Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Last month (April 2010), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put out a study called “Climate Change Indicators in the United States” (13 Mb PDF). I read through it … depressingly bad science.
To start with, they parrot the findings of the IPCC as their “evidence” that everything we see in the climate record is human-caused. They say:
The buildup of green- house gases in the atmosphere is very likely the cause of most of the recent observed increase in average temperatures, and contributes to other climate changes. (IPCC 2007)
Despite the “very likely” certainty of the IPCC, I see the current level of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate a bit differently, as shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1. Graph showing our understanding of the climate. Image is the painting by J. M. W. Turner, “Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway”.
Having asserted that all changes are due to humans, they then list a bunch of changes, and consider their case as being established. Here’s how they put it:
The indicators in this report present clear evidence that the composition of the atmosphere is being altered as a result of human activities and that the climate is changing. They also illustrate a number of effects on society and ecosystems related to these changes.
Now, that particular statement is very carefully crafted. It is very painstakingly worded so that no one can say that they claimed the changes in climate are caused by the changes in the “composition of the atmosphere” … but heck, if you mistakenly were to assume that, the EPA won’t get in your way.
In other words, CO2 is rising and climate is changing … stunning news.
But that’s just the start. The individual parts of the report are marked by plain old bad science.
Here’s one example among many. This is the record of “heat waves”, which they define as follows:
While there is no universal definition of a heat wave, this indicator defines a heat wave as a four-day period with an average temperature that would only be expected to occur once every 10 years, based on the historical record.
This indicator reviews trends in the U.S. Annual Heat Wave Index between 1895 and 2008. This index tracks the frequency of heat waves across the lower 48 states, but not the intensity of these episodes. The index uses daily maximum temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which keeps records from weather stations throughout the nation. Approximately 300 to 400 stations reported data from 1895 to 1910; over the last 100 years, the number of stations has risen to 700 or more.
The index value for a given year could mean several different things. For example, an index value of 0.2 in any given year could mean that 20 percent of the recording stations experienced one heat wave; 10 percent of stations experienced two heat waves; or some other combination of stations and episodes resulted in this value.
Sadly, although they say they use NOAA data, they don’t say where the data that they used is located. Well, no, actually that’s not quite true. They say:
The data for this indicator are based on measurements from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Network. These weather station data are available online at: www.nws.noaa.gov/os/coop/what-is-coop.html.
Unfortunately, when you go to that URL, there’s no data. There’s just a description of the Cooperative Station Program entitled “What is the Coop Program?” … but I digress …
Regarding heat waves, they say:
The frequency of heat waves in the United States decreased in the 1960s and 1970s, but has risen steadily since then. The percentage of the United States experiencing heat waves has also increased. The most severe heat waves in U.S. history remain those that occurred during the “Dust Bowl” in the 1930s, although average temperatures have increased since then.
Having said that, Figure 2 shows their data for the Heat Wave Index, the linear trend over the entire period, and the change in atmospheric CO2 during the period.
Figure 2. “Heat Wave Index” (yellow line) and CO2 level (red line, right scale). Orange line is the linear trend for the entire period.
You’d think that the only reasonable conclusions from this chart would be that heat waves and CO2 are not related in the slightest, that there is no overall change in the US Heat Wave Index, and that there appears to have been a step change in the data in 1980 … but this being the EPA, you’d be wrong. This is all part of the ‘CO2 is rising and climate is changing’ mantra.
And you would also think that they would give us drought information to go with this. For example, I showed the change (or rather the lack of change) in the Palmer Drought Severity Index from 1895 to 2009 in my post “Come Rain or Come Shine“.
But strangely, rather than report that drought is no more common now than a hundred years ago, they say:
During the 20th century, many indices were created to measure drought severity by looking at trends in precipitation, soil moisture, stream flow, vegetation health, and other variables. This indicator is based on the U.S. Drought Monitor, which integrates several of these indices.
Why is the U.S. Drought Monitor a strange choice for their analysis? Well, because that particular drought indicator only contains data that goes all the way back to … 2000. Not even one decade of data. And of course, their conclusion is:
Because data from the U.S. Drought Monitor are only available for the most recent decade, there is no clear long-term trend in this indicator.
Well, duh … the USHCN maintains several long-term drought indicators which cover the period 1895 – present, so the EPA chose to only report on an indicator with a nine-year record, and then explains that the record is too short to show a trend.
I could give you many more examples, but my stomach won’t take it. This is the US EPA, however, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. My tax dollars at work …
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What’s the EPA doing in the climate business anyhow?
But, if they are going to get into th eclimate biz, then I say we let the do a demonstration project first. Let’s give them Peoria Illinois and see if they can keep it at a nice year-round temperature of 80F with rain on Tuesdays and Thursdays only. (Oh, and snow only during the last week of December, in particular bout 4-5″ on Christmas day.)
When they can figure out and control all of the variables to maintain those conditions in one place, then we’ll talk about the rest of the country.
Brilliant posting, Willis.
I am puzzled by the Klingons. How is it that we have not swept them away? The sceptics have the clarity, the integrity, the wit and the wisdom to see through the AGW myth. And yet they continue to monopolise multinational organizations and government agencies.
I think their success is founded on their political and advocacy skills, about which the laws of physics care not one jot. Climategate hasn’t derailed the AGW gravy train. Will it roll for decades more?
I see only two solutions: mimick the warmists’ political activism (this ain’t going to happen: normal folks don’t have the required monomaniacal fury) or demolish the codswallop science.
If clever blokes like you can prove that there is no Tipping Point, and that CO2 is a useful trace gas not a diabolic pollutant, we stand a chance of dynamiting the scientific underpinning that keeps this hoax standing. The battlegrounds are twofold: Feedback and Sensitivity. Go get ’em, tiger!
This reminds me of a report they wrote in the 1970s about acid rain, and all of the dire consequences to follow if we did not immediately reduce sulfur dioxide emissions-extinction of the Bald Eagle among them (because it feeds on the fish that would be extinct, of course). SO2 emissions are down something like 90% (not a bad thing for many other reasons) but you can check acid rain’s progress at the NAPAP/USGS website. In the most “threatened” areas, the acidity of rainfall is not appreciably different from 1979. Most people’s electric bills are substantially higher. Good science has not been among EPA’s many talents for a long time.
Ecotretas
May 8, 2010 at 1:55 am
Thanks fascinating read.
I don’t understand why the CO2 trend goes flat from about 1935 until about 1948. I realize that The Great Depression was responsible for shutting down about one third of the US economy and that undoubtedly had a negative impact on CO2 emissions. However, at the same time, there was rapid industrialization going on in the Soviet Union, Germany, the Empire of Japan, and probably elsewhere. All of this growth was being driven by massive amounts of fossil fuels. So what is the source of the EPA’s CO2 data? Is this coming from ice core samples?
When you delve into uncharted science, society and especially scientists treat you as a fruitcake even if the evidence, science and math are rock solid.
The big missing part of climate and science in general is the understanding of the mechanics of how and why the atmosphere operates.
Just starting up the barbecue and watching the heat rise is not good science.
When that science bubble of knowledge is broken, it cannot be published as it falls out of the bounds of the current “PEER REVIEW” system. We still are using 300 year old theories as our base in science knowledge.
This science base has been passed down generations and ingrained as absolute when in actual fact, you apply good science and math, they totally self distruct.
Now this would effect the whole educational system.
The dose EXPOSURE makes the poison POSITION. The effect of propaganda.
Ecotretas May 8, 2010 at 1:55 am
Thanks for the link to http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf. Very interesting reading.
Here’s a brief sample:
Most meteorologists argued that they could not find any justification for these predictions. The climatologists who argued for the proposition could not provide definitive causal explanations for their hypothesis.
Early in the 1970s a series of adverse climatic anomalies occurred:
Within a single year, adversity had visited almost every nation on the globe.
I posted this comment about a week ago which concerns other aspects of the report.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-to-wuwt-5/#comment-378670
mb says:
May 8, 2010 at 12:48 am
It seems to me that the graph tells you two things: First, that there was something exceptional going on in the 30s. The heat wave index exploded during that period. Secondly, if we ignore that event, there has been a long time trend of increase in heat waves. In particular, they are definitely more common now than 100 years ago (around 1910).
But is it OK to ignore the exceptional events of the 30s?
plm – since no one else has wasted their time on this: look mb: ok, ignoring the ’29-’38 heat spike (with almost no CO2 spike) and by selectively hacking up the graph: 1) there is evident a decrease in the heat wave index from 1890 – 1968 as there is an opposing and noticeable increase in CO2 level over the same period, while 2) one can observe an increase in the heat index from ’68 – ’07 coinciding with the increased incline of CO2 levels.
So, what’s the point? That there is both a same period increase and a same period inverted relation between CO2 and heat index from 1890 through 2008 if you dissect the graph, while eliminating a fantastic heat spike in the ’30s? The beginning and ending temps (1890, 2008) for each slope happens to result in 0 differential (through mixed slope). Meanwhile CO2 only increases about 105 ppm or 35%.
mb, are you willing to base any kind of conclusion on such selective anecdote? Should the IPCC or EPA base the annihilation of the U.S. economy on such ridiculous self-contradictory, inconclusive, insignificant time period non-evidence? Personally, I want my tax money back and appeal for immunity from future incompetent policy influences.
mb, please, it is really not necessary to ask someone else to explain this. Have a nice weekend.
kmye says:
May 8, 2010 at 1:08 am
“and that there appears to have been a step change in the data in 1980″
Can someone explain this thought in more detail? Thanks!”
Man’s impact on the composition of the atmosphere has been a gradual thing.
If one looks at much of the data there was a ‘step up’ around 1980, rather then a gradual rising slope.
I.E. If ones banks balance hovers around zero for years then suddenly changes to hovering around $10,000 it’s probably not the paltry cost of living raise one gets on a annual basis that caused it, there is probably some ‘event’, like a promotion or inheritance, or change in life style that caused it.
By the very content of your pie chart, Willis, the proportion of each sector is a guess. It is impossible to assign a percentage to what we don’t know we don’t know.
“Gilbert says:
May 8, 2010 at 2:25 am
Your stomach is much stronger than mine. I won’t even try to read it.
I do have an off topic question. It would seem that the evaporation/condensation cycle is in effect, a global air conditioner and should quite literally dwarf any other effect. It should also be possible to calculate this effect from world wide precipitation records. I haven’t yet found any evidence that this has been done. Am I somehow on the wrong track? It does appear to be a process that ties in quite well with your thermostat theory.”
The cycle is called the Hydrologic Cycle – and you are right it dwarfs the effect of the so called ‘green house gases’. It is convection and the hydrologic cycle that spread the Sun’s input heat energy around the world from the tropics up to the poles in giant convective cells which generate the winds and weather. More heat energy is carried to the tropopause by convection and the hydrologic cycle than by radiation.
Nevertheless, the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis depends on using the hydrological cycle only as a positive feedback and more than that a sensitive feedback – hence the talk of tipping points and runaway effects. However, research has been showing continually that the feedback is neutral or negative indeed even some work at NCAR is now showing that low clouds provide a strong negative feedback to warming.
Unfortunately, science now takes a back seat to a voting system or consensus – yet scientific advances occur when the consensus is proven wrong. Insistence on majority voting turns science into a religion with unassailable postulated tenets.
Regarding flat eathers, very few people in the Western world believed in a flat earth after the Classical Greek period. Various acneint Greek scholars worked out the curvature of the earth and found it was a sphere. It seems likely that they got the idea from sailors, who noticed that they could see mountains behind the coast earlier than the coast. The story of sailors being afraid to sail off the edge of the world really is slander.
Bernard of Clairvaux, amongs others, in the twelth century mentioned the globe of the earht quite casually in semons to the peasantry. If the peasants could be told such things without explanation, they must have known about it even if it had to practical meaning to them.
That paper (the EPA) is not science, it’s religion, and you have committed the sin of doubting their prophetic pronouncement. For that, Willis, you will be damned to live in the overheating tropics forever, trapped there by ever increasing jet fuel prices.
Figure 1. Graph showing our understanding of the climate. Image is the painting by J. M. W. Turner, “Rain, Steam and Speed”.
Would you please give a reference for the data shown in Fig 1.
Thanks
\harry
One thing I notice about the AGW community is how much effort is spent telling us there is a truly dangerous, unique problem despite the absence of the same.
You have a graph where you can’t explain the biggest pike. And since you have only one of those pikes, you know your record is probably very short. How can you link a small variation at the end of this graph to CO2? How can I trust this kind of agencies?
Turner’s painting is a good choice to illustrate the results of good science and engineering as opposed to science without proof and review resulting in legislation, regulation, investment and less prosperity.
1) Where is this document referred to as a “study”? As mentioned on page 1, this is a “report”. I’m surprised that such a literate group wouldn’t know the difference, as this document is very clearly providing a synthesis of existing data, indicators, etc. Where do they give the impression that this is original science? Does every government document need to be a comprehensive analysis of climate science intended to satiate every audience? This document is clearly intended as a decision support tool for non-scientists.
2) If the EPA attributes environmental changes to CO2, you get mad. If they don’t, you get mad. Classic.
3) http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/coop/what-is-coop.html. It’s like that link on the left that says “Local Data” is hidden or something.
4) On page 27 they discuss their selection of the U.S. Drought Monitor data and rationale for excluding other historical datasets. They also provide a citation for one of many studies discussing drought indices.
5) “This is the US EPA, however, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
And you shouldn’t be surprised that when a company contaminates soil or water supplies, EPA steps in makes the company pay for clean-up, not the tax payers. Or that EPA is the reason we all enjoy safe drinking water. Or more generally, that EPA is checking every single chemical used in every industry to make sure the harmful ones aren’t discharged in a way that is risky to the biological systems of the US, including humans.
I could give you more examples, but I need more coffee.
Also, did you know a heat wave is based on historical records. So if the whole summer is pretty hot, your body will get accustomed to this heat. Now a heat wave based on historical records won’t affect you as much. But it would still count as a heat wave.
So are you surprised they have more heat wave on hot year? Science could easily prove that heat waves are less dangerous in a hot year breaking the warmists fear stories.
Harry Lu says:
May 8, 2010 at 6:54 am:
“Would you please give a reference for the data shown in Fig 1.
Thanks”
Willis explains in the article that the pie chart is his personal opinion:
The pie chart makes the point visually, and does it very well.
Willis’ pie chart makes an informed guess on the state of climate knowledge. My guess is that the two smaller pieces would be invisible at the scale shown.
I think guys could say, “What we don’t know we don’t know about girls.”
So what was it again that caused that spike in the 30’s? What we don’t know that we don’t know.