People send me stuff.
Reader Kurt writes:
I just found your excellent website and have book marked it and will visit it often for updates. One simple question the global warm-mongers have never been able to answer is…
…that if in fact warming is taking place as they claim, what then is the optimum temperature of the Earth? Can they give us a number? is it 55 degrees? 78 degrees? 85 degrees? 98.6? Al Gore says the Earth has a fever – then what is the “normal” temperature?
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I thought about that long and hard, and thought to myself that it is sort of like a “Goldilocks” subjective temperature for porridge:
At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.
“This porridge is too hot!” she exclaimed.
So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.
“This porridge is too cold,” she said
So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge.
“Ahhh, this porridge is just right,” she said happily and she ate it all up.
But what is “just right” for Earth’s temperature? Depending on who you might ask, I suspect you’d get different answers.
The Neanderthals, who lived through the last ice age, 10,000 to 70,000 years ago, might say “uggghaa bok mak!” or in present language “warmer than it is now!”.
Ancient Greece, living in their age of enlightenment, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC might remark “είναι σωστό τώρα, τον πολιτισμό μας ευδοκιμεί” or “it is correct now, our civilization is thriving”.
The Romans, who lived through the Roman Warm Period from 250 BC to 400 might say “frigus quam praesens placere” or “cooler than the present please”.
During the Islamic Golden Age of expansion, 622-750AD, They might argue the temperature was “just right” for them.
In the Medieval Warm Period, from about AD 950 to 1250, when humanity started to thrive, they would probably say the porridge was “just right”.
Right after that, the Vikings in Greenland would probably have asked Onan Odin for some extra warmth.
During the Little ice Age, from 1300-1850 it would seem certain most people would ask for it to be warmer, especially since it had such a well documented negative effect on human history.
As for now for 1850 to present? Well, it just safe to call it the tail end of the Holocene Climatic Optimum although some people think it is too warm and are actively campaigning to reduce Earth’s temperature.
After thinking about how those previous civilizations in time might perceive their preferred temperature, and thinking about Kurt’s question, I realized that it might very well be an intractable problem, aka the Gordian Knot:
“Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter”
(Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47)
Or as Dr. Judith Curry once remarked to Congress:
Climate change can be categorized as a “wicked problem.”
As to the answer to Kurt’s question, the best answer I can offer would be this:
A temperature at which the widely geographically varied and widely climate adapted human civilizations and cultures can go about their lives without undue hardship.
But what is that optimum “just right” temperature numerically? Well, first it is a local-versus-global problem. A local temperature suitable for the Eskimos isn’t likely to be suitable for the indigenous people of the Amazon. Second, it is a question of global average.
The average temperature of the Earth is said to have been and is:
Between 1961 and 1990, the annual average temperature for the globe was around 57.2°F (14.0°C), according to the World Meteorological Organization.
In 2011, the global temperature was about 0.74°F (0.41°C) above that long-term average, according to the WMO’s estimates.
Source: UCAR/NCAR
So if we are to accept those numbers, our current global temperature is 57.2 + 0.7 = 57.9°F
Between 1961 and the present, Earth’s human population has gone from 3 billion to 7 billion, more than doubling, and in that time the global temperature changed only 0.7F according to UCAR/NCAR. Given the population growth, you could say that slight temperature rise has increased the human condition to a more favorable environment.
But, honestly, I don’t think the global temperature matters much in the scheme of things, because despite gloom and doom predictions of global warming to kill millions by 2030, the projections are still upwards:
![pop_005[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/pop_0051.gif)
I think it is science and adaptation that matters more than global temperature:
![World_Population_Chart[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/world_population_chart1.jpg)
Source: http://econosystemics.com/AphetaBlog/?p=9
So probably, the best path forward from here is to shrug our shoulders at global warming, and to simply adapt, as mitigation (given the performance we’ve seen from current schemes to reduce Earth’s temperature) will be a true Gordian knot that will likely bankrupt us in the process.
Besides, our current warming from posited greenhouse gas effects may actually be helpful to us, because in climatic terms, there’s this maxim of mine:
If you don’t like the Earth’s climate, just wait a millennium.
And that is not too far ahead it seems, E.M Smith writes in Annoying Lead Time Graph
This graph from TheInconvenientSkeptic bothers me.
It bothers me because of what it says.
What it says, by two different modes of reading, is that we have no business being warm right now…
![LI-Holocene[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/li-holocene1.png)
Click to enlarge
Is there an optimum planetary climate temperature for Humans? Irrelevant. Humans migrate to areas of greatest food stability. Why? It should be obvious, the planet being a sphere creates lateral zones of climate from cold to hot. As energy input to the earth changes so do the lateral climate zones of optimal crop and game density for habitation. Humans adapt by moving as the climate zones move. E.g. as energy input increases, the lateral zone moves north (warming of colder areas) and visa versa.
Price Waterhouse is apparently in on the scam:
http://press.pwc.com/GLOBAL/News-releases/current-rates-of-decarbonisation-pointing-to-6oc-of-warming/s/47302a6d-efb5-478f-b0e4-19d8801da855
We now know that accounting firms (PW), banks (World Bank), UNEP, and energy analysts (IEA) are in on the global warming research grant racket. That money must dwarf what the oil and coal companies are making these days.
Re the above comments about a warming world, and prior cited warm periods: the Arctic icecap could be gone in 2015. This has never happened since humans first evolved three million years ago.
I read 80 comments into Anthony’s “Goredian” knot and read not one reference to his original blog title, i.e. an “intractable problem” albeit one misspelled.
We don’t find ourselves between the devil and the deep blue sea with CAGW, this is no Gordian knot: We here all have become the Alexander and sliced the knot with the sword of facts and truth. There is no way back for those that tied the knot in the first place to attempt to tie it again.
Peter Miller says:
January 1, 2013 at 3:06 pm
…..I am never quite sure what global temperature CAGW cult members would like to see, but circa 1850 seems like a good bet. At that temperature profile, global famine would once again be widespread.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
All the evidence I have seen so far indicates there are those who would very much like to see global famine as a means to thin out the human herd and many of them are warmists. Politicians certainly do not seem to care that their policies are killing off the old and the poor in the UK and the EU.
“I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist… I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus. ~ Prince Phillip
Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren wrote:
As a geologist I would add two other questions:
What is the ideal atmospheric CO2 concentration?
What is the ideal continental arrangement?
Maybe we should focus more of our attention to the last question. At the moment Australia is heading towards the equator which seems a less than optimal situation for the species sequestered here. I live in daily terror of what will happen to the poor marsupials when we blunder across the Wallace Line. Oh! the humanity!
@A Crooks: Watch what you wish for. I won’t be surprised at all if in the next election in Australia is won by somebody who swears there will be no tax on human activities causing continental drift.
Steven Mosher said “Consider now, that during the LGM when it 2C-4C cooler than today, the primary supply of energy, the sun, delivered the same TSI as today. Insolation was the same. c02, however, was about 200ppm, or half. C02 has doubled from the LGM and temps are about 2-4C warmer.”
Did you consider the drop in albedo from LGM to present? How much is global average albedo going to drop headed into the future? Ans: not much because the reduction in land glaciers and Arctic ice are localized in small areas and do not make a lot of difference to albedo globally.
Did you consider decreased dust in the present compared to the LGM? That would also account for some of the warming. Will there be a further drop in dust to help raise temps in the future? Ans; not likely.
The bottom line is that comparing LGM and the present only looking at CO2 and temperature cannot yield any kind of numeric approximation of sensitivity, not even a crude one.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 1, 2013 at 1:06 pm
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Thank you Mr. Eschenbach. Stated far more eloquently than I possibly could have done, especially the part regarding actual current suffering versus theoretical future suffering. That really is a philosophical and moral argument that doesn’t seem to be discussed much.
Happy New Year to yourself, Anthony, and to all the denizens of WUWT!
Are you the former weatherman or his namesake the Oxford don?
Our survival may depend on burning fossil fuel (locked up CO2 that used to be topside) as a mechanism to bolster CO2 that allows for greater food production as the population increases AND extremely cheap energy to drive our economies of food production. I tire of any mongering that claims otherwise. China is doing it right. Burn that coal.
As for the subject at hand, pray for a bit warmer. In the mean time my thermostat is set at 71 F whether it be -65 F or +125 F. Now that is what I call adaptability. Praise necessity for the mother of invention and warmth for the mother of leisure time and CO2 for growing the barley and hops and grapes and other products of fineries.
Steven Mosher says:
Insolation was the same. c02, however, was about 200ppm, or half. C02 has doubled from the LGM and temps are about 2-4C warmer. Thats a very rough and crude approximation to give you a sense of how sensitive the climate is to doubling c02. 2-4C per doubling.
Correlation does not prove causation and there is an inconvenient piece of information missing in the example you provided. The increase of temperature PRECEDED the increase in CO2 by several hundred years.
The typical warmist argument then shifts gears to claim that may be so but CO2 gets high enough to ‘take over’ later on to which I always reply – “So then why didn’t the temperature just keep on going up? And MUCH more inconvenient is to also explain HOW temperatures dropped later in the cycle to cause the next ice age with so much CO2 in the air?”
From 130K to about 115K YA CO2 was rather steady at an ice core reading of about 270, (which could be representative of a much higher value if you consider plant stomata counts), but temperature is steadily declining. Just looking at the graph with no other climate knowledge about the two excepting the idea that somehow ‘CO2 controls temperature’, any systems engineer would immediately tell you that CO2 is obviously a negative feedback causing temperature to decrease.
Sorry my lame attempt at html didn’t work to embed the chart – http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/graphs/vostok-ice-cores-150000%20med.jpg
Steven Mosher, thanks again for your post. One thing you said led me to an interesting insight:
What I realized was that we should be able to tell whether temperature is driving CO2 or CO2 driving temperature by looking at the Vostok ice core records that you implicitly refer to above.
The difference is, the relationship between CO2 concentration is said to be logarithmic, whereas going the other way, the CO2 concentration is said to be, at least to a first approximation a linear function of temperature.
The trick to doing the analysis, therefore, is to see whether the relationship between ice core CO2 and temperature is linear or logarithmic. Fortunately, the values are small enough at the low end to give us a fairly wide range, so if the logarithmic relationship works better, it should be obvious. The CO2 values over the last 400 kyrs has a max of about 300 and a minimum of about 180.
Accordingly, I used the Vostok CO2 and temperature records from the CDIAC to look at the relationships. The linear relationship between CO2 and temperature has an R^2 of 0.68.
The relationship between temperature and the logarithm of CO2 has an R^2 which is slightly less, 0.66. In other words, we do not find that a logarithmic relations is better than linear, it is actually slightly worse.
Given the known lag of the change in CO2 with respect to the change in temperature, somewhere around half a millennium, and this lack of evidence that CO2 is the cause (no logarithmic relationship) I have to conclude that temperature is driving the CO2 and not the other way around.
All the best,
w.
I hate to make the alarmists’ arguments for them, but I think I have a reasonable answer to this question. While there is no scientifically valid meaning of the “correct” temperature, we can assert that massive modern infrastructure has been built around the assumptions of a 20th Century climate and especially a 20th Century sea level. Major deviations frm this, anthropogenic or otherwise, will be expensive and inconvenient.
An equation based on rational physics that, without considering any influence from CO2 whatsoever and using only one independent variable (the sunspot number), has calculated average global temperatures since they have been accurately measured world wide (about 1895) with an accuracy of 88% (R2 = 0.88, correlation coefficient = 0.938). Including the influence of CO2 (a second independent variable) increased the accuracy to 88.5%. This demonstrates that atmospheric CO2 has no significant influence on average global temperature.
When calibrated to measurements thru 1965 and using actual sunspot numbers, it predicted the average global temperature trend value in 2005 within 0.054°C. When calibrated thru 1995 and using actual sunspot numbers, it predicted the average global temperature trend value in 2011 within 0.004°C. The analysis includes the flat temperature trend of the last decade. The equation, links to the methodology and source data are at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true. No one else has used the time-integral of sunspot numbers or been anywhere near this accurate.
The equation is valid as demonstrated by accurate calculation and prediction including the flat temperature trend since 2001. Results are shown in graphs. When calibrated through 2011 and using predicted sunspot data, the equation predicts an average global temperature downtrend for at least two more decades.
I vote for alligators at the north pole.
1. If we need the space, we’ll evict them. That’s the advantage of being the dominant species on the planet.
2. w/m2 varying with T raised to the power of 4….envelope…scratch scribble figure….temps in the tropics change by…. not much. Actually, a bit less.
3. We lose some low lying areas to rising sea levels, but gain back 10x in arable land that is currently unproductive.
4. The land that is currently productive becomes even more productive.
5. High value low lying land can be protected by dykes and other strategies instead of being abandoned in some cases. The cost will be paid for by dramatically lower damage from intense storms in both frequency and intensity. In fact, we’ll wind up ahead, probably by a factor of two or three.
6. Increases in air conditioning costs will be off set by reductions in heating costs. We’ll save 62.716% on fossil fuel consumption as a consequence.
The above numbers have been arrived at by climate science standards, meaning that I have calculated them to three decimal places though there might be a slight odor due to the place I pulled them out of.
Gail Combs, thank you for a very interesting post about my comment. I hadn’t thought about there being some ultimate minimum on the CO2, and your logic seems very clear on that. As an aside, I actually would like to see about 2000 ppm CO2, as that optimizes plant growth very nicely. However, when I mention that much CO2 some people appear to go into cardiac arrest. Hopefully this posting is far enough down to not be seen by too many people. I would actually like to see crocodiles frolicking in warm water at the north pole, also, but since there isn’t a land mass there currently that could be hard on the crocodiles. Cheers.
Glenncz thanks that what I needed, problem with reading all the comments I’m not always sure where I read stuff.
So based on Team IPCC logic, to save the AR5 adjust the mean to 13.5C and look its warming again.
So the absence of a designated mean is normal climatology,its an Alice in Wonderland value, more arguing with the mist.
Whats that phrase Alex Rawls uses? Fraud by omission, IPCC all the way.
Steven Mosher says:
“Consider now, that during the LGM when it 2C-4C cooler than today, the primary supply of energy, the sun, delivered the same TSI as today. Insolation was the same. c02, however, was about 200ppm, or half. C02 has doubled from the LGM and temps are about 2-4C warmer. Thats a very rough and crude approximation to give you a sense of how sensitive the climate is to doubling c02. 2-4C per doubling.”
Consider now that TSI is the same at an hour after sunrise as it is an hour before sunset. The temperature can vary greatly between these two times but the cricket chirp frequency always correlates to temperature. Obviously, cricket chirp frequency has more effect on temperature than TSI.
[LGM = ??? Be careful of unusual abbreviations. Mod]
Peter Miller says: January 1, 2013 at 3:06 pm
This is a great comment and certain to give CAGW cult members an apoplectic fit.
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Yes, my name is on their list and it is circled in red. One of my pleasures is to provoke them into imprecations against my grandchildren. I find that telling the truth is the fastest way to achieve this.
“Cult members” is an apt term, it fits.
davidmhoffer says:
January 1, 2013 at 7:12 pm
“I vote for alligators at the north pole.”
You are a good man. All the money saved by not heating homes, etc, can be spent on alligator peripherals, purses, belts, boots, sausages… Further more, we are mostly hairless creatures spending big bucks on clothing to stay warm and more bucks to sit naked in the tropics. No more bulky parkas! Bikini industry sky rockets…exotic rum for everyone! Fancy barge trips through the Northern Territory and Siberia.
Mike Roddy says: January 1, 2013 at 4:58 pm
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Mike Roddy, did you really say that, about kicking Anthony Watts when he is down?
Gail – keep up the excellent posts concerning the agriculture perspective. Thanks.
Tackleberry says: “Major deviations frm this, anthropogenic or otherwise, will be expensive and inconvenient.”
There is no sign that deviations are “major.” There has been a slight increase in temperature readings in the past century, which doesn’t necessarily mean the earth has heated in any meaningful way. The idea that “deviations”–major or minor–will be “expensive and inconvenient” has not been proven. What has been proven to be expensive are premature attempts to mitigate indeterminate “global warming,” particularly when you consider that there may not be any crisis at all. So far, the amounts spent foolishly are difficult to calculate, but tens if not hundreds billions of dollars may have already been wasted.
The idea that global warming, whether anthropogenic or entirely natural, will be catastrophic, dangerous, expensive, inconvenient, or even undesirable is all a matter of conjecture at the moment.
Climate science is in its infancy. When it grows up, get back to us.
The average temperature of Alaska has fallen 2.4F since 2000. This year is looking to be another bone-chiller:
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/forget-global-warming-alaska-headed-ice-age?page=0,0
“The trick to doing the analysis, therefore, is to see whether the relationship between ice core CO2 and temperature is linear or logarithmic.”
Willis, you might consider not using the word “trick” as we see some folks got a little sideways with the word. Maybe consider the word “manner”, or “possible process”, or “methodology”.. 😉 Just trying to help out before hand.
Anthony, I have had two Onan generators; liked them very much so. I thought first of the machine, not the man, in reading your presentation.