Guest essay by John McLean
In his role as a property developer, Donald Trump was unlikely to sign a contract with key information missing so why did most of the leaders of the developed world commit to the Paris Climate Agreement?
Article 2.1(a) of the agreement sets out its aim –
“holding the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels …”
But there’s something missing … what was that global average temperature and how was it determined? For that matter, when exactly was “pre-industrial”?
Addressing the last question first, some climate scientists have been known to use data from 1850, the start of modern temperature records, as the “pre-industrial” benchmark.
The IPCC takes a different position according to the text in the glossaries to its third to fifth climate assessment reports. In each of those glossaries, under the definitions of “Industrial Age”, we find “In this report the terms pre-industrial and industrial refer, somewhat arbitrarily, to the periods before and after 1750, respectively”. Even the IPCC is inconsistent because 5AR chapter 7 says that it uses data from 1750 to represent pre-industrial times.
Hawkins et al (2017), which we’ll return to shortly, argues instead for a time span from 1720 to 1800.
Okay, we don’t know when but what was the average global temperature and how was it calculated?
According to data from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) only three observation stations reported temperature data in 1750 – Berlin (Germany), De Bilt (Netherlands) and Uppsala (Sweden). St Petersburg (Russia) reported data in earlier years but none 1750. The three reporting stations are all in Europe, which covers less than 10% of the Northern Hemisphere and at that time was in the grip of a Little Ice Age.
The ICOADS database provides information about temperatures recorded at sea that year. Only 136 temperature observations are recorded and all appear to be from a single ship travelling from near Kristiansand, Norway, to Britain and then to Mumbai, India, from April 10 to September 18. What’s more a single observation was made each day at midday Greenwich (UK) time, which at various points in the voyage was on the hour but varied from 7am to 1pm.
No meaningful and credible global average temperature can be determined from the 1750 data.
Year 1800 is hardly much better for temperature data. Station data from the CRU data indicates 37 observation stations were in operation, two on the east coast of the USA, one in Greenland and the remaining 34 all in Europe, which was still under the influence of the Little Ice Age.
There were more temperature measurements at sea that year, some 5438 of them, but almost all were along trade routes from Europe, particularly around the southern tip of Africa to European territories or trading ports in India, Singapore, Indonesia and China, again not a wide coverage of Earth’s surface.
Hawkins et al (2017) “Estimating changes in Global Temperature since the Pre-Industrial Period” (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0007.1 ) uses a number of models to try to estimate pre-industrial average global temperature.
Firstly this paper was published about 18 months after the first commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, so even if the paper could provide the information it was a bit late. Secondly IPCC 5AR, specifically text box 9.2 on page 769, says that 111 climate model runs estimated greater warming for the period from 1998 to 2012 than the temperature observations indicated and the credibility of climate models is approximately zero.
There is no base global average temperature for the Paris Climate Agreement, no credible means of calculating one and not even a clear definition of exactly when “pre-industrial” refers to.
Committing to such an agreement was foolhardy in the extreme or at least political posturing at the expense of common sense.
If the UNFCCC declared tomorrow that 2°C – or even 1.5°C – of warming had been reached and that more money was required from developed countries not one of those countries would be able to present any counterargument.
And if you think this wouldn’t happen then take a look at the IPCC first climate assessment report. It declared that global temperatures were already 1°C above those of pre-industrial times, although it provided no detail about how it reached that conclusion.
Saying that the governments in the developed world, those who are supposed to pay money to the less developed world, have taken leave of their senses would only address part of the problem. In most cases other political parties share the same beliefs about temperature and would also have committed to that agreement.
Let’s just hope that playwright Howard Koch was wrong and that we won’t always have Paris.
We know that for over 20 years in the UK we haven’t had a government that knows what it is doing. All the UK governments have made various commitments without doing any due diligence on what they are committing. They don’t care because they have all had socialist tendencies (even the current so-called ‘Conservative’ government) and are more than willing to waste other people’s money.
I don’t think ‘socialism’ is the reason for UK govt stupidity.
No, but it is its excuse
Griff
what is it then?
Says the Socialist.
not a socialist!
Blaming everything on socialism is just lazy thinking.
I agree with griff. socialism’ isn’t the reason for UK govt stupidity.
govt stupidity is the reason for socialism failure, because, stupid gov runs everything in socialism.
Pls say what you think. it is impossible to judge where you are going with this.
I see good old Prince Charles and a few of his lord mates got there snouts in the green money trough. The conflict of interest was just an oversight he really does care deeply about enviroment. Apparently if you drop him a fiver he will care just that little bit more.
Reckless Commitments? Indeed!
The AGW Industry marches on, with the Syrians now supporting the Paris Climate Agreement…. while brutally killing their own citizens with releases of Sarin gas into the atmosphere. Is Sarin gas a ‘potent greenhouse gas’? Does Sarin contribute to global warming? It certainly has a terminal effect on the inhabitants of local climates! Has COP23 issued a consensus statement on Sarin gas releases by their AGW allies yet?
Do any of the AGW Griffters give a damn about the brutal, murdering governments they gleefully applaud as ‘participants’ in the AGW consensus farce? No, they don’t. Because “The Ends Justify The Means!”
Blaming everything on socialism is lazy-thinking…so is blaming everything on fossil fuels.
Ah! Thank you, paqyfelyc. That’s the best and most succinct argument against socialism I’ve ever heard!
I’ve never seen a government yet that doesn’t display rampant stupidity and corruption, so any argument in favour of more government control is immediately flawed.
I too wish people would stop saying “socialism” when what they mean is basically parasitic governance, justified by BS about helping the least fortunate and such. The notion that some “ideology” is driving the swamp critters is to me like thinking soldiers wear cammo because they admire nature ; )
Spot on Phillip. The rot goes back to nu-Labour from ’97. 20 years of relentless liberal clusterf*cks later here we are, administering policies so insane they couldn’t be dafter had they been dreamed up by the Rat Pack after a weekend bender.
I rather think a sobered rat pack would do far better, perhaps even half-shikker!
Political ideologies consist of and are driven by dogma. Dogmatising common sense presents a very high degree of difficulty. Therefore, political ideologies and politics have very little use for and even usually spurn common sense. Think eviction, not secession.
But why does everybody assumes that the Paris accord says to reduce CO2 emission? The Paris Agreement says reduce the temperature by 2 degree C !
It is assumed to be the cause.
Luke warmers say a little warming without evidence. Cagw say a lot of warming soon to spiral into runaway without evidence.
There has been a great focus on the accuracy of modern temperature recorded data, but little focus on what has been recorded.
Because much of the Paris Climate Agreement talks about the commitments of countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (and another large portion of it talks about developed countries handing money over).
Decades of downgraded education following socialist ideas mean that we have a generation who are incapable of governing properly. Brexit is showing them up as being ignorant, clueless and incapable of absorbing information from sources outside of their cosy bubble. If they carry on as their are the upside is that there will be no money available to keep any of their promises as tax income drops by anything up to third.
Americans can’t do math. You can sell wind turbines, tax increases, and all kinds of nonsense because Americans can barely get 2+2=4. Current math says it can equal whatever it wants. The Paris Agreement pretty much follows current math education—the answer is whatever you want or need it to be. Fork over money and we’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.
Sheri … you do know that stupid America pulled out of the Paris Treaty …
Kaiser D, …… “NO”, it was the tens-of-millions of stupid, miseducated Americans that wanted to “sign” the Paris Treaty, …… but thank goodness our brilliantly educated newly elected POTUS refused to do so.
Searching ‘carbon dioxide’ in Paris accord gives zero results
http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf
‘Greenhouse gas’ is mentioned 15 times, but equally without definition. Therefore even quicker way to close Paris agreement is to define e.g. unicorn farts and phlogiston as greenhouse gases.
My observations exactly. No “CO2” or any other “greenhouse gases” specifically named.
I like the idea of defining unicorn farts as a greenhouse gas, as long as we understand that they must emanate from GREEN unicorns. Better still define farts from green horses as “green horse gases” and change the name of the theory accordingly to the “Greenhorse Theory”.
Then change the name of the Paris Accord to the “Paris Retard”. This all works out nicely.
One rather obvious problem is that claiming an 1850 pre industrial ending places it at about the same time the Little Ice Age was petering out. So there is the prospect of global warming clearly having nothing to do with manmade emissions (the Little Ice Age), along with any manmade warming.
@ arthur4563 November 10, 2017 at 2:53 am
The choice of a date at the end of the Little Ice Age was deliberate for the very reason that it allowed the early development of the ‘man made’ anthropogenic global warming case. The choice of starting dates by climate ‘scientists’ is always made to support their arguments vide the choice of start date for Arctic Ice metrics is not the start of satellite measurements being available but the peak ice measurement several years later.
Correct except for calling these activists “scientists”.
What percentage is atmospheric CO2 of the aggregate total of all atmospheric greenhouse gases? I keep coming up with <1% but that surely can't be correct. Even then, all references that I have been able to find indicate that a unit of CO2 is less potent as a greenhouse gase than an equal unit of H2O? I use a question mark here because I have a lot of questions about this issue but can find little information that I think I can trust.
It seems to me that everything has been over-simplified for the mostly political reason that simplism is more easily dogmatized and then sold to the unwary as science fact.
.04%! It is the smallest unit of B.S. known to science.
Try reading: “Global Warming: A closer look at the numbers”. I believe you can find it here: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
It’s difficult to answer, in part because “new” greenhouse gasses are added. Methane, nitrous oxide, flourinated gases. Once, it was pretty much water vapor and CO2, plus some methane. Over time, more and more things are added and the percentages change. According to Wiki, the IPCC 4 listed 18 greenhouse gases.
Another problem is the gases are divided into long-lived and short-lived. CO2 is long-lived and therefore more of a problem, or that is the theory. CO2 becomes more “potent” because it stays in the atmosphere longer. I’m not sure how that works—it seems counterintuitive. More of a gas, no matter how long it stays, should have more effect. If there is on the whole more water vapor, it would outrank CO2, logically. How long the specific molecules remain in the atmosphere shouldn’t matter, just the whole amount present.
CO2 is 0.04% by VOLUME and 0.06% by WEIGHT, which, combined with other “greenhorse gases”, means that about 98% of the mass of the atmosphere ( in gross, molecular, fluid dynamic motion) cannot mediate what the other 2% of atmospheric mass (in sub-atomic, radiation motion) is doing.
… magical molecules, those little CO2 thingies. This Thanksgiving, I am going to bake my turkey in a novel way, by sealing my oven door, pumping in some CO2 gas, and shining a bright light in there.
Robert
I think the turkey will be outside the oven.
Regards
“places it at about the same time the Little Ice Age was petering out.”….
Their claim is the LIA ended at 1850……then erase the MWP….
As far as we know…..we could still be recovering from the LIA, and returning to normal – the MWP
…if you consider it took about 400 years for the LIA….then we would still be recovering
Sheri, it isn’t just the percentages and long-lived versus short-lived greenhouse gases, its also what specific bands of energy (light) they absorb and emit. Water which is much more prevalent in the atmosphere, absorbs nearly the same bands of energy as does CO2, therefore it is by far the most important greenhouse gas, even though it’s so called “life time” is short. It recycles at a high rate, so even though H2O is quickly removed, it is also quickly replaced. (hence the large amount of heat it transports using convection).
The so called “lifetime” of CO2 in the atmosphere is hard to nail down, and most sources assume a ridiculous high value. My own calculations seem to suggest it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 30 years. Most AGW people claim 50 to hundreds of years. In the end, if CO2 isn’t the primary driver of global warming, it really doesn’t matter what its lifetime is. You would need to drive atmospheric concentrations above 1% to notice it, and then you can argue if the slight warming it caused was harmful or not.
arthur4563 – November 10, 2017 at 2:53 am
“YUP”, and given the fact that the Little Ice Age was petering out was proof-positive that the LIA “decrease” in Holocene Interglacial Warming had terminated and global air, land and ocean temperatures were again increasing.
Thus the choice of an 1850 starting date was deliberate for the very reason that it has allowed the per se “climate scientists” to highjack all of the Interglacial Warming from 1850 (1880) to present (2017) and claim all of said IG warming is a direct result of the increase in atmospheric CO2, …… the emissions of which they have claimed primarily to be the result of human (anthropogenic) activities.
So, the Holocene Interglacial Warming gets highjacked ……. and humanity gets blamed for CO2 causing Anthropogenic Global Warming.
A “troughfeeder’s” dream come true, ……… with a little help from the aforesaid high-jacking activities.
“Let’s just hope that playwright Howard Koch was wrong and that we won’t always have Paris.”
The Koch brothers! Again!
IPCC used 1951 as the starting year for Global Warming. However, from 1951 on wards the global average temperature anomaly includes not only global warming component but also ecological changes component — both are human induced variability — and as well natural variability component, which is 60 year cycle [varyy between -.03 to +0.3 oC]. To estimate global warming component independently, we need valid climate sensitivity factor. IPCC goes on reducing this factor from report to report upto AR5.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
I vote for 0 A.D. The Roman Warm Period was definitely not industrial.
Are you sure?
Massive industrial activity in Roman times… not at industrial revolution levels, but huge amount of activity nonetheless
e.g. Greenland ice cores show lead from Roman lead smelting operations
… and what of Egypt? Let’s keep going.
The starting point of the “Industrial Age” is very uncertain. The tiny amuont of what one can call industry in the 18th century was almost exclusively located in Britain. Large-scale industry in most of Europe was not present until the end of the 19th century, and world wide of course even later. How can a few steelworks in England cuase a watershed in global climate? It makes no sense.
But it is all really about power. The leaders have spun their story and acquired a following. Now we must all fall in line behind the leaders or we will be accused of being evil and wanting to destroy the earth.
This is a clear and logical article. Perhaps in some perfect world clarity and logic will prevail. The best we can do in the meantime is to keep trying to lay the groundwork as this author has done.
It’s also about cash and build some huge new UN style autocracy. You only have to look at the Green Fund it has spent $71M to disperse $131M and is expanding overheads rapidly.
The spending is mind boggling, $1.8M in travel, $1.3M on IT per annum for 45 people.
https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/226888/GCF_B.13_22_-_Audited_financial_statements_of_the_Green_Climate_Fund_for_the_year_ended_31_December_2015.pdf/5574b68a-cbf9-4a01-902d-f69482ede75d
The staff is going from under 45 to over 90 this year and is expected to rise to 140.
https://www.greenclimate.fund/documents/20182/584114/GCF_B.16_11_-_Report_on_the_status_of_the_staffing_of_the_Secretariat.pdf/5d1eaa3b-84cd-4e28-bd41-6254e4344fa4
We also learn they are having trouble recruiting people because of the Songdo location.
I think that is code for can we please move headquaters, so watch this space for some more expenditure.
,
Is the Songdo the place Songdo Point in North Korea or Songdo Beach in South Korea?
Aw come on … that’s three times as good as using a single tree to determine the globe’s temperature.
They’ll soon find that Mann-made Bristlecone pines are best. For tamperature.
tamperature needs to be added to the Climate portmanteau hall of fame.
Along with treemometer 🙂
nice one.
i also liked parisite.
but i loved ‘posture child’
😀
such a pity there isnt a vax for stupid
IPCC should be frst in line if ever they do manage to make one
Too late as vaccination only prevents future infections. We need a cure for stupid!
here is one remedy:
when the voice of reason is not applicable…
Yes – this seems to be something of a techno advance on the traditional ‘Sysop’s LART. See:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/L/LART.html
One does need to be aware that the “politicians” are not the people who decide what should be signed, it is civil servants and guest “experts”, who often have alternate agendas. The European Commission is the case in point, it is not even accountable to anyone for its actions, and the European Parliament has extremely little power over it! I am completely convinced this whole issue was designed as an exercise in large scale fraud, to extract money from “bad” people and pass it to “good” people who are often large corporations and line the pockets of many people on the way. Any particular minister or even government comes under huge pressure to sign up to all manner of “initiatives”, many of which are largely or wholly spurious.
It is time that the UN closed down the IPCC, as it has totally failed to prove anything at all, and was invented to support academic climate modelers whose work is demonstrated to be sufficiently inaccurate to be laughable. In fact they have also generated a climate (pun) of fear in the public with the specific intention to mislead for personal gain, and should be prosecuted. This is also known as propaganda, a technique used in war, so should perhaps be charged with war crimes against the state.
The next fiasco will be pollution levels in cities, where dubious or complete nonsense methods of statistical reporting have been used to exaggerate the effects of low levels of pollution of possibly a couple of weeks less lifetime (itself a wild guess) as thousands of deaths a year. The method is to take a population, multiply it by say 2 weeks, and then aggregate these weeks into average lifetime. These are then reported as the number of deaths from the original estimate! Amazing, and again in my view a deliberate attempt to mislead everyone amounting to serious fraud. It is certainly mathematical nonsense, but that is the currency of these pressure groups and even more amazingly is believed by our press, particularly the BBC (who claim to be science and therefore mathematically savvy!)
I read this and thought “We should not give money to these people, but rather the specific items they need”. No more blank checks. Need to decrease pollution? Scrubbers for your coal plants. Catalytic converters for your cars. Bicycles for a short commute. Relocated due to ocean rising? We pick your new location, build housing that is adequate for life (no more than that) and get the country started with food and water until they can produce their own (limit of 5 years on the food and water). Whatever is “needed” can be provided. NEVER any cash. Only goods. Then the improvements are what the climate gods wanted (or said they did) and countries contributing can make the products rather than just handing over money.
For decades I have said cash welfare should be replaced by bunches of little old ladies handing out necessities in huge warehouses.
Catalytic converters for your cars? Corrupt governments Please excuse the redundancy) would accept those gladly, strip out the platinum, and resell it. We would still lose.
Good Post. Bonn will likely decree that meat and dairy from farting ruminants must end and be replaced with over 7 Billion farting citizens on a Plant Based and Bean Diet. The Global Grassland Inventory nourished by Sunshine and Rainfall will be left to decay emitting Co2 and methane further burning up with wildfires emitting noxious ozone and Black Carbon Soot and Particulate causing premature failure to the Ice Caps and Mountain Glaciers. Google Black Carbon on Greenland Ice Cap.
Humans being nutritionaly deprived and eating soy extracted by the Neurotoxin Hexane along with the Uptake of Glyphosate which is a Chelate further depleting their nutritional minerals we will become more fodder for the Disease (coined by author of Sugar Blues, 1975) Establishment controlled by the likes of Bayer Agra and BASF Chemical.
You could have saved a few words there,this is the core!
It is really a CO2 target. If CO2 gets to 450 ppm (or GHGs get to 450 ppm CO2equivalent), the theory says temperatures will eventually rise by 2.0C.
2.0C = 3.0/Ln(2) * (450 ppm/280ppm)
They picked 2.0C as the target because they thought it was more meaningful to people than just saying 450 ppm or having to explain to people how the theory works and whether it is accurate or not.
Change the assumption about CO2 sensitivity to just 2.0C per doubling and now we can raise CO2 levels to 560 ppm and stay at the 2.0C limit.
What if the CO2 sensitivity is more like 1.6C per doubling (most of the current estimates are moving towards this value), then we can go up as high as 675 ppm and stay under the target. 675 ppm means we probably don’t need to do anything and we don’t need any renewables or a $100 billion per year fund either.
2.0C = 1.6/Ln(2) * (675 ppm/280 ppm)
It was never about saving the planet it has always been about politics and money the affirmation of the pickpocket society taking it from the working poor in the developed world and enriching the already rich in the developing world. What exactly is green about children sorting out cobalt bearing rock with their bear hands to make the frenetic greens feel good driving EV’s subsidised by poor people scratching a living that allows politicians to enjoy a political hit by removing diesel cars from our roads when even if we remove all road traffic we only reduce air pollution by 2 micrograms/metre cubed. Makes Elon Musk happy I suppose?
It also was to distract western people from real problems, unemployment, poverty, pollution, wrecked education, immigration, violence, etc.
“come on, don’t disturb me with those petty troubles, don’t you see i have to save the planet? “
15 of the largest Container Ships emit more Black Carbon than all the vehicles in the world. Bunker C is so thick it has to be heated to flow. Meanwhile as we speak our World Leaders are in Vietnam today discussing the TPP to further increase trade requiring more Ship Transportation.
It’s so Shareholder Driven by sociopaths exploiting cheap Labour and non existent environmental regulations. N.A. had an exodus of manufacturing flee to cheap Labour Jurisdictions. The grim reaper has come home to roost with poverty impaired Conn/Sumers.
The shockingly poor level of past weather data is why proxies and models needed to used in the first place. Pre-AGW that these were problematic was both accpected and acknowledge. But now with ‘settled science’ this is no longer the case , but what made them problematic in the first place remains, if ironically denyed.
I cant wait to return to zero ““People across Europe awoke on 6 January 1709 to find the temperature had plummeted. A three-week freeze was followed by a brief thaw – and then the mercury plunged again and stayed there. From Scandinavia in the north to Italy in the south, and from Russia in the east to the west coast of France, everything turned to ice. The sea froze. Lakes and rivers froze, and the soil froze to a depth of a metre or more. Livestock died from cold in their barns, chicken’s combs froze and fell off, trees exploded and travellers froze to death on the roads. It was the coldest winter in 500 years.” Who wouldn’t want to watch their children and their children’s children freeze to death to save the planet?
The winter of 1708-1709 was the worst in 500 years. The most immediate cause of cold winters in Europe is usually an icy wind from Siberia. A well-developed anticyclone over Scandinavia sucking in cold air from Siberia with exceedingly cold easterly winds would chill off Europe immensely.
Just prior to the Great Frost of 1709, there were some spectacular volcanic eruptions in 1707-1708, including Mount Fuji in Japan and Santorini and Vesuvius in Europe. These would have sent dust high into the atmosphere, forming a veil over Europe. Such dust veils normally lead to cooler summers and sometimes warmer winters, but during this persistent cold phase, excessive dust may have depressed both summer and winter temperatures. It is thought that these events, combined at the height of the LIA worked in tandem to produce one of the coldest winters in Europe of the millennium. If history repeats, as climate as often does, then our current warming the last 30 years is a bit of an insurance policy on any sudden catastrophic cooling phase. One big volcanic eruption in Iceland like in 1783 that resulted in multi year crop failures in Europe and set the stage for the French Revolution later in that decade. Let’s embrace the warmth, since it is much better than cold.
Was this the 3 year’s of Volcanic Ash blocking the sun? Nova Scotia and the East Coast of Canada had a summer with negligible sun 200 years ago. Major crop failure and grassland production for grazing animals.
The was probably the the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, which was one of the most powerful eruptions in recorded history, with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 7. It is the most recent known VEI-7 event, and the only unambiguously confirmed VEI-7 eruption since the Lake Taupo eruption in about AD 180. 1816 was know as the year without a summer in both northern North America and Europe, and if this same event happened today, it would greatly stress food production supplies for the entire planet.
If we were to have a swarm of large volcanoes at various latitudes again over a short period of time, we could easily drop 2-3 degrees temps over several years, wiping out harvests that now sustain 7.5 billion people. Our 1 degree of warming since 1850 (maybe 1/2 degree responsible by humans) would all be for not and may not be enough to protect us from a massive cooling event. Global cooling is indeed the doomsday scenario nobody wants to talk about in the global warming club.
‘No meaningful and credible global average temperature can be determined from the 1750 data.’
I submit none existed until satellite measurements began in 1979. The vast majority of the globe has no sensors at all. The vast majority of extant sensors are on the surface, few at altitude even today. We measure the bottom edge of the atmosphere.
I can tell you what the temperature is at my house. I’m confident no one knows the temperature at 5000′ over my house.
There are many words that could be used to describe the Paris fiasco. “Reckless” isn’t one I’d use, but I suppose it could be. But it ignores the fact that there are essentially two classes of countries involved in the charade, which merely pretends that this is about science. On one side, and in the majority are those who stand to benefit from it, or believe they will. Ethics aside, they had nothing to lose, and everything to gain by signing up for not only the Climate Cash, but a wholesale self-flagellation/bashing of the Western nations, particularly the US. Those countries are acting rationally, although immorally. To them, the saying “it’s just business” comes to mind. The moral depravity of it, if they are even aware of it, doesn’t seem to matter.
On the other side, and in the minority, are Western, and advanced countries. who seem willing, nay eager to severely damage their own economies or at least put on a good show of it, as well as pay a penalty – the so-called “Climate Fund”. In this case, the actions of these countries can only be described as irrational, and up until Trump’s election, that included the all-important US. One could delve into other, sinister motivations, but suffice it to say, there is a generalized seeming hatred as well as jealousy of advanced economies. Those on the Left, with a hatred for free markets, and for democracy seem to want to see us fail.
The “science” being used to promote the Paris Sham is but a mere fig leaf, an excuse to promote an agenda.
Bruce, it’s the commiting to it that was reckless. Governments have a responsibility to undertake due diligence on issues like this but I doubt that any did.
I have no problems with the rest of your comments. The UN voting system is one vote per country regardless of the size or properity of the country. This means that 145 under-developed countries can vote to gouge money out of the 30 or so developed countries. It’s as simple as that.
It’s like in the US: “We have to pass this bill to see what is in it.” By then it’s too late, but, what the hey.
Not being able to measure the starting-point temperature is not a bug; it’s a feature.
Since we cannot determine the starting point, it follows that for the same reasons we cannot determine the end point (when we have succeeded). But that is immaterial anyway because an end is neither required or desired – The First Law of a bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself: The Paris Accord is fully compliant with the First Law. That is exactly what it was designed to do!
Must say,
current representativity of most data sets of terrestrial weather stations is/ are still not correct.
You have to balance the stations on latitude and to eliminate longitude you must rather look at the change in speed of warming at the station in K/annum.
if you do it it right you will find that it is already cooling.
but it is not by much…
I get your point but altitude is equally relevant to temperature.
Also, isn’t a drop in the “rate” of minimum temperatures an indication of warming?
John Harmsworth,
yes
altitude is also a factor, but like longitude, it is also eliminated by looking at the change in the rate of warming in K/year, We are looking at the average yearly temperature at each station and we determine the average change from the average over time, i.e. the derivative of the (linear) trend line over the various periods. See how that changes over time. You have to look at 4 periods of time [from present to past] as you need to build the function [of at least 4 points].
AGW alleges that heat is trapped, i.e. heat bounced back to earth by the atmosphere hence minima should be rising pushing up the Mean T.
When I started the job (54 stations), I was astonished to find that there never was any increase in minimum temperature here where I live….
beginning a long journey to find the truth….al most 8 years now…
.
Surely everyone knows that the start of rise of CO2 and the red sun was in 1917. Specifically October 1917, a date that the BBC radio has been celebrating volubly between snipes about Mrs. Mays government, Trump gaffs, and the dire consequences of BREXIT.
It seems very convenient that the end of the Little Ice Age, the start of the modern temperature record, and the start of Industrialization all coincide on 1850.
consider for example the odds of this actually being true are many thousands to one against.
yet this highly improbable scenario that defies common sense is what underpins the theory of GHG warming.
“According to data from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) only three observation stations reported temperature data in 1750 – Berlin (Germany), De Bilt (Netherlands) and Uppsala (Sweden). ”
Not sure why CRU is ignoring the Central England Temperature record, which goes back to 1659:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_England_temperature
The CRU has no historical records back to those times for the places at which the CET was measured. One reason might be because the instruments and screening were of poor standard (although were Berlin, De Bilt and Uppsala any better?) It might also be that the total CET record is complete but it’s really a set of fragments from different locations.
I admit that these comments are speculation. You might like to email Phil Jones at the CRU and ask him.
We need more of these kinds of artcles showing just what a shaky foundation the CAGW speculation is based on.
The 2C limit was just pulled out of thin air, and now this article informs us that the “pre-industrial “base” temperature” is made up out of thin air, too. No basis in fact.
The entire CAGW speculation is based on fantasy and make believe.
We have long series of sea water levels. They can act as proxies. Heating would change sea level above the observed linear trend.
Long series can be found here:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/global_50yr.htm?stnid=120-022
1850 and onwards-no trend connected to rising CO2
Try to find one!
The Super Volcano spewing molten rock and dust under Antarctica live as we speak is being debated by the Science community. The first picture I saw a month ago revealed the ash inside the edges of the circular sink hole with yesterday’s showing a light yellowish dust on the snow beside the ice chasm. Nature is a Freak Show beyond out control.
Bruce Cobb mentioned Climate Cash earlier up in the Comments. A perfect decrip. Although there are many Industrial Emitters without the latest in Electrostatic Precipitat ors, Dust Cyclones, Bag houses, Wet Stack Scrubbers, Nox SCR Scrubbers etc adding to Black Carbon on Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps causing premature thaw like a Runaway train.
According to data from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) only three observation stations reported temperature data in 1750 – Berlin (Germany), De Bilt (Netherlands) and Uppsala (Sweden). St Petersburg (Russia) reported data in earlier years but none 1750.
Wondering how the Central England Temperature Record relates to this… TonyB, you up today?
The first temperatures in Uppsala was measured by Anders Celsius!
They started in an open room in the centre of the town.
http://celsius.met.uu.se/default.aspx?pageid=31
Though the IPCC defines “pre-industrial” breakpoint at 1750, for temperature references the 1850-1900 average is used. This is of course not pre-industrial, but it has the advantage of being both known and fixed. Actual pre-industrial temperatures are not known, but they are known not to be fixed.
There’s no reason to suppose that the latter half of the 19th century represented any sort of optimal climate, of course.
It’s like those construction contracts that specify “…all work shall be worked in a workman like manner.” or “…all materials shall be of first class quality.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
Well, the blade’s not supposed to fall off, for a start…
(see my comment on the Antarctica wind turbine failure for reference 🙂
The Super Volcano spewing molten rock and dust under Antarctica live as we speak is being debated by the Science community. The first picture I saw a month ago revealed the ash inside the edges of the circular sink hole with yesterday’s showing a light yellowish dust on the snow beside the ice chasm. Nature is a Freak Show beyond out control.
Bruce Cobb mentioned Climate Cash earlier up in the Comments. A perfect decrip. Although there are many Industrial Emitters without the latest in Electrostatic Precipitat ors, Dust Cyclones, Bag houses, Wet Stack Scrubbers, Nox SCR Scrubbers etc adding to Black Carbon on Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps causing premature thaw like a Runaway train.
If we must choose a start date as to when humans really starting affecting natural processes on Earth like large scale industrialization and major land use change and albedo, then why don’t we split the difference between 1850 when things really first got started on a regional scale in parts of Europe and North America, and 1950 when we could say the entire planet was on its way to industrialization and significant land development.
That would be 1900, when the age of the automobile and the airplane were about to make a debut. 1900 is generous, because we did not really ramp up major industrialization until somewhat later. It also negates some natural warming that may face been happening out of the depths of the LIA. So maybe .6 to .7 of a degree of total warming, which maybe 1/3 of a degree C could be maybe attributed to humans. Me thinks we quibble about next to nothing in this context, except that warming is better than cooling.
I think you can add to it, that “global average temperature” isn´t even defined in the Paris agreement.
As measurement is about quantifying a well defined physical quantity that can be characterized by an essential unique value. I think it is fair to ask about the definition.
Is it the average 2 m above surface, the average of the troposphere, a combination of sea surface and land surface… What is the definition of ´global average temperature´?
And, as the industrial age started as the Little Ice Age came to an end, what on earth makes that a reasonable reference point?
… and add that a ‘global average temperature’ is itself a meaningless concept. Just ask any CAGW ™ fear-monger what that actually means, and knock down every attempt at definition. It’s fun!
John McLean
An excellent article, one that should stay as a top post for a month or more.
The IPCC is like the con man with three inverted cups and one ball.
The core of global climate alarmism is rotten, supported by faked statistics, cooked numbers, misdirection and plain lies. Everything else is moot.
For more thoughts on the 1.5 C tipping point, see my earlier article here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/26/hadcrut-adjustments-and-the-1-5c-tipping-point-now-includes-september-data-except-for-hadcrut/
Why would a government sign this? Simply because it’s an avenue to new sources of taxation. Witness my land of the true north, strong and free – we contribute minimally to any atmospheric issues as it is and those that we do contribute are largely as a result of a very low density population in a very large and cold land. But gosh, we can tell the sheeple we’re saving the planet and relieve them of their money at the same time. Excellent, where do I sign?
You are an Inuit?
‘Committing to such an agreement was foolhardy in the extreme or at least political posturing at the expense of common sense.’
And let me guess – the moment all these countries start to feel the pain, they will turn around and demand bail-out money from the one country not stupid enough to get involved.
Grasshopper/Ant. Nuff said.
Let me add that there is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really zero. The initial radiametric calculations came up with a climate sensivity of CO2 of 1.2 degrees C not factoring in feedbacks. One researcher has found that these calculations failed to take into consideration that a doubling of CO2 will cause a slight decrease in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere which is a cooling effect. The reduction in the dry lapse rate will decrease the climate sensivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20, reducing the climate sensivity of CO2 to less than .06 degrees C.
An important part of the AGW conjecture is that CO2 based warming will increase the amount of H2O in the atmosphere which will cause even more warming because H2O is really the primary greenhouse gas and molecule per molecule is a stronger absorber of IR than is CO2. Those that believe in the AGW conjecture like to assume an amplification factor associated with H2O of 3. However, the AGW conjecture completely ignores that H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. According to some energy balance models more heat energy is moved by H2O via the heat of vaporization then by both convection and LWIR absorption band radiation combined. The cooling effect of more H2O is also evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate which indicates that more H2O has a net cooling effect. So instesd of an amplification factor of 3 we should use an amplification factor of 1/3 which would yield a climate sensivity of CO2 of less than .02 degrees C which is a trivial amount.
The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases with LWIR absorption bands. The AGW conjecture completely ignores the fact that good absorbers are also good radiators and what ever LWIR photons are absorbed are eventually radiated away. The so called greenhouse gases do not trap heat any more than any other gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. In fact the non-greenhouse gases will tend too hold onto heat energy longer than the so called greenhouse gases because the non-greenhouse gases are such poor LWIR radiators to space. Since heat transfer by conduction and convection dominates over heat transfer by LWIR absorption band radiation in the troposhere, the fact that the so called greenhouse gases absorb LWIR radiation makes little difference.
A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of IR absorbiing greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. There is no radiant greenhouse effect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. So too with the Earth’s climate system. Gravity along with the heat capacity of the atmosphere and the depth of the troposphere provide a convective greenhouse effect. Derived from first principals, the Earth’s convective greenhouse effect keeps the Earth’s surface on average 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is the amount derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been measured. There is no additional warming caused by a radiative greenhouse effect. A radiative greenhouse effect has not been observed on Earth or anywhere else in the solar system for that mater. The radiative greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. This is all a matter of science.
From an analysis of paleoclimate date and the results of work with models one can conclude that the climate change we are experieicnig today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. So far mankind has not been able to change weather events let alone global climate. Until we find a way to control climate there is no basis for a climate agreement.
Is not pre-industrial the Holocene Optimum?
if not there uis a good case for arguing that it is the height of the Minoan Warm Period or the height of the Roman Warm Period, before the industry of war took hold in earnest.
I am not a scientist or professional but an everyday person who is a good believer in god and a keen reader of the bible. In my opinion climate change is the greatest fraud the devil has used through mans nativity to gain control over more people and to draw people’s away from believing and knowing that god is nature and has provided for us a way through all situations, in wjich we should be embracing him for the answers to his awesome creation of mankind animals the earth the universe and how we can navigate our way through all things good or bad and prosper, instead of giving to leftists elitist who exist to control those that a weak or think they are weak.
I recommend the book “Inventing Temperature”, by Hasok Chang. It is the history of not only the science, but the philosophy of science, of temperature measurement. No temperature measurement prior to the 1850s could be regarded as useful for climatological purposes, and even then the accuracy was outside of the bounds of the “anomaly” we now regard as sacrosanct.