Guest post by Marc Hendrickx
The case for dangerous man made global warming hangs on the wall like a frayed medieval tapestry. By pulling just one loose thread the whole thing starts to unravel. We pulled one of those threads recently…
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was recently caught making a mistake in a report on melting ice on Mount Everest. The ABC claimed that “Studies show temperatures are rising faster at Mount Everest than in the rest of South Asia.” When ABC were requested to provide details of the “Studies” they cited Table 10.2 from IPCC’s AR4 Working Group 2 report. However, contrary to ABC’s claims this table showed that the area of fastest rising temperature in South Asia was Sri Lanka, not the Himalaya (and hence not Mt Everest). ABC’s gaffe however served to highlight a few errors made by the IPCC. It turns out the IPCC incorrectly cited references that backed up the Himalayan temperature trends in Table 10.2, citing two conference papers and one peer reviewed paper that related to precipitation, not temperature (also covered in Table 10.2). Additionally references to support the high Sri Lankan temperatures appear to be from conference papers not from peer reviewed journal articles-(Follow references in Table 10.2).
After some digging the original work on the Himalayan temperature trends was found to be:
Shrestha, Arun B.; Wake, Cameron P.; Mayewski, Paul A.; Dibb, Jack E., 1999. Maximum Temperature Trends in the Himalaya and Its Vicinity: An Analysis Based on Temperature Records from Nepal for the Period 1971–94. Journal of Climate, 9/1/99, Vol. 12 Issue 9 pp:2775-2786.
It’s odd that the IPCC could not find more recent to back up its claims of rapid warming in the Himalaya in AR4. Readers may re-call the IPCC has a tainted record in reporting climate change in the Himalaya having been caught out using “grey literature” to back claims that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. These have now been shown to be false and the IPCC has issued a correction.
IPCC’s trend of 0.09º C.yr-1 for the Himalaya cited in Table 10.2 comes from Table 2 of Shrestha et al., 1999. This presents the regional mean temperature trends for the period 1977-1994 (just 17 years) based on a Kriging analysis. This is a geostatistical method of filling data gaps, great when you are calculating the extent of an ore body with loads of drill hole information but not so good when the data are limited, as is the case here. For the Himalaya, the IPCC also cherry pick the highest seasonal value, the figure for winter (0.09º C.yr-1). The annual figure given by Shrestha et al., 1999 is less: 0.057º C.yr-1.
But that’s not the end of the story; let’s look at the paper by Shrestha et al, 1999 in more detail. It provides an analysis of maximum temperature data from 49 stations in Nepal.
The abstract states:
Analyses of maximum temperature data from 49 stations in Nepal for the period 1971–94 reveal warming trends after 1977 ranging from 0.06 to 0.12C yr-1 in most of the Middle Mountain and Himalayan regions, while the Siwalik and Terai (southern plains) regions show warming trends less than 0.03C yr-1. The subset of records (14 stations) extending back to the early 1960s suggests that the recent warming trends were preceded by similar widespread cooling trends. Distributions of seasonal and annual temperature trends show high rates of warming in the high-elevation regions of the country (Middle Mountains and Himalaya), while low warming or even cooling trends were found in the southern regions. This is attributed to the sensitivity of mountainous regions to climate changes. The seasonal temperature trends and spatial distribution of temperature trends also highlight the influence of monsoon circulation.
The Kathmandu record, the longest in Nepal (1921–94), shows features similar to temperature trends in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting links between regional trends and global scale phenomena. However, the magnitudes of trends are much enhanced in the Kathmandu as well as in the all-Nepal records. The authors’ analyses suggest that contributions of urbanization and local land use/cover changes to the all-Nepal record are minimal and that the all-Nepal record provides an accurate record of temperature variations across the entire region.
The time covered for the bulk of stations does not cover a single climate cycle so it’s hard to get excited about the results and we assume someone, somewhere will provide an update to extend the analysis to the present. Of the stations selected for the analysis only 5 stations with records dating from or before the mid 1960s were located in the Himalayan Region: Jiri (elevation-2003m), Okhaldunga (elevation-1720m), Chialsa (elevation-2770m), Chainpur (elevation-1329m), and Taplejung (elevation-1732m). Shrestha et al., 1999 define the Himalaya region in their figure 1 reproduced below.
The location of the stations is shown in the following image from Google Earth, note they are all concentrated in the very eastern part of Nepal (click to enlarge), with none in the western Himalaya, none west of Long 86.23. The vast bulk of the Himalaya is empty of real data.
The temperature trends (Max/Min) for weather stations with records extending back to the early 1960s are shown in Figure 2 of the paper (reproduced below with a red H next to the 5 Himalayan stations-click to enlarge).
We extracted figures for the Himalayan stations and reproduce them in the chart below. It also shows the trend cited by the IPCC of 0.09º C.yr-1 in red.
It’s quite clear the trends of the actual data across the entire record do not support the figures produced in Shrestha’s Kriging analysis, which is limited to 1977-1994. The temperature trends for the Himalayan stations are as follows:
| Station | Max ºC.yr-1 | Min ºC.yr-1 |
| Jiri | 0.063 | -0.044 |
| Okhaldunga | 0.0016 | 0.0045 |
| Chialsa | 0.039 | 0.066 |
| Chainpur | 0.013 | -0.0094 |
| Taplejung | -0.0057 | 0.0036 |
| Average | 0.022 | 0.0041 |
These trends, based on the reported station data, are much lower than the trends reported by Shrestha et al., 1999 and do not appear in any way unprecedented or alarming. The absence of data in the Western Himalaya invalidates the Kriging Analysis (you can’t interpolate into a data void), combine this with the crime of cherry picking recent trends to confuse weather with climate and a big part of the IPCC’s fragile tapestry of dangerous man made global warming suddenly falls through your fingers. All thanks to a loose thread revealed by the ABC.
The Sri Lanka figure jumped out at me, as well. If I had to guess, I’d say that the “2 C/yr” figure for Sri Lanka was a typo for 2 C / century.
While I haven’t been able to find the two cited references, http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/pres_ranjith_punyawardena.pdf cites Chandrapala & Fernando, 1995, listing temperature rates in various parts of the country, in the range of .0104 C/yr to .0364 C/yr.
There’s obviously no way that the 2C/yr figure is correct. As George Grisancich has suggested, it looks like a bit of sloppiness here.
Oops, clarification to my post at 9:32 — those annual rates are for the period of 1961-1990.
And additional information about the Sri Lankan rates, from “Impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in Sri Lanka: a review and preliminary vulnerability mapping” by Nishadi Eriyagama, Vladimir Smakhtin, Lalith Chandrapala, and Karin Fernando. ( http://books.google.com/books?id=zzHuyEW2nDQC ) “The rate of increase in temperature from 1961 to 1990 is 0.016 C per year…Sri Lanka’s 100-year warming tread from 1896 to 1996 is 0.003 C per year…while it is 0.025 C per year for the 10-year period 1987-1996.”
Fuzzylogic19 said:
Where do you find this rubbish? 90% of which glaciers are melting? We don’t know how many glaciers there are, let alone how many may or may not be melting.
According to the USGS (United States Geological Survey) in Alaska alone, there are 616 named glaciers out of an estimated 100,000 glaciers.
Seriously. Nobody has the slightest idea how many glaciers exist, let alone how many are shrinking. I’m sure it would take many hundreds, if not thousands of glaciologists to just study the glaciers in Alaska.
The same argument applies to species loss. We have no idea how many species exist, and therefore no idea how many species we may be losing. Both glaciers and species could be increasing rapidly and we would have no idea.
HaroldW,
I really stuffed up the links in my earlier post on chapter 10, so it’s a bit hard to follow the logic.
Timeline:
Fist Order Draft, 10.2.2 Observed climate trends and variability, Table 10.2 does not have a “change in temperature” entry for Sri Lanka, but does have entries for “Change in Precipitation”, and “References”. Which contain, “Increase trend in February and decrease trend in June” and “Chandrapala and Fernando, 1995; Chandrapala, 1996” respectfully. Clearly, the two references relate to changes in precipitation, not temperature.
The missing entry is noted by Dr. Basnayake in FOD Expert Review Comments. He states:
. Note he said 2.0 C per century.
Dr. Basnayake’s comments are accepted by the lead authors and is then included in the Second Order Draft (SOD) as
Note they changed century to year, and left out the reference as well.
The error is picked up by Xiuqi Fang during the SOD expert review comments ,
, to which the LA responds “Table entries corrected”. Clearly they are not.
Sadly, Dr. Basnayake does not seem to be involved with the SOD as no reviewer comments for him exist.
Clearly, the IPCC statement “2.0 C increase per year” is an error that was pointed out and ultimately ignored. Additionally, the claim is without a citation.
I wonder how many of the above “ex- spurts” have any first hand experience living with glaciers. They are rivers of compacted snow. Snow that has accumulated to a great enough depth to flow down hill to an area where they melt. The glaciers of the Alaskian interiour accumulate snow in areas that are warmer then the dry areas where they terminate as great blue saphires in the gray and brown foot hills. Warm winters of heavy snows cause them to advance and cold dry winters cause them to retreat. For those that have not lived in real snow country, snow falls are the heaviest when the temperature is near freezing and gets lighter as it gets colder. In a town that I lived in, in Alaska, on the coast, the temperature rarely got below freezing while the winter snow fall total might average 100 feet and there would be an accumulation of 20 feet of hard packed ice /snow by spring.Glaciers from this area would flow to the interiour to melt where the temperature would drop to -40F or colder for much of the winter. In the very cold interiour only 20 miles away the winter snow fall accumulation might be only 3 feet of dry snow. In the mountains of California, where I have lived most of my life, the snow fall amounts determine the extents of the permanent ice fields and glaciers and not the local temperature changes. Melt at the terminis is not important, snow in the high country is. The flow rate is set by the snow accumulation in the ice fields of the head of the glacier. Less snow, slower flow. The terminis is in an excess melt area, where the melt is fed by the ice flowing out of the ice fields. Less snow, slower flow, the glacier retreats. More snow, greater flow, the glacier advances.
Bill Tuttle says:
August 7, 2010 at 11:59 am
toby: August 7, 2010 at 11:08 am
It is hard to argue with the video evidence
REPLY: Yes but video is not science. Would prefer a video report from an NGO (the Asia society) then? -A
I’ll see your video evidence and raise with video evidence:
***
And then it came to be that I saw both videos and enlightenment came.
Videos themselves may not be science but what it shows may be, alas, apologies for this basic primary school educational line.
One video shows dramatic glacier retreat as actually observed. The other comes from Doug H Hoffman “The Resilient Earth”, sceptics site, which talks about two glaciers, The Sishian in Kashmere and the Gagotri glacier feeding the Ganges. Behold, it even says that the Gagotri glacier retreated between 1934 and 2003 by 22m per year. Slowed to 12m per year 2004/5 and is now at “standstill” (not my inverted commas)
Another report says that the Gagotri retreated @ur momisugly 21m/yr between 1931-175 and since doubled the speed of retreat.
The himalayas has 7000 glaciers and most cannot be reached, accessible ones are monitored. It doesn’t make sense to claim that because few (15) glaciers are physically monitored out of 7000, to make an assumption that the others are behaving different or opposite. The sites monitored are not “cherrie picked”, they are reacheable and observeable, and isn’t that the best scientific evidence? But don’t video it, because then it is not science. There are some 160,000 glaciers in polar regions globally; must they all be monitored on-site to prove what’s happening? The water running off doesn’t count because it is not ice anymore? Lets stay real please.
This thread is about glaciers melting (or not). Many of the comments have strayed well away from it into “data” grandstanding. Obfuscation at its best.
BTW. The only think you can assume about the glaciers you do not check is that nothing is happening to them. Your suggestion that 15 glaciers (0.21%) are indicative of the other 6,985 is just plain silly.
Fuzzylogic19 says:
“And then it came to be that I saw both videos and enlightenment came.”
Translation:
“I’ve drunk the Klimate Kool Aid.”
Smokey says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:27 am
Fuzzylogic19 says:
“And then it came to be that I saw both videos and enlightenment came.”
Translation:
“I’ve drunk the Klimate Kool Aid.”
***
You must be the world’s worse translator, leave simultaneous translation well alone.
John M: It was a simple question, why evade it? Would it have been right for me to say, in 1999, “Look John M, the world is warming at 0.43°C per decade!”? –
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1989/to:1999/plot/rss/from:1989/to:1999/trend
Why, or why not?
George Grisancich and justcherrypicked, regarding the Sri Lankan temps it seems you have pulled yet another thread from the tapestry!
Fuzzylogic19,
A most excellent handle.
Bottoms up!☺
George Grisancich says:
August 7, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Fuzzylogic19 said:
“The difference today is that 90% or more [glaciers] are retreating and continue to retreat. That puts it on a global scale. Glaciers are the single most important source of fresh water for humanity, we can’t fool around with it. How fast are they melting? That’s a consideration for future generations; that they are melting is beyond dispute.”
Where do you find this rubbish? 90% of which glaciers are melting? We don’t know how many glaciers there are, let alone how many may or may not be melting.
According to the USGS (United States Geological Survey) in Alaska alone, there are 616 named glaciers out of an estimated 100,000 glaciers.
Seriously. Nobody has the slightest idea how many glaciers exist, let alone how many are shrinking. I’m sure it would take many hundreds, if not thousands of glaciologists to just study the glaciers in Alaska.
The same argument applies to species loss. We have no idea how many species exist, and therefore no idea how many species we may be losing. Both glaciers and species could be increasing rapidly and we would have no idea.
***
I’m talking about monitored glaciers and in the case of the himalayas, the behaviour of the monitored ones will reflect the behaviour over the entire 500,000 KM2 of the total area. To pre-empt misconception, I cite the total Himalayan area in which the glaciers exist not implying as some did on this blog site with “glaciergate”, that it (the 500,000 km2) was the surface area of all glaciers.
***
“Seriously. Nobody has the slightest idea how many glaciers exist, …”
***
By “slightest idea” do you mean that there maybe 500,000, a million or 1700? Don’t demean the people working in the field of glaciers with a childish comment.
The total tally at present, of named and unnamed glaciers, is about 160,000 and the number depends entirely on cut off based on size, e.i. too small to count.
Do you really believe that unless we air drop thousands of people on inaccessible glaciers for measuring purposes, we can’t find out if other glaciers are melting besides the ones monitored? May the last surviving glacier tell the story.
How many observers would you, for instance place around Antarctica to measure the sea ice extent shrinking? Would it be 50, 500, 5000, before you would admit that in between there is no doubt similar shrinking? To pre-empt, yes satelites do that better, but that was not the point of the analogy. You know, don’t you?
If in say a 10 Km radius around you the temperature is about 30C, would you feel safe to assume that within the whole area the temperature will be similar? Or would you say sorry, we can’t be sure because there’s no thermometer there. I’m sure that there won’t be skating on natural ice in the middle. Just for clarification, no there’s no mountain there either, or a deep hole filled with Smokey’s “Klimate Kool Aid”. Apologies for driving the point home. Well….kind of. Enjoying an excellent Shiraz right now.
richard telford says:
August 7, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Doug in Seattle says:
August 7, 2010 at 7:47 am
Therefore, it is ok to cite non-peer reviewed literature.
Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:40 am
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
…
The data set in the study you comment on is not useful in determining long term trend. This using of sort term time periods for determining ‘global warming’ has to stop. 29 years is not useful for determining long term climate.
1000′s or 100,000′s of years is what is needed.
That is clearly not true. What would happen to the much-celebrated Mediaeval Warm Period and Little Ice Age if we just drew a straight line trend through the last couple of thousand years of temperature data? What would happen to the last ice age if we used trend lines of hundreds of thousands of years? They would just disappear. That is not ‘determining long term climate’, it’s erasing it. The Earth does have inherent lags due to thermal inertia of the oceans etc., but periods of several decades are long enough to reveal substantial and significant changes in climate, especially in response to the relatively large forcings human activity has been responsible for.
I hope you realize it, but perhaps you do not: Your statement is self-contradictory.
If you would ‘zero-out’ all past climate changes, then you can’t use ANY past climate –or weather– events in reference to current events.
Rather, all you might do is talk about the current matters in what amounts to a vacuum.
No references.
Chicken Little had no references either …
Mike McMillan says:
August 7, 2010 at 10:59 am
[Thanx, typo fixed. ~dbs, mod.]
Reply: Fixed. ~ ctm
Okay, my turn :
The absence of data in the Western Himalaya invalidates the Kriging Analysis (you can’t interpolate into a data void),
No, but you can extrapolate into a data void.
Mike
humble grammar n*zi 🙂
Extrapolate ‘zero,’ i.e., how many times may one ‘extrapolate zero’ and arrive at another number without actually knowing the number?
Certainly, one might surmise, but extrapolate?
Fuzzylogic19 says:
August 7, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Let’s assume all you say is true.
Simple solution: build nukes to desalinate ocean water.
Funding? Cut studies on climate change and use money to build nukes. Also, stop spending money on weapons systems and use money to build nukes. India should do both.
Of course you need a growing economy to embark on any sort of major project. This is why India is rejecting any agreements on CO2 cuts; they need the cheap energy to grow their economy. Same for China.
Which is why CO2 growth in the atmosphere will not stop, no matter what the US does. It doesn’t look as if the US will embrace any sort of carbon tax (by whatever name you give it), but stranger things have been known to happen.
In any event, the experiment continues. We will know, certainly within 30 years, if CO2 is somehow connected to global warming. I don’t see the evidence for it now.
http://www.climate4you.com/ClimateReflections.htm#20080927:%20Reflections%20on%20the%20correlation%20between%20global%20temperature%20and%20atmospheric%20CO2
Glaciers are the latest desperate hot button of the climate alarmist contingent.
The arm-waving over glaciers was instigated by a completely baseless prediction of glacier disappearance by people who should know better, but who go with the bogus numbers because it provides confirmation of their bias; cognitive dissonance at work.
They need to take a step back for once, and accept the fact that a 0.6° temperature rise over the past century [since partially retraced] is not going to vaporize the world’s glaciers.
The natural cycles at work are the result of the planet’s emergence from the Little Ice Age. Attributing those natural cycles to a tiny trace gas is the staple of the alarmist crowd. But like the rest of their scare tactics, it doesn’t pass the smell test.
John Simmons,
I know this isn’t definitive proof of what the IPCC rules are regarding grey literature, but have a listen (if you can stomach it) to Pachauri rattling on.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucf3BWLrw3Y&hl=en_US&fs=1]
Here are a few quotes from Pachauri’s mouth:
“This is not something the authors have made up. This is based on peer reviewed literature. That’s the manner in which the IPCC functions”
“We don’t pick up a newspaper article, and based on that come up with our findings”
“This is based on very rigorous research that had stood the test of scrutiny through peer reviews”
We report. You decide. Peer reviewed only? Not likely.
Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times. We know this from straightforward calculations of historic fossil fuel use (how much coal, oil etc. we’ve burned) and from isotopic analysis of the atmospheric CO2 (fossil fuels have been in the ground for millions of years and therefore have a characteristic and detectable isotopic signature).
Questions for you:
[1] CO2 levels have been far higher in the past, but the temperature didn’t rise. What’s your reason for that?
[2] The temperature has been higher in the past, but the CO2 levels were low. What’s your reason for that?
[3] In the Vostok Ice Cores, temperature –in every case– PRECEDED any rise or fall in CO2. By the evidence then, CO2 is NOT a causative agent, but rather an indicator gas. How do you explain the lagging effect?
[4] Precisely what is a ‘fossil fuel,’ according to yourself?
[5] Since you are wont to declare that the carbon atoms of mineral crude happen to be of a different isotope, are you able to present information which incontrovertibly proves that assertion?
[6] What happens when those different isotopes are absorbed by whatever other natural process? Do they change, or do they remain the same?
Icarus says:
August 8, 2010 at 3:37 am
OK, here’s a simple answer—No. I have no problem saying that the graph you show’d was not “right” for addressing the issue at hand.
The issue at hand is your statement that “The Earth’s climate system is warming at about 0.18°C per decade, with no sign of that even slowing down…”
But perhaps you have a point. What data and what timeframe should we be looking at to statistically validate your claim?
And as long as we’re now sticklers for not evading questions…about that 1910-1940 time period…
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times.
This is not proof. It is conflation. The price of chocolate has also gone up in that time. Chocolate causes global warming.
Oooooh, I dunno.
More it is –I think– the larger consumption of hard-boiled eggs, with a generous serving of chile, and several tankards of fine ale!
😉
Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Human activity has increased atmospheric CO2 by ~100ppm since pre-industrial times.
This is not proof. It is conflation. The price of chocolate has also gone up in that time. Chocolate causes global warming.
I explained how we know that the extra 100ppm of CO2 is due to human activity. What do you think happens to the carbon in fossil fuels when they’re burnt? It combines with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce CO2. That’s what burning means. Where do you think that CO2 ends up? In the atmosphere, obviously. How do we know it’s still there (or at least part of it is)? Because of the changed isotopic composition of atmospheric CO2.
Where is ~your~ proof that CO2 causes warming? Got any?
In controlled lab experiments, said warming doesn’t happen.
Icarus says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 7, 2010 at 4:01 pm
and by ground-based detection of increased downward longwave radiation (Wang 2009). Hence the Earth is warming up, as expected.
The earth is not warming. Please do not make things up. The earth has been cooling since 1998 while manmade co2 continues to rise.
Why do you repeat things which you know are false? The Earth’s climate system is warming at about 0.18°C per decade, with no sign of that even slowing down, let alone stopping. The proof is undeniable.
No sign of slowing? Interesting remark.
People are quite literally FREEZING to death in South America –near the equator– and you’re talking about warming?
Unbelievable!
Marc Hendrickx says:
August 7, 2010 at 5:48 pm
George Grisancich, regarding the very high Sri Lankan temps of 2 degrees per year; the references cited by the IPCC in Table 10.2 are as follows:
Chandrapala, L., 1996: Long term trends of rainfall and temperature in Sri Lanka. Climate Variability and Agriculture, Y.P. Abrol, S. Gadgil and G.B. Pant, Eds., Narosa Publishing House, New Delhi, 153-162.
Chandrapala, L. and T.K. Fernando, 1995: Climate variability in Sri Lanka – a study of air temperature, rainfall and thunder activity. Proc. International Symposium on Climate and Life in the Asia-Pacific, University of Brunei, Darussalam.
Can anyone find a copy of either?
Mark,
You speak of a quandary: All of these/those ‘white papers’ published by the various government organs, reference papers which seemingly can never be obtained by the average citizen –or anyone else– without paying an arm and a leg in the process.
So, we’re summarily expected to believe all of the prognostications put forth by whatever government entity, and hope they get it right.
From where I see things, if ANY agency of whatever government, references whatever paper for the purposes of MAKING A POLITICAL DECISION, then THAT PAPER becomes public property, and is allowed to be read/reviewed/downloaded by everyone requesting it, without charge to the requester, and ALL reference material automatically becomes public property –IF the decision becomes law.
Otherwise, not.