Robert B. writes via email with a question that we’ve just never asked readers to weigh in on here before in post, though has been bandied about in comments. I figure it is about time to put it to rest by asking up front.
He asks:
What is the perfect temperature of Earth? I’m assuming that climate change-related taxes will be used to bring our planet back to the perfect temperature, and I need to know when that has been reached.
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Steven Mosher;
Dont burn all the coal, switch to gas until we understand the problem better.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Is there a magic wand by which we could accomplish this? Just wave it, mutter some incantations, and PRESTO! we’re off coal and onto natural gas? Seriously?
I saw a sign in a winery once “The best wine is the one you like” Substitute temperature for wine and you have it.Warm is wonderful. <:o)
I think you have to start by recognizing existing extremes, and the fact we have adapted on every continent to those extremes.
North America temperatures have the second widest span, ranging from 134 F High (at Furnace Creek Ranch, Death Valley) to -63 F Low (at Snag, Yukon Territory)
The Australian temperature range is relatively narrow, in fact the narrowest span of any continent, hovering between 123 F High to – 9.4. (a mere 132 degree swing!)
Asia (the greatest span)? 129 F to – 90 F.
But if the Great Gore is to save the Great Antarctic Penguin Civilization, he should keep it between 59 F to – 129 F, where temperatures are – and probably have been for eons.
When dinosaurs roamed the planet the temperature was around 10 degrees warmer than today, and when the temperature dropped following a meteor impact they were unable to survive, but smaller mammals boomed. So, from a planetary perspective you could say that nature adjusts and flourishes in a different form depending on the conditions and temperature.
Now, if we could find a temperature that killed all warmists but allowed the remaining humans to survive then I would say that WOULD be perfect !!!
The heck with what the perfect temperature should be, I want to know who gets to decide and how I do I get his job.
(Any objections if I make long springs in New England? It seems we currently often go straight from spring into summer.)
“… don’t do anything that has a chance of taking us above this line.” Mr. Steven “Precautionary Fallacy Pete” M-o-sher
Nothing has ANY proven “chance” (of any meaningful significance) of taking us anywhere, climate-wise, dear Mr. Mosher. So….. chill, man. Take a joy ride in your Corvette, grab a pizza, and watch a great movie like…..
…. “South Pacific” (inspired by Mac’s cute poem (same basic meter):
“Oh, there’s a temperature for work….
and a temperature for play…. and a temperatures for plantin’ an’ a …”
sounds like
“We Ain’t Got Dames” — Rodgers and Hammerstein
(yeah, yeah, I know — and some of you are d–n glad you ain’t got one of those blankety blank, annoying, stops-me-from-doing-my-work, dames… LOL — and that’s just fine. Glad you are happy just the way you are.)
(just a little Friday night fun)
#(:))
It is an idiots quest and question.
It is impossible (and undesirable) to have the same temperature everywhere (don’t we define death as reaching and maintaining ambient temperature?).
For all of live to thrive we have to have cold regions and warm regions. Some crops and animals require cold, some warmth, some alternations.
What a stupid question.
Here in Coffs Harbour NSW the average summer temp is 28C and the average winter temp 18C.
I find that quite pleasant.
I like Coffs Harbour, but a little North, Fraser Coast, is more my kind of climate. We’re still swimming in bathtub warm water when Coffs Harbour is shivering. Think Gulf of Mexico, without the winter.
I used to like colder climates, I grew up in Melbourne. But once your body adapts to a warmer climate, it is simply wonderful – you never get up cold, you can always wear lightweight summer clothes, you never have to burn expensive power heating the house, and you can always go for a swim in the ocean if you get too hot.
After all, hot weather is what we evolved for – in anything other than a tropical climate, we need clothes to stay warm.
According to Al Gore, the Earth is suffering a horrible fever since the interior of its sphere is at millions and millions of degrees Fahrenheit. Let’s bring down its core temperature first and then see if its forehead cools off. Take two ass burns and call me back in the morning.
I understand that the planet’s average temperature in the 20th Century used to be 15C. This was changed to 14C by James Hansen which is now the baseline from which Earth’s temperature variations are measured.
Maybe I got this all wrong but 14C seems like the currently accepted “ideal” temperature.
The perfect temperature in my book is just not being in an ice age….
Raw or adjusted? Please be specific. This here’s a science blog, for heaven’s sake.
The perfect temperature will be reached when hell freezes over.
The perfect temperature for us life-forms is the one produced by a climate system which has been shown to best support life. This is a circular answer to a tricky question. It means essentially the climate system that we have had over the last 600 million years at least. Even including the climate catastrophes that have on about five occasions wiped out most of the biosphere. Evolution of life in its current state and diversity has benefited from these catastrophes which shake up the mix in evolution and stimulate innovation and new species. We humans would certainly not be here without the K-T disaster that killed the dinosaurs. And they in turn would never have existed without the great P-T event which finished off most of the Permian lizard-pigs.
And what is the perfect temperature that this climate has produced? answer – no. This climate is a chaotic system producing a constantly changing temperature best represented by a Lorenz oscillator.
In general this oscillating temperature over the last half billion years has tended to be attracted to two mean surface temperatures, 12 and 20 C. These correspond to ocean states with cold and warm deep water respectively. The cold state is better for life in the sea (more nutrient upwelling). The warm state with forested poles is better for life on land.
Steven Mosher says:
March 7, 2014 at 7:59 pm
Its 15C today. our civilization has developed over a period where this ranged from perhaps 13.5 to 17C.………
Dont (sic) burn all the coal, switch to gas until we understand the problem better.
Steven,
Oh my! Such a narrow range….. for a ‘perfect’ temperature. It’s… well, boring and so… narrow. You need to learn to embrace diversity, Steven! Diversity of temperature… and diversity of atmospheric CO2 content!
I LIKE ice fishing, when it’s so cold the snow squeeeeeks under foot and you have to keep dipping the ice fishing hole to keep it from freezing back up! ILIKE whahines in bikinis… and a cold, rummy fruit drink with little umbrellas planted in the almost-too-hot sand next to me. Embrace temperature diversity, Steve! It’s soooooo liberating!
What ‘problem’ are you referring to, Steven? Worried about CO2? I’d personally LIKE more CO2 in the atmosphere of this CO2 starved planet because I LIKE lush vegetation, sycamore trees with 10 foot diameter trunks along the Meramec river, muscadine grapes nearly as big as golf balls up in New York, heads of lettuce the size of a peck basket in Wisconsin, 140 feet tall douglas fir trees in the Cascades and all of these things grow better with MORE CO2, as do nearly all flora on the planet. I am far more concerned about the onset of the next major glaciation period than I am about any other planetary climate concerns and that is a ‘problem’ we know with certainty is in our geologically near future. If 600ppm CO2 delays that for another 1000 years, it’s the best bargain on the planet, bar none Steven! As for humans, we are already adapted to CO2 concentrations greater than 5000 ppm (How did THAT happen?), so there’s really no down side, beyond irrational fear.
Free the CO2, Steven! Carbon is the basis of all life on this planet. It’s not pollution. It’s the Staff of Life. Feed the plants and free your mind from that narrow, limiting, wrong-headed perspective!
Embrace Global Climate Diversity, Steven.
I asked a similar question, or set of questions at Climate Audit on unthreaded a few years ago, and I don’t think anyone there responded. Here is the link:
http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/15/unthreaded-39/#comment-303614
And here is the text:
I have another question/concept, courtesy of my friend Tom Lawrence:
Climate/Temperature Optimum
Has anyone done any work, or in any way attempted to quantify what would be an optimum global temperature, or more broadly, an optimum global climate?
I could even break it down a little bit more into
1. Optimum for people? or
2. Optimum for every living thing on earth other than people? or
3. Optimum for both?
Oh, and I almost forgot, does anyone even try to define “optimum” at all, or otherwise characterize what an optimum climate would be like? I’m assuming that this concept of “optimumness” would be expressed in global average terms, but maybe it wouldn’t.
Tom is wondering why the AGW people are so focused on there not being any climate change, when no one has explained if the exact climate we have now is optimum or not. He wonders if maybe we should warm it (the planet of course, by simply twisting whatever knobs we need to – carbon taxes, regulations, total slavery, whatever) up a few degrees, or cool it down a few degrees, and THEN we can freeze things right at the optimum.
It sure seems to him that it is an awfully strange coincidence that this exact climate we have right now seems to be so imperative to maintain. Are we at any sort of optimum climate stage or state right now? If so, Why?
Are there any papers, discussions or even sophomoric musings on record that address the climate change issue in these types of terms?
Thanks
This is a question loaded with uncertainty, since the ‘optimum’ temperature can produce wildly differing climates depending on the standard deviation of temperature measurements across the globe, the difference in temperature between summer maximum and winter minimum and the seasonal distribution of rain, allied to the percentage of rain coming in torrential downpours.
The question presumably must take account of the optimal temperatures for growing food in the regions where the best soils for agriculture exist and deviations from that temperature may increase productivity to the south or north whilst doing the reverse in the opposite direction.
It must also take account of the tree coverage of the earth, since the ground temperatures will be radically affected by the presence of a forest shade.
My personal view is that there is a range of temperature within which climate is likely to be optimal, a range of percentages of forest coverage on earth and a series of water management strategies which ensure that such climate is utilised most effectively.
Of course, if biotech and Big Ag are moving toward the production of liquidised foods synthesised chemically, salads produced hydroponically, meat grown in laboratories, then all this may be irrelevant. We can just become a bunch of pleasure-seeking hedonists.
At that point your optimal temperature depends on your genetics, notably the genes which determine your production levels of melanin.
Complex question being posed here………
42…
The answer has been know for several decades.
Finally, we know the question that should have been asked.
“What is the perfect temperature.”
“What is the perfect temperature of Earth? I’m assuming that climate change-related taxes will be used to bring our planet back to the perfect temperature, and I need to know when that has been reached.”
Huh? How about first asking what is the temperature of Earth now? I dare to say not one single person on Earth even knows that figure so how could you even ask what it should be..
Janice Moore says:
March 7, 2014 at 8:58 pm
Janice,
OK! You got me! I was laughing out loud!
No – There’s nothin’, absolutely nothin’ like a Dame!
Mac
Sydney’s climate is near perfect year round. Here are the figures. For other places, however, you have to figure out how to limit max-min range to 10 degrees C. only. This could be you main problem. Ranges of 40 degrees C from Max to Min. just won’t do it for you! However it won’t kill you either. People can live in the Sahara, the Tundra and all places in between, so chill out. For the last 16 years, CO2 has just wimped out on its task and we cannot look there for any help.
Sydney Long-term Averages Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Ann
Mean Max (°C) 25.9 25.8 24.7 22.4 19.4 16.9 16.3 17.8 20.0 22.1 23.6 25.2 21.7
Mean Min (°C) 18.7 18.8 17.6 14.7 11.5 9.3 8.1 9.0 11.1 13.6 15.6 17.5 13.8
Mean Rain (mm) 102 118 130 127 120 132 98 80 68 77 84 77 1214
Median Rain (mm) 79 94 97 92 91 100 75 55 52 57 67 58 1159
Mean Rain Days 12.2 12.5 13.6 12.9 13.2 12.7 11.3 10.4 10.5 11.6 11.7 11.5 143.6
42
Human core temp is ~ 37C We are basically descended from monkeys and should be ALL living in tropical; areas. Also nearly 90% of all living things are in the tropics subtropics between 30 South and 30 degrees North latitudes. Temperatures within those latitudes at sea level oscillate between 18-22C at night and 28-32C at day.
My answer:
When the Middle Class have been bankrupted; leaving the correct balance of elite to slaves.