Author Topic: Cooling Down the Hysteria About Global Warming  (Read 567 times)

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Offline Elderberry

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Cooling Down the Hysteria About Global Warming
« on: April 21, 2019, 02:43:12 pm »
WUWT by Rich Enthoven 4/21/2018

Recently, NASA released its annual report on global temperatures and reported that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record, surpassed only by three recent years. This claim was accompanied by dire predictions of climate change and for immediate action to dramatically curtail CO2 emissions around the globe. Like every concerned citizen read this report with interest. I also read it as an informed and trained climate analyst – and I can tell that there are some serious problems with the report and its conclusions.

For starters, I can assure my readers that I am not a climate change “denier.” No one doubts the climate changed when it experienced the Ice Age that ended 12,000 years ago. I have read enough scientific literature to believe the well documented view that the planet experienced the Medieval Warm Period (950 – 1250 AD) and Little Ice Age (1550 – 1850 AD) when global temperatures changed materially. I have also read enough scientific literature to understand that solar and ocean cycles affect global climate.

NASA is now reporting significant changes to the global temperature. According to NASA (and others) the entire globe experienced a persistent warming trend in the early part of the 20th century (1911 – 1940). Then, this trend reversed, and the globe cooled until the 1970’s.[1] Now, NASA is reporting that the global temperature increased .31° C in the last 10 years and that this trend is different than the .31° C increase NASA reports for the 1930’s[2]. But, a closer look at the data and methods used by NASA should make any reader skeptical of their results.

Land Temperatures

It turns out, that over long periods of time it is actually quite difficult to measure temperature changes from climate consistently. The problems arise from changes in measurement technology (mercury bulbs then, semiconductors now) and changes in the sites surrounding the measurement locations. A good way to think about this problem is to consider Dallas Love Field Airport where average temperatures have been reported monthly since 1940. During that time Love Field transformed from a tiny airport near a small city[3] – to large urban airport with 200 daily flights. These changes have generated massive heat at the airport. It is no wonder that the reported temperatures at Love Field have trended up by approximately 2.9 ° F since 1940. [4]

But, when we look at the temperatures in Centerville, TX – much less affected by land use changes – we see the opposite trend. The average reported temperature in Centerville has been on a declining trend and now averages (on trend) .3 °F less than it was in 1940.[5]

As a result of this urban heat effect, scientists around the world have been identifying (or constructing) ‘pristine’ weather monitoring stations to get a clearer look at temperature changes. These stations are located in areas where urban development has not occurred and is not expected. These locations do not show any meaningful change in reported land temperatures. The best data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which set up 114 rural temperature monitoring stations in the US in 2002 (USCRN). When we look at these, we see no persistent increase in US temperatures.[6] In fact, 2018 was .3°F colder than the first two years measured. February and March 2019 combined to be the coldest two-month period (temperature anomaly) ever recorded by the USCRN.

MONTHLY TEMPERATURE CHANGES AT USCRN STATIONS

And it is not just the US rural temperatures that are stable – all around the globe, temperature growth is eliminated once land use changes are eliminated. Shown below are temperature graphs from rural areas in Netherlands, Ireland, Chile, Antarctica, Japan[7], and China[8].

Further calling into question the global land temperature data used by NASA are climate scientists themselves. Seventeen leading climate scientists (including scientists at NOAA) recently co-authored a paper calling for a new network of global weather stations in which they lamented the “imperfect measurements and ubiquitous changes in measurement networks and techniques.”[9]

Even these efforts to measure temperature change may not be enough – even the ‘pristine’ USCRN temperature measurement locations continue to biased towards warmer temperatures from land use changes. For example, a parking area and road was built next to the USCRN weather station[10] at the University of Rhode Island leading to a .34 ° C increase in measured temperatures at that location.[11][12]

Ocean and Satellite Temperature Measurement

The NASA global temperature estimate also relies heavily on estimates of temperatures in the ocean and air above it. Ocean temperatures have been measured over the years with highly inconsistent methods (buckets off ships; water flowing through ship engine rooms; buoys; and lately, satellites). In addition to technology changes, there are short term annual ocean cycles such as the well-publicized El Nino/La Nina and long term (multi decade) cycles such as the Pacific (and Atlantic) Decadal Oscillations which affect ocean temperatures at many depths over decades. A recent report out of UC San Diego described the problem “Determining changes in the average temperature of the entire world’s ocean has proven to be a nearly impossible task due to the distribution of different water masses.”[13]

More: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/21/cooling-down-the-hysteria-about-global-warming/