Guest essay by Neil Catto
The other day I conducted a presentation using the UK CET, like I have on several occasions. Along with explaining it as the longest recognised instrumental record of historical temperature anywhere on Earth, it is the best record we have to understand long the past.
Fig 1 Central England Mean Monthly Temperatures 1659-2012
As part of this presentation I point out that the temperature from 1659 to 2012 has only increased 0.87 Deg C in 353 years, or equivalent to 0.025 Deg C/decade. Considering this is a recovery period from the Little Ice Age it is hardly surprising and just part of natural variation. At this stage I normally get a few “really?” questions.
“The UK MetOffice’s own figures”, I reply.
The other day however was a bit different, someone in the audience asked “so how long will it take to get to the dangerous 2 Degrees C?”
Pause, why hadn’t I worked that one out before? Quick calculation done, 800 years I replied.
“Say again?”
I recalculate, and say “800 years given the current trend”. Gobsmacked audience!
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We probably had 2C warming in the 1930s but that has been adjusted and hidden. That’s when most of the high temp records were recorded, in the US at least.
Hear, hear!
Well done. Thank you for all the time and effort you have dedicated to prevent Envirostalinist tyranny. John Milton would have written a sonnet in your honor, O Valiant Defender of Our Liberties.
Heh-heh. Well done. And the time will be extended further by 2016. At some point late in my lifetime it may reach the point of ‘never’.
One can also ask, “Just what is the right temperature?” or “What is the temperature supposed to be?” Sea levels have risen 5 feet in the last 8,000 years (times and elevations approximate for discussion) and we are suddenly concerned about the last few inches.
Good answer.
Also, follow it up with other questions?
2 degrees… from where? (why pick that spot?)
What is the most alarming period of warming on the chart? (1680-1750).
That was more than two degrees from trough to peak.
What sort of catastrophic climate change happened in 1750? From my history, i think it was party time in Brittan
“I recalculate, and say “800 years given the current trend”
Yeah, but probably have some warming effect from higher CO2 levels.
Thank you for this. That this is the met Office’s figures is surely damning!
It never hurts to recheck your figures, as I was told many years ago and have passed on to others measure twice or thrice cut once, and nowadays don’t “model” it on made up numbers.
I was once in a workshop where one of the drawing office guys was known as “do it to the drawing” after being told that if you followed the dimensions on the drawings he did things ended up on sky hooks or on another drawing the internal dimensions were greater than the overall measurement. Boy was that hard to make!!!!!!!!
James Bull
Only 800 years? Oh my, it’s worse than previously thought.
Stephen Rasey says: October 30, 2013 at 11:31 pm
Well, yes, relative to France. We were preparing to win the 7 Years War that was brewing. Paris had riots (again) and Prussia was being expansionist (no comment).
If this relates to climate (and it might) then the nation surrounded by water may well be slowest to be affected.
Of course, I don’t know if catastrophic climate change happened in 1750 but the fact that Britain was on the way up is not proof that there wasn’t.
I hope someone is hanging on to the original data here, as it sure looks like someone in the Establishment overlooked doing the usual ‘adjustments’.
I’ll be 867 years old then, I ‘m not sure my constitution will be up to that sort of temperature rise.
Something must be done!
In
17817 years.At the rate over the last 17 years? Hmm.. I calculate approximately ∞ years.. ¯\ (ツ) /¯
Anthony: I believe the CET published figures are ‘adjusted’ before release. Are they any more reliable?
The actual temperature rise might be less because of the enhanced heat island effect that relatively speaking is a fairly recent phenomena. In the 1701 century the population of Britain was 5.5 million, 100 years later it was 9 million, with most people living in the countryside. Now the population is 60 million with most people living in cities with airports which is where many of the air temperatures are measured.
It gets better or worse depending on one’s view of whether lukewarm warming is or is not beneficial. It will take 800 years for the planet to warm 2C assuming 100% of the past warming was due to the increase in atmospheric CO2. Now if Shaviv’s calculation is correct (see attached link for details) and 75% (0.54C ± 0.12C) of the warming in the last 100 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes then the planet will cool roughly 0.5C if the very recent grand maximum of solar magnetic cycle activity is followed by a grand minimum. The cooling will last for 80 to 120 years.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/solar/
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
Spoere-type minima have a duration of about 120 years, and Maunder-type minima have a duration of about 80 years. The decadal C14 record in recent 10,000 years shows about 20 events of increase in C14 content, indicating there were 20 grand solar minima in the last 10,000 years or one grand minimum every 500 years. Following analysis of the data, Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.
http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/uploads/media/Shaviv.pdf
Here in NW Italy we have the historical proofs (i.e. written records, mainly by official fiscal autorities of that time) of the production of olive oil referring to the X – XI – XII centuries. From an agricultural point of view, this fact demostrates that the climate was AT LEAST 1° C WARMER than today, with no frost episodes during the winter. So, we have had a catastrophic DECLINE of 1° C….
Uhhh… 800 years, assuming the warming continues. If you had given that presentation a few hundred years before the Little Ice Age, I suppose your audience might have been asking how many years before the glaciers would return. Global temperature, she goes up. Global temperature, she goes down. Up, down. Up, down.
Given that the last one hundred years has been utterly void of any kind of noticeable technological advance or revolutionary invention or any life-changing scientific breakthrough, then in eight centuries time (about 70 x family generations), no doubt humans will be completely incapable of thinking of ways to adapt – given the current trend – to TWO whole degrees of warming. However, I hear that if we spend everyone’s money on filling our planet with millions of wind turbines whilst removing every last drop of man-made CO2 from the air before 2020, it will solve their problem for them. We need to help them get through it. They’ll never cope. We need to act now before it’s too late. (sarc off).
…I’m inspired to form a new not-for-profit corporation, 800.org! /sarc
If we consider the CET time series of the last 100 years, al the warming is centered in two steps. The first step is perhaps in 1935 and the second (the main) is centered in 1987. This latter is the result of a well known abrupt change of phase of the NAO. The abrupt character of these changes make difficult the adoption of a generalized approach bases on trends (more specifically the trend analysis should be limited to the homogeneous sub-periods) and gives the idea that an approach based on the analysis and forecast of the discontinuities determined by changes in macroscale circulation is the most suitable for this kind of time series.
@CRS, DrPH says:
October 31, 2013 at 3:26 am
“…I’m inspired to form a new not-for-profit corporation, 800.org! /sarc”
Leave the ‘/sarc off.’ I like it! Set up a little site and I’ll join. If 4-5 others here are of the same mind, you’ll have more members and traffic than 350.org.
Just a small quibble…0.87Deg/353years = 0.00246 X 100 = 0.246deg/century. Not 0.025deg/cent. Small typo, I know, but we moan at inaccuracies by the AGW proponents. It makes the difference between your, correct, 800 years and 8000 years…
Mmmm so by 2650 we will see all the benefits of increased temperature provided we aren’t falling into a Maunder Minimum or worse which might be worth it to see the shock and horror on the face of Warmists
[2065 ? ]