Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
Some of the net Global Warming since 1880 is undoubtedly due to human actions, but how much?
[Update 10 April. My PowerPoint Show that includes the following graphic is available for download here: https://sites.google.com/site/iraclass/my-forms/2014%20Global%20Warming%20Civil%20Discourse.ppsx?attredirects=0&d=1 ]
The height of the bars on the graphic indicates the relative magnitude of Natural Processes and Cycles (in BLUE) versus Human-Caused Warming (in RED). The scale on the left is in °C with corresponding °F on the right.
Going from left to right:
The first BLUE bar represents the Atmospheric “Greenhouse” Effect, responsible for about 59°F (33°C) warming. This is the Natural Process that makes life as we know it possible on Earth. The mean temperature on the surface of the Earth is about 59°F (33°C) warmer due to Atmospheric absorption of long-wave radiation by water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and other so-called “Greenhouse” gases, and the subsequent “back-radiation” of some of this heat energy towards the Earth surface. (See my WUWT Visualizing series [Physical Analogy, Atmospheric Windows, Emission Spectra, and Molecules/Photons
The second bar represents the major Natural “Ice Age” Cycles that have occurred about every 100,000 years according to the ice core records from the past 400,000 years. The climate is always changing, with up and down temperature jigs and jags at all time scales. The major Ice Age Cycles change temperatures over a range of about 13°F (7°C ).
The third bar represents the Human-Caused Warming that my wife and I experienced when we retired from full-time employment and moved from Upstate New York to Central Florida. The average temperature in Florida is about 20°F (11°C ) warmer than that in New York. I miss cross-country skiing a bit, but, overall, we are happy here and we enjoy water aerobics. While not exactly “Global” Warming, this warming was certainly caused by our Human-Caused decision to move and, of course, we enjoy the resulting moderately higher temperatures :^).
The fourth and fifth bars represent the YEARLY 43°F (24°C ) temperature range (July mean minus January mean), and the DAILY 19°F (11°C ) temperature range we experience here in Central Florida. Please notice that these ranges are much larger than the Ice Age Cycles, and they recur on a daily or yearly basis.
The sixth bar represents the mean Global Warming since 1880 based on the official NASA GISS accounting. It is 1.4°F (0.8°C). According to the IPCC, the majority of this Global Warming is due to human activities (mainly unprecedented burning of fossil fuels and land use that has reduced the albedo of the Earth). I have interpreted “majority” to mean about 70% and have therefore allocated 1°F (0.6°C) to Human-Causation and the remaining 0.4°F (0.2°C) to Natural Cycles.
The seventh bar represents my personal opinion as to the actual Global Warming since 1880, discounting the “adjustments” made by the official Climate “Team” that I believe have inflated the temperature record. We know that the US thermometer record is so unreliable that it has had to be “adjusted” several times by the official US Climate “Team” at GISS, see The Past is Not What it Used to Be, and Skeptic Strategy.
The above GISS email from Makiko Sato to James Hansen details seven adjustments to the US thermometer record, made from 1999 to 2007. According to GISS, the very warm year 1998 was originally thought to be 0.541°C (0.97°F) COOLER than 1934, which, in a warming world, would be, let us say Inconvenient. It took multiple “adjustments” to bring them to a dead heat. Further adjustments to the thermometer records subsequent to the 2007 Sato email have brought 1998 up to a significant lead over 1934 :^).
When this email came to light due to a Freedom of Information request, it was explained away by Warmists as follows:
1) The adjustments correct for differing Times of OBServation (TOBS). OK, that could be true, but why did it take so many analyses to come to the correct result? It seems one or two would be sufficient. Also, the 1998 data has been warmed more by the TOBS adjustments than the 1934 data has been cooled. Are we to believe that TOBS was less standardized in 1998 than it was in 1934?
2) The US is only 2% of the Globe. Therefore, any adjustment to US data would have only a minor effect of Global data. True enough, but, if US data is so unreliable that it has had to be adjusted so much, are we to believe that world data is any better? Does anyone really think that years-old data from Asia, Africa, South America is more reliable than US data? That ocean data based on some seaman dropping a bucket overboard, hauling it back, and sticking a thermometer into it, is any better than US thermometer data?
So, unless we believe that the world temperature record is more reliable than the US record, it is likely the world record has also been similarly “adjusted”. Therefore, I have discounted the GISS estimate of Global Warming by about 30%, so actual warming is about 1.0°F (0.6°C). As for allocation of this actual warming to Human- vs Natural-Causes, I believe the IPCC has over-estimated Climate Sensitivity by a factor of two or three, so I have allocated the majority of the warming 0.8°F (0.5°C) to Natural Cycles, and the remaining 0.2°F (0.1°C) to Human-Causation.
I’d appreciate comments on my estimates and conclusions. advTHANKSance
Ira
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Finn says:
April 7, 2014 at 12:19 am
> Here’s a trick question: If you double the temperature at 1C, what do you get?
The wrong answer.
Finn,
Double 1 C and get 275 C. But what is the point? I also basically agree that your guesses are reasonable, but they are still just guesses, and thus not useful (but likely much more useful than the GISS misinformation).
The sixth bar represents the mean Global Warming since 1880 based on the official NASA GISS accounting. It is 1.4°F (0.8°C). According to the IPCC, the majority of this Global Warming is due to human activities (mainly unprecedented burning of fossil fuels and land use that has reduced the albedo of the Earth).
Does the IPCC claim that the majority of the warming since 1880 is anthropogenic or do they claim that the majority of the warming since 1950 is anthropogenic?
[JohnWho, thanks for your question. It almost does not matter whether the IPCC claims Human-Caused (anthropogenic) warming is since 1950 or 1880 because, according to the official temperature record, the Anomaly in 1880 was -.12 °C and the Anomaly in 1950 was about the same, at -.10 °C. The current anomaly is about + 0.6 °C, so the difference is either 0.48 °C or 0.50 °C. Ira]
Ira,
I believe your 30% estimate may be off by 0.23%
Satellite data not adjusted for Aqua in 2001 shows a 0.8 deg max climb in 34 years, if you adjust the pre Aqua satellite measurements up 0.3 deg as they NOW do (Aqua maintains its orbit so doesn’t require corrections) the 34 years show a Max of 0.5 deg up trend. Considering the equipments margin of error is 2 deg at best, and that all satellite measurements are are a mathematical average of swirling weather systems in a range of plus 40c to minus 60c the conclusion is the temp is dead ass flat for over 34 years
Funny. Thanks for the spoof on the state of the science of climate change.
“Some of the net Global Warming since 1880 is undoubtedly due to human actions” . . . . ? Where is the evidence . . I don’t mean theoretical explanations . . I mean EVIDENCE . . . I can’t show that your statement is untrue – it might be, it might not be – but it would be very nice if people who make such claims supported them with evidence that shows conclusively that they’re true . . The word “undoubtedly” places an onus upon you to support the claim with evidence that shows there is no room for doubt, or to refer to sound evidence based elsewhere . . . If you’d said “might be due to human actions” any reasonable person could have accepted that, though they’d still be entitle to ask why and to have doubts . . . whether they believe in conspiracy theories or not . . I personally believe that there was a moon landing or several, that the twin towers fell as a result of being struck by aeroplanes, and that cigarettes do cause cancer (in vast numbers), but on AGW I think we don’t really know very much at all. . . . except maybe that we generate a huge of amount of heat across all of the colder zones just to keep ourselves warm . . more than that . . . I wonder . .
Ugh . . . here’s that “d” I dropped . . . sorry
It’s always ‘radiation transfer’ with both sceptics and warmists. I’ve heard very little discussion about kinetic energy. A gas does not have ‘temperature’, it has kinetic energy that manifests itself as ‘temperature’ when it is involved in a physical contact with a surface or another molecule of gas ie exchange of energy. Why this process is never mentioned, I don’t understand.
Here in Ottawa we have a 60-70 degree C yearly temperature range..a good reason why rational Canadians should ignore the alarmism.
On a related note: in the recently released IPCC impact statement the positive benefits to Canada of warming are trivialized. I cannot think of any negative impacts of 1-2C warming. I am sure the same case could be made for Russia, Scandinavia, Mongolia, etc.
I like the concept a lot. Thanks.
We are told that animals can’t adapt and species are being lost and salamanders (or moose or chickens or mental illness) are bigger or smaller or more severe or something, ALL because of a fraction of a degree change over one century, It is absurd. Yet these animals experience way more variation day to day, year to year, season to season. They always have and an imperceptible change means nothing to them.
Your presentation addresses an important issue.
Yes the chart might be cleaned up, but a great start,
This is good. Thanks.
CAS
if anyone has proved human co2 causes warming better tell the ipcc. they would be delighted to know.
How much of the 1880-2012 average temperature rise is in Tmin and how much is in Tmax?
I think that human contribution to world-wide climate is somewhere between minimal and negligible. In essence, it is so small that it can not be measured in any meaningful way.
Ira
I have revisited your previous posts and I find I can’t agree with you on most of them. I appreciate your time and trouble to do them but I don’t agree with your conclusions. Some of your assumptions are based on fallacies. There are too many for me to go into any detail . One day I may submit something to WUWT, but at the moment I am a little lazy and also prefer 97% thinking and 3% opening my mouth and making a fool of myself.
[Alex, right on! Better to sit quietly in a corner and let people think you are a fool than open your mouth and prove it :^). I appreciate your time and trouble in revisiting my previous posts and finding false assumptions too numerous to detail. Perhaps some day you will let us all know in detail where I have gone astray. Till then, best wishes from Ira]
markets not betting on warming
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-the-bright-spot-for-investors-in-global-cooling-part-ii-2014-04-07?reflink=MW_news_stmp
The projected warming for 2100 is then about half the magnitude of an ice age cycle. Think about that.
I found a good discussion of my previous question regarding the relative contribution of night and day warming to global average on Roger Pielke, Sr.’s blog.
In the Dark of the Night – the Problem with the Diurnal Temperature Range and Climate Change by Richard T. McNider
Without water vapour and CO2 the clear skies radiation loss would be 360 W/m^2 @ur momisugly Ts 25 C assuming an emissivity of 0.8. The short wave heat input could be very much greater than this at or near the equator of course leading to wide day/night temperature swings. The convective heat transfer to the atmosphere would be 140 W/m^2 (depending on the temperature difference ) which would steadily heat up the atmosphere; however to heat up the atmosphere 33 C would require a heat input of 172.6 x 10^18 kilojoules which might be achievable if the Earth didn’t spin on its axis.
The atmosphere does contain wv and CO2 however but their emissivities are quite low (much lower than 0.8) and it is difficult to see them contributing the above heat requirement to the atmosphere
Ira, I like where you are trying to go with this post. It is what any good engineer does when they are sorting through variables that are affecting the outcome of something they are trying to understand. That is they compare those variables to each other in terms of order of magnitude. They set aside the variables that have minor impact and focus on the variables that have major impact. I will suggest however that you haven’t quite taken your thinking far enough.
First I would suggest that you consider where the data might be unnecessarily focussed by faulty mathematical emphasis. What do I mean? Consider what averaging does to the variable everyone is having kittens about – temperature. Averaging over what time scale?
If you average temperature over a few minutes or hours, what does the resulting signal illustrate?
What is the expected “span” or “range” of the signal?
Are there absolutes and geographically different ranges?
Why is it not acceptable to average different geographical regions over minutes or hours if you expect to understand what the signal represents over a short time span?
Here is the most important question:
What variability in range have we come to accept as normal? Why?
So now if we change the time over which we are averaging what happens to the range, to absolutes, and to geographically different values?
Doesn’t the “range” shrink? Doesn’t it also represent a different “signal”?
What do we attribute to causing that signal?
As we increase the time scale even further why do we have to go to an even more bizarre value called “anomaly” to discern any kind of signal at all? Does this signal represent anything at all when it has such a minor range compared to a daily range that is so much larger and when that much larger range is clearly cyclical, and obviously “controlled” (ie. not run-away) by some other variable (eg. water cycle) to always return to an approximate mean? Regardless of geographical location?
What would happen to our tiny temperature variance signal if we instead measured atmospheric average energy content by for example measuring total atmospheric water vapor or ice crystal content (ie the stored or potential energy), and aveage wind velocity at all altitudes (ie the kinetic energy).
When you are talking about that small a minor range variation over such a long time scale, I would still look at possible alternative variables that could cause such long term changes, if that has you somehow worried. For example, when I look at the planet, what it looks like today, and I can see with my own eyes that man has clearly had a dramatic inflence on the albedo of the planet by the way he has geoengineered vast swatches of the land to produce the planet’s human’s vital food needs; when I compare those geoengineered regions to the year and decade-scale average temperature changes, I see greater contribution of anthropogenic influence by farmers, city planners, parking lot, highway, and airport constructors, and forest harvesters, than I do from the minor, minor signal that might be caused by CO2. Heck even natural albedo varying effects like desertification, algal blooms, forest fires, lava flows that grow land masses, and variation in snow/ice coverage from year to year, will produce greater albedo change and therefore signal range variance over year and decade scale than will CO2.
You asked, so those are my thoughts.
[DonV, good thoughts and thanks for sharing them with us. Does anyone know what portion of Human-Caused Global Warming the IPCC attributes to Land Use changes that affect albedo (reflectiveness) vs CO2? I’ve always assumed that Land Use was considerably less than CO2 because three-quarters of the Earth Surface is water, and, despite our building and paving and agriculture, most land is unchanged or, even if planted with crops, at about the same albedo as in the past. Ira]
I cant believe Florida to be 11 C warmer on average than New York! No way.
I just checked wiki and must admit New York has an average temp of 12 C and Miami of 24 C. My only excuse is, that a northern German experienced the New York temperatures as very hot:>))
There are a few errors in the conversions from Fahrenheit to Celsius on the graphic. 59 F = 15 C, not 33 C. 13 F = -11 C and not +7 C. And 43 F = +6 C not +24 C.
[Rabelad, my temperature conversions are correct because they are based on the CHANGE in temperature, and Fahrenheit is 9/5 times Celsius, thus a CHANGE of 33 °C is 33 x 9/5 = 59 °F. Of course, if we are considering absolute temperature readings, we have to take into account that freezing is 0 °C and 32 °F. So, if you and I are standing together and my Fahrenheit thermometer reads 59 °F, your Celsius thermometer will read 15 °C. But, if we both travel to a colder place and my Fahrenheit thermometer reads 50 °F (a 9 °F change), your Celsius thermometer will read 10 °C (a 5 °C change). Got it? Ira]
The graphs would have benefited from preliminary reading about “data-ink ratio” in Tufte’s “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.”
Ira,
Nice discussion. I actually liked your illustration, pictures and all. It illustrates a point often made by Richard Lindsen in his talks: The total rise in temps since the ’50’s is tiny compared to diurnal and seasonal variations. Your migration to Florida is a nice addition to that.
– Jerry