Climate Change
Science
Compiled
by Ken Gregory,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
email: kgregory@shaw.ca
Revised January 7,
2010 (Revision
history)
Table of
Contents
Introduction
The Science in Summary
Greenhouse Gas Effect
Climate Is Always
Changing
CO2 - Temperature Correlation
CO2 Changes Follow Temperature
Changes
Sun Activity Does Correlate with
Temperature
Sun and Cosmic
Rays
Milankovitch
Cycles
Heating of the
Troposphere
Stratospheric Cooling
Warming on Other
Planets
CO2 Versus the Sun/Cosmic Ray Warming
Theories
CO2 Greatly Increases Plant and Forest
Growth
IPCC and Model
Projections
Computer Models Fail
Water Vapour
Feedback
Cloud
Feedback
Aerosols
Climate Sensitivity
The
IPCC Hockey Stick
Urban Heat Island
Effects
Falsified Historical CO2
Measurements
No Consensus
Effects of
Warming
Global Sea Level
Rise
Severe Weather
Warming Is Good
for Your Health
Warming Effects on
Animals
Kyoto Protocol - Misallocation of
Funds
An Inconvenient
Truth
Warnings of Global Cooling
Introduction
One
of the goals of the Friends of Science Society is to educate the public through
dissemination of relevant, balanced and objective technical information on the
scientific merit of the Kyoto Protocol and the global warming issue. The science
of climate change is complex. Unfortunately, politics and the media has affected
the science. Climate research institutions know that they must present scary
climate forecasts to receive continued funding - no crisis means no funding. The
media presents stories of climate disaster to sell their products. Scientific
research that suggests climate change is mostly natural does not receive much if
any media coverage. These factors have caused the general public to be seriously
misled on climate issues resulting in wasteful expenditures of billions of
dollars in an ineffective attempt to control climate. This document gives an
overview of climate change issues as determined by a comprehensive review of the
state of climate science.
The
graph above shows the temperature changes of the lower troposphere from the
surface up to about 8 km as determined from the average of two analyses of
satellite data. The best fit line from January 2002 to December 2009
indicates a decline of 0.18 Celsius/decade. Surface temperature data is
contaminated by the effects of urban development. The Sun's activity, which was
increasing through most of the 20th century, has recently become quiet, causing
a change of trend. The green line shows the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere,
as measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. The ripple effect in the CO2 curve is due to
the seasonal changes in biomass. There is a far greater land area in the
northern hemisphere than the south that is affected by seasons.
During the Northern hemisphere summer there is a large uptake of CO2 from plants
growing causing a drop in the atmospheric CO2
concentration.
The Science in
Summary
The history of the Earth tells us that the
climate is always changing; from warm periods when the dinosaurs flourished, to
the many ice ages when glaciers covered much of the land. Climate has always
changed due to natural cycles without any help from people.
The United
Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a political
organization promoting a theory that recent minor temperature increases may be
caused largely by man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. CO2 is an infrared
gas, and increasing concentrations can potentially increase the average global
temperature as the gas absorbs radiation from the Earth and emits the absorbed
energy at longer wavelengths. However, the warming ability of CO2 is limited
because much of the absorption spectrum is near or fully saturated. When CO2
concentrations were ten times greater than today the Earth was in the grips of
one of the coldest ice ages.
The history of climate and CO2
concentration shows that temperature changes precede CO2 changes and can not be
a significant driver of climate. Temperature changes over different time scales
have been well correlated to solar cycles, cosmic ray flux and cloud cover.
Recent research shows that cosmic rays act as a catalyst to create low clouds,
which cool the planet. When the Sun is more active, the solar wind repels the
cosmic rays, reducing low cloud cover allowing the Sun to warm the planet.
Computer model results presented in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
shows that if CO2 is the main climate driver, the temperature profile in the
atmosphere will show a unique and distinctive pattern - a CO2 fingerprint of
global warming. Actual temperature data shows no such CO2 fingerprint.
Therefore, the comparison of observed data to computer models proves that CO2 is
not the main climate driver. In atmosphere layers near 5 km, the modelled trend
from 1980 is 100 to 300% higher than observed. Real world data shows that high
clouds cause a strong negative feedback on climate, but climate models assume
that clouds cause a positive feedback. The computer models are programmed to
forecast a constant water vapor relative humidity with increasing CO2 resulting
in a large water vapor feedback. Actual data shows the relative humidity has
fallen 21% since 1948 in the upper troposphere where the models predict the
greatest feedback. A new greenhouse effect theory by Miskolczi shows that the Earth maintains a saturated
greenhouse effect. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere just replaces
an equivalent amount of water vapour to maintain an almost constant
greenhouse effect.
Several planets and moons have warmed recently
along with the Earth, confirming a natural warming trend. Over longer time
periods, as the solar system moves in and out of the galactic arms the cosmic
ray flux changes, causing ice ages and warm ages. A comparison of temperature
and solar activity proxy data suggests that solar effects can explain at least
75% of the surface warming during the last 100 years.
CO2 is plant food
and the increase in the CO2 concentration may have increased the global food
production by 15% since 1950 resulting in huge benefits for people. For Canada,
any CO2 warming effect would also benefit us by reducing our space heating costs
and making a more pleasant climate.
The IPCC predicts that global
average temperatures will increase by 0.17 to 0.38 oC per decade to
the end of the century depending on the rate of CO2 growth in the atmosphere and
other assumptions. The projections assume that no action is taken to limit CO2
emissions. However, these predictions are unrealistic because they falsely
assume that the recent temperature changes are driven solely by CO2 and that the
Sun has little effect on climate. A recent study of past climate change used by
the IPCC has been shown to be wrong due to the use of a faulty algorithm, and
the inappropriate selection of data.
The land temperature record is
contaminated by the urban heat island effect. Fully correcting the land
temperature record would reduce the warming trend from 1980 to 2002 by
half. The IPCC historical CO2 record may be incorrect due to inappropriate
adjustments to the ice core data, and ignoring direct historical CO2
measurements. The IPCC selects and adjusts data to conform to its CO2 warming
hypothesis and ignores alternative climate theories. This is the wrong way to do
science. Many scientists strongly disagree with the IPCC conclusions.
The sea level data shows no increase in the recent rate of sea level
rise, and no such increase is expected over the next hundred years. There has
been no detected increase in severe storms and there is no reason to expect an
increase in the number or intensity of hurricanes resulting from any warming
assumed to be from human caused CO2 emissions.
Any increase in
temperatures due to human caused CO2 emissions will likely be beneficial to
human health. The CO2 fertilization effect will increase the rate of forest
growth and CO2 induced crop yield increases will reduce the pressures to cut
down forests for farmland expansion. This will greatly benefit animals by
slowing habitat destruction.
The benefits of CO2 emissions greatly
exceed any likely harmful effects. Several authorities who have studied solar
cycles have warned that the Earth may soon enter a cooling phase as the Sun is
expected to become less active. The atmosphere may warm because of human
activity, but if it does, the expected change is unlikely to be more than 1 ºC,
and probably less, in the next 100 years.
Greenhouse Gas
Effect
This graphic shows
the exchange of energy among Space, the Sun, the atmosphere and the Earth.
Greenhouse gases are primarily water vapour, carbon dioxide and ozone.
Greenhouse gases are mostly transparent to incoming solar radiation, but absorb
outgoing long wavelength radiation. The absorbed energy is then transferred to
cooler molecules or radiated at longer wavelengths than the energy previously
absorbed. This process makes the Earth warmer than it otherwise would be without
the greenhouse gases (but with the atmosphere and clouds) by about 33 degrees
Celsius. See here
for a graphic of the energy transfers expressed in Watts per square meter
(W/m2).
Water vapour and clouds together account for over 70%
of the total current greenhouse effect. However, in terms of changes to the
greenhouse effect due to human activities, water vapour is generally considered
a feedback and not a forcing agent. See here for
a discussion of CO2 versus water's contribution to the greenhouse
effect.
Absorption Spectrum
The graph at the left shows the
absorption spectra of the greenhouse gases. Where the black shading extends from
0 to 1, it indicates that at that wavelength the energy is fully absorbed.
Adding more gas of that type will not absorb any more energy as that wavelength
is fully saturated. Comparing the CO2 and H2O absorption spectra shows that much
of the CO2 spectrum overlaps with that of water. Parts of the CO2 spectrum are
already fully saturated. Adding more CO2 will result in ever diminishing effects
as more of the available wavelengths become saturated. The temperature response
to adding CO2 to the atmosphere depends on the amount of positive and negative
feedbacks from water vapour, clouds and other sources. The temperature effect of
increasing CO2 concentration is approximately logarithmic. This means if
doubling the CO2 concentration from 300 ppm to 600 ppm, a 300 ppm
increase, causes the temperature to rise by 1 oC, it would take
another 600 ppm incease to add a further 1 oC temperature gain. See
here.
Climate Is Always
Changing
The Earth's history shows that the climate has
always been changing, over both short-term and long-term time scales. These
changes have sometimes been abrupt and severe, without any help from humans.
Climate temperature reconstructions are determined from a variety of sources,
such as from tree ring width studies and ocean floor sediments. During the
last 2 billion years, the Earth has alternated between cool periods like today,
and warm periods like when the dinosaurs roamed the planet. The figure below on
the left is a temperature reconstruction of the Earth over 2 billion years.
Temperatures over this time frame are determined by mapping the distribution of
ancient coals, desert deposits, tropical soils, salt and glacial deposits, as
well as the distribution of plants and animals that are sensitive to climate,
such as alligators, palm trees & mangrove swamps. See here for further information.
Temperature Over Geological Time
Holocene Optimum
The graph above
shows the northern hemisphere temperature history since the last ice
age.
Temperature History from
North Atlantic Ocean Sediments
The graph above right shows temperature variations
of the past 3,000 years (during recorded history), as determined from ocean
sediment studies in the North Atlantic. [Keigwin, 1996]. Note the rapid
variations, as well as the much warmer temperatures 1,000 and 2,500 years ago.
See here
for further information.
Climate is always changing, as the history
of Europe's temperature over the last thousand years shows in the graph
below:
1000 Years Temperature History IPCC 1990
The temperature history shown at the left was
published in the first IPCC report in 1990, based on Lamb's estimated climate
history of Central England.
Clearly, human activity could not have had a
significant effect on the temperature changes before 1900. These changes are the
result of natural processes.
See here.
See
here for NASA's GISS
temperature graphs since 1880.
CO2 - Temperature
Correlation
The temperature of the Earth has
warmed slightly, about 0.7 degrees Celsius, over the last hundred years. Over
this time, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased, mostly due to the
increased use of fossil fuels. However, the Sun has increased in intensity since
1900 which may have induced much of the observed warming since then. Scafetta
and West estimate that the Sun may have caused 10 to 20% of the increase in CO2
during the last century. (See page 2 of their paper here.)
A short-term correlation does not imply that the CO2 increase caused the
temperature increase. Causation can be inferred if there is a correlation over
several cycles of CO2 concentration changes, with the CO2 change preceding the
temperature change. The actual climate history shows no such correlation, and
there is no compelling evidence that the recent rise in temperature was caused
by CO2. Temperatures have been variable over time, and do not correlate to CO2
concentration. When CO2 concentrations were 10 times higher than they are now we
were in a major ice age. As a greenhouse gas, CO2 is vastly outweighed by
(natural) water vapour and clouds, which accounts for over 70% of the greenhouse
effect. Human-related CO2 emissions soared after 1940. Yet most of the 20th
century's world-wide temperature increase occurred beforehand. See here
for a graphic of the carbon cycle.
The CO2 growth rate is given
below.
CO2 Growth Rate
The actual
increase of CO2 concentration averaged 0.5% per year since
1990.
World Temperature Trend MSU Data 1979 - 2006
This graph was
created from the MSU Data from www.CO2Science.org. The MSU Satellite data set is
a product of the NASA and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The MSU
data set represent the temperatures of a layer of the atmosphere that extends
from the surface to approximately 8 kilometres (5 miles) above the
surface. The data are obtained from microwave sounding units (MSUs) on the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's TIROS-N satellites, which
relate the intensity or brightness of microwaves emitted by oxygen molecules in
the atmosphere to temperature.
The trend line indicates a warming of 0.13
Celsius per decade.
CO2 Changes Follow Temperature
Changes
Fischer et al. (1999) examined records of
atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic Vostok ice cores that
extended back in time across a quarter of a million years. Over this immense
time span, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were
those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each
and every one of these tremendous global warmings, Earth's air temperature rose
well before there was any increase in atmospheric CO2. In fact, the air's
CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet
began to warm. Ice cores provide a detailed record of local temperature and CO2
concentrations. A study by Caillon et al. (2003) finds that the CO2 increase
lagged Antarctic deglacial warming by 800 ± 200 years. The authors measured the
isotopic composition of argon40 and CO2 concentration in air bubbles in the
Vostok core during the end of the third most recent ice age (Termination III),
240,000 years before the present. The argon40 isotope is found to be an
excellent proxy for temperature.
Vostok
Ice Core Data over End of Third Ice Age BP
The CO2 and Argon (Temperature) Age Scales are Shifted
800 Years
The CO2 concentration shown
by the black line is plotted against age in years before present (BP) on the
bottom axis, and the Argon40, a temperature proxy, shown by the grey line is
plotted against age on the top axis. The age scale for the CO2 has been shifted
by a constant 800 years to obtain the best correlation of the two data sets. The
correlation shows that temperature changes precede CO2 concentration changes by
about 800 years.
These findings confirm that an increase in CO2 has never
initially caused an increase in temperature during a deglaciation. Temperature
increases cause the oceans to expel CO2, increasing the CO2 content of the
atmosphere. When temperature is at its maximum in each cycle and starts to fall,
CO2 concentrations continue to increase for another 800 years! As CO2
increases, temperatures fall. This is the opposite of what one would expect if
CO2 were a primary climate driver. The ice core data proves that CO2 is not a
primary climate driver. One must invoke reverse time causality to claim the ice
core data shows CO2 causes temperature change, like suggesting actions taken
today can affect the conquests of Mongol leader Genghis Khan. Logic demands that
cause must precede effect. Increases in air temperature drive increases in
atmospheric CO2 concentration, and not vice versa.
See here for more
information. See here for a graph of
Vostok ice core data. See here for
the Cailion et al (2003) paper.
Sun Activity Does Correlate with
Temperature
Numerous papers published in major peer-reviewed
scientific journals shows the Sun is the primary driver of climate change.
There is a very strong correlation between the Sun activity and temperature.
Early in the nineteenth century, William Herschel (1738-1822),
discoverer of Uranus, found that five periods of low number of sunspots
corresponded to high wheat prices when the temperatures were cold. (Cold climate
reduces the supply of wheat causing its price to rise.) See here.
E.
Friis-Christensen and K.Lassen have shown that the length of the mean 11 year
Sunspot cycle correlates to the northern hemisphere temperature during the past
130 years. The length of the Sunspot cycle is known to vary with solar
activity, whereas high solar activity implies short sunspot cycle length. See here
for further information.
See here for an updated
plot based on Friis-Christensen and Lassen's methodology.
Here is a
correlation of the sunspot cycle length, global temperature and CO2
concentrations.
Sunspot Cycle Length Temperature and
CO2
The
red squares on the graph represent the sunspot cycle lengths. One point is the
cycle length from the time of the maximum number of sunspots to the time of the
maximum number of sunspots of the next cycle, and the following point is the
cycle length from the time of the minimum number of sunspots to the time of the
minimum number of sunspots of the next cycle. The sunspot cycles are back
filtered using weighting 1,2,3,4 applied to each cycle point, both min to min
and max to max. This assumes that the current cycle has the most effect on
temperature (weight 4), and previous half cycles affect current temperatures in
declining amounts, but future cycles have no effect on the current temperature.
The temperature curve in blue used the HadCRUT3 land and sea data to 1978, the
MSU satellite data from 1984 to 2006, and the average of the datasets for 1979
to 1983. This eliminates much of the urban heat island effects. The temperatures
are unfiltered annual. The CO2 concentrations (ppmv) from 1958 to 2007 are
derived from air samples collected at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. CO2
concentrations prior to 1958 are uncertain.
Note that there is a
correspondence between sunspot cycle length and temperature. Both the
temperature and the cycle length curves begin to rise at 1910, and temperatures
fall after 1945 to 1975 when the cycle length curve falls, and both curves rise
again after 1975. Temperatures have been increasing since 1980 faster than
can be explained by the sunspot cycle length, indicating a possible human CO2
contribution. The recent increase of the cycle lengths explains why there has
been no warming since 2002. Temperature changes are expected to follow Sun
activity changes due to a time lag resulting from the large heat capacity of the
oceans.
N. Scafetta of Duke University, Durham, NC and B.J. West of the
US Army Research Office, NC studied the solar impact on 400 years of the
Northern Hemisphere temperatures since 1600. They find good correspondence
between temperature and solar irradiance proxy reconstructions up until 1920 as
shown on the graph below.
Northern Hemisphere Temperature vs
Solar Irradiance 400 years
The
temperature curve is derived from proxy records to 1850 by Moberg et al. [2005],
and from instrumental surface temperature data from 1850 to about 1980. The
surface temperature record includes the urban heat island (UHI) and land use
changes effects. The Northern Hemisphere MSU lower troposphere record is shown
from 1979 in blue, which eliminates most of the UHI effects. Two different solar
irradiance proxy reconstructions are shown: Lean, 2000; Wang et al., 2005. Both
curves merge the ACRIM satellite data since 1980 with the proxy data. By
assuming ACRIM, the solar activity has an increasing trend during the second
half of the 20th century. This graph is modified from the version created
by Scafetta and West, which uses the contaminated instrument record after 1979
instead of the satellite data. See the original version here.
Note the low solar activity
periods occurring during the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715, the Little Ice Age) and
during the Dalton Minimum (1795–1825).
Note the excellent correlation
from 1600 to 1900 when humans were unlikely to effect climate. During the 20th
century one continues to observe a significant correlation between the solar and
temperature patterns: both records show an increase from 1900 to 1950, a
decrease from 1950 to 1970, and again an increase from 1970 to 2000.
A
divergence of the curves from the Scafetta and West original graph indicates
that the Sun is responsible for 56% using Lean 2000, and 69% using Wang 2005, of
the northern hemisphere warming from 1900 to 2005. The authors estimate the
error at 20%.
There are two solar composites available from satellite
data. The ACRIM is obtained directly from the satellite data, while the PMOD
assumes that Nimbus7/ERB satellite data covering the ACRIM gap (1989–1992) are
still significantly corrupted and require additional severe adjustments. The
ACRIM data shows higher solar irradiance during solar cycle 22 - 23 than the
PMOD data. Using the PMOD data and the original graph, the Sun likely has
contributed 50% of the surface warming from 1900 to 2005.
The authors did
a similar analysis using the Mann and Jones 2003 temperature reconstruction.
This temperature history shows little variation before 1900 and shows a hockey
stick shape. This reconstruction has been severely criticized for several
reasons. See The IPCC Hockey
Stick section of this essay. The authors found that the Mann and Jones
2003 reconstruction (when compared to the Lean 2000 data) results in an
unphysical zero response time to solar forcing. The ocean's large heat capacity
should result in a time lag of surface temperatures with respect to long time
solar changes of several years, so this reconstruction cannot be
correct.
The authors' analysis shows the Sun has contributed 50 to 69% of
the surface warming depending on the reconstructions utilized. The remainder may
be due to CO2, UHI and land use changes. The authors compare the Sun's
irradiance to the Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures, which are
contaminated with the urban heat island effect. The global MSU satellite
temperatures, which are not contaminated by the UHI effect, have increased by
half as much as the North Hemisphere temperatures since 1980. If the Scafetta
and West analysis used the uncontaminated satellite data since 1980, the results
would show that the Sun has contributed at least 75% of the global warming of
the last century. See more about the UHI effect later in this essay here. See here for the
November 2007 article.
A group of NASA and university scientists have
found convincing evidence of a link between the Sun activity and climate by
comparing the records of the historical water level of the Nile River to the
number of auroras observed in northern Europe and the Far East between 622 and
1470 AD. Auroras are bright glows in the night sky following solar flares, and
are an excellent means of tracking solar activity. See this link for
further information.
A study by WJR
Alexander et al, published June 2007 compared hydrometeorological data to solar
variability. The study looked at rainfall, river flow and flood data. The
authors conclude that there is "an unequivocal synchronous linkage between these
processes in South Africa and elsewhere, and solar activity." The study included
an analysis of the level of Lake Victoria, which has been carefully monitored
since 1896. In the early 1960s a dramatic rainfall increase significantly raised
the lake level, and the level since then has been falling at about 29 mm per
year. The decline has been removed from the data plotted below. The plot
shows two periods of strong correlation between lake level and sunspot number,
corresponding to periods of high levels of volcanic
dust.
Lake Victoria Water Level and Sunspot
Number
See the paper "Linkages
between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development"
here
.
Longer term, here is a correlation of a solar proxy to a
temperature proxy for a period of 3000 years. Values of carbon-14 (produced by
cosmic rays – hence a proxy for solar activity) correlate extremely well with
oxygen-18 (temperature proxy). The lower graph shows a particularly
well-resolved time interval from 8,350 to 7,900 years BP.
The above graph summarizes data obtained
from a stalagmite from a cave in Oman, as reported in the paper, Neff, U., et
al. 2001.
Recently, Tim Patterson, an adviser to the FOS, has studied
high-resolution Holocene climate records from fjords and coastal lakes in
British Columbia and demonstrates a link between temperature and solar cycles.
The spectral analysis shown here
is from sediment cores obtained from Effingham Inlet, Vancouver Island, British
Columbia. The annually deposited laminations of the core are linked to the
changing climate conditions. The analysis shows a strong correlation to the
11-year sunspot cycle.
See here
for a powerpoint slide show by Tim Patterson.
N. Shaviv and J.
Veiser using seashell thermometers shows a strong correlation between
temperature and the cosmic ray flux over the last 520 million years.
Cosmic Ray
Flux and Tropical Temperature Variation Over the Phanerozoic 520 million
years
The
upper curves describe the cosmic ray flux (CRF) using iron meteorite exposure
age data. The blue line depicts the nominal CRF, while the yellow shading
delineates the allowed error range. The two dashed curves are additional CRF
reconstructions that fit within the acceptable range. The red curve describes
the nominal CRF reconstruction after its period was fine-tuned to best fit the
low-latitude temperature anomaly. The bottom black curve depicts the smoothed
temperature change derived from calcitic shells over the Phanerozoic. The
red line is the predicted temperature model for the red curve above. The
green line is the residual. The top blue bars indicate ice
ages.
Sun and Cosmic Rays
During
the 20th century the Sun has continued to warm and may have contributed directly
to a third of the warming over the last hundred years. The change in solar
output is too small to directly account for most of the observed warming.
However, the Sun-Cosmic Ray connection provides an amplification mechanism by
which a small change in solar irradiance will have a large effect on climate.
A paper by H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen of the Center for
Sun-Climate Research of the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen has shown
that cosmic rays highly correlate to low cloud formation. Changes in the
intensity of galactic cosmic rays alter the Earth’s cloudiness.
A
recent experiment in 2005 shows the effect of cosmic rays in a reaction chamber
containing air and trace chemicals found over the oceans. Electrons released in
the air by cosmic rays act as a catalyst in making aerosols. They significantly
accelerate the formation of stable, ultra-small clusters of sulphuric acid and
water molecules, which are the building block for the cloud condensation
nuclei.
Data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project
and the Huancayo cosmic ray station shows a remarkable correlation between low
clouds (below 3 km) and cosmic rays. There are more than enough cosmic rays at
high altitudes, so changes in the cosmic rays do not effect high clouds. But
fewer cosmic rays penetrate to the lower clouds, so they are sensitive to
changes in cosmic rays.
Cosmic Rays and Low Clouds
The blue
line shows variations in global cloud cover collated by the International
Satellite Cloud Climatology Project. The red line is the record of monthly
variations in cosmic-ray counts at the Huancayo station.
Low-level clouds
cover more than a quarter of the Earth's surface and exert a strong cooling
effect on the surface. A 2% change in low clouds during a solar cycle will
change the heat input to the Earth's surface by 1.2 watts per square metre
(W/m2). This compares to the total warming of
1.4 W/m2 the IPCC cites in the 20th century. (The IPCC does not
recognize the effect of the Sun and Cosmic rays, and attributes the warming to
CO2.)
Cosmic ray flux can be determined from radioactive isotopes such as
beryllium-10, or the Sun’s open coronal magnetic field. The two independent
cosmic ray proxies confirm that there has been a dramatic reduction in the
cosmic ray flux during the 20th century as the Sun has gained intensity and the
Sun's coronal magnetic field has doubled in strength.
Cosmic Ray Flux Since 1700
Changes
in the flux of galactic cosmic rays since 1700 are here derived from two
independent proxies, 10Be (light blue) and open solar coronal flux (dark blue)
(Solanki and Fligge 1999). Low cloud amount (orange) is scaled and normalized to
observational cosmic-ray data from Climax (red) for the period 1953 to 2005 (3
GeV cut-off). Both scales are inverted to correspond with rising temperatures.
Note that high cosmic ray flux around 1700 is at the end of the Little Ice Age.
Also note the increase in cosmic ray flux after 1780 at the time of the Dicken's
Winters.
The graph below shows a correlation between the
cosmic ray counts and the global troposphere temperature radiosonde data. The
cosmic ray scale is inverted to correspond to increasing temperatures. High
solar activity corresponds to low cosmic ray counts, reduced low cloud cover,
and higher temperatures. The upper panel shows the troposphere temperatures in
blue and the cosmic ray count in red. The lower panel shows the match achieved
by removing El Nino, the North Atlantic Oscillation, volcanic aerosols and a
linear trend of 0.14 Celsius/decade.
The negative correlation between cosmic
ray counts and troposphere temperatures is very strong, indicating that the Sun
is the primary climate driver. H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen published
the above graph in a paper October 2007 in response to a paper by M. Lockwood
and C. Frohlich, in which they argue that the historical link between the Sun
and climate came to an end about 20 years ago. However, the Lockwood paper had
several deficiencies, including the problem that they used surface temperature
data that is contaminated by the urban heat island effect (see below). They also
fail to account for the large time lag between long-term solar intensity changes
to the climate temperature response.
See the Svensmark rebuttal of the
Lockwood paper here,
and a critique by myself here.
Over
the 20th century the Sun has increased activity and irradiance intensity,
directly providing some warming. The graph below from here
shows the rising solar flux during most of the twentieth
century.
Open Solar Flux
When the Sun is active it has a higher number of sun spots
and emits more solar wind - a continuous stream of very high-speed charged
particles. The increased solar wind and magnetic field repels cosmic rays that
otherwise would hit the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in less aerosols in the
lower atmosphere thereby reducing low cloud formation. The low clouds have a
high reflectivity and have a strong cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back
into space.
In summary, the process is:
More active Sun
--> more Sunspots --> more solar wind --> less cosmic ray -->
less aerosols --> less low clouds --> more sun light to the surface -->
global warming.
The theory of CO2 warming implies that the arctic and
Antarctica should be warming about the same, and the polar regions should be
warming more that the rest of the Earth. However, Antarctica has not warmed
since 1975, which is a big problem for the CO2 theory. The ice covering
Antarctica has even higher reflectivity than low clouds, so fewer low clouds
cools Antarctica, while fewer low clouds warms the rest of the planet.
(Greenland's ice sheet is much smaller and is not so reflective.) This
Antarctica temperature trend is strong evidence that the Sun, not CO2, is the
primary climate driver.
Antarctica and North America Temperature
Trends
The
top curve is the North American surface temperature and the bottom curve is the
Antarctica (64 S - 90 S) surface temperature over the past 100 years. The
Antarctic data have been averaged over 12 years to minimize the temperature
fluctuations. The blue and red lines are fourth-order polynomial fits to the
data. The curves are offset by 1 K for clarity, otherwise they would cross and
re-cross three times.
The cosmic ray flux is not only
influenced by the solar wind, it also varies with the position of the solar
system in the galactic arms. The solar system passes through the arms of the
Milky Way galaxy roughly every 140 million years. When the solar system is in
the galactic arms the intensity of cosmic rays increases, as we are closer to
more supernovas that give off powerful bursts of cosmic rays. The variations of
the cosmic ray flux due to the solar system passing through four arms of the
Milky Way galaxy during the last 550 million years is ten times greater than
that caused by the Sun. The correlation between cosmic rays and temperatures
over 520 million years by N. Shaviv and J. Veiser was shown previously. Below is
a similar graph based on their work, but with the times of the galactic arm
crossings shown.
Cosmic Ray Flux and Temperature Changes with Galactic Arm
Crossings
Four
switches from warm “hothouse” to cold “icehouse” conditions during the
Phanerozoic are shown in variations of several degrees K in tropical sea-surface
temperatures (red curve). They correspond with four encounters with spiral arms
of the Milky Way and the resulting increases in the cosmic-ray flux (blue curve,
scale inverted). (After Shaviv and Veizer 2003)
Temperature
changes over this time range can not be explain by the CO2
theory.
CO2 Concentrations 500
Million Years
The
graph shows CO2 concentration over the last 500 million years. The CO2 does not
correlate with temperature. Note when CO2 concentrations were more than 10 times
present levels about 175 million years ago and 440 million years ago, the Earth
was in two very cold ice ages.
See here
for a paper on CosmoClimatology by Henrik Svensmark.
See here for a discussion of
the Shaviv and Veizer 2003 paper by Tim Patterson. See here
for their paper.
Milankovitch Cycles
The
Earth-Sun orbital changes are the principal causes of long term climate
change. During the last 800,000 years, eight periods of glaciations have
occurred. Each ice age lasts about 100,000 years with warm interglacial periods
lasting 10,000 to 12,000 years. Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958)
identified three major cyclical variables which became recognized as the
major causes of climate change. The amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth
depends on the distance of the Earth to the Sun and the angle of incidence of
the Sun’s rays upon the Earth’s surface. The Earth’s axis tilt changes on a
40,000-year cycle, the precession of the equinox changes on a 21,000-year cycle,
and the eccentricity of the Earth’s elliptical orbit changes on
a 100,000-year cycle.
The Earth's axis tilt (also known as obliquity of the
ecliptic) changes from 22 to 24.5 degrees over a 40,000-year cycle.
Summer to winter extremes are greater when the axis tilt is greater. The
precession of the equinox refers to the Earth's wobble as it spins on its axis.
Currently, the north axis points to the North Star, Polaris. In 13,000 years it
would point to the star Vega, then return to Polaris in another 13,000 years,
creating a 26,000-year cycle. When this is combined with the advance of the
perihelion (the point at which the Earth is closest in its orbit to the
Sun), it produces a 21,000-year cycle. The variation of the elliptical shape of
the Earth's orbit around the sun ranges from an almost exact circle
(eccentricity = 0.0005) to a slightly elongated shape (eccentricity = 0.0607) on
a 100,000-year cycle. The Earth's eccentricity varies primarily
due to interactions with the gravitational fields of other planets. The impact
of the variation is a change in the amount of solar energy from closest approach
to the Sun (perihelion, around January 3) to the furthest distant to the
Sun (aphelion, around July 4). Currently the Earth's eccentricity is 0.016
and there is about a 6.4 percent increase in incoming solar energy from July to
January. In the Northern Hemisphere, winter occurs during the closest
approach to the Sun. The graph below shows the three cycles versus time. The
vertical line represents the present, negative time is the past and positive
time is the future. See here.
Analysis of deep-sea cores shows sea temperature changes corresponding to
these cycles, with the 100,000-year cycle being the strongest.
These
solar cycles do not cause enough change in solar radiation reaching the Earth to
cause the major climatic change without an amplifier effect. A plausible
amplifier is the Sun’s varying solar wind that modifies the amount of cosmic
rays reaching the Earth’s atmosphere.
Heating of the
Troposphere
Computer models based on the theory of CO2
warming predicts that the troposphere in the tropics should warm faster than the
surface in response to increasing CO2 concentrations, because that is where the
CO2 greenhouse effect operates. The Sun-Cosmic ray warming will warm the
troposphere more uniformly.
The UN's IPCC fourth assessment report
includes a set of plots of computer model predicted rate of temperature change
from the surface to 30 km altitude and over all latitudes for 5 types of climate
forcings as shown below.
Computer Model
Predicted Temperature Change
The six plots show predicted temperature changes due to:
a) the Sun
b) volcanic activity
c) anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse
gasses
d) anthropogenic
ozone
e) anthropogenic sulphate
aerosol particles
f) all
the above forcings combined
The rate of temperature change is shown by
the colour in degrees Celsius per decade.
It is apparent that plot c) of
warming caused by greenhouse gasses is strikingly distinct from other causes of
warming. Plot f) is similar to plot c) only because the IPCC assumes that CO2 is
the dominant cause of global warming.
The computer models show that
greenhouse warming will cause a hot-spot at an altitude between 8 and 12 km over
the tropics between 30 N and 30 S. The temperature at this hot-spot is projected
to increase at a rate of two to three times faster than at the
surface.
However, the Hadley Centre's real-world plot of radiosonde
temperature observations shown below does not show the projected CO2 induced
global warming hot-spot at all. The predicted hot-spot is entirely absent from
the observational record. This shows that most of the global temperature change
can not be attributed to increasing CO2
concentrations.
HadAT2 Radiosonde Data 1979 - 1999
The left
scale is atmosphere pressure in hPa. The right scale is altitude in
km.
Source: HadAT2 radiosonde observations, from CCSP
(2006), p116, fig. 5.7E
See Greenhouse
Warming? What Greenhouse Warming? by Christopher Monckton
This graph
compares the annual temperatures of the troposphere to the surface measurements
in the tropics from 30 degrees North to 30 degrees South. .
The MSU curve is
the Microwave Sounding Unit satellite measurements. It measures the temperature
of the troposphere up to approximately 8 km.
The GHCN curve is the Global
Historical Climatology Network data set of land surface temperatures from the
National Climatic Data Center.
The HadCRUT3 curve is the Land and
Sea-Surface Temperatures data set from UK Met Office.
The three curves
are scaled so that the average of the first 5 years are the same.
A
comparison of the records show that the surface has warmed faster than the
troposphere, the opposite of what is predicted by the theory of CO2 warming.
Observations agree with the Sun-Cosmic ray warming theory.
The response
of the troposphere temperatures in the tropics is sometimes called the
fingerprint of the CO2 contribution to warming.
This graph shows two analyses of Microwave Sounding
Unit (MSU) satellite temperature measurement data of the troposphere over the
tropics from 20 degrees North to 20 degrees South. The UAH analysis is from the
University of Alabama in Huntsville and the RSS analysis is from Remote Sensing
Systems. The two analyses use different methods to adjust for factors such as
orbital decay and inter-satellite difference. The overall trend lines
to October 2009 shows increasing temperatures at 0.06 C/decade for UAH and
0.14 C/decade for RSS. However, since January 2003, the temperatures have been
declining at 0.40 C/decade for UAH and 0.48 C/decade for the RSS data. The IPCC
projections do not agree with the data.
Stratospheric
Cooling
The graph "HadAT2 Radiosonde Data 1979 - 1999" in
the previous section shows that the stratosphere (above 16 km) has cooled, which
might appear to indicate a greenhouse gas effect. However, stratospheric cooling
is predicted to occur due to both greenhouse gasses and ozone depletion. The
ozone concentration in the stratosphere has declined from 1970 until 1995, and
has not declined at all since then due to the implementation of the Montreal
Protocol, which limits the emission of ozone reducing CFCs. See here. The
stratosphere temperatures are given below from here.
The lower stratosphere
temperature has not declined at all since 1995 (when the ozone levels are stable
or slightly increasing), so the data does not indicate any greenhouse gas
cooling of the stratosphere. In fact, it appears that there has been a slight
warming of the lower stratosphere since 1995, the opposite of what is predicted
by computer models of the greenhouse gas effects. The stratosphere cooling
indicated by the radiosonde data is caused by the changing ozone concentration,
not by greenhouse gasses.
Warming on Other
Planets
If the Sun is the primary driver of climate change,
one should expect to see evidence of recent warming on other planets. As the
Earth has warmed over the last 100 years, so too has Jupiter, Neptune, Mars and
Pluto.
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Its most distinctive
feature is the great Red Spot, which is a huge storm that has been raging for
over 300 years. A new storm, called Red Spot Jr. has recently formed from
the merger of three oval-shaped storms between 1998 and 2000. The latest images
from the Hubble Space Telescope suggests that Jupiter is in the midst of a
global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit
on different parts of the globe. The new storm has been rising in altitute above
the surrounding clouds, which signals a temperature increase. See here from
Space.com.
Neptune is the furthest planet from the Sun (Pluto is now a dwarf planet) and
orbits the Sun at 30 times the distance from the Sun to the
Earth.
Neptune Warming
In
the recent article, Hammel and Lockwood, from the Space Science Institute in
Colorado and the Lowell Observatory, show Neptune has been getting brighter
since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980
show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004.
In the
figure, (a) represents the corrected visible light from Neptune from 1950 to
2006; (b) shows the temperature anomalies of the Earth; (c) shows the total
solar irradiance as a percent variation by year; (d) shows the ultraviolet
emission from the Sun. All data has been corrected for the effects of Neptune's
seasons, variations in its orbit, the apparent tilt of the axis as viewed from
the Earth, the varying distance from Neptune to Earth, and changes in the
atmosphere near the Lowell Observatory.
See here
for more information.
There is also strong evidence of global warming
on Neptune's largest moon, Triton, which has heated up significantly since the
Voyager spacecraft visited it in 1988. The warming trend is causing Triton's
frozen surface of Nitrogen gas to turn into gas, making its atmosphere denser.
See here.
A
recent study shows that Mars is warming four times faster than the Earth. Mars
is warming due to increased Sun activity, which increases dust storms. The
study's authors led by Lori Fenton, a
planetary scientist at NASA, says the dust makes the atmosphere absorb
more heat causing a positive feedback. Surface air temperatures on Mars
increased by 0.65 C (1.17 F) from the 1970s to the 1990s. Residual ice on the
Martian south pole, they note, has steadily retreated over the last four
years. Thermal spectrometer images of Mars taken by NASA's Viking mission
in the late 1970s were compared with similar images gathered more than 20 years
later by the Global Surveyor.
Mars polar ice
cap
See here
or here or here
for more information.
The demoted planet Pluto is also undergoing warming
according to astronomers. Pluto's atmosphere pressure has tripled over the last
14 years, indicating rising temperatures even as the planet moves further from
the Sun. See here
for further information.
CO2 Versus
the Sun/Cosmic Ray Warming Theories
The following table
sets out a comparison of the predictions of two climate theories - the CO2
warming theory and the Sun/Cosmic Ray theory - and actual real world
data.
Issue
|
Prediction - CO2 Theory
|
Prediction - Sun/Cosmic Ray Theory
|
Actual Data
|
Which Theory Wins
|
Antarctic and Arctic Temperatures
|
Temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic will rise
symmetrically
|
Temperatures will initially move in opposite
directions
|
Temperatures move in opposite directions
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray
|
Troposphere Temperature
|
Fastest warming will be in the troposphere over the
tropics
|
The troposphere warming will be uniform
|
The surface warming is similar or greater than troposphere
warming
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray |
Timing of CO2 and Temperature Changes at End of Ice
Age
|
CO2 increases then temperature increases
|
Temperature increases then CO2 increases
|
CO2 concentrations increase about 800 years after
temperature increases
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray |
Temperature correlate with the driver over last 400
year
|
na
|
na
|
Cosmic ray flux and Sun activity correlates with
temperature, CO2 does not
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray |
Temperatures during Ordovician period
|
Very hot due to CO2 levels > 10X present
|
Very cold due to high cosmic ray flux
|
Very cold ice age
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray |
Other Planets' Climate
|
No change
|
Other planets will warm
|
Warming has been detected on several other planets
|
Sun/Cosmic Ray |
CO2 Greatly Increases Plant and
Forest Growth
CO2 is a major plant fertilizer. The increase
in CO2 emissions have caused increased crop yields and faster growing plants and
forests, thereby greening the planet. Estimates vary, but somewhere around 15%
seems to be the common number cited for the increase in global food crop yields
due to aerial fertilization with increased carbon dioxide since 1950. This
increase has both helped avoid a Malthusian disaster and preserved or returned
enormous tracts of marginal land as wildlife habitat that would otherwise have
had to be put under the plow in an attempt to feed the growing global
population. Commercial growers deliberately generate CO2 and increase its levels
in agricultural greenhouses to between 700 ppm and 1,000 ppm to increase
productivity and improve the water efficiency of food crops far beyond those in
the somewhat CO2 starved atmosphere. CO2 feeds the forests, grows more usable
lumber in timber lots meaning there is less pressure to cut old growth or push
into "natural" wildlife habitat, makes plants more water efficient helping to
beat back the encroaching deserts in Africa and Asia and generally increases
bio-productivity. See here
Bigtooth Aspen Growth Response to Enhanced CO2 and
Temperature
Jurik et al. (1984) exposed
bigtooth aspen leaves to atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 325 ppm and 1935 ppm
and measured their photosynthetic rates at a number of different temperatures.
At 25°C, where the net photosynthetic rate of the leaves exposed to 325 ppm CO2
is maximal, the extra CO2 of this study boosted the net photosynthetic rate of
the foliage by nearly 100%; and at 36°C, where the net photosynthetic rate of
the leaves exposed to 1935 ppm CO2 is maximal, the extra CO2 boosted the net
photosynthetic rate of the foliage by a whopping 450%. These results are similar
to studies of many other plants.
Young Eldarica Pine Tree Growth Response to
CO2
Young Eldarica pine trees
were grown for 23 months under four CO2 concentrations and then cut down and
weighed. Each point represents an individual tree. Weights of tree parts are as
indicated. See
here.
Wheat Yield Response to
CO2
This
graph shows the response of wheat grown under wet conditions and when the wheat
was stressed by lack of water. These were open-field experiments. Wheat was
grown in the usual way, but the atmospheric CO2 concentrations of circular
sections of the fields were increased by means of arrays of computer-controlled
equipment that released CO2 into the air to hold the levels as specified.
Average CO2-induced increases for the two years were 10% for wet and 23% for dry
conditions.
Since atmospheric CO2 is the basic "food" of nearly all
plants, the more of it there is in the air, the better they function and the
more productive they become. For a 300 ppm increase in the atmosphere's CO2
concentration above the planet's current base level of slightly less than 400
ppm, for example, the productivity of earth's herbaceous plants rises by
something on the order of 30% (Kimball, 1983; Idso and Idso, 1994), while the
productivity of its woody plants rises by something on the order of 50% (Saxe et
al., 1998; Idso and Kimball, 2001). Thus, as the air's CO2 content continues to
rise, so too will the productive capacity or land-use efficiency of the planet
continue to rise, as the aerial fertilization effect of the upward trending
atmospheric CO2 concentration boosts the growth rates of nearly all plants.
The world's
population is 6.6 billion and increasing at 1.18% per year. People will
require increasing quantities of food and more natural ecosystems will be lost
to crops and pastures. The resulting loss of habitat may result in species
extinctions if crop yields are not significantly increased. Unfortunately, the
rate of increase of crop yields is declining as crops are approaching the
genetic yield limits. Increasing crop yields on existing farmlands would help to
save lands for nature. If crop yields fail to increase, humans will suffer more
frequent famines. Fortunately, the increase in CO2 concentrations will
substantially enhance crop yields and is essential to prevent or delay the
destruction of habitat and animal species, and may allow us to produce
sufficient agricultural commodities to feed the growing population. Any action
taken by us to slow or reverse the increase in CO2 concentration in the air may
result in more frequent famines and species extinctions.
See here
from CO2Science.
IPCC and Model
Projections
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) presents projections of climate change, which are based on
computer models. The projections given in the Summary for Policy Makers are
based on six scenarios, which include different assumptions of population
growth, economic growth, technological change and CO2 emissions. The scenarios
assume that no climate change mitigation actions are taken, and they do not
assume implementation of the Kyoto protocol. The IPCC does not assign any
probability or likelihood to any of the scenarios, and the middle scenarios
should not be interpreted as the most likely. The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)
used the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) projections of greenhouse
gas emissions that was used in the Third Assessment report (TAR). The emission
projections are converted to CO2 concentration projections in the TAR
using the Bern climate-carbon cycle model (BERN-CC; Joos et al., 2001) that
accounted for the climate-carbon cycle feedback (AR4 Ch 10, pages 750
and 790). The Bern-CC model gives a range of CO2 concentration at the
begining of 2100 for the A2 emissions scenario of 735 ppm to 1080 ppm, with the
best estimate reference value of 836 ppm. Coupled climate-carbon
cycle models simulate a range of CO2 concentrations for the A2 emissions
scenario of 730 to 1020 ppm by the begining of 2100. These results shows that
there is a large uncertainty of the projected CO2 concentrations even for a
given emissions scenario due to uncertainty in future changes in the carbon
cycle.
The CO2 concentrations from the Bern-CC model were used as inputs to the
IPCC AR4 climate models to calculate the projected warming of each emission
scenario. The initial growth rate of the projected CO2 concentrations range
from 0.48 %/year to 0.56 %/year. The CO2 concentrations of the six projections
increased from 367 ppm at the begining of year 2000 to a range of 540 ppm
to 958 ppm at the begining of year 2100. The table below shows the AR4
projections. The CO2 concentrations are the reference Bern-CC model values given
here.
|
Temperature
Change |
at 2090-2099
|
|
|
|
|
|
(°C at
2090-2099 relative to 1980-1999) |
From 2006 |
Rate of |
CO2 |
CO2 |
CO2
|
| Scenario |
Best Estimate |
Likely Range |
Best Estimate |
Change |
Concentration |
Maximum Growth |
Average Growth
|
|
oC |
oC |
oC |
oC/Decade |
2100 |
%/year |
%/year
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
B1
|
1.8 |
1.1 – 2.9 |
1.5 |
0.17 |
540 |
0.61 |
0.38
|
A1T
|
2.4 |
1.4 – 3.8 |
2.1 |
0.23 |
575 |
0.69 |
0.44
|
B2
|
2.4 |
1.4 – 3.8 |
2.1 |
0.23 |
611 |
0.54 |
0.50
|
A1B
|
2.8 |
1.7 – 4.4 |
2.5 |
0.27 |
703 |
0.78 |
0.64
|
A2
|
3.4 |
2.0 – 5.4 |
3.1 |
0.32 |
836 |
1.04 |
0.82
|
A1FI
|
4.0
|
2.4 – 6.4 |
3.7 |
0.38 |
958 |
1.20 |
0.96
|
The temperature changes "Best Estimate" given in the second column are
from the average surface temperatures in the period 1980 to 1999. The "Best
Estimate" from 2006 given in the fourth column is reduced by 0.3 oC
to account for the actual temperature change to 2006 from the average of
1980-1999. The average CO2 growth rates of the last two scenarios at 0.82 and
0.96 %/year appears to be unrealistic considering the actual CO2 growth rate
1990-2006 is 0.5%/year, and fossil fuels are expected to become more expensive
as it becomes increasingly difficult to replace depleting oil and gas reserves.
Note that the CO2 growth rate of the A1FI scenario increases from 0.51%/year in
the 2000-2010 decade to 1.20%/year by 2060. The CO2 concentration projections
corresponding to the six emission scenarios are shown below.
The graph below compares the actual CO2 concentrations as measured at Mauna
Loa, Hawaii to the IPCC CO2 reference projections of the Burn-CC model for the
period January 2000 to January 2010. The uncertainty in the CO2 projections is
greater than the range shown here. The Low IPCC projection is from the B2
emission scenario, and the High IPCC projection is from the A1B emission
scenario. The average IPCC projection is the average of the six scenarios. The
actual annual CO2 growth rate in 2007 and 2008 were both 0.49%.
The IPCC temperature projections for the A2, A1B and B1 scenarios are
displayed below.
Kevin Trenberth is head
of the large US National Centre for Atmospheric Research and one of the advisors
of the IPCC. Trenberth asserts ". . . there are no (climate) predictions by IPCC
at all. And there never have been". Instead, there are only "what if"
projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.
According to Trenberth, GCMs ". . . do not consider many things like the
recovery of the ozone layer, for instance, or observed trends in forcing agents.
None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of
the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current
observed climate." However, Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green audited the
relevant chapter in the IPCC's latest report. They find that "in apparent
contradiction to claims by some climate experts that the IPCC provides
'projections' and not 'forecasts', the word 'forecast' and its derivatives
occurred 37 times, and 'predict' and its derivatives occur 90 times" in the
chapter. Consequently, it is not surprising that the public has this
misimpression that the IPCC predicts future climate.
Computer Models
Fail
The computer models predict that the 20th century temperatures should have
increased by 1.6 to 3.74 Celsius, while the actual observed 20th-century
temperature increase was about 0.6 Celsius. A model that fails to history match
is useless for predicting the future.
The IPCC Third Assessment Report
projected a surface temperature increase from 1990 to 2100 of 1.4 C to 5.8 C,
corresponding to 0.13 C/decade to 0.53 C/decade. The IPCC low estimate
corresponds to the actual temperature warming rate as measured by satellite
data.
The IPCC assumes that the Sun has little effect, even though
observational evidence clearly shows the Sun has a significant effect on
climate.
The models assume the 20th century temperature rise is caused
by CO2 increases, and parameters are set in the models to make the temperature
rise in response to the CO2. The direct effect of increasing CO2 concentration
on global warming is very small. All the models amplify an initial increase in
temperature due to CO2 by employing water vapour and clouds as a large positive
feed back. However, there is no evidence that water vapour and clouds provides a
large positive feed back. They may provide a negative feed back.
The
amount of solar energy the Earth recieves depends on the Earth's albedo, or
reflectivity. The greater the albedo, the more sunlight is reflected and the
less solar energy is absorbed by the Earth. Project "Earthshine" being done at
the Big Bear Solar Observatory measures the Earth's albedo by observing the
amount of sunlight reflected by the Earth to the dark side of the Moon and back
to Earth. The process is shown below.
The results show that the Earth albedo has
gradually fallen up to 1997, likely causing most of the global warming through
1998. Since 2001 the albedo increased rapidly, which has stopped the warming and
resulted in the current global cooling. The recent dimming of the Earth is
likely due to increased low cloud cover. The albedo is shown below.
The
blue lines are the observed earthshine data for 1994-1995 and 1999-2003. The
black line is the reconstructed albedo from partially overlapping satellite
cloud data with respect to the mean of the calibration period 1999 to 2001. The
vertical red line shows the cumulative climate forcing of the increase in
greenhouse gases over the 20th century of 2.4 W/m2 according to the IPCC. Note
that the change of the albedo's climate forcing in W/m2 is much greater than
that due to greenhouse gases. Current climate models do not show such large
albedo variability. See an article by Anthony Watts here
for further information. See the project Earthshine site here.
Climate
models utilize large grid blocks to simulate climate, which are too large to
include thunderstorms or hurricanes, so they use parameterization to account for
these. These parameterizations ignore real-world transfers of energy, moisture
and momentum that could significantly alter the results and severely limits the
usefulness of climate model projections. Computer models employ approximations
to represent physical processes that cannot be directly computed due to
computational limitations. Because many empirical parameters can be selected to
force a model to match observations, the ability of a model to match
observations cannot be cited as evidence that the model is realistic and does
not imply it is reliable for forecasting climate. See the Fraser
Institutes Independent
Summary For Policy Makers.
Atmospheric methane concentrations have
been declining in recent years. Methane
is a significant greenhouse gas. Climate models assume that methane
concentrations increase with temperature, and it is not known why its
concentration is declining. Aerosols play a key role in climate, with a
potential impact of more than three times that of CO2 emissions, but their
influence is very poorly understood. Aerosols exert an overall cooling
effect on climate but estimates of the effect vary by a factor of ten. Models
used in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report assume aerosols have a large cooling
effect, thereby attributing a large warming effect to CO2.
Only 2 of the
23 models used by the IPCC account for varying Sun intensity, and these models
do not assume the Sun affects the cosmic ray flux and cloud formation. Only 2 of
the models account for land use changes.
Computer models predict warming
at the north and south poles to be symmetrical, but there is a warming trend at
the North Pole but not at the South Pole. They also predict that the polar
surface regions will warm more than the surface at the tropics. Winter
temperatures will warm more than summer temperatures; night-time temperatures
will warm more than day-time temperatures. Therefore, according to the CO2
warming theory, winter nights in the arctic will warm, but there will be little
summer day time warming in the tropics.
A team of four researchers from
three American universities led by David Douglass compared the troposphere
temperature trends in the tropics predicted from climate models to actual
satellite and radiosonde observations. In a paper published in December 2007 by
the Royal Meteorological Society, Douglass et al analysed the simulation results
from 22 climate models at the surface and at 12 different altitudes. The
simulation results were compared to the temperature trends determined from two
analysis of satellite data and four radiosonde datasets for the period January
1979 through December 2004.
Computer Model Temperature Trends versus
Observations
The above
diagram shows the comparison of temperature trends from 1979 through 2004 of
climate models and actual satellite and radiosonde observations, expressed as
degrees Celsius per decade versus altitude and atmospheric pressure. The left
panel shows four radiosonde results as IGRA, RATPAC, HadAT2 and RAOBCORE. The
thick red line shows the mean of the 22 computer model results, and the models'
2 times standard error of the mean are shown as the two thin red lines.
Temperature trends from three surface measurement datasets are identified in the
legend by Sfc and are plotted on the left axis. The RSS and UAH analysis of
satellite data are plotted on the right panel at two effective layers: T2lt
represents the lower troposphere with a weighted mean at 2.5 km, T2 represents
the mid troposphere with a weighted mean at 6.1 km altitude. A trend is the
slope of the line that has been least-squared fit to the data. Synthetic model
values corresponding to the effective layers of the satellite data are shown in
the right panel as open red circles.
An essential place to compare
observations with greenhouse computer models is the layer between 450 hPa and
750 hPa atmospheric pressure where the presence of water vapour is most
important, and is called the "characteristic emission layer". In this layer, the
observations are all outside the 2 times standard error test. The radiosonde and
satellite trends are inconsistent with the model trends at all altitudes above
the surface. Douglass et al. conclude that “Model results and observed
temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere,
being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers
near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8
km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs.” Therefore any projections
of future climate from the models are very likely too high, and these
projections should not be used to form public policy. See the paper "A
comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions" here.
While air temperature may fluctuate from year to year as heat
is transferred between the air and oceans, if CO2 is causing global warming
by the IPCC hypothesis, the ocean heat content must increase monotonically
provided there are no major volcanic eruptions. Ocean heat content is a much
more robust metric than surface air temperature for assessing global climate
change because the ocean's heat capacity is greater than that of the atmosphere
by many orders of magnitude. For any given area on the ocean’s surface, the
upper 2.6 m of water has the same heat capacity as the entire atmosphere above
it! According the IPCC models, all major feedbacks are positive
so there is no mechanism that would allow the heat content of the Earth to
decline.
Heat accumulating in the climate system can be measured on a
global scale from 2003 by the ARGO array of 3341 free-drifting floats
that measure temperature and salinity in the
upper 2000 m of ocean. The robotic floats rise to
the surface every 10 days and transmit data to a satellite which also determines
their location as shown below.
Dr. Craig Loehle, Ph.D. has analyzed the ocean heat content
for a linear trend over 4.5 years of data from mid-2003 to the end of 2007.
The data shows an annual variation because most of the oceans are in the
southern hemisphere. To eliminate the annual cycle, a model was fit with slope,
intercept, and sinusoidal (1-year fixed period) terms using nonlinear
least-squares estimation. The linear component of the model shows a decline
of 0.35 x E22 Joules/year. (The graph shows the recalibrated data, after the
data from certain instruments with a cool bias were removed. Initial Argo
results showed strong cooling.) The Argo heat content is shown below. See his
paper here.
William DiPuccio compared the projected ocean heat content of the
GISS climate model to two analyses of the ARGO heat content data. The projected
heat content of the GISS model was adjusted to include only the upper oceans for
comparison to the ARGO actual data. He also calculated a lower limit by scaling
the net global anthropogenic radiative flux to ocean surface area. The
observed ocean heat content trends were calculated by Josh K. Willis of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Craig Leohle of the National Council for Air
and Stream Improvement, Inc. Loehle's calculations have a smaller margin for
error than Willis, because Willis only uses annual average data.
The heat deficit shows that from 2003-2008 there was no positive
radiative imbalance caused by anthropogenic forcing, despite increasing levels
of CO2. Indeed, the radiative imbalance was negative, meaning the earth was
losing slightly more energy than it absorbed. The figure reveals a robust
failure on the part of the GISS climate model.
William DiPuccio says, "Since the oceans are the primary reservoir
of atmospheric heat, there is no need to account for lag time involved with heat
transfer. By using ocean heat as a metric, we can quantify nearly all of the
energy that drives the climate system at any given moment. So, if there is still
heat “in the pipeline”, where is it? The deficit of heat after nearly 6 years of
cooling is now enormous. Heat can be transferred, but it cannot hide." See his
paper here.
Many important inputs to climate models are very uncertain and
real world observational evidence does not support them, so it is foolish to
rely on their projections to make expensive policy decisions.
A scorecard
listing the success of models is here.
Water Vapour
Feedback
Relative
humidity is the fraction of water vapour in a small parcel of air relative to
the total amount of water vapour the air could contain at the given temperature
and pressure. All the General Circulation Models, also known as
Global Climate Models (GCM), just set various
evaporation and precipitation parameters to achieve approximately the
result: Relative
humidity = constant.
Box 8.1 of 4AR Chapter 8 page 632 states:
“The radiative effect of absorption by water vapour is
roughly proportional to the logarithm of its concentration, so it is the
fractional change in water vapour concentration, not the absolute change, that
governs its strength as a feedback mechanism. Calculations with GCMs suggest
that water vapour remains at an approximately constant fraction of its saturated
value (close to unchanged relative humidity (RH)) under global-scale warming
(see Section 8.6.3.1). Under such a response, for uniform warming, the largest
fractional change in water vapour, and thus the largest contribution to the
feedback, occurs in the upper troposphere.”
The assumption of constant relative humidity is not correct. Here is a
graph of global average annual relative humidity at various elevations in the
atmosphere expressed in millibars (mb) from 300 mb to 700 mb for the period 1948
to 2008. [Standard atmospheric pressure = 1013 mb. 1 mb = 1 hectopascal
(hPa)] The data is from the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory here.
This graph shows that the relative humidity has been
dropping, especially at higher elevations allowing more heat to escape to space.
The curve labelled 300 mb is at about 9 km altitude, which is
in the middle of the predicted (but missing) tropical troposphere hot-spot. This
is the critical elevation as this is where radiation can start to escape without
being recaptured. The average relative humidity at this altitude has
declined by 20% (or 9.4 percentiles) from 1948 to 2008!
Doubling the amount of CO2 would increase
temperatures by only about 1 degree Celsius if nothing else changed according to
the IPCC. But the amount of water vapour will change in response to a CO2
induced temperature increase. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, so if
relative humidity remains constant, the amount of water vapour increases with
increasing temperatures. More water vapour, being a powerful greenhouse gas,
would cause a further temperature increase, which is called a positive feedback.
Most of the IPCC’s projected warming is due to this water vapour
feedback.
But the above graph shows falling relative
humidity where the IPCC says changing water vapour content is most important. If
relative humidity declines with increasing CO2 concentrations, the amount of
water vapour in the upper troposphere may not increase, but might decline
instead, resulting in a negative water vapour feedback.
Here is a graph of specific humidity, or
the actual water vapour content, in grams of water vapour per kilogram of air,
at the 400 mb level (about 8 km altitude).
This shows that the actual water vapour
content in the upper troposphere has declined by 17% from 1948 to 2008 at the
400 mb pressure level. The climate models predict that humidity will increase in
the upper troposphere, but the data shows a large decrease, just where water
vapour changes have the greatest effect on global
temperatures.
Greenhouse gases absorb long-wave
radiation, making the atmosphere opaque at those wave lengths. Optical depth is
a measure of how opaque the atmosphere is to long-wave radiation, and so is a
measure of the strength of the greenhouse effect. Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi
has developed a program called High-resolution Atmospheric Radiative Transfer
Code (HARTCODE) that uses thousands of measured absorption lines and is
capable of doing accurate optical depth calculations. The calculations are
independent of any greenhouse theory and contains no assumptions on how the
greenhouse effect works, other than the fact that greenhouse gases absorb and
emit radiation.
The
radiation balance is determined at the top of the troposphere. The HARTCODE was
used to determine the effect of changes of water vapour at the upper atmosphere
versus near the surface. The graph below shows that changing the water
vapour content at the 300 – 400 mb level has 41 times the effect on out-going
long-wave radiation (OLR) as the same change near the surface. So only water
vapour changes in the upper atmosphere matter.
Miskolczi used HARTCODE to compute the
optical depth from 1948 to 2008 using the measured CO2 content at Mauna Loa,
Hawaii and the global average water vapour content from the NOAA Earth System
Research Laboratory. The optical depths are calculated for each greenhouse gas
and summed line-by-line across the electromagnetic spectrum. The resulting
optical depth curve is a measure of the total greenhouse gases by effect over
the last 61 years. The result is given below.
The blue line of the graph shows the
optical depth of the atmosphere with changing CO2 and water vapour content. The
green line is the linear trend of this data which indicates an insignificant
trend. The pink line is the effect of increasing CO2 with water vapour held
constant. It shows a small upward trend. The difference of these trends is the
water vapour feedback. Recall that the IPCC assumes that water vapour provides a
large positive feedback, which implies that the green line would be
increasing much steeper than the pink line. The HARTCODE results shows the
opposite. It shows a large negative feedback, where the changing water
vapour offsets most of the warming effect of CO2.
The results show that the
total effective amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has not
significantly increased over the last 60 years.
The IPCC
claims that the warming over the last half century was due to an increase in the
quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmophere. But the HARTCODE result shows
that CO2 replaces water vapour as a greenhouse gas, so it can't be
responsible for global warming.
Here is the GCM error of specific humidity as reported by the IPCC's 4AR,
Chapter 8-Suppl page 54:
This chart shows the multi-model mean fractional error, expressed as a
percent (i.e., simulated minus observed, divided by observed and multiplied by
100). The observational estimate is from the 40-year European Reanalysis (ERA40,
Uppala et al., 2005) based on observations over the period 1980-1999. The model
results are from the same period of the CMIP3 20th Century
simulations.
Note that the chart shows that the model's errors in
specific humidity at the altitude where the largest contribution of the feedback
is predicted to occur is between 20% to 40% too high! If the specific
humidity were corrected in the models at this critical altitude, the positive
feedback would change to a strong negative feedback.
The strength of the greenhouse effect is undetermined in the
current theory utilized by climate models. Parameters are just set to match the
current temperatures. A new greenhouse effect theory by
Ferenc Miskolczi shows that the current greenhouse effect equations are
incomplete because they do not include all the necessary energy constraints.
When these constraints are included in a new theory, the strength of the GHE is
determined analytically. The new theory presented in Miskolczi's paper shows
that the atmosphere maintains a “saturated” greenhouse effect, controlled by
water vapor content. There is a near infinite supply of
greenhouse gases available to the atmosphere in the form of water vapor from the
ocean to provide the greenhouse effect, but the atmosphere takes up only a
portion of the water vapour it could hold due to energy balance
constraints. Adding CO2 to the
atmosphere just replaces an equivalent amount of water vapour to maintain an
almost constant greenhouse effect and has negligible effect on global
temperatures. See here for
more information.
Cloud
Feedback
Climate models are limited by our understanding of cloud formation.
While scientists have a basic understanding of cloud formation, the details
controlling how bright they are, how dense and how large they become is poorly
understood. We lack the detailed understanding of clouds required to make
accurate climate models. Clouds have a major role in climate by reflecting
sunlight back into space, trapping heat, and producing precipitation.
As
the Earth warms, there is more evaporation from the oceans, therefore more water
vapour in the atmosphere available for cloud formation. But low clouds reflect
sunlight back into space resulting in a strong cooling effect, negating most of
the initial temperature increase.
Researchers at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) reported in August 2007 that individual
tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease
in the coverage of heat-trapping [high altitude] cirrus clouds, says Dr. Roy
Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville's Earth System Science
Center.
"All leading climate models forecast that as the
atmosphere warms there should be an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds,
which would amplify any warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases," he said.
"That amplification is a positive feedback. What we found in month-to-month
fluctuations of the tropical climate system was a strongly negative feedback. As
the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease. That allows more infrared
heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space."
"While low clouds
have a predominantly cooling effect due to their shading of sunlight, most
cirrus clouds have a net warming effect on the Earth," Spencer said. With high
altitude ice clouds their infrared heat trapping exceeds their solar shading
effect. If computer models incorporated this enhanced cooling effect due
to such a reduction of high clouds, "it would reduce estimates of future warming
by over 75 percent," Spencer said.
See the UAH News article
here, and a report in ScienceDaily
here. The paper abstract is here.
The modelers only do crude analysis of feedback from satellite data.
They observe that low clouds tend to decrease with warming and assumed that
the warming caused the low clouds to decrease. But cloud changes also
cause temperatures to change. When a cloud moves to block the Sun,
temperatures fall. The amount of clouds can change in response to a
general circulation change. So cloud changes are sometimes a cause of
temperature change, and sometimes an effect of temperature change. The
false assumption that all cloud changes are the effect of temperature changes
led modelers to vastly over estimate the feedback from clouds.
Dr. Roy Spencer has developed a method to separate cause and effect of cloud
variability. His technique is to plot quarterly average temperature and
net flux readings from satellite data on a graph. These averages are plotted
every day allowing the time evolution to be visualized. He found that the
plots have two types of patterns – a set of linear striations with a common
slope, and superimposed slower random spiral patterns.
To understand these patterns, Spencer has developed a simple computer model
where he can specify the amount of feedback, and can input radiative forcing
that might be caused by random cloud changes. The model shows that the slope of
the linear striations corresponds to the feedback in the climate system.
These striations are due to changes in evaporation and precipitation which
causes temperature changes. The spiral patterns are caused by radiative forcing
that might be due to changing the low cloud cover which varies the solar
radiation warming the surface.
Spencer has analyzed the temperature-radiative patterns of the NASA Terra
satellite. The Terra data starts in March 2000, and its
temperature-radiative plot is shown below.
The plot shows two types of patterns; linear striations and random spiral
patterns. The usual interpretation of this data by climate modelers would be to
use the best fit line which shows a slope of 0.7 W/m2/C, which is a very high
positive feedback. The actual feedback should be determined by the slope
of the linear striations, which is 8 W/m2/C, which is a very high negative
feedback. A value of 3.3 W/m2/C corresponds to no feedback. (No
feedback means if the temperature of the atmosphere were uniformly
increased by 1 C and nothing else changed, the top of the atmosphere would
radiate 3.3 W/m2 more radiation to space.) The feedback is observed to
occur on shorter time scales in response to evaporation and precipitation
events, which are superimposed upon a more slowly varying background of
radiative imbalance due to natural fluctuation in cloud cover changing the rate
of solar heating Earth’s surface.
The satellite data shows that over short time scales, clouds provide strong
negative feedbacks. Spencer also analyzed the radiative flux and temperature
variations from climate models used by the IPCC to determine if the short term
negative feedback found in the satellite data is also applicable to long term
feedback. He found that the short term linear striations and the spiral
patterns show up all 18 climate models that he analyzed. Spencer says the slopes
of the linear striations do indeed correspond to the long term feedbacks
diagnosed from these models’ response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas
forcing. This strongly suggests that the short term negative feedback
shown in satellite data also applies to long term global climate change.
The feedback estimate for a hypothetical doubling of carbon dioxide, using
the Terra satellite data gives a climate sensitivity of 0.46 C.
See here
for a more detailed discussion of cloud feedbacks.
Aerosols
Aerosols are a suspension of fine particles in the atmosphere and include
smoke, oceanic haze, smog, etc. The most significant aerosols from human sources
that affect climate are sulphate and black carbon aerosols. Sulphate aerosols
are primarily from the burning of fossil fuels and generally cause a cooling
effect by reflecting solar radiation. Black carbon aerosols are from burning of
biomass, and generally have a warming effect as it absorbs solar radiation.
Three recent papers discussed below show that change in aerosols account for
a much larger portion of recent climate change than assumed in climate computer
models, implying that the effect of CO2 is much less than what the climate
models show. The sun is likely the main cause of the global warming of the 20th
century with aerosol changes providing a significant contribution. When one
combines the effects of aerosols with the Sun, ocean cycles and the urban heat
island effects, there is no climate change left for CO2 to explain.
A paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research in June, 2009 shows that
changes in the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere over the 20th century has
had a much larger impact on global temperatures than they are given credit for
in the climate computer models. Martin Wild of the Institute for Atmospheric and
Climate Science, Zurich, Switzerland, shows that the increase of sulphate
aerosols from fossil fuels caused a global solar dimming effect from the 1950’s
to the 1980’s and contributed to global cooling. Air pollution control measures
have reduced sulphate aerosols from the 1980’s to the 2000’s, resulting is solar
brightening which significantly contributed to global warming. Air pollution
controls allowed more solar radiation to warm the surface. However, on a global
basis the effect of aerosols has been stable since 2000 and there has been no
global warming this century. Wild says satellite data and Earthshine
observations both show a stable planetary albedo after 2000. See here.
A paper published in the journal Science in July, 2009 reports that
a careful study of satellite data show the assumed cooling effect of aerosols in
the atmosphere to be significantly less than previously estimated. Gunnar Myhre
of the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo,
Norway, states that previous values for aerosol cooling are too high by as much
as 40 percent, implying the IPCC's model sensitivity for CO2 are too high. The
main anthropogenic aerosols that cause cooling are sulphate, nitrate, and
organic carbon, whereas black carbon absorbs solar radiation. Myhre argues that
since preindustrial times, black carbon soot particle concentrations have
increased much more than other aerosols. See here.
NASA research published in Nature Geoscience in April, 2009 suggests
that much of the atmospheric warming observed in the Arctic since 1976 may be
due to changes aerosol particles. Scientists led by Drew Shindell of NASA found
that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the
level of aerosols. The research suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent
or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last thirty
years to 2005. (Arctic temperatures have been falling since 2005.) Since
decreasing amounts of sulphates and increasing amounts of black carbon in the
Arctic both encourage warming, temperature increases can be especially rapid. In
the Antarctic, in contrast, the impact of sulphates and black carbon is
minimized because of the continent’s isolation from major population centres.
Antarctica temperatures have not increased over the last 30 years. See here.
Many studies have shown that aerosols associated with biological activity
provide a negative feedback to climate change. An initial warming stimulates
production of marine phytoplankton. These micro-organisms emit greater volumes
of dimethyl sulphide, or DMS. The DMS is oxidized in the atmosphere creating
acidic aerosols that function as cloud condensation nuclei. Tiny water droplets
form around these aerosols leading to the creation of more and brighter clouds
that reflect more incoming solar radiation back to space, thereby providing a
cooling effect.
Land plants emit greater amounts of carbonyl sulfide gas in response to
CO2 fertilization and temperature rise, which is transformed into sulfate
aerosol particles, which have a cooling effect. See here for
more information.
Climate Sensitivity
Climate sensitivity refers to the
equilibrium change in global mean surface temperature following a doubling of
the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Since pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO2
has increased from 280 ppmv to 385 ppmv. There are many estimates of climate sensitivity. When the Earth
warms, it emits more infrared radiation to outer space. This natural cooling
effect amounts to an average of 3.3 Watts per square meter for every 1 deg C
(W/m2/C) that the Earth warms. This is often expressed in the reciprical
form as a gray body Earth sensitivity of 0.30 C/(W/m2) as given here. According to
the IPCC, a doubling of CO2 concentration would cause a radiation flux forcing
of 3.71 W/m2, assuming no feedbacks. Therefore, a doubling of CO2 would cause
3.71 W/m2 / 3.3 W/m2/C = 1.1 Celsius global surface temperature increase,
assuming no feedbacks. This sensitivity assumes that the amount of water vapour,
cloud cover, vegetation and ice cover does not change. There is
little scientific back-up for the CO2 radiation flux forcing numbers used
by the IPCC. Miskolczi calculates a no feedback climate sensitivity of 0.48
C.
There is a wide range of estimates of the
climate sensitivity with feedbacks. The IPCC assumes that clouds and water
vapour cause a positive feedback, while other scientists say that clouds and
water vapour cause a strong negative feedback.
Since
pre-industrial times, atmospheric CO2 has increased from 280 ppmv to 385 ppmv.
Humans have not caused all of this increase. Scafetta and West has estimated
that the Sun has caused 10 to 20% of the CO2 increase. Using 15%, humans
have caused an estimated 90 ppmv increase in CO2, or a 32% increase from
the pre-industrial value.
The table below
shows estimates of climate sensitivity from various sources. The climate
sensitivity is shown as temperature change in degrees Celsius per doubling of
CO2 concentration (C/CO2X2), and as temperature change per radiation flux
(C/W/m2). The last column shows the estimated global surface temperature change
from pre-industrial time to now due to the human caused increase in atmospheric
CO2 of 90 ppmv.
Climate Sensitivity Estimates
|
Author |
Climate Sensitivity (C/CO2X2) |
Climate Sensitivity (C/W/m2) |
Temperature Change (C) |
|
Miskolczi
|
0 |
0.0 |
0.0 |
|
Idso |
0.37 |
0.10 |
0.12 |
|
Spencer |
0.46 |
0.125 |
0.15 |
|
Schwartz |
1.1 |
0.30 |
0.37 |
|
Chylek |
1.4 |
0.38 |
0.47 |
|
IPCC |
3.0 |
0.81 |
1.0 |
The Miskolczi estimate is based on a
greenhouse theory with energy constraints that fully determines the strength of
the greenhouse effect. It predicts the increasing CO2 concentrations would
reduce the quantity of water vapour in the upper troposphere. In fact, the water
vapour relative humidity has declined 21% from 1950 to 2007 at 9 km
altitude.
The Idso and Spencer estimates are based on
temperature change observations, but do not take account of the effect of
reduced water vapour in response to increasing CO2, and so are likely too high.
(The Spencer article presents a climate sensitivity estimate of 8 W/m2/C, which
is the reciprocal of the 0.125 C/W/m2 shown in the above
table.)
The Schwartz and Chylek estimates both
assume that the Sun has no effect on the temperature increase, and attributes
the 20th century temperature change to CO2, modified by aerosols. This
assumption greatly over-estimates the climate sensitivity due to CO2. The
estimates also rely on the surface temperature record, which is contaminated by
the urban heat island effect.
The IPCC determined climate
sensitivity by two methods:
-
comparing short term temperature variation with the
radiation emission from the top of the atmosphere from satellite data,
and
-
by interpreting indirect clues from the
geological record
Climate
sensitivity estimates used by the IPCC assumed that observed
temperature variability caused the observed cloud variability.
But causation also flows in the opposite direction with cloud variability
causing temperature variability. A temperature change caused by cloud
variability would be incorrectly interpreted as a positive feedback. This
error causes the estimates to have a built-in bias toward high climate
sensitivity. We know that the Sun can cause a change in lower cloud cover which
cause a temperature change. The IPCC does not consider possible climate change
from the Sun as its mandate is to investigate man-made climate change.
The analysis of indirect clues from the geological record is
very uncertain. The IPCC 4AR give a range of climate sensitivity of 2 to 4.5
C/W/m2, with a best estimate of 3 C/W/m2.
The following
chart from a presentation by Dr. Richard Lindzen shows prediction results from a
number of climate models and satellite data. The horizontal axis shows the
change in sea surface temperatures per year as measured over various time
intervals. The vertical axis is the change in outgoing longwave radiation at the
top of the atmosphere as predicted by several climate
models.
A positive
correlation (slope from bottom left to top right) indicates that there is a
negative feedback loop in SST change such that the hotter the sea gets the more
heat is radiated away to space, which reduces the temperature rise. A negative
correlation (slope from top left to bottom right) indicates that there is a
positive feedback loop in that the atmosphere inhibits heat loss to space, which
increases the temperature further.
The first
correlation labeled ERBE is the actual data as measured by the Earth
Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) satellite. The slope of the line indicates a
strong negative feedback which offsets the initial temperature rise. The eleven
other correlations are from climate models. They all show negative correlations
corresponding to positive feedbacks, which amplifies the initial temperature
rise. All the models have the feedback in the wrong direction, confirming that
the models are fundamentally wrong.
In the following
graph, each climate model's predicted climate sensitivity is plotted versus
the slope of the correlations shown above, which correspond to the amount of the
temperature feedback. The curved black line shows the relation between the
feedback and the climate sensitivity to doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere. The large errors in the feedback factors cause a large range of
predicted equilibrium climate sensitivities. The model results show the climate
sensitivity could range from 1.3 degrees to over 5 degrees Celsius considering
the range of feedback factors. But the ERBE satellite data tells a completely
different story. It shows a climate sensitivity of 0.4 to 0.5 degrees Celsius.
This small temperature change would not cause any problem and it there is no
reason to be concerned about our CO2 emissions. See here or here
for further information.
The ERBE determined climate
sensitivity may be too high because it was calculated from short term
temperature variations. It does not account for the long term reduction in water
vapour content in the atmosphere as shown in the Water Vapour Feedback section, so the long term
climate sensitivity may be even less than that indicated here.
The IPCC Hockey
Stick
The IPCC published the "Hockey Stick" graph from Mann,
Bradley and Hughes (MBH 1998), in its Third Assessment Report, which shows
little change in temperatures for hundreds of years then a sharp increase
recently in the last hundred years. This temperature history was given bold
prominence in the IPCC reports, distributed to all Canadian households and used
to support major policy decisions involving the expenditure of billions of
dollars. The IPCC argues that there was little natural climate change over the
last 1000 years, so that the temperature change over the last 100 years is
unusual and likely caused by human activities. A senior IPCC researcher said in
an email "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." Christopher Monckton
says "They did this by giving one technique, measurement of tree-rings from
bristlecone pines, 390 times more weighting than other techniques but didn't
disclose this. Tree-rings are wider in warmer years, but pine tree rings are
also wider when there's more carbon dioxide in the air: it's plant food. This
carbon dioxide fertilization distorts the calculations. They said they had
included 24 data sets going back to 1400. Without saying so, they left out the
set showing the medieval warm period, tucking it into a folder marked "Censored
Data". They used a computer model to draw the graph from the data, but two
Canadians [Ross McKitrick and Stephen McIntyre] later found that the model
almost always drew hockey-sticks even if they fed in random, electronic "red
noise" because it used a faulty algorithm." The MBH 1998 report was never
properly peer reviewed before the IPCC used it in their publications.
See here for comments from
Christopher Monckton.
McKitrick and McIntyre say in their paper "the
dataset used to make this construction contained collation errors, unjustified
truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, incorrect principal
component calculations, geographical mislocations and other serious defects.
These errors and defects substantially affect the temperature index. The major
finding is that the values in the early 15th century exceed any values in the
20th century. The particular “hockey stick” shape derived in the MBH98 proxy
construction – a temperature index that decreases slightly between the early
15th century and early 20th century and then increases dramatically up to 1980 —
is primarily an artefact of poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect
calculation of principal components." See here for
their paper.
The IPCC hockey stick is shown below, along with the
corrected version. The error ranges are not shown here.
The dispute over the hockey stick caused the
United States Congress to decide to investigate the matter. The US National
Research Council (NRC) held public hearings and prepared a report in 2006 for
the US House of Representatives Committee on Science. The NRC Report made
no criticism of the McKitrick and McIntyre papers. The report concludes
"strip-bark samples should be avoided in temperature reconstructions." These
strip-bark Bristlecone/Foxtail samples are responsible for the sharp increase in
the graph in the twentieth century, but the growth spurt is not related to
temperatures. It also confirmed that Mann's algorithm, which used non-centered
principal component analysis, mines for hockey stick shapes from random red
noise data as previously shown by McKitrick and McIntyre, and notes that
"uncertainties of the published reconstructions have been underestimated."
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and
Commerce had independently commissioned a study from Edward Wegman who is
chairman of the NAS Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics and a Fellow
of the Royal Statistical Society. The Wegman Report states "Overall, our
committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the
hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the
millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.” It also states "In general, we
find the criticisms by [the McKitrick and McIntyre papers] to be valid and their
arguments to be compelling. We were able to reproduce their results and offer
both theoretical explanations (Appendix A) and simulations to verify that their
observations were correct.” The study also studied the social network of the
group of scientists who publish temperature reconstructions. The study found
that they collaborate with each other and share proxy data and methodologies, so
that the "independent" studies are not independent at all. See the Wegman Report
here.
Both
of these reports were public six months before the IPCC began the release of the
Fourth Assessment Report; however, the 4AR makes no mention of the Wegman
Report, gives only one citation of the NRC Report, and ignores the findings and
recommendations of the reports.
David Holland wrote a comprehensive
history and discussion of the hockey stick affair. See Holland's paper -
"Bias and Concealment in the IPCC Process: The 'Hockey Stick' Affair and its
Implications" published by "Energy & Environment", October 2007 here.
David
Holland says "it is scandalous that the WGI Chapter 6 authors ignored most of
its [NRC Report] substantive findings. Despite the clear analysis in
Wegman et al. showing the lack of independence between the various temperature
reconstructions, the authors of AR4 WGI Chapter 6 persisted with their reliance
on a “spaghetti” diagram of reconstructions in Figure 6.10(b) to continue to
justify the claim that “Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the
second half of the 20th century were likely the highest in at least the past
1,300 years.”
Urban Heat
Island Effects
The urban heat island effect is caused by
the heat-retaining properties of concrete and asphalt in urban areas that
artificially increase local temperatures. It is the effect that humans have on
local surface temperature so that the temperatures in or near urban centres are
warmer than rural areas.
Surface
Temperature Trends in 47 California Counties
This graph shows the size of the effect on surface temperatures
and the problems associated with objective sampling. The surface temperature
trends determined from ground stations for the period 1940 to 1996 were averaged
for each county. The trends were grouped by county population and plotted as
closed circles along with the standard errors of their means. The straight line
is a least-squares fit to the closed circles. The points marked ''X'' are the
six unadjusted station records selected by NASA GISS for use in their estimate
of global temperatures. Note that 5 of the 6 selected stations are in populous
counties. Note also that extrapolating the straight line to a county population
of 10,000 gives a temperature trend of zero. See here.
Here
is an example of a weather station used by
the IPCC to record temperature rise.
Temperature Trends of Major City
Sites and Rural Sites
Peterson
(2003) is an influential study cited by IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
purporting to show that the urbanization effect is negligible.
The
IPCC relied heavily on this flawed study, where Peterson states "no
statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual
temperatures." However, Steve McIntyre using Peterson's data shows that "actual
cities have a very substantial trend of over 2 deg C per century relative to the
rural network - and this assumes that there are no problems with rural network -
something that is obviously not true since there are undoubtedly microsite and
other problems." Peterson uses two lists of stations in his study, one labelled
Urban and one labelled Rural. However an analysis of the lists shows that the
Urban list includes many rural sites and the Rural list includes many urban
sites. These results are discussed in a Climate Audit article here.
Most scientist agree
that many temperature station measurements are contaminated by urban heat island
effects, but they argue that the major global temperature indexes are adjusted
to correct for these effects. There is an "Urbanization Adjustment" to correct
for the effects of urbanization, a "Time of Observation Bias Adjustment" to
correct for changed to the time of day when measurements are taken, and there is
a "Coverage Adjustment" to account for the loss of measurement stations. These
adjustments are intended to produce a record of what the temperatures would be
if nobody lived near the measurement stations. If the adjustments were adequate,
there should be no statistically significant correlation between the temperature
record and social economic indicators.
Ross McKitrick and Patrick
Michaels published a paper in 2004 in which they analyse the pattern of warming
over the Earth's land surface compared to local economic conditions. They found
a statistically significant correlation between the adjusted temperature data
and economic development, meaning that the adjustments are not adequate to
remove the urban heat island effects. They conclude "If the contamination were
removed, we estimated the average measured warming rate over land would decline
by about half."
Dutch meteorologists, Jos de Laat and Ahilleas Maurellis
using different testing methodologies came to similar conclusions. They showed
that there is a statistically significant correlation between the spacial
pattern of warming in the adjusted temperature data and the spacial pattern of
industrial development. They concluded it adds a large upward bias to the
measured global warming trend. They also show that climate model predictions
show no correlation between temperature and industrial development.
The
IPCC acknowledges the correlation between the warming trends and social economic
development, but dismisses it as a mere coincidence, due to unspecified
“atmospheric circulation changes.” This nonsense claim contradict the IPCC
widley advertised claim that recent warming can not be attributed to natural
causes, and the Laat and Maurellis research shows it to be
false.
McKitrick and Michaels published an updated paper in December 2007
using a larger data set with a more complete set of socioeconomic indicators.
They discussed two types of contamination; anthropogenic surface processes,
which are changes to the landscaped due to urbanization or agriculture, and
inhomogeneities, i.e. equipment changes, missing data, poor quality control,
etc. They showed that the spatial pattern of warming trends is tightly
correlated with indicators of economic activity. They present a battery of
statistical tests to prove that the result is not a fluke or spurious
correlation. They conclude "The average trend at the surface in the post-1980
interval would fall from about 0.30 degrees (C) per decade to about 0.17
degrees." Removing the net warming bias due to urban heat effects in surface
temperature data could explain as much as half the recent warming over
land.
Bias of IPCC Temperature Data
The graph above is from the McKitrick and Michaels
December 2007 paper. Each square is colour-coded to indicate the size of the
local bias. Blank areas indicate that there was no data available. See the
Background Discussion on the paper here.
An audit by researcher Steve McIntyre reveals that NASA has made
urban adjustments of temperature data in its GISS temperature record in the
wrong direction. NASA has applied a "negative urban
adjustment" to 45% of the urban station measurements (where adjustments are
made), meaning that the adjustments make the warming trends steeper. The urban adjustment is supposed to remove the effects of
urbanization, but the NASA negative adjustments increases the urbanization
effects. The result is that the surface temperature trend utilized by the
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is exaggerated. See here.
The website www.surfacestations.org was created by
Anthony Watts in response to the realization that very little physical site
survey data exists for the entire United States Historical Climatological
Network (USHCN) of surface stations. Volunteers do hands on site
surveys to photograph and document all 1221 USHCN climate stations in the USA.
As of February 2009, 854 of 1221 stations have been examined in the USHCN
network. Each site is assigned a site quality rating 1 through 5 based on the
Climate Reference Network Rating Guide. Only 11% of stations are in suitable
locations, 69% are within 10 m of an artificial heat source. Below is a picture
of a poorly situated station.
The graph "Surface and Troposphere Temperature Trends"
presented in the Heating of the Troposphere section of this essay shows
temperature trends of the land, of the land and sea, and of the troposphere in
the tropics. The land surface temperature trend has the highest rate of increase
because it is contaminated by the heat island effect. The land and sea surface
temperature trend is lower than the land trend because the sea temperature data
does not have any heat island effect. The troposphere shows the lowest rate of
temperature increase. We know that the CO2 theory of climate change requires the
troposphere to warm faster than the surface, but the opposite has happened. It
is illogical to believe that CO2 is the primary temperature driver and
concurrently believe that the surface measurements used to the IPCC are
accurate. If the surface temperature data were fully adjusted to remove the
effects of urbanization by reducing the warming rate by half, it would closely
match the troposphere warming trend.
Falsified Historical CO2
Measurements
The
IPCC uses a CO2 concentration history that shows a low pre-industrial CO2
content which increases during the industrial era. The IPCC may have used
corrupted CO2 data in its analysis of climate change. Their conclusions and
projections of climate change are all based on the assumption of low CO2
concentrations in the pre-industrial atmosphere based on ice core studies.
Unfortunately, ice cores do not form a closed system. In the highly compressed
deep ice, CO2 combines with liquid water to form gas hydrates, or clathrates,
which are tiny crystals. When the ice core is brought to the surface, the
pressure falls causing the clathrates to decompose to the gas form, exploding in
the process as if they were microscopic grenades, forming tiny cracks in the
ice. Other cracks are formed by the ice decompression. Gas escapes through these
cracks as the ice core is brought to the surface, but since CO2 forms clathrates
at lower pressures than other gases, CO2 is preferentially lost leading to
depletion of CO2 in the gas trapped in the ice core. Consequently, the measured
CO2 concentration from deep ice cores is less than the CO2 concentration of the
originally trapped air.
The graph on the left shows the
IPCC history of CO2 concentration in air.
Data from
shallow ice cores such as from Siple, Antarctica, show that the CO2
concentration of pre-industrial ice (from depths too shallow for clathrate
formation) are much higher than that measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii in
1960.
Actual Siple, Antarctica Ice Core and Mauna Loa Data
Note that the measured
concentration declines with increasing load pressure and
depth.
Shifted Siple, Antarctica Ice Core and Mauna
Loa Data
As the
actual measurements show ice deposited in 1890 AD is 328 ppm, not the 290 ppm
required to fit the IPCC human caused increasing CO2 concentration and global
warming hypothesis, the average age of air was arbitrarily decreed to be exactly
83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped.
The “corrected”
ice data were then smoothly aligned with the Mauna Loa record, and reproduced in
countless publications as a famous “Siple curve”. Only thirteen years later, in
1993, glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the “age assumption”, but
they failed.
CO2
Measurements between 1800 and 1955
IPCC modellers ignored the direct
measurements of CO2 concentration indicating that the 19th century CO2
concentration was 335 ppm.
The encircled values were arbitrarily selected
by Callendar for estimation of 292 ppm as the average 19th century CO2
concentration.
A study of stomatal frequency in fossil leaves
from Holocene lake deposits in Denmark, showing that 9400 years ago CO2
atmospheric level was 333 ppm, and 9600 years ago 348 ppm, falsify the concept
of stabilized and low CO2 air concentration until the advent of industrial
revolution.
See here for more
information.
Recently, Ernst-Georg Beck has summarized 90,000
accurate chemical analysis of CO2 in air since 1812. The historic chemical data
reveal that changes in CO2 track changes in temperature, and therefore climate
in contrast to the simple, monotonically increasing CO2 trend depicted in the
post 1990 literature on climate change. Since 1812, the CO2 concentration in
northern hemispheric air has fluctuated exhibiting three high level maxima
around 1825, 1857 and 1942 the latter showing more than 400 ppm.
Between 1857 and 1958, the
Pettenkofer process was the standard analytical method for determining
atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and usually achieved accuracy better than 3%.
These determinations were made by several scientists of Nobel Prize level
distinction. Following Callendar (1938), modern climatologists have generally
ignored the historic determinations of CO2, despite the techniques being
standard textbook procedures in several different disciplines. Chemical methods
were discredited as unreliable choosing only few which fit the assumption of a
climate CO2 connection.
Ernst-Georg Beck calls the falsification of the
CO2 record "The greatest scandal in the modern history of science".
See
here for a
summary of the Beck paper, or here
for the paper
See here
for Beck's Berlin presentation of May 30, 2007.
See here
for CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time, by Zbigniew Jaworowski,
Spring/Summer 2007 21st CENTURY Science & Technology.
No
Consensus
Author Michael Crichton warned of the dangers of
"consensus science" in a 2003 speech. He says "Consensus is the business of
politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens
to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by
reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is
relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great
precisely because they broke with the consensus."
In an open letter to
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 61 prominent scientists called for an open
climate science review. The letter states "Observational evidence does not
support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust
model predictions of the future. Significant advances have been made since the
protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about
increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know
today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would
have concluded it was not necessary. Global climate changes all the time due to
natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from
this natural "noise.""
The Petition Project was organized by the Oregon
Institute of Science and Medicine.
The petition states in
part:
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of
carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and
disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific
evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial
effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
So
far (May 2009) the petition has received 31,478 signatures. Signatories are
approved for inclusion in the Petition Project list if they have obtained formal
educational degrees at the level of Bachelor of Science or higher in appropriate
scientific fields. All of the listed signers have formal educations in
fields of specialization that suitably qualify them to evaluate the research
data related to the petition statement. Many of the signers currently work in
climatological, meteorological, atmospheric, environmental, geophysical,
astronomical, and biological fields directly involved in the climate change
controversy. See here.
The Heartland
Institute has conducted an international survey of 530 climate scientists in
2003. The survey asked if “the current state of scientific knowledge is
developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of
greenhouse gases.” Two-thirds of the scientists surveyed (65.9 percent)
disagreed with the statement, with nearly half (45.7 percent) scoring it with a
1 or 2, indicating strong disagreement. Only 10.9 percent scored it with a 6 or
7, indicating strong agreement. See here for the full survey
results.
In an Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United
Nations, and the head of states of many nations dated December 13, 2007, titled
"UN Climate Conference Taking the World in Entirely the Wrong Direction", more
than 100 specialists from around the world, many who are leading scientists,
state that "It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that
has affected humanity through the ages." The letter states than recent climate
changes have been well with-in the bounds of known natural variability. It
further states that climate models can not predict climate, that there has been
no global warming since 1998, that the IPCC has ignored much significant new
peer-reviewed research that has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of
dangerous human-caused global warming, and attempts to cut emissions will slow
development, and is likely to increase human suffering from future climate
change rather than to decrease it. See here
for the letter as published by the National Post.
A report to the US
Senate lists 400 qualified scientists from around the world who dispute the
claims by IPCC and others, that "climate science is settled" and that there is a
"consensus". See here.
There
is no consensus on whether or to what degree human activities are causing “the
problem”, or even whether there is a problem. Global cooling, widely predicted
in the 1970s, would have been much more dangerous than warming.
Effects of
Warming
The IPCC and related groups have suggested several
adverse effects of global warming. Real world data shows that these claims are
mostly false. They ignore the huge benefits of warming and of CO2 emissions on
plant growth.
Global Sea
Level Rise
There has been no change in the rate of sea level
rise in the last 100 years as shown below.
Sea Level
Data
Mean global sea level (gsl) (top), with its shaded 95% confidence
interval, and mean gsl rate (bottom), with its shaded standard error interval.
Adapted from Jevrejeva et al. (2006). See here from
CO2science.
The IPCC AR4 estimates that "Global average sea level
rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The
rate was faster over 1993 to 2003, about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year." It also
states "There is high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise
increased from the 19th to the 20th century."
Since August 1992 the satellite altimeters have been measuring sea level on a
global basis. The University of Colorado at Boulder provides data from a series
of satellites. Tide gauge calibrations are used to estimate altimeter drift. The
global sea level rise with the seasonal signal removed is shown here. It
shows a trend from 1992 thru March 2009 of 3.1 mm/year. Below are graphs of
global, Pacific ocean and Atlantic ocean sea levels, with trends from
January 2004 to March 2009, seasonal signals included.
Note that there has been a significant flattening of the trend since 2004.
The global sea level rise since January 2004 of 1.52 mm/year is less than
half of the overall trend from 1992 of 3.1 mm/year. The trends since January
2004 of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are 0.15 mm/year and 0.37 mm/year,
respectively. The slowing of the sea level rise is consistent with the current
lack of global warming.
Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, who has spent a lifetime in the study of sea levels,
says “There is a total absence of any recent ‘acceleration in sea level rise’ as
often claimed by IPCC and related groups.”. Read his fascinating interview "Claim That Sea Level
Is Rising Is a Total Fraud" June 22, 2007 EIR Economics 33.
Dr.
Morner says the global sea level has been rising at 1.1 mm/year from 1850 to
about 1940, then no increase to 1970. The IPCC uses a tide gauge in Hong Kong
that shows 2.3 mm/year of sea level rise. The tide gauge is located where the
land is known to be subsiding, so the record should not be used. Satellite
altimetry data from the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission measures the sea level relative
to the centre of the Earth (rather than relative to the coast) since 1992.
Satellite altimetry of
TOPEX/POSEIDON
The graph above
from Morner, 2004, shows the original satellite sea level data from 1992 to
early 2000. Other than the effect of the 1997/98 El Nino, the data shows no sea
level rise.
The satellite data shows no increase, but the IPCC adds a
"correction factor" to the satellite data to make it agree with the tide gauge
data at 2.3 mm/year. This data is presented as satellite data, but Morner says
"it is a falsification of the data set".
Satellite Altimetry Data
of TOPEX/POSEIDON Tilted Back to Original Level
The graph above from Morner, 2005, shows the satellite
altimetry sea level data from 1993 to 2003 tilted back to the original level by
excluding the tide-gauge factor. It shows variability around zero plus ENSO
events.
See here
for Dr. Morner's Memoradum paper, which was presented to the United
Kingdom's House of Lords.
Satellite altimetry Topex/Poseidon data is
adjusted by the University of Colorado for NASA to match the rate of sea level
rise measured by a set of 64 tide gauges. Any difference between the raw
satellite measurement and the tide gauge measurement is assumed to be the sum of
satellite measurement drift error and the vertical land movement at the tide
gauge location. A separate estimate of the land movement is made mainly by using
"doppler orbitography and radiopositioning integrated by satellite" (DORIS) data
at the tide gauge location. The raw satellite data is tilted by applying the
satellite measurement drift as determined by the tide gauges. See here and here
for a description of how satellite data is calibrated from a set of tide
gauges.
A famous tree in the Maldives shows no evidence of having been
swept away by rising sea levels, as would be predicted by the global warming
advocates. A group of Australian global-warming advocates came along and pulled
the tree down, destroying the evidence that their “theory” was false.
The
"INQUA Commission on Sea-Level Change and Coastal Evolution" led by Dr. Morner,
prepared as estimate that the global sea level will rise 10 cm plus or minus 10
cm in the next 100 years. Dr. Morner has since revised his estimate to 5 cm per
100 years after considering data of the Sun activity suggesting that the warming
trend may have ended and the Earth may be headed into a cooling trend.
It
seems increasingly likely that a warming will increase precipitation and ice
accumulation in the Polar Regions, and thus slow down or even reverse the
ongoing sea level rise.
See here
update 10.
The Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory estimates the rate of
sea level rise at 1.42 plus or minus 0.14 mm/year for the period 1954 to 2003.
This is less than the estimate of 1.91 plus or minus 0.14 mm/year for the period
1902 to 1953, indicating a slowing of the rate.
See here
for an analysis of sea level rise by the Proudman Oceanographic
Laboratory. The following graph shows the rate of sea level change since
1905 using the highest quality long record tide gauges.
Comparison of the global mean rates of sea level change
calculated from nine long-record stations with those calculated from 177
stations averaged into 13 regions. The shaded region indicates ±1 S.E.
These records are from regions which do not experience high rates of Glacial
Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) and which are not significantly affected by
earthquakes. The comparison shows that over the common period of the two
analyses (1955-1998) there is very strong agreement between the two global
means.
Wöppelmann et al used global positioning satellite (GPS) stations to correct
tide gauge data for vertical land movements. In a 2007 paper, Wöppelmann et al
analyzed data from 160 GPS stations that were within 15 km of tide gauges to
determine the vertical movement of the tide gauges. They determined that the
global average sea-level rise from January 1999 to August 2005, after correcting
the tide gauge data by the vertical land movement, was 1.31 +/- 0.30 mm/year.
Note that this estimate is 58% less than the estimate reported (1993 - 2003) in
the IPCC AR4. See
here from World Climate Report, and the study abstract here.
The movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (AIT) suggests that the Antarctic
ice sheet could melt, but in fact the temperature of Antarctica has been
declining over the last 25 years by 0.11 Celsius per decade. There has been no
significant melting during previous warm periods when temperatures were warmer
than today.
Antarctica Temperatures 1979 - 2006 MSU Data Set (Latitude -90 to
-70)
This graph was created from the
MSU Data from www.CO2Science.org.
Antarctica ice sheet has been growing
in thickness by 5 mm/year (1992 to 2003) according to a recent mass balance
study. This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham
et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the
Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss
from West Antarctica."
A similar story is found in
Greenland. The warmest period was not the last quarter century. Rather, as
Vinther et al. report, "the warmest year in the extended Greenland temperature
record was 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s were the warmest decades." In fact,
their newly-lengthened record reveals there has been no net warming of the
region over the last 75 years. A study of the Greenland ice sheet by Johannessen
et al. found that below 1500 meters, the mean change of ice sheet height with
time was a decline of 2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year, qualitatively in harmony with the
statements of Alley et al.; but above 1500 meters, there was a positive growth
rate of fully 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year. Averaged over the entire ice sheet, the mean
result was also positive, at a value of 5.4 ± 0.2 cm/year, which when adjusted
for an isostatic uplift of about 0.5 cm/year yielded a mean growth rate of
approximately 5 cm/year, for a total increase in the mean thickness of the
Greenland Ice Sheet of about 55 cm over the 11-year period, which was primarily
driven by accumulation of increased snowfall over the ice sheet.
A
recent study
by Zwally et al. 2007 found the Greenland ice sheet have experienced a net
accumulation of ice which is producing a 0.03 ± 0.01 mm/year decline in
sea-level.
Severe
Weather
The IPCC claims that global warming will result in
more severe weather. This doesn't make any sense, as most storms are caused by a
difference in temperatures of colliding air masses. If CO2 warms the Polar
Regions there will be smaller temperature differences, and less severe storms.
All other things being equal, a warmer world should have fewer, not more, severe
storms.
Unlike most storms, hurricanes are caused by difference in
temperatures between the sea surface and the storm top.
Researchers
Knutson and Tuleya examined a suite of climate models and found that they
virtually unanimously projected that in a CO2-enhanced world, the middle and
upper troposphere will warm at a faster rate than the surface, especially over
the tropical oceans. More warming aloft than at the surface makes the atmosphere
more stable and less conducive to storm formation. Thus, Knutson and Tuleya
reported that the model-projected vertical stability increases in the future
would temper (but not totally cancel out) the increase in storm intensity by
rising sea surface temperature.
However, researchers Vecchi and Soden
found that the climate models almost unanimously project that there will be an
increase in the vertical wind shear during the hurricane season which also acts
to inhibit tropical cyclone formation. The combined result is that any increase
in hurricane intensity will be so small as to be undetectable.
Incidentally, the actual vertical wind shear of Atlantic hurricanes have been
declining since 1973, the opposite of the trend predicted by the climate models.
See here.
There is absolutely no evidence of increasing severe storm events in the
real world data. Here is a graph of hurricane intensity for the USA.
For the North Atlantic as a whole, according
to the World Meteorological Organization, "Reliable data ... since the 1940s
indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and
the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased."
Gulev, et al
(2000) employed NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data since 1958 to study the occurrence of
winter storms over the northern hemisphere. They found a statistically
significant (at the 95% level) decline of 1.2 cyclones per year for the period,
during which temperatures reportedly rose in much of the
hemisphere.
"Global warming causes increased storminess" makes for
interesting headlines. It also violates fundamental scientific truth and the
lessons of history.
Global hurricane activity has decreased to the lowest level in 30 years. The
Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is the combination of a storm's intensity and
longevity. See here.
Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the
1970s. In the Southern Hemisphere the 2008 ACE has fallen to 58% of the 2005 ACE
index. During the past 60 years Northern Hemisphere ACE undergoes
significant interannual variability but exhibits no significant statistical
trend. The northern hemisphere 2008 ACE was 85% of the 2005 ACE as shown in the
stacked bar chart below.
Dr. Indur M. Goklany prepared a study which examines whether losses due
to such events (as measured by aggregate deaths and death rates) have increased
globally and for the United States in recent decades. It puts these deaths and
death rates into perspective by comparing them with the overall mortality
burden, and briefly discuss what trends in these measures imply about human
adaptive capacity. Globally, mortality and mortality rates have declined by 95
percent or more since the 1920s. The largest improvements came from declines in
mortality due to droughts and floods, which apparently were responsible for 93
percent of all deaths caused by extreme events during the 20th Century. See here.
The most telling graph is the first one in the paper below:
The chart displays data on aggregate global mortality and mortality
rates between 1900 and 2006 for the following weather-related extreme events:
droughts, extreme temperatures (both extreme heat and extreme cold),floods,
slides, waves and surges, wild fires and windstorms of different types (e.g.,
hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, typhoons, etc.). It indicates that both death
and death rates have declined at least since the 1920s. Specifically, comparing
the 1920s to the 2000–2006 period, the annual number of deaths declined from
485,200 to 22,100 (a 95 percent decline), while the death rate per million
dropped from 241.8 to 3.5 (a decline of 99 percent).
Warming is Good
for Your Health
The health benefits of a warmer planet
are many times greater than any harmful effect. The positive health effects of heat have been well
documented over the past quarter century. The early studies of Bull (1973)
and Bull and Morton (1975a,b) in England and Wales, for example, demonstrated
that even normal changes in temperature are typically associated with
inverse changes in death rates, especially in older people. That
is, when temperatures rise, death rates fall, while when
temperatures fall, death rates rise.
Speculations on the
potential impact of continued warming on human health often focus on
mosquito-borne diseases. Elementary models suggest that higher global
temperatures will enhance their transmission rates and extend their geographic
ranges. However the histories of three such diseases - malaria, yellow
fever, and dengue - reveal that climate has rarely been the principal
determinant of their prevalence or range. Human activities and their impact on
local ecology have generally been much more significant. It is therefore
inappropriate to use climate-based models to predict future prevalence.
Warming Effects on
Animals
As indicated previously, both higher temperatures
and CO2 concentrations enhance plant growth, especially for trees. This
increases the habitat available for many animals. The bulk of scientific studies
show an increase in biodiversity almost everywhere on Earth that is not
restricted by habitat destruction in response to global warming and atmospheric
CO2 enrichment.
The global warming alarmist has picked the polar bear as
its poster animal. Time magazine has told its readers that they should be
worried about polar bear extinction. The data however, does not support reasons
for concern. In the Baffin Bay region between North America and Greenland,
temperatures have been declining and the polar bear population has
declined. In the Beauford Sea region the temperature has increased and so
has the polar bear population. In other areas the polar bear population has been
stable. So the trend of polar bear populations relative to temperature have been
opposite to what Time would lead its readers to believe.
There has been
recent warming in the western arctic as a result of the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation, which periodically shifts the climate in the western arctic by
changing ocean currents. These cycles have occurred over thousands of years. No
evidence exists that suggests that both polar bears and the conservation systems
that regulate them will not adapt and respond to the new conditions. Polar bears
have persisted through many similar climate cycles. See here for an article by Dr. Mitchell Taylor,
Polar Bear Biologist.
Kyoto Protocol - Misallocation of
Funds
Of all the major problems of the world, climate
change is one of the least important because funds spent to reduce CO2 emissions
will have an insignificant effect on climate. Computer model projections show
that full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol may result in temperature
reduction of an undetectable 0.06 Celsius by 2050 at a cost of about
$1,000,000,000,000 US. See here. (This estimate assumes
the sun has no effect on climate. Since the sun has a major effect, the 0.06
Celsius estimate is likely high by a factor of 2 or more.)
The Copenhagen Consensus (directed by
environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg) analysed the major challenges facing the world
and produced a prioritized list of opportunities responding to those challenges.
Submission by 24 United Nations ambassadors and other senior diplomats were
reviewed by economists and determined that the top priority for addressing major
world challenges would be given to communicable diseases, sanitation and water,
malnutrition, and education. Ranked toward the bottom of the 40-category list
were issues relating to climate change and the Kyoto Protocol.
An Inconvenient
Truth
Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (AIT) is
grossly misleading about climate change. Nearly every major statement made in
the movie is one-sided, exaggerated, or plainly false. This movie has had a
large effect on public opinion even though most scientists agree it is
misleading.
Some of the problems with AIT are:
Implies that,
during the past 650,000 years, changes in carbon dioxide levels largely caused
changes in global temperature, whereas the causality mostly runs the other way,
with CO2 changes trailing global temperature changes by hundreds to thousands of
years. Never mentions that global temperatures were warmer than the present
during each of the past four interglacial periods, even though CO2 levels were
lower.
Presents images showing what 20 feet of sea level rise would do to
the world’s major coastal communities. There is no credible evidence of an
impending collapse of the great ice sheets. We do have fairly good data on ice
mass balance changes and their effects on sea level. NASA scientist Jay Zwally
and colleagues found a combined Greenland/Antarctica ice loss sea level rise
equivalent of 0.05 mm per year during 1992-2002. At that rate, it would take a
full century to raise sea level by just 5 mm.
Presents the “hockey stick”
reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere temperature history used by the IPCC,
according to which the 1990s were likely the warmest decade of the past
millennium. It is now widely acknowledged that the hockey stick was built on a
flawed methodology and inappropriate data.
Assumes a linear relationship
between CO2 levels and global temperatures, whereas the actual CO2-warming
effect is logarithmic, meaning that the next 100 ppm increase in CO2 levels adds
only half as much heat as the previous 100 ppm increase.
Claims that the
rate of global warming is accelerating, whereas the rate has been constant for
the past 30 years to 2002—roughly 0.17°C per decade, and no warming from 2002
through 2006.
Claims that Lake Chad in Northern Africa is drying up due
to global warming. The lake is the water source for 20 million people, and it
has an average depth of only 1.5 to 4.5 meters. It has actually been dry
multiple times in the past: in 8500 BC, 5500 BC, 2000 BC and 100 BC. The lake
has shrunk in size due to a rapidly expanding population drawing water from the
lake, the introduction of irrigation technologies and local overgrazing. These
causes are neither global nor warming, and are utterly independent of CO2. In
addition, Africa as a continent experienced a dramatic shift towards dryer
weather in the end of the 19th century that is not generally attributed to
CO2.
Distracts views from the main hurricane problem facing the United
States: the ever-growing concentration of population and wealth in vulnerable
coastal regions, which is partly a consequence of federal flood insurance and
other political subsidies.
Blames global warming for the decline “since
the 1960s” of the emperor penguin population in Antarctica, implying that the
penguins are in peril, their numbers dwindling as the world warms. In fact, the
population declined in the 1970s and has been stable since the late
1980s.
Never explains why anyone should be alarmed about the current
Arctic warming, considering that our stone-age ancestors survived—and likely
benefited from—the much stronger and longer Arctic warming known as the Holocene
Climate Optimum.
Presents one climate model’s projection of increased
U.S. drought as authoritative even though another leading model forecasts
increased wetness. Climate model hydrology forecasts on regional scales are
notoriously unreliable. Most of the United States, outside the Southwest, became
wetter during 1925-2003.
Blames global warming for the record number of
typhoons hitting Japan in 2004. Local meteorological conditions, not average
global temperatures, determine the trajectory of particular storms, and data
going back to 1950 show no correlation between North Pacific storm activity and
global temperatures.
Claims that global warming endangers polar bears
even though polar bear populations are increasing in Arctic areas where it is
warming and declining in Arctic areas where it is cooling. In fact 11 of the 13
main groups in Canada are thriving, and there is evidence that the only groups
that are not thriving are in a region of the Arctic that has cooled. Polar bears
have survived the Holocene Climate Optimum and the Medieval Warm Period, both
periods were significantly warmer than today's climate.
Warns that a
doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels to 560 ppm will so acidify sea water that
all optimal areas for coral reef construction will disappear by 2050. This is
not plausible. Coral calcification rates have increased as ocean temperatures
and CO2 levels have risen, and today’s main reef builders evolved and thrived
during the Mesozoic Period, when atmospheric CO2 levels hovered above 1,000 ppm
for 150 million years and exceeded 2,000 ppm for several
million
years.
Blames global warming for the resurgence of malaria in Kenya, even
though several studies have found no climate link and attribute the problem to
decreased spraying of homes with DDT and anti-malarial drug
resistance.
Claims that 2004 set an all-time record for the number of
tornadoes in the United States. Tornado frequency has not increased; rather, the
detection of smaller tornadoes has increased. If we consider the tornadoes that
have been detectable for many decades (category F-3 or greater), there actually
has been a downward trend since 1950.
Cites Tuvalu, Polynesia, as a place
where rising sea levels force residents to evacuate their homes. In reality, sea
levels at Tuvalu fell during the latter half of the 20th century and even during
the 1990s.
Neglects to mention that global warming could reduce the
severity of winter storms—also called frontal storms because their energy comes
from colliding air masses (fronts)—by decreasing the temperature differential
between colliding air masses.
Ignores the large role of natural
variability in Arctic climate, never mentioning either that Arctic temperatures
during the 1930s equalled or exceeded those of the late 20th century, or that
the Arctic during the early- to mid-Holocene was significantly warmer than it is
today.
Ignores a study by University of Missouri professor Curt Davis
that found an overall Antarctic ice mass gain during 1992-2003.
Neglects
to mention that NASA satellites show an Antarctic cooling trend of 0.11°C per
decade since 1978.
Calls carbon dioxide the “most important greenhouse
gas.” Water vapour and clouds are the leading contributors and account for over
70% of the greenhouse effect.
Claimed that ice cap on Mt. Kilimanjaro is
disappearing due to global warming, though satellite measurements show no
temperature change at the summit.
This is only a partial list of errors,
omissions and exaggerations.
See here from the Competitive Enterprise
Institute.
See here for
an article listing 35 errors in AIT by Christopher Monckton of
Brenchley.
The decision by the British government to distribute the film
"An Inconvenient Truth" to schools has been the subject of a legal action. The
British High Court found that the film was false or misleading in 11 respects.
In order for the film to be shown, the High Court ruled in October, 2007
that teachers must make it clear to their students that:
1.) The
film is a political work and promotes only one side of the
argument.
2.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically
drawn to the attention of school children.
The inaccuracies are listed here.
Al Gore and the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Price "for their efforts to
build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to
lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
Irena Sendler was considered for the prize for saving 2500 children and infants
from the Nazi Warsaw Ghetto and the extermination camps during World War II. She
was not selected. See her story here.
Warnings of Global
Cooling
Nigel
Weiss, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Applied Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge says that throughout earth's
history climate change has been driven by factors other than man: "Variable
behaviour of the sun is an obvious explanation," says Dr. Weiss, "and there is
increasing evidence that Earth's climate responds to changing patterns of solar
magnetic activity." The sun's most obvious magnetic features are sunspots,
formed as magnetic fields rip through the sun's surface. "If you look back into
the sun's past, you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar
activity," Dr. Weiss states. These hyperactive periods do not last long,
"perhaps 50 to 100 years, then you get a crash," says Dr. Weiss. 'It's a
boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon."
In addition to
the 11-year cycle, sunspots almost entirely "crash," or die out, every 200 years
or so as solar activity diminishes. When the crash occurs, the Earth can cool
dramatically. These phenomenon, known as "Grand minima," have recurred over the
past 10,000 years, if not longer. In the 17th century, sunspots almost
completely disappeared for 70 years. That was the coldest interval of the Little
Ice Age, when New York Harbour froze, allowing walkers to journey from Manhattan
to Staten Island, and when Viking colonies abandoned Greenland, a once verdant
land that became tundra.
In contrast, when the sun is very active,
such as the period we're now in, the Earth can warm dramatically. This was the
case during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings first colonized Greenland
and when Britain was wine-growing country.
No one knows precisely
when a crash will occur but some expect it soon, because the sun's polar field
is now at its weakest since measurements began in the early 1950s. Some predict
the crash within five years, and many speculate about its effect on global
warming. Several authorities are now warning of global cooling because the sun
has entered a quiet period.
A Russian Academy of Sciences report in
August 2006 warns that global cooling could develop on Earth in 50 years and
have serious consequences.
David Archibal presentation titled "The Past
and Future of Climate" here presented to the Lavoisier Group's 2007
Workshop in Melbourne, Australia, shows a forecast of global temperatures
based on a detailed analysis of sunspot cycles. He expects the next sunspot
cycle (24) to be weak resulting in the start of a long cooling trend. The
forecast shows a 1.5 oC drop in global temperature from 2007 to 2025.
He warns "...this will have a large and negative effect on Canadian grain
production...".
On July 1, 2008, the Space
and Science Research Center, a solar research organization, issued a formal
declaration on climate change: Global warming has ended - a new climate
era of pronounced cold weather has begun.
