Lindzen Continues Deceptions

Sometimes I read something that is so ridiculous I just know people are going to believe it merely because they figure no one would say something that stupid if it wasn't true. Well, yes there are people that would say something stupid and Richard Lindzen is just such a person. Take a look at the latest example of this:

Top MIT Climate Scientist: ‘Senate’s Climate Change Vote Is Ludicrous’

Just a quick note before we start - According to the MIT webpage, Lindzen is an emeritus professor, meaning he is no longer an active professor there. He is, in fact, working at the Cato Institute, a well-known front for the fossil fuel industry and one of the organizations I refer to as The Three Stooges. That means we are being subjected to deception right from the beginning of this article.

One quick question: If the denier position is so scientifically sound, why do they have to resort to deception so often? Just asking.

So, what did this "top MIT climate scientist" have to say about it?

Lindzen said Sanders’s amendment to a bill that approves the Keystone XL pipeline an “attempt to hijack science for political purposes.”

“Climate change is of course real; change being the normal state of affairs in climate,” Lindzen told Climate Depot. “Climate change has caused catastrophic problems on occasion throughout the earth’s history. While man may have contributed somewhat to climate change in recent years, his contribution to the above is highly questionable, and continues to be debated.”

“In the case of Bernie Sanders, a socialist, he is undoubtedly dreaming about nationalizing the energy industry,” Lindzen said. “For the U.S. Senate to accept guidance from Sanders’ bizarre dreams is ludicrous.”

As you probably know, the U.S. Senate voted on three amendments to the Keystone pipeline bill. These amendments addressed the issue of climate change and humanity's role in causing it. The amendments were, in fact, completely political, but were certainly not ludicrous. They were much more productive than the Republican's "I'm not a scientist but I'm going to proceed to prove I'm a jackass anyway," statement. For one thing, it got even the fossil fuel king, Inhofe from Oklahoma, to admit climate change is not a hoax. Yes, he tried to weasel his way out of that statement, but it is now on record that climate change is not a hoax.

The purpose of the amendments was to put it right out there, once and for all, just which senators support the science and which ones reject it. That is not a ludicrous thing to do and, in my opinion, was very successful. That is my opinion. Here is another.

Lindzen is also wrong in his statement this was done to hijack science for political purposes. Lindzen knows all about hijacking science and has been guilty of it for years, including lying about the funding he has received from the fossil fuel industry for decades until he was caught red-handed. You would think someone like that would know all about hijacking science, but apparently not. This Senate vote was an attempt to make the science the whole issue and to subvert the whims of Mr. Lindzen's employers. The same ones that provide Inhofe's political funding.

Why does fossil fuel industry want to keep the science out of government decision-making? Simple. It will cost them money. Instead, they want the rest of us to carry the expense. Lindzen has been a major player in this effort with his research into finding feedback mechanisms. Strangely, all of his research only finds negative feedback mechanisms with the claim that this will cancel out any manmade effects. Not so strangely, all of his research has been found to be invalid. That is what happens when you go in to find a preconceived conclusion. Of course, it helps to get paid for it all by the people that benefit from the bad research.

So, this was not a case of hijacking science for political purposes - it was an attempt to put valid science into the political decision making process and to exclude the pseudoscience of people like Lindzen.

But, that wasn't enough for him. He had to state this was all a part of a plot for the government to nationalize the energy industry. Where is the evidence for such a claim (and, I don't mean the tin-hat bloggers). Where is the real evidence to show the government wants to nationalize anything at all, not to mention something as massive as the energy industry, the third largest industry in the U.S. Talking about alarmist claims. Why is it alarmist for scientists to warn about the effects of real climate change, but it isn't alarmist for Mr. Lindzen to accuse the government of conspiring to take over such a massive industry? It was not only alarmist on Mr. Lindzen's behalf, but irresponsible as well. But, that is what he gets paid to do.

At the same time, this article failed to mention a statement made by a reputable scientist, Nobel Prize winning Mario Molina. It wouldn't look very good for Lindzen if Dr. Molina's statement was included. For instance, Lindzen states the issue is still in debate. It isn't. Dr. Molina states,

There has been a very well financed public relations campaign by some interest groups to question climate change science. And they have succeeded quite well—in response to these efforts the media very often still communicates the idea that there are two sides to this question, that there are some scientists who think that it’s a serious problem but other scientists think that it’s still debatable whether society has to do anything about it. And it’s a myth: There are surveys that show 97 percent consensus among informed scientists who have published on climate change issues.

The basic science is very well established; it is well understood that global warming is due to greenhouse gases. What is uncertain is projections about specifics in the next few decades, by how much will the climate change. And that’s why we focus on communicating the concept of risk: It is not necessary to have absolute certainty about the dangers that society will face in order to take action.

You wear seatbelts in your car not because you’re certain that you’re going to have a crash but because there’s a possibility. You build houses likely to withstand an earthquake not because you’re certain that there will be an earthquake but because there might be one. These examples involve probabilities that are much smaller than the probabilities that climate change will have very serious impacts. So it’s totally unacceptable for society not to act.

Oops. Mr. Lindzen got even another claim wrong.

Like I said, Lindzen's statement is so ridiculous I'm afraid there are people that will actually believe it. More the pity.

Climate Change to Hit Australia Hard

I don't want to sound like I'm picking on Australia, it's just that there is a lot of climate news about the nation worth mentioning (Here's another.). The fact they have an anti-science prime minister makes it more noteworthy. A new study has illustrated the problem once again.

The national science agency CSIRO and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have completed an in-depth study of the country's climate future and found Australia can expect to see temperature increases of about 5 degrees C by 2190, much worse than what is currently expected for the rest of the world. A news report states,

According to the report, this “business-as-usual” approach to burning fossil fuels is set to cook Australia more than the rest of the world, which will average a temperature increase of 2.6C to 4.8C by 2090.

So, while Prime Minister Abbott continues to reject science and tell the pollution making industries they don't have to clean up their mess, the people of Australia continue to bear the brunt of the damage. But, then again, they are the ones that elected him.

Air Pollution Provides Model of Success

"Urbanization and Air Pollution: Then and Now," by David D. Parrish and William R. Stockwell appeared in Eos, Earth and Space Science News, Vol 96, No 1, 15 Jan 2015, page 12. The article was about events concerning air pollution since the 1940s, but it provides an interesting analogy for how to deal with climate change. The situation with air pollution was very similar and many of the problems were the same.

The authors wrote of how bad air pollution was in the 1940s and 1950s, stating, "Episodes of high levels sulfurous smog killed or sickened thousands in Donora, Penn, in 1948, as well as in London in 1952." Continuing, they state, "These events were the result of very high emissions of sulfur dioxide, smoke, and other particles during stagnant, foggy weather conditions." Additionally,

At its height in the 1950s and 1960s, air pollution got so bad in Los Angeles that reportedly "parents kept their kids out of school; athletes trained indoors; citrus growers and sugar-beet producers watched in dismay as their crops withered; the elderly and young crowded into doctors' offices and hospital ERs with throbbing heads and shortness of breath"

The situation they describe was one where high levels of manmade emissions caused all sorts of environmental issues - similar to the situation with climate change.

They then state,

In North America and Europe, the coupling of industrialization and air pollution required the creation of air quality standards and regulations for emissions sources such as vehicles, electrical power generation, and industrial facilities. The success of these efforts has caused the most severe air pollution episodes to be distant memories in those regions.

If you didn't know the article was about air pollution it would be easy to think they are discussing actions to control climate change in this discussion. Even the sources of the emissions are the same.

In Los Angeles, scientific and engineering advances combined with political and societal commitment sustained over decades resulted in remarkable air quality improvement.

Of course, the issue is cost and they state, "Looking back, has the improved air quality in our cities been worth the large expense required?" Again, the parallels are interesting, in a grim, scholarly way. Today, we are faced with manmade emissions that are destroying the climate and causing all manner of deleterious effects on people. The only way to deal with the problem is to address the source, but the question is how much is it going to cost?

The EPA said the cost of air pollution control was an estimated $520 billion between 1970 and 1990 (constant 1990 dollars). At the same time there have been benefits and the EPA estimates monetized benefits to come to $22 trillion. That is about 44 times as much as the cost. The cost-to-benefit ratio is very good. With the success of air pollution control measures, you would think it would be easy to convince the populous and governments climate change legislation is a good thing. I mean, who wouldn't like an investment where you get $44 for ever $1 you invest? The problem is people have forgotten how bad it used to be.

Progress there and across the United States occurred over such a long period that many have forgotten how bad air pollution once was and have failed to notice the gains made. In fact, most people alive in the United States today never experienced the very poor air quality of Los Angeles that occurred in past decades. This fading societal memory poses another challenge: how to ensure that improved air quality is not compromised as communities focus on efforts to spur depressed economies and deal with other urgent societal problems.

People forget. They forget how bad it was; they forget how we fought the problem; they forget how we overcame the problem. But, the worst part is they forget there was even any problem to begin with.

Once again, the analogy is a good one. People don't believe how bad the climate change problem is; they don't believe we can overcome the problem; they don't believe it is to our benefit to overcome the problem; but, worst of all, they don't believe there is a problem.

Guest Submission: Clean Air Act

From: Burl Henry

Date:01/24/2015 5:00 PM (GMT-06:00)

To: Chris Keating

Subject: The Role of SO2 in Climate Change

Back in 1977, the Nobel prize for peace was awarded to Albert Gore and the IPCC for their work in promoting the theory that global warming was caused by greenhouse gasses, and that, based upon computer simulations, increasing amounts of these gasses in the atmosphere would eventually cause runaway warming, with disastrous consequences for the planet.

At the time, this appeared to be a plausible explanation for the observed warming, since CO2 levels in the atmosphere were clearly rising.  However, for the past 16 years or so, there has been a "pause" (no statistically significant warming) in the warming trend, leaving climate scientists around the world scratching their heads for an explanation, since this was not predicted by any of their models.

After studying the problem, I find that it can be proved, from published data, that the observed warming was actually a "side effect" of the American Clean Air Acts (1970, 1990) and similar efforts abroad, and had nothing to do with greenhouse gasses.

Just as the global cooling caused by a large volcanic eruption ends after its emissions have settled out of the atmosphere, warming will naturally occur whenever other pollutants are removed.  As the Clean Air efforts were implemented, warming gradually occurred (the hockey stick)--as it HAD to--but the warming was wrongly attributed to greenhouse gas emissions rather than simply to the cleaner, more transparent air (fewer dimming aerosols to weaken the sun's rays)

(This climatic response can be considered to be a "Law of Nature", since some warming will naturally occur whenever a pollutant haze is removed from the atmosphere)

For example, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 injected 17-22 Megatons of SO2 (plus other fine particulate matter) into the stratosphere, resulting in 0.4-0.5 deg.C. of global cooling.  As the pollution settled out, temperatures rose to pre-eruption levels, due to decreased dimming, an increase of 0.4-0.5 deg. C. from the nadir.  Using the averages of 0.45 deg.C and 19.5  Megatons, this represents a temperature rise of approx. .023 deg. C. for each Megaton of SO2 removed.

Again, simply removing pollution from the air will cause surface temperatures to naturally rise,due to greater insolation (warming of the earth's surface).

The global atmospheric loading of dimming anthropogenic SO2 aerosols peaked around 1972 at approx 126 Megatons, and by year 2000, due to Clean Air efforts, SO2 emissions in the West  were reduced by about 56 Megatons, a reduction of  44%. However, in the same time period, SO2 emissions in the East rose by about 28 Megatons, for a net decrease of  28 Megatons.

(The changing  loading of SO2 in the atmosphere is nicely shown in the graph "Global Anthropogenic SO2 Emissions" in the paper "Anthropogenic Sulfur Dioxide Emissions:  1850-2005" by S.J. Smith, et al.  This graph was compiled by Robert A. Rhode from published data.  Most of the SO2 levels cited herein were carefully extracted from that graph. 

Applying the ".023 deg. C. per Megaton of SO2 removed" relationship to the 28 Megatons of SO2 removed, 1972-2000, gives an expected temperature rise of 0.64 deg. C.  This is essentially identical to the amount of anomalous warming that actually occurred, leaving NO room for, or any indication of,  warming due to greenhouse gasses.

The fact that an empirically-derived factor from the Mount Pinatubo eruption accurately predicts the amount of temperature rise resulting from the removal of 28 Megatons of dimming anthropogenic aerosols due to Clean Air efforts proves that the climatic effect of removing stratospheric and tropospheric aerosols and dust is identical.

It also proves that the IPCC "Graph of Radiative Forcings" is incorrect, since it fails to include any forcing due to the removal of dimming anthropogenic aerosols from the atmosphere

The ultimate test of any hypothesis lies in it ability to make accurate predictions. Here, it accurately predicted the amount of warming that would occur if a net 28 Megatons of anthropogenic SO2 aerosols were removed from the atmosphere.

Another example:  Between 2000 and 2005, there was an additional decrease of 4.2 Megatons of SO2 emissions in the West, and an increase of 5.0 Megatons elsewhere, for a net increase of 0.8 Megaton, representing  a rise of only .023 x  0.8 = .024 deg. C (illustrating the "pause"--which is simply areas with decreasing emissions offsetting those with increasing emissions as they diffuse through the atmosphere.

In contrast, the models incorporating CO2 shown in the IPCC fourth assessment report (Fig. SPM 5) projected an increase of 0.8-1.2 deg. C.--which did not happen.

A third example:  During the 1930's depression era, anthropogenic SO2 levels decreased by approx. 29 Megatons, largely due to decreased industrial activity.  Using the ".023" factor, a temp. rise of 0.68 deg. C would be expected--again, essentially identical to that which did occur.

The accuracy of the above three cited examples proves that the ".023 deg. C. temp. rise for each Megaton of SO2 removed" factor is basically correct (although some minor tweaking might be needed, as it is more closely examined).  Conversely, an increase in the amount of SO2 in the atmosphere will cause a decrease in global temperatures.

Another example of the cooling effect of SO2 aerosols:  In the period 1960-1972, the atmospheric loading of SO2 increased from 91 Megatons to 126 Megatons, an increase of 35 Megatons.  Using the ".023" factor, a temperature decrease of about 0.8 deg. C. would be expected--again basically correct (This was the era when there were worries about the dawn of a new Ice Age).

The correlations noted above should make it possible to predict ensuing temperature changes based upon changing levels of SO2 in the air (apart from any changes due to changes in solar irradiance)-  

Hundreds of billions of dollars and much human misery have been caused by efforts to reduce atmosphere CO2 levels  (which, as I have shown, have had no detectable warming effect), and SO2 levels to the point where excessive warming has occurred.  It is unfortunate, but continued efforts to clean the air will only cause more warming and misery, not less..  

As the climatologist Beate Liepert once remarked "We thought we live in a global warming world, but this is actually not right.  We live in a global warming plus a global dimming world and now we are taking out the global dimming.  So we end up with a global warming world, which will be much worse than we thought, much hotter".  

Response:

Let's give Mr. Henry the benefit of the doubt on his start. Al Gore and the IPCC received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, not 1977. Let's just say that was a typo on the part of Mr. Henry.  

The Nobel Prize website states:

The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. "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"

That description is considerably different than Mr. Henry's description of their award as:

for their work in promoting the theory that global warming was caused by greenhouse gasses, and that, based upon computer simulations, increasing amounts of these gasses in the atmosphere would eventually cause runaway warming, with disastrous consequences for the planet. 

I can't give him a pass on this one. It took me all of about 5 seconds (and I had to correct a typo on my search) to get the exact wording of the award. So, why didn't Mr Henry make the effort to be accurate? This is a political statement, not a scientific one.

Mr Henry's next paragraph is full of factually incorrect statements. There has been no "pause" and warming has continued unabated. Take a look at this graph and explain to me how warming has stopped:

Source: NOAA

We know that 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded. We know the 15 years since the turn of the century have all been in the top 20 hottest years ever recorded and the probability of that is about 1 in 1.5 quadrillion. The facts are there, there has been no pause in global warming. Mr. Henry was incorrect about that.

Ultimately, this claim of a "pause" is a false argument and very deceptive. It fails the test in two ways. First, the claim is based on the idea of doing a comparison between 1998 and today. Take a loot at the graph above. You can see 1998 was an abnormally hot year. Still, if you draw a line from 1998 to today you get positive warming. But, try this and see how it is a false argument. Instead of using 1998, use 1999.  Mr. Henry stated there has been no warming "for the past 16 years or so." If you can count starting in 1998, then 1999 certainly falls within that time frame and we can easily see there has been considerable warming between 1999 and today. Further, try this again using 1997 and you get the same result, considerable warming between then and now. This is know as cherry picking and it is one of the favorite false arguments of deniers. What is disturbing about their claim is they are telling us the exceptional year of 1998 is not the the routine year of today. We have reached the point where 1998 is 'the good old days.'

Look at it this way: The 1980s where the hottest decade ever recorded at the time. Every year of the 1990s was hotter than the average of the 1980s, making it the hottest decade ever recorded at the time. Every year of the 2000s was hotter than the average of the 1990s, making it the hottest decade ever recorded at the time. Every year of the 2010s has been hotter than the average of the 2000s, making this decade the hottest ever recorded. So far.

The second way it is false is because he has failed to include 93% of global warming - the warming of the oceans.

If you wish to say the rate of warming has slowed down, that is fine. But, when you say the warming has stopped, that is a completely false statement.

And, Mr. Henry continues to be in error with his statement of models. Take a look:

Source: Nature Geoscience (via The Guardian)

The model forecast from the 1990s is the dashed black line. The actual measurements are the yellow triangles and the red line is the 10-year running average. As you can easily see, repeated claims that models are not accurate are complete false. So, why do deniers keep repeating it? This is just one example. There are many more. Take a look here. Here's another. The argument about models is both false and a false argument. As we have seen, models are actually quite accurate. But, so what? We are talking about the real world, not some numerical representation. This is what is known as a strawman. The deniers are trying to take the attention off the real problem - global warming - and bring up a new topic - climate models. Stick to the topic, Mr. Henry.

Mr. Henry then goes into his claim that global warming is nothing more than a consequence of the Clean Air Act.  He has been pushing this claim on this website since last summer when I was running the Global Warming Skeptic Challenge. You can see his submission and my response here and his resubmission with my second response here. He has also continued to push his claim in many comments. Now, he is back for another try. Clearly, Mr. Henry is just not satisfied with any science that is counter to his claims.

For instance, he states,

As the Clean Air efforts were implemented, warming gradually occurred (the hockey stick)--as it HAD to--but the warming was wrongly attributed to greenhouse gas emissions rather than simply to the cleaner, more transparent air (fewer dimming aerosols to weaken the sun's rays)

Wait, a minute. The Clean Air Act was passed in the U.S. in 1963. Here is the hockey stick:

Yikes! Not a match. I don't know why he made a reference to the hockey stick, but it wasn't a good one. But, we aren't concerned with the historical record, just the record since 1963.Take a look:

When we examine this record, we can see the global temperature starts rising right around 1964, just after the Clean Air Act was passed. Does Mr. Henry have a point? From this data alone, you might think so. The problem is this - The Clean Air Act was an American law, not international one. We need to take a look at global SO2 emissions. After all, that is the gist of Mr. Henry's claim. If the temperature changes in tandem with changes in the the SO2 levels, he might have a point. Now, it doesn't have to change perfectly in synch with the SO2 levels changes, but we need to see temperature go up when SO2 goes down, and vice versa.

This plot shows worldwide SO2 emissions:

Source: PNNL

This plot shows there is a nearly continuous rise in SO2 levels between sometime in the 1940s until about 1980. It then drops from roughly 1980 until 1990 before rising again until the mid-1990s, then dropping again. What is not shown in this graph, but is reported elsewhere, is that the SO2 levels continued to rise after the turn of the century.

Now, compare that to the temperature record. The temperature record rose almost continuously for the entire period. There was one drop in the early 1990s and that is attributed to the eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991. Based on Mr. Henry's hypothesis and the SO2 record, we would expect to see the temperature drop until 1980, rise from 1980 until 1990, then drop until the mid-1990s (with consideration for Mt Pinatubo), then rising again. And, based on the 21st century SO2 levels, we would expect to see the temperature drop again.

But, in fact, the temperature record does not show that. There is a very poor correlation between the actual temperature record and the expected temperature based on Mr. Henry's hypothesis.

We can conclude there is, at best, only a neglible effect on global temperature based on the Clean Air Act. Even worldwide emissions from all countries fails to account for the rise in the global temperature record.

It is fair to say Mr. Henry's hypothesis does not pass scientific scrutiny.

So, where did he go wrong?

There are two fatal flaws in his claim. The first claim is he equates U.S. SO2 emissions to worldwide emissions. The fact that the U.S. (and even Europe) decreased their emissions does not mean the world did and we can see, in fact, the worldwide emissions continued to climb long after the Clean Air Act was enacted.

The second fatal flaw is his belief that SO2 in the stratosphere is the same as SO2 in the troposphere and this is not true. The daily SO2 emissions from industry creates an SO2 density of about 1 part per billion. Mt Pinatubo created a density of about 15 parts per billion, about 15 times as great. For this reason, you cannot equate an amount of SO2 from Mt Pinatubo to an equal amount of SO2 from industry. One lingers and builds higher concentration levels than the other.

I am 100% convinced Mr. Henry is convinced of the validity of his claim, but it doesn't matter how many times he says it, the science just does not support his claim.

This claim has now been submitted three times and been shown to be scientifically invalid three times. 

Additionally, readers of this blog have been subjected to Mr. Henry's comments that simply reject the data and the science. I know he will not be satisfied, but that is what happens when you decide to reject science.

I will not accept anymore submissions on this topic. The horse is dead. Stop beating on it.

Greenland On The Mind

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) released their 2014 Greenland melt season review on January 22. The first line pretty much summarizes it all:

Melt extent in Greenland was well above average in 2014, tying for the 7th highest extent in the 35-year satellite record.

The figure below showss the surface melt day anomaly for the last four years, the number of melt days compared to the average number of melt days. You can see the pattern hasn't been good. The number of melt days is increasing for the low-altitudes regions.

Source: NSIDC

The NSIDC report stated,

Comparing the seasonal progression of the four most recent years, the recent tendency for greater-than-average melt extent is apparent, as are the rapid variations in melt extent mid-year.

We'll say 2012 was an abnormality and discount that one. Let's hope we don't see any more years like that one. That still leaves a clear pattern of an increased number of melt days these last few years compared to the long-term average number of melt days.

In case you are plan on objecting on the basis the interior is experiencing a normal melt routine, consider these facts:

• As the ice melts the higher altitudes get lower every year, increasing the number of melt days;
• As the coastal ice melts, the interior ice will push out and spread, again bringing the higher altitude ice down;
• As the melt season increases it results in dark pools of water sitting on the surface for longer periods of time where they absorb more sunlight than the reflective ice, increasing the amount of melting.

In the paper, The pattern of anthropogenic signal emergence in Greenland Ice Sheet surface mass balance, published in Geophysical Research Letters last August, researchers concluded human-driven climate change is increasingly responsible for current trends in Greenland Ice Sheet melt and accumulation. They also concluded human activity will dominate further melt and accumulation  pattern throughout the 21st century. 

In case you still think the Greenland Ice Sheet is recovering, take a look at this graph:

Source: Polar Portal

This graph shows the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet as measured using the GRACE satellite. The mass increases during the winter accumulation season and then drops during the summer melt season. The downward trend is pretty obvious. More ice is melting away in the summers than is being deposited by snow in the winters. In fact, we can see the mass of the ice sheet has decreased by more than 2800 billion tons since just 2004.

By the way, the NSIDC report also said the top eight melt extent years have all occurred since 2002.

George Will Shows His Ignorance

An article by George Will was recently brought to my attention. The article, Climate change's instructive past, is a graphic demonstration of what happens when people write about complex topics they know nothing about - they get it wrong.

Boy, did George Will get it wrong, too. And, he didn't take long to do it. In just the second paragraph, he states,

And if climate Cassandras are as conscientious as they claim to be about weighing evidence, how do they accommodate historical evidence of enormously consequential episodes of climate change not produced by human activity?

Here is one of the biggest false arguments deniers make: There was naturally occurring climate change in the past, therefore all climate change is natural.

False argument. Tell us, Mr. Will, why is it not possible to have naturally occurring climate change AND manmade climate change? By the very nature of your statement, you refuse to consider that possibility. I have covered this topic many times, but it obviously needs to be covered some more.

This is the argument Mr. Will is making:

There was climate change in the past;
There is climate change today;
Climate change in the past was naturally occurring;
Therefore, climate change today is naturally occurring.

Let's put this same argument another way to show just have false it is.

Pneumonia kills people;
Gunshot wounds kill people;
Pneumonia is a naturally occurring virus;
Therefore, gunshot wounds are a naturally occurring virus.

The real problem I have with his statement is that I know George Will is an intelligent, well-educated person with considerable resources. I am very highly confident Mr. Will knows this is a false argument, but said it anyway. If he knows it is a false argument (and I can't believe otherwise), why did he go through with it? And, in the extremely unlikely event he didn't recognize how false it is, why didn't he? This is not some guy sitting in a bar babbling about things he doesn't know about over his beer. Like I said, George Will has considerable resources. So, why did he get this so wrong? You don't get things this wrong by accident, there has to be a reason. And, that makes me wonder, what was his motivation?

That should have been enough for him, but it wasn't. He then made one of the most frequently stated of all denier whoppers:

In the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), from the end of the ninth century to the beginning of the 14th, the Northern Hemisphere was warmer than at any time in the last 8,000 years

Both false and a false argument. Tell us Mr. Will, why does it matter what the temperature 1000 years ago was? You said it yourself, this was before the industrial revolution. Things have changed and you want to take something completely unrelated to today and try to make it relevant. That, sir, is a false argument and you know it. You never even attempted to show how it is in any way feasible to compare the two highly different situations and reach the conclusion you wanted. Again, I have to wonder, what is Mr. Will's motive here?

But, besides that, it simply isn't true. Take a look at the temperature profile below for the last 2000 years. The Roman Warm Period is the bump on the left at about A.D. 300. The Medieval Warm Period is the bump that occurs in the middle at about A.D. 1000. The big red spike on the right is today. (The two troughs are cold periods, including the Little Ice Age on the right.)

Source: Ljungqvist, 2010 (via Skeptical Science)

This is only one such reconstruction, there are many others that show the same thing - today's temperature is the highest in the last 2000 years. In fact, others show it is the highest in at least 8000 years. Why did Mr. Will make a statement that is so obviously false? Once again, what was his motivation?

He then finishes with an incredibly ignorant statement,

With the hands that today's climate Cassandras are not using to pat themselves on the back for their virtuous empiricism, they should pick up such books.

Mr. Will, tell us one thing, please. Who do you think discovered all of this information about past climate change? You? The deniers? No, Mr. Will, this information was discovered by climate scientists, the same climate scientists you dismiss in your article with your lies and deceptions. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt when I call them lies and deceptions because the alternative is much worse:

You're just plain ignorant.

2014 Was the Warmest Year Globally Ever Recorded

2014 had the highest global average temperature ever recorded.  The U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) jointly announced on Jan. 16, 2015 that the year 2014 was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880.  This result represents the globally averaged temperature, for both land and ocean surfaces, over the entire year. 

A 1½ minute video from NASA gives more information on this finding.  It includes a speedy review, year-by-year and location-by-location across a map of the globe, of how annual average temperatures, in ºC (multiply by 1.8 for ºF), have increased from 1957 to 2014.  (They are shown as the differences from a 30-year reference period from about 1945 to about 1975).

The ten hottest years on record occurred between 1998 and the present (see Details section at the end of this post). 

[Update added January 26, 2015]: The United Kingdom Met (i.e., meteorological) Office jointly with the University of East Anglia reported, using their own data set, that 2014 was tied with 2010 as the being the warmest year on record, within the 95% confidence limit of their data.  This occurred even though 2014 did not experience a Pacific Ocean warming event known as El Nino.

The “pause” in rising temperatures of recent years is misleading. The new warm record for 2014 is significant because those who doubt the reality of global warming have pointed to an apparent “pause” in warming from about 1998 through 2013 (i.e., up to the time of the new NOAA/NASA report).  The apparent “pause” may be seen in the image below, compared to the clearly rising temperatures before 1998.

                 Global average temperature from 1980 to 2013.
                 Source: Data table from National Aeronautics and Space Administration;
                 http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.txt


The new result for 2014 places its data point slightly higher than the two next-warmest years, 2005 and 2010.  Although it is too early to tell, the new information suggests that the earth may be resuming its climb to higher global average atmospheric temperatures.

The “pause” is understood to be temporary, in any case, in view of the image below.

Global average temperatures from 1850 to 2012, presented as differences from the average temperature from 1961 to 1990.  The different colored lines represent different data records.  Top, annual data points; bottom, 10-year averages with the gray shading showing confidence estimates.

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 5^th Assessment Report, Part 1; http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf

The graphic shows that there was an even longer “pause” between the late 1940’s and the mid 1970’s; nevertheless, that “pause” ended and the global average temperature rose dramatically in the three following decades.  Since trends in global warming become apparent only on long time scales, a decade or longer, the bottom panel in the graphic above, presenting atmospheric temperatures as ten-year averages, suggests that the purported “pause” in the first decade of the 21^st century may not be a significant “pause” at all.

Ocean Heat Content.  The temperatures discussed above relate only to surface air temperatures around the globe.  But 90% of the excess heat retained by the earth system is absorbed in the oceans, measured in an upper zone down to a depth of 700 m (2,296 ft), as well as in a deeper zone from the surface to 2,000 m (6,562 ft).  A graph showing the time dependence of the ocean heat content to both depths is seen in the image below.

Five-year averaged relative global ocean heat content through 2013 for the upper zone (0-700 m) and the full-depth zone (0-2000 m), evaluated as the difference from the average heat content between about 1975 and 1990. Source: NOAA; http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/.

Significantly, the image above shows clearly that during the present “pause” in the global average airtemperature (1998-present) heat continued to accumulate in the waters of the oceans down to 2,000 m without any “pause”.  Thus, most of the excess heat absorbed by the earth system due to global warming is stored in the oceans.  Climate scientists have identified the role of the oceans in storing excess heat in recent publications, and pointed out that sooner or later that excess heat will be transferred back to the atmosphere (see Details, below).

Conclusions

The year 2014 had the hottest annual global average air temperature since record keeping began in 1880.  This result, and related information presented by NOAA and NASA, indicate  that there may be no significant “pause” in warming of the air temperature of the Earth, contrary to statements made by global warming skeptics and deniers.  The climate scientist Michael E. Mann, at the Pennsylvania State University, wrote  “It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be witnessing a record year of warmth, during a record-warm decade, during a several decades-long period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled for more than a thousand years, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels.”  Stefan Rahmstorf, head of earth system analysis at the Potsdam (Germany) Institute for Climate Impact Research stated   “[T]he fact that the warmest years on record are 2014, 2010 and 2005 clearly indicates that global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”

Indeed, 90% of the excess heat retained by the earth system is absorbed by the oceans, a process continuing without a “pause” up to the present.  Long-lived ocean currents redistribute this heat around the earth and among zones of varying depth.  It takes many years for heat to re-emerge to the surface and exchange back into the atmosphere.  Yet it is considered essentially certain that this will indeed occur. 

Global warming due to continued emissions of greenhouse gases will continue indefinitely unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.  If the peoples of the earth succeed in lowering annual emission rates to near zero, further warming will come to an end, and the earth will experience a new, higher global average temperature than we have now.  We must strive to reduce annual emission rates to (near) zero in order to minimize the additional warming of the earth.

Details

The ten hottest years on record occurred between 1998 and the present.  The second hottest years, only slightly less warm on average than 2014, were 2005 and 2010 (see the first graphic above).   The finding that 2014 exceeded all other records is even more significant because it occurred in a year in which the El Nino Southern Oscillation, a warming pattern in the Pacific Ocean, was absent. 

NOAA presents the global map, below, showing deviations in temperature from the reference period 1981-2010 as color-coded shades grading the deviations from the average.

Global grid showing color-coded deviations of the temperature in 2014 from the average temperature over the period 1981-2010.  Red shades represent temperatures warmer than the average, and blue shades represent temperatures cooler than the average.  (Grey regions had no data available.)

Source: NOAA; http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

  

The image above is noteworthy, since it shows that there were many regions, both on land and oceanic, recording record warmest average temperatures whereas there was only one region, south of South America, having a record coldest average temperature.  Indeed, most regions of the earth, both land and sea, had temperatures in 2014 higher than the 1981-2010 average.
 

Climate scientists have pointed out in recent publications that heat is accumulating in the oceans and that sooner or later the excess heat will re-emerge, so that the global average air temperature will resume climbing.

Loeb and coworkers (Nature Geoscience, vol. 5, pp. 110–113 (2012) doi:10.1038/ngeo1375) compared the energy imbalance of the Earth system with ocean heat content.   Combining satellite temperature measurements and ocean heat measurements to 1,800 m (5,900 ft) they found “between January 2001 and December 2010, Earth has been steadily accumulating energy at a [significant rate]. We conclude that energy storage is continuing to increase in the sub-surface ocean.”

Guemas and coworkers (Nature Climate Change vol. 3, pp. 649–653 (2013) doi:10.1038/nclimate1863)  examined the current “pause” in global warming.  Using historical ocean temperature data and a coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model, they “attribute the onset of [the “pause”] to an increase in ocean heat uptake.”  They verify that no reduction in the sun’s radiation was found which could explain the “pause”.

Chen and Tung (Science Vol. 345, pp. 897-903 (2014)  DOI: 10.1126/science.1254937) analyzed earlier data as well as more extensive newer observations gathered by buoys disposed worldwide at various ocean depths.  They found that “the [“pause”] is mainly caused by heat transported to deeper layers in the Atlantic and the Southern oceans….Cooling periods associated with the latter deeper heat-sequestration mechanism historically lasted 20 to 35 years.”  They further conclude “because the planetary heat [reservoirs] in the Atlantic and the Southern Oceans remain intact, the [“pause”] should continue on a decadal time scale. When the internal variability that is responsible for the current [“pause”] switches sign, as it inevitably will, another episode of accelerated global warming should ensue.”

© 2015 Henry Auer

The Probability of Global Warming

Forbes magazine has become a real dreg of climate change denialism, bringing in paid shills to write up the standard nonsense put out by the fossil fuel industry. Which means I have to spend a lot of time reading it. The reward is they will, on occasion, bring in someone to write about the science. These articles are frequently written by noted climate scientists and can be excellent sources of information.

Today, I read one that really caught my attention - The End of the Partisan Divide Over Climate Change. The article was hopeful and that part was nice. The author, Tom Zeller Jr., wrote about how polls show even Republicans are starting to agree CO2 needs to be regulated as a pollutant. But, that wasn't the part I found most interesting. It was the last paragraph that really got my attention. Referring to the fact that 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded, he said:

After all, a record-setting year every now and again is no big deal. Anomalies happen. But the fact is that all 15 years since the year 2000 have been among the top 20 warmest years ever recorded. The odds of this happening randomly, or as a part of natural variability? About 1.5 quadrillion to one.

This is a very different way to look at it and is very persuasive. If correct, these figures show there can be no doubt about the reality of global warming. That figure is devastating to any claim global warming is not real.

The calculations were performed by a team of university statisticians and I am confident in their accuracy.  But, let's look at the figures for ourselves and see if we get something close to the same number.

The way to imagine this is to suppose we have a bag filled with tokens numbered from 1 to 135. That is the number of years in the recorded temperature record. Number 1 would be for the hottest year on record, number 2 for the second hottest and so on. Now, we are going to reach into the bag and blindly draw out a token for the year 2014. The chances of that token being between 1 and 20 (inclusive) is 20/135 = .148148. That is a 14.81% chance, or one chance in 6.75 tries. Now, we do it again for 2013, but we took out a token already and we know the token was in the top 20 (that is the situation we are calculating the odds for), so there are only 134 tokens remaining and 19 of the top 20. The odds of 2013 being randomly one of those top 19 years is 19/134 = .141791. That is a 14.18% chance, or 1 chance in 7.05 tries. We can continue this process for all fifteen years since 2000 and the odds would be 18/133 for 2012; 17/132 for 2011, 16/131 for 2010, etc.

Those are the odds for each year individually. But, we want to know the odds for all of them at once. To get that figure we multiply the individual probabilities together. For the fifteen years in question, that would be (20/135) * (19/134) * (18/133) * (17/132) * ......

When I do that, I get 5.0409 x 10^(-16). That is percentage of .00000000000000504%, or one chance in 1,983,770,000,000,000.

Or 1 chance in about 2 quadrillion tries, very close to what the article quoted.

In other words, there is positively no way it could be a random occurrence. Global warming is most definitely real.

I never doubted the professors were right, I just wanted to make sure no one else did, either.

Warming Has Stopped?

Certainly one of the most incredibly false arguments deniers make is that global warming has stopped and there has been no warming for xxx number of years (fill in your value of choice). I have addressed this innumerable times in this blog and this was the very first submission to my global warming challenge. I think its time to hear it again. Take a look at this article that I've provided a link to. It's from the Weather Underground website and is so well written that I don't think I need to add anything to it. I would say 'enjoy,' but there really isn't anything to enjoy with what he says. It's pretty bleak.

2014: Hottest Year in Recorded Human History

It's Official - 2014 Hottest Year Ever Recorded

NASA and NOAA released the annual state of the climate report for 2014 this morning. They also held a live streaming video of a joint press conference. The report came out 30 minutes prior to the news conference and was on the National Climatic Data Center website. At least, that is what I was told. When I tried to get into both the NCDC site and the streaming conference they were so busy I was unable to. I missed the conference all together and it took a full hour to see the report. Apparently, people all over the world were eager to hear what they had to say. That is a good thing. It means this issue is getting a lot of attention. Hopefully, that will translate into some actions.

Now for the report highlights.

As expected, the report for December stated it was the hottest December ever recorded for the globe.
 
Also to no surprise, 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded. The report stated

The annually-averaged temperature was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04°C (0.07°F). This also marks the 38^th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21^st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

I wonder how many people claiming global warming has stopped will read those last two statements. Nine of the ten hottest years have occurred since the year 2000. How is that possible, if warming has stopped?

What is disturbing about last year's heat is that it did not have an El Nino. For more than 30 years, each hottest year all had El Ninos, including the very extreme year of 1998 which deniers like to cherry pick as their starting point on heat records. This was the first time since 1990 that a year without an El Nino set the heat record. What that means is that a regular year is now hotter than an extreme year 16 years ago. At this rate, we will look back on 1998 with fondness and longing, in terms of temperature. (Ah, yes! 1998! The good old days.)

Tell me once again about how there has been no warming for 17 years.


An article in Scientific American listed five of the hottest places on Earth:

• Australia set heat records for the second year in a row, including heat waves in the (southern) summer with temperatures over 120 degrees F; followed by heat waves in the fall and spring.

• Eastern Pacific Ocean: An El Nino was expected to form this year, but failed to appear. This didn't stop the region from setting temperature records. NOAA reported the sea surface temperature for the global ocean was 1.13 F (.63 C) above the 20th century average for the September to November time period. The previous record was 0.11 F (.06 C). 
• Siberia: The Arctic region has seen the greatest amount of warming in recent decades and Siberia saw temperatures 9 F (5 C) above the 1981 - 2010 average (where is that heat island effect in Siberia?). Ice on the Ob River broke up two weeks earlier than normal. 
• California: Record drought, record heat. The first 10 months of 2014 were the warmest in state history since 1895.
• Northern Europe: While the U.S. had a cold winter, that same weather pattern caused it to be warmer than usual in Europe. Many countries saw the warmest spring in as much as 100 years. January to October was the warmest 10-month period on record for Central England since 1659, and the warmest such period for the Netherlands since 1706.

The annual report gave this tally for the year:

Six months of 2014 (May, June, August, September, October, and December) were record warm, while April was second warmest, January, March, and July were fourth warmest for their respective months, and November was seventh warmest.

The tally I kept from the monthly reports was somewhat different (they are now saying April was the second warmest and the monthly report lists it as tied for warmest) and came out this way:


December was the hottest December ever recorded;


November was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October was the hottest October ever recorded;

September was the hottest September ever recorded;

August was the hottest August ever recorded;

July was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May was the hottest May ever recorded;

April tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded;

March was the fourth hottest March ever recorded;

We got a break in February. It was only the 21st hottest February ever recorded;

But, that break followed the hottest January since 2007 and the fourth hottest January on record.

So, let's see what the final score was for 2014: one 21st hottest month, one 7th hottest month, three 4th hottest months, and seven hottest months ever.

Additionally, we had the hottest overall year ever recorded.