Image Credit: Marathon Nation – Soft Pixel
By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
There have been a number of statements made recently about “Global Warming Deniers”, e.g. “White House: Global Warming Deniers Wrong to Reference Polar Vortex” US News, “Watch The Daily Show mock Trump and other global warming deniers” The Week and “Global warming denier Jim Inhofe: ‘Fewer and fewer’ senators believe in climate change ‘hoax’”. The Raw Story
Given the apparent prevalence of “Global Warming Deniers”, it seems prudent to take a look at the data so that everyone is clear when Global Warming began and what is undeniable. As such, from the following EPICA Dome C Ice Core record from Vostok, Antarctica, over the last 450,000 years Earth has experienced numerous Glacials, commonly referred to as Ice Ages, and Interglacials, like the Holocene Interglacial we are experiencing today:
“The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) refers to a period in the Earth’s climate history when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, marking the peak of the last glacial period.” As such, one could argue that Global Warming began about “19,000–20,000 years ago”.
However, there was “the Late Glacial Maximum (ca. 13,000-10,000 years ago), or Tardiglacial (“Late Glacial”)” which was “defined primarily by climates in the northern hemisphere warming substantially, causing a process of accelerated deglaciation following the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 25,000-13,000 years ago)”. “As such, one could also argue that Global Warming began about “13,000-10,000 years ago”.
Now looking at the GISP2 Ice Core record from Greenland, over the last 10,700 years, you can see the rapid warming that occurred at the end of last Glacial and that the current Holocene Interglacial reached it’s maximum peak between 8000 – 7500 years ago:
Since the peak of the Holocene Intreglacial, Earth has experienced several additional descending peaks, including the Minoan Warm Period between 3500 – 3000 years ago, the Roman Warm Period between 2250 – 1500 years ago and the Medieval Warm Period between 1250 – 750 years ago. The Medieval Warm Period and subsequent Little Ice Age can be seen clearly on the following temperature reconstruction based upon Alexandre, 1987 and Lamb, 1988, found Page 250, Figure 7.1 of IPCC Assessment Report 1:
The Little Ice Age “has been conventionally defined as a period extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, or alternatively, from about 1350 to about 1850, though climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. NASA defines the term as a cold period between AD 1550 and 1850 and notes three particularly cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, and the last in 1850, each separated by intervals of slight warming.” As such, one could argue that Global Warming began in “about 1850”.
However, generally when referring to “Global Warming Deniers” there is an implication that the “Global Warming” that’s being denied is caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions were de minimis in 1850. In fact, anthropogenic CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuels did not become potentially consequential until approximately 1950:
This is why the IPCC only claims to be;
“95% certain that humans are the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s” BBC
As such, one could argue the Global Warming began in “the 1950s”.
However, if you look at the Met Office – Hadley Center HadCRUT4 Global Surface Temperature record for the last 163 years you can see that temperatures didn’t warm during the 1950s, nor the 60s:
In fact it was not until approximately 1975 that temperatures began to rise. As such, one could argue that Global Warming began in approximately 1975.
However, in 2010 Phil Jones was asked by the BBC, “Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?” Phil Jones responded that,”Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different. I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998. So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other.”
The warming during the periods of “1860-1880” and “1910-1940”, before anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions became potentially consequential, is “not statistically significantly different” from the warming during the periods “1975-1998” and “1975 to 2009”. Thus there is no indication that the warming between “1975-1998” and “1975 to 2009” is unnatural, unusual and/or caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Global Warming may have started in 1975, but there is no observable evidence [of] anthropogenic CO2 emission based Global Warming began in 1975. As such, one could argue that anthropogenic CO2 emission based Global Warming began sometime [after] 1975.
However, if you look at following UAH Satellite Lower Atmosphere graph for the last 34 years;
and this NASA GISS Mean Monthly Surface Temperature Anomaly graph for the last 17 years;
you can see that Global Warming stopped in the late 1990s or early 2000s, which has been referred to as “The Pause” in Earth’s temperature. In fact, looking at the Werner Brozek’s recent article, the Pause in each major temperature data set is as follows:
For GISS, the slope is flat since July 2001 or 12 years, 6 months.
For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since July 1997 or 16 years, 6 months.
For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 13 years, 1 month.
For Hadsst3, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 13 years, 1 month.
For UAH, the slope is flat since October 2004 or 9 years, 3 months. (goes to December using version 5.5)
For RSS, the slope is flat since September 1996 or 17 years, 4 months.”
Shown graphically, that looks like this:
As such, one could argue that for the last 17 – 9 years Global Warming hasn’t been occurring, and thus Global Warming began in 1975 and ended between 1996 and 2004.
However, this would not resolve the question of when the “Global Warming” that’s being caused by anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions began. If you look at Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuels and;
and Cumulative Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuels, you can see that emissions have been growing rapidly in the last few decades:
In fact the Economist noted in 2013 that “The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, ‘the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.'”
Thus, while anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the highest they’ve ever been, and growing rapidly, Earth’s temperature has been in a 9 – 17 year Pause. And the only period of warming that anthropogenic CO2 emissions could have had a significant influence on, 1975 – 1998, is “similar and not statistically significantly different from” the periods of 1860-1880 and 1910-1940 when there is no evidence of anthropogenic CO2 emission influence. As such one could argue that “Global Warming” due to anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide emissions may not have begun, that Earth’s sensitivity to CO2 may be low, that natural processes may be large enough to outweigh the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and/or that preparing for a period of rapid and catastrophic Global Warming, when there is no observational evidence that it is in fact occurring, may be a historic folly.
Anyway, what do you think, when did Global Warming begin?
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Answer: The warming started 11,600 years ago (graph by Ole Humlum above).
And I sincerely hope the warmth continues! How long does an interglacial last again? I enjoyed the article; comparison of the various time scales were interesting.
Answer: Correction: 10,600 years ago.
@J. Philip Peterson. The video I linked to doesn’t mention anything about man responsible for 3% of yearly CO2 output. I think that’s a red herring, because I and most skeptics (with exceptions) are satisfied with the evidence that, despite man’s yearly contribution of CO2 being much smaller than the natural sources of CO2, this additional, though relatively small, contribution is nevertheless causing the cumulative level of CO2 to rise.
You agree that CO2 is not causing temperatures to rise. Great, though that’s not exactly what I’m saying. Conceivably CO2 has an effect, but mostly at the sub-100ppm levels. One thing that is clear is that CO2 does not have the effect that the warmists’ theoretical model of the greenhouse effect posits, because if it did then their climate models would have worked as their theoretical model suggested. But no, we have instead “epic climate model fail”: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/06/still-epic-fail-73-climate-models-vs-measurements-running-5-year-means/
JTF…thank you for another excellent article
I particularly glad you posted that second chart….everyone should notice two things
The overall trend is down, with a few uptics…
..and….how small the difference is between what we are calling the modern warm period..and the little ice age
The ‘Hysterics” are all about a 1 degree swing in temps….if our climate didn’t bounce around 1 degree.. it wouldn’t be normal…..but the overall trend is still down
Eric said: “this additional, though relatively small, contribution is nevertheless causing the cumulative level of CO2 to rise.”
===
Count me among the exceptions….
If the planet can jiggle 1000’s of ppm CO2….which it can….what man contributes can not cause a rise
great thread.
wonder what the Professor of Science Education and Dean of Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Science and Engineeringy at Australia’s Curtin University, Dr Vaille Dawson, who receives funding from the Australian Research Council, would make of it!
having an “alternative conception” of “climate change” worries her? of course, once “climate change” is deceptively used instead of AGW, there’s not a hope of any understanding:
4 Nov: The Conversation: Vaille Dawson/Katherine Carson: What do young people really know about climate change?
(Disclosure Statement: Vaille Dawson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.)
Our new study, published in the latest edition of Teaching Science, has investigated the scientific understanding of 438 Western Australian Year 10 students in relation to the greenhouse effect and climate change.
The results are startling.
When asked for a written response to the question “what is climate change?” only half of the students gave an answer which showed some understanding of the science behind climate change. Furthermore, one-third of the students included some type of alternative conception in their answer…
What can be done?…
If we want to improve this situation, it needs to begin in school with a curriculum which promotes understanding of climate science as well as pro-environmental behaviour. Teachers need to be aware of common alternative conceptions (often held by teachers themselves) and be given the resources and skills to overcome them…
http://theconversation.com/what-do-young-people-really-know-about-climate-change-19754
J. Philip Peterson says: @ur momisugly January 25, 2014 at 4:52 pm
OK, I’ve asked this before. Since CO2 lags temperature rise, what happened ~800 years ago to cause CO2 to go up to 400ppm now? …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Look at Dr Lamb’s graph, 800 years ago was the Medieval Warm period.
Of more interest is the warm periods are getting weaker and the cold periods colder as the Holocene draws to a close.
I think if you fix the typo in the line below you will have created an outstanding resource for us deniers. Thanks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In fact, anthropogenic CO2 Emissions from Fossil-Fuels did not became potentially consequential until approximately 1950:
[Done. Thank you. Mod]
@Les Johnson at 5:05 pm
My answer is, “No later than the End of the Archean (about 2.2 billion years ago) after the Earth’s bout of it’s oldest known global glaciation.”
But I like your answer better: 4.5 Billion Years ago when the Sun’s fusion began.
@Latitude at 6:02PM.
I may have had questions about man’s role in the current trend of rising CO2, but I found what I thought was a definitive enough analysis by frequent wuwt commenter: Ferdinand Engelbeen. I think his analyses are very trustworthy, and though he clearly is not taking the “side” of skeptics, he nevertheless is a skeptic. Here’s one of several of his comments in a thread, where he gets down into the nitty gritty of it: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/07/a-brief-history-of-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-record-breaking/#comment-1168182
@Gail Combs
“Look at Dr Lamb’s graph, 800 years ago was the Medieval Warm period.”
Thanks, no one ever offered that. Looks like the peak of the Medieval Warm period was almost exactly 800 years ago. Was probably more pronounced than has been reported. That’s why the increase in CO2, among other things.
whenever it began, Al Gore says extreme weather events are now a HUNDRED TIMES MORE COMMON THAN 30 YEARS AGO, so there:
25 Jan: Guardian: Adam Vaughan: Al Gore: ‘extreme weather has made people wake up to climate change’
Haiyan and Sandy-like storms are ‘gamechanger’ for public awareness of global warming, says former US vice-president
Extreme weather events including typhoon Haiyan and superstorm Sandy are proving a “gamechanger” for public awareness of the threat posed by climate change, Al Gore said on Friday.
The former US vice-president, speaking to delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said: “I think that these extreme weather events which are now a hundred times more common than 30 years ago are really waking people’s awareness all over the world [on climate change], and I think that is a gamechanger. It comes about, of course, because we continue to put 90 million tonnes of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day, as if it’s an open sewer.”…
Speaking alongside Gore, Bill Gates said that climate change was a very important challenge but still had “an awareness problem.” …
Gore: “Even with business leadership, we will need governmental actions, we need to put a price on carbon, we need to put a price on [climate change] denial in politics,” he said at the WEF panel on climate change…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/24/climate-change-al-gore-davos-haiyan-sandy
24 Jan: Deutsche Welle: Manuela Kasper-Claridge: Cost of climate change high on Davos agenda
From within the Davos Congress Center, you can see skiers racing down the slopes outside of the World Economic Forum. Looking at the snow outside, some participants might wonder why there’s so much talk about global warming.
Not so Christiana Figueres. Standing in the snow, the UN climate chief said she is pleased the topic is so high on the agenda at Davos.
“The risk of increased natural events is there, the risk of a water crisis and the risk for a food crisis,” she told DW, adding that there was economic fallout associated with failing to deal with climate change and its effects.
“If we don’t address it, it’s a major risk to the global economy, but if we do, it’s a real promoter of global economy because it can bring new jobs,” she said. “It can bring new sectors, energy security and it will help health and so many other factors.”…
Climate change and Coca Cola
Many companies have become aware of such issues, among them Coca Cola.
“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years – we see those events as threats,” Coca Cola’s Jeff Seabright told “The New York Times.” The beverage-maker needs a lot of water in the production cycle, but water is getting scarcer as climate change progresses…
Renat Heuberger of the Swiss company South Pole Carbon traveled to Davos to take part in climate debates. His company gives advice to firms on dealing with the impact of climate change.
“Everybody in the world suffers from the consequences of climate change,” he said. “Here in Switzerland, we loose our glaciers, in Bangladesh they have droughts. Everywhere we feel the consequences as we’re all affected and need a global solution ultimately.”…
The ‘climate year’?
Some folks have already termed 2014 the “climate year,” and events at the WEF related to climate issues attract considerable attention. Former US Vice President Al Gore came here specifically to head a debate called “Changing the Climate for Growth and Development,” which was also attended by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
The United Nations has said it would debate climate change at the General Assembly in September and send out a clear signal on the need to keep it at bay….
The UN climate chief (Figueres) estimated that about $1.3 billion (950,000 million euros) will have to be spent annually to combat climate change effectively.
http://www.dw.de/cost-of-climate-change-high-on-davos-agenda/a-17385764
$1.3 billion annually would probably just cover the cost of UN climate Summits.
Latitude, I was just googling a little more, and lo and behold I found not just comments, but four long wuwt articles written by Engelbeeen on why he thinks man is responsible for the current rise in CO2. Here’s part 1 (with 603 comments): http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/why-the-co2-increase-is-man-made-part-1/
Links to all the parts are here in part 4: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/24/engelbeen-on-why-he-thinks-the-co2-increase-is-man-made-part-4/
I found Engelbeen’s comments to be good enough in summing up the situation. But it looks he certainly “goes deep” in the linked articles above.
more interesting is this lengthy investigative report by Richard Moore at Lakeland Times, Wisconsin, read all:
24 Jan: Lakeland Times, Wisconsin: Richard Moore: As consensus falls apart, state toes the global-warming line
DNR (Dept of Natural Resources) refuses to answer questions about using outdated climate-change models to make policy
Among the questions: Why is the agency actively pursuing policy goals in 2013 based on outdated and inaccurate 2007 climate-change assessments? Why is the DNR continuing to promote in classrooms, on its website and in public presentations the U.N. 2007 climate-change assessment, without equally offering alternative points of view? Why did the agency tell this newspaper in 2011 it had stopped issuing a teachers’ guide based on the 2007 U.N. assessments, when it continues to do so? Is there any concern about the use of taxpayer facilities and dollars for an unproven and increasingly disputed political agenda, which the DNR continues to do?
Instead of answering those specific questions, the DNR defaulted to a generic answer for all of them, issued by agency spokesman Bill Cosh this past weekend:
“It is not DNR’s role to confirm nor deny climate change or its potential causes,” Cosh said. “However, it is the agency’s responsibility to adjust management strategies and decisions in response to changing environmental conditions, no matter the source. Therefore, DNR has several adaptation strategies in place to help guide management practices when there is evidence of changing environmental conditions.”
All of which begs the question – which was asked but not answered – is the DNR “adjusting management strategies and decisions” based on the most extreme and increasingly debunked global-warming predictions, and, if so, are they reconsidering and why or why not?…
http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9&ArticleID=19868
Anthony, this should be published in every major newspaper in the world as a paid full page advertisement (possibly excluding the first paragraph). I would be happy to make a contribution to this.
An insidious question indeed.
“The warming” seems to duplicate “The science”.
An illusion ?
The ghost of what it is held up to be.
The anthropogenic component seems to be just that, manufactured in the data massaging, never manifest in the real world.
But it was unprecedented,alarming and worse than we predicted.
Yet now the predictions are projections.
Alarm? a mental health issue.
Unprecedented? well that turned out to be never happened since last Tuesday.
Actually I believe The Chiefio pinpointed the days of the spread of global warming.
In very interesting post of April 1st,I forget the year,using the temperature data, he describes the march of the warming as it swarms out of Africa, across the Mediterranean into Europe.On into North America.
Just like a plague or a contagious madness.
But what is the beginning?
The plotting at the UN?
Or the day the propaganda worked on enough citizens to become a dominant meme?
Which is the real moment?
The meetings of the weasels?
Or the day the madness hit the herd?
Yes, the Medieval warm period was 800 years ago, and is the other reason they want to send it down the memory hole.
Why won’t the media fact check Al Gore? His recent statement of “extreme events are a hundred times more common than 30 years ago” is such a whopper. What do they call that, oh yea, the “BIG LIE”. Any intelligent and informed reporter should know that the facts say otherwise, that there hasn’t even been an increase in number or severity of extreme weather events. People ought to know Gore’s exaggerated claim of 100 times is beyond wildly ludicrous – it’s a BIG LIE.
That’s as believable as his recent “convenient” posturing on geoengineering, something he was probably “for” before being against it. He was, after all, responsible for the internet and re-inventing government, so why should anyone be surprised if he himself invented geoengineering back when he was vice-president, on account of his fervent global warming belief system.
Will journalists and scientists ever challenge Gore’s idiotic statements? What evidence does he offer that Typhoon Haiyan and Hurricane Sandy were caused by global warming and/or caused by carbon dioxide from smokestacks and tailpipes? None. Gore popped off for years against sunspots too, and did anyone bother to investigate the truth about sunspot activity? Nope.
It’s insane to keep saying there’s CAGW when NOAA and NASA just said there’s been no warming for 17 years. Even Al Gore should see that there is something wrong with this picture. It’d be very insane for the rest of the world to beleive Al Gore’s insane climate rants, theories, and “solutions”.
And when did global cooling begin, when they thought there might be another little ice age coming in the 50-70s?
A couple more typos, imho:
“Anthropogenic CO2 emissions where de minimis in 1850.”
“Global Warming may have started in 1975, but there is no observable evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emission based Global Warming starting in 1975.”
Well I’ll be danged!
The MEI, PDO, AMOC, NAO-AO, Indian Ocean Dipole and Antarctic Stream (Tri-Ocean Circulation Belt) are so well understood, calculated and measured that we don’t need to consider their phase changes 😉
After all, 70% of the planets surface and major determining climate/weather factor shouldn’t be part of the model inputs, now should it?
What other filtering factor does the region that has a humidity level 10,000 times drier than the Sahara, which sits within the thermosphere and separates the stratosphere and Ionosphere have?
What are the levels of atmospheric constituents at 8000′, 12,000′ 37,000′ 41,600′, 59,731′ etc…?
What particle, electromagnetic and physical chemical interactions occur within the tides throughout all spheres held within the magnetosphere?
What filtering and interaction occurs within the top 11′ of our biosphere?
What interaction and processes occur with the top 9″ of the troposphere?
What occurrences happen in the inner 3″ and out 3″ of the daytime D Layer?
When and why does our planets core change like all the others in behaving like the dead core of Mars (it collapsed without reversal and stayed dead, leaving the planet without naturally occurring spheres), yet comes back? What is that temperature delta and what is the temperature that needs to be maintained on the densest planet in our solar system (Earth) to continue the periodic manifestation? These periods (700,000-915,000 years) occur, but for how long. When the magnetic field reduces our protective and live-giving spheres do disappear for a long enough period to raise hell and those sub-surface and deep ocean dwelling creatures are the only ones that become the next life cycle…
710 PPM of C02 is an ideal level, considering all the influences our planet undergoes, in short geological time scales…
@ur momisugly markstoval
“It has been said that the industrial revolution began approximately around the time of the end of the LIA”
I don’t know who said that, but the Industrial Revolution was well under way by 1850. The standard as-taught-in-schools* version is that it started with textile machines and steam engines of the mid-18th Century.
(*In the days when they did teach things in schools.)
J. Philip Peterson says:
January 25, 2014 at 5:40 pm
I agree that CO2 is not causing the global temperature to rise, but why is CO2 increasing? Is it all due to Humans?
————————————————————————————————————–
Go and have listen to the entire lecture by Prof Salby – it gets more interesting after about the first half. He maintains that CO2 follows temperature at all time scales and if you integrate (sum the warming temps) you can derive the observed current CO2 increase. As I understand his hypothesis the reason you don’t see the changes in the ice cores is because they don’t “record” the smaller fluctuations at small time periods and concentrations are also subject to diffusion.
Eric Simpson says:
January 25, 2014 at 5:59 pm
“…I and most skeptics (with exceptions) are satisfied with the evidence that, despite man’s yearly contribution of CO2 being much smaller than the natural sources of CO2, this additional, though relatively small, contribution is nevertheless causing the cumulative level of CO2 to rise.”
Until you have a poll to back this up, I recommend you speak for yourself. It reads like one of the desperate attempts by alarmists to reassure themselves that “everyone” agrees with them.
It is very obvious that humans are not responsible for the rise in CO2 observed, at the very least, since reliable measurements began to be collected in 1958.
@ur momisugly Tommy E.
There are quite a few fire Gods around the place. If we piss them all off we’ll be in big trouble.