The Medias Premise

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The Medias Premise

• Global warming no longer in question but action
  to remedy it is being undermined by political
  inertia and because of doubt created by big oil
  and the skeptics
• The warming is unprecedented and is already
  having major effects on our weather and climate
  and the environment, and we are nearing a
  tipping point which could trigger catastrophic
  consequences

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Greenhouse Effect

• A warming due to the presence in the air of gases
  (H2O, CO2, methane) which are relatively
  transparent to solar incoming radiation, but
  which are fairly opaque to the thermal radiation
  back out from the ground
• These gases behave like the glass in
  a greenhouse and
  act to trap the heat

CO2 Since 1950
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Greenhouse Effect

• Though it is very real and is likely having some
  effect on our climate, it is not behind every
  weather extreme and change we see in our climate
  as implied in the media and in the movie
• GCM estimates for warming vary widely for a
  doubling of CO2 with a range from 1 to near 12F.
• These GCMs are flawed and incomplete
• Many GCMs in general make the wrong assumption
  about how fast CO2 is increasing (1 vs 0.42)
• The warmest models make the wrong assumption
  about how much high level water vapor (the most
  important greenhouse gas) will increase as (if)
  the earth warms
• They dont properly account for the solar and
  deep ocean cycles and their effects
• There is uncertainty about the effect of warming
  on cloudiness
• As a result Lindzen and many others sees a change
  of less than 1C for a CO2 doubling. Bill Gray and
  others as little as 0.3C

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Still the government graphs are alarmingbut are
they right?
NASA GISS
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Issues with the Global Station Data

• Station dropout (6000 to 2000, most significant
  since 1990). The dropout is shown in a visually
  striking animation here http//climate.geog.udel.
  edu/climate/html_pages/Ghcn2_images/air_loc.mpg.
• Large increases in missing monthly data in Asia
  and especially the FSU after 1990
• Questions about sufficient urban and site
  adjustment

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Station Dropout and Global Temps
A discontinuity in both at the same time
6000 5000 4000 3000 2000
4000 were rural stations
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Urbanization/Land Use Changes

• Urban heat island effect is real
• More and more of the world is urbanized
• Cities grow around airports
• Local land use changes around observation sites
• Some of the resultant warming gets baked into
  global temperatures
• Urban and local factors and dropout may account
  for up to one half the warming since 1880
  (Michaels and McKitrick, de Laat and Maurellis,
  Kalney and Cai, Pielke et al)

Google what the stations say and see global
examples of lack of rural warming
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Goodridge 1996
Counties in CA with gt1 million Population 4F
Counties in CA with between 100,000 and 1
million population 1F Counties in CA with less
than 100,000 Population 0F
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NCDC HCN Data

• National Climate Data Center maintains a database
  of 1221 stations across the contiguous 48 United
  States. Adjustments have been made to account for
  changes over time in the time of observations,
  missing data, type of instrumentation, changes in
  station siting, and urban warming (Karl, 1988)
• It may be the best available station data set
  for assessing change as unlike the global data
  bases, there is not a big station dropout, less
  missing data and there is less uncertainty as to
  the urbanization adjustments (although some
  siting adjustment issues may remain (Pielke et al
  2005, 2006)

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Starts near a min
Commonly used trends
Ends near a max
NCDC US HCN (1221 STATIONS)
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Real trends
Apparent trends
STD
Cycle 21 Cycle 22
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More accurate trends?
NCDC US HCN (1221 STATIONS)
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Warming of 0.25F in 75 years
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Warming of 0.25F in 75 years
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The Solar Connection

• DIRECT EFFECTS
• Changes due to changes in solar brightness or
  irradiance
• INDIRECT EFFECTS
• UV warming through ozone chemistry high up in low
  and mid latitudes
• Geomagnetic activity /solar wind effects that
  warm higher latitudes and may reduce low clouds
  through reduction of cosmic rays

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Solar Irradiance (Brightness)

• Lockwood and Stamper (1999 GRL) used coronal
  magnetic flux (which increased 131 from 1901 to
  1995) to estimate TSI changes sufficient to
  explain 52 of the temperature changes from 1910
  to 1960 and 31 since 1970
• Scafetta and West (GRL 2006) assuming TSI (Lean)
  is a proxy for the total solar effect (direct and
  indirect) estimated the changes in the sun could
  account for up to 50 of the Northern Hemispheric
  changes since 1900 and 25-35 since 1980.
  Questioned whether some of the recent divergence
  was due to spurious non-climatic contamination
  of the surface observations such as heat-island
  and land-use effects

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These
These studies were with respect to these global
data bases and not the NCDC USHCN
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NCDC Annual Mean US Temperature vs Hoyt Schatten
TSI
R2 0.59 R2 0.64 for 3 year lag temp vs TSI
Gleissberg Cycle
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Arctic Annual Mean Temperatures vs Solar
Irradiance (Soon GRL 2005)
r2 0.79
Fit is much better of solar irradiance with
arctic temperatures (Polyokov) (79) than
with Greenhouse gases (22)
r2 0.22
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Ultraviolet Radiation and Ozone

• Though solar irradiance varies only 0.01 over
  the 11 year cycle, radiation at longer UV
  wavelengths are known to increase by several
  percent with still larger changes (factor of two
  or more) at extremely short UV and X-ray
  wavelengths (Baldwin and Dunkerton, JAS 2004).
• Labitzke has shown statistically significant
  differences of heights and temperatures in the
  lower stratosphere into the middle troposphere
  with the 11 year solar cycle (using solar flux
  which correlates well with UV radiation)
• Shindell et al NASS GISS (1999) showed results
  from a global climate model including a
  parameterization of stratospheric chemistry how
  UV induced stratospheric ozone changes may
  amplify observed irradiance effects and have them
  penetrate into the troposphere, in effect
  confirming Labitzkes findings

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Pattern fit the findings of Labitzke and
Shindells models
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Cyclical Factors - Oceans

• Multi-decadal cycles in the ocean temperature
  patterns in both Pacific and Atlantic
• Pacific Decadal Oscillation
• Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
• They have a major influence on temperatures over
  adjacent land areas and the tracks of storms

Cold 1947-1977
Warm 1978-
Cold 1964-1994
Warm 1930-1963
Warm 1995-
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Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Annual Temperature Anomaly
Warm PDO (since 1978) favors warm Alaska, cool
southeast and more El Ninos
Mantua
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Pacific Decadal Oscillation

• The last major change in the PDO was in 1977,
  called the Great Pacific Climate Shift, produced
  a sudden change in temperature in Alaska and
  western North America
• Temperatures have been steady since then in
  Alaska

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PDO COLD MODE PDO WARM MODE
Mostly El Ninos
Mostly La Ninas
Wolter
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(NASA GISS)
El Ninos lead to global warming and La Ninas to
cooling
MSU data Spencer Christy
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(NASA GISS)
What about the minor warming then cooling after
of the super El Nino of 1982/83 and the cooling
with and following the El Nino of 1992/93?
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(NASA GISS)
( a measure of level of sulfate aerosols)
Cooling events then recent warming from
variations in volcanic activity
What about these extensive global cooling events
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Years with more than ½ STD below normal
stratospheric aerosols
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NOAA CDC
Mean ocean temperature anomalies in the Atlantic
from 0 to 70N
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Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
Correlates with general warmth, statistically
significant in places
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PDO, AMO and Global Warming

• If PDO relates to more EL Ninos which lead to
  global warming and if AMO relates to general
  global warmth, the sum of the two may be useful
  in identifying warm periods (and when negative
  cold periods)

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Late 1950s to late 1970s
Late 1800s to early 1920s
1980 to current
Mid 1920s to late 1950s
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Late 1950s to late 1970s
Late 1800s to early 1920s
1980 to current
Mid 1920s to late 1950s
r2 0.86
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Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

• Rapid warm-up in the Atlantic in 1995 brought an
  immediate doubling in number hurricanes and major
  hurricanes (back to where we were in 1930s to
  1960s)
• It is the basis of forecasts by Dr. Bill Gray
  (CSU) and others of enhanced activity for another
  decade or so

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What about Icecaps and Glaciers?
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Antarctica Summer 2002 Larsen Ice Sheet Break-up
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Antarctica

• Though reports of sudden though brief break-up of
  Larsen Ice sheet near Antarctic Peninsula
  captured the headlines in 2002, NASA found the
  total extent of ice has been steadily increasing
  since 1979
• Greenhouse theory predicts greatest warming at
  the poles. NASA GISS data shows with the
  exception of the Antarctic Peninsula where there
  has been a warming due to less ice, over the vast
  interior, a cooling has been observed in the last
  50 years.

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Total Antarctic ice anomalies NASA National Snow
and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
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Area anomalies Antarctic Ice NASA National Snow
and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
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Winters are colder over the continent (more than
1F in the last 50 years)
Note 2004 winter was the coldest of the entire
record (never made the news)
Data from Monthly NASA GISS data for
Amundsen-Scot 1957-2005 http//data.giss.nasa.gov/
work/gistemp/STATIONS//tmp.700890090008.1.1/statio
n.txt
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Kilamanjaro Snowfield

• Certainly not due to global warming
  temperatures have been cooling last 25 years
• Ice retreat has been due to less snow, explained
  by the Atlantic temperatures and local land-use
  changes (deforestation)

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Precipitation anomalies same 25 years Relates
to Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and local
land Use changes (deforestation)
Kilamanjaro
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Greenland

• NASA has reported that the Greenland icecap depth
  is increasing in the interior but now eroding in
  some areas near the edges.
• This repeats what happened 70 years ago, and is
  not due to greenhouse gases (-16 correlation),
  just natural cycles in the Atlantic (83
  correlation with North Atlantic Oscillation)

Ice thickness changes (NASA)
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r
NASA GISS
Greenland Annual Mean Temperatures
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Arctic

• Arctic ice has diminished in thickness and extent
  in the summer since the Great Pacific Climate
  shift in 1978 as warming North Pacific water made
  its way into the arctic through the Bering
  Straits
• JAMSTEC (2006) has noted another surge occurred
  after the super El Nino of 1997/98

Note the drop off in 1978 at the time of The
Great Pacific Climate Shift
USGRCP, June 2000
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• Dmitrenko and Polyokov tracked warm Atlantic
  water under arctic ice and noted it is playing a
  role in ice thinning as it did in 1930s (when
  thickness decreased by 30 from 1890)
• Arctic temperatures correlate well (62) with the
  AMO and even better 73 with PDOAMO

r-2 0.62
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Biologist Mitchell Taylor of the Arctic
government of Nunavit, a territory of Canada
reported of 13 populations of polar bears
tracked there, 11 are stable
thriving. They are not going extinct or even
affected at present.
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Consensus on Global Warming

• Most scientists are not climatologists. Most work
  in other fields and many maybe observing
  first-hand the effects of climate change. No
  doubt many have been convinced man is behind it
  (though 17,200 of them signed petition urging US
  not to sign Kyoto).
• Many climatologists that work closely with the
  data see the importance of local factors such as
  urbanization and see changes that are cyclical
  and natural
• Survey of American Association of State
  Climatologists in 1997 showed 73 felt natural
  cycles were largely behind climate changes,
  especially the old-timers who have seen this
  frenzied overreaction to change before
• I estimate that up to 2/3rds of the forecast and
  broadcast meteorologists believe natural factors
  are important too

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Summary

• NCDC USHCN annual mean temperature data shows a
  cyclical pattern last 125 years and suggests less
  background warming
• Some of the changes may be the result of siting
  issues with some HCN locations
• Temperature cycles, changes in icecaps correlate
  well with natural solar and multidecadal ocean
  cycles. More study is needed of these factors
  alongside with anthropogenic factors.
• Volcanic activity in the 1980s and 1990s reduced
  the warming that should have occurred those
  decades but lack of volcanic aerosols may be
  contributing to recent warming

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Full implementation of Kyoto would have been
merely a feel good measure with very little
impact. except economic pain (2,700/year for
the average family)
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Al Gores Own Words

• .what is most dangerous for us is not what we
  dont know, but that which we know for sure which
  just aint so
• Though meant for the politicians and skeptics,
  it really applies to Al Gore and the green
  machine
• By focusing solely on greenhouse gases and
  discouraging efforts to understand other factors,
  we stand to be blindsided when other factors
  change and the climate makes its next quick about
  face

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Future View of Global Warming Scare

• I think the future will view the response of
  contemporary science to global warming as
  simply another version of the fable of The
  Emperors New Clothes (Lindzen 2005)

IPCC SPM
.