Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Think Progress is crowing that “even deniers” confirm an average satellite measured temperature rise of 0.12c / decade. My response is – so what?
Sorry Deniers, Even Satellites Confirm Record Global Warming
The planet just had its hottest 12 months on record.
The people who deny the facts of climate science for a living have had a really tough time recently.
For years they had been dining off the “there’s been no warming since 1998” talking point. But that one was mortally wounded when 2014 became the hottest year on record — and then it died entirely when 2015 blew away the 2014 record. And now a stake is being driven through the heart of this vampire again and again as every month of 2016 has been totally crushing both the record for hottest month and the record for hottest 12 months on record.
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You will no doubt be shocked, shocked to learn that the satellite data has, in fact, confirmed global warming for a long time. Indeed Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) reported earlier this year that the satellite data shows a “Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978 [of] +0.12 C [0.22F] per decade.” And Spencer and Christy are both leading deniers themselves!
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And now that dataset has once again confirmed what multiple data streams have been reporting for a long time: there is a long-term warming trend, and it has been getting worse.
In truth, none of this is funny. The lies of the professional deniers get repeated by the politicians and right-wing media who oppose action — and all that helps slow our response to the greatest preventable threat to our health and well-being. That is a tragedy we must all fight against.
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/satellites-confirm-global-warming-ce6d636c469f
What kind of catastrophe awaits this century, if the calamitous 0.12c / decade (0.21F / decade) rise continues? The answer is none whatsoever. 0.12c / decade is well within the range of natural variation.
During the Holocene Optimum, 9000 to 5000 years ago, global temperature was warmer than today. The Eemian, the previous interglacial, was warmer still – up to 8C (14F) warmer in arctic regions.
What is absent from historical records of the warmer past is evidence of “tipping points” or abrupt harmful changes driven by mild global warming. Even when Earth’s CO2 levels were four times higher than today, the climate was stable, and only 7F higher than today’s temperature.
Even if CO2 is contributing measurably to global warming, it is not driving change at a rate which will cause harm to the biosphere.
It is a measure of the desperation of climate advocates that they feel such a compulsion to leap on every slight temperature wobble, in the vain hope that ordinary people will listen to their doom laden rants.
What’s the margin of error with this 0.12C/decade trend? +/- 1C?
Did they take out for adjusting the past temperatures downward as they did this? Because the adjusting continues downward for post-1979 reported temperatures at the NWS sites – the 1981-2010 data used to calculate 30 year normal at most ASOS weather stations in the US is adjusted downward by 0.6-1.5F…because apparently max/min thermometers work differently now than they used to? Are we incorporating an adjustment for UHI?
Even if you take the 0.12C/decade as truth
1. The sky isn’t falling – this would come well below the most conservative of IPCC’s alarmist projections upon which billions of dollars are wasted.
2. How much of this is a continued NATURAL recovery from the Little Ice Age? Or stronger sunspot cycles in the late 20th century? Or multi-decadal ocean currents in a warm phase?
3. It is well within reason that it could be easily erased by a Pinatubo-level eruption, and a series of small to moderate eruptions every 3 to 5 years would be more than enough to create a much steeper downslope.
4. Is it even possible that we could slice the sliver of warming even further and attribute whatever portion to man? Not within the realm of reasonability, we can’t.
Since the temperatures do not rise in lockstep with CO2’s steady increase then sorry, I can’t attribute the reason to being CO2.
As a history buff, I’ve always loved what they said about the Holy Roman Empire: neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Branding isn’t a new thing.
Who else read this with an image int heir head of someone spiking the football? They would argue in the end zone, I might argue on the 20 yard line, but the real issue is, what are they so seemingly happy about? If they believed what they claim to believe, they would be devastated at being proved right, they would have hoped beyond hope that they were wrong and the detested deniers were right.
If they really believed it.
This press release is so bad that the image of someone spiking the ball on the 20 yard line comes to mind.
Tim, I wholeheartedly agree. The extremists in the warming crowd are all about destruction. They are anti-human. They long for the collapse of civilization and want to do it themselves, all the while crying “CO2” (AKA “Wolf!”) and blaming anyone who contributed anything to lifting humanity from the short, savage existence nature would keep us in. They hate us all and want to punish us all for the grand sin of being human and for using our brains and intelligence. If any element of any animal can be seen to be a cancer upon the Earth, it is They – the human-haters.
“and all that helps slow our response to the greatest preventable threat to our health and well-being. That is a tragedy we must all fight against”
Maybe they mean that a continuation of the last 4 decades of the best weather and climate for life on this planet in at least 1,000 years(since the Medieval Warm Period-that got that name for a reason) along with CO2 fed, record crop yields and world food production……………will make us all fat and lazy (-:
Naw, I think what they meant was that the slight beneficial warming and huge benefits of increasing CO2 in the real world need to be twisted into a reality that only exists in an alternate universe.
Wait, we are living in that universe as twisted realities have become mainstream (hijacked) climate science, driven by a political objective, sold as a cry to save our planet(which is greening up) and save it for our children(that we shouldn’t have because they increase CO2) .
There is plenty of real pollution(strange, that we don’t hear about that anymore) but CO2 is a beneficial gas and life, so far is screaming out loud and clear(for those listening)
“Thank You!” “Can you please feed me more?”
Authentic environmentalists(including me) should be outraged that hundreds of billions of dollars are being flushed down the toilet, that could have been very productive in cleaning up some of the real pollution.
The Smart Car is the pinnacle of that synthetic reality. It’s not smart to drive a tin can on a major highway with large trucks, other traffic, shredded tire parts, and even some potholes in this case.
It’s not a good idea to have tires that are smaller than the average pot hole.
And my son’s very useful Honda Civic, a real car, gets better gas mileage.
I’m looking forward to OTHERS riding in cars that drive themselves. I’ll be able to change lanes anytime I want … just nudge over a little and the other car hits the brakes.
Until he hits a pothole and has to replace most of his Honda Civic.
He calls Dr Spencer a denier, the guy is a loony
Worse than that, he’s PAID to be that way.
Well I certainly hope we get SOME beneficial warming and concomitant milder storms from all this added CO2 and don’t have to settle for just more abundant crop and forest yields. +2C and 1,500ppm would be great. The interglacial is due to end and temps drop an average of -6C.
I wouldn’t click on a thinkprogress link if it were the last link on Earth. Even if they were to acknowledge that they were hoodwinked this whole time, I’d still not give that thought-devoid website a view.
They “found” some warming? They should give themselves a cookie and a gold star. All that cherry-picking is hard work.
And human beings have a growth spurt with puberty. Catastrophic.
Followed by a terminal decline. Truly catastrophic.
Progress.
Then we have those irregular, unpredictable moments of ups, and downs, and all around.
Chaos. Possibly catastrophic.
Out of an abundance of caution and major oversight or exclusion of cycles, we must fork over $5 trillion dollars in direct and foregone wealth because they said so.
The religion of global warming adherents will never admit they are wrong. This is not a scientific problem; it is a political problem. Money drives this whole thing and politicians like Obama and a number of other of the religious order of climate change want to control. Unfortunately, a good number of people are very trusting of their leader.
They just noticed? Heh. Guys, it’s been .12 for a long, long time.
It’s not surprising; when you start calling anyone who questions policies based on speculative projections “deniers” you’re engaging in cult behavior, not science.
If energy that left the ocean and then predictably and temporarily heated the atmosphere as it leaves the Earth system via the only path it has is seen as anything but a cooling event I’d like to see the math.
See my math?
Heck no! You’d only be trying to find something wrong with it.
Global warming over the past century, versus daily temp changes:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/us-temperature-trend.gif
Oops. Century change vs annual changes…
OK I admit I haven’t read all of the comments above but I did get something very useful out of this post. Other than the obvious facts that the author at Think Progress has committed the usual sins of misrepresenting the argument and the qualities of his opponents, I had never ventured over to Think Progress before, probably due to my desire not to waste time on propaganda. What surprised me when I viewed the post “in its natural habitat” was the stream of comments that followed which were almost universally critical of the author. Even in his own territory it seems the author could not find a friendly audience for his misbehavior. Breathtaking how he manipulates a graph of surface temperature to lengthen the Y axis and shorten the X axis compared to the satellite series so as to illustrate visually the threat we all face.
‘Hottest’ ? Hot for who? Eskimos?
From the article: “Sorry Deniers, Even Satellites Confirm Record Global Warming
The planet just had its hottest 12 months on record.
The people who deny the facts of climate science for a living have had a really tough time recently.
For years they had been dining off the “there’s been no warming since 1998” talking point. But that one was mortally wounded when 2014 became the hottest year on record — and then it died entirely when 2015 blew away the 2014 record. And now a stake is being driven through the heart of this vampire again and again as every month of 2016 has been totally crushing both the record for hottest month and the record for hottest 12 months on record.”
Well, let’s go to the source of their happiness, and claims, the UAH satellite temperature chart
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_August_2016_v6.jpg
As you can see the years 2014, and 2015 are not even close to being record hot years. You can also see that Feb. 2016 is the only month hotter than the hottest month of 1998, and that by only one-tenth of a degree. All the ups and downs of temperature profile for the 21st century are basically within the margin of error of the measuring instrument.
The article writers can’t read a temperature chart properly, it seems.
The average amount of time that passes between when a molecule of CO2 absorbs a photon until it emits one (the relaxation time) is about 10 microseconds. Heat is conducted in the atmosphere by collisions between molecules. The average time between collisions of molecules in the atmosphere at sea level conditions is less than 0.0002 microseconds.
Thus it is about 50,000 times more likely that a collision will occur (thermal conduction) than a photon will be emitted. The process of a molecule absorbing the energy in a photon and conducting the energy to other molecules is thermalization. Thermalized energy carries no identity of the molecule that absorbed it. Thermalization explains why CO2 has no significant effect on climate.
Water vapor has been increasing since it has been measured world wide (1988). If human activity is contributing to global warming (or countering global cooling) it is because of contribution to increase in water vapor (mostly from irrigation and burning hydrogen rich fossil fuels).
Changing from coal to natural gas increases water vapor.
http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
Dan,
The thermalization of IR radiation is what happens in the lower troposphere. In the upper troposphere, at lower pressures about 1/10 bar, greenhouse gases are able to radiate an appreciable portion of excitation energy before collisions might thermalize it. Hence, the location of the characteristic emission altitude at the top of the lapse rate structure of the troposphere. This altitude is primarily a function of total pressure, not the partial pressure of the greenhouse gas. Thus, the minuscule increase in total pressure from an increase in CO2 concentration has a corresponding minuscule increase in the characteristic emission altitude and the temperature connection via the lapse rate structure to the surface temperature. I am not disagreeing that increasing CO2 concentration contribute little to warming, I just think your reasoning needs fleshing out.
Rob – IMO we are saying pretty much the same thing regarding high altitude radiation. My perception is expressed in Figure 1 and the fourth paragraph after Fig 2. My perception is energy must get passed from non-ghg to ghg by reverse-thermalization. Last time I checked, pressure has to be really low for this to become dominant.
With the exception of irrigation in really dry places. All of that extra water leaves the atmosphere very quickly.
The argument that short residence time makes the influence of water vapor insignificant has misled lots of folks. Residence time cancels out of the assessment. What matters to warming effect at a time is the amount of water vapor in the air at that time (at low altitude) and it is increasing. The increase, graphed in my blog, is as reported by NASA/RSS (numerical anomaly) at ftp://ftp.remss.com/vapor/monthly_1deg/tpw_v07r01_198801_201607.time_series.txt
Increased water vapor should be contemporaneous with increased clouds, especially low altitude clouds, which would have a countering (cooling) effect. There is too much scatter in the reported average global temperature data to be certain yet of the net effect.
There are additional sources for increased water vapor as discussed in my blog.
“Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978 [of] +0.12 C [0.22F] per decade.”
Whoopee-dooo…. especially since half of that minuscule warming can be attributed to (lack of) volcanoes the past two decades.
I did a report on this, presented at NOAA last year, and concluded that over 36 years of UAH MSU data, the warming amounted to 0.25C from all causes. Of this, 0.12C is thanks to volcanoes, 0.08C to CO2, and 0.03C to other greenhouse gases (CH4, fluorines, etc.). After removing the effects of volcanoes and greenhouse gases, 57% of the “random” year-to-year variations were due to El Nino.
Note that I never resorted to trend lines, which are infamously skewed by big warm/cold events near the start and end of the time series (e.g., volcano in 1982, Nino in 2015), and are selectively used by some to make a point. I avoided this issue by the KISS method – break the 1979-2014 period (36 years) into two 18-year periods, and compare the two. The second half is warmer.
Extrapolating the CO2 contribution to 2100 AD, I get a further warming of all of 0.33C. Hardly measurable, detectable, or catastrophic.
Oh, and solar had no effect at all – possibly because it changed very little over the course of the “grand maximum”.
The the gory details:
2015 NOAA ESRL GLOBAL MONITORING ANNUAL CONFERENCE
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annual_meetings/2015/
Poster Session Tuesday, May 19, 2015
P-48 Volcanic Aerosol Forcing of the Global Climate Derived from Lunar Eclipse Observations, 1979-2014
Richard A. Keen (University of Colorado, Emeritus, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Boulder, CO)
Abstract: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annual_meetings/2015/abstracts/100-150401-A.pdf
Poster: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annual_meetings/2015/posters/P-48.pdf
The math here is simple: to go from a glacial period to an interglacial period, the Earth naturally must warm.
Earth transitioned from its most recent glacial conditions to its current warming phase leading into interglacial conditions starting some 12,000-14,000 years ago. Based on the most recent series of glacial-interglacial cycles, having a 100,000-year cycle period, the duration of interglacial conditions can be expected to last about 50,000 years. Therefore, statistically, we can expect a long-term continuation of global warming for at least the next 10,000 years.
And, obviously, the tens of glacial-interglacial cycles that have occurred previously during the current Ice Age (per accepted scientific definition) have all occurred without any influence from mankind-related greenhouse gases . . . and the Earth and it flora and fauna (with few exceptions) survived every such cycle just fine, thank you.
I have a basic question: What, exactly, is normal behavior of global temperature during an interglacial period? Does it (as I think) continue to warm up until it doesn’t, and then back into an ice age? If so, all this blather about the hottest month in history is simply consistent with the rebound from the ice age. Am I right?
Here are the last few. While ours is longest, it is coolest. They do seem to be warmer at first and then trend down with warm blips as seen in the second chart of just our inter-glacial.
http://i40.tinypic.com/2pquhee.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/2zgzuqv.jpg
“During the Holocene Optimum, 9000 to 5000 years ago, global temperature was warmer than today.”
Incorrect: http://www.realclimate.org/images//Marcott.png
“What is absent from historical records of the warmer past is evidence of “tipping points” or abrupt harmful changes driven by mild global warming.”
I am sure the mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and giant sloths will be glad to hear they did not go extinct when the Holocene hit.
“The Eemian, the previous interglacial, was warmer still – up to 8C (14F) warmer in arctic regions.”
Sea levels were 20 to 30 feet higher than today. No biggie. We’ll just wear floaties.
Felix,
I’m uncertain if your comment, “I am sure the mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and giant sloths will be glad to hear they did not go extinct when the Holocene hit”, is an indirect response to my Sept. 9 comment “. . . and the Earth and its flora and fauna (with few exceptions) survived every such cycle just fine . . .” In case it is, I just want to point out that it is scientifically estimated that there are about 6.5 million life species on land and about 2.2 million life species in the oceans (ref: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm ). The average life span of any given species is 1-10 million years (ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction , Ref. #17), which would amount to surviving at least ten 100,000-year glacial-interglacial cycles (the most-recently observed average period of such).
So, I stand by my original statement, although perhaps the word “relatively” should have preceded “few exceptions”.
I did not see your post. The real Holocene tipping point was the emergence of human civilization.
Felix, do you really think that mankind can’t find higher dry ground when seas are rising at whatever rate you wish to plug in your equation? Seas are up 400 feet from 15,000 years ago with no drownings correlated.
Americans spend a hefty percentage of their paychecks just to heat or cool a teeny tiny teeny weeny little shelter. To think that we could heat or cool the whole world is soooo absurd. If we were all billionaires…maybe…..but probably not then either.
It seems that we are dealing not with impartial scientists, whose job it is to ferret out impartially the real truths of the Earth system, but with fanatics, who will take any evidence whatsoever and blow it out of all proportion just to prove their point. This is not science. This is seeking data to confirm foregone conclusions, a practice that is much older, and one that is known to every religion that has ever sprung from the mind of man.