.5 degree cooler for GMT; however, the Thames froze and glaciers advanced and crops suffered. On the other hand, from February 98 to February 08, GMT dove almost one degree with little impact. How and WHEN a small change in GMT can lead or would lead to noteworthy impacts appears to be a poorly explained phenomenon in climate science.
How can tenths of a degree in one state be measured, when the recording accuracy was 1 degree ?
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ohx/dad/coop/EQUIPMENT.pdf page 11
VicV,
I calculated the total specific heat of all energy (except fossil groundwater) released into the atmosphere for the last 100 years and got 0.2 C or roughly one third of the observed increase of the surface temperature. The ground water production adds about .6 C per decade, which would indicate a temperature relief valve somewhere.
Since the relative humidity of above 700 mb has been decreasing since 1948 according to NOAA measurements, it appears to me that water is being displaced due to partial pressure decrease of water due to increasing carbon dioxide content, probably in or near the Tropopause due to some crossing of the 300 mb and 400 mb lines near that level. I don’t understand the radiation physics at that level so am relying on thermodynamics and equilibrium considerations.
There are some who believe that these the sun overpowers fossil fuel heat and ground water energy releases. However, I suspect that addition of new energy into the earth’s atmosphere should be treated on a differential basis.
Sphaerica,
Regarding anthropogenic heating, .03 W/m2 (most recent year I could find was 15.8 TW in 2006) is small, but still 3x bigger than the contrails forcing that was included in the IPCC assesment. It is also left out of the models. There is no excuse for that.
Phil M
Alarmist scientists also claim that AGW will cause earthquakes and, now, volcanic eruptions. People say all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons.. but consider this: do you really think this change in the greenhouse effect is capable of controlling the oceans? Atmospheric temps are one thing, but extrapolation of this to the ocean is a different ball of wax. It holds 1000x the energy of the atmosphere.
“Now, if tenths of a degree changes over a century “matter” for the globe, they certainly must matter for parts of the globe.”
The entire argument for this article rests on this single, unsupported assumption. What’s more, the part of the globe that was selected to illustrate the main point (the continental United States) lies in a temperate zone where direct impacts of climate change would be much more difficult to detect.
It seems as if very few of the commenters here have noticed this. . . in fact it seems like a bunch of like-minded individuals nodding heads in agreement.